The Numinous Of The Every Day Sight
text by Tony Godfrey
Like most people today I have only a vague understanding of Latin so I instantly and lazily read lux lumina as meaning “luminous light”. However words and what they have come to mean over the years are complex: recourse to a proper dictionary gives a bigger range of meanings: “the light of lights”, “the light of eyes”, “eye’s eyesight”, “the glory of light”, “clarity of light”, “light of understanding”. Furthermore, we may ask, does not lumen sounds close to numen - spirit? So, we see that this title chosen by Filippo Sciascia for recent work is no banal tautology, but rather a complex web of possible meanings. What then we may ponder is light (lux) in these recent paintings? What does it do?
If we look at the painting JD we see an image he has painted several times, that of Renée Jeanne Falconetti playing the title role in the film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc by Carl Dreyer. Where do we see the light here? What is it? As mimetic representation it is the light of the sun revealing a face, but then we recall this is a painting of a film - one of the last silent movies ever made and we ask, “is the light being represented that of a celluloid movie projected?” But of course we are unlikely to be thinking of the sun or the technology of film projection when we look at this painting: our first response is that we are looking at the face of a young woman with cropped hair. Yet any amorous response is probably replaced by sympathy if we recognise the film and know that this moment in the film is when she has had her hair cropped as a humiliating punishment and preparation for being burnt alive as a witch (or for defying English control of France). If one thing above all catches our eyes it is her eyes. What is she looking at we may ask? At the priests who question her? Or at something else that is not actually visible to the naked eye? In the film’s concluding scenes when she is actually being burnt she stares longingly at either a flock of birds wheeling in the air or else the crucifix held towards her by the young priest Jean Massieu (played by Antonin Artaud). But these things are clearly symbolic. Embedded in our experience of the film is the belief that, despite her fear, pain and uncertainty, she can see God or salvation and that we too can see in her eyes - or in the many tears that course her cheeks and reflecting the lights too - some reflection of that same vision.
