In Magritte's Golconde, the monotony
of one man multiplied, like rain
repeating itself in every drop, peoples
the entire picture: the same Belgian
pedestrian with the bowler hat,
stiff as statuary in the black
overcoat, the leather briefcase beneath
one arm, the other limb hanging
close to his side where the free hand
is either ungloved or warm inside
the coat pocket, the whole bearing
so rigid that the sleeves seem stitched
to his sides. They say it is the figure
of the artist himself, finding anonymity
among the depicted. In another
painting, an apple that would not fall
eclipses his face. Here, he is
a multitude, a kind of weather
that hangs above the brick--
red roof and in front of
the chateau with its beige façade,
rows of shut windows and drawn
curtains white and uniform
as freshly made hospital beds
awaiting their convalescents.
Otherwise, the sky is an even
blue, there are no clouds
or birds in this version of day.
The figures are particulars
of a general idea, individual
illustrations that likeness need
not yield to gravity. And yet,
not merely arbitrary, there is
order to the arrangement,
that logic to the light,
even as its source is not
shown, which projects it
in one direction so the figures
and the chateau behind and below
them are held together,
mediated by the shadow one slants
against the other. A single vanishing
point governs the perspective,
against which those bodies placed
deep inside the picture plane
are foreshortened and blurred
to produce the illusion of being
far away, while conjuring an otherwise
purely imaginary atmosphere.
Those meant to be much closer
are bigger, more defined, and stare
with discernible faces toward
the viewer, like men all turned
toward an elevator door.
The expression they share matches
the overcoat, that vacant look
of those who have waited
on the horizon all their lives.
It is easy to picture them separate,
standing as stiffly as they do
at intersections for a chance
to cross or at doorways until
the rain has stopped, and yet
they seem to belong there,
firmly in place in mid-air, their feet
not dangling but remaining at right angles
to the ankles, the black leather shoes
planted close together as though on
a shoe rack, so the weight of the body
rests evenly on feet that themselves rest
on nothing. Together they form a kind
of grid, a structure keeping them
equally alone by setting them equally
apart, each identical man integral
to another's solitude, a molecule
in a fixed crystal lattice. The artist
offers no explanation for this
phenomenon and the title leads nowhere
near the scene but to an ancient fortress
in India, whose vicinity may be inferred
within the painting as invisible
tiers that keep the figures from plummeting.
But then, are they really suspended,
and is falling the only possible motion?
The street below lies beyond the frame,
so it is uncertain whether the figures
even touch earth, while at the highest
altitudes, the upper torsos
have disappeared cleanly into the edges.
In a photograph, the moving subject
blurs, leaving a trail of smudged
light to indicate direction, but here
the only index are brushstrokes linked
to the hand of the painter long departed.
Everything is this coat of paint,
flat as the day the artist sealed
the surface with his signature --
the painting its own answer
and enigma , a window whose sill is
the frame keeping the sky this predictable
pigment, the day with never a night
behind it. The weather inside
is perfect despite the unexplained
presence of these men, the alarming
absolute absence of birds or flower pots
on ledges, and those windows
shut for decades now, from which
no neighbor, no witness peers out.
