On Pictorial And Musical Arts In Tess Of The D'Urbervilles

Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of the greatest novels of Thomas Hardy, afamous British writer of the late 19th century. The novel, not only in characterizationand plot conceiving but also in narrating and scene description, is an excellentexample of British traditional realistic fiction. In particular, its pictorial and musicalarts add much brilliance to it because they interact simultaneously and have influenceon describing the scenes, portraying the characters, expressing characters' mood andSetting off the atmosphere, and thus explaining the theme.Once Hardy divided his own novels into three categodes—"Novels ofIngenuity", "Romances and Fantasies" and "Novels of Character and Environment".Among the novels of the third group, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is Hardy'srepresentative work. Many critics focus on Hardy's "Novels of Character andEnvironment", esp. Tess of the d'Urbervilles. They do researches on content of thenovel and ideology of its writer. In recent years, domestic researches on Tess of thed'Urbervilles focus on three aspects: cause of Tess's tragic fate, character portrayal inthis novel and tragic narrative. According to statistics, more and more people doresearches, on this novel, and some also touch upon its pictorial, arts. However, fewanalyze it by combining pictorial arts and musical arts, which the author of this paperbelieves very important, for in art, music and painting are closely connected with eachother and in this novel, music and painting are not independent of each other. Theirrelationship exists in three aspects: interweaving of music and painting,synchronization of music and painting, and opposition of music to painting.Besides introduction and conclusion, this paper consists of three parts. The firstpart stressfully analyzes pictorial arts in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It focuses onHardy's pictorial arts in scenery description and character portrayal respectively. Inscenery depiction, Hardy applies different pictorial arts such as color and light, etc. toturn the literal description into pictures successfully. These pictures are notindependent of each other. They are changing their tone with Tess's tracks. In a word,the pictorial tone varies from warm colors to cold colors, which forms a picture system changing from brightness to shadowiness. In character portrayal, Hardyemploys, sparing no efforts, techniques of portrait painter, namely significantelements of pictorial arts such as color and curves to portray characters. Pictorial artsmake every character brilliant in personality and true to life.The second part emphasizes musical arts in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. This novelis not only characteristic of pictorial arts but also musical arts. In the novel, Hardy,focusing on Tess's tragic fate, utilizes music as an expression of characters' mood andatmosphere setting. Musical arts here consist of objective music and natural sounds.By objective music, the author means every character in this novel loves to sing ditties.And natural sounds mean sounds in nature are musicaiized. These songs and soundsare not independent of each other, but forming a from-springiness-to-heaviness musicsystem. They are changing their tone with Tess's mood.The third part is supposed to discuss relationship between pictorial arts andmusical arts. In art, music and painting are closely connected with each other. And inthis novel, Hardy expresses relationship between music and painting in three aspects:interweaving of music and painting, synchronization of music and painting andopposing of music to painting, Interweaving of music and painting is defined as musicinterweaves with painting. From the musical point of view, they are like color music.While from the pictorial point of view, they are "acoustic pictures". Synchronizationof music and painting means music follows painting strictly. That is to say, mood andfeeling expressed by music are in harmony with those by painting. Pictures with warmcolors go with springy music, while pictures with grim colors match with heavy music.Opposing of music to painting means that painting is converse to music. Pictures aregloomy, while music is springy. Music, through pictures, displays interior world ofcharacters from the other way round, thereby reach a conflicting tmification.In conclusion, pictorial and musical arts have influence on describing the scenes,portraying the characters, setting off the atmosphere, explaining the themes andpromoting readers' psychological reception. Thomas Hardy has such an insight intothe nature of what he describes that Tess of the d'Urbervilles becomes his spiritualwork. Tess of the d'Urbervilles gives expression to Hardy's peculiar artistic individuality by pictorial and musical arts. It not only creates a new writing mediumbut also attracts generations of readers for its artistic appeal.