In the foothills of the Drakensberg is a valley where the Ncidibiwane River flows. A rock halfway up its slope is decorated with a dense fresco that combines hundreds of figures, human and animal. Some of them have been damaged by the effects of light, water and flaking rock. Sizes vary according to numerous scales of perception, viewpoints are jumbled and, as a sign of a longterm process, many images are superimposed on one another. Recognizable are an elephant, eland and springbok, alone or in herds, plus a number of human figures – a row of walking figures with human bodies and antelope heads juxtaposes what seems to be a dance, and so on. The effect of numbers and crowds points in countless directions. Yet we should refrain from imposing an order that would mainly reveal our own desire not to be lost. Instead, we should try to attend to the source of its babble.

A weave of shifting perspectives

Looking closely, we see that the groups identified by the eye interpenetrate one another. Their edges are not closed borders but porous membranes that dilute the apparent identity of the figures, involving them in an interplay of complex associations. The eye is not just granted freedom but is prompted to establish relationships between the figures, which then dissolve and reassemble as our gaze roams over the surface. This is a moving world, an active surface of intertwining networks, of spatial and temporal connections that our eye normally severs, depriving them in advance of the vitality specific to this kind of organization, which is not devised according to our laws of geometry, with a top and a bottom, nor according to a perspective that organizes foreground and background. On the contrary, this organization is subtended by simultaneous movements, by concomitance, by a temporal density unknown to the visual depictions that, in our culture, ultimately lock the eye's untamed leaps into a static viewpoint localized within beholder, characterized by the superficial psychological unity of being a cross section of an instant in time.

Many San paintings involve the juxtaposition or superimposition of apparently unrelated motifs. This kind of juxtaposition once existed in Western painting – for example, in depictions of the Passion that included several scenes from the life of Christ in a single picture.