Portrait Hypographique de Van Gogh 1962

This "Portrait Hypographique de Van Gogh" by Isidore Isou looks like it was made with ink on paper, and it's a wild layering of text and image that just sings! I can imagine Isou hunched over a table, obsessively writing and drawing, letting the image of Van Gogh emerge from a sea of words, like a ghost in the machine. The looping lines create a kind of feverish energy, almost like automatic writing. The way the text wraps around and becomes the image makes me think about how we construct meaning, and how language can both reveal and obscure. Isou, like other lettrists, was interested in pushing the boundaries of language and art. This piece makes me think of Twombly, or maybe even some of the concrete poets. It's like they're all in conversation across time and space, riffing off each other's ideas, daring each other to go further. Painting can allow for so much, and I think here Isou is really trying to show the potential of what text and image can do together.