Paralelismos

Veamos una serie de premisas:

-el individuo está, por definición, solo;

-sin embargo, imagina mil y un subterfugios para no estar así, tales como el grupo, la sociedad, la amistad, el amor, los dioses, la familia… ;

-al final, recurre al arte;

-encuentra en el arte la posibilidad de manifestar su individualidad;

-el arte es mensaje, comunicación, tenga o no destinatario esplícito: la obra artística, sea plástica, literaria, musical… se proyecta desde el claustro de la intimidad hacia el ágora infinita donde se reunen los otros;

-en ese infinito, brilla por un tiempo la individualidad -lo único- para luego empezar a confundirse con lo común -lo universal-;

-con el tiempo -si sobrevive al tiempo- la obra, que no su creador, cede su hermetismo y se vuelve permeable;

-la obra, en su esencia, viaja hacia los otros y se une a ellos, enriqueciéndose, enriqueciéndolos;

 -desde la apreciación de la obra podemos llegar a intuir al otro, ese eterno desconocido que la creó, en su soledad. 

Inauguro esta nueva sección para satisfacer mi debilidad por los paralelismos, por los momentos de epifanía en que las órbitas de esos cometas aparentemente erráticos que son los creadores se cruzan. Dijo Rumi: “Nunca el amante busca sin ser buscado por su amada”.Celebremos los encuentros. Encuentros entre desconocidos, quizá, pues quién sabe si Escher había visto alguna vez al gato de Franz Marc cuando pintó el suyo. Gato blanco, 1919. Escher                                                 Gato sobre almohadón amarillo, 1912. Marc                                                                                        Obviamente son gatos distintos, aunque ambos sean blancos, pero su sueño es, creo yo, el mismo.                 

Y para empezar propongo dos historias que interpretan el silencio y la naturaleza: Silencio, una fábula, de Edgar Allan Poe, 1837 y El valle del silencio, de Jose María Merino, 1982.

E.A.Poe : The Raven

          Poe was a man whose intimate mental adventure will probably never be wholly understood. His melodramatic existence and the black legend he was abused with still haunt the image we have of him, as does the fact that he himself did not do much to dissipate but, what is more, collaborated –though not always willingly-, in the creation of the veil that shrouds him, confusing his onlookers. There always was a duality in him that affected his temper, his mind and his art, we still do not know if caused by alcohol, opium or a physical or mental disorder. In spite of this there is a sense of unity, a oneness of tone, structure, movement and ideas that, added to the originality and power of his writing, make him the doubtless father of Romanticism, curiously enough not in America or England but in France. Poe´s voice never suited the American or English readers much, finding him too “crude, noisy and tasteless”, as A. Burgess points out. The French poets Baudelaire and Mallarmé were the ones to persuade the world of his genius, including the United States in the long run, and French Symbolism relied on his poetic principles. Nevertheless we can situate him as a transcendentalist, though quite opposed to Emerson. Indeed, for him reason does go beyond itself through intuition and imagination but what lies beyond is not metaphysical truth, security or redemption but a moral-free beauty, set apart from nature, reigning over a land of estrangement, disturbing symbols, and ultimate destruction. This beauty –and the truth it carried for its own sake- was his aim, reaching it was his quest, and, of course, the path led him to Romantic agony. It may have seemed to Poe he was somewhat alone in this quest, though in fact he was not. That darker and more painful and fearful side of truth was to be perceived also by Hawthorne and Melville, who closely followed.