POV Autorerotica
Autoerotica of the Portable Point of View Tought 1: In the illustration circulated by Claudio Sgarbi to an appreciative circle of friends, it would be useful to apply an idea from recent critical analysis theory, where the point of view is shifed from the conventional mandate, standing in front of the “frame” constructed by the narrative, to enter into various objects inside the frame, as if one could tell the story of Madame Bovary in terms of what her maidservant or even her dining room table might have witnessed.1 Tis is the ultimate “reverse perspective” although in terms of the icon’s reverse perspective, where a “God’s-eye view” is involved, it would seem to be low on the ladder of critical expectations. To tell the story of this illustration using Lisa Samuels’ and Jerome McGann’s notion of “deformance,” a subset of “algorithmic criticism,” takes the viewer of this scene from a position in front of the plane of the picture to content inside the “space sandwich created by the picture plane and the apotropic do-not-trespass sign at back, where the vanishing point, like any good black hole, sucks in all visible reality. In the practice of deformance, we might be the dying holy saint, the Maestro mantovano (?), Morte di una religiosa attending priest, the praying/kneeling fgures on the lower lef, Jesus or (Caterina da Siena?), 1500 ca. Ferrara, Pinoteca Nazionale, inv. 48. Christ and two other celestial beings standing on a cloud, the tiny angel coming out of other angels appear out a cloud-lined a cloud between them paired with a colleague below the main cloud background that arcs across the secular space- line, or the praying fgure seen through the door.
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