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Allegory
- Indiana University Press
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9 The “key,” so to speak, in the three allegorical paintings by Brueghel lies invariably in those paintings depicted within each painting. In order to unlock their meaning the viewer needs to look for those “privileged” paintings that Brueghel “hides” within his works. This is, furthermore, the case with every allegory: it invites us to read it (and understand it) on its own terms—from within, we could say, and not by exterior means—as, for example, in the case of an allegorical text: its “solution” should be sought within itself. In the case of Brueghel’s paintings, the painter (or rather the painting in question itself) poses and, at the same time, solves the enigma. The key of the riddle lies within it, hidden in plain sight. In the first painting I have chosen to discuss here—“Sight”—the process is almost self-evident. Painting itself is one of the visual arts and as such should be included in this celebration of the visual. Therefore, there is nothing surprising , at first sight at least, in finding more paintings within the painting about painting (alongside statues and busts representing sculpture, telescopes and sextants for astronomy, geometrical diagrams and instruments, and, in short, every other thing that appeals to the eye). ALLEGORY 1 10 However, one painting (Painting B) holds a special position within Brueghel’s composition. It is probably the painting that the painter would like to show us, the one that he wishes to call our attention to, but instead of his doing so himself (such a move would indicate a certain lack of tact) he depicts a personage of his painting (a young winged cupid) holding it and offering it to Aphrodite’s inspection. What is this painting all about? It depicts, as a closer look makes clear, the well-known story of the blind man’s miraculous healing as recorded in the gospel. How fitting, indeed. At the center of the allegory of sight, an instance of blindness is offered to the speculative gaze of Aphrodite (and ours). This is nothing short of a stroke of genius on Brueghel’s part. In a painting that asphyxiates with objects of vision, that, even further, reproduces visibility ’s very conditions (the distant landscape that unfolds through one of the room’s doors, the interior of the room itself, given in skillful perspective), in that space that includes, substitutes, and exhausts the visual, there the painter places, at its center, the poignant reminder of vision’s own limitation: blindness . Let’s unfold this tangle of gazes. The painting opens in front of the spectator ’s gaze offering us everything that the eye can see. In the painting itself, the main personage, Aphrodite, does not look back at the spectator, or, in fact, at any other thing of the many that surround her, but only at this one: a painting about someone who sees nothing. The reduction is a simple one: from the many to the one and from the one to none. However, insofar as the painting within the painting is about the healing of the blind man, his eyes are, for the first time, opened, and his gaze meets the One—thanks to Whom he can now see. In this sense, the blind (and healed) man holds a position symmetrical to Aphrodite’s, who is also “blind” to everything around her apart from the one painting showed to her by Eros. Between the vision of the blind man and the “blindness” of Aphrodite we could locate with precision the cut that separates Brueghel’s composition into two halves. There we find the exact point of inversion, where vision is blinded and blindness is granted sight. That is the “blind” spot of the painting, the point zero of visibility, where the painting closes itself off and from which the painting opens again up (punctum caecum). Here is how we could render the relation between the two paintings schematically: Looking at Brueghel’s painting we realize now that our gaze rehearses and repeats the same itinerary: from the many (the plethora of objects depicted in the painting) to the one specific painting that Aphrodite’s gaze directs us to. Part One. Seeing [44.221.81.212] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:00 GMT) 11 Then, we are invited to undergo an experience of blindness through the blind man’s loss of sight only so that our eyes can open again, at the healing moment , in the One and by the...