No arms, no legs as well as no prevailing identity due to the unfortunate loss of head and neck. As the fragmented sculpture of the Belvedere Torso arose from the soil almost seven centuries ago,...Show moreNo arms, no legs as well as no prevailing identity due to the unfortunate loss of head and neck. As the fragmented sculpture of the Belvedere Torso arose from the soil almost seven centuries ago, one was faced with the seemingly impossible task of restoring its mutilated appearance. Inspired by the age-old notion of ekphrasis and its recent connotation with the restoration of artifacts, this thesis aims to propose, categorize and characterize a specific genre of painting that could help one to restore the fragment of the torso without having to handle it. By moving away from the descriptive traditional interpretation of ekphrasis and applying its method to the visual, this paper concerns itself with exemplifying the new genre of visual ekphrastic restoration through a selection of paintings that feature the Belvedere Torso in its scenery.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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Despite the fact that there have been recent attempts to broaden ekphrasis into its antique and medieval sense, these attempts have not taken the concept of living presence into account. My thesis...Show moreDespite the fact that there have been recent attempts to broaden ekphrasis into its antique and medieval sense, these attempts have not taken the concept of living presence into account. My thesis takes this more generous sense of ekphrasis as a point of departure. I draw on the attitudes of Christianity towards the representation of the divinity in verbal and visual terms (including the Eucharist) to argue that there are fundamental differences between the two media. The concept of living presence response is introduced as a tool to analyse the agency of the visual representations upon the worshippers. Drawing on works from Geoffrey Chaucer and on the anonymous Piers the Plowman's Crede, I suggest that the broad sense of ekphrasis should be further enlarged to include any textual attempts to reproduce, or any textual awareness of, living presence response. This inclusion, in turn, must encompass the role of the receiver in allowing the effects to occur in the first place. I challenge two claims: that ekphrasis is a narcissistic mode of literary discourse; that Chaucer is paying homage to the inseparability of different media. Recommendations for further research include the investigation of whether there is a correlation between ekphrasis viewed as lifelikeness and iconoclastic periods, on the one hand, and between living presence response and medieval theories of sight, such as Roger Bacon's, on the other.Show less
