Cross and Plane to Space - Myriam Thyes

The title refers to Kandinsky‘s book ‚Point and Line to Plane‘ – here to the historic antipodes illusionism and constructivist art. The illusionistic ceiling fresco ‚Triumph of St. Ignatius of Loyola‘ (1685) by Andrea Pozzo meets compositions with crosses (1932) by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. While the hierarchic, centralist painting in the Jesuit church Sant‘Ignazio in Rome glorifies the holy lord, Taeuber-Arp created multifocal, plane compositions of non-figurative shapes. The only thing the baroque and the modern artworks have in common, is the sign of the cross*. The oppositional artistic concepts start a competitive dialog, they influence and penetrate each other. Given the current victory of virtual worlds, these 3D images reflect the art history of illusionism (religious imaginations of afterworlds as early virtual worlds) and its assumed overcoming in modernity.

* Taeuber-Arp didn‘t call her works „compositions with (broken) crosses“ – these titles were created after her death.

Link to animation CROSS AND PLANE TO SPACE (2017) >>