| Pliny the Elder claims that drawing originated in Greece. The lover of a young woman of Sicyon was about to depart. She saw that he was casting a shadow on the wall, and traced his shadow to remember him. In this story, artist, drawing and model spring into being simultaneously. A motive links them: the model is precious to the artist, and must shortly disappear. The drawing is a means of rebellion – rebellion against departure, against loss, against time, which sweeps away every mortal thing.
I am a working painter who very much sympathizes with that young woman of Sicyon. I adore the models I work with, and I make artwork in rebellion against that merciless time which brings fleeting life before our eyes, and takes it away again. But since the age of myths, the problem of depiction has evolved. Now it is established that an image can be made which resembles a thing. But in what does this resemblance consist?
Lately, it has seemed to me that one can look at, and one can see. To look at is to retain priority, to cast a mild eye upon the object in all its physical parts, and grasp the appearance of those parts. It is necessary for the figurative artist to look at, but it is not enough. To see is to become secondary, to be subsumed in that which is beheld. To see is to begin to know, and to allow oneself to be shattered, to disappear. |
