On Armand's relationship to images and art through the centuries
In Anne Rice's own words, Armand is all about images.
(Quote from 'The Tale of the Body Thief, graphic novel')
Quoting David Leupold: “What makes images so powerful is that they circumvent the faculties of the conscious mind and directly target the subconscious and affective, thus evading direct inquiry through contemplative reasoning.”
Armand’s approach to life, memory and communication is through visual representations, in the fine line between conscious reasoning and unconscious feeling.
(Quote from 'The Vampire Armand')
As a mortal boy, burdened and blessed with the miracle of creating ikons, Armand’s consciousness grew intimately connected to the flow of creating and consuming images and the innate power they give and convey. His sin and virtue lie in his iconolatry, in a worshiping of images. So of course, in his immortality, he found the way to use images to seduce, communicate and get back his agency by owning his reality, instead of being thrust upon one.
(Quote from ‘The Vampire Lestat’)
Through materializing images, Armand learned to make the mystic real and the psychic material. His introduction to immortality was defined by this. Marius, the powerful immortal painter, chose him because he was a painter too, cementing in Armand’s psyche an immortal quest to express himself through images, both telepathically and physically.
(Quote from ‘Blood and Gold’)
So of course Armand would choose to stay close to art over the centuries, no matter how painful it could be. He chose carefully the images that would accompany him through each and every one of his personal eras.
As he was surrounded once by the ikons of his human life, and then by the Renaissance paintings created and collected by Marius, in his darker era of self-imposed penitence he surrounded himself with artistic brutality in his Theatre des Vampires-era, mostly through Fatalist and Gothic painters.
(Quote from 'Interview with the Vampire')
By the time he leaves the extint-Theatre with Louis and walks again the streets of Europe, he is confronted with art on the cusp of change. He can appreciate and find some sort of delight in the use of form, light and color of the impressionists (Monet, Renoir), their vitality and curiosity something he longs to possess. This longing for passion is what characterizes his early relationship with Louis and later defines his relationship with Daniel. No wonder he fills the Night Island with ever shifting paintings full of bold feeling (Fauvism, Impressionism, Cubism, Italian Renaissance, Romanticism).
(Quote from 'Queen of the Damned')
But at times the overflow of feeling, color and movement can become over stimulating, even in the same artists he cherishes. In Armand’s quest for the perfect image, he discards some that are too close to being destructive and reminiscent of his own unconscious fears and traumas.
(Quote from 'Queen of the Damned')
(Picasso and Van Gogh suffered from bipolar disorder, anxiety, and hallucinations. Degas’s paintings depict the underbelly of child prostitution. So of course Armand would want to be rid of their paintings completely).
By the time we see Armand’s second try to create a base home (Trinity Gate), we find him more open to experimenting with images and art, thirsty for new experiences.
(Quote from ‘Prince Lestat’)
As the Vampire Chronicles series comes to an end, we find Armand surrounded again by the ikons from his youth.
(Quote from ‘Blood Communion’)
And he is once again painting / drawing, expressing his emotions through images again, not exclusively psychic ones.
(Quote from ‘Blood Communion’)
I like to think that, in time, Armand learned to accept that certain images hold meaning and power that require no explanation and he learned to surround himself with art that inspired and comforted him, as well as reflected his own personal aesthetic. Creating images is something intrinsic to his mortal and immortal life, and through his endless cycles of pain and joy he comes back to art and artistic expression to convey more than he can verbalize.
In a way, the little ikon painter never died, he simply learned that images and art can be simultaneously the darkness of the tunnel and the light at the end of it. And that is the nature of a true artist.
