Literature and Visual Art Interaction in the Novels “The Waves” and “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf

Abstract

The article is focused on the analysis of the aspects of intermediality in the novels “The Waves” and “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf within the context of the aesthetics of Impressionism. The interaction between two arts – literature and painting – is seen at micro- and macro levels of the texts that is the aim of the current scientific research. Macro-level expresses worldviews, paradigms, and philosophical approaches and concepts in the interpretation of the phenomena of the surrounding reality both of the characters and the author as the artists in narrow and wide meanings of this word. Micro-level is revealed by the using of painting techniques and pictorial markers while designing visual images, as well as the using of allusions of art movements. The author pays attention to the meaning of colors, light and shadow effects which create an additional semantic layer in the novel and have a symbolic meaning. Thus, the micro-semantics connections are realized in the creation of the literary texts in accordance to the semantic dominant of the impressionistic aesthetics (painting themes and forms expressed with words, moreover with poetical tools). At the same time the interaction can be seen at the level of genre (landscapes and portrait made in the style of impressionists in the novel “The Waves” or cubists in the novel “To the Lighthouse”). The writer uses a lot of pictorial markers (canvas, touches, brushstrokes, names of colors etc.) that helps the reader to recognize the world of another art and is the material for thoroughly studying of literature criticism.