perspectival representation in Europe purports to solve. For him, the
representation of a mathematical solid on a plane depends on moving
around and seeing the object from multiple angles (seeChapter 4). Nader
El-Bizri provocatively glosses his discussion, referring to the planes in
Sabra’s translation as ways of seeing a cube. He explains:
A partial un-concealment of an opaque object in vision is always associated with
the concealment of some of its surfaces...when an opaque box that has the form of
a cube is within myfield of vision, I can only see three of its sides simultaneously,
which appear as skewed planes rather than squares. Nonetheless, when I look at
these intersecting planes, I see a cube with sides as squares. Unlike its appearing
aspects, the orthogonal structure of the cube, which is delimited by square sides, is
preserved in its geometric form as a solid within thedistortingvisual effects of
perspective...Either perception is frontal, and the cube faces the eye in such a way
that one of its sides is perpendicular to the axis of the virtual cone of vision, and
hence appears as a square; or the third dimension of the cube is shown via an
inclination in depth when viewed laterally.^77
Having referred to the relationship between the rays from an object and the
eye as a form of pointillism, his shift toward the language of the cube invites
comparison with modernist artistic cubism. Rather than pursuing a facile,
nationalistic trope of cubismavant la lettre, this implication takes seriously
nineteenth-century philosophical engagements with Eastern philosophies
informing cubism.
El-Bizri’s discussion of the cube represented from all sides resembles
Jean Metzinger’s 1913 discussion inCubism and Tradition.
Alreadytheyhaveuprootedtheprejudice that commanded the painter to remain
motionless in front of the object, at afixed distance from it, and to catch on the canvas
no more than a retinal photograph more or less modified by‘personal feeling.’They
have allowed themselves to move around the object in order to give under the control
of intelligence a concrete representation of it, made up of several successive aspects.
Formerly a picture took possession of space, now it reigns also in time.^78
Interpreting the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859–1941) as resisting
monarchist political symbolism, these early cubists understood the simul-
taneity of viewing perspectives as symbolic of liberation from historical
identity.^79 Rather than conceiving of collective identity as located in his-
tory, they conceived it as an intuitive expression of the vital force (élan
vital) of the people emerging from the overlapping moments implicit in
duration(see Introduction 0.3). The resulting simultaneity of expression(^77) El-Bizri,2005: 196. (^78) Mitchell,1977: 177. (^79) Antliff, 1992.
294 Mimetic Geometries