Essay 1998
Standing Stones, by Linda James
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Towards the end of his life, Roland Barthes wrote a probing and meditative account on the nature of photography. For many, his book, Camera Lucida, remains best remembered as a deeply personal inquiry in which the author's theoretical and structural play is eclipsed by his own contemplation over the image of his dead mother. Occasionally, however, another specter emerges within the text: that of Painting, a ghost that "still torments" photography. Barthes observes that photography has helped make painting the "Paternal reference" through "copies and contestations" - the former, those myriad reproductions which inform us and, the latter, lest we forget, are the aging, heated arguments of the past about reality and illusion, the artist's hand verses an image-making machine. Barthes waxes long about the photograph's ability to "bruise" and to "wound,"
exposing emotional gullies that sometimes we didn't know existed. And he acknow-ledges that, at least in visual culture of the past, it was Painting which dominated this illusion-based reserve of emotional exposure. But by the turn of the twentieth century, new ideas about form and symbol, self and society merged with the advent of overwhelming, innovative technology - photography included - to produce a slow erosion of the "ascendant" art form. Decades later, representational painting becomes marginalized within the art world at large, and we have acquired a postmodern skin which endows us with not only a different look but also a different way of looking at what is real. We view the questions of reality and illusion in a jaded and bored way. We conclude that we can't know reality, and we worry that to make the question matter may imprison us in the problematic thinking of the past. And our eidos, or intuited knowledge, does not or cannot rise to the challenge.
In such a context as our contemporary culture, how does one critically evaluate specific, representational work? What should one think of artists who insist on maintaining their ties to age-old traditions of technical mastery and illusionistic tricks? A mastery that pales in front of computer wizardry or photographic acumen? Perhaps the first step is to accept the minor position of realist painting in today's milieu, under-standing that the vocabulary is large - in the historic sense of hundreds of years - and as a consequence, very heavy. At the same time, the vocabulary is quite limited, not only because of its girth and age but also because the contest has changed. And then the approach should become something like a comparison between a Chicago bungalow and a Frank Geary abode, or the treasures of one's own backyard to that of grander, more public grounds. For the moment then, the value of contemporary, representational work resides more often than not in the message and not the messenger, the former being one of compelling intimacy (the artist's expression, the courage to pursue such work, and the work itself) and the latter one of historical baggage and category.
This perspective seems particularly germane to the work of Carol Pylant who for the last six years (1992-1998) has created a series of representational landscape paintings which are at once intimate and quiet, expansive and unsettling. In many of the artist's most memorable works, she intentionally conflates the ancient with the fleeting, the awe-inspiring with the very earthy. Occasionally, there is a sense of the literary in Pylant's work: as in the construction of a narrative, only to leave it unresolved and open. Sometimes, there is an impression of intrusion and captured time, a momentary observation on the artist's part which is imbued with both a sense of surprise and blasé. Different images carry the impression of careful placement - not just of brushstroke, not just to depict the tedious building of the buildings that are her subject matter - but with a purpose to convey the visceral construction of personal memory. In earlier paintings, such as Dingle Ruins (1992) and Dunbeg Fort (1992-93), the artist "peoples" the land with depictions of Celtic structure and ruins. In other, later works, such as Doon Fort (1992-93), Ring of Brodgar(1996-97), and The Journey Back (1997), the pictures are animated with a literal portrayal of living presence as opposed to only ephemeral reference. And it is the painting, Gallarus Oratory (1991-92), which heralds Pylant's subsequent focus on the ancient ruins of Great Britain.
A strange, hive-like structure, the actual Gallarus Oratory was built around 800 C.E. Constructed of tightly and exactly placed rock, its solidity makes it impervious to inclement weather. Originally designed as a primitive monastery, the way Pylant has depicted it calls forth all sorts of remembered ideas of the "antediluvian": from igloo to mound to sweat lodge. The building is mysterious, and it engenders a sense of necessary dread, an ordeal to be gone through for the promise of some sort of spiritual cleansing, hiding or safety. In Pylant's painting, the dome is sandwiched between a pale but leaden sky and the slightly daunting stone wall anchors the entire foreground of the painting. It is a completely symmetrical picture- a perfect example of fore, middle and background with the mammary-like shape of the Oratory occupying central place. Of all her landscape paintings, this is arguably the most elementary in its composition, and yet it speaks to very complicated notions which we have almost forgotten in our daily, convoluted lives. To quote Mircea Eliade:
In many languages, man is called "born of the earth"...[and there are cultures which] believe that children "come from the depths of the Earth," from caves, grottos, crevices, but also from marshes and springs and streams. Every region of Europe, almost every town or village knows of a rock or spring which brings children....We must be on our guard not to think of these superstitions or metaphors as meant only for children. Reality is more complex. Until recently there persisted among Europeans the obscure awareness of a mystic solidarity with the land of one's birth. It was not a commonplace love of country or province; it was not admiration of a familiar landscape or veneration of ancestors buried, generation after generation, around the village church. It was something entirely different: the mystic experience of autochthony, of being indigenous, the profound sense of having emerged from the local ground, the sense that the earth had given birth to us, much as it had given birth, in its inexhaustible fertility to rocks and streams and flowers. ..The obscure memory of a pre-existence in the womb of the earth has had significant consequences. It has produced among men and women a feeling of cosmic relatedness to the environment [producing] a mystic link with place, whose intensity is still echoed in folklore and popular tradition.
Discovering the Vernacular Landscape, p. 41
Surely this idea of attachment to and emergence from the earth must have deeply infused the lives of the people who made the Oratory. Pylant's depiction, too, appears very much an outcrop, a form borne from the earth and molded by human hands. She speaks to this notion of connection to the earth, but at the same time, the artist conveys a sense of displacement. The building seems isolated from its surroundings by its gravel moat, and the ominous doorway presages a feeling of being "cut off" from the rest of the world. It is not hard to imagine walking through it into a sanctuary of sorts- a claustrophobic, secretive space. Moreover, it is an interesting choice on the artist's part to show the Oratory in this way, and the painting's qualities of contradiction run consistently through other works. Yet Pylant grows away from its even and heavy handedness.
Far less ominous are the paintings, Dunbeg Fort and Creevykeel (1993-94). The artist has an amusing anecdote about the latter place where, in a moment overwashed by the sensation of being alone in a grave, she exits far too quickly and ends up in the rather embarrassing position of hitting her head on the entry stone and landing face down in the mud. At first thought, this Rube Goldberg event seems incongruous for ancient, sacred ground. Afterall, we are often awestruck in the presence of ancient stone formations; it would seem almost sacrilegious to banter about them, to use them for our various human recreational activities . Yet that is what has been done. For example, since the sixteenth century, the rocks at Stonehenge and Avebury have been employed in multiple ways: hauled away and used for a bridge; as a picnic table; to ward off demons in a well; for lots of graffiti. And there is more - one can assume that just about every conceivable human activity has taken place on these mysterious sites: ritual, burial, violence, lovemaking, games, horse racing, animal grazing. It is this meshing of the extraordinary with the ordinary, the everyday with the exceptional that makes these places so rich. They compel and cause wonderment - but never too much- and they connect us to our ancestors in a very profound way. One is reminded of Plato's Symposium where there is not only the famous philosophical discussions on love but also a quick remedy for hiccoughs. The remedies are no different than today. Eryximachus advises Aristophanes that he drink some water; if that doesn't work, he should hold his breath, and as a last resort, to "tickle your nose with something and sneeze." Somehow the idea of Plato (or any member of his extraordinary group) having hiccoughs seems extraordinary in itself, never mind hangovers. And although this episode is a small, very human thing encapsulated in part of the ancient philosophical foundations of the Western world, it is a slice of mundanity very gratifying within such erudite words. It has a parallel in the overall intent of Pylant's landscape paintings. It is evident in her Stonehenge at 3 p.m. (1996) and epitomized by her Ring of Brodgar.
Stonehenge is one of a group of paintings in which Pylant records different hours of the day and the ensuing local light on this primitive structure. In a way, it has the flavor of Monet's Haystacks. And as Monet used popular, archetypal subject matter of latter day nineteenth century Europe for his paintings (e.g., Notre Dame, Japanese Garden) so too does Pylant employ a part of our own current, archetypal vocabulary by choosing this structure as a subject for a painting. As a consequence, Pylant sets up a difficult challenge for herself: it is not easy for any artist to escape Stonehenge's heavy, mythical past or the risk of staleness in such content. Instead of capitalizing on the mystique of the stones, as so many artists have done, Pylant casts a different eye on this "vast, stone mortuary." At first glance, her "eye" may seem dispassionate, merely a careful recording of passing time on a group of famous rocks. The monumentality and drama usually conveyed in images of Stonehenge are muted in this painting, and it is completed by the addition of one animating component: the horse. Far removed from Fuseli's Nightmare or Bonheur's pageantry, this is no Black Beauty or Pegasus. It is just a horse, calmly going about its business. One can sense the swishing of its tail and probably intuit the animal's own, circular posture that mimics the monument. And yet this animal anchors the painting, gives it a sense of completion and mitigates the usual histrionics we associate with Stonehenge. The horse's presence balances the painting, reminding the viewer of mundane impermanence within ancient time.
Pylant dilutes the usual aura of Stonehenge, and in many respects, she treats the Ring Of Brodgar in the same manner. Like the "fir bhrege" or false men of Calanais (another ancient formation), the stones of the Ring have stood witness to the land around them for centuries. And even though the "false men" stand on a distant horizon in Pylant's painting, the sense of stone audience is accentuated because they, as well as we, cannot ignore what is dead center in the work: a big, white bull mounting a less than demure and very black cow. That Pylant has chosen a mythical creature to dominate this painting simply compounds the chances she takes with familiar subject matter of ancient ruins. Afterall, we know the white bull as the corn spirit of Northern Europe, as a life-giving and fertilizing influence in many ancient cultures, both West and East, and as a representation of male power and necessary sacrifice. We also know the white bull as one of Zeus's more infamous guises, but this is hardly a "Rape of Europa" painting. There are no swooning and succulent maidens here nor turbulent skies or seas surrounding an awe inspiring, take-charge beast. Instead, Pylant "refigures" this theme in a way which echoes Cindy Sherman's History Portraits - there is an amusing, dead pan quality about the work which seems to embody an allegorical theme just out of memory's reach. Without doubt, there are those who will spin a Freudian read on this painting, and there is little that one can do to ameliorate such an interpretation. Afterall, Freud made the subconscious so vulnerable and so tied to human sexuality that we have lost control over it - if we ever had control of it in the first place. And our own culture has assigned much of the expression of human creativity to the manifestation of our subconscious. Yet Pylant maintains that her intent is far removed from this interpretation. The Ring of Brodgar is composed of a witnessed event, visits to the locale, various memories, and the pressing need to paint this particular place. Hardly sensual, the animals' sexual activity is matter of fact, part of the cyclical nature of on going life. Perhaps the "touche" (that Lacanian notion mentioned in Barthes Camera Lucida where the emotional gut reaction of recognition of a dismantling of identity, of knowing - all of a sudden - that what you thought was - no longer is) of the work comes in the rather extraordinary recognition of who exactly is audience. It is the stones, the cows, and us. As a consequence, past and present, animal and human become linked through an everyday episode girdled by ancient witnesses and contemporary audience. The Ring of Brodgar blatantly compounds our connection to past myths, lost magic rituals and half-remembered metaphors of fertility with our present day understanding of simple, basic biology. The painting mollifies because it quells our fears of the loss of such magic. It proffers assurance that the remarkable can be found in the unremarkable and vice versa.
Both Dingle Ruins and Rosbeg Cattle (1995) carry a different sensibility from the Ring of Brodgar. In Dingle Ruins, Pylant has replaced the tight, almost impervious entryway of Gallarus Oratory with a floating, upstairs doorway that opens out to the ocean - to air and light. The painting speaks to a domestic presence that has lost its covering; a sense of transient shelter, ironically built of stone and high above the sea. It is a quiet and curiously hopeful painting, seemingly full of future promise ("I could live here, I could rebuild this home") as well as a testament to past and passing lives. Rosbeg Cattle, too, is imbued with the domestic and rural. Again, the artist has an interesting story regarding this painting. She relates that she was driving home after an arduous day. It had been excruciatingly hot, quite unusual in Ireland, and the heat of the day, coupled with her own exhaustion, and the curving, dangerously narrow roads typical of outlying areas in Ireland, made her journey exceedingly difficult. The sun was very low, giving the atmosphere a tangerine hue. She was high up in some hills, near the ocean, and as she rounded a bend, she saw a small herd of cattle bathing in the salt water. How often do we associate those massive, plodding animals with the romance, terror and beauty of the sea? Pylant found herself drawn to the cows and their setting. As she carefully approached the large animals, she was surprised to see how flushed they were - their bellies rose colored from the heat. They had come to the water to find relief; for Pylant, this simple and pragmatic action offered to her a stillness in time and the minutia of extraordinary color, a sense of the unexpected as well as a gratifying and empathetic understanding because she too, was seeking relief. And for a short while, she found it, and she retains the moment by painting it.
One might ask, why not photograph it? In a way, Pylant does. Her paintings are
culled from photographic records, and most recently, video. It is important to realize, however, that Pylant's work is hardly a painted copy of a photograph or captured video still; by no means is her intent picture postcard. Her creative process is a compilation of machine-recorded image, personal memory and deeply felt emotion. The artist asks herself a number of questions as she paints: Is this how it was? Is this the experience that I remember ? Is this so engaging to me, so compelling that I must paint it? How is it that I can construct this so that I can meld, meaningfully, my records, my experience and my memory of this place?
Pylant asks a lot of memory, one of the most interesting components of human knowledge. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that memory fell into two realms - the artificial and the natural. The former was the place for rhetoric and poetry, memorized legal agreements and political policy. Natural memory encompassed what artificial memory did not, residing in the private realm of day to day life. In these ancient worlds, the skill of accurate memory was highly prized, and formalized training was a part of the culture. The standard surviving Roman text on memory was written in approximately 80 B.C. E. Known as the Ad Herinnium, it was a textbook for students of public speaking. Perhaps the text's best known system is one where the student recalls facts by "arranging scenes in an imaginary space." The method of recall went something like this:
First a person imagined a space, commonly a quiet building he already knew well. The space was never a purely abstract grid or set of pigeon holes. Rhetoric students used to seek out large architectural spaces and commit them to memory. After selecting a space, one placed, mentally of course, associative images in this space. Each person filled his space with privately created pictures. Recall consisted of an imaginary stroll through this space, looking at the images and remembering their associations. Although the action was imaginary, the experience was profoundly felt.
Remembering and Forgetting, p. 6
This was an imaginative and surely an effective method of recall. Over the course of her landscape series, Pylant has followed a similar approach. She spends a great deal of time at various places that interest her. She walks around them, committing them to memory; she will photograph, sketch and video-record them. It is often months after visiting a site that she contemplates painting it. And then the "Ad Herinnium-like" process begins - an imaginative gathering of personal, symbolic vocabulary aligned with the place that she walked through and that she remembers.
However, perhaps Pylant's most powerful gathering of her symbolic and personal vocabulary is manifested in her painting, The Journey Back. It is a painting that exudes a sense of affinity with Samuel Beckett's described landscapes of existential vastness and "peopled" emptiness, particularly in his novel, Molloy:
It was a road remarkably bare, I mean without hedges or ditches or any kind of edge, in the country, for cows were chewing in enormous fields, lying and standing, in the evening silence...The road, hard and white, seared the tender pastures, rose and fell at the whim of hills and hollows...It was two men, unmistakably. They had left the town, first one, then the other, and then the first, weary or remembering a duty, had retraced his steps. At first a wide space lay between them. They couldn't have seen each other, even had they raised their heads and looked about, because of this wide space, and then because of the undulating land, which caused the road to be in waves, not high, but high enough, high enough. But the moment came when together they went down into the same trough and in this trough finally met. To say they knew each other, no nothing warrants it... Yes, they did not pass each other by, but halted, face to face, as in the country, of an evening, on a deserted road, two wayfaring strangers will, without there being anything extraordinary about it. But they knew each other perhaps. They turned towards the sea which, far in the east, beyond the fields, loomed high in the waning sky, and exchanged a few words. Then each went on his way. Each went on his way.
Molloy, p. 6
Pylant's painting resonates with that same impression of desolate expanse as Molloy. Her road, too is "remarkably" barren, but it is also wide and flat and comfortable. A cow path deviates from it, pockmarked with waterlogged tracks that reflect the silver of the sky, and bespeak of other life which carries, plods on. The lush fields promise fertility. The horizon is clearing; the storm is over, not gathering. In one sense then, the journey back is full of promise, of optimism, hardly the stuff of Beckett. Yet in another sense, it is deeply forlorn. The receding figure is dwarfed by an ancient structure, a tor perhaps or some other type of military outpost which has been long abandoned, its purpose no longer clear. The building seems to have come from the outcrop of stone that lies at its base; it also seems a worn away Gallarus Oratory. Questions abound in the painting. Who is the stranger garbed in black, his easy path narrowing down all too quickly, moving treacherously close to some sort of precipice. Could it be The Precipice, that romantic edge of devastating secret, of the "not to be known" because to know would be to risk destruction? And the life surrounding the man? Perhaps gone before him but nowhere to be seen at the moment that Pylant has painted. And where is he going? One wonders if Beckett isn't appropriate again ....
...But now he knows these hills, that is to say he knows them better and if ever again he sees them from afar it will be I think with other eyes, and not only that but the within, all that inner spaces one never sees, the brain and heart and other caverns where thought and feeling dance their sabbath, all that too quite differently disposed. He looks old and it is a sorry sight to see him solitary after so many years...
Molloy, p. 6
What is most engaging is that the subject, the man and his implied sojourn, does not make an appeal to the histrionic, and the unknown is a flat, calm sea with hills beyond.
The Journey Back encapsulates central components, themes, which epitomize this series of Pylant's work: the interfold of imagination which is part of memory and which constructs the work; the peopling of, the habitation of, landscape - not with humans for the most part, but with structure and animal life - whispers of the past whose fodder is Pylant's own biography; and lastly the symbolic, that part of language which is prediscursive and which for some begs a "Freudian" read, and for others a mythical read (and which in many respects are one and the same). The last is a part of language which skirts the old saw between photo and paint. To cite Barthes once again: Pylant's work retains both the "punctum and studium" of the very familiar image. Studium is Barthes' very erudite way of describing a state of pause, a rather compromised way of looking because it demands both a self awareness and a self control. It is "in the order of liking, not of loving; it mobilizes a half desire, a demi-volition; it is the same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds "all right." Punctum disturbs the studium - it is like a little wounding that informs beyond, pulls us out of the mundane; it stings us a little bit. As Barthes says, "A photograph's punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me.)" But, unlike photography, in painting, in representational painting, in Pylant's painting, the primary reference is filtered by the preliminary of an artist's consciousness instead of our own. More than ever, we realize the interjection of another; more than ever the standards are higher because the pool has become ever more dilute. To evoke Barthes one last time - look, look once more, and look again. Pause.
- Linda James
1998
Bibliography
Roland Barthes. Richard Howard, trans. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Noon Day Press, 1981
Samuel Beckett. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. New York: Knopf, 1997
Edmund Blair Bolles, Remembering and Forgetting: Inquiries into the Nature of Memory. New York: Walker and Co., 1988
Irwin Edman., ed. Works of Plato. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1928
John Brinckerhoff Jackson. Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984
James G. Frazier. The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore. New York: Avenel Books, 1981
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