Fold as a Model of Ekphrasis in Contemporary Essays on the Visual Arts (Based on the Analysis of English Essays)

Abstract

The article addresses the complex nature of ekphrasis as the verbal representation of the works of the visual arts and discusses its explications through the prism of various metaphorical models. With the metaphors of the paragone and the sister arts acknowledged as the two powerful models of ekphrasis, a recently introduced metaphor of ekphrasis as a fold is given a close look. The roots of the fold as a metaphorical model are traced back to works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and further philosophical elaboration of this model in Gilles Deleuze’s writings is discussed. It is argued that viewing ekphrasis as a fold makes it possible to capture the nature of ekphrasis in contemporary essays on the visual arts as a means of producing meanings through interpretation of the existing meanings and thus as a means of perpetuating culture. This argument is supported with the cognitive poetic analysis of ekphrasis in John Berger’s essays on the visual arts.