Oscar
Reutersvard's "perspectives japonaises" reflect a lifelong occupation
with the problem of illusion and reality. In Sweden the "impossible
figures" have transcended the limits of usual artistic recognition
(school-children know them, they are on our stamps!). Internationally,
they have rendered the artist famous; he has many folowers and a few imitators.
Still, Oscar Reutersvard's images retain their immedi-ate freshness
and beauty. The reason is, perhaps, that they are constantly in movement;
they oscillate on the border-line between geometrical theory and art, be-tween
the logic and the mystic. Looked upon from the point of view of theory,
they appear to us as beautiful art-works; from the point of view view of
«pure» art, they are strikingly theoretical. From the pant of view of logic,
the impossible figures lead into the mystic; from the point of view of
mysticism, they are absolutely transparent.
To a person like myself, with a very limited ability for thinking logically,
for subsuming life's different as-pects in any global system, the meditation
of an image of Oscar Reutersvard gives a kind of therapeutic relief (often
accompanied by laughter). Every pan of the image is, locally, un-contradictory.
Globally, the image also forms a nice whole, but in a way that contradicts
the parts. It is the transition from the part to the whole which is "impossible"
and sends us away on an-endless-movement from parts to the whole, from
whole to parts. It is impossible to put the figure on any point where this
transmition would take place.
Oscar Reutersvard's images belong to the world of paradoxes, which
we need to visit, now and then, in order not to become one with the wall
-paper of every-day automaticised perception. Here Rene Magritte's rocks
are floating weightlessly, and the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska's words
make no-one surprised:
- My non-arrival in the town of N. was punctual
- You were informed by the unmailed letter
- You managed to not come at the appointed hour...
In this imaginary world, you and l can easily, together, climb the
endless staircase and enter Oscar Reutersvard's grey house from the impossible
corner. Let the bewildered smile, with which we wake up, follow us for
the rest of the day.
Lars Kleberg
OSCAR REUTERSVARD: AN EXPLORER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
If
the term "artistic research" can be used al. all, it is one that
should justifiably be used in connection with the artistic output of Oscar
Reutersvard. His work unifies the intuitive, sensual and informal style
of an artist, and the systematic, comprehensive and logical approach of
a scientist exploring a new world - a world that seems not, to exist, a
world of the impossible. We are severely restricted in our thinking and
perceiving by so many turns of habit adapting us to our everyday, ordinary
environment. that we become convinced that our familiar way of seeing the
world is the only way to see it - a typical "everyday megalomania".
The drawings of Reutersvard unveil, before our startled eyes, a completely
new world - the world of objects and spatial sensations we previously did
not even consider to be imaginable. Drawing - i.e. representing the three-dimensional
space on a flat surface - is a deception. We are so used to take this deception
for granted that we seldom notice its true, illusory nature. Not until
someone deliberately and expressively draws something looking spatially
does this pictorial cheating reach our consciosness. The flat representation
of space is in a way an obvious and simple problem. Historically, various
methods (called "perspectives") o f resolving this problem were
fashionable at different times. And more often than not, the creative aims
of an artist have been at variance with the rigid perspec-tive scheme of
his time. It often led to violations of the rules - the examples might
be found, e.g., in medieval and Bysantine icons and in some Persian miniatures
when something like impossible figures occured. These impossibilities,
being a byproduct of the creative process, not the goal in themselves,
were later often considered to be awkward distortions or merely draw-ing
errors, especially when after the Renaissance the rigid "scientific"
perspective was for long established as "The Perspective" the
only «correct» way to represent space in pictures, condemning any other
possible perspective scheme as faulty. Modern artists often try to break
free of the strict perspective rules lay swinging to the other extreme
of no perspective at all - only flatness of a flat picture. But between
these two positions there is a vast range of other pcissiblities.
Some of these
forgotten lands are explored by Reutersvard. Since 1934 when he constructed
an impossible triangle (later rediscovered and published in 1958, by L
.S. and R. Penrose), he industriously, with great consistency and patience
pursued the idea of impossible figures. He discovered hundreds and thou-sands
of them, finding examples for various classes and families of figures,
and exploring most of the principles and determinants causing figures to
become impos-sible. In his "piles or beams" he plays with the
figure-ground impossibility and also with a sort of object - object contradiction
(when a certain area seems to belong simultaneously to two otherwise distinct
ob-jects). He explores to the extreme the principle of multibar (or "impossible
polygon") figures - from the impossible triangle and its numerous
variants (among others, ones with thick beams or planks pierced by one
or two thin rods) to fabulously knotted, self-closing spatial "spirals"
twisting your eyes almost painfully. He explores the level-ambiguity in
his impossible stairs from which he sometimes builds whole grandi-ose staircases
that might have been intended for palaces haunted by the Ghost of Space
itself. And another of his favourite themes - in fact, a sort of a signature,
as no one else struck upon this idea - the "windows'' opening into
space, with a lattice of crossing slots ( ...ats..), miraculously bending
and swirling between each other, although still remaining only straight,
rectangular beams.
Although several other artists (and the number is growing!) use the
"impossible effects" in their works, Reutersvard remains still
the unsurpassed leader of t his conquest of the impossible, by virtue of
his comprehensiveness combined with clarity and economy of his expression.
To discard any secondary effects interfer-ing with the main purpose, he
sticks to the axonometric (or Japanese) perspective in his drawings. In
this system, parallel lines remain parallel - as opposed to converging
at the vanishing points in normal perspec-tive - and the dimensions of
objects do not change with distance. The common, central perspective distorts
the dimensions of objects and parallelism of lines - it would unnecessarily
blur the clarity of spatial con-structions pursued by Reutersvard. Drawing
is a decep-tion, but a drawing of an impossible figure is a deception of
the second power. First, we think we see three dimensions on a flat picture;
second, we are made to think that the object depicted is spatially impossible.
In fact, all these impossible figures are possible! Why cannot we readily
see this, and what, finally, is the point? As it was stated at the beginning
- the effect is due to our restrictive habits. We are used to certain methods
of interpretation of images, and to certain kinds of objects and their
structures. But these drawings do have possible spatial interpretations
too - there exist other, possible spatial objects (although often having
quite queer structures) which look ex-actly as these do (when appropriately
viewed). Firmly gripped by our rigid modes of perception and thought, we
are hardly able to find these possible interpretations - we would rather
continue to see impossible when faced with the non-standard situation...
Once more, the skill of an artist can unveil things we have not imagined,
things that go beyond our mental horizons limited by our habits. Try to
under-stand the impossible - try to relax your binding thought. patterns
and become open to the strange and ambigu-ous, to the mysterious excitement
and discomfort of the unknown - it will widen your understanding and comprehension
of reality, of the world, of yourself. In this task you will benefit from
the guidance offered you by these eerie signposts arranged by Reutersvard
along the paths of his impossible lands.
Zewn Kuipa
You propasals to Larisa Finkelstein
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