One Hand
Clapping:
The Taoe of Music
WholeArts and
The Psychic Internet is proud to present the
"Preface" and "Part One" of this
remarkable book by Daniel d'Quincy. "One Hand
Clapping: The Tao of Music," originally published by
WholeArts in 1991, is a book-length essay on the
performance of music from the perspective of Eastern
philosophy and religion. Mr. d'Quincy is a noted
composer, musician, author, inventor, educator, speaker,
and photographer. Please visit his unique music sites at WholeArts: syNThony, and the WholeArts Online Music Conservatory.
Page 42
This said, and
beginning with the Renaissance, when paintings began to
adhere to a unitary expression of pictorial time, we
notice that indeed the subjects are most often placed
fairly squarely in the middle of the frame. But it must
be remembered that the subject is not necessarily defined
in a merely “personal” way. For example, in
paintings where Mary is the subject, it may be different
aspects of her “person” that are placed at the
center of our focus. One artist may choose to place her
head at the center, while another will choose the hand,
or the bosom where presumably the heart is implicitly
evoked. In fact, it is remarkable in itself to note how
the bosom is the center of the great majority of frontal
portraits of all kinds, religious or secular, in every
era.
What is perhaps
not entirely to be expected is the frequency with which
the genitals are implicitly invoked. Very striking is
Mantegna’s “Cristo Scorto,” for example,
where the genitals of the dead body of Christ are at the
absolute center of an extraordinarily view in which
extreme foreshortening greatly accentuates the already
lurid pose. In crucifixions, the heart is very commonly
at the center, but just as commonly one finds the
genitals.[1]
And one will be
just as certain, if not entirely surprised, to notice
that the great majority of Madonnas appear centered at
the Mary’s womb. A centering of the baby Jesus in
this genre is almost never seen, Durer’s
“Madonna of the Siskin” being a noted example,
and in this instance the artist centers on the head of
the baby.
In general, the
center of the canvas seems to correspond with what the
artist is trying to accomplish. Take David’s
celebrated and crowded depiction of the “Tennis
Court Oath,” in which the head of the orator appears
smack dab in the center of this vast drama. Well, that is
just exactly how the French conceived of their
revolution: a triumph of the head and its reason over the
antiquated irrationality of the monarchy. But we find the
same focus in da Vinci’s “Last Supper.”
Possibly the artist was more interested in the mind of
Christ than in His Sacred Heart.
In other
paintings, we may find Mary’s hands in prayer, the
apple handed from Eve to Adam, and, very frequently in
religious works, we find a book (presumably The
Book). In all genres, the genitals are frequent at the
center of things. Portraits of Mars and Napoleon are
usually composed in this way. Then there is
Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” and one
almost wonders if this is one of the most popular
paintings of all time just because it literally puts the mons
veneris at the center of things. “The
Source” by Ingres, with the same orientation, is not
a bit less abstract, and surely more blunt for removing
the noisome scarf.
The centering of
subjects is clearly the chief mode of vision opened out
by the culture of the West. Only in the art of our own
era does this principle come into question. See if you
can find any coherent central subject at the center of
the frame in an abstract work by Kandinsky or Pollock.
But, as noted, these developments have remained
peripheral to the mainstream artistic orientation of the
culture at large.
[1] In this regard, Leonardo’s very
familiar drawing of the human body is also curious. Here,
in the circle that surrounds the body, the belly button
is at the center. But this is only because the man has
been placed somewhat off center, and in the rectangle
which describes his own proper size, Leonardo places the
genitals. (Next
Page)
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