1 -
Time Scale 1,
ZS 001
2 -
Time Scale 3,
ZS 003
1
Moment and Duration in the Art
of Win Labuda
An exposition by Nadja Labuda, (1998)
Time is one of the essential aspects of human creation. The finiteness of
each one of us is the crux of every religion and philosophy that has been
conceived by mankind. And the struggle against this finiteness over the
centuries led to the most varying outcomes. Inherent in the feminine
principle is the notion that by giving birth to a child one will enter into
eternity. In contrast to that is the masculine principle in which one may
overcome finiteness through intellectual offspring, if the idea or the work
achieves immortality. This essay is a daughter’s attempt to come to terms
with the intellectual and spiritual progeny of her father and thus to
bridge the gap between the feminine and the masculine principle and, at
the same time, between work and reality.
The aspect of time as a represented continuum came to art much later
than to literature or to the sciences. This can be explained by the
nonmateriality of time. Time cannot be represented as an entity, but
merely as a progression of separate scenes. This kind of representation
was used inter alia by the ancient Greeks in the metopes and friezes of
temples in order to portray a battle.
(Parthenon Temple, Acropolis, Athen,
begun 449 BC)
The different scenes were rendered in their chronological order in the
upper part of the temple in separate rectangular fields. It was not in the
least the Greeks’ intention to represent time; on the contrary they were
intent on depicting the heroic deeds of a warrior. This manner of
representation was retained in the Middle Ages.
Worthy of mention in this context are the
Books of Hours of the Duke of
Berry,
at the end of the 14th century.
These books, in which prayers for
the times of day were preserved, contain richly detailed calendar pictures
and representations of the lives of the saints. Also in this case, the saints’
lives are depicted in a historical sequence of separate scenes. Many
centuries were yet to pass before the representation of actual time or the
phenomenon of change took place.
I see the beginning of this particular manner of representation in the
serial works of Monet at the end of the 19
th
century. Important, however,
is not only the aspect of time, but also the serial representation of
pictorial content. At that time this concept was a novelty that was met
partly with scepticism and partly with enthusiasm. At the beginning of
Monet’s serial works are the
Haystacks at Giverny, 1885, 65x81 cm, private
