Interpretations of Herman Melville’s \u3cem\u3eMoby-Dick\u3c/em\u3e in the Field of Visual Arts

Artistic adaptations of literary classics allow readers to visualize and contextualize some of the most important themes, motifs, scenes, and images in a story that may be difficult to grasp through verbal text alone. From these adaptations, one can analyze the stylistic and thematic similarities or differences in the way an artist portrays elements of Melville’s Moby-Dick. Through their varying artistic styles and media, abstract impressionist Frank Stella, self-taught artist Matt Kish, and award-winning children’s book illustrator Allan Drummond express how Melville’s novel can manifest itself in a multitude of contexts: emotional, literal, and theoretical. By analyzing the way in which these artists construct renditions surrounding the same scenes and general thematic notions in Moby-Dick, readers and artistic audiences gain insight into new generations of the classic text