Just while we are on the topic of spectral figures and the eclipse, I thought it fitting to mention one of the very few photographs taken of Cornell (he was a bit camera shy) that inserts him into this web of association. The photograph is by Duane Michals and shows Cornell in profile standing in front of a mirror. He does not look real, but like a shadow on the verge of disappearing, its form being eaten up by the light encroaching from the left. It is almost as if Cornell himself is being eclipsed.
Where Rose is the sun, in this photograph Cornell is the moon (for he is merely a dark silhouette). Both are intangible and transcendent figures, yet each is the inverse mirror image of the other.
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| Duane Michals, Joseph Cornell, 1970 |
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