“Intergraphicality” might be a good way to describe it.
Since intertextuality is so broad, it would be useful to have more nuanced terms to
describe particular kinds of intertextuality.
Typically,
I’ve seen this simply called “visual intertextuality.” The concept of intertextuality is
all-encompassing. If it means “the shaping of a text’s meaning by referring to its
difference/similarity to other texts,” this becomes a very broad definition. It is even
broader than this. Some critics, such as Roland Barthes, consider that all signs (visual
and otherwise) and even events of history can be read as texts. If you follow this line
of thinking, all visual, textual and audible representations have a “textual” aspect to
them. I’ve read analyses of visual art where the language used to describe its “visual
intertextuality” is the same as if it were describing a literary text. If all signs are
textual, they all can be discussed in terms of
intertextuality.
But, the broadness of the term has
received some criticism because there are nuances to this idea of referring to other
texts. An allusion is one example. This term existed long before the concept of
intertextuality became a buzz word. An allusion is a kind of intertextuality. So, there
are already existing terms which are more narrowly defined types of intertextuality. As
far as visual types, I have not seen one widely accepted definitive
term.
The only term I know of that comes close is
“ekphrasis,” which is the act of describing visual art as literary. Since this is
describing one art form in terms of another art form, it is intertextual by being
interdisciplinary. I guess if you wanted to make this more precise, you might say
“intertextual ekphrasis,” but intergraphicality works just as well. Who knows which
terms will be coined and generally accepted?
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