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Tysta bilder och ljudande
Titel:
Tysta bilder och ljudande
Auteur:
Reutersward, Patrik
Verschenen in:
Konsthistorisk tidskrift
Paginering:
Jaargang 66 (1997) nr. 4 pagina's 183-195
Jaar:
1997
Inhoud:
In the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James there is a most singular interlude (18:2), during which everything comes, literally speaking, to a standstill. After having installed the Virgin in a cave near Betlehem, Joseph went out to look for a midwife. Suddenly he “both went and did not go about”, and a group of labourers, gathered around a cauldron, had stopped chewing and eating, all of them now looking into the sky. Even the goats and sheep had ceased to move, and their shepherd stood there motionless with his arm raised. Then, just as suddenly, everything started to move again. This is very much how every picture appears-before we intervene as beholders and set in train the activities shown. We accept Joseph taking just one step, knowing that only through our imagination will he move on within the scenery. Nevertheless, stillness and silence are qualities we seek and appreciate in certain pictures, whereas the composition and execution of others invite us to indulge in their suggestions of motion. Horizontal and vertical lines favour a quiet approach, while diagonal ones and pointed angles tend to suggest not only motion but sound as well. Among silent paintings, Piero della Francesca's Nativity panel in London may be singled out (Fig. 1 ), as well as the one by Jean Hey (the Master of Moulins) in Autun (Fig. 2). On the other hand, Botticellis Nativity panel of 1501 in London (Fig. 3) stands out, with its zigzag arrangement and greater emotionality, as a more sounding work. As for pictures in which music is being performed, they seem to demand a rather quiet setting, if the music is to be felt. This goes at least for traditional chamber music (a contemporary jazz group in action may demand a “louder” pictorial organisation). As a precondition, there is also need of some kind of sounding-board within the picture (as exemplified by Figs. 4-6). For the painted Sonatas (Figs. 7-8) by the Lithuanian painter and composer Ciurlionis (1875-1911), dealt with above, see the special study in Konsthistorisk Ttdskrifi 1993, 1-15, particularly 9ff. (written in English). An open mouth and the play of features add little to the sonority of pictures. Edward Hopper's Four Lane Road (Fig. 9) presents a woman calling out to her husband, while he is enjoying the sunset at day's end. It may seem as if there was no sound-track to this “film-strip”. The landscape sides with him through its silence and horizontality, in contradistinction to the parti-coloured world of the gas-station, to which his wife still belongs. Echo by the Finnish artist Ellen Thesleff (Fig. 10), focuses on the listening itself, which includes listening to the silence as well. We note the girl's call and await the echo, but the silence of the bright summer evening may take over in the end. Among other paintings whose very titles allude to sound, Munch's The Scream is the most formidable (Fig. 11). In front of us on the wooden bridge, or road, there is this agonized figure who may, or may not, be screaming himself. The decisive point is that he, by covering his ears, tries to ward off that far greater scream which pervades the whole scenery. Commenting on this painting, Munch emphasized that it expresses one evening when the sunset made the skies appear as red as blood, and he felt as if a scream resounded all over the place. When transposing this experience onto canvas ("the colours screamed"), he knew also how to widen the scream by bringing together the red streams of the sky with the undulating shores in a vertiginously revolving, almost nauseous movement. As evidenced by common parlance ("loud” colours), strong colours do suggest sound. Yet, loudness may be achieved no less effectively in black-and-white (Goya) and works with only subdued colours. The classical piece of demonstration for us today, is Picasso's Guernica. However, to end these deliberations a little more cheerfully, its pictorial organisation may be elucidated just as well with the help of two comics, the first of which may have appeared in Punch (Fig. 12). We behold the living-room of an elderly couple; the wife is seated at the TV, while the husband, resolute as he is, has climbed a chair in order to knock at the ceiling with his broomstick. In the apartment above, apparently, a stormy party is going on, which is nothing but Picasso's Guernica! To let this painful and prestigeous work encroach upon the retired couple's contented life, is English humour of the more sophisticated kind. However, the association would have been pointless, if there had been nothing in Picasso's vast painting to suggest noise. In fact, it belongs to the noisiest items to be sought out in the history of painting, and this our English draughtsman knew. Now, what is it that makes Guernica such a mess? It is its extremely disintegrative structure, with diagonal lines that antagonistically cross each other, leaving no scope for a pause. The whole surface is tattered, forming one vast chaos. And chaos never remains silent. The lucky strike was too good not to be taken up anew by another draughtsman, this time perhaps in The New Yorker (Fig. 13). Instead of the old couple, there is an elderly American millionairess instructing her stout chamber-maid, who really looks able to buckle down to work. The whole room reflects the structure of Guernica which incidentally is hanging on the wall. In the scene that follows below, we behold the outcome, while the splendid maid is already busy in the next room. Indeed, so efficient is her zeal, she has even tidied up Picasso's picture, which now perfectly matches the restored rectangular order of the furniture. By exchanging the diagonal lines for horizontal and vertical ones, she has calmed down Picasso. Because, just like the draughtsman, she knew that such measures promote silence and stillness. And she has disentangled all knots and obscurities like Piero della Francesca would have done, and turned all mouths and muzzles upward into smiles, ready for the photographer's flash. The figures remain immobile for a while, just as Joseph, the shepherds and their livestock did on that memorable first Christmas eve.
Uitgever:
Routledge
Bronbestand:
Elektronische Wetenschappelijke Tijdschriften
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