WhichReality?PaintingasInquiryintheworkofMarkTanseyHowandtoWhatExtentcanaPaintingMean?

Close Reading

Anathletescalesarockbuiltfromtext.Sheistooclose,yetwearetoofarawaytodecipheritsmessage.Thereisnodistancefromwhichthetextisfullylegible,aproblemwhichisphilosophicalinnature.PauldeMan,aBelgiandeconstructionist,observedinhisBlindness and Insightthatcriticswhoengageinclosereadingareblindtotheirownassumptionsandconsequentlymisinterpretthetext.Hequestionsthe ability of any human to correctly analyze written discourse. Like LudwigWittgenstein,heexposestheimprecisionofwords.

The Innocent Eye Test

PaulusPotter’sThe Young BullappearsalongsideoneofClaudeMonet’shaystacks.Arthistorianssupervising

theexperimentwatch thecowattentively to seehow itwillreact.Thisisatake-offonafamouscontestbetweenAthenian painters to see who had the greater skill.ParrhasiuswasincontestwithZeuxis.Thelatterpaintedsomegrapessoperfectlythatbirdscametopeckatthem.HethencalledonParrhasiustodrawasidethecurtainandshow his picture, but, finding that his rivals picture was the curtainitself,heacknowledgedhimselftobesurpassed,forZeuxishaddeceivedbirds,butParrhasiushaddeceivedZeuxis.This is a picture within a picture (both fictions of the artist) and we, the audience, are just as duped as theAtheniancrowd.Inevaluatingartthereisno“innocenteye”.

Robbe-Grillet Cleansing Every Object

The French author & filmmaker attempts to remove hidden meaningsfromeveryobject.Hisactionsareultimately

futile. The labor is arduous, tedious, and unsatisfying.The stones are monumental miniatures--Stonehenge, theMatterhorn, the Sphinx, a Buddha, geometric shapes, theTrojanhorse,aGermantank,atrain,ahalf-sunkenbuilding.Onecanneverviewhistorical events separate from theirrespectivepasts.

Triumph Over Mastery II

ThepainteriscoveringupMichelangelo’sLast Judgement intheSistineChapelwithanevencoatofwhitepaint.Heiswhitingout

pictorialdepthassociatedwithanearlierperiodofart.Thatthewhitewall shouldpronounce the last judgementwouldbeabitter irony,butinhiszeal,thepainterfailstoseethathehaspaintedouthisownshadowaswellastheladderonwhichhestands.Mostinterestingly,hepaintsoverthefaceofGodanddoessobystandingonGod’sleftside,thesideofthedamned.

Mont Sainte-Victoire

InspiredbyTansey’s readingofDerrida’s“Spurs:Nietzche’sStyles”.Isitdawnordusk;isthesunrisingorsetting?Are

the figures male or female? Flip the painting upside-down and whatwasonceamountainbecomesacave.Derridaathirdofthewayacross,removingacoverall,hasbecomeawomanandthe“avant-gardisthasshedhisuniformandbecomeasortofancientsageincloakandtoga,beardedandwise”(Danto18).OnethinksofPlatoandhiscave.Thesky,markedwithclouds,becomestherockformationsatitsdepths.ForTanseythismarksatransitionin theartworld. TheAvant-gardehasbecome“demilitarized’andperhapsfeminizedby takingoff theiruniforms.Thepost-structuralism thatwas to follow ismarkedby “dense systemsofmeanings”thatinterrelate“ThemetamorphosisofeverythingintosomethingelseisopimisticallysuggestiveofthepossibilitesofpaintingsinceCezanne”(Freeman54).

White on White

Thispaintingisacatalogueofoppositions:InuitsandArabs,coldandhot,northandsouth,snowandsand,earthand

sky,combatandreconciliation.TheInuitshavearrivedondogsleds;theArabshavecrossedthedesertoncamelback.Itisnotsomuchthattheyhaveturnedtowardeachotherasthatthey have turned away from the fierce winds. Notice that the clothingandfurattesttowindsblowinginoppositedirections.Thereseemstobeaninvisibleriftdownthecenterof thepicture,whereculturescollide”(TanseyqtdinDanto134).Theymustnowdecidewhetherornottobridgethatdivide.

The End of Painting

The fear was that photography and film would spell the death ofpainting.Photograpy,however,freedpainters.Apainted

picture no longer had to pretend to be a non-fiction; it no longer had tobeacageforthereal.Itmadeitpossibletothinkintermsofaconjectural field or a place of inquiry. In this painting a sculptormounts a film of a painting; wherein, a man shoots his own image reflected in a mirror.

Discarding the Frame

Inspired by Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”the realistwished to cage reality, but his own reflection is trapped in

theframe.Ourperceptionsarecoloredbyouremotionsandexperience. As in science we cannot help but influence our observationsandanalysisbyourperceptualexpectations.

Doubting Thomas

Thequestionofboundaries,ofpossibleshiftsordisplacementsalong them, and the question of what is being bounded (orunbounded)arepreeminentones.Ifweareindeedinaliminalperiod,thentheborderisnotouttheresomehwereattheedgeoftheframebutratheritishere,atzerodegree,wherethexand y coordinates meet. It is a site of encounter, a point oftransition. The marginal is all around. - Lyn Hejinian, TheLanguageofInquiry,p.234

Pleasure of the Text

Itwouldseemthatthedriverofthevehiclehavingrunastopsignisabouttocrash. Themanintheforeground

however is in no danger since painting can literally stopthelawsofphysics. Themancanstudytheundersideofthecarathisleisurejustaswecanstudythispaintingforanylengthoftime.Artmakesthissubjectiveandobjectivedeliberationpossible.

Triumph Over Mastery1986

“Amodernchildplaysatopafallencolumnamidanancient,ruinedcity.Nearbyamotherandherchastenedoff-springstandonstepsbeforethebroken,abstractformsofthecolumn.The columns’ gigantic size dwarfs the figures of the two boys and their mother. Tansey contrastspastandpresent,oldandyoung,deadandalive.Theplayful,stick-wieldingboyconquersthisancientartifact...Hestandsinfortheartist;integraltoTansey’ssearchfortruthandunderstandinginhiscomprehensionofthepastanditslessonsforthefuture”(Freeman33-34).

Booksforreference:Danto,Arthur,Mark Tansey: Visions and Revisions,NewYork:Abrams,Inc.,1992.Freeman,Judi,Mark Tansey,SanFrancisco:ChronicleBooks,1993.Hejinian,Lyn.The Language of Inquiry;UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2000Taylor,Mark,The Picture in Question : Mark Tansey and the Ends of Representation ,1999