IN SEARCH OF A FRAME by Paul Golisz

IN SEARCH OF A FRAME

PAUL GOLISZ

First, two stories. _ “When Aeneas travels up the Tiber and comes to the site of the future imperial city, he finds himself in a wondrous forest. His host, Evander explains to him: ‘These woodland places once were homes of local fauns and nymphs together with a race of men that came from tree trunks, from hard oak: they had no way of settled life, no arts of life, no skill at yoking oxen, gathering provisions, practicing husbandry, but got their food from oaken bough and wild game hunted down. In that first time, out of Olympian heaven, Saturn came here in flight from Jove in arms, an exile from a kingdom lost; he brought these unschooled men together from the hills where they were scattered, gave them laws, and chose the name of Latium, from his latency or safe concealment in his countryside.’ (Aeneid 8.415-29)” (Harrison, Forests the Shadow of Civilization p1-2) _ “Thomas Jefferson was led to a pin driven into the ground at the center; a spot destined for a dwelling house within the meter of the Liriodendron Tulipifera. With the autumn full moon [blood moon] overhead, the silent figures made their way through the forest. They were pale as a corpse with the cold light betraying the creatures of the wood, void of form. The path of an octagon was drawn around the pin, delineating what was to become Poplar Forest, a self bounded and self contained form against the immeasurable background. Once inside the boundary, a connection to the world was possible. They gathered to share a meal among the clatter and chatter of the men from Bedford County, at a table made from the woods, beneath a prismatic canopy.” (Golisz) _ Although completed in Italy, this series of drawings is rooted in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson’s second home is a quintessential manifestation of a classical set of ideas: Integritas, Consonantia, Claritas. The Roman Villa provided a point of inspiration for a new understanding of Jefferson’s project. It is well known that Jefferson was highly influenced by Andrea Palladio, specifically through The Four Books of Architecture, as well as through Palladio’s interpretations on the Roman villa typology. Palladio’s ideas on proportion, balance, and geometry were made manifest not only through the octagonal house at Poplar Forest, but additionally through the landscaped mounds that flank the East and West as

well as the swale to the South and the grove of Tulip Poplars to the North. These geometries generate a taxonomy of devices that allow different systems to grow close enough together so that a conversation between them becomes possible.

Understanding the relationship between the origins of Poplar Forest and Rome (occupying a space between the Earth and the Sky, a place cleared from the forest that makes visible the relationship between human and nature) has been very important.

Poplar Forest exists between the constructed swale of the south lawn and the symmetrical mounds flanking the East and West; Rome between the constructed ground of the Tiber and the heights of the Seven Hills. Both allow for a connection to the world within a constructed geometry and provide the scaffolding to test values in a realm that is common among all entities and systems. “To live together in the world means essentially that a world of things is between those who have it in common, as a table is located between those who sit around it; the world, like every in-between, relates and separates men at the same time.” (Arendt) _ The following drawings are an attempt at origins. Drawing has the capacity to create new relationships which can only result from rigourous work. These relationships, which can relate us to the world and make evident our origins, are crucial. In order to represent these ideas, specific languages are necessary; each case being unique. Because of the multiplicities, distilling relevant information requires patience and persistance. This series is not about a formula rather an idiosynractic approach to each spatial condition. The drawings that result are reduced in form but embody qualities of the subject not readily visible. This process was modeled after Matisse who would repeat many portraits within one sitting which he claimed allowed him to capture the personality of his subject. “In the earlier drawings [her] physiognomy is cursorily rendered with a single pencil-stroke to indicate each feature, but by the third drawing her eyes are deep-set, her head and shoulders composed of a series of overlapping, tremulous lines.” (Antliff) The following drawings focus on an understanding of geometries which act as a frame, a device which mediates between systems, relating and separating the known and the unknown. The idea of a frame is understood through Jacques Derrida who stated, “The frame stands out against two grounds, but with respect to each of these two grounds, it merges into the other”

DRAWINGS FROM ROME

VILLA GIULIA

PALAZZO CORSINI

2014