The virtual: narrative versus interruption

Interruption may be embodied in the split-second coincidence of two worlds. Such a coincidence is captured in a drawing that Rembrandt made in preparation for his painting of the decisive moment in which Abraham nears the point of cutting Isaac’s throat (see figure 23). The drawing is a straightforward preparation for what would become the painting now hang- ing in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage.362 _{In some decisive aspects the drawing} embodies multiple realities. Abraham, for instance, seems to have two faces with what appear to be two sets of eyes. There are also two knives involved: one is apparent in what can also be the shape of a rock, the other one is clearly a knife that, due to the forceful interference of the angel, is propelled away from Abraham. Yet, this is only conjecture on the basis of the known story or narrative, which allows for a short detour on the forces of narrative.

Narrative can be related to acting in several ways. First of all, there is the act of telling or narrating. Then, the narrative will consist of what is

362 Another version is ascribed to the studio of Rembrandt, although it does have the inscription

Rembrandt. verandert. En overgeschildert. 1636 (Rembrandt, changed. And repainted. 1636). It can be found in München, in the Alte Pinakothek. As the website of the museum indicates: ‘There are differences of opinion on the interpretation of the inscription.’ http://www.rembrandtdatabase. org/Rembrandt/painting/47376/the-sacrifice-of-abraham

told about acts, brought into a logico-chronological order on the level of the narrative’s history. Furthermore, the bringing forth of a narrative can be seen as an act. The story of Abraham and Isaac did not always exist; there was a situation in which this narrative was brought forward by someone into a socio-cultural or anthropological situation, which may have been a dramatic moment. Finally, an existing narrative can be read and re-read, or re-told, and as such it has performative powers. When I previously related event and moment to theatricality and dramatization, this did not imply that they do not play an equally important role in narratives. Yet, there is a generic difference between showing and telling, and between telling as an act and the acts within a narrative. As soon as a narrative opens up towards the potential of showing, it will become theatrical. As soon as it opens up towards the potential of acting, it will become dramatic. Any narrative tends toward closure, but it can be opened up dramatically time and again. In the case of Rembrandt’s drawing, for instance, the narrative is already known. Yet, instead of being retold it is being shown here, theatrically, in relation to a known and logico-chronologically framed event that is dramatically opened up as a moment in which we find ourselves anew.

When Abraham’s knife is depicted between hand and possible victim, and with a shadow-knife above it, this is not only a radically new artistic invention in representing the moment, but also opens up the moment as a split-second coincidence of two worlds and two different actualizations. If we take seriously the powers involved in this drawing, the knife may either be moving away from the hand or moving toward it—as if the force of the angel has this dual capacity, and as if Abraham still does not know what the next step is going to be. Seen outside the light of the already established narrative, this drawing truly captures and shows a dramatic moment, con- sidered from within its own ‘present’, with an unpredictable outcome that will be the result of actors acting and bringing in the new as one actualized world. For the moment, however, there are still two worlds in play.

With respect to the status of baroque multiple realities, I take my cues, as may have become clear in previous chapters, from the baroque philosophers Spinoza and Leibniz. Other sources of inspiration include the twentieth- century philosophers Deleuze and Lewis mentioned above. The four of them would be highly surprised to find themselves together. No mistake, Leibniz and Spinoza did meet, in The Hague, and exchanged ideas. In his later work though, Leibniz diverted principally from Spinoza. As for the two modern philosophers, Lewis is an analytic philosopher with surprising ideas on modal realitiesand Deleuze a continental philosopher with radical ideas on the connection between the actual and the virtual. Yet, both modern

philosophers relate to the baroque. Lewis’ ideas were highly influenced by Leibniz’s monads. Deleuze wrote a study on the baroque, The fold, which focused explicitly on these monads, but he also wrote two books on Spinoza, in which multiplicity in unity of the real was a key issue: Expressionism of Philosophy: Spinoza and Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Though I did not deal with these works in detail, they provide the frame for my exploration of the nature of reality in the Dutch baroque. What is of interest in the philosophy of all four thinkers are their considerations of distinct, real worlds that at some point coexist and yet become radically separate at a certain moment, as a matter of actualization.

To be sure, Leibniz’s ideas would be hard to translate to the what-if embodied in the story of Abraham and Isaac. For Leibniz, the awkward philosophical issue was that two differently actualized worlds would not be equivalent, because God must have opted for one as the best.363 _For Lewis, it was necessary to conceive of multiple worlds. To him, the simple and at the same time complex idea is that what caused, for instance, the explosion of Delft to take place might as well not have taken place. This ‘not-happening’ would have resulted in another world. Denying the real existence of a different reality, if only for a split second, implies that the world we live in is the only possible world. Dutch Republican baroque art and philosophy show an awareness of this split-second coexistence of realities and a fascination with the intensity of the one reality actualized out of myriad choices. At the basis of this was not an event, but a dramatic moment at which one entered a world that was principally unforeseen, or new. This is what Deleuze would call the jump from the virtual to the actual. In Deleuze’s frame of radical immanence, the virtual could not be unreal, for then the very jump would be impossible. It was only not yet actualized.

The multiplicity of worlds embodies freedom. Even when Spinoza rejects contingency, this is not to say that the world has only one predictable outcome. Spinoza rejects contingency if it implies that an outcome will be inexplicable. Yet, it is only explainable with hindsight, when all factors could be taken into consideration. This all differs principally from the standpoint that only one world is possible. To claim that only one world is possible implies that the unimaginable potential inherent in everything that is must be countered, controlled, and foreclosed.

363 The imbalance here would later bring Voltaire to the point of ridiculing Leibniz’s conclusion that the actualized world was the best of all possible ones. In Candide, he would use a disaster much like the Delft Thunderclap (see Chapter 1), namely the great earthquake of Lisbon that took place in 1755. His question was: how could this be the best of all possibilities?

There is a genre that addresses the tension between these two options: the tableau vivant.

8.3. A fool waiting for the political moment: tableau vivant