This thesis explores the latent presence of 20th century visual art in the literature of a number of seminal authors from the Modernist period onwards. The term ‘latency’ denotes the more underlying, hidden presence of art, beyond the ‘manifest’ text, and also conveys the largely psychoanalytic approach adopted throughout. In conjunction with this, I explore how and why this latency often appears alongside emergent patterns and characteristics of orality, as explicated by theorists like Marshall McLuhan and Walter J. Ong. The thesis explores some of the key aesthetic traits of this mentality as they appear within both art and literature, showing affinities across these forms.