Page 37 - Studio International - March 1972

flutes—and young man to two flutes ? Yes, in the in short, it should be read in terms of its 3 Titian
Three Ages of Man
sense that though only one flute is visible, the syntactic variations and its metonymic Collection Duke of Sutherland, on loan to the
triangular logic requires a third term to be displacement. National Gallery of Scotland
inserted, and this term is not an apparent flute I realize that I have touched on a wide
but the concealed phallus. Vasari's strange and variety of fields in the course of this discussion. 4 Jeffrey Steele
Medusa 1969
beautiful description, with its equivocation over Rather than attempt an exhaustive summary of 36 x 48 in.
the number of flutes and its quaint reference to my argument, I would like to make one final Collection Juan Bonta, Buenos Aires
the incitement to sound the flute, becomes an point, since it helps to bind together the
exquisite metaphorical description of hesitation questions pertaining to the art of this century
on the brink of sexual passion. Yet the with which I begun my account and the
identification of disclosed flute and concealed speculations on Titian with which I have just
phallus in the picture is not in fact a metaphor. been concerned. It is my firm belief that we
It arises through a relation of contiguity and cannot effectively divorce either the categories
juxtaposition within a formal series, in other of interpretation and creation, or the categories
words from metonymic relations within the 'text' of Classical and Modern art. That is to say, we
of the picture. often do find it assumed that such a thing as a
I'd like to pick up just one of the aspects of manifesto by van Doesburg and an analysis by 1 Théorie d' ensemble, Paris, 1968, p.17
the analysis which I have just made—and which, Panofsky are absolutely distinct. But it is in the 2James Joyce, Portrait of the artist as a young man,
I would repeat, is simply a schematic description nature of things that they should belong within London, 1946, pp.212-13
of one aspect of the picture, even if, for reasons the same orbit, since both are attempts to unravel 3 Art concret, Paris, April 193o, p.14
4 Lucy R. Lippard, Pop art, London, 1966,P.34
which I am about to suggest, it may possibly be the problem of the image as text. I have no doubt 5 Art concret, ibid.
considered the central aspect. Whereas the that my own approach to the Three Ages of Man 6 Minimal art, ed. Gregory Battcock, London, 1968,
model interpretation by Panofsky penetrates arises from a way of considering coded systems p.306
7Vasarely, Notes, réflexions, Paris, n.d., p.29
through different levels to an essential meaning, that is intimately related to the tradition of 8 For example, in the work of the French critic Gerard
my own interpretation penetrates through a Constructivism and Russian Formalism. When Genette on Proust
9Lévi-Strauss, Le cruet le cuit, Paris, 1964, p.32
concealment that is inherent in the composition I recently heard from a young constructivist 1° The addresses of these organizations are,
of the picture: the picture, you might say, painter, Jeffrey Steele, that he was interested, respectively, Jean-Claude Moineau, 20 Rue St-
enshrines a taboo, and it is through discovery of precisely, in the intersections between syntax Séverin, Paris 5, France, and Adriaan van Ravensteijn,
Amsterdam 9, Richard Wagnerstraat 8, Holland
a displacement, from phallus to flute, that the and system, I recognized at once that this was 11 `Art and Project', Bulletin.
taboo can be lifted. And yet of course the whole my own concern at one or two 'removes. Would 12 E. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts.
effect of the picture lies in the indirect nature it not be reasonable to conclude that the 13 mid.
of the revelation. The picture should not be contemporary Zeitgeist is no respecter of 14 J-L. Schefer, Scénographie d'un tableau.
15 Vasari, Le Vite dei piu celebri Pittori, Scultorre
cracked as a code and interpreted as a message; historical categories and genres ? q Architetti, Florence, 1925, p.995
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