ABSTRACT Art and Artistry in Katherine Anne Porter
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ABSTRACT Art and Artistry in Katherine Anne Porter: Iconographic Figures and Festive Patterns Karen Svendsen Werner Ph. D. Mentor: Joe B. Fulton, Ph.D., Chairperson Exploring how art influences the works of Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980), this study examines the way Porter’s fictional narrative patterns adapt and arrange images from paintings, folk art, and prints. In her structural response to artistic issues prevalent during the Modernist Period, Porter runs her literary versions of iconographic figures through festive patterns to depict the changes individuals experience when significant cultural shifts envelop them. Besides employing grotesque images to portray suffering, Porter evokes the life-death-rebirth cycle of festive patterns, also called folk carnival humor by Mikhail Bakhtin, to convey hope for people and the continuation of their culture during times of turmoil. Medieval, renaissance, and modernist artwork provides Porter with images and structural approaches. Reflecting the traits of typology and the subjects of medieval iconography, Porter’s characters function by fulfilling past figures such as Eve and by anticipating literary figures in the future. As part of the development of her literary figures in Noon Wine, Porter blends influences from the Agrarians with her appreciation of renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel to emphasize the relationship between her characters and the landscape. Porter’s associations with modernist Mexican artists and her knowledge of the successors to Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death shape her interpretation of the arts and her portrayal of death in stories such as “María Concepción.” Through Mexican anthropologist Manuel Gamio, Porter develops an understanding of Franz Boas’s theories, which contribute to her sense of folk culture, foster within her a sense of the chronological connectedness of time, and lead her to treat artwork as archeological artifacts. These multi-layered dimensions of Porter’s images also reflect her interest in the allusive modernist paintings of Henri Matisse and the literary theory of T.S. Eliot. Her engagement with modernist debates over the merits of the city appears in “The Cracked Looking-Glass,” a story positing Porter’s agrarian challenge to James Joyce’s urban-centered approach to art and writing. Art and Artistry in Katherine Anne Porter: Iconographic Figures and Festive Patterns by Karen Svendsen Werner B.A., M.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Appro~ed by the Dissertation Committee Joe B. Fulton, Ph.D., Chairperson Sarah K. Ford, Ph.D. Heidi J. Hornik, Ph.D. Richard R. Russell, Ph.D. Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School December 2012 J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduation School. Copyright © 2012 by Karen Svendsen Werner All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..............................................................................................x PREFACE .......................................................................................................................... xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER ONE ..................................................................................................................1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Porter as Modernist Manipulator of Literary Images ..................................................6 CHAPTER TWO ...............................................................................................................18 A “mirror between windows”: Porter’s Figures in Festive Patterns ....................................................................18 “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” ..........................................................................25 Folk Carnival Humor .................................................................................................30 Pale Horse, Pale Rider ...............................................................................................43 The Mirror and Porter’s Fiction ................................................................................59 CHAPTER THREE ...........................................................................................................69 "The ‘Death and Resurrection’ pulque shop”: Iconographical Figures and Folk Carnival Humor in Mexican Settings ..................................................69 Folk Art and Contemporary Anthropology ................................................................70 “María Concepción”..................................................................................................76 Primitivism and Porter’s Mask ..................................................................................94 “The Martyr” .............................................................................................................97 “Flowering Judas” ...................................................................................................101 Historical Considerations ........................................................................................105 Art and Archeology ...................................................................................................110 CHAPTER FOUR ............................................................................................................115 “Monsters” in the “landscapes”: Artistic Figures and Folk Carnival in Porter’s Rural United States Settings ............................................................115 Porter’s Multiple Understandings of “Renaissance” ..............................................118 Pieter Bruegel the Elder ...........................................................................................125 Noon Wine ...............................................................................................................128 Festive Patterns in Noon Wine ................................................................................142 v CHAPTER FIVE .............................................................................................................168 The “artist is present in all he creates”: Rosaleen and Folk Carnival in “The Cracked Looking-Glass” .......................................168 “The Cracked Looking-Glass” ...............................................................................169 Rosaleen Functioning Iconographically ..................................................................171 Folk Carnival Humor in “The Cracked Looking-Glass” ........................................178 Porter, Wilde, and Joyce ..........................................................................................188 CHAPTER SIX ................................................................................................................210 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................210 WORKS CITED ..............................................................................................................219 vi LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1 Annunciation Catholic Church ................................................................................2 Fig. 2 Mary as Queen of Heaven Carrying the Infant Jesus ..............................................2 Fig. 3 Sixth Station of the Cross ........................................................................................3 Fig. 4 Henri Matisse. The Joy of Life ................................................................................9 Fig. 5 Titian. Concert in the Open Air ...............................................................................9 Fig. 6 Fall of Man and The Annunciation. Les Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry ..............................................................22 Fig. 7 Pieter Bruegel. Death of the Virgin. ......................................................................25 Fig. 8 Albrecht Dürer. St. Bartholomew. .........................................................................26 Fig. 9 Albrecht Dürer. St. Christopher Carrying the Christ Child. .................................25 Fig. 10 Pieter Bruegel. The Fight Between Carnival and Lent ........................................30 Fig. 11 Release of Souls from the Mouth of Hell. Hours of Catherine of Cleves ............36 Fig. 12 Porter Purchased a Pine Coffin ...........................................................................36 Fig. 13 Hans Holbein. Everyman: Dance of Death .........................................................38 Fig. 14 Hans Holbein. Old Woman: Dance of Death .....................................................38 Fig. 15 José Guadalupe Posada. Jarabe en Ultratumba ..................................................39 Fig. 16 Hieronymus Bosch. Haywain Triptych, Open. ....................................................47 Fig. 17 Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Gertrude Stein ...........................................................57 Fig. 18 Pablo Picasso. Girl with a Mandolin ...................................................................57