T. J. Clark's Ravishing Style #6

This is the sixth post in my monthly series “T. J. Clark’s Ravishing Style,” a consideration of what makes Clark’s writing so distinctive and delectable. Each month I choose a favorite passage from his work and analyze its ingredients. Today’s pick is from his superb “The Chill of Disillusion” (London Review of Books, January 5, 2012). It’s an excerpt from Clark’s brilliant comparative analysis of the two versions of Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks – the Paris version (1483-1486) and the London version (1495-1508):

Look again at the angel in Paris with the pointing finger. There had never been a figure like it before in painting, and there never would be again. It is not just the foot on the grass and the pointing finger that are uncanny: it is the pose as a whole, spreading out laterally, half turning towards us, but meeting our eyes from an utter remoteness; and the roll of the green sleeve and the long pale arm inside its diaphanous puff of drapery; and the astonishing – unthinkable – explosion of rich red, tying the figure to a world of flesh and blood but spreading and unfolding far beyond (it feels like) the mere frame of the illusion. No wonder all this – this overflowing wish-fulfilment – had to be corrected in 1508. The London angel’s drapery is still elusive, but at least now it adheres to a possible anatomy: it does not just seem to occur as the brush tries out a new colour. Colour drains away. The angel’s shoulders come out of their carapace. The figure is clear and coherent (comparatively) but also (comparatively) unfelt. It is as if the invention had been put back inside a box – robbed of its first fairytale unfolding.

The first sentence is quintessential Clark, urging us (and himself) to “look again”: “Look again at the angel in Paris with the pointing finger.” 

The second sentence tells us why we should look again: “There had never been a figure like it before in painting, and there never would be again.” 

The third sentence is extraordinary – a ravishing blend of sensuous description and perceptual analysis: 

It is not just the foot on the grass and the pointing finger that are uncanny: it is the pose as a whole, spreading out laterally, half turning towards us, but meeting our eyes from an utter remoteness; and the roll of the green sleeve and the long pale arm inside its diaphanous puff of drapery; and the astonishing – unthinkable – explosion of rich red, tying the figure to a world of flesh and blood but spreading and unfolding far beyond (it feels like) the mere frame of the illusion.

That “the roll of the green sleeve and the long pale arm inside its diaphanous puff of drapery” is inspired! Drapery is one of Clark’s fondest focal points.

The fourth and fifth sentences pivot to the London version and begin the comparison: “No wonder all this – this overflowing wish-fulfilment – had to be corrected in 1508. The London angel’s drapery is still elusive, but at least now it adheres to a possible anatomy: it does not just seem to occur as the brush tries out a new colour.” 

The sixth, seventh, and eighth sentences continue the comparison: “Colour drains away. The angel’s shoulders come out of their carapace. The figure is clear and coherent (comparatively) but also (comparatively) unfelt.” 

The ninth and final sentence yields a vivid image: “It is as if the invention had been put back inside a box – robbed of its first fairytale unfolding.” Note the repetition of “unfolding.” Note the beautiful alliterative pattern: “unfolding far beyond,” “overflowing wish-fulfilment,” “unfelt,” “first fairytale unfolding.” The passage enacts the unfolding it describes and then ingeniously boxes it all up. 

Credit: The above illustration is the Paris version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks (1483-1486).