“The rivers of France” by J. M. W. Turner in the intermedial perspective

Abstract

The article deals with intermedial features of the book edition of engravings “The Rivers of France” (1837) based on W. Turner’s watercolours. It examines how the interplay of perceptual modes contributes to the construction of a multimodal narrative based on a journey and transmission of aesthetic and emotional load produced by the affordances of its textual and pictorial formats. It also investigates how principles of “poetic painting” philosophy are instantiated in the composition and thematic content of the engravings. The article describes the analyzed material, summarizes its discourse clues, identifies narrative stimuli in the engravings, and interprets them with regard to the underlying concepts of intermediality and poetic impact of the pictorial art. Such an approach results in identification of the central semiotic object in the engravings – the river – that represents a visual metaphor allowing for multiple interpretations. Underlying W. Turner’s conceptual domain, the river symbolizes both life dynamics and its stability.