Intermediality and Intericonicity: A Possible Dialogue?

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a dialogue between two concepts available for image analysis within the scope of discourse studies: intermediality and intericonicity. The former is characterized by the authorial intent to reproduce an image in a different medium environment. The latter postulates that the interrelationship between images is unconscious. It is argued that the bringing together of these distinct categories allows for the expansion of the theoretical perspectives they embody, namely, social and psychological. Different representations of the burial of Christ are analyzed as they appear in three supports: (i) the Gospels (written Christian discourse); (ii) the paintings by van der Weyden and Rubens (Catholic Christian pictorial discourse); (iii) and the photograph of Clóvis Miranda (photographic journalistic discourse).

KEYWORDS:
Discourse Analysis; Christian Discourse; Intericonicity; Intermediality

RESUMO

Este artigo propõe um diálogo entre dois conceitos disponíveis para análise de imagens no âmbito dos estudos discursivos: intermidialidade e intericonicidade. O primeiro tem como característica a intencionalidade autoral de reproduzir uma imagem em outro ambiente midiático. O segundo postula que a inter-relação entre imagens é inconsciente. Entendemos que, apesar de categorias de análise distintas, há pontos de abertura para a individualidade no segundo e para o social no primeiro. Como forma de dar concretude a essa discussão, analisamos diferentes representações do sepultamento de Cristo a partir de três suportes: (i) os Evangelhos (discurso cristão escrito); (ii) as pinturas de van der Weyden e Rubens (discurso católico pictórico); (iii) e a fotografia de Clóvis Miranda (discurso jornalístico).

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Análise do discurso; Discurso cristão; Intericonicidade; Intermidialidade

Introduction

When creating or interpreting an image, are we guided by intuition or by a previously formatted archive in our minds? This is the question that this paper examines. Should there not be a final answer, beginning to explore the question is relevant in and of itself for the study of discourse. Defining the boundaries between what is individual and what is collective is a constant when analyzing different texts. This challenge is heightened when visual materiality is in question.

The presence of the Christian discourse, which often generates polemics, as one of the elements to be examined makes this analytical task even more daunting. Our society is comprised of many different religious practices and beliefs. Some religions have just a few followers, while others have a large percentage of the world population following them. The latter is the case of Christianity, one of the religions with the largest number of followers in the world.

One of the most relevant part of the Bible is that which narrates Christ’s burial. Present in the four Gospels (Mt 27, 57-61; Mk 15, 42-47; Lk 23, 50-56; Jn 10, 38-42), the story became larger than the written text and became the center of a polemic within the Christian discourse in the 16th Century. Paintings representing the descent from the cross are part of the clash between the Catholic and the Protestant discourses due to their over interpretation of the biblical text. It is in this context that images representing the descent of the cross become part of the history of painting through a number of emblematic representations. Among them, the version by Rogier van der Weyden became something of an archetype: “the great Flemish ‘arch-creator of archetypes’ had achieved fame in Italy, and his works were known and admired in the courts of Milan, Ferrara, and Urbino” (Hamburgh, 1981, p.49).

The permanence of this narrative in Western culture represents a reflection point to examine the “inter” nature, both in what regards the icon and in the different media into which the scene is rendered. Christ’s crucifixion and burial scenes are still reproduced in various media, constantly renewing meaning effects and changing narratives.

Indirectly, this paper analyses a point often misunderstood: the relationship between meaning and media products. It is not uncommon to assume, without making it explicit in the analysis, that a change in the material support implies a change in meaning. Therefore, by showing how meaning effects change when there is a change in the mediatic product, this paper emphasizes the relevance of the discussion around the media – “all images must be analyzed from a medium, meaning, from its own material support” (COURTINE, 2011, p.40)¹ – to reflect upon the ways discourse operates. When describing and interpreting the Christian discourse through concepts of intermediality and intericonicity, an assumption is made that changing the material support will not always change meaning.

1 Intermediality, Discourse, and Intentionality

As studies in intermediality developed, precepts in this field spread to areas beyond the one in which it had originated, namely, the literary field. The study of phenomena involving various products, now understood as media, has been accordingly expanded. Claus Clüver (2006, p.18)² points out that intermediality encompasses what is known “as ‘arts’ (music, literature, dance, painting and other visual arts, architecture, as well as mixed forms such as opera, theatre and cinema).”³ Clüver therefore underscores the expansion of a field of study previously restricted to more classic forms of art.

New ways of understanding the relationship between two or more media products and of establishing analytical categories arise from this conclusion. Medium (media, plural) as a concept is currently understood in various ways and, although it is impossible to craft a final definition to it, certain parameters must be established if one wishes to analyze two or more different products and to understand the intermediality relationships between them. This paper adopts Wolf’s definition of media:

I propose the following definition: “Medium, as used in literary and intermediality studies, is a conventionally and culturally distinct means of communication, specified not only by particular technical or institutional channels (or one channel) but primarily by the use of one or more semiotic systems in the public transmission of contents that include, but are not restricted to, referential ‘messages.’ Generally, the medium makes a difference as to what kind of content can be evoked, how these contents are presented, and how they are experienced” (Wolf, 2011, p.2).

From the concepts of intermediality and medium, it becomes possible to explore the tools informing the field and to analyze the relationships established between the biblical text, van der Weyden’s and Rubens’s paintings, and Miranda’s photograph. Media products with different internal semiotic environments are considered and how border crossings among media establishing intermediality relationships are analyzed. Irina Rajewsky’s subcategories of intermediality will be used in the analysis. Rajewsky (2015) suggests three analytical subcategories in the field of intermediality: 1) mediatic transposition, “transformation of a source text based on a specific medium that by means of mediatic transformation generates another medium” (Ramazzina-Ghirardi et al., 2020, p.18)⁴; 2) media combination “implies the combination and, hence, the “co-presence” (Wolf, 2011) of at least two media, or mediatic forms of articulation, that are conventionally perceived as distinct” (Ramazzina-Ghirardi et al., 2020, p.18;⁵ and 3) intermedality references,

which imply the transgression of media borders not by actually, i.e. materially, involving more than one medium or mediatic form of articulation as in media combination (“co-presence”) but by referring to another medium, e.g., by thematizing, evoking or imitating/simulating certain elements, techniques or structures of another medium, using one’s own medium-specific means and instruments to do so (Ramazzina-Ghirardi et al., 2020, p.18).⁶

This last subcategory underscores the internal functioning environment of the derived medium and constitutes a reference by means of the elements that can be created by its individual operation as a medium. The new product, by its own internal operational mechanisms, creates a new medium. This new medium establishes relationships with the source medium, in a relationship that overcomes borders as it references the other medium as a system and does not involve the substance of the other medium. Although there is now an established relationship between the two media, each one of them preserves its textual environment. Overcoming borders does not affect the expression of the derived medium. It affects the quality of the reference (the photograph refers to another medium, the painting, but it continues existing as a photograph). Miranda’s photograph thematizes the descent from the cross, evoking van der Weyden and Rubens’s paintings and imitates the painted theme, but uses its own elements, techniques, and structures in order to come to exist. It establishes a reference to another mediatic system that is materially absent. The biblical text is the source medium for the work of van der Weyden and Rubens; the paintings represent a product that is the result of a mediatic transposition of the verbal text, becoming an intermediary medium for Miranda’s photograph, the destination medium.

In the transposition of the verbal text to the painting, the reference to the source medium is evident. In Miranda’s photograph, however, the reference to the intermediary medium (the painting) is somewhat veiled. In terms mediatic, the painting does not contribute to the creation of the new product because the derived medium does not incorporate evoked, imitated, or thematized elements. There is no direct relationship between the two media. As the medium is not verbal, the thematization of the other medium occurs in a metaphorical sense. The mind of the receptor is invited to engage its sensorial repertoire.

2 Intericonicity, Discourse, and Regularity

According to Courtine (apud Kogawa, 2015, p.401), “There is (…) in the memory of the images of which each one has, an individual and a collective part – something of the order of intericonicity.”⁷ If, on the one hand, the author places much of his production in the historicity of images and in the unconscious aspect of its inter-relationship, on the other hand, he fails to duly develop the idea of “the individual nature of imagetic memory.” As discussed in the previous section, within certain limits, intermediality can be considered the “missing link” in Courtine’s theoretical construction,” especially in what concerns the corpus presented here. A historical factor exists in the network built between the three media – biblical text, painting, and photograph – that requires an analysis around intentionality and individuality. This analysis is not made from an individual perspective – as mere autoregulated and aware conscience – but from an institutional perspective: the Catholic church ordered paintings to reproduce its doctrine. From this perspective, the painting fulfilled an advertising social role of the Catholic faith. Thus, more than an individual decision, the paintings belonging to van der Weyden and Rubens are the material result of the determinations of Catholic discourse.

The idea of intentionality, presented in the previous section, is momentarily suspended in this section to allow for the supplemental discussion of a different aspect of the functioning of images – their unconscious historical nature. The concept of intericonicity is a path that allows for the description and interpretation of images as co-referential textualities, that is, as material constructs always connected to other material constructs. An image, from this perspective, is always a potential recapture of something that has already been seen.

The use of this concept entails a critique of certain descriptive-interpretative patterns, which interpret an image from its global composition or as a description of something obvious. From this perspective, describing a painting using the this is what is seen structure obliterates precisely the historical effects of an always extemporaneous series, which could be synthesized by a description of the negativity: this is what is not seen.

Interpreted from the perspective of intericonicity, Miranda’s photograph, Martírio no Presídio [Martyrdom in Prison], is not the “descent of a man who is leaning against a ladder and supported by three other inmates in the center of the image.” This is the obvious. From a discursive perspective, this materiality is the symptom of an iconic chain that semantically portrays suffering. The Christian narrative passes through and regulates this image making meaning based on other images, establishing a network, although this image belongs to the journalistic realm.

This symptomatologic standpoint resonates with the indiciary paradigm diagnosed by Ginzburg in his epistemological analysis of the late 19^th century: “attitude leading to the appreciation of details rather than of the work in general” (Ginzburg, 1989, p.88).⁸ Courtine uses this idea of indiciary paradigm to elaborate the intericonicity as effect of the indiciary operation, which is visually materialized in a gesture, in a pose, in a vector – in our corpus, the descent: “Not signs, but clues, traits of an unexpected meaning taking shape” (Courtine, 2011, p.39).⁹ In light of intericonicity, it becomes obvious that the descent of an inmate down a prison’s ladder is not an isolated construction, devoid of a long-term perspective. We have now to demonstrate the effects of this regularity in face of the Christian religious discourse.

3 From Intermediality to Intericonicity: Shifting Meanings in the Iconography of the Descent

In the 15^th century, Christianity was already well established as a doctrine under the authority of the Catholic Church, which had great influence and power over society, especially in Europe. This period is known as the Renascence and brought great artists to the world, such as Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, among many others. This proliferation of artists is due in large part to the invention of the first oil-based paints, which substituted egg and pigment-based paint. This allowed the painters a stronger technical refinement, elevating the level of pictorial representations. According to Gombrich on discussing about the works of Jan van Eyck,

If he used oil instead of egg, he could work much more slowly and accurately. He could make glossy colours which could be applied in transparent layers, or ‘glazes’ he could put on the glittering high-lights with a pointed brush, and achieve these miracles of accuracy (Gombrich, 1951, p.173).¹⁰

This technical development, already in the 15^th century and under the regime of religious domination, was appropriated by Christian Catholic discourse, which used the innovation to consolidate its doctrine. It is in this moment that an iconography of Christ’s burial emerges placing the figure of Mary, mother of Christ, as a metaphor for the Church. From the 15^th century onwards – especially in the 16^th century, due to the dispute over the reading of the biblical text by the Catholics, on one side, and by the Protestant reformers on the other– a series of versions of the Descent from the Cross would be made – with identical titles and diverse authorship. As a possible starting point of this iconographic tradition, Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464)’s painting (image 1) stands out in the 15^th century: considering the ensuing vitality of the theme of the swoon in Cinquecento paintings of the Descent, it should be noted that no Italian painting on the subject with a swooning Virgin existed before the appearance in Italy of Rogier van der Weyden’s work in 1450 (Hamburgh, 1981, p.49).

Image 1
The Descent from the Cross (1435), Rogier van der Weyden – Prado Museum – Madrid - Spain¹¹

Although Hamburgh’s specific interest is the image of the Virgin fainting as a symbol of the Catholic faith concerning Mary’s holiness and its function in the Church’s representation and its goals, his study of the paintings referring to the descent gives an idea of the intensification of this iconography in the 15^th century as the clashes between the Catholic and Protestant faiths increased. This struggle begins to take shape at the end of the 15^th century due to Lutero’s dissatisfaction with the Catholic doctrine and its practices. It reaches it peak on October 31, 1517 with the publishing of the 95 theses on the doors of the church in Wittenberg’s castle.

This clash within Christianity leads Catholics, who are the dominating force in the time, to engage in a “propaganda campaign” that provides room for a series of paintings throughout the 16^th and later. One of them, is also called (as van der Weyden’s) The Descent from the Cross (image 2) by Paul Rubens (1577-1640). In 1600, Rubens, at the age of 23, arrived in Rome, where he began to study art under masters (Gombrich, 1951)¹² such as Carraci and Caravaggio, both of whom also have versions of The Descent from the Cross.

Rubens paints his most iconic The Descent from the Cross between the years of 1612 and 1614, ordered by the Arquebusiers Brotherhood:

Image 2
The Descent from the Cross (1612 e 1614), Peter Paul Rubens – Our Lady’s Cathedral – Antwerp - Belgium¹³

The materiality of both title and image of the painting above recalls van der Weyden’s painting as it refers to intericonicity. In both, the meaning of suffering is provided by the burial imaginary. After the crucifixion, in the silence left by death, there remains the preparation of the body. The suffering of the crucifixion ends, symbolically, with the burial. This closing is narrated in the four Gospels as follows: “And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock” (Mt 27, 59-60); “And he bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud” (Mk 15, 46); “Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud” (Lk 23, 53); “Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five ponds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices as in the burial custom of the Jews” (Jn 19, 39-40).¹⁴

With the biblical text in mind, the paintings create an effect of overinterpretation. There are important differences in the narrative, ranging from the presentation of the descent itself to the presence of certain people as Mary, mother of Jesus, at the time. In what concerns the first aspect, if a body was placed in the cross, it needs to be descended from it. However, not all Gospels describe this process in detail. The mention of the descent is discreet in the Gospels of Matthew and John, although it is implied that Joseph of Arimathea, in the former citation, and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, in the latter, “took the body.” Therefore, the first effect of overinterpretation is the condensation of meaning. The painting fills the gaps where the meaning of the text may look uncertain. This alternation of medium – from written text to painting, promotes a condensation (taking some uncertainty away from who had descended Christ from the cross) as well as an amplification: if the narrative of the Gospels points only to two people, Joseph of Arimathea accompanied, at most, by Nicodemus when descending the body, the paintings multiply the number of participants. In Rubens’ work in particular, we see seven people involved in the task of descending the body.

This artist’s conditioned freedom on adapting the original text was possible due to mediatic transposition (Rajewsky, 2012). The first subcategory defined by Rajewsky is demonstrated here, as there is a transformation of the written text (the biblical), which serves as a source to anchor the creation of a new mediatic product, the painting.

When transposing the biblical text, the canvas amplifies the text, inserting other characters to the scene, re-signifying the passage in/through the adaption into the painting. The use of large canvas, which served as decoration in churches (Gombrich, 1951),¹⁵ allowed for the insertion of other people in addition to those present in the source text. And on doing that, the painting gains other layers of interpretation. Christ is now supported by more faithful followers. A larger number of faithful followers is what the Church needed that moment, especially one century after the start of the Protestant Reform and the heightened competition for followers.

The presence of more characters, including the motherly figure of Mary, enhances the sadness to the suffering portrayed. The dramatic appeal was a strong characteristic of the Baroque, the period when the work was produced. In the context of Counter-Reform – or Catholic Reform – the Church used paintings as a way of illustrating the “heavenly glory” in various biblical passages, therefore attracting followers to its services.

The tensions between the Church and the protestant movement, founded by Martin Luther (1483-1546), influenced the way in which art was used by the Church to communicate its values: “the Catholics responded to Protestant assailants with an assertive new iconography of the Virgin” (Hamburgh, 1981, p.59) .The importance of other characters, in particular Mary, is remarkable in this way, as it dilutes the emphasis on the image of Christ. If Christ had died, his followers, especially his mother, a metaphor for the Church, was there to continue his work.

That was a moment when painters had more technical tools at their disposal, which allowed for more realistic painting. Given their task of describing the values of the Church, artists created paintings that strengthened Christian discourse and became part of our imaginary to this day. The historical and discursive contexts fostered the creation of new mediatic products that validated and perpetuated the dialogue between the Catholic Church and society. According to Rajewsky (2010, p.54),

The question of how a medium should be defined and delimited from other media is of course always dependent on the historical and discursive contexts and the observing subject or system, taking into account technological change and relations between media within the overall media landscape at a given point in time.¹⁶

Over 400 years have passed since the painting of The Descent from the Cross by Rubens, and our society is chronologically very distant from that historical context of the Counter-Reform movement, when the Church was trying to reassert itself, and even more distant from the time when Jesus was buried. This historical background creates a large archive of collective and individual memories. This is the mechanism that intericonicity allows us to describe: “a network of personal and collective memories that link images one to the other” (Courtine, 2011, p.148).¹⁷

When observing an image, this mechanism allows for the sensation of being transported to a different time, bringing other discourses to mind. Courtine (2011, p.147) says that “images have the insurmountable power of determining what we remember about events.”¹⁸ This is where the network operation characteristic of intericonicity is activated. A third image (image 3) will further this discussion.

Image 3
Martírio no Presídio (Prison Martyrdom) Manaus, 2007, Clóvis Miranda¹⁹

This photograph portrays the moment when an inmate is rescued by firefighters during a rebellion in the Instituto Penal Antônio Trindade [Antônio Trindade Penal Institute], in Manaus, in 2007. The photographer, Clóvis Miranda, revealed in an interview in June 2020 that his shift had been over, and he was on his way home when he received a call from the newspaper’s editor asking if he could cover the events in the prison.

At the top of the prison’s building, the inmates were holding some people hostage. Standing out among them was the inmate who would become the subject of the photograph (image 3). Miranda’s attention was divided between the two scenes, but when he saw the inmate hanging from his arms, trying to break free from his executioners, he decided to focus on the rescue. The next day, his photograph had become the cover of the newspaper A crítica [The Critique]. Days later, Miranda got a call from the photography editor of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo [S. Paulo Paper] saying that his photograph was a “biblical image.” He also received a letter from a reader saying that she was very touched by the scene, because she had recognized Jesus suffering in it. In 2008, Miranda was awarded the Prêmio Esso de Jornalismo [Esso Journalism Award] in the photojournalism category for this photograph.

Just like photography, each medium product has its own specific techniques, instruments, procedures, and challenges that allow for meaning making and the construction of a message to the receptor. Developing a painting demands that the artists make previous sketches, lighting studies, and colors, until they get to the final result. The painter has models who pose according to his guidance and, according to Gombrich (1951),²⁰ in Rubens’s case, the painter had also had the help of various talented artists who worked under his orders.

The means of production of paintings and photographs can be similar in some respects. A photographer may also have models to compose the scene and helpers who support him with the lighting. However, this is not the case in photojournalism, which consists primarily in documenting an event, with no room for pre-production as it is the case of studio photograph and painting.

This parallel sheds light to a significant difference between the two media products in what concerns their production. While one requires a lot of time between the first drafts and the overlapping of layers of paint – one layer must dry so the following does not ruin it -, the other requires a watchful eye in capturing the image of a brief instant. That demands a critical sense on the part of the photographer to frame the scene in a compositional scheme making the photograph visually pleasant. Rubens had lots of time available to paint his picture, allowing for drafting scene studies, lighting compositions, and colors, while Miranda had just a nick of time available to him corresponding to the brief duration of the event. Despite this large contextual distance between the two images and the differences between the two media products and their forms of composition, the outcome prompted by intericonicity sparks a memory of Rubens’s painting when one looks at Miranda’s photograph.

The relationship between the excerpts of the Bible and Rubens’s painting triggers an effect that overcomes mediatic borders and constitutes a mediatic transposition. The Gospel passage was the source for the painter for adaptation creating a pictural scene out of a new mediatic environment based on his own perspective and message to convey with the new medium product. The established relationship is of a source product intentionally adapted to a new medium that serves for the transmission of the author’s perceptive mind. The mediatic product, born out of the adaptation, has new shades of meaning. It is up to each receptor to reinterpret the final product from its reference.

The intermediality established between Rubens’s painting and Miranda’s photograph, however, means a completely diverse and unique intermediatic relationship in this field. The photograph uses its own means to cite the painting it takes back. The constitutive elements of the photograph establish the meaning relationships between the two mediatic products. The theme of the descent from the cross becomes evident in the photograph. It is as if the registered moment intentionally evoked van der Weyden’s and Rubens’s paintings, mimicking the theme painted and establishing a reference to the other materially “absent” mediatic system, surpassing borders, and referring to the other media as a system.

What is surprising in this relationship is that the intermediatic procedures that take place through the subcategory “intermediatic reference” always have their starting point in the intentions coming from the author’s perceptive mind to cite a product using the resources available in a new medium. Even though the perception of the descent of Christ had come from a third part only after the event itself (the photographer reports that he only associated both images after being told by many people about it), the relationship between the picture and the painting cannot be denied.

Miranda did not have the intention of creating this intermediatic reference that became obvious to receptors. How do we explain then this intermediatic relationship in the subcategory proposed by Rajewsky?²¹ Through the relationship established between these two mediatic products, it is possible to add something not yet envisioned in the studies of intermediality. This phenomenon takes shape through the dialogue between intermediality and intericonicity and is unprecedented in this relationship: the author’s mind is capable of creating an unintentional intermediatic reference, unconsciously activating his cultural repertory. Miranda did not have the intention of making the reference, however it is clear that The Descent from the Cross was engraved in his mind and was activated in the moment he saw that scene in the prison. As a consequence of this process, the association of the photographed image with The Descent from the Cross happens thanks to the receptor’s repertoire of mediatic models, making it possible to understand the established intermediatic relationship.

It is important to highlight that the intermediatic reference created will only have effect in a proficient receptor, capable of making associations and of understanding the meaning of the descent from the cross in the picture. If the relationship is established, the medium product created becomes a visual citation:

The image constructs other images and one of the elements for this construction is the citation itself. Although it is a repeated image, it is qualified. More than a generic take back, the citation creates a relationship of co-presence amongst images/texts/content and themes taken back. The meaning of this citation is not reduced to what is cited, it does not constitute a practice that simply keeps the original meaning; there are meaningful values that add to it; the citing text embraces the cited text (Ramazzina-Ghirardi, 2019, p.130).²²

Miranda’s work creates a triad relationship including the picture, the written text of the Gospel, and Rubens’s painting: the martyrdom through which the inmate goes through is similar to that of Christ’s when he was crucified to save humanity.

Final Considerations

The picture Martírio no presídio [Martyrdom in Prison] is an autonomous work, whose author, according to telephonic contact, did not intend either to reproduce The Descent from the Cross or to reference the Gospel. His main goal was to register the events that took place that day, during the rebellion in the detention center. However, meanings arising from Christian discourse traverse his picture, adding new meanings and to it due to intericonicity, making it refer to a context other than that of the violence suffered by an inmate in one, among many, prison rebellions.

This new context can be, in a way, evoked thanks to the volume of images consumed by contemporary society. This constant exposure to images makes society aware of this kind of language. It makes society look for validation of a supposed truth only through “proven images” of its materiality, leaving out the context of their production and the traversing of meaning they may be subject to.

As it is for the images, it is hard to imagine an isolated society from the world and history. There is a subordination to what pre-existed and a heritage of knowledge that influences the way we live and see the world.

The many mediatic productions throughout history have a central role in this process. A large part of the popular imaginary is composed of unlived scenes, saved in memory fragments that build a repertoire of mediatic models, ready to be activated at each contact with a new medium products. Rubens’s painting is the result both of his perceptive mind when he intentionally portrays his reading of the biblical passage and of his productive mind that visually makes an image come true. The canvas, in turn, is delivered to receptors who are ready to understand its meaning from its title: The Descent from the Cross. From the painter’s productive mind, layers of meaning are added to the new mediatic product that give new meanings to the martyrdom lived by Christ. Miranda’s picture proves the vivacity of this heritage in presenting a new mediatic product born out of his talent and his unconscious activation of his repertoire of midiatic models.

In this process, it is possible to note an addition to the layers of meaning by the different mediatic products. Rubens intentionally reinterpreted a biblical excerpt and revealed it to the world in visual format a discourse with various meanings. The strength of his work shows the strength of the source text and adds the idea of its presence in the moment of the deposition that documented the event. In some way, Miranda repeats the act of the painter when he documented the “deposition of an inmate” during the rebellion and created a new product, producing other new meanings.

Acknowledgement

We thank the photographer Clóvis de Miranda Pereira for the authorization to use his photograph Martírio no presídio, indispensable to the reflections of this article.

• 1
  In French: “toute image doit être analysée à partir du médium, c’est-à-dire du support matériel qui est le sien.”
• 2
  In Portuguese: “amplamente como ‘artes’ (música, literatura, dança, pintura e demais artes plásticas, arquitetura, bem como formas mistas, como ópera, teatro e cinema) mas também as ‘mídias’ e seus textos”. COURTINE, J-J. Déchiffrer le corps: penser avec Foucault. Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2011.
• 3
  In: SCHMITZ-EMANS, Monika; LINDEMANN, Uwe (Org.). Komparatistik 2000/2001: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft. Heidelberg: Synchron Publishers, 2001. pp.14-50. This English translation is based on the Portuguese translation of the original text: “como ‘artes’ (música, literatura, dança, pintura e demais artes plásticas, arquitetura, bem como formas mistas, como ópera, teatro e cinema) mas também as ‘mídias’ e seus textos.”
• 4
  In Portuguese: “a transformação de um texto fonte ancorado em uma mídia específica que através de uma transformação midiática gera uma outra mídia.”
• 5
  In Portuguese: “implica a combinação e portanto a co-presença (Wolf, 2005) de pelo menos duas mídias ou formas midiáticas de articulação percebidas como distintas.”
• 6
  In Portuguese: “que significa a superação de fronteiras midiáticas não por envolver de fato, isto é, materialmente, mais de uma mídia ou forma midiática de articulação como na combinação midiática (co-presença), mas por referir-se a uma outra mídia, por exemplo, tematizando, evocando ou imitando/simulando certos elementos, técnicas ou estruturas de outra mídia, utilizando seus próprios meios e instrumentos específicos para fazê-lo.”
• 7
  In Portuguese: “Há, (...) na memória das imagens da qual cada um dispõe, uma parte individual e uma parte coletiva – algo que é da ordem da intericonicidade.”
• 8
  GINZBURG, C. Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method. Translated by John and Anne C. Tedeschi. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
• 9
  For reference, see footnote 1. In French: “Pas de signes, mais des índices, des traces du surgissement d’um sens imprévu.”
• 10
  GOMBRICH, E.H. The History of Art. New York: The Oxford University Press, 1951.
• 11
  Available at: https://bit.ly/3d7iPP1. Last accessed on 06/14/2020.
• 12
  For reference, see footnote 10.
• 13
  Available in: https://bit.ly/3pfz0wa. Access on: 06/14/2020.
• 14
  HOLY BIBLE. The Old and the New Testaments of the Holy Bible. Revised standard version. 2nd. Edition. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971.
• 15
  For reference, see footnote 10.
• 16
  RAJEWSKY, I. Border Talks: The Problematic Status of Media Borders in the Current Debate about Intermediality. In: ELLESTRÖM, L. (ed.) Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp.51-68.
• 17
  For reference, see footnote 1. In French: “du réseau des réminiscences personnelles et des mémoires collectives qui relient les images les unes aux autres.”
• 18
  For reference, see footnote 1. In French: “Les photographies possèdent le pouvoir indépassable de déterminer ce que nous retenons des événements.”
• 19
  This photograph was published in the newspaper A crítica [The Critique] (www.acritica.com). The record of the Esso prize can be found at https://bit.ly/3fOiuyV. The online version of the photograph can be found at: https://bit.ly/315h8vo.
• 20
  For reference, see footnote 10.
• 21
  For reference, see footnote 16.
• 22
  In Portuguese: “A imagem vai construir outras imagens e um dos elementos para essa construção é a própria citação. Apesar de ser uma imagem repetida, ela é qualificada. Mais que uma retomada genérica, a citação cria uma relação de copresença entre imagens/textos/conteúdo e temas retomados. O sentido dessa citação não se reduz ao que é citado, ela não constitui uma prática que guarda o sentido; há valores significantes que se acrescentam; o texto citante acolhe o texto citado.”
• Translated by Carolina Ramazzina Van Moorsel – [e-mail]

REFERÊNCIAS

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• BÍBLIA, N. T. Marcos. In: Bíblia: nova tradução na linguagem de hoje. Tradução João Ferreira de Almeida. Barueri: Sociedade Bíblica do Brasil, 2013. p.998-1024.
• BÍBLIA, N. T. Lucas. In: Bíblia: nova tradução na linguagem de hoje. Tradução João Ferreira de Almeida. Barueri: Sociedade Bíblica do Brasil, 2013. p.1025-1068.
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• RAJEWSKY, I. Intermidialidade e estudos interartes: Desafios da arte contemporânea. Tradução Thaïs Flores Nogueira Diniz e André Soares Vieira, organizadores. Belo Horizonte: Rona Editora: FALE/UFMG, 2012. p.51-73.
• RAJEWSKY, I. Intermidialidade, Intertextualidade e “Remediação”: uma perspectiva literária sobre a intermidialidade. Tradução Thaïs Flores Nogueira Diniz e Eliana Lourenço de Lima Reis. In: DINIZ, T. F. N. Intermidialidade e estudos interartes: desafios da arte contemporânea. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2012, p.15-46.
• RAMAZZINA-GHIRARDI, A. L. Citação visual: cruzando fronteiras intermidiais em O diário de Anne Frank / Visual citation: crossing intermedial borders in Anne Frank’s diary. Revista Letras Raras, v. 2, n. 8, p.108-132, 2019. Disponível em: http://revistas.ufcg.edu.br/ch/index.php/RLR/article/view/1369 Acesso em: 29-01-2020.
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• RAMAZZINA-GHIRARDI, A. L.; RAJEWSKY, I.; DINIZ, T. F. N. Intermidialidade e referências intermidiáticas: uma introdução. Revista Letras Raras, v. 9, n. 3, p.11-23, ago. 2020. Disponível em: http://revistas.ufcg.edu.br/ch/index.php/RLR/issue/view/80/showToc Acesso em: 20-01-2021.
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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  29 Nov 2021
• Date of issue
  Jan-Mar 2022

History

• Received
  24 Mar 2021
• Accepted
  04 Aug 2021