Intermedial Aspects of Non-finito. Lesja Ukrajinka and Michelangelo

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomenon of non-finito represented by Michelangelo whose sculptures and poetry became the artistic code of unfinishedness that was widely represented in the art work of Lesja Ukrajinka (14 prose and 7 dramatic works were not completed). Also the author’s finished works are marked by an open and flexible structure, primarily due to the author’s type of artistic thinking, which is a sort of non-finito.

This term indicates individual techniques (omission, truncation of the finale, phantom images, etc), as well as the specifics of the composition and structure of a text which tend to convey the process of creativity, artistic material, the way of thinking and doubts of the author. 

The article focuses on the drama In the Wilderness which reveals an artistic understanding of the nature of the uncompleted, enhanced by the author’s engagement with Michelangelo. A mirror effect is observed: unlike Michelangelo who turned to poetry to verbalize the secrets of his creative process, the writer Lesja Ukrajinka adopted the motif of sculpture as a way of reflecting on the nature of art in general, and Michelangelo himself as the code of the phenomenon of the uncompleted.