of peepholes and windows

"So: we can argue that a peephole is a kind of window, right? If one makes a genealogy of windows, one will surely encounter peepholes."  Florence Lenaers

Unlike a window, a peephole is not intended for contemplating the view which it frames, nor the light gently falling within the interior of the space it opens.



Even when closed a window opens, whereas even when open a peephole maintains the integrity of a closed space.



A peephole provides security of the interior, a window comfort of the exterior.



A window reveals. A peephole conceals.



A window allows for various perspectives and varying viewing distances. A peephole only one, and that distorted.



A peephole is a puncture, a window an embrace.



The nature of a peephole (to be peered through from up close with a single eye) renders one half-blind. A window, on the other hand, encourages one to look with both eyes open wide.



One looks through a peephole with eyes of fear. One looks through a window with eyes of wonder.

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Patrick Melrose

"What's the point of a fucking window if you can't jump out of it?"

Edward St. Aubyn

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miniature chair

Dora Maar, Chaise Miniature, c.1934

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Rouen

William Henry Fox Talbot, 1843

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watercolour with curtains

Paul Klee

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window, red and blue sill

Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918

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WINDOW

I looked out the window at dawn and saw a young apple tree translucent in brightness.

And when I looked out at dawn once again, an apple tree laden with fruit stood there.

Many years had probably gone by but I remember nothing of what happened in my sleep.


Czeslaw Milosz

wind-swept spirit

In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind.

Matsuo Bashō, ‘The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchelʼ (after The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, edited and translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa)

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museum window (ii)

Kunstmuseum Basel
images © Michael Tweed 2016

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museum window

Kunstmuseum Basel
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Hidden

I propose

turning the key

useless to

conceal from you that

strange things

take place

it used to

ring of its

own accord

chair by

the window and the

door closed

saw the curtain

detach

falling

when I weary of

looking, something is

bound to appear

walking

backwards

she is frightened

by the sound but

cannot describe it

the face

vanishes, the

hands remain

white arms beneath

fearful drapery

looking out, over

the hill

I burn it, it

distills a dark mucus

curtain

wrenched away

a gossamer

veil, as it

seems

resembling, yet

most unlike her

armless

chair, handless

cup

sloping downwards to

the base of the hill

momentary

grasp around

her ankle

an old-fashioned

house

a narrow

lane on a

declivity

Keith Waldrop,  from The House Seen from Nowhere (Litmus Press, 2002)

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untitled

Raoul de Keyser, 1998

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