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A meditation on the power and pleasures of the image, from paintings to photographs to migraine auras, by one of Britain's finest literary minds.
In “Affinities”, Brian Dillon, who Joyce Carol Oates has said writes "fascinating prose... on virtually any subject," explores images and artists he is drawn to or loves and tries to analyse the attraction. What do we mean when we claim affinity with an object or picture, or say that affinities exist (not only formal) between such things? What do feelings of affinity imply about individual or collective experience of art, and of the world? The word "affinity" used to mean an attraction of opposites, between chemical elements. In his Elective Affinities, Goethe used the idea to think about the orbits and collisions of love. In the poetry and essays of Baudelaire, the writings of Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg, the art of Tacita Dean and Moyra Davey, a partly buried history of affinity can be found. “Affinities” is a critical and personal study of a sensation that is not exactly taste, desire or allyship, but has aspects of all.
In “Affinities”, Brian Dillon, who Joyce Carol Oates has said writes "fascinating prose... on virtually any subject," explores images and artists he is drawn to or loves and tries to analyse the attraction. What do we mean when we claim affinity with an object or picture, or say that affinities exist (not only formal) between such things? What do feelings of affinity imply about individual or collective experience of art, and of the world? The word "affinity" used to mean an attraction of opposites, between chemical elements. In his Elective Affinities, Goethe used the idea to think about the orbits and collisions of love. In the poetry and essays of Baudelaire, the writings of Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg, the art of Tacita Dean and Moyra Davey, a partly buried history of affinity can be found. “Affinities” is a critical and personal study of a sensation that is not exactly taste, desire or allyship, but has aspects of all.