A Study On The Ekphrasis Between Music And Painting

This study focuses on the ekphrasis of music and painting,using Marc Antonio Turnage’s orchestral work "Three Screaming Popes" to explore the phenomenon of ekphrasis as a typical cross-media art phenomenon and the related issues of musical and pictorial ekphrasis(translation).By tracing the historical origins and functional evolution of ekphrasis,the boundaries between musical ekphrasis and program music are defined,as well as the scope of contemporary musical ekphrasis.Based on clarifying these concepts,the study further investigates how the ekphrasis of a common artistic theme achieves "translation" across time and space media,and discusses,from the perspective of the music domain,the significance of ekphrasis as an "ancient concept" with strong vitality and enduring influence across art media in the contemporary context.This study examines the materiality of media in painting and music,observing the material aspects of audiovisual media through the lens of auditory phenomenology.It begins by exploring the spaces within different material media that can be "translated" at the media level.The intermediality clarifies the relationships between media,and the modal narrativity of the media constructs the feasibility of "translation" between two heterogeneous media.The study delves deeper into these two media arts texts for an analysis of textual symbols.The painting subject to ekphrasis,Francis Bacon’s "Pope," is analyzed on three levels based on Panofsky’s iconology theory;Marc Antonio Turnage’s musical work "Three Screaming Popes," which results from ekphrasis,employs music semiotics to explore how elements and connotations in the painting are expressed across media through musical symbolization.What meaning is given to the same artistic theme through the transformation of symbols in these two completely different "language systems" ? As "Ekphrasis," artists are both receivers and creators of the second media art.From the perspective of reception theory,this study finds that the complete realization of audiovisual ekphrasis is based on the Ekphrasis’ s empathy with the creator’s value orientation of the original media artwork,through the "continuation" and "response" relationship between media,involving sensory perceptions and psychological phenomena,highlighting the implied meanings within heterogeneous media and enriching the artistic theme with deeper implications.This study will trace back to the philosophical origins of ekphrasis in ancient Greece,supplementing and interpreting it with Adorno’s audiovisual time-space perspective and Deleuze’s postmodern philosophical view on audiovisual art,using Francis Bacon’s paintings as examples.This study reviews the development of the concept of "Ekphrasis" and the scope of "musical ekphrasis",proposing views on the definition of "musical ekphrasis" and "program music" that differ from Bruhn’s,based on the trajectory of the functional evolution of ekphrasis since ancient Greece.This further clarifies the definition of musical ekphrasis,providing a clear reference for subsequent studies of cross-media works between music and painting.The two texts on music and painting that this study relies on,along with the adaptability to contemporary musical and pictorial ekphrasis,offer an interpretation of samples and ideas of cross-temporal and spatial ekphrastic art in the diversity of modern and contemporary cross-media art.