lacuna
/ləˈkjuːnə/
noun
- 1.an unfilled space; a gap."the journal has filled a lacuna in Middle Eastern studies"
- 2.ANATOMYa cavity or depression, especially in bone
Area of consolidated losses from one of the Giotto frescos in the
Lower Basilica of St Francis at Assisi, without any reintegration of the image.
The 'minimalist' approach to restoration that does not disguise a visible lacuna.
Traditional paper advertising hoarding in Perugia revealing multiple layers of
'archeological' time through space in the shallow surface.
In February I was in Rome, Perugia and Assisi for the spring break. I wanted to see Giotto's fresco cycle of the Life of Saint Francis in the Basilica as well as soak up some spring sunshine in Umbria. Images have miraculous agency in the legend of the life of St. Francis. It was the icon cross of San Damiano, that now hangs in Santa Chiara, which instructed him to, "repair my house, which, as you can see, is falling completely to ruin.” The restoration of buildings and images is about consolidating and strengthing, replacing missing parts and filling in gaps or lacuna.
“The Miracle of the Crucifix,” Giotto, Life of St. Francis cycle in the Upper Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi
Thomas of Celano's 'Life of Saint Francis' records how the saint was devoted to his 'Lady Poverty' embracing radical poverty and simplicity over richness and complexity. It is ironic that the ostentatious and triumphalist Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels at Porziuncola envelops the simpler tiny church that Francis knew and of which he said, after he returned one day to discover the brothers embellishing it and began to tear down what they had added,
'... that anything in that place that looked too ostentatious would immediately be heard about throughout the Order and taken as an example. And he would have destroyed the house from its very foundations if some soldiers who were present had not stopped him in his zeal by declaring the house belonged to the city and not to the brothers'
Imagine something in stone, roughly the size of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond, inserted like the tiniest Russian doll into the heart of the massive baroque basilica seen in section in Vignoli's drawing below, and you have some sense of the extreme visual polarity, and surreal architectural and philosophical contradiction inherent in the relationship between the diminutive and grandiose forms
Seventeenth-century drawing of the dome (Porziuncola Museum, Vignoli 1989).
Reconstruction of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond in Concord,
Francis, like Henry David Thoreau centuries later, seems to have discovered an abundance rather than a lack in his love for poverty, and to have created an 'aesthetic' of simple sufficiency that might find a parallel in another tradition like that of Japanese wabi sabi, embodied in crafts like boro patchwork fabrics or kintsugi ceramics.
'Wabi-sabi is the view or thought of finding beauty in every aspect of imperfection in nature. It is about the aesthetic of things in existence, that are “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”
Traditional boro kimono
evokes his tangible bodily presence precisely because of it's absence
In this aesthetic less can be as meaningful as more, emptiness contain as much significance as fullness, silence be as audable as sound, absence as evocative as presence, and negative space as equal in value to positive shape.
Empty art gallery window and wall in Knokke, Belgium, with moving shadows and reflections from the sun.
In my own work with collage and oil painting for the 'Fugitive Images' series I was fascinated by the mystery of what is simultaneously 'something' and 'nothing', an image of 'no image, or a picture of 'no picture', a trompe l'oiel or illusion of something real which is perhaps a 'true lie' in visual terms, so to speak. Which is the 'original' and which the 'copy', since both are made by the artist as part of the same creative process and are interdependent ? Seeing is believing, but seeing is also an act of creation, a perceptual construction and perhaps an illusion. In the mirrored reflection of light and shadowy forms, glimpst momentarily by the eye, only a fraction of these fragments are formulated into meaningful pictures and narratives in the mind of the viewer.
Paper collage made to work from direct observation for painting below
Oil painting on wood panel. Trompe l' oeil paintng of the collage above.
Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano. The incredulty of Saint Thomas.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/giovanni-battista-cima-da-conegliano-the-incredulity-of-saint-thomas
In 'The incredulity of Saint Thomas', with its vanishing point and interlocking geometry of circles and squares, the artist very clearly juxtaposes the figure of doubting Thomas inserting his finger into the wound made by the spear to convince himself of the reality of the risen Christ, with the truncated view of the landscape with a pathway leading to a hilltop castle or town set amidst trees against a blue sky with drifting clouds. This landscape is seen framed like a pair of matching pictures, through the two symetrically balanced arched windows in the otherwise blank wall behind the main figures. The artist seems to be inviting us to engage with the illusion of the flat surface of the painted image itself by making us question if the landscape really continues behind the wall or whether the viewer fills in the lacuna created by the blank space in his imagination, seeing in his mind's eye the completed image of the landcape. Now you see it, now you don't. The painting and the story is about credulity and belief, about reality and what the mind constructs from the tactile, optical and perceptual operation of the senses. Even whilst the sceptical Thomas is testing the material evidence, finding proof with his senses of the veracity of the risen Christ in his tangible bodily, physical presence. 'Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” ' John 20:29. Now I am here, now I am not. The artist also seems to be saying that seeing in this picture is not necessarily believing, since appearance and reality are not always the same thing. Reality and illusion are inextricably linked through the lacuna. Is he warning us to 'mind the gap' between the way things are and the way we think we see them? Is he asserting that doubt is concomitant on belief ?
Point, line and circle begin the process of creating, through geometry, a superabundance of created forms 'ad infinitum' that can be returned by the same process to the point of origin that has no dimensions and is both everywhere and nowhere to be found.
Sacred geometry can be found in the facade and rose window of the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. This abstract architectural structure, in medieval and early renaissance theological context, could be said to be metaphorically an 'incarnation in stone' of the 'Mystical Body of Christ', his church. The facade 'squares the circle', bringing time and space, human and divine, absolute and conditional into unity and equlibrium, in a relationship of balance, harmony and beauty. A similar sacred geometry and spirituality is to be found in the Islamic art that Francis may have encountered in the peaceful and respective dialogue he initiated with Islam in his meeting with the Sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Kamiland during the 5th crusade. Keith Critchlow has written about this sacred geometry in his book, 'Islamic Patterns' with its illuminating introduction by Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
Quranic calligraphy issues at once from the Islamic revelation and
represents the response of the soul of the Islamic peoples to the Divine Message. The points traced by the Divine
Pen created at once the celestial archetype of Quranic calligraphy as well as the lines and volumes of which the
cosmic order is constituted and from which issues not only natural space, but also the space of Islamic architecture.
In the mystery of the Point, represented by the diacritical point under the first letter which opens the Noble Quran,
namely the letter ba', 1 is to be found the principle of both Islamic calligraphy and Islamic architecture, the
principle of both the sonoral and plastic arts, the root of both of which is to be found in the Sacred Book. The
points and lines of Islamic calligraphy with their inexhaustible diversity of forms and rhythms are related to that
Supreme Divine Precinct at whose centre resides the first Point which is none other than His Exalted Word. The
Master of Illumination, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, begins one of his prayers with these words: 'O Master of the
Supreme Circle from which issue all circles, with which terminate all lines, and from which is manifested the First
Point which is Thy Exalted Word cast upon Thy Universal Form.'
Islamic Art and Spirituality. Seyyed Hossein Nasr. State University of New York Press.
St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, fresco attributed to Giotto di Bondone, c. 1300; in the upper church of San Francesco, Assisi.
It is possible to see a cosmic circularity in the cycles of time and space indicted by the sun and moon, and the square in the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, in the structure of Francis's famous 'Laudes Creaturarum'. It reflects an ancient and medieval view of the universe and acknowledges Francis's 'Altissimu, omnipotente bon Signore', whom he praises; the invisible God, whose image and likeness is 'personalised' in the incarnated Christ, (and whose crucified image Francis himself 'copies' when it is literally projected onto his body as he miraculously recieves the stimata), and who is reflected in the unity and diversity of the whole 'family' of the created universe including human, animate and inanimate forms.
The Ptolemaic universe from Andrew Borde's
The First Book of the Introduction of Knoweledge, 1542
Ultimate reality is percieved only indirectly by the senses, like the shadows cast on the wall of the cave by sunlight falling across the real forms outside the entrance, in Plato's famous allegory. The real forms that lie outside the frame of direct vision can be apprehended by reason alone. One finds the truth by a process of elimination that points ultimately to the lacuna in our knowledge and understanding. Completing it requires all our mental faculties to 'fill in the gap'.
Giotto, Legend of St. Francis preaching to the birds. Fresco Upper Basilica
The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. the sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, ed. by A.M. Sellar, 1907
Thus, by means of a lacuna, the mystery of the unknowable is hidden in full view.
Laudes Creaturarum
Original text in Umbrian dialect:
Altissimu, omnipotente bon Signore,
Tue so le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione.
Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se konfano,
et nullu homo ène dignu te mentouare.
Laudato sie, mi Signore cum tucte le Tue creature,
spetialmente messor lo frate Sole,
lo qual è iorno, et allumini noi per lui.
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore:
de Te, Altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora Luna e le stelle:
in celu l'ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per frate Uento
et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per lo quale, a le Tue creature dài sustentamento.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per sor'Acqua,
la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per frate Focu,
per lo quale ennallumini la nocte:
ed ello è bello et iucundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra,
la quale ne sustenta et gouerna,
et produce diuersi fructi con coloriti fior et herba.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo Tuo amore
et sostengono infirmitate et tribulatione.
Beati quelli ke 'l sosterranno in pace,
ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.
Laudato si mi Signore, per sora nostra Morte corporale,
da la quale nullu homo uiuente pò skappare:
guai a quelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;
beati quelli ke trouarà ne le Tue sanctissime uoluntati,
ka la morte secunda no 'l farrà male.
Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate
e seruiteli cum grande humilitate.
Notes: so=sono, si=sii (be!), mi=mio, ka=perché, u and v are both written as u, sirano=saranno
English Translation:
Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing.
To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to Your creatures.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who will find Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canticle_of_the_Sun
