Iconotropism: Turning Toward Pictures

Literary theorist Spolsky (English, Bar-Ilan U., Israel) supplies the introductory essay and a bibliography focused on Murray Roston, whose 1987 work Renaissance Perspectives in Literature and the Visual Arts has inspired her thinking; she also contributes the first essay on Raphael and Titian in connection with iconotropism, or representational hunger. Following are nine more essays on various aspects of word and image relations, this being the unifying theme in discussions on images of the Holocaust, representations of the divine in Kabbalah, how ekphrasis dramatizes visual perception, Monet, Jackson Pollack, and Poe and Hawthorne, among other subjects. Contributors are a mix of art historians and literary studies scholars affiliated with universities in the US (primarily), Canada, and Israel. Some illustrations (b&w) are included to support the text. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR