The Frailty of Realization

David Avery

The origins of this work spring from several sources. The title is derived from the writings of Bruno Schulz (The Age of Genius, from from The Book), who wondered if the substance of what we call reality could really be substantial enough to support the immensity of ideas whose integrity demands the resistance to incarnation. A visual impetus was supplied by the engraving of Albrecht Durer, St. Jerome in His Study. I have always wanted to incorporate that hanging gourd into one of my pieces, and I have delighted in the light shining through the windows of circular glass in his image. As work on the etching progressed, I began to think of it as a kind of summation of my work up until the present, and you may find quotations here and there from earlier pieces, as well as allusions to various outside influences and some goings on at the time.

Among the various references to be found are the hanging gourd, window glass and pillow from Durer’s St. Jerome in his Study, as well as the bell from his Melencolia. There is a bricked-up version of Duchamp’s urinal, Man Ray’s nail-studded iron (The Gift), Max Klinger’s glove, and a lantern found in a Breughel painting. Of course, there is Alfred Jarry’s grand Gidouille and a Cabinet of Curiosities featuring a plethora of grotesques, including the ubiquitous alligator. The image of the skate was shamelessly lifted from an Ensor painting. Many other curiosities can be found referencing some of my previous etchings.

The quotation from Bruno Schulz is an excerpt from The Age of Genius, from The Book:

“…There are things that can never occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts. They are merely trying to occur, they are checking whether the ground of reality can carry them. And they quickly withdraw, fearing to lose their integrity in the frailty of realization. And if they break into their capital, lose a thing or two in these attempts at incarnation, then soon, jealously, they retrieve their possessions, call them in, reintegrate: as a result, white spots appear in our biography—scented stigmata, the faded silvery imprints of the bare feet of angels, scattered footmarks on our nights and days—while the fullness of life waxes, incessantly supplements itself, and towers over us in wonder after wonder.

And yet, in a certain sense, the fullness is contained wholly and integrally in each of its crippled and fragmentary incarnations. This is the phenomenon of imagination and vicarious being. An event may be small and insignificant in its origin, and yet, when drawn close to one’s eye, it may open in its center an infinite and radiant perspective because a higher order of being is trying to express itself in it and irradiates it violently.”