Taking influence from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy I am drawn to the wandering and lost souls trapped within the inferno, and likening it to the themes that I have tried to explore throughout the project from my inspiration from Titarenko to German Expressionism and Metropolis and the faceless nature of cities and how they suck the souls out of people.
‘The Italian word ombra in Dante’s lexicon means both “shadow” (as in the shadow cast by a body) and “shade” (a term for the form of the soul in the afterlife). On the terrace of lust, as Dante’s very real body prepares for its most challenging test, the poet shows–via a lecture by Statius–how the two meanings of ombra combine to encapsulate the fundamental relationship between life and afterlife. When the soul leaves the body, Statius explains, it “impresses” the body’s form on the surrounding air (as saturated air is adorned with colors of a rainbow), and the resulting “virtual” body follows the spirit just as a flame follows fire. This new form therefore goes by the name of “shade” / “shadow” (ombra): as a “shadow” follows–and repeats the form of–a real body, so the “shade” takes on all bodily parts and functions (25.85-108).’
http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/textpopup/pur2501.html
I love this idea of ‘Shades’, these incomplete husks of souls that reflect my images perfectly and think that by incorporating it into the title of the finished piece will add a small and abstract dimension to their interpretation, at least by the artist themself. Rather than having a plaque with an explanation of the images I would like them to do the talking but I think naming the piece is still crucial to its success especially because the piece is a triptych and so is trying to communicate an idea through the placement and thematic ties of the image. By equating the people of London to Dante’s ideas of Shades, lost souls wandering the afterlife, it creates a slightly more opaque viewing of the pieces but realistically I can’t see many people knowing what a shade is and so won’t impede on the project in a way that mentioning a word such as ghosts or spirits would. The form of the people take on such ghostly shapes anyway that the audience can ascertain that themselves, the idea with the shades however is the offering of a deeper reading the audience can understand if they want but not something they must adhere to.
Potential reading:
City of Shades? – Very Titarenko inspired which I find a bit cheap
The Shades – hmmm
Shades of the City – I like this one
Shades of the City 