Back in the 1960s I began collecting, comparing and analyzing reproductions of works of fine and ritual art – Metaphysical Heads, Metaphysical Figures, – with the goal of synthesizing what these works by different masters had in common, understanding the essence of the image, and on that basis I hoped to create a system of “signs” in the art of the 20thcentury. With time my research and the number of themes I explored broadened, along with the development of my own artistic work and the broadening of my analytical visual experience.
It is important to stress that this research were and continue to be purely visual, independent of place and time. I have always been less interested in who created the work that interests me, or when it was created, than in the linear, rhythmic, compositional, coloristic and conceptual similarities of different authors, regardless of where and when they worked.
In the late 1990s it became clear that my research and the material I had collected and organized was of interest not only to me. Scholars, first scientists, then philosophers, theologians, historians, writers and art historians approached me with requests to work with my materials. Some of these colleagues and students needed more detailed information about the images collected in order to pursue their own work.
Unfortunately it is not always possible to obtain precise information about certain artists and their work. In recent years I have made efforts to collect and conserve information on the images in my research, and for exhibitions and publications I try to provide more historical information. But, again, I stress that exhaustive historic documentation of this or that work is not the primary goal of my research.
Mikhail Bakhtin, the author of a brilliant analysis of medieval carnival culture as seen in the work of Francois Rabelais, wrote, “The image is always broader and deeper (than the historical character upon whom it is based), it is connected to tradition and has its own aesthetic logic independent of the allusion.” This method allows the reader to avoid “foolish historicity”. Bakhtin’s phrase expresses the essence of my analytic method.
In this book the reader will find captions and notes to each illustration, but I do ask that he not concentrate on the “entourage” of an image, but rather attempt to read the visual information in the analysis I have constructed.