Seen from the End

When I take out an older work today, I sometimes notice something in it that has since become familiar to me. Perhaps it is a line or a particular movement. The thought comes quickly: So it was already there. As if I had just found an early trace of something that later became more distinct.

But at the time I could not have known that. The later works did not yet exist. Perhaps something entirely different mattered to me in this picture. Perhaps I barely noticed the very part that catches my eye today. I notice it only now. Because now I know what came afterwards. That does not make the resemblance any less real. There can indeed be a connection between an earlier and a later work. I simply could not see that connection then. What came later did not yet exist.

Today I can place several works side by side. Repetitions become visible. Some things reappear in later works, others do not. Something that may simply have been tried out at the time can look, in retrospect, like a beginning. What came later does not change what happened. But it changes what stands out in it. Perhaps that is a peculiarity of looking back. It sees more. And sometimes it makes things look more definite. Looking back from the present, it is possible to describe developments that were far less clear while they were taking shape. What remained carries more weight because I know how it continued. Other possibilities recede, even though they were still open at the time. The connection I see today need not be wrong because of that. It simply belongs to a vantage point that did not yet exist then.

“I had always wanted to get there.” Perhaps that sentence is completely true. And yet it sounds different once you already know where someone ended up. A decision that was one among several possibilities at the time may later seem obvious. An encounter acquires weight. An interest suddenly looks like an early sign of something that would not become important until years later. All of that may genuinely belong together. Only, at the time, it was still open which of those possibilities would develop further.

We cannot look at the past again with the same lack of knowledge we had then. Once I know what happened later, I cannot simply switch that knowledge off. It is the same with an older work. Today I know what came after it. My view of it then did not include that knowledge.

That is why a small distinction now matters a great deal to me. I can say: Something began here. Or: Today I recognise a beginning here. The second sentence leaves more of that moment intact, as it may have been then. It does not claim that the early work already contained everything that later grew out of it. It says only that, from where I stand today, I see a connection. Perhaps that is more precise.

After all, the fact that a decision later had consequences does not mean it was made with those consequences in mind. Something can begin by chance and later become important. A small decision can have consequences that were not yet foreseeable at that moment. That does not make the later connection any less real. But it lets the earlier moment retain its openness. That is exactly what is easily lost in retrospect. Because today I know which possibility actually developed further. At the time, there were other possibilities alongside it.

When I talk about it later, two ways of putting it can sound surprisingly similar. That was a work in which I now recognise something. That was the moment when everything began. Or: After that, things went in this direction. That was where it was all heading. The sentences differ only slightly. But they do not look at the past in the same way. The second already knows the ending.

Perhaps that is why a development often looks clearer once it is complete than while it is still unfolding. In an older work, I can see what reappeared later. With a work lying in front of me today, I do not have that knowledge. The present is less orderly. I can try something without knowing whether it will remain a one-off. A small change may later prove important or disappear entirely. For now, there is no way to tell.

Even so, the urge to place it in a larger pattern arises quickly. A new direction begins here. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps not. Such sentences can help. For a moment, they make something that is still open easier to grasp. But sometimes they come a little too soon. I do not need to know today what role a work will one day play.

Looking back can reveal connections that were barely visible in any single moment. That is its strength. But the line I can draw today does not mean it was the only line that could have been drawn then. Perhaps in a few years I will recognise a beginning in this work. Perhaps it will then look like an exception, or I will notice something in it that I barely notice today. Perhaps later it will hold no special place at all. Today it is none of those things. It simply lies in front of me.