Rarely used outside German art theory, the word “tectonic” derives from the Late Latin tectonicus, and, in turn, from the Greek tektonikós—from tekton, carpenter or constructor. Yet it is its etymological root, the Indo-European teks, which becomes most revealing: it means “to weave,” hence the Latin texere, “to weave,” from which “text,” “texture,” and “context” are derived; but it also means “to make wicker and wattle framework for mud walls.” One of the suffix forms, teks-la, is in Latin tela (”net,” “warp,” “spider web”), while another of its suffix forms, teks-na, means “artisanry” (weaving or fabricating); in Greek it is tekhnè (”art,” “artisanry,” “skill”). Thus it appears that in its hidden etymon the word “tectonic” illuminates the primordial or archaic meaning of art, in which weaving and constructing are identified with the same semantic resonance.

From César Paternosto’s Abstraction: The Amerindian Paradigm, Brussels: Societé des Expositions du Palais de Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, 2001, p. 65 (exhibition catalogue).

Addendum (January 28, 2003)

It is amazing how blind we sometimes get! Only this afternoon, some twenty-four hours after I got Paternosto’s book in the mail, I realize what its cover means, let alone represents. It seems to be an enlarged photograph of a piece of gauze-like textile. Warp and weft, to put it technically. White and gray, it is also the grid emblematic of Modern Art. The photograph has an X-ray quality about it. Visually, it is reminiscent of Agnes Martin, but it is so much stronger on account of its unintended wobble. Anyhow, the first passage in the book I latched onto, having to do with the etymology of the word “tectonic,” is right on the money. It goes without saying that Paternosto misses the entoptic origin of the grid, but he is still on the right trail. Who knows, weaving might have caught on precisely because of the underlying grid—its hidden etymon, indeed.