Reflections of Reflections of Reflections: Shelley and the Terrifying Necessity of Fragmentary Art

Reflections of reflections of reflections: Shelley and the terrifying necessity of fragmentary art ANDREW TURNER This article is concerned with an analysis of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery’ as a reflection (in the ekphrastic sense) of the Uffizi painting of Medusa (formerly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci) with a special emphasis on the necessary fragmentary nature of the text and its impact on any subsequent criticism of the painting and the mythology it represents. Figure 1. Flemish Artist, Head of Medusa, 16th century, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Creative Commons. In 1819, while living in Florence, Percy that it is a literary reflection of visual of processing what would otherwise be poetry, since poetry is temporal and Bysshe Shelley came upon a painting art.’2 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729- appreciable but inaccessible by virtue of visual art is spatial—this is to say, from in the Uffizi gallery of Medusa’s 1781), in The Limits of Painting and Poetry, an insurmountable barrier separating this perspective, visual art is a static decapitated head, known typically as suggests that we can only appreciate apprehension of the world in terms of representation, while poetry is fluid; the Gorgoneion, a name describing some characters of mythology, like human understanding, and that which visual art is a reflection of a moment in both its shield-mounted and just- Medusa, as reflections, especially is beyond human understanding. time, and poetry is the reflection of an 1 6 severed states. At the time, the painting when considering characters of myth Thus, works of ekphrastic art are not event (properly, a series of moments). REFLECTIONS OF was incorrectly attributed to Leonardo who are closely associated with the merely translations of one form to Thus, even an artistic attempt to 3 VIDES da Vinci (it still resides in the Uffizi, divine. The implication is that the another (say, a painting to a poem, impart a sense of motion in a static but it is now simply acknowledged greater the distance of a character from suggesting that one form explicates piece is still no more than a snapshot in as being of Flemish origin, artist the consumer, in terms of background, the other), nor are they amalgams of time, while a poem of the same subject unknown; hereafter called the Uffizi lifestyle, successes and failures, multiple art forms (suggesting that necessarily delivers to the consumer painting), thus Shelley’s draft title of the less real that character appears. a poem about a painting somehow the perception of action and motion, the unfinished poem, ‘On the Medusa Harold Bloom (1930-2019) echoes this melds the two), rather ekphrasis is the of change, movement from one thing of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine sentiment in The Western Canon: we act of representing the representation to another. In this way, Lessing sees ANDREW TURNER / Gallery.’ Despite the incorrect may appreciate any character of art or itself, which results in highlighting poetry as generally inferior to visual attribution to da Vinci, there is no literature as a figure of mythology or for the consumer the similarities and art because of its mutability, and he question that Shelley crafted his poem folklore, codified or otherwise, which differences between the artefacts.5 sees in this mutability the promise from his impressions and interactions is to say, of a formal mythology with This process enhances the value of of ambiguity powerful enough to with the painting, and this effort sacred underpinnings, like Perseus both the visual and the literal but does individualise poetry such that it can represents his only clearly expressed is to Greek Myth, or of a less formal not devalue one or the other—we may have no universal value. Lessing’s ekphrastic poetic output. This article is mythology, like Paul Bunyan is to appreciate Shelley’s poem without criticism (which many often think of concerned with an analysis of the poem American folklore.4 In the first case, ever seeing the painting, and the as a criticism of Horace and Ars Poetica, as a reflection (in the ekphrastic sense) we tend to identify figures of sacred visual work, likewise, does not require rather than a criticism of forms of art), of the Uffizi painting with a special myth as reflections of the ideal, and any literature to justify or explicate its is bolstered by G.F.W. Hegel (1770- emphasis on the necessary fragmentary so it is not necessary that we see beauty. 1831), especially in Hegel’s chapters on nature of the text and its impact on any ourselves or our communities in the ‘The Religion of Art in Ancient Greece’ subsequent criticism of the painting exploits of Perseus. In the second The ekphrastic form is sometimes in his Phenomenology of Spirit (1807).7 and the mythology it represents. case, we tend to identify figures of viewed with derision, primarily because Hegel is in turn bolstered by other folklore as reflections of ourselves it is reliant upon an extant work of scholarly luminaries of both art and According to poet and critic James (in individualistic cultures) and of art, and in this way, it may be argued philosophy, each reflecting the other, Heffernan, perhaps the most our communities (in plural cultures). that ekphrasis is inherently unoriginal and building upon the other’s work. influential critic to explore ekphrasis In either case, the art form, whether and derivative. Lessing, perhaps after W.S Di Piero, ekphrastic poetry is literary or visual, serves a philosophical anticipating post-structuralism, Since the early 20th century, many a ‘representation of representation in and social purpose, providing a method famously decries ekphrasis, arguing critics have argued in favour of that it is an expression of utility not ekphrasis as a legitimate poetic form 1 The Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters and Sculptors (1550, revised and expanded 1568, by P. Vasa- ri) accounts for the misidentification of the Uffizi painting. In The Medusa Reader, ed. by Marjorie Garber aesthetics, and so it is not properly equal in stature to any other, and and Nancy J. Vickers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) pp. 60-61. 2 James Heffernan, ‘Ekphrasis and Representation’ in New Literary History, 22 (1991), 297–316 (p. 300). 5 Marjorie Garber, ‘The Gorgon, Paradigm of Image Creation’ in The Medusa Reader, pp. 262-269. 3 G.E. Lessing, Limits of Painting and Poetry, trans. E.A. McCormack (Chicago and London: University of 6 Carol Jacobs, Uncontainable Romanticism: Shelley, Brontë, Kleist (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Chicago Press, 1995), p. 169. University Press, 1989), p. 13. 4 Harold Bloom, The Western Canon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 7. 7 G.F.W. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 424-429. 237 238 some have promoted its value above in this theory: after all, an urn or condition of her visibility,’ which is linear time of life and history’ as other forms. Ludwig Wittgenstein a sunflower are otherwise benign to say she is otherwise invisible.12 represented by the painting ‘to the time thought of ekphrasis as perhaps the objects in the world, whereas Medusa Her nature as a being who cannot be of representation with its immobility most powerful poetic form. He saw it may be the most dangerous subject a engaged on her own terms makes and permanence.’13 This interpretation as a volatile form of poetry in terms of poet could ever undertake to portray, her a tragic figure, especially through suggests that an image can enjoy both its danger to poetry, arguing that the especially using ekphrasis, since the the lens of modernity, since she can a literal and a figurative existence, and most proficient use of the form might more perfect the poet, the more real only be apprehended as a reduction of in the case of ekphrastic texts, it is REFLECTIONS OF be so effective that it perfectly reflects the image, and the more real Medusa, her being. Whereas other gods and the representation of the same image VIDES the artefact, installing an image in the the more petrified the poet. Of course, demigods may consciously mitigate in two forms, visual and literary, thus mind that supplants the poet’s words whether we are talking about Medusa their ontological presence when the thing represented and reflected such that the image is remembered, as depicted by Homer, Herodotus, amongst mortals, Medusa cannot. remains unchanged by the various and the poetry forgotten.8 In Picture Plato, Aristotle, or Ovid (and we’ll beg Her only engagement with another media through which it is appreciated, Theory (1994), William Mitchell argues off discussing later permutations), it is being whom she does not kill through even while those various means of that Shelley’s poem is the embodiment never quite clear whether the magic of that engagement, is Perseus, who reflection allow for a multitude of of fear. Echoing Wittgenstein, Mitchell paralysis results from seeing or being effectively kills her with her own interpretations. Marin calls this the ANDREW TURNER / sees Shelley’s depiction of Medusa as seen—that is to say, does Medusa unwanted power. Thus, any description ‘Medusan Effect,’ a ‘displacement of one of the better examples of poetic petrify her victims when she actively of Medusa, whether visual or literary, temporalities’ between that which is description that may ultimately be so sees them, or when they actively can only be a reflection of Medusa. The to be reflected by art and the art that powerful

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