Original scientific paper

Explosions in Visual Art, Literature and Music

Suzanne de Villiers Human ; Department of History of Art and Visual Culture Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

Abstract

The article explores somatic metaphors related to explosion, outburst and eruption in diverse media. This inquiry lies in the intersection among philosophy, literary criticism and history of art and its conclusions are relevant to musicology. It is argued that there are various basic orientations, persuasions and biases underlying specific uses of metaphors of somatic eruption. The article endeavours to propose an alternative reading of body fluids as metaphoric sites of festive critique in subversively humorous discourse and art, which differs from more prevalent psychoanalytic interpretations. A text by Hélène Cixous, as well as visual material by Jenny Saville, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Nauman and Pieter Brueghel the Elder is scrutinized. The most appropriate musical example in this context is probably (especially the introduction to) the Háry János Suite by Zoltán Kodály.* By grouping male and female artists together, an underlying picaresque or subversively humorous, non-binary and geneticist match is suggested in their work. Yet, at the same time it is argued that female body fluids present women with metaphoric vantage points that facilitate understandings beyond the
borders of patriarchal culture.

Keywords

ideology critique; feminism; picaresque; body fluids; Hélène Cixous; Jenny Saville; Cindy Sherman; Bruce Nauman; Pieter Brueghel the Elder; Zoltán Kodály

Hrčak ID:

64285

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/64285

Publication date:

14.1.2005.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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