thinkingblueskyagain


HOME THINKING BLUE SKY SKIES WHAT IS UP THERE? WHERE HAVE ALL THE GODS GONE? HOW TO TAME THE SKY? CORY ARCANGEL LISE AUTOGENA GASTON BACHELARD JAMES BENNING CORREGGIO GILLES DELEUZE SIMON FAITHFULL CAMILLE FLAMMARION WERNER HERZOG DEREK JARMAN GERHARD RICHTER JACQUES TATI JOELLE TUERLINCKX RICHARD WILSON PETER WEIR QUADRATURA WHAT OF OUR PLANETARY SKY? ABOUT REFERENCES	CORREGGIO Falling upwards Situated in the cupola of Parma’s Romanesque cathedral Correggio’s painting of The Assumption of the Virgin (1526-1530) is like no other of its time. Anticipating the Baroque by a century, rumour has it the cathedral canons wanted the painting removed. It was Titian’s intervention that reassured them of its merit. Most ceiling works of this period take a painting from the vertical and either transcribe it directly onto the plane of the ceiling or wrap it around the curves of a dome. None of this for Antonio Allegri of Correggio! He painted the scene as if actually viewed from below, directly below. The first thing that comes into focus are legs suspended in mid-air. Above the legs, a mass of entwined body parts and the occasional head, all of which emerge either from a tangle of swirling garments or Correggio’s trademark clouds. The nineteenth century Art Historian, Heinrich Wölfflin, described the experience of viewing this painting as one in which ‘the eye remains perpetually in a state of unrest. Image overlaps image, and it seems as if removing one will only reveal another’. For contemporary viewers the originality of this painting remains evident. The chaos is exhilarating. Traditional depictions of the Assumption position the figure of the Virgin enthroned in the centre of the composition. In contrast, Correggio’s Virgin is hidden in a dense crowd and a mass of solid clouds. The central figure is Jesus. His is the only fully defined form set against a glowing centre of yellow light. Yet his body is foreshortened, all we really see are his legs and a robe curling around his upper thighs. I am certain it is this depiction of Jesus that provoked another influential nineteenth century Art Historian, Jacob Burckhardt, to ask the rhetorical question: ‘How could divine Glory tolerate that the parts of the human body revealed by the upward perspective be pushed to the fore?’ In fact, with the exception of one putto, there is little improper exposure, yet the energy and radical nature of the painting give an overall impression of impropriety. Perhaps this is why the Virgin remains a marginal figure. She appears as if passively carried along in the chaotic swirl of bodies rushing upwards in what is best described as a heavenly mosh. The sheer density of the throng threatens to overrun the celestial divide, toppling the ordered separation between heaven and earth. With a nod to the historical mash-ups of Stanley Kubrick (who famously jump-cut from primitive bone to space ship) and Carl Jung (who spotted flying saucers in images of the Aristotelian heavens) I move from Correggio’s painted sky to that filmed by Gemini 4. I do so by way of Correggio's clouds. I had thought that Correggio's clouds, what Alexander Bucheri describes as 'bubble clouds', were a unique trait of the artist. They feature in so many of his paintings and are distinct from any other painted cloud I have seen. However, the video footage shot from Gemini 4 captures clouds with the same distinctive texture and molded form. The view from Gemini 4 is one of looking back down to earth and the particular quality of light renders the clouds dense and smooth, eerily echoing those found in Correggio's sixteenth century works. Furthermore, some of the video footage depicts one central figure ‘with body parts revealed in an upward perspective’. Could this perhaps be Correggio’s Jesus, who having escaped through the ceiling of the Duomo, floats free of gravity behind the sky? History tells us these are images of Ed White's first American space walk and not Correggio's Jesus. Nonetheless this comparison shows us that not only did Correggio anticipate the Baroque by a century, he also anticipated the skies in which today's astronauts are learning to 'swim'. Image (from top to bottom): 'The Assumption of the Virgin'; detail of the figure of Jesus in 'The Assumption of the Virgin'; detail showing the only 'exposed' putto and Correggio's distinctive clouds in 'The Assumption of the Virgin'; still from Gemini 4 footage showing clouds, 1965 (Image Credit: NASA) and still from Gemini 4 footage showing Ed White, 1965 (Image Credit: NASA)