Barthes’ Enigmas
in Art and Landscape
Barthes recognises a number of different types
of ‘dilatory morpheme’,
ways of slowing the progress of a story –
snares, partial answers, equivocations, etc - and if our hypothesis is correct
(that the underlying neural mechanism for
interpreting and acting on our surroundings is universal for landscape,
bodyscape, cityscape, and all the many arts)
we would expect to find these morphemes equally
prevalent in art.
And indeed we do,
and we can divide such enigmatic imagery into
different categories.
In the photo by Jay Appleton below, we have a
classic example of a suspended answer.
The ‘coulisse’ of foliage to the right of the
bending pathway cuts it off abruptly.
In the framing provided by the Baby Owl
brochure, we have a classic example of Barthes’ ‘partial answer’.
And in Bev Doolittle’s astounding works of
camouflage and spirituality, we see two more…
Bev Doolittle ‘Pintos’ 1979
It was Bev’s ‘Pintos’, a print issued by
Greenwich Workshop in 1979
that really launched her career. The pintos
were shown against a rocky, snowy backdrop,
against which they camouflaged themselves.
Within ten years, these prints, which had sold out at $65 each,
were selling for as much as $10,000 each.
Her paintings are not only a comment
on the beauty of nature, but also on the
marvels of its working, and how we might better relate to that Nature.
In that the horses’ colouration and patterning
suggests that they are just part of the background,
we have here an excellent example of a
Barthesian ‘equivocation’.
white and brown 'species' - the Pintos.
Bev went on from ‘Pintos’ to build an amazing
career,
exploring the ways in which people perceive the
world around them,
and how myth and meaning may be layered into a
painting. In ‘Woodland Encounter’ (1981)
we see an example of one of Barthes’
‘snares’. We spot the element of truth – the fox,
and for a moment think that we have the answer
to the enigma.
Although it does seem an awful lot of painting
to hide just one fox. And of course, it is.
Why a fox?
We all
have our own views,
but I
think because the fox is an emblem of craft, ingenuity and deception…
As Bev herself says about this wonderful
painting,
“Woodland Encounter… is a deliberate study in
camouflage by misdirection,
which grew out of my effort to break all the
normal ‘rules’ of composition.
The bright-colored fox, dead center,
distracts the eye from whatever is going on in the busy snowscape
surrounding him.
And the richness of design – a wonderful,
natural part of the trees themselves – also gave me
the opportunity to play games with the
traditionally accepted uses of space that govern a well conceived piece of
art…”
(from the book ‘The Art of Bev Doolittle’
Bantam Books, 1990)
But what IS going on elsewhere? What is the
true secret of this piece?
Refuges and Prospects in Language: The Structure of Magic
