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Chapter 27 - Paintings and Ekphrasis

from Part III - Themes and Influences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2023

By
Leonida Kovač
Edited by
Uwe Schütte
Uwe Schütte
Affiliation:
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
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Summary

This essay provides an associatively structured overview of the wide field of painting and ekphrasis in Sebald’s work. Starting with Sebald’s collaborations with his friend and artist Jan Peter Tripp, the essay moves to his use of Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632) in The Rings of Saturn. Then the essay then explores the role of battle paintings in Sebald’s writings, especially their use to discuss issues of representation of historical events. In the next step, figurations of melancholy in Sebald are discussed on the basis of Dürer’s engraving Melencolia along with the theme of pulverization relating to the painter Ferber in The Emigrants. The conclusion compares Sebald’s poetics to the epistemology of knowledge inaugurated by Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne.

Keywords

ekphrasisJan Peter TrippRembrandtbattle paintingsAlbrecht DürerFrank AuerbachGrünewaldAlbrecht AltdorferAby Warburgpulverization
Type
Chapter
Information
W. G. Sebald in Context , pp. 242 - 248
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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