Piercing Cultural Hegemony

Writing

The Origins of Painting

Silhouettes

Through the lens of Guided Imagery, writing takes shape as the shadow of a thought or a vivid image, capturing its essence in words.

Décalcomanie  Rene Magritte 1966

The Happy Donor  Rene Magritte 1966

The writer or artist becomes a screen, receiving the projection of a central idea as a silhouette — a delicate outline awaiting color and life. This impulse to give form and substance to outlines gave rise to painting itself.

Silhouettes are deeply woven into the origins of both writing and painting. In ancient Black Africa, the silhouette stood at the core of creative thought. During Egypt's Old Kingdom, silhouettes were considered sacred, as every being was believed to possess a Ka — a spiritual double imbued with profound meaning.

                                       Inner world  Ka              Outer world Ka 

Ancient Egyptian Conception Of The Soul Pdf

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Tomb paintings, always rendered in profile, depicted a double world: one visible, the other hidden. In these images, the Ka, or spiritual double, guided the soul between realms. Writing, in this sense, became like the Ka—a bridge carrying inner truths into the outer world.

n his Natural History, written around 77 to 79 AD, Pliny the Elder writes:

“We have no certain knowledge as to the commencement of the art of painting, nor does this inquiry fall under our consideration. The Egyptians assert that it was invented among them, six thousand years before it passed into Greece; a vain boast, it is very evident.”

Today, we know that Pliny the Elder was mistaken. The Egyptians’ claim was, in fact, grounded in truth.

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