“ I saw God face to face , yet my life has been saved .”
I chose to use the Latin version because a dead language , no longer used for ordinary communication , is more evocative , more appropriate for entering the symbolic , myth , mystery , and collective unconscious .
I inserted the inscriptions low down , as captions , at the bottom of the scene , to note that the author of the text is recounting an event at which he is not present . Writing , on the other hand , fixes the memory of an occurrence , and reading brings to mind that lived experience , but the images powerfully reiterate the physical emotions of the real scene , upstream of any intellectual process . The observer ' s involvement is more concrete than mental .
The color of the writing is similar to that of the background , so as not to overpower the scene . The initial letters are lighter and contrasted to make the writing vibrant . It recalls somehow ancient usage , recurring among copyists , to characterize the illuminated initial letters with respect to the text in black .
To sign my paintings of the last few years I have used a sort of red signature inspired by the tradition of Chinese or Japanese stamps , though completely Westernized in form and execution . The position of the seal in the East , although it follows precise rules , is always integrated into the composition of the work . So it is also in my case , especially in the triptych , the positioning of the marks accompanying geometric shapes in their upward
development . Beneath the seal there is a box with the date and three lines , two broken and one unbroken .