"Christopher Priest - The Discharge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

of frenzy of artistic absorption, almost literally soaking up Acizzone's breathtaking imagery.

The ultrasonics produced by the tactile pigments operated directly on the hypothalamus, promoting
sudden changes in serotonin concentrations and levels. The instantaneous result of this was to generate
the images experienced by the viewerтАФthe less obvious consequence was to cause depression and
long-term loss of memory. When I left the museum after my first adult exposure to Acizzone's work I
was shattered by the experience. While the erotic images created by the paintings still haunted me, I was
almost blind with pain, confusion and a sense of unspecified terror.

After my first visit, I returned unsteadily to my studio and slept for nearly two days. When I awoke I was
chastened by what I had discovered about the paintings. Exposure to tactilist art had a traumatic effect on
the viewer.

I felt a familiar sense of blankness behind me. Memory had failed. Somewhere in the recent past, when I
was travelling through the islands, I had missed visiting some of them.

The litany was still there and I recited the names to myself. Amnesia is not a specific: I knew the names
but in some cases I had no memory of the islands. Had I been to Winho? To Demmer? Nelquay? No
recollections of any of them, but they had been on my route.

For two or three weeks I returned to my tourist painting, partly to gain some cash but also for a respite. I
needed to think about what I had learned. My memories of childhood had been all but eradicated by
something. Now I had a firm idea that it was my immersion in Acizzone's art.

I continued to work and gradually I found my vision.

The physical technique was fairly straightforward to master. The difficulty, I discovered, was the
psychological process, transferring my own passions, cravings, compulsions to the artwork. When I had
that, I could paint successfully. One by one my painted boards accumulated in my studio, leaning against
the wall at the back of the long room.

Sometimes, I would stand at the window of my studio and stare down across the bustling, careless city
below, my own shocking images concealed in the pigments behind me. I felt as if I were preparing an
arsenal of potent imagic weapons. I had become an art terrorist, unseen and unsuspected by the world at
large, my paintings no doubt destined to be misunderstood in their way as Acizzone's masterpieces had
been. The tactilist paintings were the definitive expression of my life.

While Acizzone, who in life was a libertine and rou├й, had portrayed scenes of great erotic power, my
own images were derived from a different source: I had lived a life of emotional repression, repetition,
aimless wandering. My work was necessarily a reaction against Acizzone.

I painted to stay sane, to preserve my memory. After that first exposure to Acizzone I knew that only by
putting myself into my work could I recapture what I had lost. To view tactilist art led to forgetting, but to
create it, I found now, led to remembering.

I drew inspiration from Acizzone. I lost part of myself. I painted and recovered.

My art was entirely therapeutic. Every painting clarified a fresh area of confusion or amnesia. Each dab of
the palette knife, each touch of the brush, was another detail of my past defined and placed in context.
The paintings absorbed my traumas.