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History of the House

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We live in the present, but our memory retains a whole world connected with the past. Moreover, there is always a sense of wanting to cease the elusive moment that is fading away, so we have to set up a trap for the invisible, resorting to a convention, an image. In the painting we see a giant book next to the solid-looking, presentable New York house built in the 1930-40s or thereabouts. 

 

The softness of pages is contrasted with the hardness of granite - analogy could be drawn with regard to the elasticity of brain tissue and toughness of the cranium - that strong box holding the data of the past. Human memory keeps the image of Venus, who was born from the sea font - a well-known metaphor of purity, beauty, infinity and inexhaustible depth. The Birth of Venus was created by Sandro Botticelli five hundred years ago, in 1485. The house takes up only so much space in the city, but human imagination has no limits and translates the images of the past into the framework of the present. 

 

It is worth noting how the symbolism of a book is similar to the symbolism of a residential building: as a page consists of parallel lines so an apartment block consists of parallel floors, and individual letters could be linked to individual faces looking out of the windows.

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