ANIMA PICTURAE

Alek Slon / Paweł Jackowski

 

Aristotle distinguished three types of soul: vegetative, sensual and rational. In Greek and Judaic tradition, the soul was the origin of motion - the cause and principle of life.

 

Sometimes we get the impression that a form of internal dynamics is also present in a sculpture or a painting, there is a spring of movement there. We perceive a kind of flow, duration or silent growth. A movement that does not so much happen in time as it fills and creates its own time - parallel and independent of everyday events. One may ask what evokes and sustains the kind of secret life that pulses beneath the surface of the canvas or the geometry of the sculpture: is it just the imprint of its creator's spirit - its ideas recorded and played in our head - or are we dealing with a separate kind of soul - anima picturae – the soul of the image?

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