Artistic Motifs Research Articles

Power in Russia: Modus Vivendi and Artis Imago

Contemporary Russian socio-cultural, cultural and philosophical, sociopsychological, artistic and aesthetic practices actualize the Russian tradition of rejection, criticism, undisguised hatred and fear of power. Today, however, power has ceased to be a subject of one-dimensional denial or condemnation, becoming the subject of an interdisciplinary scientific discourse that integrates cultural studies, philosophy, social psychology, semiotics, art criticism and history (history of culture). The article provides theoretical substantiation and empirical support for the two facets of notions of power. The first facet is the unique, not only political, but also mental determinant of the problem of power in Russia, a kind of reflection of modus vivendi. The second facet is the artistic and image-based determinant of problem of power in Russia designated as artis imago. Theoretical grounds for solving these problems are found in F. Nietzsche’s perceptions of the binary “potentate-mass” opposition, G. Le Bon’s of the “leader”, K.-G. Jung’s of mechanisms of human motivation for power. The paper dwells on the “semiosis of power” in the focus of thoughts by A. F. Losev, P. A. Sorokin, R. Barthes. Based on S. Freud’s views of the unconscious and G. V. Plekhanov’s and J. Maritain’s views of the totalitarian power, we substantiate the concept of “the imperial unconscious”. The paper focuses on the importance of the freedom motif in art (D. Diderot and V. G. Belinsky as theorists, S. Y. Yursky as an art practitioner). Power as a subject of influence and object of analysis by Russian creators is studied on the material of perceptions and creative experience of A. S. Pushkin (in the context of works devoted to Russian “impostors” by numerous authors). Special attention is paid to the early twenty-first century television series on Soviet rulers (Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Furtseva). The conclusion is made on the relevance of Pushkin’s remark about “living power” “hated by the rabble” for contemporary Russia.

Memorialising the (Un)Dead Jewish Other in Poland: Spectrality, Embodiment and Polish Holocaust Horror in Władysław Pasikowski’s Aftermath (2012)

This article analyses the function and symbolic currency of Poland’s recent literary and artistic motif of the returning Jew, which brings the nation’s Jewish Holocaust victims back to their homes as ghosts, spectres and reanimated corpses. It explores the ability of this trope—the defining feature of what I call ‘Polish Holocaust horror’—to cultivate the memory of complicitous and collaborative Polish behaviour during the Holocaust years, and to promote renewed Polish-Jewish relations based upon a working-through of this difficult history. In the article I explore Władysław Pasikowski’s 2012 film Aftermath as a self-reflexive product of this experimental genre, which has been considered ethically ambiguous for its necropolitical treatment of Jews and politically controversial for its depiction of Poles as perpetrators. My analysis examines haunting as central to these popular cultural constructions of Holocaust memory—a device that has been used within the genre to mourn but also expel guilt for the previously forgotten or supressed dispossession and murder of Jews by some of their Polish neighbours.

Analysis of Vanitas Art-based Nail Design

In modern times, nail art has become more than just nail care. In fact, it has grown into a means of special nail treatment that requires a particular technique and personality expression. With rapid trend changes, the development of diverse designs and the increase in the desire for new art, there has been a rising demand for artistic, creative and unique nail designs. The secular desire describing human extravagance has been called ‘Vanitas’. Since the 17th century, still-life paintings that symbolized vanity in life became popular. During that time, a vanitas adopted a motif that implied the vanity of life such as an hourglass, skeleton, cigarette, candle without a flame, upside-down glass cup, wilted flower and rotting fruit as allegory. For this, the study investigated diversity in nail design by analyzing various nail techniques according to the tastes of the young generation by taking advantage of the characteristics of vanitas art - death, desire, futility and reflection. Therefore, first, this study examines theories on the philosophy and characteristics of vanitas art to suggest practical and artistic nail art. Second, it designs meaning according to an analysis of the characteristics of vanitas as a nail art motif through theoretical review and literature. Third, this study designs diverse backgrounds for nail art according to vanitas art. Fourth, it analyzes formative aspects according to the characteristics of vanitas art. The analysis of the formative aspects of vanitas-based nail design found that there were some changes with nail parts and irregular stone arrangement. In addition, a 3D curved design was created, using tapeline, string, figures and hanji (traditional Korean paper). Furthermore, diverse visual effects were generated by altering the expression of the plane texture or spatial layout of color. It’s anticipated that the study results would be helpful in maximizing the artistic utility of nail art as a means for nailists to express their personality, not just a way for simple nail care or treatment.

Digging the topology of rock art in northwestern Patagonia

AbstractWe present a study on the rock art of northern Patagonia based on network analysis and communities detection. We unveil a significant aggregation of archaeological sites, linked by common rock art motifs that turn out to be consistent with their geographical distribution and archaeological background of hunter-gatherer stages of regional peopling and land use. This exploratory study will allow us to approach more accurately some social strategies of visual communication entailed by rock art motif distribution, in space and time.

Human representations in the Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic art of north-western Europe

Anthropomorphic motifs in Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic art of north-western Europe are extremely rare. In this article they are reviewed and discussed from the perspective of style and narrative character. Most of the anthropomorphic images were engraved on various materials - antler, bone or stone; a much less common technique of portraying the human figure was by drilling small holes. Quite often these representations appear in company with other motifs, mostly geometrical. Late Palaeolithic human images are rather diverse in their style: next to the semirealistic style, the geometric style is much in evidence. The latter becomes widespread during the Mesolithic, occurring in various conventions: linear geometrical (the human figure is built by lines, strokes or drilled dots), figural geometrical (the figure is built by geometric figures or densely engraved lines) and with an exaggerated face. The style of these representations becomes particularly heterogeneous during the late Mesolithic, possibly as a result of increasingly sedentary mode of life and the rise of many local variants of the artwork styles. Most of the anthropomorphs under discussion are portrayed in action: dancing, carrying various objects, engaged in rituals. However, the nature of these activities is difficult to fathom due to the geometricised, often quite spare style of these anthropomorphic representations.

Engaging with plants in an urban environment through street art and design

Societal Impact StatementEngaging people with botanical street art and design is a good way to draw attention to the botanical world. Here, the importance of plants to people's everyday life in India is highlighted through street art and design. By focusing on the plant motifs present in everyday urban environments, educators can shine a light on the deep historical and cultural connections that we share with plants. This could be a vital tool for those wishing to draw attention to plants in urban settings and highlight their importance for human existence and life on Earth, and as a possible route to counteract plant blindness in urban settings.SummaryThis article explores plant motifs in street art and design artifacts in India, in order to gain insights toward a pedagogical framework for studying plants in the context of higher education in art and design. The study was carried out as a visual ethnography of the representational use of plants in the public environment, in street art and design artifacts; theoretical implications are drawn from the findings of the ethnographic work for a public pedagogy concerning plants. Across India, street art and craft practices engage with plant representations and plant motifs through diverse materials, techniques, and media. Plant motifs are encountered across personal, professional, and official contexts. Their presence is, in many cases, explained by beliefs in Hinduism, the dominant religion in India. Several historical and culturally meaningful motivations could thereby be established for the use of botanical themes by street artists and craftspeople, which are readily available as a resource for public pedagogy about plants. Plant motifs are common in street art and design artifacts in India. Clear motivations for the public use of these motifs are outlined in the article. The combination of widespread plant motifs and the rich tapestry of motivations for presenting them in the public space offers good scope for a public pedagogy curriculum that highlights the traditional and culturally rich symbolic function of plants in people's lives in this region.

Literary Forms/Techniques, & Methods of Study

Literary Forms/Techniques, & Methods of Study Christopher T. Begg 887. Ryan P. Bonfiglio, "Visualizing Literacy: Images, Media, and Method," BibInt 25 (2017) 293-319. Whereas biblical scholars have long been interested in questions about textual literacy in the ancient world, relatively little attention has been given to the concept of visual [End Page 301] literacy, i.e., the extent to which images were produced and read as a type of language. This article introduces the visual literacy concept as this has been developed in recent work in visual culture studies and then presents a series of probes that attempt to assess the degree of prominence of visual literacy in the ANE world. Though it is not possible to determine a precise rate of visual literacy in the ANE, there is ample evidence to suggest that those who produced and/or commissioned art were highly concerned about questions regarding the readability of their materials and often privileged artistic motifs over epigraphic content in the design and implementation of certain mixed-media artifacts. These lines of evidence suggest that images functioned as a prominent vehicle of communication in the ancient world alongside, and sometimes in place of, text-based media. Research on visual literacy not only sheds light on the ancient media contexts of the biblical world, but also offers a more explicit rationale for how and why ancient images should be used in biblical interpretation today. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 888. Brian Charles Dipalma, "Intersections between Iconographic and Gendered Approaches to Biblical Interpretation," BibInt 25 (2017) 320-41. This paper explores the intersections between the two approaches to biblical interpretation cited in its title. Focusing on the ways that visual images from the ANE have been incorporated into the study of the Hebrew Bible (HB), I identify four such intersections. The examples of these cited here show that participation in the iconographic turn provides an important resource for the development of HB gender studies. I also seek to show that the interactions discussed in this article can be mutually fruitful. In other words, including gender as an area of inquiry can also enhance the iconographic turn in biblical studies. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 889. [Second Temple Jewish Historiography] Ari Finkelstein, "Fitting a Square Peg into a Round Hole: Categorizing Works of Jewish Historiography of the Second Temple Period," JSJ 49 (2018) 303-29. The categories of Jewish historiography of the Second Temple period used by scholars frame how they and their students approach crucial texts of this era and shape our understanding of its history. Yet, these categories are fraught with difficulties. F.'s article explores the issue via an examination of Daniel R. Schwartz's categorization of Second Temple historiography as either Palestinian or diasporan. While these categories do yield some interesting insights, they also involve far too many exceptions. Against this background, F. seeks to show that such efforts at categorization warp our understanding of Second Temple historiography. Rather than categorizing Second Temple historiographic works, F. suggests that each work ought to be considered from the perspective of its author's aims. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 890. Brandon R. Grafius, "Text and Terror: Monster Theory and the Hebrew Bible," Currents in Biblical Research 16 (1, 2017) 34-49. While biblical scholars have long been interested in the monsters of the Hebrew Bible, it is only in the last several decades that theoretical approaches to the monster phenomenon have made their way into biblical studies. Originating in the fields of psychoanalysis and anthropology, monster theory looks at the construction of various monsters, arguing that the way a culture creates its monsters reveals the anxieties of that culture. My article explores the uses of monster theory in recent works of biblical scholarship and seeks [End Page 302] to demonstrate that in these works the theory has been used to read the biblical monster figures studied as representations of chaos. The article further identifies monstrous imagery as a rhetoric of trauma, and notes that the boundaries between the biblical monster and the self are shifting and unstable. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B...

THE REVOLUTION AND THE PEOPLE OF L. LEONOV AND V. SHAROV: HISTORIOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE OF TWO WRITERS

The article examines the historical communication between two writers – Leonid Leonov («The Pyramid») and V. Sharov («Rehearsals», «Before and During», «Raising Lazarus», «Be like children»). The analysis featured the central artistic images and motifs of their novels, namely the Russian revolution and the people. According to the hypothesis, there are points of convergence between their historiosophical concepts. The Russian history, the way it was presented in their novels, was subjected to a multidimensional analysis, which revealed its catastrophism and eschatology. The revolution was largely demythologized by both Leonov and Sharov: they did not see it as an event that opened the possibility of creating a new world (paradise on earth) and a new man. So was the image of a God-bearing people who lost faith in the pursuit of social miracles. Both writers saw the revolution as the central historiosophical image of all Russian history. Both authors stressed the catastrophic and eschatological effect the revolution had for the foundations of Russian life, traditions, and Existence. Both authors used the symbolism of fire devouring Russia, its people, and every individual. In their novels, the revolution was an abyss which devoured millions of people and the country itself. L. Leonov followed the theory of cyclical nature of Russian history; for him, the phenomenological essence of the revolution was a strange and terrible delusion that captured the country and its people. V. Sharov was trying to prove the usual, repeatable character of revolution in Russian history: the cyclical nature of history was obvious to the writer. Sharov’s artistic strategy was to reproduce the individual word as a reaction to the revolution, words as expressions of attitudes towards reality, the metaphysical world, and God. History, according to Sharov, retains the traces of individual presence: it has a memory of i ts own.

Denkyemmireku: A Usable Past for A New African State

In Ghana – The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (1971), Nkrumah recounts the deliberations within the United Gold Coast Convention on J. B. Danquah’s proposal for adopting the Akan art motif Funtummireku Denkyemmireku (Denkyemmireku, for short), the proverbial two-headed crocodile, as emblem for the emerging nation of Ghana. Dismissing it as a “hideous monstrosity” that symbolizes selfishness, it was never adopted. Yet, the art motif, a kind of jeremiad that says pity that poor crocodile, whose two heads cannot stop fighting over food, even though they share one stomach, is a recognition of the dialectic of nature as one of unity in diversity, the very essence of the hallowed African monistic thesis of matter. This paper posits that Denkyemmireku embodies a potent philosophical and ideological symbol capable of serving as a usable past for a much-needed reconstruction of a more legitimate African state.
 
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 1 Some aspects of this article have been previously published in the Journal of Black Studies by the author. See, Kwasi Boadi, “The Ontology of Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism and the Democratic Theory and Practice in Africa – A Diopian Perspective.” Journal of Black Studies, Volume 30, Number 4 / March 2000, 475–501.

Überlegungen zu der artistischen Prosa Gottfried Benns

The article discusses some problems connected with the plane of meaning of Gottfried Benn's artistic prose. There is an indissoluble connection between the artistic motifs, style, technique of narration and the construction of the reflected world of the analyzed prose. It is emphasized in the article that an attempt to impose his own artistic vision of the world on the reader is the main aim of all Benn's creative manipulations.

Ноктюрн М. Глинки для фортепиано или арфы и его культурно-автобиографические смыслы

Статья посвящена рассмотрению культурно-автобиографических смыслов Ноктюрна Es-dur М. Глинки (1828 г.) для фортепиано или арфы, изначально ориентированного на два инструмента. Анализ художественной мотивации такого композиторского решения позволяет осознать значение этого раннего сочинения в пианизме Глинки. Внимание сконцентрировано на каждом из трех смысловых маркеров названия сочинения: ноктюрн (как жанр пианизма Глинки) – арфа и ноктюрн – фортепиано и ноктюрн. Рассматривается значение жанра ноктюрна в пианизме Глинки, а также смыслы, связанные с его арфовой и фортепианной интерпретациями. Используются перспективный и ретроспективный векторы рассмотрения – т.е., осмысление направленности композиторских поисков в конце 20-х годов, а также констатация принципов, которые сформировались в этом сочинении и впоследствии закрепились в фортепианном стиле Глинки.

Comparing the current and long-term career motivations of artists and business-people: Is everyone intrinsic in the end?

We considered the interplay of intrinsic and external career motivation by comparing two relevant vocational groups: artists and businesspersons. In Study 1 business students, relative to art students, reported more external and less intrinsic motivations for their current majors, and aspired more to money, status, and appearance in the future. However, the two groups were no different on intrinsic future aspirations for growth, connection, and contribution. In Study 2 business students again had more external and less intrinsic career motivation. However, they were again no different in their intrinsic future aspirations, and also, were no different from art students in their longer-term career motivations. Study 3 used a sample of mTurk workers and replicated the basic pattern of three-way interactions. Physical scientists/science students, also examined in all studies, tended to have current and longer-term motivations lying midway between the art and business groups. Consistent with organismic perspectives on human nature, it appears that everyone aspires for a meaningful and enjoyable future; however, business types may put off these motivations in the present, whereas artistic types pursue them directly. This lends support to the notion that despite motivational differences in the present, everyone desires to be intrinsic in the end.

IKONOGRAFI SEBAGAI LANGKAH KERJA KREATIF CIPTA SASTRA ANAK DARI RELIEF CANDI

Relief as a form of local wisdom comes in one form as a tool to immerse moral values in antiquity. However, the difference is too long to make relief is no longer popular in this increasingly digital era. Therefore, effort is needed to popularize the stories in relief into children's stories so that they are more easily digested, enjoyed, and used as media of character building that has been mandated by the law. The method of reading works of art that is still rarely used to reconstruct relief stories. Relief stories are only confirmed through the search of written documents that are now increasingly rare existence. The theory in question is iconography. Through this theory, the reliefs can be read and then the reading results are combined and become a story. In the preparation of the story, this theory requires several steps of work, namely, factual description and expressional descriptions. This is understood by identifying the basic shape, the arrangement of a particular line and color, or the unique shape of a piece of bronze or a stone, a natural picture such as man, animal, plant, life-aid and identifying relationships among them as an event. Some things that have been connected are connected, then character expression is exposed through poses and or gesturenya. This is called an artistic motif. The second stage is iconography, which is the process of reading the secondary meaning of the textual aspect (visual traits / artistic motives), by looking at the relationship between the visual features of a work of art with themes and concepts based on the interpretation of imagination or images, stories and allegories or symbols). For that, it takes literary studies as supporting in the form of various theories such as anthropology, sociology, socio-culture, or lifestyle, literary works, and philosophy in the context of the work studied. A specific theme or concept is expressed by the objects of art and events in the work. Keyword: iconography, relief, child literature

Pigments, binders, and ages of rock art at Viuda Quenzana, Santa Cruz, Patagonia (Argentina)

The first direct AMS radiocarbon dating of two rock art motifs in separate rock shelters (VQ1 and VQ2) at the Viuda Quenzana (VQ) archaeological locality in Patagonia, has provided median probability ages of 3190 cal BP for two reddish dots, and 520 cal BP (1430 CE) for a pink negative hand. These ages are consistent with evidence of occupation of sites in the locality and in the nearby region during the later part of the Middle Holocene (8200–4200 cal BP) and Late Holocene (4200 cal BP to present), as indicated by ages for bones and charcoal from sediments in the VQ8 and VQ7 rockshelters, and the nearby La Martita 4 and La Gruta 1 and 3 rockshelters ranging from ca. 5470 to 305 cal BP (Rubinos Perez 2003; Franco et al. 2013; Brook et al. 2015). The pink hand is relatively recent, which supports the notion that such artwork continued through the Late Holocene despite changes in other artistic motifs. Characterization by Raman spectroscopy, powder x-ray diffraction, and high-resolution scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy shows that: 1) hematite is the main pigment in both the dot and hand motifs, 2) the reddish dot paint includes a specific type of hematite, microplaty hematite, and 3) animal fat appears to have been added as a binder to the reddish dot paint. Thus, rock art paint production at VQ involved two distinct processes. One, used to paint dots, entailed mixing a mineral coloring substance (hematite) with an organic binder (animal fat), which was then applied to the rock substrate with a painting tool and/or fingers. The second process, used to produce the hand motif, entailed using a mineral coloring substance (hematite) with no binder (or with a binder that left little chemical trace), which was then applied to the rock substrate by spraying, probably with the mouth.

Rui Morais. Greek Art from Oxford to Portugal and Back Again: Tribute to Maria Helena Da Rocha-Pereira, with a foreword by Delfim Leão.

This is really a book about the transmission of motifs in ancient art, and essentially consists of a series of examples linked by a very brief and somewhat idiosyncratic text which appears to have had no editing; the penultimate sentence reads ‘The theme of the migration and circulation of images, subject to certain coordinates and the complexities of historical times, manifests in an anachronistic manner, lost in the collective memory’.

Examples of Free Cloud Ribbon Motifs in Medallions of Ottoman Bookbinding

The most basic and central decoration element of the Ottoman bookbinding is the medallion. The medallions which located in the center of the cover and the envelope flap, have been decorated with many different motifs throughout history. One of these motifs is cloud motif, it is important in point of its connection with the sky dragon which is regarded as the origin of water, abundance and rebirth in Turkish mythology. This study is prepared to reveal the examples of free cloud ribbon motifs on cover and envelope flap medallions of Ottoman bookbinding that located in various museums and libraries. At the beginning of the work, the varieties of the cloud motif, its historical adventure, its background and its use in the art of Ottoman bookbinding are given. 8 types of free cloud ribbon motifs of medallions of bookbinding that are worked on, are presented with drawing in the table. In the following tables, description, examples and bookbinding technique of each type are included. The purpose of this study is to reveal the diversity of cloud motifs used in medallions of bookbinding, to determine the techniques of the medallion on which the motifs and to create a scientific knowledge about the use of the cloud motif in Art of Ottoman Bookbinding.

Musicality as an Aesthetic Process of Filtering in Thomas W. Shapcott's Poetry

How does music transcend individual experience? Is music the filter to purify everything? How does everything in the poet become music? Such questions are raised, now and then, by the conscious reader of poetry in general and that of the Australian poet Thomas W. Shapcott in particular. My present research-paper attempts to present an answer for these questions via probing the individuality of Shapcott's poetic experience and how does the poet's personal and experimental musicality as an artistic motif and aesthetic perspective play a key role in purifying language of its lies and its daily impurities. In the first place, my account is apt to find an aesthetic meaning for the action of transcending the individual experience in selected poems written by Shapcott. The philosophical and ritual thought of musicality is interplayed with the aesthetic power of poetry. Both aesthetic energies stem from the individual experience of the poet to transcend the borders of individuality and being absorbed and saturated in the wide pot of human universality. In other words, the poem after being filtered and purified musically and aesthetically is no longer an individual experience owned by its producer only, rather it becomes a human experience for its conscious readers. Music as a motif and meaning, regardless of its technical significance, is controversial in Shapcott's poetic diction. Music, here, is not a mere artistic genre; rather it is a ritualistic and philosophical thought. The paper is to investigate how Shapcott's musicality is constructed on aesthetics of balance and conformity in poetry and life.

Integration of natural stone features and conservation of the Upper Palaeolithic Côa Valley and Siega Verde open-air rock-art

ABSTRACTThis paper considers the established phenomenon of the integration of pre-existing natural features into Western European Upper Palaeolithic parietal imagery, aiming to present a preliminary inventory of such cases in the Côa Valley and Siega Verde rock-art sites. Attention is also given to other cases at these sites from which it can be inferred that areas of the engraved surfaces persisted since the original motifs were made until today in quite reasonable condition. It is concluded that the present research further emphasizes the complex traits behind the creation of Upper Palaeolithic artistic motifs in both the Portuguese and Spanish sites, and also suggests a reasonable preservation rate of Côa and Siega Verde rock-art.

Visualizing Literacy: Images, Media, and Method

While biblical scholars have long been interested in questions about textual literacy in the ancient world, relatively little attention has been given to the concept of visual literacy – that is, the extent to which images were produced and read as a type of language. The following article introduces this concept as it has been developed in recent work in visual culture studies and then offers a series of probes that attempt to assess the prominence of visual literacy in the ancient Near Eastern world. Though it is not possible to arrive at a precise rate of visual literacy, there is ample evidence to suggest that those who produced/commissioned art were highly concerned about questions regarding the readability of their materials and often privileged artistic motifs over epigraphic content in the design and implementation of certain mixed-media artifacts. These lines of evidence suggest that images functioned as a prominent vehicle of communication in the ancient world alongside, and sometimes in place of, text-based media. Research on visual literacy not only sheds new light on the ancient media contexts of the biblical world but also offers a more explicit rationale for how and why ancient images should be used in biblical interpretation today.

DECONSTRUCTION OF IDEOLOGICAL DISCOURSES: CH’OE INHUN’S SŎYUGI (THE JOURNEY TO THE WEST, 西遊記) AS A PARODY OF XIYOUJI (THE JOURNEY TO THE WEST, 西遊記)

In the academic realm, the title The Journey to the West is generally identified with the Shidetang edition of the 100-chapter novel allegedly written by Wu Cheng’en in the Ming Dynasty at the end of the sixteenth century. In Korea, though, the title is generally associated not with the 100-chapter novel but with various shorter retellings, which tend to highlight the fantastic and adventurous facets of the story. For this reason, many scholars have assumed that Ch’oe Inhun’s Sŏyugi, written between 1966 and 1971, is a parody of these overwhelmingly popular retellings, when in fact the author is parodying the complex 100-chapter novel. Much of the scholarly analysis of Sŏyugi focuses on reading Ch’oe Inhun’s novel against the politically charged background of 1960s Korea. By undertaking a close comparison of Sŏyugi and the 100-chapter novel, I argue that such a spatiotemporal frame is too narrow. Unlike other retellings of The Journey to the West, Sŏyugi does not merely share characters or artistic motivations with the original text, but also makes use of parallels on the structural and stylistic level, and these have generally been neglected in other studies. Sŏyugi demonstrates how ideological debates can be reduced to relative truths through its parody of the many voices and perspectives present in The Journey to the West.