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HARALD JURKOVIC - The Portrait with the Fly
Belvedere 1/2004
be completely reversed and the creature would no longer
emphasise the presence of the subject, but detachment from
her. Christopher White also refers to such a function as a
contrasting element when he defines the role played by the
fly, in this context, as follows: "Its chief significance is to
introduce a sense of momentariness in contrast to the still-
ness of the woman and her distant look." 10
The Situation here is thus one in which there is an unresolv-
able contradiction between the individual elements of the
picture, which derives from the indeterminacy of their spa-
tial allocation and from the resulting, confusing interplay bet
ween nearness and distance, between an effect of opening,
on the one hand, and the autonomy of the representation,
on the other.
This discrepancy appears, finally, intensified into a scenario
which seems almost surreal, in a double portrait by the
Master of Frankfurt, dated 1496, which shows the artist to-
gether with his wife (fig. 5). The size of the two flies corres-
ponds, again, to that of real insects and thus brings them
into conflict with the rest of the universe of the painting,
which is depicted on a considerably smaller scale, but into
which - and it is this, in fact, which is irritating - they are
completely integrated: not only is the specimen sitting on the
table, which is approaching a plate of cherries, clearly part
of the scene represented, but so is the one which has sett-
led on the woman's bonnet. The difference which appears
here between the insects and the rest of the representation
can only be explained, in terms of the logic of the painting,
by recognising that the step which, as it were, remained in
its initial stage in the portrait of a woman in the Ashmolean
has been taken to its conclusion here: the actual opening of
the boundary between the realm of the painting and that
of the real world and their fusion into a continuum which is
permeable on both sides. This gives rise to the possibility of
individual motifs Crossing the boundary and being recipro-
cally exchanged between the world of the picture and that
of the viewer. 11 A translocation of this kind is accomplished
by the flies, whose size unmistakably indicates (and is meant
to indicate) that they originate in factual reality. They are ans-
wered, as it were, from the other side by the piece of bread
which protrudes over the edge of the table which the eye in-
voluntarily identifies with the front edge of pictorial space
and in this way breaks through this imaginary surface.
What we have before us here, therefore, is the conception
of an "open picture", which breaks down the strict Separati
on between the actual and the fictitious, reality and repre
sentation, without however merging these two modes of be
ing as seamlessly as the trompe-l’oeil painting of the 17th
Century was to do. 13 The main accent here is, rather, precise-
ly on a conscious emphasising of their incompatibility, which
has the effect of, not least, enabling the origin of the indivi
dual elements in the picture to be reconstructed. The flies
therefore remain clearly identifiable as 'intruders' which ha
ve come from outside, and whose almost threatening pre
sence persistently disturbs - not to say destroys - the unity
of the universe of the painting, in the sense of a self-con-
tained whole designed according to autonomous artistic
principles.
It is not until the 16th Century that human figure and insect
co-exist without friction in a shared space. Here two diffe
rent approaches, distinguished not so much by their inten-
tion as by their concrete execution, can be observed, one of
which is a form peculiar to an individual artist. Jan Gossaert,
born Mabuse (around 1478-1532), in a series of works pro-
duced from 1525 onwards, introduced the element of a flat,
monochrome or marbled background, set in a frame within
the painting which is adapted precisely to the size of the pic
ture. 13 This prevents a genuine pictorial space from being de-
veloped, while on the other hand the frame is overlapped by
the figure represented, with the result that the latter ap
pears as if projected outward into a space in front of the
picture itself, which is at the same the space inhabited by the
viewer. 14
The effect of this device is, as can also be seen in the "Por
trait of Jean Carondelet" (fig. 6), intensified by the marked
plasticity with which the body appears, and aims at estab-
lishing the subject's presence in a way which is as dose to
reality as possible, optically overcoming the fact of his be
ing conveyed through a medium While this effect is natural-
ly limited, however, by the fact that the figure is fragmen-
ted by the boundaries of the field of view, it is supported,
to a certain extent, by the fly sitting near the right-hand ed
ge, which, despite the subject of the portrait being repre
sented distinctly less than life-size, does not form any rele
vant contrast to him in this respect. Rather, by placing the
insect on an element in the picture which clearly lies behind
the subject, the painter attempts to strengthen the impres-
sion that both share a common field of existence. It is only
with a reservation that this can be described as a "pictorial
space” in the usual sense, since - as shown above - every
endeavour is made to abolish the distance between the sub
ject represented and the viewer.
It is in this context, also, that the fly has its place. Its role he
re, as Andreas Prater has recognised, is above all to enliven
the representation: "Carondelet casts a shadow on the last
word of the inscription which runs round the hollow groove,
and a fly does its utmost to enhance the illusion of concre-
teness.” 15 As a prototypical element, so to speak, of every-
day experience, it confirms the subject's Status as being
really ‘present’ and thus serves purposefully, in the form of
a trick of stage direction, to counteract the limitations im-
posed on the representation by the size of the image.
