Blue Reincarnation Narcissus painting by Jaisini The theme of Narcissus in Jaisini's "Blue..." may be paralleled with the problem of the two-sexes-in-one, unable to reproduce and, therefore, destined to the Narcissus-like end. Meanwhile, the Narcissu
Gttlieb
The theme of Narcissus in Jaisini's "Blue..." may be paralleled with the
problem of the
two-sexes-in-one, unable to reproduce and, therefore, destined to the
Narcissus-like
end. Meanwhile, the Narcissus legend lasts. In the myth of Narcissus a youth
gazes
into the pool. As the story goes, Narcissus came to the spring or the pool and
when his
form was seen by him in the water, he drowned among the water nymphs because he
desired to make love to his own image. Maybe the new Narcissus, as in "Blue
Reincarnation," is destined to survive by simply changing his role from a
passive man to
an aggressive woman and so on. To this can be added that, eventually, a man
creates a
woman whom he loves out of himself or a woman creates a man and loves her own
image but in the male form. The theme of narcissism recreates the 'lost object
of desire.
"Blue" also raises the problem of conflating ideal actual and the issue of the
feminine
manhood and masculine femininity. There is another story about Narcissus' fall,
which
said that he had a twin sister and they were exactly alike in appearance.
Narcissus fell
in love with his sister and, when the girl died, would go to the spring finding
some relief
for his love in imagining that he saw not his own reflection but the likeness
of his sister.
"Blue" creates a remarkable and complex psychopathology of the lost, the
desired, and
the imagined. Instead of the self, Narcissus loves and becomes a heterogeneous
sublimation of the self. Unlike the Roman paintings of Narcissus, which show
him alone
with his reflection by the pool, the key dynamic in Jaisini's "Blue" is the
circulation of
the legend that does not end and is reincarnated in transformation when
autoeroticism
is not permanent and is not single by definition. In "Blue," we risk being lost
in the
double reflection of a mirror and never being able to define on which side of
the mirror
Narcissus is. The picture's color is not a true color of spring water. This
kind of color is
a perception of a deep-seated human belief in the concept of eternity, the rich
saturated
cobalt blue. The ultra hot, hyperreal red color of the figure of Narcissus is
not supposed
to be balanced in the milieu of the radical blue. Jaisini realizes the harmony
in the most
exotic color combination. While looking at "Blue," we can recall the
spectacular color of
night sky deranged by a vision of some fierce fireball. The disturbance of
colors creates
some powerful and awe-inspiring beauty. In the picture's background, we find
the
animals' silhouettes, which could be a memory reflection or dream fragments. In
the
story, Narcissus has been hunting - an activity that was itself a figure for
sexual desire
in antiquity. Captivated by his own beauty, the hunter sheds a radiance that,
one
presumes, reflects to haunt and foster his desire. The flaming color of the
picture's
Narcissus alludes to the erotic implications of the story and its unresolved
problem of
the one who desires himself and is trapped in the erotic delirium. The concept
can be
applied to an ontological difference between the artist's imitations and their
objects. In
effect, Jaisini's Narcissus could epitomize artistic aspiration to control
levels of reality
and imagination, to align the competition of art and life, of image with
imaginable
prototype. Jaisini's "Blue" is a unique work that adjoins reflection to reality
without any
instrumentality. "Blue" is a single composition that depicts the reality and
its immediate
reflection. Jaisini builds the dynamics of desire between Narcissus and his
reflection-of-
the-opposite by giving him the signs of both sexes, but not for the purpose of
creating a
hermaphrodite. The case of multiple deceptions in "Blue" seems to be vital to
the cycle
of desire. Somehow it reminds one of the fates of the artists and their
desperate
attempts to evoke and invent the nonexistent. "Blue" is a completely alien
picture to
Jaisini's "Reincarnation" series. The pictures of this series are painted on a
plain ground
of canvas that produces the effect of free space filled with air. "Blue," to
the contrary, is
reminiscent of an underwater lack of air; the symbolism of this picture's
texture and
color contributes to the mirage of reincarnation.
By Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb New York 2003, Text Copyright: Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED Send private comments to author Gtt...@aol.com
The Art of Paul Jaisini by Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb http://jaisini.artbabyart.net/