A DOR ETERNA II

THE INVISIBLE IN METAMORPHOSIS(MEANING)
BY ARTUR LEÃO

What happens during the creation of the representation of the transformation is curious and enigmatic, because when the final result is analysed in detail it provokes a questioning in relation to the non- visible content, that is, the change in form and composition that is unknown and the reason for this reality in the universe of the visual representation of the transformation. The impossibility of creating a totality of metamorphosis through representation is the object of the artist’s restlessness. The invisible that occurs during a sequence of images of a metamorphosis is filled and exists only through the idealisation and mental image of the author a priori, and a posteriori in an idealisation that is the fruit of the spectator’s imaginary. The author’s ideas or mental images are never equivalent to their representation and this is not necessarily related to issues of technical limitation or support of expression, but rather that the final result of the representation in the artistic project is always the result of an interpretative and fictional filter of the artist in relation to the phenomenon and/or emotion that his project intends to give voice to.
Speaking of a situation contrary to this process, in the most recent cinema, full of special effects, we can have an increasingly literal and illusory approach, of a complete portrait of the process of mutation and transformation in time.
Let us pay attention to Ducroux: “The representations of metamorphosis also raise the problem of the representation of time, since they put into images an event that involves the passage from an earlier state to a later state. A transformation that involves a before and an after. And which may include intermediate stages.” *
The idea of a lack of knowledge in relation to transformation in its totality interests me especially in mythological stories insofar as there is a lack of understanding in relation to the action practised by the gods and the reflection of this same action in the transformation of matter, the unexpected is something very present in this universe of constant activity. Let’s pay attention to Ducroux: “In the clash with the divine, the human being may collapse, be abruptly diverted from his species, to lose himself in the animal, the vegetable, or immobilise himself in stone. Invariably, it is the gods who call the shots. A single gesture is enough to deconstruct and remake the body of whoever they dislike, imprisoning them in an animal body, or annihilating them, perhaps giving way to an unknown flower, like a faint trace of disappearance. For, at once, they know how to do this to themselves, passing from one form to another, disguising themselves in order thus to immerse themselves among humans, knowing how to conceal their glittering brilliancy under the still form of a mortal, or to assume the peaceful appearance of a splendid and affable bovine, in order to deceive the good faith of an innocent girl.” **
We are thus led to conclude that no matter how descriptive, complete and universal the representation may be, there will always be something that escapes us, because when we speak of metamorphosis we speak of a territory of surprise and ignorance. Even because there is an infinite number of passages that we can imagine and want to represent from one moment to another in any process of metamorphosis.
* Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, L ́homme-cerf et la femme-araigné. Figures grecques de la métamorphose. , Gallimard, 2003, page 62. [Translated by me from Rui Pires Cabral, Lisboa, IMAGO\LIVROS, 2018]
** Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, L ́homme-cerf et la femme-araigné. Figures grecques de la métamorphose. , Gallimard, 2003, page 9. [Translated by me from Rui Pires Cabral, Lisboa, IMAGO\LIVROS, 2018]