Looking at the world through the frame of art

Cawley, Sandra Wilds.

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Cawley, Sandra Wilds.

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Thesis (M.A.L.S.)--Georgetown University, 2008.; Includes bibliographical references. Literary art fiction is a relatively modern phenomenon. What began in the nineteenth century with works by authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James have flourished in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with hundreds of novels by writers, such as Tracy Chevalier, Susan Vreeland, and A.S. Byatt. These novels provide a rich and diverse glimpse into a created world where the written word is enhanced by visual imagery. Although the genre of literary art fiction is new, the merging of a fictional narrative with works of real or imagined art is as old as the poetic works of Homer.; Chapter 1 examines how a narrative may be enhanced by incorporating artistic imagery: are the images less or more powerful because they are visualized through the mind rather than seen with the eyes? This chapter also addresses the question, does the best art communicate a presence that may uncover aspects of transcendence and, if so, how is that presence translated through the written word?; Two classical poets, Ovid and Dante, include works of sculpture in their poetic narratives. Ovid writes about the power of Pygmalion who--through artistic virtuosity and love--imbued his creation with life. In Canto X of the Purgatorio, Dante creates a sculpted wall of the "Great Humilities" which inspire the penitent proud to cleanse away their sins. Chapter 2 explores the power of the artist/writer to transcend nature and the natural course of events.; Chapter 3 is an original short story that explores the inner realms of human consciousness. There are two voices (two fonts, one italicized) that denote two states of alienation. The italicized voice speaks of a past: an interpretation of Jackson Pollock's painting, The Deep, and how it may be evocative of his condition of "falling." The other narration is a modern one in which a woman finds herself cut off from her fellow humans and "falling" due to circumstances in today's world.; Chaos is the theme of Chapter 4 where a woman remembers childhood dreams of the atomic bomb and the events which brought those dreams about. She finds solace in another painting by Pollock, Lavender Mist. Through art, she comes to realize that she was not alone in her fears. There were many artists in the late 1940s and early 1950s who created works that reflected the dark realities of living in the early atomic age of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and World War II.; Literary art fiction is an opportunity to encounter a writer's way of seeing art--perhaps, engendering a desire to know more. The writer creates and shapes the experience of art for the reader, and in so doing she brings art out of the museum and back into a kind of real world scenario; she is in essence returning art to the origins of its creation--the human realm.