0002 A Picture behind Glass

Abstract

The paper considers the singular situation of reception occasioned by a painting shielded with a reflective pane of glass. The reflections in the glass dramatically break the cohesion of the painting and bring about distracting – although sometimes intriguing – surprises. The glass is an iconoclastic intrusion, an infection of the artistic order by an invading disorder and transient immediacy, which however can be very attractive visually. The accidental obliterates the significant. "The truth of art" is confronted here with a delusive phantom. Not only two entirely different visual effects are mixed here, but also different ontological and axiological spheres.