Recognition
“Venerable age had not, for him, arranged that derelict landscape against which it is privileged to sit and pick its nose, break wind, and damn the course of its youth groping among obstacles erected, dutifully, by its own hands earlier, along the way of that sublime delusion known as the pursuit of happiness.
Not to be confused with that state of political bigotry, mental obstinacy, financial security, sensual atrophy, emotional penury, and spiritual collapse which, under the name ‘maturity,’ animated lives around him.”
Gaddis’ description of Reverend Gwyon in The Recognitions, which begs the question of how we come to chase either happiness or maturity, either independently or (poor souls) in concert.
The portrait is a detail of Emile Wauters’ The Madness of Hugo van der Goes, which one might imagine is the perpetual look on Rev. Gwyon’s face.
(Edit) Van der Goes is staring straight at the viewer. The recognition of his own madness takes place through you; madness incarnate, beyond the vision of all other figures in the painting.
