Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Limits of the Self





















Just when you think you have read every possible thing by a favorite author, and you feel abandoned to your loneliness once again, you discover yet another book by him. Happiness. Milan Kundera, brother-soul. (Mais quelle audace!)

"I could put it differently: Bacon's portraits are an interrogation on the limits of the self. Up to what degree of distortion does an individual still remain himself? To what degree of distortion does a beloved person still remain a beloved person? For how long does a cherished face growing remote through illness, through madness, through hatred, through death still remain recognizable? Where is the border beyond which a self ceases to be a self?"

Page 7, Essay 1: 'The Painter's Brutal Gesture: On Francis Bacon', from 'Encounter', essays by Milan Kundera

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