Truth & Meaning

Last week I went to a Cranach the Elder exhibit at the Senate Museum.  I knew next to nothing about Cranach, only being familiar with his allegory of Justice, which I like; his Justice is naked, not blind(folded), and her scales are tipped, not perfectly level.  His Justice is partial, like Truth.

The first two rooms of the exhibit left me cold. There were far too many people there, despite the fact we went as soon as it opened.  Very quickly I lost patience and decided not to look at the paintings in the order they were presented. Instead, I kept moving forward to the next one in front of which I could stand without someone else's head or torso blocking my view, otherwise I'd have spent 3 hours in there, to see about 50 paintings.

Justice was in the 3rd room, in the company of about 12 Adam&Eve paintings, all good, but none moving (to me).  I thought I'd seen the best when, walking to the last 2 rooms I was pleasantly surprised by a sudden sense of humour firmly grounded on thought.  Let's just say I have a soft spot for intelligent humour, so my immediate reaction was "Cranach, you dawg! Hiding this sense of humour under piles and piles of delicate nudes with the same face! Duuuuuude!"   Yes, because his women all have the exact same face.  Salome holding the silver tray with John-the-Baptist's head looks as angelic as Lucretia stabbing herself, as angelic as Eve hiding her private bits.  Subtle.

As his sense of humour.  Subtle but... powerful!  Because it provokes one to think a certain number of things through.  Here's the painting which stunned me:

It is called "La Bouche de la Verité" (= The Mouth of Truth).  The idea comes from an Ancient Roman sculpture (la Bocca della Verità), a human face in whose mouth a person puts his hand and affirms whatever; if it is the truth, nothing happens, if it is a lie, the mouth closes on the person's hand, severing it.

In the painting, Cranach substituted it with an animal, but the idea is the same.  

The twist here, however, is that the woman depicted in it is not having her hand severed, so she is telling the truth.  But what is she saying? 

She's been told by her husband to affirm she's never been unfaithful to him.  Oh, but she has!  What will she do? How come the mouth isn't chopping off her lying hand?

Well, this lady is cunning.  She had her lover dress up as a jester and touch her when she put her hand in the Mouth of Truth, while she said:  No man apart from my husband and this jester has ever laid hands on me.

It is the truth, she is safe.

Does it mean what it purports to?  Nope.

Truth and meaning are therefore separate entities, which can meet, and often do, but are by no means inextricably linked.  They can run parallel or they can intersect, but it is seldom a "natural" thing; it doesn't just happen, it is a conscious effort which involves intentions and the right words, a constant quest for it, between the apparently candid lines and deceivingly unambiguous statements.

I'm not saying every single truth is this way, of course there are things which are said clearly and simply and truthfully, while complex formulations can hide many lies.  Rather, my idea is to convey the thought that the truth is not always simple, clear, and easy to grasp. It can be traumatizing, layered, complex-- it can also be meaningless. 

This brings a question to me: is a meaningless truth any better than a lie? 

And another: is a truth whose meaning (as is the case in the painting) opposes the sentiment expressed in a statement worse than an outright lie? (i.e. Bill Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.)

To me, this painting is a good example of the cliché "a picture is worth a thousand words", but it is a good example of how the cliché is not true.  

Look, if you stand before this painting for 3 hours without having read what the caption next to it says, you'll never know what its intention is, even if you know about the Bocca della Verità. It is not going to be possible to grasp exactly what the apparently innocent woman has done.  One cannot guess who the jester is.  There's no clear husband figure depicted in it.  It is a representation of an idea which had, in order for it to be meaningful, to be previously thought through and verbalized/written down.  A picture is only worth a thousand words when/if words aren't even necessary in order to explain something.  This invalidates even the premise of such a statement.  

A picture is therefore worth... no words at all, not a priori.  If words aren't needed to explain something, then why would a picture be worth a thousand... nothing at all?   So to me, a picture can provide added value to words, but cannot substitute them.

Pictures, photos, footage of something... do not tell a meaningful truth.   

Now I want to find a metaphor that's worth a thousand pictures.  Help?