The first three sessions of Rolfing focus chiefly on ordering the superficial parts of the body. Session 1 is the upper body, Session 2 the lower body, and Session 3 follows the order of integrating the upper and lower body — taking the red pins on the superficial layer one by one and bringing the body into order.
In Sessions 1 and 2, the work proceeded with attention to the up–down of the body, the upper body and the lower body; this time, with attention to the side of the body, the approach is one of feeling the widening of space in addition to up–down (two dimensions). That connects to re-grasping the body in three dimensions.
The explanation that likened this to the history of painting was very interesting and made me think about the body and the perception of space, so for this Session 3 I would like to write the blog in two parts.
In explaining Session 3, Giovanni clarified the awareness of the three-dimensional body, and how the body sees the external space, by walking through the history of Western art. In the medieval era, when Christianity was at its height, much of the painting gave simple bodily and spatial representation, grasping the body in two dimensions. Sessions 1 and 2 grasp the body from this viewpoint, working mainly with attention to up–down (the upper body and the lower body).
As the era moved from the medieval to the Renaissance, Giotto came to bring three-dimensional spatial representation and the natural expression of figures’ emotions into painting. At last, the way of seeing of Session 3 appears in art history.
Raphael pushed this further: in The School of Athens, he incorporated mathematical thinking, attending to left–right and front–back symmetry and reflecting it in the work. This work gives the impression of a deeper awareness of space. As for symmetry, in Rolfing’s Body reading, in Session 2 — when building the foundation of the lower body’s feet — the left–right symmetry of the lower limbs is observed, while in Session 3 the front–back symmetry is observed.
In time, the Impressionists Van Gogh and Pissarro succeeded in bringing depth into painting by incorporating the vanishing point of perspective into spatial perception.
The vanishing point is the point at which lines that are in fact parallel meet when drawn as not parallel. When observing walking: where is the walker’s gaze — the vanishing point of their line of sight — directed? Toward something concrete (for example, an object such as a desk or chair, a window, a building)? And is the field of the gaze narrowing, or widening? In fact, when the vanishing point is taken small, too much force enters the walk and it does not become proper walking; but when the vanishing point is taken large, force releases from the walk. In Session 3 of Rolfing’s Body reading, this point, too, is attended to.
And finally, Matisse and Monet. Looking at these works, spatial representation comes to place its emphasis not only on the foreground of the subject depicted but on the background as well.
When, through Session 3, the space of one’s own body widens in the front–back direction, an appropriate sense of distance can be taken between the body and the external environment (the background, in terms of painting). For example, it may be easier to understand by considering: how much distance does one take from other people, from space? Through this, depth increases in the movement of the body, and working on the deep parts of the body (from Session 4 onward) becomes possible — this is the Rolfing view.
Painting is interesting for what it lets us know about how human beings, through the body, see the world. I would like to keep looking at painting through the body from here on as well.