The Reflexively Deflecting-back Corporeality of the Animating Pleasure in Catholicism A meticulous painting technique corresponds with this aesthetic animationeven if, as was the case in the portrait of John Paul II, whom Beza painted while he was dying, the emotions that are worked off in creation recede and final sections remain fragmentary. Feelings are always the motor. But not in the way blind passion guides the brush in manic rapture; it is precise calculation that guides the mixing of the paints, the first preliminary sketches and the composition, all the way to the final execution of a painting. The only thing she dislikes is the laboriousness of stoically working out fine lines in a photorealistic mannerBeza calls that “pingeln” (finicking). The clover and the grass and the flowers, however, over which the girl “in the meadow” is squatting (and seems to be urinating), have a plastic quality that jumps out of the picture at the viewer. He or she can count each individual blade, each leaf and each bud, and one almost hears a rustling. Thus the viewer becomes a voyeur and feels no shame. Beza lends this moment the rare charm of innocent intimacy, an immediacy beyond social standards aroused by the picture’s technique and its mood. It is the norms that are dubious here, you see. Once released from the customary prohibition of that kind of intimacy into a sensual idyll, the viewer is compelled to reconsider the standardization of sensuality and intimacy. This imperative is essential to Beza’s paintings. Animating pleasure in the body pulls the viewer into a delightful game, releases him or her from the handed-down orders in dealing with the sensual and gives access to an open space for new reflection. This movement, which deflects back onto the viewer him- or herself, is also what distances Beza’s art from any hedonism that celebrates mere indulgent sensuality. In the thought space liberated by sensual animation the figures encounter conservativeBeza calls them “Catholic”qualities. There is the already-mentioned Pope. From There is “Maria,” proud and elevated, in purple and holding a sword. She looks like a crusader. And behind her Jesus Christ’s radiant cross. Splendor divine dignitatis. Glancing out of the painting, partly toward God above and partly to the front, she combines the reverent moment of deep inwardness we are familiar with from the painting of the Pope with a tense readiness to act. Is she going to kneel down to pray or draw her sword and weigh in? Pray for what, fight for what? Questions that the picture asks the viewer within the context of its figuratively inherent meaning. Her eyes, however, are like doves, and thus here Beza’s very personal pleasure in the sensual returns to the rigid figuration of Catholic femininity. It brings “The Song of Songs” to mind, which could also head the act “und ewig lockt das weib” with its verse (1:6): “Do not stare at me because I am dark, for the sun has burned my skin. My brothers were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards. Alas, my own vineyard I could not keep!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|