Aeneas in Canaveses

The word and the gaze: what does someone who looks at a work and talks about it do? When someone stands in front of a painting, the page of a book, or an architectural or sectional drawing and talks about it, are they trying to reveal the truth behind that particular work? I think this person has a more humble role. They do not intend to discover or establish any truth, but rather resemble the person who, when gazing up at the clouds, says to their neighbor, "Look, that one looks like a giraffe." The only purpose of these provisional words is to make the other person pay more attention, to take a closer look at the cloud.

The person who looks and speaks is not talking about the work, but rather the gaze. It is an invitation to look. He describes himself as looking, and in doing so, invites the reader or listener to do the same: to become capable of seeing for themselves, to acquire eyes capable of truly looking around. He does not speak to hear his own voice, to issue a proclamation, or to construct a theory. His truth resides in something as unstable as the gaze, and its verification is simple: anyone who reads or listens can confirm for themselves whether they see the same thing. If so, the word has been effective; if not—if the word fails to leap from the page and take hold—it is as with the sower of words of whom Mark speaks.

To speak of the gaze is to fulfill the ancient rite of the Lord of Delphi, who neither speaks nor conceals, but gives signs.