Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder? After I admitted that I
hadn't "managed to find the main ugly and mangled verbal blurbs which a
convex surface, or a particular perspective, would organize and reveal as a
beautiful image, as suggested by VN... happens in Lolita ("a beautiful
puzzle")," I realized the enormity of the field left to be
explored through anamorphosis. Prolific Umberto Eco elaborated on "beauty and
ugliness" and described certain medieval theories on "salvation"
obtained through imprecations against God and sinning (he didn't mention
Gnosticism). Trying to find the way into Eco's literary maze, I
discovered an old N-L posting of mine, indirectly dealing with anamorphosis
(related to the misspelling of the word "triptych" in Pale Fire*) and a
collection of related essays and lectures.
Luck has it that today I found the best example of anamorphosis in
literature, where "vertue and corruption" or "beauty and beast" are
not isolated, but integrated.
I'll translate it from Alessandro Baricco's 2009 "Emaus" when the
author describes a painting of a Madonna and Child.
"Total immobility. There is no impending weight, not a
clasped fold on the verge of sliding down, nor a suspended gesture.
There is no interrupted time, there is no fissure to isolate a before
and an after - but the always.
An unseen hand has pulled away every possible expression from the
face of a virgin mother, leaving behind a sign that only signifies itself. An
icon.
When one gazes at it for a long time, the eye gradually
penetrates into its abyss, following a trace as if it were an
obligation - almost hypnosis. All the detailes are thus dissolved and, at
last, the pupil loses the motions recquired by vision and steadies
itself in one single point in which everything can be seen - the
entire painting, and everything that it summons into it. This is
the point where the eyes are placed. In the face of Our Lady, the
eyes.
It pertains to the rules that beauty shall not express
anything. Empty - in fact, the eyes don't see, but they are
made to be looked at. They are the blind heart of the world[...]
What was there to be saved?...A secret message , hidden in the reverse
side of cult and doctrine. The memory of a virgin mother. An
impossible divinity in whom everything rests, appeased, everything that in human
experience is known as torment and dilacertaion. She expresses the idea
that by one single expression of beauty it is possible
to reconstruct (reconcile?) all oppositions and contraries. [The
succession of artists] knew that it is in the sacred that one can learn the
hidden unity of the extremes, and the capacity we have of evoking it from a
simple gesture, a finished gesture - be it in a painting, be it the
span of an entire life." .
.......................................................................................................................
* -"...in Pale Fire...there's an incorrect spelling
of "triptych" made by John Shade - and not by Charles Kinbote. In his
commentary, Kinbote purpotedly marks the accents of a poem by Arnor* and dabbles
in rhyme and reason. I'd initially thought that the mispelling would be an
editorial mishap, even though it has remained unaltered and constant in the
three different editions that I examined today. Now, realizing that there might
be a stylistic issue at stake with the word "triptych"..., I tend to believe
that Nabokov left the misspelt word to Shade as a way to call the reader's
attention to it. In an article by J.P.Collas there is a remark about
Chrétien de Troyes's romance, Erec and Enide, and to Chrétien's stylistic
creation of "the semblance of a triptych in two, if not three romances me
to "Poetria nova" (Vinsauf), by focusing on Edmond Faral, after taking a lead
from Umberto Eco's "Arte e Bellezza Nell' Estetica
Medievale" (1987, Milano, translated as "Arte e Beleza na Estética Medieval,
2010 Ed.Record), in a chapter dedicated to proportion and rethoric."Vladimir
Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU> 15 de Set de 2011.
But the article I look for must be either “Il perché della letterature, in Studi di estetica, 23,
2001 in
Sulla Letteratura, 2002 or one
of his Norton
Conferences, 1990: