Belvedere 1/2003
THOMAS TRÜMMER - Submission and Measurement
107
man, lolling about with only a sheet draped around her na-
ked body. This couple is not only differentiated by his sitting
and her lying (on the table). It is his gaze, through the fra-
med window, placed in the center of the scene, which is dis
parate. It is not only the fact that here somebody is scrutini-
zing another person who, because she is turned away can
not watch, but also that the woman is being measured by
the draughtsman artist, as if she belonged to a distant world.
The engraving is an outstanding example of geometrical
construction and also an amazing achievement in its repre-
sentation of a picture within a picture. In accordance with
this lofty goal, the motive appears to have been selected by
chance. This time, it is a half-naked woman, another time it
can be a lute. 4 What makes both subjects worthy of painting
is rapidly ascertained and completely profane. The frame and
the grid are angular, the woman and lute are not. Dürer cho-
se these two motives because their curves and bends posed
a particular challenge to his geometrical method of con
struction. This resistance is, however, overcome with great
mastery "quod erat demonstrandum". Of course, observan-
ce of the rules and a rigid mathematical approach are abso-
lutely necessary for success; an approach capable of dearly
differentiating between the viewed from the viewer. There-
fore, there is also a differentiation between the left and
right sides, subject and object, between the foreground and
background, the draughtsman and the motive, between man
and woman, between upright and reclined, clothed and
nude, between angular and round, and many other things.
In every way, it is a comparison which one must compre-
hend, along with Jacques Derrida, as a "binary Opposition".
In Derrida's opinion, the complete metaphysical tradition of
thinking is influenced by such dualities. In this case, it is not
necessary for us to delve as deeply as the French philosopher.
We can, however, follow him in the Observation that, in this
type of confrontation, the first part of the couple receives
preferential treatment. The goal of Derrida's approach is to
temporarily reverse these hierarchies, thereby annulling
them. For this procedure, called “deconstruction", Derrida
utilized a kind of methodless method, within which he criti-
cized the pairings not from without, but in a certain man-
ner, set them into movement from within. His point of de-
parture was usually from hidden, irritating details - often
diagonally opposed to the author's intentions - from where
he could lift the stability of the theme off its hinges. 5 Dü-
rer's engraving also includes such details which undermine
its perfection and inner coherence, so to speak. If one does
not allow oneself to be immediately taken in by the sober
symmetry of the binary composition, but looks more close-
ly, one notices that the draughtsman’s intention of captu-
ring an image of the woman is designed in such a way that it
can not be really successful. The woman bursts the scope of
the frame. The genuine contours, of her thighs and knees,
appear to extend further. The strength emanating from her
corpulence, which makes one imagine her power - which
was dealt with, much later, by Freud in his essays on femini-
nity - becomes aware of this very exact investigation. The
female body, forcing itself out of the framework, is not the
result of clumsiness or a lack of talent. How could one ac-
cuse an old master like Dürer of such a thing? No, it is the
precarious feeling, arising from the painting, that this con-
stellation of the woman on the table could be put in the ap-
propriate form without blemished sections and errors in the
System. Dürer suppresses but, at the same time, realizes that
this scene which is to become a picture, is an "off-scene”
with elements of obscenity that will be ennobled by his art
but not completely obliterated. These deviancies can only be
hidden by drawing attention to the meticulously detailed
technical representation. The draughtsman studies his mo-
del from below and, from this angle, which is simultaneous-
ly both disconcerting and extremely intimate, shows her as
an object meeting the highest possible formal Standards
(seen from his viewpoint). Actually, the nude to be painted
presents herseif in an exceptionally sophisticated pose which,
due to the extreme shortening is much more complicated to
master than the view we actually get to see. The conquering
of these problems of perspective and the forcing of the third
dimension into the second are, undoubtedly, the themes of
this picture. The Austrian art historian Thomas Zaunschirm is
even of the opinion that this can be seen as a “secret mo-
del" not only for Dürer but also for the history of art. 6 Erwin
Panofsky, to whom we owe thanks for what are, most prob-
ably, the most important studies on Dürer and the Renais
sance, had, according to Zaunschirm, never directly dealt
with the engraving, but precisely the omission of any men-
tion and the, only too apparent, dealing with the problems
of perspective as a "symbolic form" lead to the assumption
that it was, indeed, an influential work. Precisely not mentio-
ning something can be, as Derrida never tires of stressing, an
indication of a special validity, whereby, in a curious manner,
it can be argued that the logic of suppression, used by artists
of the modern era, continues in the history of art and its
methods.
It would go too far to continue with these reflections. Here,
it is more meaningful to return to the theme of the frame. In
Dürer’s illustration it is the hinge of the picture; a stränge
paradox because its borders do not surround the periphery
but can be found in the center of the picture. In addition,
the window in the picture is not opaque, like the picture
which is being created, but is a transparent, glass surface.
This allows it to be looked through from both sides. It is a
"binary frame", open on two sides and permeable. Judith
Butler used this concept in a completely different context
