Die inkerende waarneming

Abstract

In this article the relation between Breyten Breytenbach’s paintings and poems is discussed focusing on images relating to vision, seeing, looking and eyes. Based on the interpretation of selected paintings, of which some are used on the covers of the volumes of poetry and a number of poems, the conclusion is reached that the same poetics and ars combinatoria underlie painting and writing in Breytenbach’s oeuvre. Seeing, writing and living are opposed to blindness, non-vision, silence and death. In die windvanger (“the wind catcher”) similar motifs are used but the emphasis is changed as the ability to see is more markedly associated with insight and an attempt to understand.