I recently came across an interesting discussion of the painting at the right, in a book by H. Peter Steeves, call The Things Themselves: Phenomenology and the Return to the Everyday (SUNY 2006). Here is what Steeves has to say:
The front of the table does not match up on both sides of the rumpled tablecloth. We look into the basket from the right; we look at the biscuits from the left . . . The wine bottle teeters to the left as if we are moving around it counterclockwise. And the backside of the table on the right is far higher than it is on the left. The painting has us moving around; all of the space is filled out.
The point is this: the painting on this analysis sets out to give us more than one temporal moment at the same time. Viewing the painting, we are invited to experience an object in different temporal moments, to merge past-present-future. (You can find more detailed images on the web that may make this point more clear.) Does it work?
Jack P.
I felt quite dizzy… notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘beggining’ and ‘end’, ‘front’ and ‘back’ came into mind, everything felt ‘out of order’… and the need to give order again to the seen… my heart was beating fast…
Marcia
KTS Chapter 65-68, The Self Center, was interesting reading relating to viewing this painting. We are viewing the painting as the Bystander, there is immediate separation and distance, but while we seem to be stationary, something about the picture is suggesting a moving perspective. As the bystander looks at elements of the painting, “what arises is a series of momentary knowings.” Each knowing in time and space suggests a logos of lines and perspective that is expected to carry through on its plane but does not, for one perspective runs up against another that is slightly different. For example the plane of the table, what might be expected (in the future flow of form) from one side of the table is not seamlessly maintained on the other end of the table. The future is separated from the present expectation.
It’s interesting to look at the mechanism of the bystander model as I look at other things. How I (here and now) immediately introduce distance in space, and flatten out time in a linear fashion projecting expectations and considering assumptions already taken from the past.
David
This is beautiful. Thanks, Jack. As with nature and crystalographies of TSK covers, may there always be artists to show us time’s multiple facets.
Lesley
Hi Jack
I really appreciated this post. Here’s a link to a larger view of Cézanne’s painting of ‘Apples in a Basket’.
http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Impressionist/pages/IMP_10_lg.shtml
I’ve noticed the experience of looking from near simultaneous altered perspectives, which is what we are doing in the picture. This can be approximated slightly by looking at something nearby with the right eye closed and left eye open, and then alternating the same view but with the left eye closed and the right eye open. Do it several times quickly. There’s a shift; the views have us moving in time something like Cézanne’s painting does. But I’ve also experienced this shift in mental space while considering something. It’s as if two alternating contextual views allow near simultaneous perspectives; like the subject-self positioned from both the subject ‘and’ the object perspectives. While these contextual views are alternating, even merging, there’s also a steady flow of sensual data being felt, so that context viewing points, and felt data are continuously shifting. I’m not positive, but is this what you are referring to when you say, “to experience an object in different temporal moments, to merge past-present-future”?
David