Instaduos: paintings and poems 3201-IWO-OG

The well-known app Meta has popularized the combination of image and short commentary in our communication. The image first catches our attention, but the text can instantly determine how we perceive it. A photo of a toadstool-shaped bauble will cease to be merely an image of a holiday artifact when we caption it with the wish: "Greetings!". The pairing of image and word will suddenly become a source of irony.
Similar mechanisms provoke avalanches of memes. An image receives a new interpretation thanks to the word, and the word unleashes its power in the visualized context.
We regularly experience the combined influence of image and poetic word in childhood – in illustrated books of children's poetry. Instaduo: Poem and Image, therefore, accompanies us from an early stage of life. During the classes, we will simply approach similar synesthetic experiences more consciously.
During the course, we will discuss various poem-image configurations and the effects they have on our imagination, emotions, and understanding of the world. Each meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the work of a selected poet and painter/photographer.
Planned topics:
- Intersemiotic puzzles: is a poem truly an image in words, and is painting the poetry of an image?
Was Simonides right, or was he just enchanting us (as Lessing claims)?
- Ekphrasis: - Nature-morte as approached by Zuzanna Ginczanka and Paul Gaugin,
- How Paul Cézanne gave rise to American beat poetry,
- The wild beginning of the 20th century: Henri Matisse's Fauvism and Osip Mandelstam's Adamism
- The history of a myth: from antiquity to W.B. Yeates and Giuseppe Baldini
- loneliness as a common aspect of the work of Edward Hopper and Philip Larkin,
- passions at the beginning of the century: Russian romantic poetry and the modernist Mikhail Vrubel,
- poetic interpretations of Van Gogh and Peter Breugel,
- the New York School and poetry instead of LSD: how Joan Mitchell "took" poems for abstract graphics,
- photocompositions by Richard Horowitz and the music of Boris Pasternak's poetry,
- photopoems and surrealist book designs: the story of Paul Eluard: a poet lucky in love, Ray Man - an artist solarizing women, and the muse Nusch, without whom their collaborative work would not have existed.

Student workload: 75 hours – in addition to class attendance, in-depth reading of poems, independent contemplation of paintings, and reading the recommended bibliography are essential.

Type of course

general courses

Mode

Classroom

Prerequisites (description)

The aim of this ocurse is to talk about different kind of configurations of poems and images and the effects they have on our imagination, emotions and cognition of the world. Each meeting will serve us an opportunity to talk about the broader context of the work of a selected poet and painter/photographer. Poets: W.B. Yeats, W.B. Auden, B. Pasternak, O. Mandelstam, J. Schuyler, Z. Ginczanka, A. Ginsberg, A. Pushkin, Cz. Milosz, Ph. Larkin, P. Eluard et al. Painters: P. Gaugin, V. van Gogh, J. Mitchell, Rembrandt, P. Breugel, H. Matisse, P. Klee, G. Baldini, R. Man, R. Horowitz and others.

Course coordinators

Józefina Piątkowska-Brzezińska

Learning outcomes

Knowledge:
- Knowledge of basic concepts/terms in the field of painting and poetics (K_W04, K_W09)
- Knowledge of the main issues and problems of intersemiotics (K_W09)
- In-depth knowledge of synesthesia and ekphrasis (K_W04, K_W08)
- In-depth knowledge of the biographies and works of selected poets and painters/photographers (K_W08, K_W12)
Skills:
- Analysing and interpreting word-image relationships in cultural texts (K_U02, K_U12)
- Critical analysis of poems, paintings, photographs, and their combinations (K_U02, K_U06)
- Applying intersemiotic terminology in analysis and discussion (K_U06, K_U12)
- Comparing artistic strategies from different eras and movements (K_U02, K_U12)
- Formulating independent interpretations and hypotheses Research (K_U06, K_U12)
- Consciously analysing one's own aesthetic and emotional reactions (K_U02)
Social competences:
- Readiness for active and reflective participation in cultural life (K_K03)
- Sensitivity to aesthetic and cultural diversity (K_K02, K_K03)
- Critical evaluation of received cultural and media content (K_K01)
- Responsible participation in academic discussions (K_K01, K_K05)
- Reflective approach to one's own emotional and aesthetic reactions (K_K01)
- Openness to interdisciplinarity and a multitude of interpretations (K_K01, K_K05)
- Consciously functioning in digital and visual culture (K_K02, K_K03)
- An attitude of dialogue and interpretive empathy (K_K02)

Assessment criteria

Attendance (max. 2 absences): Each additional absence will result in a one-point drop in grade; after five absences, credit will not be awarded.
Participation in in-class discussions: these are meetings for those interested in dialogue, curious about the opinions of other participants, and willing to share their perspectives on art – in a safe, respectful atmosphere.
Completion of two final projects (a collage, an ekphrastic poem).

Bibliography

Bibliography:
Barańczak, S. “Wstęp: Intensywność smutku.” In 44 wiersze. Wybór, by Ph. Larkin, translated, with introduction and commentary by S. Barańczak, 7. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Arka, 1991.

Baudelaire, C. Kwiaty zła. Translated by M. Ciura. Kraków: nakładem tłumacza, 2018.

Baudelaire, C. Kwiaty zła: wybór. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by M. Jastrun. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1970.

Becks-Malorny, U. Paul Cézanne 1839–1906. Pioneer of Modernisme. Köln: Taschen, 2004.

Brosch, R. “Ekphrasis in the Digital Age: Responses to Image.” Poetics Today 39, no. 2 (2018): 225–243.

Dziadek, A. Obrazy i wiersze. Z zagadnień interferencji sztuk w polskiej poezji współczesnej. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2004.

Éluard, P. Wybór wierszy. Edited by A. Ważyk, translated by Z. Bieńkowski et al., with a preface by J. Kott. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1950.

Éluard, P. Picasso: dessins. Paris: Les Éditions Braun & Cie, 1952.

Gabriel, M. Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine De Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2018.

Gauguin, P. Noa Noa. Translated by A. Przedpełska Trzeciakowska. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1959.

Ginczanka, Z. Wiersze zebrane. Edited by I. Kiec. Sejny–Warsaw: Fundacja „Pogranicze”; Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2014.

Holländer, H. “Literatura – malarstwo – grafika. Interakcje, funkcje i konkurencja.” In Ut pictura poesis, edited by S. Wysłouch, translated by K. Lukas. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Słowo/Obraz Terytoria, 2006.

Jarniewicz, J. “Całe życie w niedookreśleniach.” In Zebrane, by Ph. Larkin, translated by J. Dehnel, with a preface by J. Jarniewicz, 5–8. Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2008.

Laing, O. The Lonely City. Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd., 2017.

Larkin, Ph. 44 wiersze. Wybór. Translated, with introduction and commentary by S. Barańczak. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Arka, 1991.

Larkin, Ph. Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–1982. Foreword by D. Lehman. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.

Larkin, Ph. Zebrane. Translated by J. Dehnel, with a preface by J. Jarniewicz. Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2008.

Lessing, G. E. Laokoon. Translated by K. Bronikowski. Wolne Lektury. https://wolnelektury.pl/katalog/lektura/laokoon/ (accessed 10 April 2023).

Levin, G. Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1998.

Lipiński, F. Hopper wirtualny. Obrazy w pamiętającym spojrzeniu. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2013.

Mandelsztam, O. Nieograbiony i nierozgromiony: wiersze i szkice. Selected, translated, and annotated by A. Pomorski. Warsaw: Open Wydawnictwo Naukowe i Literackie, 2011.

Malej, I. Tajemnice duszy: Michaił Wrubel i psychoanaliza. Kraków: Wydawnictwo „Scriptum” Tomasz Sekunda, 2017.

Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Praz, M. Mnemosyne. Rzecz o powinowactwie literatury i sztuk plastycznych. Translated by W. Jekiel. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981.

Rajewsky, I. “Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A Literary Perspective on Intermediality.” Intermédialité 6 (Autumn): 43–64.

Rogers, F. R. Painting and Poetry: Form, Metaphor, and the Language of Literature. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985.

Sartre, J.-P. Baudelaire. Translated by K. Jarosz, with a preface by M. Leiris. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Aletheia, 2019.

Stevens, W. “The Relations between Poetry and Painting.” In The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination. New York: Vintage Books, 2011.

Varga, A. K. “Kryteria opisu relacji pomiędzy słowem a obrazem.” In Almanach 3. Communicare. Słowo/obraz, edited by G. Godlewski, A. Karpowicz et al., 11–31. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa
Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2010.

Vendler, H. Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Wysłouch, S. “Literatura i obraz. Tereny strukturalnej wspólnoty sztuk.” In Intersemiotyczność.
Literatura wobec innych sztuk (i odwrotnie). Studia, edited by S. Balbus, A. Hejmej, and J. Niedźwiedź, 17–28. Kraków: Universitas, 2004.

Additional information

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