The meaning of visual forms in A. Artaud’s and S. Beckett’s oeuvre

Abstract

This article tries to reveal a connection between fi ne art (painted images) and modernist theatre (A. Artaud, S. Beckett). Apart from the fact that critical essays of these authors are filled with various references to the artists and their paintings, diff erent forms of visual art become an integral part of dramatic performances and lead us to raising the question of their relation to the verbal form of expression. One of the ways to create images during the play is ekphrasis, the poetic description or visualisation of something that is not presented on stage, which blurs the lines between verbal and aesthetic and sets up the conditions for the most authentic and genuine expression of the author’s worldview. For both Artaud and Beckett a word alone is insignificant and shallow, it cannot speak the truth, but has the ability to create a vision, a number of images, which now constitute the core of modernist theatre.

References

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