Cultural history is full of examples of the fascinating interactions between art and literature. The verbal representation of an image known as ‘ekphrasis’, famously seen in Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles or John Keats Ode to a Grecian Urn, is one of the most used techniques both in prose and poetry. But how does this interdisciplinary practice influence the novel? And what is it that sparks the creative process? Whilst 20th-century Italian literature can offer many different answers to this question, the figure of Leonardo Sciascia, a leading Italian author and one of the major intellectual figures of his times, offers an interesting perspective. Even though this coming November will mark the 30th anniversary of his death, Sciascia’s work continues to be relevant, and is still being studied and translated into many languages, including French and English.
For the purposes of my research, which I presented at the Interart/Intermedia conference, Sciascia’s works are particularly interesting, not just because the adoption of an intermedial perspective led him to new narrative solutions, but also for the numerous reflections on the visual he included in his articles, as well as in introductions and prefaces to catalogues and illustrated books. The author’s openness to intermediality arises from his devotion towards every form of figurative art, which he collected passionately. This visual universe poured into his novels and short stories, which are full of images used to give vividness to the writing. In A ciascuno il suo (To each his own) the widow Roscio towers above the Professor like the Nike of Samothrace does to those who climb the stairs of the Louvre, while, in Candido, Paris is described in terms of a comparison with a nude by Courbet. Even book covers and blurbs were chosen carefully by Sciascia to expand and complete the meaning of a story.
I argue here that the artworks owned by Sciascia influenced the genesis of his creative process and that he wrote starting from a certain image that appeared in his mind, translating it later into words. In his essay L’Ordine delle somiglianze (The Order of similarities) dedicated to the 15th-century painter Antonello da Messina, Sciascia affirms: “Non c’è ordine senza le somiglianze, non c’è conoscenza, non c’è giudizio” (There is no order without similarities, there is no knowledge, there is no judgement). In view of his ideas we can say that the visual dimension for Sciascia is one way to approach reality, and that images, building a cross-reference system, enable him to develop a plot. Indeed, the mind of the author proceeds by associations, because every image produces a series of connections which urge the reader to recall his previous knowledge.
It is interesting to reflect that in his novels paintings help the writer to expand the story, finding similarities between the situations he narrates and the ones represented by other artists. In contrast, in his essays dedicated to the figurative arts, Sciascia often refers to the writers or the characters he loves in order to present a painter or a sculptor. On the one hand, Sciascia considers the interpretation of images as a way to grasp the truth, thus devoting particular attention to visuality in his novels. On the other hand, though, he is also aware of how a fascination with the visual dimension could serve as a temptation to which he should not yield blindly, but rather maintain a critical stance from. In other words, in his work narration and representation go hand in hand, and the development and deepening of these twin devices are part of the uniqueness of Leonardo Sciascia as a novelist.
A Randazzo, 1964 (from: La Sicilia, il suo cuore: omaggio a Leonardo Sciascia, Palermo: Kalós, 2004)
