NAGAO Takashi
To describe art history means to exchange
visual images with words. However, visual images and words are not equivalent,
and cannot be exchanged perfectly. Some surplus remains inevitably on the side
of the visual image.
Because
of this surplus, it is difficult to describe 20th century art history. Attempts
to represent this surplus with words tend to result in a profusion of words,
making these texts impossible to dechipher.
One
way to deal with this surplus is to separate it into pure formal elements: form,
color, medium etc.. The aim is for
the image to coincide with the physical reality of the formal element as
closely as possible.
We
cannot, however, describe surrealist visual images in this way because they can
not turn into physical reality themselves. This is due to the surplus, which is
irresolvable to neither words nor physical reality. Here, I call this surplus,
the realm of image, and describe the
process from its manifestation to its extreme form.
＊
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[fig.1］Giorgio de Chirico, The Enigma of an Afternoon of
Autumn, 1909.
|
Giogio de Chirico’s motivation for The Enigma of an Afternoon
of Autumn (1909) [fig.1] can be summarized like this: One clear day afternoon in Autumn, he
sat down at Santa Croche Place
in Florence. Due
to an intestinal desease, his senses were disturbed. Lukewarm autumn sunshine
lightened the statue of David and the façade of the church. De Chirico reflects
on his epiphany as such:
Then I had a strange impression
that I saw all things for the first time. And the composition of my work came
to my spirit; and when I look at this painting, I always remember that moment:
this moment, however, is an enigma for me, because it is inexplicable. I’d also
like to call the work which resulted from this moment an enigma.
J’eus alors l’impression étrange que je voyais toutes les choses pour
la première fois. Et la composition de mon tableau me vint à l’ésprit; et
chaque fois que je regarde cette peinture je revis ce moment: le moment
pourtant est une énigme pour moi, car il est inexplicable. J’aime appeler aussi
l’œuvre qui en résulte une énigme[1].
This experience marked the beginning of a
series of images called the Metaphysical paintings. From the beginning, it came
as an enigma, an inexplicable image.
For
De Chirico this experience resembled the mysterious atmosphere Stimmung of Nietzsche’s works. The metaphysical
painting is an experiment which visualises this sensation[2].
More theoretical explanation concerning this can be found in “We metaphysicians…”
(1919). There, De Chirico claims that Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were the first
people to show the profound value of the nonsense
of life and that he is the painter who applied this nonsense to painting
for the first time[3].
This
claim explains, to some extent, the strange fact that although they originate
from Nietzsche, a critic of metaphysics, they were called Metaphysical paintings.
For Nietzsche, as in Human, All Too Human
(1878), there is no doubt that the metaphysical world exists. Such a world,
however, is anti-human, and has no meaning for humans, and until this claim, metaphysics
and religion had disguised this world as something meaningful; that is their
fraud[4].
The
idea that the metaphysical world is anti-human can also be found in
Schopenhauer’s philosophy, who influenced Nietzsche and is often cited by De
Chirico. Following Kant, Schopenhauer also divides the world into the thing-in-itself and its phenomenon. The world of phenomena is recognized by humans and
explained by science, but its absolute base can never be recognized or
explained. The territory of metaphysics is this inexplicable thing[5].
In Christianity it is the territory
of God. In Kant it is the
“unknown X.” In Schopenhauer it is “Will.” Finally, in Nietzsche, it is the “nonsense.”
“In the beginning was nonsense”[6].
 |
| [fig.2］Giorgio
de Chirico, Metaphysical Composition,
1914. |
That
is to say, the Metaphysical painting [fig.2] is not what paints something
metaphysical, but what indicates it. Metaphysics is not what explains
inexplicable things but what indicates them. Metaphysical territory, however,
is nonsense, because of its inexplicablity and anti-humanity. Then if it is
based on nonsense, the world represented also becomes nonsense; or enigmatic.
What is the enigma? Usually
it is assumed that it has an “answer,” resulting in a sign, whose signifié is
not manifest. In the metaphysical painting, however, there is no ultimate
signifié; Instead there is nonsense or “nothingness” in metaphysical territory.
Therefore the enigma of metaphysical painting is a sign whose signifié should
exist, but is yet undetermined. As such, the state of the enigma, rather than
the answer will be focused on.
According
to this meaning, the enigma is the surplus of image, the part which is inexchangeable
with words and with physical reality. Because the enigma disappears completely,
when it is exchanged with word (or answer). That is to say, the existence of
the enigma relies on inexchangeablity with words. At the same time, the enigma
can be enigma when it has a relationship to something other than itself. In
other words, it can be enigma only as a sign.
So as long as an enigma is an enigma, it will never coincide with itself as
physical reality. The revelation for De Chirico’s metaphysical painting came as
an image, and he called it an enigma. In this way, the realm of image in De
Chirico’s metaphysical painting came to be.
Of
course, according to Nietzsche, if the world is nonsense, the idea of there
being only one interpretation is denied. Though the world is nonsense, because
of that, the world conceals an infinite possibility of interpretation. The nonsense
and the infinite possibility of interpretation are two sides of one coin. Thus
metaphysical painting gives both a sense of unrest and a sense of anticipation.
Nonsense and the infinite possibility of interpretation appear at the same
time. A sign signifies “something,” but that “something” is not yet determined.
We can understand De Chirico’s “solitude of signs” like this[7].
 |
| ［fig.3］Giorgio
de Chirico, Mystery and Melancholy of the
Street, 1914. |
A
motif symbolizing solitude of signs is the arc, which appears many times in the
metaphysical paintings [fig.3]. According to De Chirico’s citation of Otto
Weininger, there is, in the arc, something “incomplete” and “a necessity and the
possibility of completion,” and “presentiment,” because it is not closed like a
circle[8].
Signs in De Chirico’s metaphysical painting stimulate a sense of expectation
and presentiment because they have no predetermined meanings.
Thus
De Chirico’s arc (arch, arcade) is a boundary between “there” and here, and we
can imagine something on the other side. There is often darkness on the other
side of De Chirico’s arc. This darkness, nothingness, is exactly what allows an
arc to be an arc. It exists as a boundary between existence and non-existence.
By stringing arches on and on, the nonsense and the infinite possibility of
interpretation, increase equally.
However,
metaphysical painting changed its character. One morning in 1919, gazing at
Tiziano Vecellio’s work, De Chirico suddenly had a revelation “What is a great
painting.” De Chirico realized that until then he had been seeing only painted “image[9].”
He began to insert conclusive meaning into the nonsense; the meaning as
painting, the history as classical painting, the technique as matière. After
that, De Chirico dedicated his life not to the pursuit of the image painted,
but to what he called the “matière.”
＊
Yves Tanguy is another influencial surrealist
painter. He speaks about his encouter with the De Chirico’s work:
One day about that time I was
standing on the platform of an autobus going down the rue la Boëtie. Two
paintings in the window of the Galerie
Paul Guillaume caught my eye. I got off the bus to admire them. They were
Chiricos, the first I had ever seen[10].
One of the paintings illustrated there was The Child’s Brain (1914) which at the
time was owned by André Breton. Curiously Breton discovered this painting in
the same way as Tanguy. After this incident, Tanguy began to paint.
Encounters with De Chirico’s work, spoken by
surrealists, shows very much its power as the “image painted.” Breton and
Tanguy were drawn to it after spotting it accidentally from a bus. Ernst, also
a surrealist painter, felt a sensation like déjà vu after seeing a reproduction
of De Chirico’s work in Valori Plastici,
a painting magazine. Magritte, also a surrealist painter, wept tears when he
saw a photograph of the Song of Love
(1914) [11]. Therefore,
the surrealists admonished De Chirico when he began painting matière rather
than image represented. There, the surplus of image was replaced with matière.
The
difference between De Chirico’s style and Surrealism, can be understood through
their attitude toward the nonsense. De Chirico painted the nonsense, or
nothingness of the world. De Chirco
chose to insert there the painting (the matière) as determined meaning. In
contrast, Dada, another art trend, uses the nonsense as a way of attack; Neue Sachlichkeit,
a german trend in painting, stops before confronting nonsense; Surrealism
inserts undetermined meanings, preserving the enigma.
Any
meaning inserted in the nonsense must ultimately be arbitrary. Fixing a
determined meaning and thus hiding the nonsense can result in arbitrary meaning
becoming absolute. When this happens with a nation, race, or certain kind of
ideology, the results can be tragic, include the fascism and communism of this
period. Thus if a meaning is to be inserted in the nonsense, it must not be
absolute. In making the meaning undetermined, the possibility of other meanings
is maintained. Thus the state of enigma is maintained. the enigma is the state
in which signification continuously functions.
Therefore,
in Surrealism, the revelation, according to De Chirico is a priviledge of
genius, is converted to the strange formulas: the dépaysement (the fortuitous encounter upon a non- suitable plane of
two mutually distant realities) or the automatism
(dictation
of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all
aesthetic and moral preoccupation). The revelation loses
its absolute character by being shared as formula and becomes relative (for De
Chirico, the revelation of the nonsense, and inserting the meaning there, are
privileges of genius only). In utilizing these formulas, an attitude which
considers their product as something inexplicable becomes possible. Through
these formulas, it is possible to welcome what comes as enigma.
An
enigma can be enigma as a sign. Accordingly, visual images of Surrealism do not
turn to themselves as physical reality. The practice of Surrealism is to change
the reality to signs indicating something other than itself as physical reality[12].
These practices often take the form of interpretation. Because an object can
easily be a sign in relation to words (interpretation). Therefore the visual
images of Surrealism are always priviledged in relation to words.
However,
a perfect exchange of enigma and words is not the aim. To avoid the disappearance
of the enigma by determined meaning, pluralistic interpretation is necessary.
By this, the possibility of other interpretations must occur. Between the object
and its plural interpretations, determination is deemed impossible. The enigma
functions and persists there. In other words, by exchanging it with words, the
realm of image, inexchangeable with words, by definition, is maintained.
＊
There is, however, a unique example. That is
Yves Tanguy’s world of amorphous beings. Tanguy excludes words as a medium of the
enigma as much as possible, and purifies the realm of image manifested in De
Chirico’s works to its extreme form.
In the Metaphysical painting, the convergent
point (ultimate signifié) of meanings is lost. Hence, the connecting aspects
are also lost and the world becomes an enigma. The names of things, however,
remain. Although we can’t name the whole, we can name each thing.
It is
the same in Surrealism. Practices of Surrealism often take the form of interpretation.
Therefore the individual elements that constitute the image must be, to some
extent, equivalent to words. Namely, it must be namable. Otherwise, we cannot carry
out the exchange of the visual images with words, nor can the inexchangeable enigma
appear there.
On
the other hand, the amorphous beings represented by Tanguy do not have names. Although
we can describe them (“it is like…”), we can never name them (“it is…”). This
is because they are amorphous, and at the same time, they are definite three
dimensional illusions[13].
Things with a definite form are both clearly segmented and fixed. On
the other hand, amorphous beings are in a state of flux and their segments are
ambiguous. Obfuscation of the shape leads to ambiguity of the meaning and
self-identity. According to Georges Bataille, the formless thing decomposes the
segment of the universe[14].
The formless thing tries to escape from words and names.
The world of Tanguy, however, differs from Bataille’s concept of the
“formless.” Though both of them escape from identification and name, that of
Bataille is not necessarily as form but as an operation of devaluation[15].
“Formless thing” is equivalent to low thing and to worthless thing, it is
material reality that is impossible to sublimate. On the other hand, the world
of Tanguy has definite three dimensional illusion, it is material reality sublimated
to image.
At the same time, however, due to this very fact, we cannot name
Tanguy’s image. For example, the images of Arp and Miró try to escape from the name
but only partially succeed. Because of their flat and abstract images, the name
can remain there if only even a few elements. That is to say, two dots can
represent two eyes. Example, Arp’s amorphous image can have a signifié, “man.” In
this sense, the images of Arp and Miró are, to some extent, equivalent to an
ideogram, or, words. The problem there is not elimination of the name, but the transformation
of the name or the distance from it. In other words, if the name is lost
completely, the images turn to pure abstraction and, themselves, become
physical reality.
Different from Arp and Miró, Tanguy paints amorphous images in three
dimensional illusion. Therefore it should have some signifié (it does not mean
that signifié is a real existence).
We cannot, however, name it, because these images are amorphous. The images of
Arp and Miró are amorphous but they are not three dimensional, and so, can be
easily transformed into other signs. In the case of Tanguy, however, the image is
nothing but itself.
Thus Tanguy’s image has no name, leaving it thoroughly
inexchangeable with words. Linguistic elements remaining there include the syntax
(perspective) and the titles which are at the border between the inside and the
outside of the work. At the same time, because Tanguy’s image is three dimensional,
it completely separates itself from physical reality; the world of Tanguy is
what purifies the realm of image, inexchangeable with both words and physical
reality.
Of course, Tanguy is not the only painter who painted amorphous
images in three dimensional illusion. We can find other examples in the images
of Picasso, Dalí, and Magritte. These, however, are exchangeable with words.
Picasso never parts with realistic signifié and Dalí’s images are also
exchangeable with his personal language. In the case of Magritte, sometimes the
amorphous image itself does not have a name, but due to its associasion with other
elements in his work that do, it is registered as “inexchangeable with words”
and is given an arbitrary name.
Additionally, Giacometti changes the amorphous image into sculptures
which are symbolic but physical reality by nature of the medium. In the 1930s,
Alp also changes the amorphous image into physical reality as sculptures.
Tanguy is greatly influenced by this trend in a formal aspect. The appearance
of Dalí, and the transformation of the amorphous image into physical reality as
sculpture by Giacometti and Arp prompted Tanguy to sophisticate and to clarify
his image. Tanguy does not, however, interpret his image and transform it into
physical existence as a sculpture.
Tanguy continues painting the world of
amorpous beings, largely keeping to himself. Hence, Tanguy’s world recedes from
external contexts and is isolated within itself. Each time an image is painted,
the inexchangeability with words grows more and more.
Throughout the 1940s, Tanguy’s amorphous beings grow into huge, hard-looking, complicated masses, excessive as a whole.
 |
| [fig.4] Yves Tanguy, Multiplication of the Arcs, 1954. |
This excessiveness of image
culminates in The Multiplication of the
Arcs [fig.4]. For the beings filling the canvas, there is no more place
to go. Then in what is probably his last work, The Imaginary Numbers, the world turns to darkness [fig.5]. Some of
the beings that covered the canvas disappear, leaving dark emptiness behind.
The following year, Tanguy passed away.
Uncommon for Tanguy, the title, The
Multiplication of the Arcs, can be read directly. Tanguy’s image cannot be
named. Therefore its titles inevitably become metaphorical. The Multiplication of the Arcs, however,
can be interpreted: the “arc,” namely the arced things “multipilicate,” to the
point of filling the canvas. This title describes the image as it is[16].
In addition, if the “arc” indicates the amorphous being, this generation of
Tanguy’s world can be expressed as “the multiplication of the arcs.”
The “arc” also connects to the arch. De Chirico’s arch symbolized
the solitude of signs. In turn the generation of Tanguy’s world can be grasped
as the Multiplication of the “Arch,” namely the multiplication of the solitude
of signs[17].
De Chirico represented the world as nonsense in the metaphysical painting. The
world that had lost its ultimate signifié became enigma, and the realm of image
began to manifest. Tanguy who became a painter because of his encounter with De
Chirico’s image, metaphorically developed De Chirico’s enigma in a pure way,
and such, purified the realm of image into its extreme form.
 |
[fig.5]Yves Tanguy, The
Imaginary Numbers, 1954.
|
Another title, Imaginary
Numbers, refers to the number which exists only as a concept. For example, the
number expressed through the formula a + bi (i is defined as i²＝-1, a and b are real numbers, and b is not 0). Surely it can be an exact
metaphor of metaphysical nonsense indicated by De Chirico, and of the realm of
image purified by Tanguy. This also can only be indicated by words or concepts.
In this extreme form, “multiplication of the arc” has returned to the very metaphysical nonsense from which it originated.
Abbreviation:
· Bataille (1929): Georges Bataille, “Informe,” in: Documents, vol.1, no.7, décembre 1929, p.382.
· Clair (1983): William Rubin, Wieland Schmied, Jean Clair (eds.), Giorgio de Chirico (exh.cat.), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1983.
· De Chirico (1985): Giorgio de Chirico, Maurizio Fagiolo (ed.), Il meccanismo del pensiero. Critica, polemica, autobiograpfia 1911-1943, Giulio Einaudi, Torino, 1985.
· De Chirico (2008): Giorgio de Chirico, Memorie della mia vita, Rizzoli Editore, Milano, 1962; Tascabili Bompiani, 2008.
· Krauss (1981): Rosalind Krauss, “The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism,” in: October, no.19, Winter 1981, pp.3-34, reprinted in; Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, The MIT Press, 1985.
· Krauss (1997): Yves-Alain Bois, Rosalind Krauss, Formless: A User’s Guide, Zone Books, 1997.
· Nagao (2009): Nagao Takashi, “Le domaine de l’image: la particularité d’Yves Tanguy au surréalisme,” in: Aesthetics, no.13, The Japanese Society for Aesthetics, 2009, pp.195-205.
· Nietzsche (KGW): Friedrich Nietzsche, Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (eds.), Nietzsche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1967-.
· Schopenhauer (SW): Arthur Schopenhauer, Paul Deussen (ed.), Sämtliche Werke, R.Piper, 1911-.
· Sweeny (1946): James Johnson Sweeny, “Interview with Yves Tanguy,” in: The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, vol.13, nos.4-5, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946, pp.22-23.
· Tanguy (1954): “The Creative Process,” in: Art Digest, vol.28, no.8, New York, 15 January 1954, pp.14-16.
· Weininger (1920): Otto Weininger, Über die letzten Dinge, Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien und Leipzig, 1920 [6th edition, 1st edition: 1904].
[1] Giorgio de Chirico, “Méditations d’un peintre,” in: De Chirico (1985), p.32.
[2] De Chirico (2008), pp.73-74, 79,85.
[3] Giorgio de Chirico, “Noi metafisici…,” in: Cronache d’attualità, febbraio 1919, reprinted in: De Chirico (1985), pp.68-69. About De Chirico’s nonsense, see chapter III.
[4] Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches , vol.1, ch.1, §.9, in: Nietzsche (KGW), vol.IV-2, pp.25-26.
[5] Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena: Kleine Philosophische Schriften, vol.2, ch.1, §.1, in: Schopenhauer (SW), vol.5, p.7.
[6] Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, 1878-1879, vol.2, pt.1, no.22, in: Nietzsche (KGW), vol.IV-3, p.24.
[7] Giorgio de Chirico, “Sull’arte metafisica,” in: Valori plastici, vol.1, nos.4-5, aprile-maggio 1919, reprinted in: De Chirico (1985), p.86.
[8] Ibid., p.88. “Arc as decoration can be beautiful. Because it does not mean perfect completion, leaving no room for any criticism, like the snake of midgard surrounding the world.There is, in the arc, something incomplete, and a necessity and possibility of completion. There is still presentiment. Because of it, the ring is also always a symbol of the immoral or anti-moral.” Otto Weininger, “Über die Einsinnigkeit der Zeit: und ihre ethische Bedeutung nebst Spekulationen über Zeit, Raum, Wille überhaupt,” in: Weininger (1920), p.100.
[9] De Chirico (2008), p.120.
[11] Surrealists’ discourses concerning De Chirico are extracted in :Clair (1983), pp.257-287.
[16] In this connection, the term “arc” or “arch” can be found in L’arc volant (1945) and L’arche du soleil (1947).
[17] James Thrall Soby of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the author of the first monograph concerning De Chirico in his metaphysical period (James Thrall Soby, The Early Chirico, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1941; Giorgio de Chirico, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955), was Tanguy’s close friend in his later years. Through Soby, Tanguy could have gotten information concerning De Chirico. In addition, responding to a questionnaire in 1954 (one year before his death), Tanguy named De Chirico in the Metaphysical painting period as the only painter that he liked of his time. Tanguy (1954).
