The aim of this study is to explore the theme of art in Anna-Karin Palms novel Målarens döttrar. Art as a theme extends across several different levels of the novel and works of art are discussed, depicted and described. The essay examines the role art plays in the narrative of the novel and as a part of the novel’s language. The theoretical framework includes philosophy of art, debates about art and artistry and intermedial studies that explore the ways in which literary texts transform pictures, including ekphrasis, iconic projection and the concept of the artist’s novel. The result of the study shows that the English painter Thomas Gainsborough’s painting “The Painter’s Daughters Chasing a Butterfly” plays a major role in the novel. The novel’s theme, its narrative and language is heavily influenced by and mirror the themes and features in the painting. The thesis further argues that Anna-Karin Palm not only describes art, but also comments on a changing artworld expanding over a hundred years and makes art play a key role in the two main characters' personal development. In the meeting with different views on art and by interpreting their surroundings as pictures, Anna-Karin Palm illuminates the two main characters' personal development. The novel's many perspectives on art and artistic themes all work together to create an understanding of the characters’ self-realization and personal growth.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the function of visual art in Torgny Lindgren's novels Till sanningens lov (1991), Dorés Bibel (2005) and Klingsor (2014) and the short story collection I Brokiga Blads vatten (1999). Visual art in Lindgren's prose is approached both as an instance of description and in terms of an activity and artefact to be viewed, created and interacted with. By studying ekphrases and "iconic projections" based on intermedial theory, the verbal descriptions of art are shown to have a narrative function, whereby the characters viewing or creating the artwork are reflected. A conspicuous trait of the ekphrases and iconic projections are their focus on details.  The area of creation as an activity relates visual art to crafts, cooking and alchemy, with an emphasis on its material aspects. The creation of art investigates the dualism of genuine versus fake, as well as the relationship between art and commerce. Lindgren's stories depict the market as an arbitrary yet powerful force, alongside individual creative forms of resistance to it.  The manner in which artefacts are described evokes the notion of an enchanted object, in accordance with research on the function of art-objects in contemporary fiction. Being able to discern enchantment in Lindgren's works is based on the conversion of one's vision, which in turn is related to one's view of the world as a whole. Conversion is engendered by methods of irony, ambiguity and the elevation of the humble.