In Samuel Beckett's "Endgame", the madman Hamm stands at the asylum window staring at the beautiful seaside vista, and can only see ashes. His friend begs him to look again, but he turns away. He can only see the dark side.
We need to be able to see both the beauty and the dark side of things, the cornfields and the full sails but the ashes as well. I see them both at the same time, at once ecstatic at the beauty of things and saddened by that ecstasy. The Japanese have a word for this dual perception, mono no aware, it means beauty tinged with sadness, for is there any real beauty without the whiff of decay?
For me, living is the same thing as dying, and loving is the same thing as losing, and this does not make me a madman like Hamm. It makes me better at living, better at loving, and better at seeing.
- Sally Mann.
I came across these words at the Fotografiska Museet, Sodermalm, Stockholm, which is showing an exhibition by the American photographer Sally Mann titled A Matter of Time. Sally Mann's edginess, her mono no aware perspective, was especially welcome after a couple of days of relentlessly positive tourist commentary. Thanks to my wife for taking the kids to watch the changing of the guard at the palace, while I explored the outstanding Fotografiska.
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| At the Fotografiska, in Stockholm |
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| Candy cigarette, by Sally Mann |
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| At warm springs, by Sally Mann |
