A Vision from the Sightless

At the onset of the Covid pandemic lockdown a former university colleague noticed that my then 9 year old liked the oil painting hanging on his wall and he offered it to her. "It was done by a blind student", he said.

The work scene was of a lifesaver rescue of a drowning swimmer, done in oils. Not particularly notable to me. I am not sure what caught my daughters eye, maybe the swimming context, but it immediately became intriguing to me after that comment about the artist.

So we hung it at our wall until recently when we started packing for a house move. As the packing progressed, I noticed it among the throw-away trash bags. Perhaps she no longer wanted it and mum promptly dispatched it; I do not know. But I became uneasy about that.

A few days later on pick-up day I noticed it was on the street with everything else being thrown out so I deliberately used my car for the last load and snuck it back to the house, hidden in the car.

So today as I was taking it to our storage facility and noticed a tear in the canvas I had not seen before. Consternation. How was it damaged? I took a regretful picture of it in retrospect. And then began imagining how the painter even arrived at what is highly plausible for a blind person, even if partially sighted.

Consider for example, the perfect relief of landscape against the background sky, and the inner ridges against the outward ones. How would a sightless person have mustered them all so elegantly and mastered their detail at that?

Granted, there were problems with scale, likely irreversible in retrospect, that remain. Like the cycad plant on the left showing larger in life than the mature acacia like thorn trees towards centre and right all standing at almost the same distance as it.

But amazingly, how could the pupil have rendered such credible texture to the water surface? But as foreground approaches the sightlessness becomes more evident. The teacher or art coach might have done some retouching of the work on the student's behalf. There are obvious patches of lower quality texture but applied at geometrically accurate targets.

The shading and shadowing begins to be disconnected, and some hues begin to also grate, especially when the well-meaning retouches do more damage than original flaws. Take the ankles separated by ankle shade instead of water hues, producing a third one.

But for the moment, the most intriguing is the life-saver's face; totally featureless. Almost like in questionable blurry video clips where actors do not want to be recognized over misrepresentation Tort or just from the Shame of being associated with something that is patently fraudulent.

And this fuzzy non-detail what hits me the most as a metaphor for today's goings on at global theatre. Certain lifesavers have jumped into the fray to save a drowning prospect on the Sabbath when at other times of equally fuzzy circumstance we see them tying other victims down in concrete rubble to properly drown them.

Footnote:

Mahlasedi Special Education School is a public school located in Lebowakgomo, sometimes referred to as a suburb of Polokwane in Limpopo South Africa. The painting is signed "Mash Renay, Mahlasedi Special, 2015". You may make a bid to give it a fitting home.