Bill Viola, artist and navigator, left a world drenched in beauty
Phillip Kennicott | The Washington Post | 13th July 2024
Viola saw earlier than most the artistic potential of video. Starting as an audiovisual assistant, he pioneered the development of video art, doing more than anyone to bring it into the cultural mainstream. He was especially interested in Old Masters works and their themes of life, death, love and spiritualism. Among his favoured techniques was slowing footage down to emphasise the passing of time. “Time and the unfolding of awareness is the real subject of a lot of old master paintings”, he said,