The beautiful and the sinister: leitmotiv and digital illustration

Abstract

This paper explores interartistic relationships between literature and painting through the concept of the “cultural intertext,” proposed by Jesús Camarero, emphasizing how artistic expressions create dialogic networks of memory, influence, and reinterpretation. Drawing on Eugenio Trías’s theory of the beautiful and the sinister, the study analyzes an original illustration inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann, where beauty and death coexist as complementary forces. The artwork reveals the uncanny tension between the animate and the inanimate, highlighting how visual art transforms literary and philosophical ideas into symbolic and emotional imagery.