Page 47 - Studio International - January 1973

Modes of visual experience: new works by Jan Dibbets1 R. H. Fuchs

Auch das Stilleben keimte im Andachtsbild (...) modes — I would also claim that their visual impression of slowness. The single object comes
Max J. Friedlander effects are mostly identical. In whichever way into view and slips away, thereby creating a
The different genres of classical painting Dibbets uses photography and film he marvellous sense of intimacy and visual
(landscape, still life, interior) implied different imposes a tight form on one's perception (by concentration. (This effect is stronger in White
modes of visual experience — or at least, they using abstract representational structures), his Table than in Flowers-vertical; the reason for
exemplified different modes. The essential visual landscapes still give a sense of wide, deep space — this, I feel, is the optical difference between the
structure of a landscape painting, is that one discrete in the smaller panoramas and imposing vertical and the horizontal; vertical movement
feels rather small while gazing into the far in the large multipartite works with moving always seems swifter than horizontal movement.)
distance, up to the horizon. A landscape is horizons. In the interior pieces, on the other The visual mode of these new works, then, is
distracting because one's eye is confronted with, hand, space is 'domesticated'. The new that of the still life. It is there as a 'context'
and invited into, a large deep space to order and still-life pieces, finally, also show affinity with only, however; the form is very much Dibbets.
to control, and tends to wander. Or a landscape those classical categories. As I claimed in an earlier text3, he is not so much
may be imposing — which quality then is the White Table is an almost square field concerned with structuring formal elements (the
`natural' origin of the special connection containing 8o frames of a film, horizontally theme of all geometric painting) as with
between landscape and the aesthetic mode of the arranged in strips. The film is a slow, measured structuring perception as such. Again, so in
Sublime. Opposite to the wide landscape space movement of the camera, sideward from a bare, these still lifes. They are not compositions
is the intimacy of the still life : an arrangement white wall over the top of a white table to the of objects in space, there to glance at
of objects, presented in a shallow space for close white wall again. The other work, Flowers- freely as one likes; instead a strong and well-
inspection. While in a landscape one's gaze is vertical, is similarly composed, only in the proportioned form is imposed upon one's seeing.
directed towards the horizon, which is the vertical; its film is a downward camera It is fitting that Dibbets should express his
actual limit for one's visual comprehension of the movement bringing into view a small vase with concern with structures of vision within the three
world, the ultimate still life would only contain flowers on an elegant high table. It has more classical, basic modes of visual experience. q
one object to look at — Manet's famous painting colour than White Table: the green, blue and 'An exhibition of works by Jan Dibbets, 1967-1972,
of one asparagus, for instance. One's eye yellow of the flowers, the brownish tint of the is at the Stedelijk Museum, until January 14,1973.
becomes fixed on one point. For this reason, vase, the off-white of the table. White A catalogue has been published, with articles by
virtually all still-life paintings have a curious Table is greyish white with hints of a very pale E. de Wilde, Rini Dippel, and Marcel Vos. I will
limit myself to a discussion of two new works
factual quality. Even in their most baroque and blue. In each work the position of the object shown there for the first time.
illusionistic form (like the ostentatious pictures changes from frame to frame, almost 'See B. Reise, Studio International, June 1972, p.248.
of the later seventeenth century) the different imperceptibly; only the image as a whole shows 3R. H. Fuchs, On Jan Dibbets, published on the
occasion of the Venice Biennale 1972. See also
objects retain their distinct identity; objects are the camera eye's movement. This results in an Vos's article in the Amsterdam catalogue.
enumerated: this is a lobster, this a silver plate,
and this a pomegranate. A still life is particular Jan Dibbets, White Table 1972. Stedelijk Museum
while a landscape is general; the latter's
elements blend together and form a wholistic
vision of the world, as limited by the horizon.
In between those two modes is the visual
experience of 'middle distance' as expressed by
an interior — whether it be the scene for a noisy
story or a place for quiet contemplation, like a
church interior. Space of an interior is neither
deep nor shallow; it is comfortably one's own
space. Also, it doesn't have the tendency to
qualify vision — to expand or narrow it. In effect
one's visual experience of an interior painting
corresponds to one's 'normal' way of
perceiving. For that reason, possibly, it has
become the spatial structure for almost every
type of realistic narrative painting; quite
logically, baroque allegory departs from it to
suggest the grandiose or the supernatural.
It is characteristic of Jan Dibbets's
consciousness of classical art that his oeuvre
(from the moment he began using photography)2
can be subdivided according to these three
fundamentally different visual modes. There
are the 'landscapes' (Dutch Mountains,
Panoramas, Horizons), the 'interiors' (some of
the Perspective Correction series, the
Louverdrape, Venetian Blinds and Shutterspeed
pieces) — while the two beautiful new works in
the Amsterdam exhibition are still lifes :
Flowers-vertical and White Table. Not only do
these three categories in Dibbets's work have a
general resemblance to the three classical visual

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