Joyce uses colours to portray Stephen’s thoughts. That in itself is not reason enough to conclude that there is a definite relation between the novel and the visual arts. Nevertheless, let us take a closer look at the passage to see if we may come across something a little more concrete. If we imagine an artist visualizing a portrait before painting it, it is possible we shall find him thinking of the colour first. We are not concerned here with representative art. The portrait must represent the model’s character and mood. A few patches of colour or a few lines should serve. There is absolutely no need for a photographic representation. For example, a chrome yellow background with the outline of a face done in cerulean blue, and a bit of ochre and crimson added to titanium white applied in bold but soft strokes would convey a definite impression. The impression would be one of freshness, and of course, beauty. The model might be ugly by conventional standards, but that is not important. If the artist sees beauty, then he must be allowed to have the final say. The brush strokes may be controlled or spontaneous to add details – not of the physiognomy, but of the mood. A few short, brisk strokes might convey the impression of a smile; those same strokes might be enough to tell us that the model is happy. They might also tell us that the artist is happy when he is painting the picture. Perhaps he is even happier than his model is. The position of the subject on the canvas, what we may call space-division of the composition, would definitely tell us if the artist is lonely or at peace.

What is to be noted is that the eyes and the nose or the lips have not been painted at all. They are not indispensable. It is the impression that is really important. The experience must be minimized to a few strokes, a few blocks of colour, so that the final expression is a distilled form of the artist’s impression.

In Stephen’s case, there follows a mental sensation of an undefined face or colour of a face. It is as if the mental sensation is isolating the character of the undefined face into a colour. The colour is enough to create the impression that Stephen visualizes. It then fades, as when the initial layer of paint that forms the base is brushed upon by a more opaque layer of body colour. Then strokes of pure colour are added so that they will retain their freshness even after centuries have passed. The colour faded and became strong like a changing glow of pallid brick red. There is then a reference to the ‘raw reddish glow’, which Stephen had seen on the shaven faces of the priests. It was the glow that had caught his eye. Now, in his visualization, the impression is distilled into the colour alone. The colour represents the face, the person, and the character. It is only after this that the face begins to take some sort of shape. Details are added so that the portrait begins to resemble someone in particular. When such details are added on the canvas, the viewer begins to see not just the impression of a character, but a particular person as well. The viewer tries to associate the half-formed features with someone he knows or has seen. The impression becomes localized and is placed within the world of ordinary experience. It begins to look like ‘someone 1 know’. This ‘someone’ has a character that may or may not be similar to the one that the artist has tried to portray. The impression is lost. The viewer’s mind dissociates itself from the artist’s creation to search for that one person whom the portrait resembles. The viewer’s impression of the person takes over and the original painting recedes into the background.

When Stephen begins to visualize, the impression is one of vivid sensation. There is a sensation of pure colour. When he tries to trace the origin of the colour, the picture becomes a little more detailed and the unpleasant impression of one particular man intrudes into the mind. It is possible that the laboured syntax of the final long sentence represents Joyce’s efforts to show that the artist’s impression has somehow reduced itself to an unpleasant, localized impression of a person.

It may not be unreasonable to assume that we have indeed found what we set out to look for: something ‘a little more concrete’. Let us now see if it is possible to find a relationship with painting even in a passage where colour does not play a dominant role.

The hawk and the eagle have often been classified as ‘bird imagery’. However, it is the cry of the cry of the bird ‘on high’, the uninhibited expression that we need to take note of for our purpose. The mind of the artist registers moments of passion carried to such heights as cannot be encompassed within the limits of day-to-day human existence. The mind which is trained from childhood to act in certain specific ways suddenly realizes its inadequacy. The emotions that are building within well up and create a very physical pain, an ache in the throat and even in the heart. In ‘the cry of triumph which his lips withheld cleft his brain’, Joyce is not speaking in abstract images. It is the brain, or the mind that is being cleft, because it is incapable of giving to the lips the uninhibited expression that they crave.

The passage describes the state of any artist prior to creation. There is no painting in this passage, but we feel that it will come. If we look at the brush strokes in Crows Over Cornfield by van Gogh, we might have an idea of what the picture could look like. The strokes are made up of pure colour, applied as if in frenzy. The flesh-tinted road that leads into the cornfield is rushing into the picture. The cornfield is swaying in the wind, and the blue of the sky in swirling strokes is almost a personification of an approaching storm. There is death in the air, in the black strokes that form the crows. The painting leaps out of emotions very similar in their intensity to those of Stephen’s. The only difference is that van Gogh was an artist when he did the painting. He could bring his mind to put his feelings on the surface of the canvas. In Stephen’s case, the lips that wanted to cry out were controlled by a mind not yet mature enough to let them do so. Van Gogh’s mind could make his thoughts and passions transform into a painting. The tremendous force that is present in every part of the canvas makes us wonder what the thoughts might have been like. The emotions were certainly distilled before they passed into a different medium of existence, but it appears to us as if hardly any of them were lost. If Stephen could cry out like the hawk or the eagle, if he could sing out the cry of triumph, then the expression might have been as forceful as of this painting. This does not happen because here we have the young man, not the artist. Joyce is painting a portrait of the artist as a young man. This particular section of the novel may be related to one on a canvas with pure hues of blue and yellow and white placed together in thick strokes with the paint standing out on the surface. The strokes are definite, they are forceful, but they are also too close to allow each colour to show itself on its own. They seem to be trying to break free of bonds that have been created by the painter to give the impression of an aching desire to cry aloud withheld by the lips.