amor cathedra, 2019: a reading in seven lenses
Acrylic on black paper, 70 × 100 cm (27 ½ × 39 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen.
At a Glance
Two large round eyes are ringed with black rings, the pupils each a dot in the middle, turned directly toward us. For the first time in this series a figure does not shy from looking; the one looked at is now us. The arrangement of white disc, black dot, thick ring is an invention of the cartoon studios; animation reduces the face to the eye, because the eye is the cheapest organ that can move. But the two rings are not the same size, they do not stand at the same level, so the gaze cannot gather into a single direction and where the one opposite will settle stays uncertain. Beneath the eyes hangs a dense, closely combed black mass; it is where the mouth should be but does not resemble a mouth, like a piece taken from somewhere else and carried onto the face.
The cathedra of the title directly names the seat, the bishop's seat of office; together with the word love before it, the passion felt for office comes out. There is no separate chair; the creature's own legs open like a throne and carry its body, the seat and the seated turned into one thing. There are more arms and legs than should issue from one body, more than six, all issuing from the same place and reaching outward. Like the way people gathered about an office turn in time into a single organism; the outsider cannot tell which arm belongs to whom. They end in open palms, spread fingers, all about to touch something, but there is no object about to be held. In depictions of the many-armed god each hand would hold a separate power; here the hands are idle, the multiplicity turned into an ineptitude, with so many limbs the figure cannot even rise from its place.
The gold at the edges behaves apart from all the other paints. In metallic acrylic there is not pigment but fine flake; as the brush passes the flakes lie in the direction of the movement, the field lying to one side, and as the head moves that place dims and lights again, while on a screen this play is lost entirely. Since the Sienese masters the gold ground would set a placeless infinity behind the figure, and would be smooth; the gold here is laid on with a coarse brush, without reaching everywhere on the paper, like a half-finished whitewash. The body is full of a lilac purple opened with white, undarkened, its roundness given not by shadow but by black contour alone. The dark petrol-blue oval behind is the one intermediate value entering between the black and the purple; without it the figure would sit into the darkness of the paper. This is the most toy-like figure of the group, the body almost plush.
Form and Composition
Two light wedges opening upward from the left and right edges leave a dark funnel between them and divide the ground into three pieces of separate value. As the eight extensions gathered at the navel set up a star scheme scattering from the centre to the periphery, the uneven spacing of the arms crams three extensions one on top of another on the right side.
Two light wedges open upward from the left and right edges, leaving a dark funnel between them. The wedge on the left is narrower, the one on the right wider; both thin out towards the top edge and vanish. The mouth of the funnel is widest at the top edge, narrows as it descends, and vanishes behind the mass at mid-height. In the lower central region there is a dark oval, its edges soft, standing like a cushion behind the figure. The ground is thus divided into three separate pieces, and none of them is at the same value as another.
The figure sits slightly to the left of the centre. Its body gathers at navel level, and from there eight separate extensions scatter outward. Four of the extensions go down, two up to the right, two up to the left. The four descending ones stretch to the bottom edge, with thin bundles of fingers at their tips, and three are cut off at the bottom edge. This radial distribution is the composition's main force scheme; it works like a star going from the centre to the periphery, but its arms are not evenly spaced, and on the right side three extensions are crammed one on top of another.
The head region stands a little below the centre. Inside it there are four roundnesses of different sizes, all drawn separately with circle lines. The largest in the upper left, the smallest in the upper right. Their centres are placed irregularly and two of them touch. Beneath it there is a hatching of short vertical lines, drooping downward and ending irregularly at its lower tip. This hatching is the painting's darkest and densest texture.
The contour is thick and intermittent. The outer line is drawn twice in some places, absent altogether in others. The interior of the extensions is a flat fill, with a second light strip riding on top of it; in each extension this strip runs lengthwise and in all of them in the same direction. This repetition makes the eight arms a single family.
In the upper region a second head appears. Above the main mass, about a sixth of the way down from the top, a small mass stands, and from it short lines droop down like a fan. Its scale is about a third of the head below and it is joined to it by an extension. This second head marks the peak point of the painting, and a hand's width remains between it and the top edge. In the lower right corner there is a signature, where the dark ground ends. The bottom edge cuts three foot tips, and the fourth stands without touching the edge. The points of cutting are not at the same level, with about a finger's difference between them, and this difference leaves the lower boundary like a saw. Between the left edge and the figure's leftmost extension a two-finger gap remains, while the gap with the right edge is wider, almost a hand. The mass thus stands leaning to the left, and the light wedge on the right balances this shift. The figure's total width is less than its height; it sits within a vertical rectangle.
Colour and Light
The lilac body of the figure is at the same register throughout, no shadow used for roundness, and only the black contours give its form. Because the dark petrol blue oval behind is the only intermediate value coming in between the black and the lilac, whereas without it the lower half of the body would sit on the darkness, it now stands in a pit.
Two broad gold-coloured strips hold the right and left edges. The paint is drawn with vertical scrubs, the black paper showing through between them here and there; and so the gold is not a flat field but line by line. Its colour is between honey and brass, with a slightly greenish dirtiness within it. Where it is set thick it drops to yellow, where it thins and takes up the black to brown. A difference of a register and a half forms between the two ends of the same paint.
The body of the figure is lilac. Violet purple lightened with plenty of white, chalky and matte. Nowhere is it darkened, no shadow used for roundness; the colour stays at the same register throughout and only the black contours give it its form. In the arms and legs a baby pink takes the place of the lilac, equally light but warmer. The transition between the two colours is not soft, they are set directly side by side. White is laid at the ends of the limbs. Because it is laid thin it has absorbed the black beneath and slid to silver grey; in some places it looks almost blue. That is, the white here is not brightness but a thinned colour. The brightest place is the inside of the eye at the upper left; there the white is set thick and left on its own.
Gold yellow and lilac, the opposite ends of the colour wheel. Here both are brought down from their saturation; the yellow dirtied, the purple thinned with white. Because of this the contrast does not shout, it stays as a warm tension. The black ground between them works like a buffer too; the place where the two colours make direct contact is very small. The dark petrol blue oval behind the figure is the only intermediate value that comes in between the black and the lilac. A muffled blue verging on green; its edges scattered with the brush and mixing into the black. Without that oval the body would have sat directly on the darkness of the paper. As it is, the lower half of the figure looks as though it stands inside a pit.
Within the two large rings on the face the colour changes again. The inside of the eye on the left is between white and grey, the inside of the one on the right the dark of the lilac; the pupils at their centres are pure black. In the forehead region there is a grey cloud, mixed into the purple and standing on its own. The pink lines over the nose are of the same paint as the pink in the body, but because they are laid thinner they slide towards purple. The black hatchings at the middle of the belly are drawn not with paint but with an almost dry brush. They are the same colour as the black of the ground, but because they stand on the surface they are a little brighter; they behave like a shadow, and yet they have nothing to do with light.
The distribution of warmth is gathered at the edges, the central region has stayed entirely cool. In the lower right corner a dark signature has been set over the gold; the paint there has not fully covered the gold and the yellow seeps through between the letters.
Iconography, Myth and Title
While the gold ground and the mandorla expect a saint in the middle, what comes is a many-legged creature; its own legs open out like a throne and carry its body. When cathedra names the throne of office, the one who sits and the one who is sat upon turn into the same thing, and the spider-like reaching limbs get news from every point they touch.
In the middle of a gold-coloured ground a dark blue oval opens, and before it a purple creature has settled. On its face there are two large round eyes, one lower than the other; beside them a few more rings, which may also be eyes. At the level of the mouth a black, densely combed mass hangs, resembling a beard. Many limbs come out of the body; arms or legs lined up to the right and left, with fingers spread at their tips. The number is more than six and they are not all of the same thickness.
The gold ground is the oldest device used to take holy figures out of the world. Behind there is not space but light. The dark oval in the middle does the same work as the almond-shaped halo we call the mandorla; it marks that the being entering it has ascended or become manifest. When these two signs are together, what is expected is a ruler or a saint seated in the middle. What comes is a many-legged creature. The gold ground admits no shadow, and so everything before it stands timeless. The figure entering the mandorla is also reckoned to have left the ground.
The word cathedra in the title names the seat directly, and in particular the throne of the bishop's office. That seat represents authority even when empty; though the person seated changes, the office remains. When the word love comes before it, a strange attachment emerges: love of the seat, a passion for office. No separate chair is visible in the scene. The creature's own legs have opened out like a throne and carry its body. The one who sits and the one who is sat upon have turned into the same thing. Pictures of the empty seat show that authority without a holder can stand on its own.
The legs multiplying in this way call up two different traditions. One is the depictions of many-armed gods; each arm carries a separate authority, a separate power. The other is the spider; the animal that spins its web and waits at its centre, feeling everything it touches. Both tell of sitting at the centre and reaching outward. The tips of the limbs here touch the ground, some ending in fingers spread across the ground. That is, the office is not content to stand, it holds on. A being that sits at the centre and reaches outward gets news from every point it touches.
That combed black area resembling a beard covers the lower part of the face and renders the mouth invisible. The beard is a sign of age and authority; here it has taken on the role of a curtain as well. We cannot know whether it speaks or not. The eyes being of different sizes and standing at different levels prevents the gaze from gathering in a single direction. At the upper right there are two more pink arms separating from the body and reaching upward; they enter the black area and what they hold there is not visible. The gaze's inability to gather in a single direction leads to the one opposite not knowing where to stand.
Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
For the first time in the series the large eyes turn directly towards us without avoiding looking, and the one being looked at now becomes the watcher. The hairy mass carried below the eyes stands like the displacement of the shamed region onto the face, while the countless open palms give off a desire to touch that reaches out unanswered, with no object to hold.
Two large round eyes are turned directly towards us, their pupils standing in the middle as single black dots. For the first time in this series a figure does not avoid looking. The eyes are of exaggerated size, wide enough to crush the rest of the face. The one being looked at is now us. It is strange that a person is disturbed when the thing before them begins to look at them; while we see no harm in looking, we want to flee when we are looked at. The painting sets up exactly this transition. Thick black rings are drawn around the eyes, like two separate frames. The gaze is emphasised, underlined, prevented from being missed.
Right below the eyes there is a dark, hairy mass. Drooping, filled in with lines as if combed. It stands where the mouth ought to be but does not resemble a mouth; it resembles more a part taken from another region of the body and carried to the face. Displacement works like this in dreams. The region felt shame for is not erased, it is carried elsewhere and stands there in a form everyone can see. This mass set in the middle of the face immediately brings down the attention the gaze had drawn. Its lines are combed in one direction, drooping downward; it stands like something with weight.
In place of a body there are limbs. The arms reaching to the right, the left, downward, are not to be counted; at least six, perhaps more. Each ends in an open palm, with spread fingers. All of them are about to touch something. But what they will touch is not clear, there is no object around to be held. The desire to touch has been left on its own, reaching out unanswered. In truth it would be frightening too for so many hands to wrap around a person. The distance between love and suffocation is here measured by the number of limbs. The arms are not all the same thickness; some have thinned and faded, others are thick and distinct. Only in this way do we tell which hand wants more.
Behind, a dark blue oval has opened, and on either side broad gold-coloured bands descend. This arrangement recalls an armchair, like a back and arms. The figure is seated. A throne or a chair, whatever its name, it has settled into that place and does not get up. That love should be mentioned together with a piece of furniture struck me as interesting; a place where one sits is a place where one waits. The edges of the back are soft, drawing an enfolding line; it is the only thing holding the figure.
At the lower edge two hands are spread on the ground, fingers open. The leg or arm on the right spills out of the edge of the painting, its end not visible. While the eyes stay in place, the limbs leaving the frame creates a state in which the gaze remains fixed but the body overflows. The fingertips at the lower edge are slightly raised, not fully resting on the ground.
Society, Power and Technology
The more than six limbs coming out of a single body show how people gathered around an office stop being separate names and turn into a single organism, and how kinship and shared home town run together into one tissue. The gold-striped niche says that the place was drawn in advance, while the official chart loses its bearing on reality after six months.
There are more arms and legs here than should come out of a single body. If you count them they go past six. Whose limbs they are is not apparent, they all come out of the same place and all reach outward. It is hard to describe situations in which more than one person becomes a single being, but this image makes the job easy. People gathered around an office stop, after a while, being separate names, they turn into a single organism. They feed from the same place, they take offence at the same moment, they form the same sentences. Who is related to whom, who shares whose home town, who has stood surety for whom; all of these become, after a time, a single tissue, and it grows impossible for an outsider to tell which arm belongs to whom.
The broad gold-coloured strips descending from either side have set up a frame, marking the dark area in the middle. It stands like a being placed inside a niche. Where it would be installed was determined in advance, it did not clear a space for itself. In institutions there are places of this kind; which room will be whose, who will sit on which floor was drawn years ago, and though the person who sits there changes, the room stays the same. After a while the room itself shapes the person.
The two large eyes in the face are of different sizes and seem to look in different directions. They are keeping watch. What a structure like this fears most is the person who comes from outside; he will upset the inner balance, break rules he does not know, and knock at the wrong door because he does not know who is indebted to whom. This is why the newcomer is either quickly taken in or crushed among the limbs. A third way is not left open. The word merit is spoken most in these rooms, and applied least in these rooms.
In the middle there is a dark hanging thing descending, like hair or a beard. It stands in the centre of the body and is the only dark piece. I do not know what it is. But if there is a spot in the middle of a crowd that no one looks at, that is usually where things really turn. The part of the meeting not entered in the minutes, the sentence said in the corridor, the phone call before the signature. The ties invisible on the official chart are stronger than the chart. When a new worker arrives he is first shown a structure drawn in box upon box; six months later he understands on his own that that paper has no bearing on reality. Learning whose word carries weight takes far longer than memorising the titles.
The feet are long and thin, all descending to the ground, their toes spread. With this many feet one does not walk anywhere, one only stands firm. Where the love is felt for the office, no one wants to get up from his place in any case. The two arms on the left, meanwhile, are curled backward, left behind the body, and what they are holding cannot be seen.
Art History and Comparison
In Oppenheim's bird-footed table the unease is born from the meticulousness of the manufacture; in this paper there is no manufacture, the limbs begin in the air and end in the air, and the hybridisation has become the hand's not stopping. In the many-armed Indian figure each hand holds an object and the number of arms magnifies the power; none of the arms here holds anything, and the multiplicity has turned into clumsiness.
Two enormous round eyes, ringed with black, look straight ahead from the middle of the paper. Below the eyes there is a black tuft hanging down, resembling a beard. Around it are arms and legs whose number exceeds five; each one knobbly with joints, clusters of fingers at their tips. The body sits upon a dark blue egg, and that egg stands like a seat. Looked at together with the word rostrum in the title, a furniture hybrid emerges; something of which one cannot say whether they are the creature's legs or the chair's legs.
To confuse object and body with each other was the Surrealist object's favourite game. Meret Oppenheim's bird-footed table is the cleanest example of this idea; the table is a table, its feet are a bird's feet, the two things joined with the most meticulous carpentry. The unease there comes precisely from the neatness of the manufacture. In this paper there is no manufacture. The limbs are brush-strokes thrown one by one, some do not even connect to the body, beginning in the air and ending in the air. The hybridisation has been realised not as an invention but as the hand's not stopping.
The eyes come from a separate lineage. A white circle, a black dot inside it, a thick ring around it; this eye is the invention of the cartoon studios, the single part that has carried the whole expression of the character ever since Felix. Painters build the face out of the eyebrows, the mouth, the chin; animation reduces the face to the eye, because the eye is the cheapest organ that can move. Here too the whole face is squeezed inside two rings. But in cartoons the eye must be redrawable in every frame, whereas the two rings here cannot be drawn the same way again, one is bigger than the other and the two are not on the same level.
The broad golden brush-strokes at the edges cut into the black of the paper from both sides. In the tradition of the gold-ground panel, from the Sienese masters onward, gold established a placeless infinity behind the figure; the surface would be smooth, because it had to reflect the light evenly. The gold here has been applied with a coarse brush, its marks visible, not reaching everywhere on the paper. The sacred ground stands like a coat of whitewash left half-finished.
The excess in the number of limbs is a matter of tradition too. The many-armed figure, from Indian temple sculpture to Far Eastern depictions, is a sign of power; as the number of arms rises, the being's field of effect grows, and each hand holds a separate object, and each object has a name. None of the arms on this paper holds anything. They stand idle, some looking up, some down. Multiplicity here has turned not into authority but into a kind of clumsiness; with this many limbs the figure cannot even rise from its place. In 2019's black-paper group this work is one of the pieces in which the figure is most turned into a toy. In the canvases of the same year the bodies are heavier, darker; here the body is almost plush. The small onlooker figures of the series also seem, in this canvas, to have been promoted to the main character, because this creature resembles nothing but a toy enlarged in scale. The limb at the upper right leans against the edge of the paper and is cut off there, and what is at its tip cannot be seen.
Material, Gesture and the Viewer's Experience
The gold's metallic flakes lie in the direction of the brush, and as the head moves that area dims and lights up again while the black paper around it does not change at all. The gold that answers to light and the paper that does not wait side by side on the same surface, while on the screen the gold turns into a fixed yellow and the direction of the flakes does not read.
The gold on the right and left edges behaves differently from all the other paints. In metallic acrylic there is not pigment but fine flakes; when the brush passes, these flakes lie down in the direction of the movement and the mark becomes permanent. Here the laying is from top to bottom and slightly slanted, so the whole gold area stands lying in a single direction. The black of the paper also seeps through from beneath here and there; the gold is not thinned but its covering power is not complete, in some places it falls to bronze, in some places to dark mustard. There is no correction at its edges, the gold cuts off at the point where the brush ran out and there the black paper begins again.
The navy oval behind is placed by dragging. The brush was broad and the paint was scant, I think, because the middle of the oval is dark, its edges jagged and interlocked with the black. This kind of edge happens only with a dry brush; the more you press the more the paint runs down and the ground comes back. Later the figure's legs passed over the oval and cut the navy.
The lilac body is filled with a purple opened out with white, covering and matt. This mixture holds even in a single coat over the black paper, because there is plenty of white in it. The filling work is done with broad drags, without thinking of volume, as if closing off an area. Then black contours were passed over it; some of those contours sit on the edge of the lilac, some go into it and split the filling beneath in two. The black that draws the eye rings closed with a single turn and could not find itself at the point it began, a small shift left there.
The pink limbs are thick moves placed one by one. Each is a press and pull movement; at the start the paint is plentiful, at the end it runs low and at the tips of the fingers the bristles spread and split into five. The two pink pieces at the upper right stand apart from each other, black paper left between them, and this gap was not closed. The dark hatching at the centre, on the other hand, is at a separate tempo; some twenty vertical lines one over another, short and nervous, lilac ground left between them. At the lower end of this hatching the paint ran out, the lines turned into dots and ended there. The brush was not refilled and continued.
The seventy by one hundred black paper stands on the wall as an area that swallows light, it does not give back like canvas. Looked at from a metre and a half the gold wings shine and the body sits at the centre. As you approach the flakes of the gold become visible, and as the head moves that area dims and lights up again; the rest of the paper, meanwhile, does not change at all. On a screen this play disappears completely, the gold there turns into a fixed yellow and the direction of the flakes does not read at all. On the same surface two regions, one that answers to light and one that does not, wait side by side.
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