Woman Strangling Boards

As well EH Gombrich says early in his Art History, " Not how do we know any more Than Began art we know how language started. " I actually do know where it starts for me art: precisely in the pages of the story written from memory, in exile in London, by the wise judeovienés, pages I read on a hot Parisian summer my seventeen years. Actually I was not aware until much later, one morning in which, wandering through the halls elongated Kunsthistorisches Museum, to see some of the tables from which was going up a stream of art-historical knowledge, seized me a strange form of history. Peasant wedding, of Bruegel ; Virgin in the meadow , Raphael of ;'s self- Rembrandt or Rubens ; Prince Philip Prosper of Spain, of Diego Velázquez ... finally I came to one of the wingtips for which, in a small room, a crossing with a cornerback, I found myself in front of Self Portrait in mirror of Francesco Mazzola, Il Parmigianino. was a unique and eventful moment in which everything I recognized that reading done years ago, in which advances were braiding wisely formal developments have been possible at different times and in different traditions, was meant for me training, ie to search within myself for my self image. Upon returning to the pages of the book, already in the room Hotel Wandl, I saw with surprise that the mirror image, the straw that broke the camel and had had a thousand and one sensations bursting slowly initiated, however was not among which Gombrich says of the museum in his hometown, as I at that time has perjured. Say a thousand rounds in my old copy, I watched with amazement the image of Villa Medicis on the cover, trying to figure out the crux this strange event, almost shaking the book occurred to me as if waiting for their pages, it appears a paper ticket with the image of young wrapping the invisible hand mirror in her white face would be faithfully reflected. But nothing fell from the book, not my head up to the resolution of this enigma that still continues to bother me. I knew I had seen that picture before, I thought I had read about it in the book of the old sage, I was delighted with the explanation of the mannerisms and bizarre shapes, elongated, twisted, had embedded in my mind forever. If he had been recognized in several works alluded morning walk in the book, to get to the little table by that from the "first reading" experienced a deep fondness whole story Art had revealed to me suddenly and obscurely present. And now, at the time of writing, I find no better way to address an approach to the eponymous poem by John Ashber and the story of my own experience with the object of that long table poetic-philosophical meditation, a new poem parmediano over time, change and uncertainty in the final analysis, whether any comments should be narcissistic excess can not be in another that the study of a poem about a self portrait.

PS: Extract the beginning of an essay on Self convex mirror of John Ashbery to appear shortly in revison 05.