Mourning of Oblivion: describing Jacopo Pontormo and the gap between Daniel Mafe PhD Visual Arts – Queensland University Technology Post-graduate Diploma (Painting) – Royal Academy of Arts, London Diploma (Painting) – City and Guild School of Arts, London A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2017 School of Communication and Arts Abstract There is at the heart of this project an interest in the "gap" between the represented and its representation. This gap is a powerful affecting space, animated by much more than the simple incapacity of one medium to perfectly replicate another. This relates to how the unrepresentable can be seen as a kind of trauma for language but also as something paralleling the reality of trauma's asignification itself. It is also a space that engenders the interpretive indeterminacy that haunts any kind of discourse and at the same time is open to that which animates the raw generative play of desire. And finally, the core of this project can be understood as an exploration of the limits of language and its necessity in the development of poetic expressiveness. I explore these issues in a creative written work and a critical essay. The creative work consists of a group of interrelated poems entitled Broken Perfect. The subject of Broken Perfect is the Italian mannerist painter Jacopo Carucci usually referred to as Pontormo (1494–1557). The poems are in the first person and work to establish, through an act of imaginative invention, the subjectivity of this singular artist. Together they constitute a mosaic of fragments and fragmentations, a palimpsest of sculpted silences around which snatches of description and monologue move. The language used attempts at times to compress itself into itself to give rise to image or sensation before it is understood as language. Within the text Pontormo is hinted at; he speaks but he is never described. In this way, this work can be seen to play with representation and its limits. In the critical essay, I further address this issue of the gap and representation in two complementary ways. The first is through an exploration of poetry that deals with trauma, ekphrasis and biography. Each in its own way grapples with the problem of the gap between the represented and representation. And then the second is a more theoretically explicit examination of the "affect- phrase," a concept of the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard that can be seen as that which defines rupture or resistance within discourse, giving rise to a conflicted silence, the mute beyond language. This is followed by an examination of the interpretive indeterminacy extant in both ekphrasis and biography that connects us to the feeling of conflicted silence aroused by the affect- phrase and its consequences for poetry. 2 Declaration by author This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis. I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award. I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the policy and procedures of The University of Queensland, the thesis be made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968 unless a period of embargo has been approved by the Dean of the Graduate School. I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis. 3 Publications during candidature No publications Publications included in this thesis No publications included 4 Contributions by others to the thesis No contributions by others. Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree The section outlining the theory of Lyotard in relation to the differend and the affect-phrase has been outlined in research I have published previous to this degree. I have not however applied it to the field literature or my own literary work. The specific details of this previously published research are as follows: from the start of the final paragraph, line 14 of printed text, on page 73 to the eighth line of printed text on page 74. 5 Acknowledgements While this degree has been a rich and extraordinary personal experience for me it has not been possible without the help and support of others. I would like to take this opportunity to thank for their support Associate Professor Bronwyn Lea (principal supervisor) and Dr. Josephine Robertson (associate supervisor). Bronwyn Lea gave invaluable advice and insightful critique throughout the creative aspect of this project. Without her gentle but steady support and perceptive and knowledgeable feedback the project would have been considerably the poorer. More than that though was the insight I had some capacity to complete this project despite a marked lack of experience in this literary terrain we call poetry, and for that I will be forever indebted. Josephine Robertson contributed significantly to the critical aspect of the project with warmth, great empathy and acute critical insight. She enabled me to go deeper into the critical writing and so understand better the necessities underpinning critical writing. For their collegial support and strong reading at a crucial stage of the project, I would like to thank Sharon Jewell and Patrick Holland. I would like to thank my friend, Judith Wright, for her early encouragement and for the ongoing opportunity to write. Most fundamentally however I must acknowledge and thank the extraordinary and enduring support, help and understanding, critical, emotional and otherwise, of my wife, Majena. As with so many of my projects my debt to her is total. Without her sustaining encouragement, the advancement to completion of this project would simply have been that very much harder. 6 Keywords affect, ekphrasis, Jean-François Lyotard, affect phrase, Pontormo, poetry, representation Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC) ANZSRC code: 190402, Creative Writing, 100% Fields of Research (FoR) Classification FoR code: 1904, Creative Writing, 100% 7 Table of Contents Broken Perfect 10 Preface 11 Death: Via della Colonna, no. 33, Florence, January, 1557 13 Heaven and Earth: The Four Evangelists, the Deluge and the Resurrection of the Dead, three frescoes from the Choir of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence, 1546-1557 17 Stones: Walking and painting, and drawing and seeing, Florence, 1554 24 Mourning: The Deposition, oil on wood panel, the Capponi Chapel of Church of Santa Felicita, Florence, 1527-1528 32 Love: … for Bronzino, 1540 35 Call: The Angel of the Annunciation (detail), fresco, the Capponi Chapel of Church of Santa Felicita, Florence, 1527-1528 41 Book: The diary of Pontormo, excerpts 1554-1556 44 Always 55 Notes 58 Bibliography 62 8 Exegesis: the gap between 63 Introduction 63 Textual models: texts of influence 65 Trauma, a silence presented 66 Biography, a life imagined 69 Ekphrasis, art evoked 70 An exploration of expressiveness: the differend, affect-phrase and ekphrasis 73 The differend, the affect phrase and silence 73 Ekphrasis and biography 74 Conclusion and the place of empathy 75 Bibliography 76 9 Broken Perfect 10 Preface Pontormo was born in 1494 just outside of Florence. He was orphaned early in life and by age ten had embarked on the first of a series of apprenticeships to established painters in Florence, the most famous of whom was reputed to be Leonardo da Vinci. He showed remarkable promise and by the time he was twenty, he began to establish himself as a master of the Florentine painting style of the High Renaissance: beautiful, sweet colouring combined with masterfully balanced compositions. He was a remarkable draftsman. However, he was intense in his pursuit of perfection and had to be stopped at times from destroying his work. As this trait of perfectionism grew in him, so began his pursuit of what can only be described as an inner authenticity. He was relentless in following his own needs and intuitions at a time when conformity was the rule. The principal subject and vehicle for expression in the work of Pontormo is without a doubt the male nude. He engages with it throughout his entire working life, but it is in his later work that this interest really takes hold. There is no doubt that the influence of the older and more established artist, Michelangelo, whose primary subject was also the male nude, is significant here. For Pontormo this influence permeates his own work from the time of his Mannerist masterpiece the Deposition (1527) onwards. Indeed, in the early 1530's Pontormo even directly collaborated with Michelangelo by completing the paintings for several commissions the latter had received and had made drawings for. What is striking though is the extent to which Pontormo is able to incorporate the lessons he learns from the older artist's work and then transcends them, developing his own vision in increasingly original and influential directions.