Disclosing Intersections: Modern Art and Literature

The so-called meeting of modern art and literature forms an interesting field, where visual and written expressions mingle and finally interweave to create multidimensional narratives. Both art forms echo, to some extent, changes that took place in culture and in intellect during that period, making the viewpoint of the world dictate by that. In the modern age, the connection intensified especially toward the end of the 19th century, for, on one hand, artists and writers demonstrated an inclination toward a breakaway from traditional conventions and experimenting with form, style, and meaning.

The Avant-Garde Movement: A Shared Spirit of Rebellion
There is another gorgeous similarity between modern art and modern literature: an anti-establishment nature. The Avant-garde movement marks modernism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism where the desire to break free forms a movement. Virginia Woolf and James Joyce created stream-of-consciousness techniques and fragmented narratives that often reflected the state of living in a mad world. Such examples are followed in the early abstraction pioneers like Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky who, in order to evoke emotions rather than describing reality using form and color instead of realistic depictions of the world, abandoned.

Rejecting linearity is part of the core theme in both disciplines. For example, in Joyce's Ulysses, there is no linear plot but rather a collage of voices, thoughts, and perspectives. That is to say, in both forms, dexterity in blending perspectives yields a richer and more complex understanding of reality.

Ekphrasis: The Art of Describing Art
The other exciting relationship between modern art and literature is in ekphrasis, which is the practice whereby one art form responds directly to another. Dating back to the earliest periods of written time, the literary device involves a writer's description of a work of visual art, often in an attempt to explore deeper meaning or evoke emotional response. Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts," a response to Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Fall of Icarus.".

In addition to the two ways in which literature influences art outlined above, there are many other examples of how literature has inspired the works of many artists. For instance, references to the Bible and Russian literature can be found in the colour paintings of Marc Chagall. 

Removing Barriers to Interpretation
The most profound way modern art and literature converge is in their attitude toward meaning.  The impreciseness instead provokes a meeting with the work at the deepest level by using personal and emotional imagination.

T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, one of the most famous works in modernist literature, is notoriously dense and full of allusions that the reader will have to check in order to fully comprehend it. Similarly, Jackson Pollock's abstract paintings are highly charged with threats from the surface underneath and require the viewer to look into the emotions, tensions, and motions that are contained in splashes of paint dancing around his canvases. 

Conclusion: Continuing the Conversation
Modern art and literature continue to intersect in myriad creative ways with today's artists and writers using each other's work in original and innovative ways. As digital media and technology open up fresh avenues for expressing themselves, that dialogue between what is visual and the written word will doubtless continue. Because this relationship enriches not only one art form but also our view of ourselves and our multifaceted, often complicated, world.

Disclosing Intersections: Modern Art and Literature