Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

Walter stirred from his private preoccupation and said animatedly. "Alexandra, I don’t
know what the Scholastics taught, I am not a theologian, but this idea is very much alive in
Islamic art. Moslems, like Jews, are forbidden to make anthropomorphic representations of
God—you know, a grandfather with a long beard. So their Sufi mystics invented an abstract
image of God. In their mosques God is represented by a single point in the center of the
dome."
He began to laugh. "Forgive me, this conversation is very serious, but speaking of the
Christian God, Michelangelo’s grandest joke comes to my mind. You have never been in Rome
and seen the Sistine Chapel, but you have surely seen reproductions of its ceiling: God
creating Adam, stars, the sun, and moon, etc. Well, after finishing all this work God flies off, his
crimson robe fluttering in the draft, and right above the Papal altar you see him vanish into the
clouds—with a naked derrière towards his lousy Creation! With your permission, according to
the great Michelangelo, God has a fat ass and wears no underpants!"
Walter laughed and laughed. "Well, you see, such subtle insights are forbidden to Jews
and Moslems." Still cackling, he shuffled out to get some wine. "Alexandra wait for me, I am
very curious what you are getting at, I still have no clue what it is."
"You are not going to try to introduce God into Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?" mocked
Friedrich when Walter had gone. "If that is on your mind, I will go to bed!"
Annoyed Alexandra said with a sharp voice. "No, I told you, I have no intention to argue
physics. I leave that to you."
Walter poured wine for everyone. "Let’s hear your theory."
She touched her lips with her folded hands concentrating on finding her thread again.
"Walter, I don’t have a theory, but I had a string of visions which cry for one. Having no
immediate need for God, I turned my attention to the role of time in painting."
She unfolded her hands and quickly glanced at Konrad for emotional support. "It must
seem obvious to you, Walter, since the Renaissance time stands still in painting. All action is
frozen at the moment the painter has chosen. In some paintings this moment is very precisely
defined and gives the painting a very special meaning. I am thinking of La Tempesta, my
favorite Giorgione, there it is five in the afternoon. The woman is feeding her hungry child when
his father returns, the storm is receding. Maybe only a woman who has nursed a child sees
that, but Giorgione’s choice of the late afternoon generates the tranquility that pervades this
painting."
Walter nodded. "Maybe only a woman can understand this Giorgione. When we first met
on the train from Venice I told you that you have a privileged insight into this painting."
She smiled. "Let me continue the description of my adventures in the Uffizi. Still asking
my question, what role time plays in Renaissance painting, I landed before Botticelli’s
Primavera. Walter, do you remember our conversation before this mysterious painting? This
time I stared at Primavera with such intensity that I would have drowned in the beauty of its
women had I not wrenched myself out of their spell. Trying to hold onto your elusive
geometrical lines for support, I discovered that the painting has three vanishing points! They
shift as you slowly walk past the picture. Very uncanny!"
Walter admitted that he had not noticed that. But there were other Renaissance
paintings that had more than one vanishing point, and all were disturbing. "Are you saying that
this is the reason for the strange flavor of the Botticelli’s?"
"Well yes, but less easily demonstrated is that from each of these infinitely far, imaginary
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