Campbell, Ken: PANTHEON A nigh perfect building, the Pantheon allows the sun in its declination to pass an ellipse of light through the oculus, the round hole in its domed roof; thereby describing an arc about the inside of the dome. This arc illumines and is changed by the local detail: the coffering and the architraves from which the gods have fled. Thus a thought as illumination from without may be moderated by that within, and the outer world so deduced. Which proposes the Pantheon as a model for the skull. The calf binding suggests a scalp, within which the book sometimes takes a notional stroll.
The skin of the building shows sets of receding four-sided figures: the coffering. In the book a grid of wooden squares is printed, at first to suggest Roman building and pavements; and later more wildly interpreted as the torch of attention swings repeatedly around the four corners of the page, and offering combinations of image, colour and form. Light from without finds the face in the skull. A portrait from within. en., polychrome letterpress, wood, zinc, polymer plates, japanese binding, 132p, 15.2 x 15 inch, Ed. of 45+5, num., sign., London, 2000 Request of availability backnext