Brueghel is that mischievous photographer who mistimes the shot to catch you gawping drunkenly; an unscrupulous chronicler of wonky stares, pimples scratched, that peculiar twitch, those odd bulges – everyday absurdities we look in the mirror to forget.

He painted the totally ordinary and the fantastic in conjunction: piggy-backing, bare arses and haymaking; a man with waffles tied to his hat, a skeleton playing hurdy-gurdy. A flash-flood of. Miscellanies of grotesquery and grot. Seventeen in the bed and the little one laughed. The best bits of ‘Where’s Wally?‘ and  a fleshy, rude wit to boot. Jamboree of the banal, the bawdy and the bestial.

But Brueghel wasn’t just a saucy Flemish cartoonist. He’d a beautiful sense of colour – late ochre and russet, the hushed blue of snow against bark – and crucially, despite their surreal incongruities, his works have a representativeness and a fidelity about them: they fit the sixteenth century perfectly. He painted common people in common professions without resorting to affectation or sentiment, and often his paintings were visual representations of common proverbs or adages, many now defunct. He combined panoramic scope with an inherent flatness to skew perspective in such a way that his best paintings suggest artlessness, immediacy and concealed metaphor at the same time.

*

After finishing Wolf Hall, finding myself hankering after more sixteenth century spilt into words,  I was pleased to come across Q (in a dark corner of the market), a novel which follows the fortunes and misfortunes of an Anabaptist heretic through the upheaval in mainland Europe during the Reformation. Same period, similar themes – the Church, power, political intrigue – but these novels are two peas from very different pods.

Q was written by four Italian authors under the pseudonym ‘Luther Blissett’ – a notoriously inept British footballer who once played for Milan. Its protagonist too remains nameless throughout, though he takes on multiple aliases as he hunts for the mysterious Q, who is an undercover spy for the Inquisition.

The novel suffers from obvious flaws: it’s outrageously overblown and inconsistently paced. The two principle characters’ motivations are never convincingly explored or even fully explained. Stylistically, it jerks and flails a bit (though it is translated from the Italian):

“Almost blindly.

What I have to do.

Screams in my ears already bursting with cannon fire, bodies crashing into me. My throat choked with bloody, sweaty dust, my coughs tearing me apart.”

No matter. Whereas Wolf Hall is meticulously directed, this is a brash, breathless maul of a plot, taking in multiple battles, massacres, mad prophets, instances of enforced polygamy, swindling, espionage and torture, and a singular German nobleman who calls his underlings ‘absolute dickheads’. It’s a Brueghel-esque mash.

Q is in fact resolutely and purposefully a ‘flat’ novel – one reviewer called it a species of ‘anti-novel‘ – and it is playful,  but it is not without ambition. It works in the same way as Brueghel’s paintings manage to frame the madness of the rabble: by compressing and caricaturing and foregrounding. Brueghel painted the crowd, a press of people;  I think Q is an attempt to write a flood of events in a way that represents how history happens in a rush of odd collocations and coincidences, without resolving itself beforehand. It’s not entirely successful, but it’s a lot of fun.

Durante o ano de 2009 será celebrado o ano da França no Brasil. Acontecimento único na história do Brasil e da França, nele serão comemoradas as relações históricas, políticas, econômicas, sociais e culturais entre os dois países.

Em 2009, a cultura francesa atracará em portos brasileiros trazendo seus maiores valores para habitar nossos teatros, cinemas, bibliotecas, centros culturais, museus e salas de exposições.

No ano da França no Brasil o verde e amarelo da bandeira brasileira ganhará pinceladas azuis, brancas e vermelhas, numa exaltação a um laço histórico que marcou a formação do Brasil enquanto nação e vem contribuindo para sua solidificação e fortalecimento.

Nesse contexto, os projetos culturais pertencentes a essa celebração, selecionados pela Comissão Franco-Brasileira do Ano da França no Brasil se destacarão pela grande visibilidade e alcance junto ao público nacional, por constituírem um movimento maior, de integração entre o Brasil e a França.

No âmbito do Ano do Brasil na França em 2005, o Museu da Gravura de Gravelines tinha acolhido uma exposição única sobre a gravura brasileira. A idéia assim nasceu numa lógica de reciprocidade de organizar uma exposição sobre a gravura francesa e européia no quadro do Ano da França no Brasil. O museu, situado no território da Comunidade Urbana de Dunkerque, propõe aproximadamente cinqüenta obras dos séculos XVI ao XX sobre a história do carnaval europeu.

A escolha das obras e o seu comentário são realizados por Claude Gagnebet, antigo Professor de Etnologia da Universidade Nice. Esta exposição apoia-se sobre cenografia excepcional para insuflar-lhe originalidade e dinamismo. Através das obras de Breughel, Ensor, Dusart, Goya…, o público reencontra os fantasias ( maquiagem, danças, fogos) e as lendas, os objetos (luas, números, magia, cânhamo) que constituem os ritos, a liturgia e os mitos de carnaval.

This will be my last blog on the road before I arrive back in the States after a long day of travel tomorrow. Strangely, it doesn’t feel like the end at all, only an interlude before my next adventure. Travel is addictive and I am completely intoxicated. I think it will be a tough adjustment to go from weeks of new adventures, art, culture, music, and food to being back at home in my normal routine. I warn all my loved ones, I may experience a tough withdrawal!

I savored my last day in Vienna. A couple hours in the Kunstgeschichte (Art History) Museum, browsing the rooms full of Titians, Rubens, and Rembrandts. I was thrilled to find a room full of the Northern Flemish artist Peter Brueghel the Elder. He gives us a peek into the everyday life of Medieval Europe: the changing seasons, festivals, and daily life for the peasants. So much detail in every scene. Usually you find one or two Brueghels in a museum, so an entire room was a treat! I also discovered a room full of the Spanish artist Diego Velasquez. In my university days as an art history minor, I spent an entire term researching and writing about the portraiture of Velasquez. To see in person the very portraits I studied so intimately – let us just say the slides did not do them justice.

The afternoon was for wandering and saying goodbye to Vienna. I stumbled across a park called the Augarten, hiding behind a wall in the Leopoldstadt neighborhood just north of the Ringstrasse. The park itself is brown and slumbering already for the winter, but it was still full of life as people jogged, biked, and walked their dogs through the avenues of evergreens. The big surprise is that over this tranquil scene looms two giant flakstürme, or flak towers, from World War 2. Huge monstrosities of concrete. Forlorn and menacing. They are now stripped of all their equipment and home to flocks of birds. Completely at odds with the entire mood of the park and a somber reminder of the not-so-distant horrors this city has experienced.

One last afternoon at my favorite coffeehouse (yes, I already have a favorite!), the Cafe Tirolerhof. One last melange. And then off into the sunset (or I suppose technically sunrise) on tomorrow’s flight back to reality. May I never recover from the seductiveness of travel.

September 9th

Another day set aside for art in Madrid, and this time it was the big one – the world-class Museo del Prado.

Now you might think that the sensible place to have a ticket counter would be at the main entrance, right? Not so at the Prado. After queueing for a while, and with no informative signposting anywhere, we were asked for our tickets. Er, well, we’d like to buy some, please. No, no, you have to do that at the other end of the building! So off we go, down to the other end, where there are two entirely different queues and again no helpful signs whatsoever, with bewildered folk milling around everywhere around randomly placed disinterested cops. Jesus!

Museo del Prado

Eventually we gain egress, and immediately forgive the Prado for its arcane and East German-like means of obtaining tickets, since the contents are overwhelming and will occupy us until the late evening.

The highlights for me were seeing my favourite painting of all time – yes, get ready to cringe in horror at my 18 year-old student bedsit tastes – Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.”

Now, most folk like to concentrate on the right panel of this venerable triptych from 1500, you know, the bit where bird-headed demons are devouring men with crows flying out of their arses, people are shitting gold coins and oddly futuresque spacemen are groping young damsels.

I like this part too, but I as I approached the painting I sneaked in behind a guided tour and was amazed and enlightened by the exposition of the English-speaking leader.

See, the middle panel, the biggest part, represents the overindulgence of man after Eden, and as such is little more than a thinly-veiled orgy. There are threesomes, interracial couplings, people touching their private areas from which are bursting forth bunches of flowers or birds, and all manner of weird interaction with fantastical animals.

You are left wondering whether Bosch was really just seeking to warn people of the dangers of indulgence, or whether he just got his kicks from his own perverted inventions, a pornographer if you will.

Aside from a few other Bosches, the same room also held Brueghel’s “The Triumph of Death,” obviously greatly influenced by the former, and likewise revelling in the nastiness of the fantastical scenes it portrays, and a great and powerful work because of it.

Elsewhere I reacquainted myself with Goya, not only the dark images from the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars, but also his celebratedly frank, nay disrespectful portrait of the Spanish royal family, his employers.

In this masterpiece the King looks like a fat pin-headed freak with a big nose, while his wife resembles an ugly barmaid rather than a queen.

Elsewhere, one young lady is portrayed with her face turned completely away, and the royal Granny peers out from the back rows with a gigantic black excrescence on the side of her face, looking like a hideous witch.

Meanwhile, Goya lurks at the back. How on earth did he get away with such a monumental piss-take?

Velazquez outside the Prado

Velazquez – a nightmare to pronounce in lisping Castillian, and largely unknown to me until this trip. A master of capturing accurate facial expressions, his most famous work, prefiguring Goya’s liberties, chooses to reverse the normal perspective of a portrait, leaving us with Phillip II’s view of his daughters and court jesters messing around in the artist’s studio, with Velazquez himself in mid flow with the brush.

The King and Queen are reduced to a blurry image in a dirty mirror on the back wall. Revolutionary indeed.

Lunch was again in the gallery restaurant, where a fine tuna pie and rice salad were consumed with gallons of gazpacho and a beer.

Elsewhere in the restaurant we spotted an archetypal Japanese weirdo – a middle-aged man in unfashionable clothes, sitting bolt upright and muttering to himself.

In a satisfying reversal of what goes on in Japan, there was a wide circle of empty seats around him, despite the place being nearly full.

After leaving the Prado we proceeded to join the locals in the relaxing Retiro park, an enormous expanse of green in the city centre, featuring a boating lake in front of an imposing monument to some monarch or other.

I couldn’t resist making use of my zoom lens to capturing the expressions of the folk out in the little boats, but feeling somewhat uneasy at invading their privacy.

So if you notice your silly mug in the any of the shots displayed here, see you in court, baby!

(More images from this trip can be found here)

…in completarea Maestrului Furtuna, plusez cu Brueghel cel Batran (ca predecesor * succesor al lui Bosch). Traiasca Danse Macabre-ul olandez.

*m-a corectat maestrul Furtuna, caci idiot fiind, am folosit exact termenul opus.

Triumful Mortii - Pieter Brueghel cel Batran, 1562

Dull Gret - Pieter Brueghel cel Batran 1562

My God – free verse! That most abused form of forms used to elevate common schlock to the heady status of poem where, once deigned a “poem” in the eyes of its writer it becomes immune to critique and somehow sacrosanct. Part of the problem, I think, lies in the name of the form. Free verse is not, or should not be, entirely free. It is free of a structured metre but is not free of other poetic elements. Naming a form after that which it is not does not help in defining what it is. It is for this reason that I want to consider Auden’s magnificent poem Musee des Beaux Arts.

The first thing one needs to know is that the title, translated from the French means Museum of Fine Art. Although not essential for an understanding of this poem, the particular museum referred to is the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels which houses Flemish work including that of Breughel, who gets a special mention in this poem.

Second, we can see that much of the poem’s time is devoted to a description of The Fall of Icarus by Breughel. The painting is important and we will return to it later.

What is it about – understanding the broader context

Let’s dive in. Auden opens on an inversion. Instead of “The Old Masters were never wrong about suffering” he says “About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters;” Although the poem goes on to describe paintings, he doesn’t want the poem to be about the Old Masters. It is, instead, about suffering and so he focuses us in on it right up front at words 1 and 2. The poem is about suffering.

Then note that he refers to “Old Masters” with capitals. If you don’t know what this is a reference to just google it and you will find that it refers to artists who worked before 1800. So we know that these Old Masters understood suffering. This begs the question: What was it exactly about suffering that they understood?

He summarises this understanding in lines 3 & 4. Suffering takes place while ordinary life goes on elsewhere. Suffering is an individual experience which doesn’t touch on or remove the necessities and tasks of everyday life. Really, what Auden means, is that we have an indifference to suffering.

In the next line he introduces his first Breughel allusion: Census at Bethlehem. Poems that describe paintings as this one does are known as ekphrastics. Take a look at Census at Bethlehem. It looks at first like an ordinary village scene, someone is loading firewood, people are carrying sacks across a frozen stream, a pig is getting gutted, a man changes his shoes, a woman sweeps, a house is being built and children play on the frozen river. In the foreground on the left people crowd at a house to register for the census which has brought them to Bethlehem and to collect their meat (the pig being gutted) which is their reward for having complied with their duty. In the centre-foreground Mary and Joseph arrive unnoticed by the village, notwithstanding the passionate, reverent waiting for the miraculous birth. But we can see from Census that the waiting is not a standing around, a suspension of life, but a condition of expectancy while working through daily tasks. While the villagers go about their tasks of living the children play, not specifically wanting the birth (or anything else for that matter) to happen, but not being opposed to it either. They are indifferent to it. It means nothing to them.

The next lines introduce a second painting by Brueghel: Christ carrying the cross. Again, the theme of the work, Christ carrying His cross up to calvary, is almost over-powered and subsumed by the busy overwhelming activity of the rest of the piece. And again, there is indifference and oblivion to the suffering. This painting also warrants careful study. In the upper right hand corner a ring of people have gathered whose attention is completely away from that which is occurring in the centre of the painting. Over on the right is the horse Auden refers to, scratching its flank, and up towards the top the dogs. Auden adds a new element with this allusion. The horse is described as “innocent” and the dogs are having a “doggy life”. Not only are they indifferent to the martyrdom and suffering of Christ, but they are innocent of it because, like the children, they don’t understand or comprehend it or its consequences. People are, in other words, not only apathetic of other’s suffering, but they can’t even comprehend it.

He then turns to Brueghel’s Icarus and devotes the last eight lines of the poem to it (after four for Census and five for Christ). Again, a study of the picture will help here. In case you don’t know the mythology, Icarus and Daedalus (his father) are exiled on Crete by King Minos. To escape the island, Daedalus, a master craftsman (he built the labyrinth for King Minos to imprison the minotaur), fashions two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers. He warns Icarus not to fly too close to the sea (which will wet the wings) or too close to the sun (which will melt the wax). Icarus is overwhelmed by the experience of flight, however, and forgets his father’s caution. He flies too close to the sun, the wax melts and he crashes into the sea and drowns. It was Daedalus’s craft-work that gave Icarus the means of escape from Crete. But it was Icarus’ inability to handle the tool his father had built that brought about his demise.

I imagine that Icarus must have screamed as he fell and that the observers in Brueghel’s scene could not have been unaware of the tragedy. Indeed, unlike the Census and Christ paintings, it cannot be said that they don’t notice it. Rather Auden says they turn leisurely away, the ploughman may have heard the cry and the splash. And, in fact, Auden says “everything turns away” and, indeed, when you look at the painting, they do. The ship, the ploughman, the shepherd, the sheep and the horse are all turned away (only one man and a sheep face Icarus). But it is not just a case of them happening to be facing away – they turn away. The ploughman heard the splash and the cry after all. In other words, it is not a complete indifference to the tragedy that is being played out before them. They realise it is a tragedy but cannot look upon it –they turn away. It is a tragedy, after all, just not a tragedy for them.

And Auden tells us why they have this attitude. We are indifferent to suffering not only because we cannot always understand it or its consequences but, more importantly, because it has no consequence for us. For the ploughman – the sun still shone and the sea was still green. The ship had a destination to get to. We all have things to do, lives to get on with, just like in Census at Bethlehem. We don’t often have the time to stop what we are doing just because someone who we don’t know has suffered an accident. It is rare that we will stop unless we have a reason to do so. We can only experience events from our own individual standpoint and their impact on us as individuals.

It is also relevant that the observers experience of the suffering is the same whether it is ordinary, on-going and long-standing (Census at Bethlehem), potentially miraculous and life changing (Census at Bethlehem), inflicted by the cruelty of others or even ourselves (Christ Carrying the Cross) or self-inflicted (Icarus).

The subject of the paintings Auden alludes to are significant as well. The first is the birth of Christ – a miraculous event which changed the course of history forever. The second is the death of Christ – the founding moment of an entire religious movement. The third, the death of Icarus, has been romanticised and philosphofied (if there is such a word). Humankind’s apathy or indifference towards these tragedies of history is an indication that at the time they were happening, those around the events saw them as ordinary un-consequential events, because they held no impact for the observers or, if they did, the observers did not understand this and their daily tasks would take precedence, even if they did understand them. What Auden’s poem, and Brueghel’s paintings, focus attention on and celebrate are not the extra-ordinary history-altering events but the ordinary everyday currency of life.

For Auden, tragedy must be this way. This is the ordinary and usual occurrence of things. And the rhyme scheme contributes to this. If you look at the rhyming words you will see that they couple together and link the tragedy with the banal.

The only witness to Icarus fall was literature, art, Brueghel and Auden. The ship and the plough go on. Industry continues with its duties, only art pauses, observes and preserves.

Ekphrastic

The poem is an ekphrastic – it describes a work of art. But, as I think you will have recognised by now, it is not mere description. In fact, while there are sufficient allusions to lead us to Census and Christ he barely describes those works at all. Similarly, he gives us a direct reference to Icarus and spends eight lines describing the piece but doesn’t even begin to do it descriptive justice. Nor is it a case of a mere translation of Brueghel’s depiction of suffering into language (although it does do this). Auden does something more: the three Brueghel pictures covered by Auden’s poem all have the same basic effect, namely a turning away from and de-centralisation of suffering. Auden’s poem does the same thing. He is faithful to Brueghel’s central idea by under-emphasising suffering.

His first two words tell us that the poem is “About suffering”. He then tells us that the Old Masters understood suffering best. But the first poem he deals with, Census, doesn’t portray suffering at all. He walks us through the museum of fine arts in the same way that a museum-visitor would experience it – a dull walking along, viewing a picture and then another in no particular order. When it comes to tragedy, we are not witnesses but, like the ploughman and the shepherd in Icarus, we glance temporarily on the scene and then walk away on the next.

Auden imitates this meandering walk through a museum with the irregular line lengths, the subtle, unobstrusive, irregular end-rhyme of the lines.

Direction, Time and Space

Note the direction of the piece, how Auden moves from generalities and abstraction (lines 1 – 3), to ever greater levels of detail and specificity. Auden also does a good job of demonstrating how the response to suffering which he describes transcends time and space. He is standing in the Musee dex Beaux Arts making a comment about human tragedy which was obviously true then, but which had been captured by Old Masters (pre-1800). And the subjects of their work span the birth and death of Christ to Greek mythology.

Structure

The rhyme is subtle enough that one barely notices it, but it is there, albeit with no recognisable rhyme scheme to speak of. The line lengths vary and the tone of the whole piece is rather conversational. There’s no “poetic” language. It’s as if Auden was standing in front of Brueghel’s paintings in the Brussels museum and chatting to a companion about what was on his mind. Like Brueghel’s work, and like the de-romanticising of death, the tone belies the subject matter which is anything but causal. This is remiscent of what we saw in Robert Frost’s Design – a reflective musing tone about a serious subject, perhaps in part to make it more accessible and to lessen the impact of what is being said.

Cum era oare povestea cu iubițeii ei? Băi! adă-mi nește țeavă de 22. Unul era parcă bulgar…și vezi pe unde ai zvârlit ieri cablul ăla electric….dar tot el să fi fost și cel care o bătea? Ăsta să fi fost bărbatul după care a alergat Laleli prin toată Europa? …Iar eu ce caut aici?… Îmi părea rău acum că ștersesem emailul în care ea îmi povestea toate astea. Nu, mai mult ca sigur că cel care o bătea era roman, pentru că povestea ceva despre beție și munți. Munți și pumni. Munții Făgăraș. Bă’, te duci odat’! Da. Am plecat acu’, mă duc să caut în „van”. În „van” căutam, ca să zic așa, în zadar. Erau acolo într-un morman încâlcit: fiare, lemne, scule și tot felul de instalații sanitare dezafectate. Chiuvete și w.c-uri ba chiar și o cadă. Viață de instalator la Londra. Lucram cu un român, și căram după noi prin pretențioasa metropolă engleză munți de gunoie și vise. Vise. Mai ales vise. Când era vorba de cărat, el căra mai mult. Avea “van” și în plus era și mai tînăr. Dar la vise eu zic că-l luam ușor. Lui îi ziceau românii: „dumnejeu”. Altfel pe pașaport îl chema Bonifacio, Bonifacio Caraluna. De ce uitaseră italienii să spună și de „dumnejeu”? Nu știu. Mie nu îmi ziceau în nici un fel, ba da, îmi ziceau “bă’” ori „mă’”, pesemne să-mi arate că nu mă cunoșteau. Oricum ar fi fost, eram omul lui ”dumnejeu”. Dar așa numai eu îmi ziceam. Așa în sinea-mi și zău că nu-mi părea rău. Cum altfel. De undeva de sus, mirat ca și mine, bunicul ne privea. Prin capota “vanului”, poți să crezi? Îmi amintesc cum îmi spunea: mă’ tatu’ mă’, da’ mare curaj a avut Americanu’, hai de-mi arată pe hartă unde a ajuns. Și-i arătam pe un glob din carton, unde se afla „america” Americanului meu. De fiecare dată bunicu’ se minuna. Și asta se repeta destul de des, mai ales în perioada cât a zăcut… Îi citeam și din singura scrisoare pe care o aveam de la Americanu’. Ăsta era plecat de șapte ani. Când mă suna știam. De fiecare dată vorbeam cât îl ținea cartela. Știam că acu’ bunicu’ regreta că nu ne grăbise, pe mine și pe “American” , să vedem piramidele, atunci, cu opt ani în urmă, pe când banii încă mai aveau valoare. Zicea că era important să le vedem. Încă nu știu, cel mai departe am ajuns doar până aici, în “america” Americanului.

Apoi a venit o zi în care nu i-am mai putut citi. Bunicu’ pleca și el. Într-o altă “americă”. Într-una cu mult mai departe de cât cea a prietenului meu. I-a trebuit și lui o țîră de curaj, ce zici? Bunicu’ era oricum curajos. Doar nu e ușor să pleci așa departe!… Și apoi, toți prin casă au început a se plânge că au fost “loviți”! Să fi avut bunicul ceva de împărțit cu ei? Numai Dumnezeu poate să știe. Și cu mama, căci ea a fost prima și apoi într-una repeta : „am fost loviți, am fost loviți cu toții!”. “Loviți”, nu zic nu, posibil, dar și bunicul pișicher cum îi lovise, că de văzut nu se vedea nici urmă de lovitură.

Cum ei erau “loviți” , eu și fratelo ne-am dus să-l pregătim pe moș de călătorie. Când am văzut acolo, omul, prima oară, zăcând ca și lovit de uitare și dezbrăcat pe piatra rece, am simțit că pot privi în lumea de dincolo ca într-o apă deschisă. Și am știut. Aveam să primesc străin, eu însumi de-atunci, orișice altă înstrăinare. Nu am lăsat pe nimeni să se mai apropie de Bunicu’, căci toți care o făcuseră până atunci parcă îl ciuntiseră. Câini fară stăpân. Fratelo începu primul să-i vorbească. Îi vorbea și-l îmbrăca în același timp. Ca și cum ai îmbrăca un copil dimineața, când încă nu e bine trezit și nu știe sărăcuțul, nici la ce drum pleacă și nici de ce. Apoi și eu, cu gâtul ca de voiajor, dar tot o zgârietură pe-năuntru, am început a-i cânta, că-l bănuiam de singurătate. Toți care pleacă sunt singuri. Ce-i cântam?! Nu-știu-ce îi cântam și poate că sunam și jalnic acolo. Jalnic și cu ecou, exact ce am urât eu mai tare… să cânți în gara goală. Deși părea întru totul trist la început, bunicu’ parcă se mai dezgheță de la o vreme și se lăsă împodobit…”ca un ginerică”. Stop! parol pe asta nu am zis-o eu ci el, fratelo, căci e stilul lui. El mereu găsește chestii din astea “siciliene” de spus, de nu știi nici ce față să faci, nici ce să crezi: să râzi ori să mori de frică. Fratelo de’, “în dulcele lui stil”.

Bunicul arăta frumos în final, “Domne că frumos mai era!”, elegant și cu PANTOFI DE BAL (Asta subliniată e a mea). Când am ajuns acasă toți trei- ca să-și ia bunicul la revedere- locul arăta ca-n tabloul cu nunta, al lui Brueghel. Numai Bunicul lipsea, vorba lui Pleșu*. Să mai zici că fratelo’-i nebun! Și-apoi noi nu am făcut decât să-l introducem pe “mire” în tablou. Cum toate locurile pe scaune fuseseră din vreme ocupate, într-un final ne-am decis și l-am așezat pe Bunicul pe masă. Ciudat e că deși locul ăsta nu era deloc rău, absolut nimeni nu se îngrămădise să-l ocupe. De ce ? iarași nu știu. Oricum de acolo Bunicul putea să-i vadă pe toți, dar mai ales, cum “nuntașii” îi beau vinul. Acum Bunicul, cum sărac nu fusese vreodată, dăduse-n scris de din timp, ca la plecarea lui, în poartă, să se tragă vinul direct din poloboace. Și de-acolo toată zarva, căci care cum trecea pe drum, saluta frumușel și pe-urmă bîldîbîc la poloboace. Asta știu că-l bucura să vadă. Apoi mai erau și muzicanții de sub cireș pe care tot el Bunicu’ îi comandase tocmai de la Viena, și Molda, cățeaua care se prefăcea că plânge și uite așa peste tot, atât de multă lume, încât eu ca într-un final de act, fiind copleșit de toate, am leșinat lângă Bunicul. “Before” de vreme, cum s-ar zice. Iar pentru tot ce am crezut, eu mai apoi, că îmi vorbise „mirele”, nu aș băga-n foc o sârmă.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Acum era cald la Londra și cerul prezenta un spectacol familiar. Dar și așa familiar parcă totuși norii alergau cu ceva mai puțină viteză decât câinii cu covrigi în coadă de pe stradă. Lumina și spectacolul amețitor al norilor îmi aminti de Făgăraș… Îmi descria ea, cum el se îmbăta cu prietenii și începea apoi s-o bată. Abia târziu în noapte, când oboseala, cântecul și vinul îi adormea pe barbari, ea avea curajul să se întoarcă…la el, în cort. Dimineața următoare îi prindea îmbrățișați. În cort mirosea, în aerul rece, a sare, tutun și alcool. Îmi imaginez zâmbetul lui tâmp, dormind, cu stropii de salivă înțepeniți în barbă iar ea, Laleli, pe pat de lacrimi, cu pleoapele încleștate privind-năuntru: un vis. Asta mi-a amintit de Rafael…. Mai târziu aveau să se despartă, prefacându-se că pot fi în continuare, doar, doi buni prieteni…………………………………
Am avut noroc, pe o țeavă de 22, de cupru, am găsit înfășurat cablul electric, exact ca un șarpe… de culoare verde… Nici cu bulgaru’ nu i-a mers mai bine, el însurându-se în final, cu prima lui iubire, o prietenă din copilărie. Urmam acum eu. Dar, să stii că-ți vine rândul, așa ca și când ai aștepta undeva la o coadă la lapte, după cincisprezece ani, și să nu poți crâcni nimic, nu te apucă râsul?… Dar dacă acolo, în fața vânzătoarei, m-aș pierde cu firea și aș dărâma, de pe taraba îmbătrânită de rușine, cu brațul, zecile de sticle – în care vaci nebune, mai mult închipuite decât reale, și-au strecurat singurul lor filozofem: din fâneață să faci lapte- mă-ntreb: ar fi mai bine?… Nu? De ce? pentru că-n spatele meu se așteaptă încă?… Ori cel mai bine e poate, să-mi iau kilogramul de lapte și încercând să îmi ajungă cât mai mult timp aș începe iarăși a dansa în viața asta, ca un măscărici, mulțumit a înghiți în porții mici, amestecul acela fatal, de multă, foarte multă apă și foarte, foarte puțin lapte…

- Hai, mă’, mai ripede, că nu mai terminăm și doar nu vrei să-mi fac amu’, manta de ploaie – dumnejeii mamii ei -nu vezi că văcariu’ ’ista, nu mai joburi de toată merda ne găsește…………..
Și asta a fost încă o zi la Londra, o zi în care, firește, am instalat…dobje (ups,…scuzați) firește…ce am avut de instalat.

*Cu ocazia unei vizite făcute de Pleșu la Viena, în preliminariile discuțiilor privitoare la România și Uniunea Europeană, ministrul de Externe al Austriei a rostit un discurs de recepție în care a pomenit numele lui Brueghel. ( În treacăt fie spus, la Kunsthistoriches Museum din Viena se află cea mai importantă colecție Bruegel din lume.) Răspunsul lui Andrei Pleșu a pornit de la această sugestie. Există, a spus el, în muzeul din Viena un tablou- al lui Brueghel intitulat Nuntă țărănească. Straniu în acest tablou, în care sunt prezenți mireasa, cuscrii și nuntașii, este ca mirele lipsește. Multă vreme istoricii de artă nu au știut să dea o explicație acestei ciudățenii, până când, un cercetător a avut ideea să caute în folclorul flamand, în care a descoperit urmatorul proverb: ,,Era atât de sărac, că nici la nunta lui nu a putut să vină”. (http://iraeldiary.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html)

PUBLICAT: http://www.radiometafora.ro/stiri/the-news/3370-bunicul-divin-de-emanuel-pope-in-reteaua-literara.html

Lamentation of Christ, engraved by Jacob Matham after Geertgen tot Sin Jans

Whoops. We’re running into a bit of a twofer today. I started off with the engraving by Jacob Matham above — or, technically, I started off wanting to use an image that the museum that holds it doesn’t randomly want to let go, so I ended up with the engraving above. It’s full of beautiful details, and it’s so well reproduced…

But when I finally got around to reading the data about it, it turned out that it’s an engraving of a painting by Geertgen tot Sint Jans:

Lamentation of Christ, Geertgen tot Sint Jans

I know, I know I always say that I like color, and the Geertgen painting has some color (though it also kind of gives the impression of those four-color kids’ books since it doesn’t have too much of a full palette), but I think — just maybe — I like the engraving better.

I’m willing to stipulate that I might just like it better because I saw it first and so have that kind of unreasonable loyalty that people can get. It’s definitely true that some of the details that I liked that I thought at first belonged to Matham originated with Geertgen, so I have to give him the credit, even though the engraving file happens to let you zoom in closer and so appreciate those details better.

The overall gestalt reminds me of Bruegel’s The Fall of Icarus, and you know, about suffering, they were never wrong, the old masters.

I see the painting as having a four-part structure: the lamentation of Christ; the aftermath at Golgotha; the tomb; and the bucolic countryside.

The Lamentation of Christ

The visceral swollen, gaping stigmata and the huge railroad-track-spike “nails” lying on the ground.

The four women (four?! I don’t know who the fourth is supposed to be) mourning with their different, understated expressions of grief.

The shagginess of the dark-haired, bearded guy feels somewhat inconsistent with his sharp-lookin’ duds, though I think that look was pretty normal for the culture and probably wouldn’t give everyone the same, “Aww, that poor guy had to dress up!” response that I have. (Once again, I want to think he’s Peter.)

The priest pulling his cowl back.

The way that the scene is depicted using largely early modern Dutch dress and appearance. Such anachronisms appear frequently in literature (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, e.g.), which makes me feel at home with them; also, I like the ideological implication that identification with the subject is central to the art.

Golgotha

Simply showing that the suffering was not limited to Jesus and his family, friends, and followers makes an interesting point, even if Jesus’ death and lamentation are foregrounded (literally). Jesus’ stigmata look nasty, as I’ve already said, but they’re dragging the guy in the background by a rope around his waist and stabbing him in the back with a huge weapon as they shove him into a hole in the ground. That does a pretty good job of conveying violence too, and he’s not going to get a resurrection.

Er. This is assuming that this isn’t one of those comic-strip style paintings showing sequential scenes all blurring together, which I guess it could be, except I was guessing that the empty cross with the label on it that I can’t read is the one marked “King of the Jews,” which would make me right, I guess.

The adorably grotesque figure of the dog with all the bones around him on the ground. That is, the dog looks quite huggable, but the implication with the clearly human bones on the ground around the crosses is like a mordant bit of dark comedy.

The two workers going to get down the last victim seem to be cooperating well; the reminder that this is a routine job for them, echoed by the figures behind them on the crest of the hill that are seemingly oblivious to the deaths suggests that we become inured to the mementi mori that the medieval period favored. (Why is the dictionary telling me that “memento mori” is the plural of “memento mori” — shouldn’t it be “mementi mori”?)

The Tomb

The tomb being open, not because Jesus has already risen but because he is about to be placed there — which beautifully foreshadows the “Quem Quaeritis?” trope.

And, now that Michael5000 has got me thinking about gates, it’s hard not to notice the domestic wooden gate next to the tomb; my family had a couple just like it when I was growing up — minus the tomb, of course.

Bucolic Countryside

Pretty much just what I said — it looks like a nice place to go for a walk or have a picnic or maybe swim in the lake. We’re back to the Fall of Icarus and the way life continues on around suffering, with a taste of Et in Arcadia Ego (if you allow the common definition that death appears even in the most beautiful and serene places).

Finally, I found a transcription (or self-acknowledged attempt at transcription) here, reproduced below:

‘Sic VITA post tot cernitur discrimina
Crucifixa, Mortem morte-destraens sua.
Sic ergo Gusti, lacrymus, Mortem, pijs.

Devota plangunt corda, amantque jugiter.
Oculus homo pianqué mentem dirige
Huc: Flere cogunt nam piae te lacryma.

Petrae, Sepulcra clausa, dura marmera
Scinduntur. Aie, terra, coeli, Sidera
Turbantur. Impietalis ecce te omnia.

Elementa, ni tu lacrumeris, arguant.
Amor! Dolor! Compunctionis igneas
Da flammulas, da lacrymarum rivuleos!

(If you go to the link and ask Google to translate, one of the comments below has a translation alternating Latin lines with Dutch translation, which Google will render into English — I’m just not sure how accurate the meaning conveyed will be, given the distance from the original.)

Trecho do quadro: Paisagem Extensa com Vista para o Castelo de Mariemont, por J. Brueghel, o Velho, ca. 1609-1612. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

A família Brueghel (ou Bruegel) foi composta por alguns dos mais famosos pintores flamengos. Neste texto, as obras exibidas são de Jan Brueghel, o Velho (Bruxelas, 1568 – Antuérpia 1625).

Pierluigi Selvelli e Paolo Molaro são dois pesquisadores do INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, e são os autores de um magnífico trabalho que liga algumas obras de J. Brueghel com a Astronomia.

Pela época em que J. Brueghel viveu, já podemos perceber que ele passou por um dos períodos mais efervescentes da história ocidental. Foi contemporâneo de Galileu, Kepler, Maurício de Nassau e as Companhias das Índias Orientais (a mais rica) e Ocidentais (que esteve ligada ao comércio entre a colônia portuguesa na América e a Europa).

Além disso, com a prosperidade holandesa, surgiu a luneta. E, como a arte sempre acompanha os avanços científicos, as novas tecnologias e o pensamento de sua época, ela também deu o ar da graça neste período.

Como podemos ver nos três trechos de pinturas de J. Brueghel, o Velho, a luneta é bastante recorrente. E isso suscitou curiosidade por parte dos italianos acima citados. Que lunetas são essas? Quem as construiu? Isto sabendo que a própria invenção da luneta é indicada como fato ocorrido por volta de 1600 d. C. (e as pinturas englobam um curto período entre 1609 e 1618 d. C.).

Já que não havia fotografias naquela época, as pinturas são os melhores registros visuais. E algumas pinturas, da mais alta qualidade e retratando algumas lunetas, bem pouco tempo após sua invenção, não podem passar despercebidas.

As pinturas foram feitas enquanto ele era pintor na corte do arquiduque Alberto VII dos Habsburgos, governador espanhol da parte católica da Holanda. É o próprio arquiduque Alberto VII quem olha pela luneta na figura logo acima, retirada de um quadro maior. Comparando com objetos na pintura, os autores estimam que a luneta tenha entre 40 e 45 cm de comprimento e cerca de 5 cm de diâmetro.

Até onde se sabe, esta pintura nos dá a mais antiga representação artística de uma luneta. Mesmo sabendo que a motivação original da pintura não tenha sido esta.

O interessante é que documentos mostram que Daniello Antonini, que trabalhava na corte do arquiduque, escrevera ao próprio Galileu avisando que Alberto VII obteve alguns exemplares da luneta do “primeiro inventor”, mesmo que de qualidade inferior que as de Galileu. E o “tubo” que aparece na figura é, muito provavelmente, uma destas peças citadas por Antonini.

Quanto à paternidade das lunetas (expressas no termo “primeiro inventor”), tanto pode ser de Zacharias Janssen como de Hans Lippershey, ambos considerados os pais da luneta.

Os autores apontam indícios de que Zacharias Janssen construiu algumas lunetas, que mediam por volta de 40 cm, e deu alguns exemplares ao arquiduque e ao príncipe Maurício de Nassau (aquele mesmo que governou o Brasil holandês, onde hoje situam-se os estados de Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte alcançando o Ceará).

Informação extra: “Os holandeses invadiram o Nordeste brasileiro, basicamente, porque tinham um bom comércio com os portugueses, transportando matérias-prima do Brasil à Europa, ao mesmo tempo em que não eram reconhecidos como Estado-livre pela Espanha. Com a morte do rei Sebastião de Portugal (morto na batalha de Alcácer-Quibir), que não deixou herdeiros, assumiu o trono português, devido a complexas linhagens familiares, o rei da Espanha Felipe II, para desgosto dos holandeses que viram seus negócios com as colônias portuguesas descerem pelo ralo. A solução encontrada: atacar!.”

Este período, em que Portugal (e, portanto, o Brasil) pertenceu à Espanha, é conhecido como União Ibérica (1580-1640 d. C.). Então, na verdade, a expulsão dos holandeses do território brasileiro foi para proteger terras espanholas, apesar de certa autonomia dada aos portugueses e suas colônias concedidas pelos espanhóis.

De volta às pinturas! Por outro lado, os autores encontraram evidências de que Antonius Maria Schyrley de Rheita, o marquês Ambrogio Spinola (Comandante do Exército Espanhol em Flandres), comprou uma luneta, provavelmente construída por Lippershey (ao chocar locais e datas em comum), e a ofereceu ao arquiduque Alberto VII, deixando a dúvida quanto ao fabricante da luneta.

Na segunda figura, vemos uma parte do quadro “Alegoria da Visão”, feito com colaboração com Peter Paul Rubens. Nela vemos duas lunetas, uma logo em primeiro plano entre a Vênus e o cupido, e uma segunda atrás do cupido e junto ao seu pé. Com um certo esforço, pode-se perceber que há um pequeno macaco pegando um tubo jogado no chão. Alguns argumentam que o macaco segura, na verdade, um microscópio, uma vez que há correspondências que alegam que o arquiduque, também, recebera um microscópio de Janssen. Os autores creditam esse tubo a um modelo mais primitivo de luneta holandesa.

Na pintura também há vários outros instrumentos astronômicos, tais como um grande astrolábio, uma esfera armilar, um globo com pedestal, um compasso, mapas divididos e relógios solares. Os autores reforçam que, tudo isto vêm testemunhar o interesse do arquiduque por ciência, e Astronomia em particular, e que cada instrumento foi caracterizado de forma meticulosa com a verdadeira habilidade flamenga. Até os mais diminutos detalhes foram reproduzidos de forma precisa.

Na terceira figura, do quadro “A Alegoria da Visão e o Olfato”, vemos um telescópio em detalhe (a obra inteira é bem maior). O telescópio é no mesmo estilo do representado na segunda figura, sendo que o da segunda figura é composto por sete tubos, enquanto que o da terceira figura é composto por oito tubos. Os tamanhos estimados dos telescópios são de cerca de 170 cm. E os diâmetros dos tubos que compõem os telescópios são estimados entre 2,5 e 7,5 cm (dos mais finos, junto à ocular, aos mais grossos, junto à objetiva). As similaridades são apontadas como sendo devidas ao mesmo fabricante.

Trecho do quadro: A Alegoria da Visão, por J. Bruegel e P.P. Rubens, 1617. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado.

Trecho do quadro: A Alegoria para a Visão e o Olfato, por J. Bruegel et al., ca. 1618. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado.

O trabalho dos italianos pode ser acessado aqui!

I started the above painting yesterday, and though it is not finished yet, I thought I would do a post about it to show a bit of my painting process, which often is more about thinking about the painting and the subject, rather than the actual application of paint.  The idea for this painting came about the other day when a friend of mine was telling me about a musician friend of his, an Israeli jazz electric guitarist, who was feeling discouraged.  This made me think yet again about the battle artists must fight alone.  You must believe in your technical abilities and artistic mission and strive always to take the right path, but something will come along periodically that questions your very existence.  When one decides to become an artist, they make this choice with the understanding that it actually serves no purpose other than to put on canvas what you observe, think, and feel.  The world will go on without you and despite you, as W.H. Auden voiced so well with Musee des Beaux Arts:

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters; how well, they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

–W.H. Auden, 1940

Of course, we wish as painters that our labor and love would not go to naught, but this brings me to another point I wanted to share.  I believe that there are a lot of artists out there who paint in a classical, realistic, or impressionist way in terms of style and then they try to throw themselves into each painting with impressive strokes and impastos or through photographic realism to show off their talents.  I am starting to dislike this even more as I continually look at art, for I believe that the beauty of nature should take the limelight, and the artist should simply be trying to paint the subject in the best possible way.  The artists that I most appreciate and respect are those that strive to be humble and sincere, and I aim to follow their example.  Though artists try to throw a noose around beauty and “capture” it on the canvas, they must constantly keep their eyes open to everything, for some pretty striking things could appear in a dark corner.  Some artists might think they have developed a trademark style or stroke that can become popular, but in my opinion, it should be the subject which dictates how it should be painted.  Sometimes, I question gobs of impasto on something as smooth as skin or onions, or spending years on a painting to include every single reflection or wrinkle that they see in a photograph.   Sure, it takes skill to pull it off, but there should be an underlying humble and sincere reason for painting the subject.  Just as figurative painters might question the validity of drip paintings and installations, they must also question the validity of their own painting if they truly want to contribute as figurative artists.  An unpleasant and difficult thought I know, but this is the battle of the artist.

(An interview with Doubting Thomas)THE MYTH OF ICARUS

Is Ikaria the island where Icarus fell?

I can’t tell you. I hadn’t been born yet and there is no video-tape of the accident. The nearest we have to a video is Brueghel’s painting but this is not enough evidence. It’s a painting made in Holland thousands of miles away from the Aegean, many centuries later. Though it’s a fact that it looks like those amateur videos that are focused on an innocent scene and accidentaly captured a tragedy. Then they become famous and their makers sell them to the media for a lot of money. It could be a video, but it’s not. It’s an oil painting -a artistic fancy, in other words.

Yet people say that’s where he fell.

People say a lot of things. For example in every encyclopedia and guide book we read, “Ikaria, known from the fall of Icarus, e.t.c.” People love to be told stories especially when accidents are involved.

Yes but what about the name of the island?

Oh, names may mean something or may mean nothing. We can go to the registrar and change our names according to our fancies and make various connections and associations. Or without changing the name, we can change it’s meaning or it’s origin to suit our convenience. For example, there is a Greek island called Karpathos, that is, it’s got the same name as the Karpathian mountains in Transylvania, Romania. Now the Karpathians (of the island) are free to associate the name of their island with Dracula; to claim, for example, that the mountains of Romania got their name from their island; evenmore, that Dracula was born in Karpathos and after having sucked all the blood out of the inhabitants as a kid, when he grew up, he flew (he was a vampire) to a larger place with a larger population and an endless supply of blood. Nevertheless, today, even if the Aegean Karpathians had thought of doing this, they are too late. The Romanians have taken every advantage of the tale already and Dracula’s castle is the biggest tourist attraction of their country. There would be a huge diplomatic clash between Greece and Romania, if the Aegean Karpathians claimed their island as the birthplace of Dracula. There is so much money and prestige involved, you see.

So the association between Ikaria and Icarus is a lie?

I don’t say it’s a lie. All I say is I don’t know. There is no video and there were no reliable eye-witnesses, BBC, CNN, SKY NEWS and so on. Maybe there was an amateur video (by a cousin of that plower in the painting, for example) or a pilot shot for a documentary on a rustic subject; because it had captured “The Fall” it survived till the 16th century and that’s what Brueghel saw and he made the famous painting. All I’m saying is that we must find and watch the original video to be sure of the fact. For example, something like this.

Or from even closer this!

______________________________

Next week a new episode of the interview with Doubting Thomas.
Subject-matter : “Ikaria political“ : Red Rock, Dry Rock, Devil’s island, Island of Exile

Athina Sk.

Tags: ikaria, icarus, αγρίμι-μου, άπιστος-θωμάς, brueghel, ικαρία, ίκαρος, ikarian-legends, interview, συνέντευξη | Edit Tags Sunday February 11, 2007 – 05:43am (PST) Edit | DeleteNext Post: Legends about Ikaria : THE RED MYTH Previous Post: Μύθοι για την Ικαρία : Ο ΜΥΘΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΙΚΑΡΟΥ

• Can
• Offline IM

Yes, we must definitely find the Icarus video. I am also interested in the videos of other high flyers such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, Leonardo da Vinci, Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi etc. I looked at youtube but none is available. Leonardo’s depiction of the Icarus accident is a collector item and would be OK instead of the original video. I wonder if Doubting Thomas has seen any of those?

Tuesday February 13, 2007 – 04:56pm (EST) Remove Comment

• elle
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Keep looking. Doubting Thomas is right. In the times we live, what’s not on a photo or a video, just doesn’t exist!..

Thursday February 15, 2007 – 01:14am (PST) Remove Comment

• AKK
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THE IONIAN MYTHS
________________

Related to: “Icarus in the pool”
http://www.flickr.com/groups/ikaria/discuss/72157603772508112/
________________

The Myth of Icarus, the flying man, belongs to the ‘Circle of Theseus’, which in its turn belongs to a larger group of closely related myths, all of them being the foundation of the Ionian Greek heritage and identity.

In simple words, to know these myths meant that you were Greek.

Though it is certain that the Ionians conducted savage warfare against the Carians, the Cretans and other peoples who inhabited the coasts of the Aegean, their myths speak very little about it. They speak about achievements of the mind instead; ingenious devices, machines, new political ideas (‘the city-state’ for instance was supposed to be Theseus’ invention), new kind of ships (‘the 50oared that could sail against any sea current), new gods like Dionysus who was –what else?- the difficult art of wine making and drinking personified or rather deified, as it should be.

To know these myths meant that you were Greek.

Thursday January 24, 2008 – 10:59pm (EET) Remove Comment

• AKK
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To know these myths meant that you were Greek.

It is very interesting how little magic is involved in them. For example, in the myth of Deadalus and Icarus, unlike the similar myths about flyers from Persia and India, we are told bluntly that it was enough for a man to glue feathers with wax to make wings and fly away! We are not even told that the flyer had to move his arms very fast! Isn’t it absurd?
There is no magic and yet, there precisely lies the magic. The myth is a challenge to the mind. How on earth did Deadalus and Icarus do it? How did Theseus come up with the idea to seduce Ariadne and how did she come up with the idea to give him the string, Ariadne’s clue, to find his way in the Labyrinth?

These are logical myths. Their purpose is not to make you stand in awe but to make you want to do the same.

For example, you see that you weren’t able to fly with feathers glued with wax tied around your arms? Your head is in bandages? Don’t worry. Blame Dedalus who probably knew a few tricks that he didn’t say. But if you were patient enough to do all that feather and wax and leather straps work, if you were as crazy as to jump from a high place trying to fly, you can build yourself a nice little boat now. Plant a nice mast, rigging and sail and set off towards the unknown.

These are logical myths. And there is nothing more crazy than logic. But it’s magic because it makes us move. Not too often against each other, I hope.

Thursday January 24, 2008 – 11:02pm (EET) Remove Comment

• AKK
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THE MYTH OF ICARUS AND ICARIA (1)
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When the Ionians who of course knew well the myths of the ‘Circle of Theseus’, came from Miletus and settled in Ikaria in the 7th century B.C. or while they were sailing past and round it, they must have observed the resemblance of the island’s Phoenician name, Ikor, (most of the Aegean islands bear Phoenician names) to the name of Ikaros (Icarus) and they must have told their brothers, the Athenians. As the Phoenicians weren’t there anymore to contradict them, the Athenians thought: Nice! We can complete the myth of Deadalus and Icarus. That place must have been where Icarus fell and drowned! There is wild wind-beaten sea around it, called “Sea of Ikor”? That’s it!
And so you have an entire sea and an entire island dragged out of nothingness and into the Ionian universe: “The place where Icarus fell” = Island Icarus (in Thucydides) = Ikaria (in the archives of Venice and to the present day).
The myth was a great one and the Ikarians were lucky to have acquired it. Even Nero the mad Roman emperor loved that story and he had tried to adapt and stage set it in the theater! Only that he was soon short of actors because the play was too realistic. The Icaruses dropped themselves from the ceiling and died!
Meanwhile the Ikarians worked on their myth and even claimed they had found the tomb of Icarus. In fact it is said that they showed it to visitors in the Roman time (‘tourism’ as we know it was born exactly then).

Thursday January 24, 2008 – 11:05pm (EET) Remove Comment

• AKK
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_____________________________
THE MYTH OF ICARUS AND ICARIA (2)
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So it was all propaganda, you will say. Of course it was. Isn’t it all? Those myths were heavy with propaganda and partiotic stuff. What else is a myth after all if not a way to turn reality the way we want it?

I find this fascinating. The mind connects and works with whatever finds handy.

Cabet and the utopians started and social conditions made so as today the Myth of Icarus is associated with the idea of Freedom. Since the 19th century people refer to it as “The Flight of Icarus” rather than “The Fall of Icarus”. Ikaria again takes advantage. By some game of coincidence, it so happened that its inhabitants have never been slaves to nobody, were never invaded, lived primitive perhaps, but free –sometimes (good times) carefree. “Welcome to the Island of Icarus” reads the big sign in the harbour of the capital. Agios Kirikos. Does it mean “This is the site of the most famous flying accident in the world”?
No. For the people I know at least, it means (consciously, unconsciously or subconsciously) “Welcome to the Island of Freedom”.

The Island of Freedom… What a heavy weight our own propaganda has put on our shoulders!

Why couldn’t we rather have something lighter and more neutral like “Welcome to the Island of Windmills” instead?
……

Thursday January 24, 2008 – 11:09pm (EET) Remove Comment

• AKK
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Είπα στο

http://www.flickr.com/groups/ikaria/discuss/72157603772508112/

ότι θα γράψω τα παραπάνω και στα Ελληνικά, ε;
Ε, λοιπόν πολύ αμφιβάλλω…

Thursday January 24, 2008 – 11:11pm (EET) Remove Comment

• elle
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Οχι μωρε. Αστο. Δεν χρειαζεται. Τρεχα γυρευε – που λες κι εσυ…
“Το Νησι της Ελευθεριας” -αυτο μονο ας μεινει. Πραγματι, τι μεγαλο βαρος.
“Το Νησι της Ισοτητας” -να προσθεσω εγω (αν και ασχετο με το μυθο). Κι αυτο ειναι βαρος.
Χριστε μου ευτυχως που υπαρχει το κρασι!

Friday January 25, 2008 – 04:22am (PST) Remove Comment

• vixen
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“Με το κεφάλι δεμένο μέσα σε επιδέσμους; Μη χολοσκάς. Μπορείς τώρα να φτιάξεις ένα ωραίο σκάφος…”
Χαχαχα – Μ’ άρεσε πολύ!

Saturday January 26, 2008 – 02:02pm (EET) Remove Comment

• Simon G
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All propaganda?
Of the muses, children of Memory, perhaps.
Reality the way we want it?
No, I think it’s reality the way we don’t want it.
Think of Oedipus (Tiresias: ‘What made me forget? I never should have come.’) Or Agamemnon returning home. Or Odysseus for that matter.
There is a political dimension, but you can’t limit it to just that!

Thursday February 14, 2008 – 12:20am (CET) Remove Comment

• Simon G
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But now I’ve argued with AKK it looks like I don’t appreciate him setting out the myth and so much background for us.

So to cover up the argumentativeness, can I add Auden’s poem?

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Thursday February 14, 2008 – 10:53am (CET) Remove Comment

• elle
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Simon G, maybe AKK should have put the word ‘propaganda’ between quotes. Yet for the Greeks, politics has run in their veins since always, so terms like this sound much less heavy. They are part of the culture.

I don’t know why, the epigram on Aeschylus grave came in my mind. It didn’t read anything about him being a big shot playwright. It read “The long curly haired Persians will remember his valour in battle”. The poet wanted to be remembered as the young soldier who had been and had fought for the freedom of his city in Marathon.

Thursday February 14, 2008 – 11:33am (PST) Remove Comment

• elle
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Heh heh heh! You caught me ) Auden’s poem was behind my choice of Brughel’s painting to go with Nana’s hilarious interview of DT.

Thursday February 14, 2008 – 11:40am (PST) Remove Comment

• AKK
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You are right. I over-simplified. Put ***propaganda*** in many quotes.

Auden?

Friday February 15, 2008 – 02:04pm (EET)

Há uns tempos escrevia eu no twitter que já sou lisboa. 9 meses por cá e ainda não consegui explorar devidamente a cidade como ela merece  – 2009 não acabará sem eu a descobrir mais um bocadinho, seguindo de perto o olhar de Fernando Pessoa, no seu Lisboa.

Hoje,  no meio de uns textos sobre o jornalismo cultural, descobri a resposta à minha inquietação sobre o súbito amor à cidade. O orador é Italo Calvino, no seu Cidades Invisíveis, que já pertence à minha pequena biblioteca,

De uma cidade não aproveitamos as suas sete ou setenta e sete maravilhas, mas as repostas às nossas perguntas.

from The Airing of Grievances

circa 1558, Pieter Breughel painted Landscape at the Fall of Icarus. (click on the picture for a bigger image).

 In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams also wrote in response to the painting (“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” 1962):

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning.

And I, mesmerized most by Breughel, some by Auden, and always by Williams, was thinking… perhaps the world at the fall of Icarus continued along its way, swathed in oblivion and busyness as usual. But what of the still-warm, falling boy? What were his thoughts? He must have seen the same landscape, the same spring that blossomed in Breughel’s heart, the same workmen who tilled the souls of Auden and Williams.

Did he see his life flashing before his eyes? Was he reminded of fields that he once ploughed and ships not unlike the one he was forced to board for passage to Crete? Did that little town look like his hometown, last seen so long ago? Were his thoughts on the earth? On all the things that shape and then consume us? Or perhaps on the sea, expanding and expanding before his eyes as he fell, quickly becoming his last horizon. Did he remember his philosophy lessons and consider his own excess – too close to the sun and too close to the sea, both to be the death of him? Did he hear his father’s warning again, echoing in his mind, and then wonder where his father was – wonder why there were no other living things in the sky that day? Or perhaps his last thoughts were of the sun – of its heat and its burn, but mostly of its nearness. Of the glorious view of the earth at its smallest, its momentary insignificance.

And yet, though all of this may have passed through his mind, I think his last thought must have been of the boy, his last glimpse of humanity — the redheaded boy in the lowest corner, his arm outreached into the water, doing nothing in particular at all, only a few feet away from Icarus falling.

I’m on my way through Wigan’s list* and following yesterday’s Hieronymous Bosch is painter and printmaker, Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

His keen observations of common life are really interesting, and I plan to learn something from his warm, rich palette. My favourite painting is ‘Netherlandish Proverbs’, a sort of ‘What People Do All Day’ for the 16th Century.

*In ‘Thinking Visually’, (AVA Books, 2006) Mark Wigan gives ‘A canon of key artists and illustrators whose drawings have captured life with penetrating personal vision….’

     Los cuadros literarios que recrean a Lutero abundan en la figura de un hombre que hacia 1535 vivía un tanto retirado del mundo, grueso, espeso, de sotabarba cebada, bebedor de cerveza y sonriente ante la llevada de un tonel de vino. Habían quedado atrás las luchas contra las autoridades, las polémicas, los cáusticos panfletos y la enfebrecida correspondencia mantenida con sus amigos y partidarios. Había decidido y aprendido a vivir en el retiro de un antiguo y desocupado convento, ayudado de pequeños trabajos: era experto en la reparación de relojes, trabajaba como jardinero, meditaba, escribía en medio de un vaivén de hijos. Con su mujer, Catharina von Bora, monja exclaustrada, bromeaba y celebraba cosas sin transcendencia, la pellizcaba, le dirigía pesadas y escatológicas expresiones de marido torpe. A veces el lenguaje de Lutero, incluso en los escritos, era soez. Decía que del papado no salían más que “asnales pedorretas”, y que su mayor representante era como el cuclillo que “quiere chupar los huevos de las iglesias y caga luego vanidosos cardenales”.

       Él, que en un tiempo había abominado del matrimonio, se sumergió en el ambiente doméstico, entre gentes y alumnos que se acercaban a la casa para compartir mesa con el teólog que impartía lecciones y catequizaba en Wittenberg. En su clásico estudio, Lucien Febvre lo dibujó como un profeta aburguesado, como un hombre de altibajos que vivía digna y mediocremente en medio de la barahunda del hogar y de pañales puestos a secar. Además de los propios, la pareja mantenía once hijos de las hermanas de Lutero, fallecidas tempranamente. Para mayor carga, los azotes de la peste convertían las habitaciones conventuales de su domicilio en un verdadero hospital. Un visitante anotó en su cuaderno: “la casa del Doctor se ha tornado en una extraña y heterogénea morada de chicos, estudiantes, muchachas, viudas, mujeres mayores y niños; es tremendo el desasosiego que allí reina, y por ello hay tanta gente que tiene lástima de Lutero”. Se ha hecho hincapié en que Lutero nunca pudo asumir el naufragio disciplinar -y también moral- de la Reforma, tal como él la había concebido, por eso se marchó de Wittenberg. En 1545, un año antes de morir, escribió una carta a su mujer, la querida Khete, “predicadora, cervecera, jardinera y un montón de cosas más”, confesándole: “prefiero anda errante de un lugar a otro y comer el pan de los mendigos, antes que mortificar los últimos días de mi vejez con los desórdenes de Wittenberg y el fracaso de mi costoso y amargo trabajo”.

       Pero esta imagen de hombre conforme y eclipsado es engañosa. En su interior nunca transigió, como tampoco cedieron su ironía y el rencor contra los teólogos adversarios, los opulentos, los judíos, el papado y los sacerdotes, a quienes llamaba “santos del vientre” y “lacayos de la tripa”. Los caricaturizaba en burlescos grabados y dibujos que remataba su buen amigo Lucas Cranach, a quien a menudo ayudaban sus hijos, también artistas. Sabía que le escuchaba un pueblo cerril y huraño o, como él decía, salvaje, brutal y furioso. Desde la cátedra veía con disgusto la rudeza de unos personajes que parecían salidos de las tablas de Brueghel. Cada vez se le hacía más fatigosa la traducción del Antiguo Testamento. No estaba aburguesado, sino dolido por la falta de refrendo tras los conflictos del campesinado. Quemaba a Lutero el distanciamiento de los teólogos que en un tiempo hicieron causa con él. En su interior reconocía que había desilusionado a algunos humanistas -no gustó su polémica con Erasmo- y que había decepcionado a una parte de la nobleza. También desconcertó a muchos de sus seguidores que se casara en 1525. Su íntimo Philipp Melanchthon, tan prestigioso teólogo y helenista, que contribuyó a dar cuerpo intelectual al luteranismo, no entendía cómo el que fuera su maestro había cedido a la imagen de un hombre ahogado en la vida doméstica.

       Quien tantas pullas había lanzado contra el matrimonio y deplorado las relaciones sexuales, se había convertido en un atropellado padre de familia, satisfecho de sus chanzas con la monja que colgó los hábitos. Seguramente escandalizó a Melanchthon lo escrito por Lutero años más tarde, en 1532, en las Charlas de Sobremesa, donde ensalza las virtudes de la convivencia conyugal: “el matrimonio no es sólo algo natural, sino un don divino que proporciona la más dulce, grata y honesta de las vidas, incluso más que el celibato y la soltería”. Y aún: en los momentos de desvelo, por la noche, en la cama, “qué grato es ver un par de trenzas”. De hecho, la institución matrimonial logró prestigio con la Reforma, en parte debido a la aversión que Lutero sentía por el antinatural estado célibe de monjes y monjas.

       La mujer, decía, era quien llenaba el hogar de humanidad; si tenía caderas anchas era señal de que estaba destinada a traer hijos al mundo. Desmentía las creencias populares que la denostaban, como la que afirmaba que las mujeres en período de menstruación empañaban los espejos y agostaban las plantas. Había que desmentir estos bulos populares, porque, junto a los médicos, ellas eran quienes mejor cuidaban a los enfermos, y muchas distinguían tantas decoloraciones de orina y de heces como un maestro en medicina. El famoso cuadro de G. A. Spangenberg pintado en el siglo XIX, en el cual Lutero tañe el laúd y sus hijos cantan, flanqueado por la delicada figura de Catharina y observado desde atrás por un soriente Melanchthon, revela un ambiente que nunca tuvo lugar.

- Ramón Andrés-

Johann Sebastian Bach: Los Días, Las Ideas y Los Libros (2005)