GLOB 3
THREE ABSENCES AND AN EMPTY SPACE
One Monday morning a hundred years ago this month (August 1913) a housepainter dressed as a workman in the Musee du Louvre took a painting off the wall, went down stairs, cut it out of its frame which he left in a stair-well, rolled it up, put it in a tube which he had brought in earlier for the purpose, hid it under his workman’s smock and walked out of the museum. He had pulled off probably the most famous heist in the history of art theft: he had stolen the Mona Lisa (or La Giaconda as it is known in France.) That act turned what was already amongst the most famous paintings into the most well known and most reproduced image in the world.
The painting then stayed under his bed for two years. What was his purpose: he would have known that he wouldn’t be able to sell it? He was Italian and maintained that (like the Scottish students who stole the Stone of Scone from the houses of parliament in 1950) his stated intention, when eventually discovered, was to return it to its country of origin. He was a bit muddled and hadn’t quite worked out how he was going to do that, or how he was to persuade an Italian museum to accept it.
But to me the more interesting story is what happened next. Monday was closed to the public so no one noticed its absence. On Tuesday an artist who went in to make a copy, confronted by the empty gap asked an attendant where it was and was told that it had probably gone to be photographed. Later in the day when the horrible truth dawned the police were notified and were soon swarming all over the place, the papers got hold of the story and the news was out. And here the most surreal aspect of the event unravels its puzzling self: the next morning by opening time a huge queue of people had formed, many of whom had never visited the museum before. Three weeks later there were still queues of people eager to see the empty space where the famous painting had hung. Franz Kafka and his friend and biographer Max Brod, on holiday in Paris were there.
The painting then stayed under his bed for two years. What was his purpose: he would have known that he wouldn’t be able to sell it? He was Italian and maintained that (like the Scottish students who stole the Stone of Scone from the houses of parliament in 1950) his stated intention, when eventually discovered, was to return it to its country of origin. He was a bit muddled and hadn’t quite worked out how he was going to do that, or how he was to persuade an Italian museum to accept it.
But to me the more interesting story is what happened next. Monday was closed to the public so no one noticed its absence. On Tuesday an artist who went in to make a copy, confronted by the empty gap asked an attendant where it was and was told that it had probably gone to be photographed. Later in the day when the horrible truth dawned the police were notified and were soon swarming all over the place, the papers got hold of the story and the news was out. And here the most surreal aspect of the event unravels its puzzling self: the next morning by opening time a huge queue of people had formed, many of whom had never visited the museum before. Three weeks later there were still queues of people eager to see the empty space where the famous painting had hung. Franz Kafka and his friend and biographer Max Brod, on holiday in Paris were there.
1st Absence
The Stolen Painting
The Stolen Painting
What is the nature of this absence? The no-longer present painting, now elevated to the most famous in the world, endowed the empty place with a significance and fascination that it did not have before, for people not formally sufficiently interested in art to visit the museum. Across the intervening air space from its present unknown whereabouts to its former home it is as if it had transmitted a ghost of its self, creating a semi-mystical presence that could hold the viewers in thrall. Perhaps we could consider this as an early twentieth century example of conceptual art. Also; its very fact of being stolen had/has added an extra layer of meaning to the work, one which Leonardo could never have intended or imagined.
Consider this: if the painting had indeed been temporarily removed for photography or conservation as the attendant questioned by the artist supposed, then the empty space would have taken on a different meaning. Likewise, let us imagine that the theft had been commissioned and that the thief, not being artistically aware, had been told for instance to remove ‘the fourth painting from the left,’ and that he or someone had miss-counted, or he got the wrong wall, or wrong gallery, and took a different, and less widely known painting. Then the empty space would still be a space formally occupied by a now stolen painting; but the press coverage would have been minimal and the public interest marginal. The bit of painted gallery wall, even if next to the Leonardo, would have had a quite different significance, a different meaning, and of no interest to the public. Taking our earlier analogy: this identical bit of wall would not have become an early example of conceptual art. Perhaps it is somewhat akin to those houses, often undistinguished in themselves, which display blue plaques. So and So famous person once occupied this space. The house itself may be of little merit, it may not be open to the public; but nevertheless we stand and look for a minute, and contemplate the august person that once trod its floors.
Consider this: if the painting had indeed been temporarily removed for photography or conservation as the attendant questioned by the artist supposed, then the empty space would have taken on a different meaning. Likewise, let us imagine that the theft had been commissioned and that the thief, not being artistically aware, had been told for instance to remove ‘the fourth painting from the left,’ and that he or someone had miss-counted, or he got the wrong wall, or wrong gallery, and took a different, and less widely known painting. Then the empty space would still be a space formally occupied by a now stolen painting; but the press coverage would have been minimal and the public interest marginal. The bit of painted gallery wall, even if next to the Leonardo, would have had a quite different significance, a different meaning, and of no interest to the public. Taking our earlier analogy: this identical bit of wall would not have become an early example of conceptual art. Perhaps it is somewhat akin to those houses, often undistinguished in themselves, which display blue plaques. So and So famous person once occupied this space. The house itself may be of little merit, it may not be open to the public; but nevertheless we stand and look for a minute, and contemplate the august person that once trod its floors.
2nd Absence
Missing Fragments; falling into the arms of Venus
Missing Fragments; falling into the arms of Venus
The Venus di Milo once had arms. She is another world famous artwork. Would she be as beloved, as beautiful, as renown as she is had she been complete? Possibly not. Her lower limbs are draped by the rather busy wavelike folds of a garment, allowing a simple, undulating S shaped sweep of torso expressing her hips, thorax and breasts and up to her softly sloping shoulders on which rests her noble head. What to do with those gangling upper limbs so as not to distract from the elegant, sensuous abstraction of her body? Alexandros of Antioch (the probable sculptor,) along with his illustrious pre-Hellenic forebears, must have struggled with this problem. Fortunately for Alexandros’ reputation the ravages of time and centuries of burial have taken care of it for him. She has lost not only her arms but also the plinth to her left her jewellery, and the flesh coloured paint; all intended to give a lifelike and luxurious appearance to the goddess. A loss which to modern eyes, and certainly to many modern sculptors is an improvement.
There have been attempts to reconstruct her probable appearance; of great academic interest, yes, but I think only serve to demonstrate that time and destruction have probably rendered art a service. Looking to the past for influences sculptors from Rodin and Maillol to Henry Moore, Brancusi and Giacometti were struck by the abstraction and suggestive potential of the fragmented torso. It might be said that what followed in the development of sculptural ideas was a continual dissolution of the human form: historically the main, and for some artists the only, subject of sculpture. That is until the extraordinary range and diversity of sculptural objects that emerged in the twentieth century, which may be, I think, regarded not so much as the fragmented or incomplete object, but the fragment as object: the stretching, distorting and elucidation of the (re)discovered fragments.
There have been attempts to reconstruct her probable appearance; of great academic interest, yes, but I think only serve to demonstrate that time and destruction have probably rendered art a service. Looking to the past for influences sculptors from Rodin and Maillol to Henry Moore, Brancusi and Giacometti were struck by the abstraction and suggestive potential of the fragmented torso. It might be said that what followed in the development of sculptural ideas was a continual dissolution of the human form: historically the main, and for some artists the only, subject of sculpture. That is until the extraordinary range and diversity of sculptural objects that emerged in the twentieth century, which may be, I think, regarded not so much as the fragmented or incomplete object, but the fragment as object: the stretching, distorting and elucidation of the (re)discovered fragments.
3rd Absence
Holy Spaces
Holy Spaces
A reporter on a television programme said that when visiting the empty niches where the huge Banyan Buddha statues once stood he still felt a sense of spiritual presence, perhaps greater than when he saw these magnificent statues before they were destroyed by the Taliban. Looking at photographs of the statues and trying to imagine seeing them at a distance from across the valley, set majestically in the cliff face, it may be hard to sympathise with this view. What the Taliban did was a monstrous act of vandalism; against Buddhist believers and against the world of art and heritage.
However, I think there may be something in this. In the temple of Luxor; in a passageway to the right of the entrance, there is a freestanding perfectly carved stone ‘niche’ (think of an empty box stood on its end) a little more than a meter high and quite deep, its reddish stone enclosing a dark interior. It was once the home of the image of an Egyptian god, now probably in the Cairo museum. I do not know which particular divinity once occupied this space but looking/gazing into this mysterious depth I was conscious less of an empty box but more of what I would call the absence of the divine image which induced a sense of profound spiritual silence. Of course I am also conscious that this feeling that overcame me was in part (some may say entirely) self-induced or, as in the case of the missing Leonardo, informed by knowledge of what I was looking at, and that the same stone object in a different context would not have had the same effect. Others may not get the same sensation from an absent idol, as indeed was the case when a friend in our party suggested someone sit in it for him to take a photo; an educated friend and keen photographer at that, who I would have thought had a little more sensitivity, not your usual ‘happy snapper.’ I have to say that I promptly snapped at him: that this was a sacred space which shouldn’t be violated. Perhaps I may be accused of making the same error as those primitive people who believe that by taking their photo they will lose a bit of their soul. Perhaps I am. Perhaps they are right.
However, I think there may be something in this. In the temple of Luxor; in a passageway to the right of the entrance, there is a freestanding perfectly carved stone ‘niche’ (think of an empty box stood on its end) a little more than a meter high and quite deep, its reddish stone enclosing a dark interior. It was once the home of the image of an Egyptian god, now probably in the Cairo museum. I do not know which particular divinity once occupied this space but looking/gazing into this mysterious depth I was conscious less of an empty box but more of what I would call the absence of the divine image which induced a sense of profound spiritual silence. Of course I am also conscious that this feeling that overcame me was in part (some may say entirely) self-induced or, as in the case of the missing Leonardo, informed by knowledge of what I was looking at, and that the same stone object in a different context would not have had the same effect. Others may not get the same sensation from an absent idol, as indeed was the case when a friend in our party suggested someone sit in it for him to take a photo; an educated friend and keen photographer at that, who I would have thought had a little more sensitivity, not your usual ‘happy snapper.’ I have to say that I promptly snapped at him: that this was a sacred space which shouldn’t be violated. Perhaps I may be accused of making the same error as those primitive people who believe that by taking their photo they will lose a bit of their soul. Perhaps I am. Perhaps they are right.
An Empty Space
There is nothing in my hand
There is nothing in my hand
For my degree show when I was a student at Exeter College of Art (undoubtedly trying to be a bit clever clever) taking the then current Beatles lyric ’nothing is real’ I made a piece consisting of the shapes between the letters made in wood and stuck onto a piece of clear Perspex, so that the words could be read although in themselves the letters had no material existence. Thus demonstrating, I hoped, that it is the space between the letters which gives them form and significance. This, you may justifiably say, is patently obvious; and why am I boring you with such an observation? But, I think, the idea is worth pushing a little further: after all the amount of ‘ink’ on this page is miniscule, and if all the black was crushed together so that no white bits showed between it would occupy a minute amount of the space. The ‘ink’ would still be there as a small black splodge on the edge, the bits between would still be there but now indistinguishable from the rest of the white paper, what would be lost would be the ‘spacing’, that which has no physical reality but which gives significance and meaning to the words. Nothing does have a reality.
Expanding the notion: a cup, or container, the material object, is a bit of substance shaped around an empty space into which the tea, or other substance, can be poured and contained. It is the empty space which defines the size and shape of the cup. Empty space defines and organises the universe. The space within and between objects, the relationship is what gives them their identity and reality. When I first went to life drawing classes I learnt an important lesson from a very astute teacher: not to try to draw the model but to draw the spaces between; between the limbs and the body, between the various parts and details, between blemishes and marks. In this way the unity and wholeness of the figure was gradually revealed through the relationship of its various parts. This was something of a minor revelation: it is the relationship between things, the organising spaces, which brings the objects into being. My drawing improved immediately.
Would it be stretching the concept too far to suggest that this is a lesson that could be given a wider application? The family, the community, political groupings, nations - are all defined by internal relationships and external spaces. Space, the gaps between, is the glue which defines and binds together.
The idea of emptiness is better understood in the east, Zen monks will sit for hours in meditation to achieve it. To do this they will be given a koan, a perplexing phrase or seemingly meaningless story, by the master: to breakdown rational and logical reasoning in order to empty the mind of customary modes of thought. The mu koan is one of the first that the novice devotee will be offered. Mu: not, nothing, no thing, nothingness, without, none-existence, none being.
Also those strange ancient jade bi-disks with a hole in the centre, I find have fascinating appeal. The oldest dating back four thousand years they are thought to be symbols of Heaven, but the ancient ritualistic purpose has been lost. Jade, the hardest of stones, is a beautiful substance even when discoloured by age, but the flat disk, unadorned would not have its mysterious appeal without the hole. It is that empty formless space at the centre which gives it form, and makes it an object of interest - as the empty space between two pictures in the Louvre gave form to the idea of the missing Leonardo, even to people who had only seen it in reproduction.
Expanding the notion: a cup, or container, the material object, is a bit of substance shaped around an empty space into which the tea, or other substance, can be poured and contained. It is the empty space which defines the size and shape of the cup. Empty space defines and organises the universe. The space within and between objects, the relationship is what gives them their identity and reality. When I first went to life drawing classes I learnt an important lesson from a very astute teacher: not to try to draw the model but to draw the spaces between; between the limbs and the body, between the various parts and details, between blemishes and marks. In this way the unity and wholeness of the figure was gradually revealed through the relationship of its various parts. This was something of a minor revelation: it is the relationship between things, the organising spaces, which brings the objects into being. My drawing improved immediately.
Would it be stretching the concept too far to suggest that this is a lesson that could be given a wider application? The family, the community, political groupings, nations - are all defined by internal relationships and external spaces. Space, the gaps between, is the glue which defines and binds together.
The idea of emptiness is better understood in the east, Zen monks will sit for hours in meditation to achieve it. To do this they will be given a koan, a perplexing phrase or seemingly meaningless story, by the master: to breakdown rational and logical reasoning in order to empty the mind of customary modes of thought. The mu koan is one of the first that the novice devotee will be offered. Mu: not, nothing, no thing, nothingness, without, none-existence, none being.
Also those strange ancient jade bi-disks with a hole in the centre, I find have fascinating appeal. The oldest dating back four thousand years they are thought to be symbols of Heaven, but the ancient ritualistic purpose has been lost. Jade, the hardest of stones, is a beautiful substance even when discoloured by age, but the flat disk, unadorned would not have its mysterious appeal without the hole. It is that empty formless space at the centre which gives it form, and makes it an object of interest - as the empty space between two pictures in the Louvre gave form to the idea of the missing Leonardo, even to people who had only seen it in reproduction.
Postscript
Mistaken identity
Mistaken identity
An amusing incident occurred some years after the robbery. Vincenzo Peruggia, the thief, having successfully got the painting into Italy, set up a meeting in a hotel with the director of a gallery to help him negotiate with a museum. The director wasn’t prepared to cooperate. On leaving with the painting he was accused by the receptionist of trying to steal one of the hotel’s expensive reproductions. It took him some time to convince the management that it was a genuine painting and not a reproduction. How he managed to persuade them that it was not the stolen original I don’t know. Perhaps he told them that it was a copy. Perhaps they thought him too stupid to have been able to pull off the theft of the century single handed.
Recommended reading:
Stealing the Mona Lisa: What art stops us from seeing
Darian Leader
The Empty Mirror, Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastry
Janwillem van de wetering
Stealing the Mona Lisa: What art stops us from seeing
Darian Leader
The Empty Mirror, Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastry
Janwillem van de wetering