John
W. Dixon, Jr., Art
as a Means of Thinking and of Grace
Spirit and matter, body and soul, are not separate things, not even
two things in some kind of relation. They are conjoined in single bodies
that stand solidly on the earth.
These bodies are not "realistic" in the ordinary sense of
that word. They occupy space but the space is limited, cut off in the
back by a make-believe mountain that limits the space to a kind of stage.
Byzantine art, the immediate forerunner of Italian art, set even scenes
of vigorous action against a flat plane coinciding with the surface
of the panel, thus closing off the scene immediately behind the figures..
Such paintings are objects in our space, not something we look through
into an imagined space.
Giotto moved the rear plane back into the represented space so the
figures belong in a world that is like our world but they have a distinct
existence other than ourselves.
Thus the event is translated into true narrative.
