Abstract

Het vijfde zegel (The Fifth Seal), published by the Dutch writer Simon Vestdijk in 1937, follows the nineteenth-century tradition of literary novels on painting, practised by such writers as Stendhal, Gautier, and Zola. But Vestdijk also offers a more modern case of intermediality, for the novel can be understood as a psychologically motivated reading of El Greco's life and final phase of work. Protagonist and paintings develop through apollinic (orderly) and dionysic (creative) conventions. The novel can also be read as critique of avant-garde conceptions of representation. The interpretation of this fascinating text is accompanied by some general reflections on ekphrasis.