Envy (Invidia)
I intended to showcase “old women”. My obsession, I admit. I’m an obsessive writer of ekphrases. I’m given to analysing artworks depicting mature women, works created by women, I like old women, evoking Tadeusz Różewicz’s play The Old Woman Broods (trans. Adam Czerniawski). I like how tough and hardened they are, which is what my favourite author discusses in “The Story of Old Women”: “Old women / are indestructible / they smile knowingly” (trans. Joanna Trzeciak). But here the woman on display is bereft of any positive facial expression, not even the trace of a smile is visible. She is the embodiment of what old women have become in public consciousness. Behold, the personification of envy. A feeling stronger and far more destructive than mere jealousy. A sentiment of aversion and hostility to those we are covetous of. One of the seven deadly sins. The title of the work by Josse de Corte refers to a novel lexicon, to an untapped vocabulary, at least so far. This isn’t an idiom of elementary emotions any longer, but of the complex. And a language of theology.
