There. The smallest pause. And then, a slight withdrawal. The promise of a touch, not yet delivered, never accomplished; suspended – a moment of expectancy split between two desires: longing to be touched and wanting to touch. Saint Agatha is brought into the light: a body of pain and acceptance. Her head tilted to one side. Her naked breast revealing a sharp cut, with small drops of blood dribbling down the brittle white dress. The angel shows the way. Saint Peter moves slowly, his hand gently guided by the angel – such a strange presence, almost like a negative projection, his skull rendered against the white light, his vision impaired. He reaches for the opening of the wound, and yet, he does not touch it. He pauses. Two hands suspended in mid-air – a touch without contact; or perhaps, a touch in separation, at the limit. The painting stages the ellipse of touch; its limits and possibilities, its syncope; it invites us to touch the very limit of touch.

Giovanni Lanfranco’s Saint Peter Healing Saint Agatha (1613–1614) (Image 6) presents two forms of touch turned against each other: touching to see and touching to no longer see; touching the untouchable, the inaccessible, or the unapproachable.