Book Title:

The Stones of Florence

Book Author:

Mary McCarthy

Page Number:

73

Contributor Notes:

Reader has written “Clock chimes 12:00 midnight as I read this in Florence” in the margin next to the underlined passage “The vanishing point, if contemplated steadily, can induce a feeling of metaphysical giddiness, for this point is precisely the centre at which the picture ought to disappear, a zero exerting on the ‘solid’ realities of the canvas a potent attraction, as though it would suck the whole – old, young, maidens, women, small dogs, sheep, buildings, provinces – down the funnel of its own nothingness. That is, the very fulcrum on which the picture rests, the organizing principle of its apparent stability, is at the same time the site at which the picture dissolves.”