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

category refers to the way in which the pictorial source is marked, that is, through
direct naming, allusion, or indeterminate marking. While all ekphrastic texts must
mark their sources in some way, an ekphrastic text will be generally either
“depictive” or “associative.” If a text falls under the depictive category, it
explicitly portrays an art object, either through description or analogous
structuring. Texts in the associative category, on the other hand, refer to
conventions, styles, or ideas associated with the plastic arts.
Although designed for ekphrastic poetry, this bipartite model is applicable
to all genres because of its basis in a theory of intertextuality. Such an intertextual
framework is useful for a discussion of ekphrasis, since, as Robillard has noted,
its subcategory of intermediality allows for direct reference as well as for
indeterminate references and allusions in texts (or films) about paintings (such as
Yacobi’s ekphrastic simile or model), which are “frequently omitted from
discussions on ekphrasis” (56). Intermediality, as Heinrich F. Plett has described
it, is a sign transfer form one medium to another, a transfer which may involve
single signifiers, or “themes, motifs, scenes or even moods.” 55
In her dissertation on Moving Images in Art and Film, Donna L. Poulton
has used the theory of intertextuality and intermedial quotation to discuss the
various ways in which films can quote paintings, artistic styles or movements. Not
only are some of her categories of intersection between film and painting relevant
for a discussion of filmic ekphrasis, but moreover, the intertextual methodology,
specifically the theory of quotation she adapts from Plett, is pertinent as well.
55 Heinrich F. Plett, “Intertextualities,” Intertextuality, ed. Heinrich F. Plett (Berlin and New York:
Walter de Gruyter, 1991) 20.
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