Doors and passageways
"The palace of the sun stood on high columns (...), and the double doorway shone with luminous silver. The art surpassed the material; for Mulciber had chiseled there the waves, which surround the earth with a belt, and the terrestrial globe and the sky which extends above this globe. "1
Ovid's words open our eyes to the gates of Phoebus's palace, where the world presents itself in a luminous radiance. Will Gaia's entrails reveal themselves behind this divine façade?
Represented or real, described or seen, the door is both link and place, between inside and outside. It opens up physical and symbolic expanses. Two different spaces come together. Like a drawbridge between two places, two worlds or two voices, the door creates or prevents dialogue. And yet, its very presence makes exchange possible.
From ancient and medieval tympanums to palace doorways, and including works on the motif itself, such as Rodin's La Porte de l'Enfer, Magritte's La Victoire or Gavin Turk's L'Âge d'Or à Peyrassol, real or symbolic, the door has crossed the ages. Ornate or simple, monumental or small, architectural element or pure representation, the door is both support and subject of creation. They give access, allow entry or exit, reveal or conceal, at will. Its very function is to provide passage. It allows it and embodies it.
Now, in the passage, is the step. The door is made of steps. Whether the steps of beings or the steps of the door, the door is fulfilled in the step that passes through it. Or in the gaze that crosses it. The gaze, then, seems a door like any other, opening or closing according to the images.
Persephone has returned from the realm of shadows and is bringing back spring: let's go through the door with her, and turn our gaze towards the light!
Mahault de Raymond-Cahuzac
1 Ovid, The Metamorphoses, Book II, 21-50, Editions Gallimard, 1992, p.72
