Samuel Beckett and Abstract Art: Texts About Artworks and Artworks in the Texts

Beckett had a huge interest in a visual art and his appreciation by painting is beyond any questions. His crucial literary works such as “Watt”, “Murphy” and “Molloy” (and the other short prose) have that influence from his dialogue with an art. More specifically Beckett reflects about the visual in his diaries and correspondence with friends. Thus, the purpose of the current research is to examine how precisely the visual aspect in Beckettian texts works. To carry out the research, such methods as the historical-biographical approach and the intermedial analysis seem more important and valuable. The historical-biographical approach is required for the theoretical part of the current work to understand how the notion of an “artistic image” (in terms of intermediality and ekphrasis) in the textuality generally functions and how Beckett perceives the visuality and incorporates it into his literary creations. The intermedial analysis is necessary in the second part of this work to find out Beckettian allusions to the visual aspect and to have a look on his oeuvres through the optics of the visuality.