On a presumption of art studies by S. Averintsev

Abstract

When interpreting the poetry of Mandelstam Averintsev not only referred to the works of art as illustrating his thoughts, but also imagines non-existent illustrations to explain poetic images, notably those breaking our habits of perception of works of art or book culture, being close to the technique of ekphrasis as lively and expressive description of non-existent paintings. The paper discusses how exactly such an argumentative technique works and what is its productivity for the development of literary interpretation. Averintsev argues on the basis of four Aristotelian causes, but in order to save the distinction betweencause-effect and eidetic relations, inevitable in the epoch of the novel, the final cause is not mentioned, as no aim of art is mentioned too, and catharsis is identified with the contemplation of symbolically significant entities. Causal relations in art are identified with the action of the efficient cause, understood as both criticism and strengthening of representation, amplifying contradictions in expectation of catharsis, whereas the material cause is understood as the initial readiness of any work of art to be representative. The ekphrasis as case and genre therefore is not constructed as expedient rhetorical exercise, but as interpretation of the limits of the material use in art, and the emphatic sequence of the material, instrumental, and formal causes turns out to be hermeneutically significant.

The article shows how Averintsev’s art criticism thought always becomes hermeneutic, interprets the sense of images when it allows not simultaneous, but only sequential and dialectical action of above three reasons.