The Silence that Produces Monsters

ELVIRA MORETTI

 

J’entendais le tic-tac de la montre de Saint-Loup, laquelle ne devait pas être bien loin de moi. Ce tic-tac changeait de place à tout moment, car je ne voyais pas la montre ;

il me semblait venir de derrière moi, de devant, d’à gauche, parfois s’éteindre comme s’il était très loin. Tout d’un coup je découvris la montre sur la table. Alors j’entendis le tic-tac

en un lieu fixe d’où il ne bougea plus. Je croyais l’entendre à cet endroit-là ; je ne l’y entendais pas, je l’y voyais, les sons n’ont pas de lieu. Du moins les rattachons-nous

à des mouvements et par-là ont-ils l’utilité de nous prévenir de ceux-ci, de paraître les rendre nécessaires et naturels […]

Comme le bruit était pour lui, avant sa surdité, la forme perceptible que revêtait la cause d’un mouvement, les objets remués sans bruit semblent l’être sans cause :

dépouillés de toute qualité sonore, ils montrent une activité spontanée, ils semblent vivre ; ils remuent, s’immobilisent, prennent feu d’eux-mêmes. D’eux-mêmes ils s’envolent

comme les monstres ailés de la préhistoire.

MARCEL PROUST, À la recherche du temps perdu[1]

 

Absolute silence does not exist. Everywhere we have life forms, there will always be a kind of sound produced by the human body, whether it is our heartbeat, our blood flowing or the air going in and out of our lungs.

It is not possible to find absolute silence even in an anechoic chamber, a room built with a specific absorbent material to completely cancel out the noise from outside and reflections from the walls of the sounds produced inside.

In 1952, after experiencing an anechoic chamber at Harvard University, the composer and music theorist John Cage created the famous composition 4’33’’. The work consists of not playing the instrument and inviting the audience to listen to the silence, that resulting from the sounds emitted by the room in which the work is performed. The significance of silence is the surrender of any purpose or intention: the composer wants to lead listeners to hear their own immediate surroundings.

Indeed, Cage thinks that, silence, intended as the variety of sound produced by nature or traffic, which is generally unnoticed and not considered music, is an essential part of a musical piece and has the same importance as the notes played.

In this new composition the sounds of the room appear in the score as silences, opening up to music and those sounds that occur by chance in the physical surrounds. Neither empty space nor empty time exist; there is always something to see and hear.

This causes us to wonder about the silence that comes from a disease, when that silence is a permanent condition and not a temporary way of escaping the noisy daily routine.

Deaf people say they can hear their own sounds and that, thanks to their imagination, they link those sounds to images.

In her autobiography the actress and writer Emmanuelle Laborit, born deaf, says that she can imagine the sounds themselves in term of colours:

 

I think silence is colorful, it is never black or white. To me, even people who hear well can imagine the noises in terms of perceptions and images. The wave which breaks on the shore, quietly and gently, exudes a feeling of calm and serenity. The one which pounds down like a jumping cat is associated with anger. My silence is not your silence. My silence would be a person totally bandaged with paralyzed hands, an insensitive body and inert skin. A silenced body.[2]

 

For deaf people silence is a lack of communication like darkness. Color itself represents a way of communicating and Max Pellegrini, an Italian artist from Turin who lost his hearing when he was a child after two fulminant attacks of otitis, uses it to describe his experience.

 

“Colour reveals the primary role of the language, a painting practice that Max Pellegrini exercises with care, applying the pigment in light glazes without acceleration, without gestural excess, leaving the task of the luminous reverberation which the figure inhabits to the soft sedimentation of the colours. His painting is rich, lively, bright and vibrant, where the narrative level is composed by resorting to and overlaying numerous stories that merge, appear and disappear on the canvas alternating alarm and expectation.”[3]

 

His large-scale pieces host fabled and imaginary worlds, myriad tales that live together almost stealing the space from one another on the canvas as if competing on a stage.

The artist’s reality is shaped by vivid impressions and theatrical intersections; as if his deafness since childhood were manifested in these personal stories and tales. The titles are an essential part of his work: often very long, they meticulously describe the scene presented to the spectator, telling the story like the writer of an illustrated book.

Max Pellegrini’s artistic creation comes from a color or the beginning of an idea: different images, found by chance in a book, newspaper or magazine, begin to interact to form connections and give birth to a story. In the end, when everything is put together, the title comes out. It is an occurrence that slowly takes shape while the artist creates his painting. The large size of his canvases still barely contains his images and only lightly frames the story, as if even a big canvas was not enough for the expanse of the narrative. We can imagine the tale going beyond the borders of the painting.

This fantastic aesthetic is a dreamlike atmosphere created by the painter that links silence and creativity. Max Pellegrini’s painting depicts a fairytale world, a reality ruled by emotions and an irrepressible desire to dream, where dreams replace worries and fears.

Children are often the main characters of his masterpieces and they embody his personality, his innocent side and his wonder at the world around him.

The combinations of characters are impossible and alienating: mythological and religious figures live together in Pellegrini’s tales, creating a surreal dialogue; the act of painting for the artist is an earthly attempt to reach a transcendental dimension, an ongoing exploration driven by a lack of faith. Pellegrini says he is a non-believer, but always searching for God or any other entity that could give him comfort and hope against the stress caused by the lack of hearing, by the silence, which causes hallucinations and nightmares and “gives birth to monsters.”4

Max Pellegrini’s quote brings the great Spanish master Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes to mind. He became deaf after a disease and his loss of hearing completely changed his way of painting. From 1820 to 1823, he meticulously decorated the walls of his living-room and dining-room in the house famously called La quinta del sordo. These pieces, painted in oils straight onto the plaster, were renamed Pinturas Negras. The fourteen works in his private home consist of allegorical scenes dominated by dark colors, from brown to black, and gloomy characters, the artist’s demons from his head coming out onto the walls, releasing the monsters of his worst nightmares.

The comparison between Pellegrini and Goya seems a big leap, mainly because of the major iconographic and stylistic differences. Both, however, can create the same feelings in the spectator. It is interesting to note that Las Pintura Negras addressed a private audience whereas Max Pellegrini’s canvases, although they have been exhibited on several occasions, come from his deep need to share his feelings, primarily with his loved ones.

When a spectator looks at a piece of art it is not a passive activity. We bring our own experiences and conditions to the work, conferring meaning on certain figures, giving symbolic values to other objects, infusing the characters of a piece of art with emotions, thoughts and intentions.5 Although Pellegrini’s tones are tenuous and calm we are immediately drawn in to the provocative dream-like atmosphere. Like Goya, he is able to convey through his art the complex and hallucinogenic quality of his physical condition. Max Pellegrini’s works have this power: we do not need to know a character’s identity, history or background to enter into harmony with the work of art. It fascinates us, captures us and engages us.

 

* Excerpt of the thesis Max Pellegrini: critical and reception lines.

 

1 M. Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, vol. II Le Côté de Guermantes, Gallimard, Paris, 1988, pp. 374-376.

2 See E. Laborit, trad. Il grido del gabbiano, Collana Bur Rizzoli, Milan, 1995, pp. 25-26, 239.

3 See D. Ecc her, A story between the thrill of make-believe and the mysteries of the symbol: the work of Max Pellegrini, in the exhibition catalogue Max Pellegrini (New York, Italian Cultural Insitute, 15 January - 15 February 2014), Umberto Allemandi, Turin, 2014, p. 14.

4 Interview with Max Pellegrini, Turin, July 24, 2018.

5 See J. P. Chanjeaux, trad. Ragione e piacere. Dalla scienza all’arte, Raffaello Cortina, Milan, 1995.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Cage, Silenzio: Antologia da “Silence” e “A year from Monday”, curated by Renato Pedio, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1971.

J. P. Chanjeaux, trad. Ragione e piacere. Dalla scienza all’arte, Raffaello Cortina, Milan, 1995.

D. Ecc her, A story between the thrill of make-believe and the mysteries of the symbol: the work of Max Pellegrini, in the exhibition catalogue Max Pellegrini (New York, Italian Cultural Insitute, 15 January - 15 February 2014), Umberto Allemandi, Turin, 2014.

E. Laborit, trad. Il grido del gabbiano, Collana Bur Rizzoli, Milan, 1995.

M. Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, vol. II Le Côté de Guermantes, Gallimard, Paris, 1988.