Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

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transmedializes them in ways more appropriate for the cinematic medium. Likewise, the presentation of Rembrandt as public speaker can be seen as a transformation of an important aspect of Rembrandt’s works, many of which depict moments of speech or dialogue. And this interpretation of Rembrandt as painter of speaking, of language, is in fact a feature common to the film and the play. In short, Zuckmayer’s screenplay and Korda’s film can be considered as two early, creative, criticisms of Rembrandt’s social identity. By analyzing the transmedialization of the self-portraits into the text and the film, I will show how Zuckmayer and Korda expose Rembrandt’s public identity construction and reveal the gaps between painted image and historical or personal identity. Both the writer and the filmmaker use ekphrasis to emphasize their independence from the visual artist and to highlight their own construction of “Rembrandt” (in the sense of Mieke Bal) by creating verbal and visual self portraits of the artist, which are reminiscent of, but depart from Rembrandt’s own. 184 By deliberately using the self portraits to shape and create their own portrait of “Rembrandt,” Zuckmayer and Korda participate in the mythmaking of and around the artist, while at the same time using interpretive ekphrasis to expose that mythmaking and to reveal both his and their own tools for creating and shaping Rembrandt’s public identity. But while both the text and the film thus compete with the artist’s visual crafting of his public identity, the film, unlike the text, is also able to comment on that 184 Modifying Mieke Bal’s usage of quotation marks around Rembrandt’s name, I will use “Rembrandt” in quotation marks if I refer to Zuckamayer and Korda’s cinematic and textual reconstruction of him, but without quotation marks if I refer to the historical figure Rembrandt. 162
competition on another level, by reenacting the antagonism and competition between word and image in its own medium. SELF-STYLIZATION IN REMBRANDT’S SELF PORTRAITS Like van de Wetering, I consider Rembrandt’s self portraits not primarily as a means of self-knowledge; but rather as a “carefully planned programme” (Raupp, qtd. in Wetering 19) for the artist’s identity construction. According to van de Wetering, they functioned “on the one hand as portrait of an uomo famoso and on the other hand […] an autograph specimen of the reason for that fame” (31). In other words, Rembrandt used them as self-stylization and self-promotion. His portraits also allowed Rembrandt to experiment with different social, public roles, to which the vast number of self portraits in costumes bears witness. 185 Interestingly, it is only in later life that he depicts himself as painter or in the act of painting, seemingly denouncing his role-play and presenting him as what he is. Moreover, he also appears to become increasingly unrelenting about his appearance, emphasizing his wrinkles and marks of age with “photographic realism.” 186 Yet, as I will discuss below, these portraits may still be part of the program of promoting and shaping his public image. In short, an interpretation that sees Rembrandt’s late self portraits as “an interior dialogue: a lonely old man 185 Among others, these are for example: Self Portrait with plumed beret, 1629; Self Portrait as Beggar, 1630; Self Portrait in Oriental Attire, 1631; Self Portrait with Helmet, 1634; Self Portrait as the Prodigal Son in the Tavern, 1635; Self portrait in Sixteenth-Century Apparel, 1638; Self Portrait as Apostle Paul, 1661; Self Portrait as Zeuxis (Laughing Self Portrait), 1669. 186 Kenneth Clark, An Introduction to Rembrandt (London: J. Murray, 1978) 26. 163
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Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 20
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Writing and Filming the Painting: E
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Acknowledgements I would like to ex
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After developing a framework of fou
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Chapter 4: Goya’s El sueño de la
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INTRODUCTION Chapter 1: Toward a De
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arts as well as between academic di
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value” than painting, and to offe
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(ut pictura poesis).” 14 But inte
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Similarly, Ernest B. Gilman has dis
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studied in terms of composition and
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Supper, a Crucifixion), but produce
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also lose their potential to be ekp
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etween art history and film studies
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In contrast to the films Poulton di
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words, filmic ekphrasis reenacts in
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to musical ekphrasis, I allege that
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films revert to the traditional mal
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Paris 1989 and Musée du Louvre IV,
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Moreover, the woman in the green co
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hear, read or talk about the art wo
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man in the blue shirt. The man next
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fruitfully applied to poetic ekphra
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has a similar goal and will adapt h
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Poulton describes sixteen categorie
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means and other filmic devices such
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paintings by Renoir with which the
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Attributive Ekphrasis The first cat
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conflictive, and one conflictive an
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instances of ekphrasis will play a
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hohen Brauen, den breiten Mund mit
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Blas de Otero’s poem “Guernica
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Inquisition trial, the works are di
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is in the film reduced to an expres
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present, and constitutes a device c
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contrasting images. In Plett’s te
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Similarly, Camilo José Cela’s Lo
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the addition of Dirck van Baburen
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I have discussed examples of dramat
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has identified three groups of pict
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Chapter 3: Goya’s The Sleep of Re
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an espousal of the Enlightenment an
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(Capricci, 1743), and Giambattista
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audience would probably be familiar
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intended meaning of the Caprichos
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of his Obras has a frontispiece tha
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almost any sort of satire” since
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more explicit in literary texts, si
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y Goya,”1961). 112 In both these
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political opportunism of those indi
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have not a separating but a complem
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The drama takes place in December 1
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King’s minister Calomarde, take o
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works, rather than his mistress Leo
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While the first phrase (“Tal para
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with the perspective represented in
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interpretation also points to Buero
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decapitated by one of his own paint
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azón and his own involvement in an
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Goya’s aquatint and of the text-i
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Page 125 and 126: eally happened. Boccherini’s musi
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Page 129 and 130: eason. However, this positive note
Page 131 and 132: Likewise, in Kunert’s poem, the r
Page 133 and 134: ends the nightmare sequence. Howeve
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Page 137 and 138: anger at his constant surveillance
Page 139 and 140: USES OF EKPHRASIS IN THE NOVEL AND
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Page 147 and 148: Entering the Quinta del Sordo, on t
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Page 155 and 156: struggle with himself and his inter
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Page 161 and 162: of ekphrasis in both produces a cer
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Page 169 and 170: that both of these works equally pe
Page 171: concretized by the film for an audi
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Page 179 and 180: Thus, as was the case with the Self
Page 181 and 182: wearing not his usual white cap or
Page 183 and 184: Thus, it is no surprise that such a
Page 185 and 186: the great genius from humble origin
Page 187 and 188: has not adopted it in his film. The
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Page 191 and 192: While Korda also does not show Sask
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Page 197 and 198: However, Zuckmayer’s interpretati
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Page 201 and 202: The use of the spoken word in this
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Page 211 and 212: TRACY CHEVALIER AND PETER WEBBER: G
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Page 219 and 220: Vermeer’s economic dependence on
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thereafter at an auction of that pa
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Likewise, the two central ekphrasti
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the role and function of art in hum
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epresenting class tensions. This di
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Vermeer and that the name of the gi
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economic and gender structures in t
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In short, these two novels foregrou
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may compete with both the visual ar
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promotion of his public image throu
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example, in the film Girl with a Pe
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PARAGONE But why do the ekphrastic
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Since its invention, film has been
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contemporary art historians. By for
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Berger, John, and Nella Bielski. Go
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Daniel, Howard. “Introduction.”
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Hartmann, Lucrecia. Capriccio - Bil
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Lopez-Rey, José. Goya’s Capricho
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Richter, Rolf. “Goya - der Weg zu
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Stoll, Andre. “Goyas Illumionatio
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Yacobi, Tamar. “The Ekphrastic Mo
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Vita Laura Mareike Sager was born i
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