Painting that will not let itself be seen: ashamed painting, hidden painting. (On the writings of Ángela de la Cruz, Georges Didi-huberman and Honoré de Balzac)

Abstract

Painting that will not let itself be seen: ashamed painting, hidden painting. (on the writings of Ángela de la Cruz, Georges didi-Huberman and Honoré de Balzac)». The article makes connections between Ashamed(1995), one of the first works by the artist Ángela de la Cruz, and The Incarnated Painting (1984), an essay by Georges didi-Huberman that analyses Honoré de Balzac’s short story The Unknown Masterpiece(1837). A triangle is set up between Ángela de la Cruz, Didi-Huberman and Balzac around the concept of picture-body. By means of a painting, a philosophical essay and a story, three authors from three different eras recover the same ideas of pictorial flesh and skin and the humanised picture. Their aim: to overcome representational barriers in painting to create a being beyond the object of the picture. However, the more they idealise the painting and the more they try to break through the pictorial shield, the fainter the concept of “picture” becomes. The more lifelike the picture becomes, the less like a picture it is, and what it represents slips further away from their grasp. The pursuit of the ideal entails subjecting the picture to concealment, deterioration and the destruction of its image.