Brief story about
shadow. Victor I. Stoichita. Edit. Siruela, Madrid, 1999. This is an
Art story very
original. In general, the stories about fine arts were about
light. According to this Swiss professor, this is because shadow is, from the beginnings, a fact with negative effects. In symbolism, we associate it with sinister, dark and indeterminate facts. In the picture images, in the other hand, it seems that this light privation has to do with impossible perception, it is to say, the perception selfsame. Therefore, a shadow’s study is only justified in relation to light. In the middle of this dialectic light/shade, it appears the chiaroscuro as the only subject of interest. Nevertheless, in the recent time it had appeared studies that had treated to deepen in these terms, particularly those made by Gombrich and Baxandall. They not only occupied with the sides of perception and representation, but with symbolic sides about light and shade. These studies had to do with diverse proposal. The author took the theme of shadow in occidental culture form many points of view. This work searches in the beginnings of our culture the roots of
shadows finding a mythic one. At first, he considers the story of Plinius the Older in his Natural Story, where origin of representation grows from the purpose of fix an image through a line that delimits human shade. “The picture –says Stoichita- has his origin in the absence/presence (absence of corps/presence of his projection)” This dialectic command the history of art. In the I century, .a.C., when Plinius made this observations, shadows allows volume representations in space, it is that the origins where something mythic and far off. Stoichita extend his arguments with another foundational myth that makes references of shadow: Platoon’s cavern myth, in which the possibility of a man to see reality is reduce to the vision of his own shadow reflected in the cavern walls. The impossibility to see reality directly shows too the impossibility to find knowing. For the author those myths has a true connected. Both are of the same origin, buy besides, both has in common the projection problem. In both cases, the art development and the knowing development only would be possible with the overcome of this original and primitive instance. Since this, the book continue
showing different problems about shadow: symbolism, secrets, technical knows that make changes in each stage. Some analysis of different periods with its reproductions in black/white or in color to illustrate the original hypothesis of this author. The interpretation of these pictures became rich because they appear in its own cultural context in addition to critic or literary texts. Sometimes is the same picture that speaks about his origin; others, searches the knowing reached in a moment with poets, as the change of Middle Age that has not shadows, and Renaissance that reach the greatest realism with perspective and chiaroscuro. In this way, the literature of Dante seems to explain Giotto and his fellows but also figure techniques of Cennino Cennini. The development does not has a chronological order, but with different thematic tips. Technical changes and the appearing of new medias are reflected in this pages, and are analyzed in chapters as “The shadow and his reproduction in photograph’s age” or “To the shadow till the eternal return”, showing many ways that open the most recent currents of art (De Chirico, Picasso, Andy Warhol). Maybe, the best of this book consists in showing a different view of a great known artistic production. The depth of this work invites you to explore new ways and continue with the author’s methods.
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