Long ago I saw an exhibition in Florence. A commentary by a painting (unfortunately I don’t remember which painting and by whom it was painted) told what the painter answered when was being asked by a spectator why he had made such a horrible painting. He told, that for years, he had been trying to make a painting, that by first glance would instantly kill. He had not succeeded till now. The troubled spectator should not worry.

I remember only one text where a painting and death meet in a beautiful way.

In ‘The captive’ of Prousts ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’ the writer Bergotte collapses in front of ‘The view of Delft’. To read the text and some explanation, click on ‘Bergotte’.

View on Delft (Johannes Vermeer) 

Will the painting have had to do with the passing away of the writer? I hope so.

In a text on the site (I am the other (found fragments of life) I tell that I will happily drop dead in front of a Segers or Kalf in the Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Till now I have managed 4 times to feel dizzy because of the looking at art. There is hope, but still a lot to be done. And Bergotte cheated. He was ill.

Apart from the inevitable Rembrandt that shocked the hell out of me, there were the pope of Velazquez, the Portrait exhibition of Goya in London and the Gesù in Rome.

The Gesù is meant to give this sensation. It is Baroque in its most cruel version. Lots of columns shuffled to together, top-heavy frames and paintings bursting out of their cages. All in such abundance that not even the biggest church organ can blow the screaming colors out.

Gesù, Rome

Why do I think of all this again?

Not long ago I read an article about Marina Abramovic, talking about a performance of hers with Ulay. Both hung back; he with his fingers around an arrow and she holding the tense bow. The arrow was directed at her heart.

I have always found the image somewhat tasteless. It speaks of exhibitionism and machismo. ‘Look at me, risking my life!’ Could it ever have happened that the fingers snapped and the arrow was fired? And then what? Should that have been filmed or documented? Or would it just have been mentioned as an unfortunate accident at work?

One of the great beauties of painting and literature is the absence of the creator, I find. The viewer should not be dazzled by the disregard of the artist; the work should do it by how it is created. In the photo above I cannot discover any photographic splendor.

If art should kill, let it kill the creator in an anonymous way! As far as that, Proust was a real hero. He wrote himself to death.

Should I eat a tube of dioxine mauve? Wrong thing to do. This is not dying for the arts; this is simply poisoning myself…

A bit of cheating maybe can be allowed. Goya seems to have been seriously ill because of the preparing of lead white. And he was the doctor who cured him eternally thankful for his recovery. A smart guy; he portrayed himself sick in bed and the rescuer giving him his medicine...

Nice painting. To be continued, Goya was not yet dead here...