Egon Schiele’s Birth Anniversary and Federico Garcia Lorca’s Sonnets of Dark Love

One of my favourite painters ever, Egon Schiele, was born on this day in 1890, so naturally, my thoughts are nearly all with him today. I have been an ardent lover and admirer of his art for years now, but another work of art, with a darkness and eroticism that matches that of Schiele’s art, has occupied me these days: Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Sonnets of Dark Love”, translated by Paul Archer here. As I was reading Lorca’s beautiful sonnets, one by one, slowly, half-soaking in the strange verses and half-daydreaming, I had Schiele’s paintings in mind, or rather, the mood that pervades his paintings; darkness, anxiety, death, eroticism and alienation, murkiness of the colours and strangeness of the pale and fragile heroin chic figures, often entwined, together yet distant. I’ve chosen the verses which I loved the most and assembled them together with Schiele’s paintings and drawings.

Egon Schiele, Cardinal and Nun (Caress), 1912

“(…) And then, together entwined,
with love-broken mouths and frayed souls
time will find us utterly destroyed.”

(Sonnet of the Garland of Roses)

Egon Schiele, Two Women, 1915

“Don’t let me lose the wondrous sight
of your sculpted eyes, or the way you have
of placing on my cheek at night
the solitary rose of your breath.”

(Sonnet of the sweet complaint)

Egon Schiele, Girl in Black, 1911

“This weeping of blood that adorns
an unplucked lyre, the lusty torch,
this weight of the sea that pounds,
this scorpion that dwells in my breast

are all a garland of love, a sickbed
where I lie awake dreaming you are here
among the ruins of my downcast heart.”

(Love’s Wounds)

Egon Schiele, Sunflower, 1909

“My gut-wrenching love, my death-in-life,
in vain I wait for you to write me a letter,
like a withered flower I think rather than to live
without being me, to lose you would be better.”

(The poet begs his beloved to write to him)

Egon Schiele, Liebende (Lovers), 1909

“I want to weep with my pain and tell
you – so you’ll love me and cry for me also
in a nightfall of nightingales
with a knifeblade, with kisses and with you.”

(The poet tells the truth)

Egon Schiele, Four Trees, 1918

“Your voice watered my heart’s dunes
in that sweet wooden telephone booth.
It was spring at my feet to the south
and north of my forehead flowered ferns.”

(The poet talks on the telephone with his beloved)

Egon Schiele, Wally in Red Blouse with Raised Knees, 1913

“Did you see in the transparent air
that dahlia of sorrow and pleasure
my warm heart had sent you?”

(The poet asks his beloved about the ‘Enchanted City’ of Cuenca)

Egon Schiele, Mother and Daughter, 1913

“Thus my heart all night and day through
incarcerated in its cell of dark love
cries its melancholy at not seeing you.”

(Sonnet in the style of Góngora in which the poet sends his beloved a dove)

Federico García Lorca and Joan Miró – The olive trees are charged with cries

Today marks the 120th anniversary of birth of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca (1898-1936). Since I am enamoured by his poetry, and I’ve spent the last days of May sailing through the strange, beautiful and wild waters of his verses filled with lonely paths, gypsy wanderers, moon and olive trees, winds and oranges, I felt inspired to tackle some of Miró’s vibrant landscapes which encapsulate the spirit of Lorca’s poetry really well.

Joan Miró, The Village of Prades (Prades, el poble), 1917

I am regularly entranced by the simple and unassuming playfulness of Joan Miró’s paintings, but these two landscapes from the early days of his career, “The Village of Prades” and “Siurana, the Path” dazzle my imagination even more. Here the colour, rich, exuberant and warm, takes dominance over the drawing and the imagination wins the battle against logic and rationalism of the classic landscapes. This isn’t a landscape seen with mind, but felt with the heart.

It is little to call these paintings ‘landscapes’ when they are so much more; they are oceans of vibrant colours and psychedelic swirls and zig-zags, they are a resplendent butterfly perched on the delicate petals of a rare Mediterranean flower. Still, in formal classification, they are both landscapes and both were painted in the summer of 1917. Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893 so the period from 1907 to 1918 is usually considered as his early period. He saw himself a Fauvist at the time, something evident by the bright colours used without a trace of shyness. There is a hint of Cubism as well, in the sharp lines in the foreground of “The Village of Prades” and the way trees and bushes are broken down into cubical shapes, and there is also a spirit of Paul Cezanne’s paintings of Mount Victorie in the way distant yellowish mountains are carefully shaded in “Siurana, the path”. These were Miró’s formative years when he soaked the influences, took lessons from the art he saw in galleries, and tried to find his unique artistic language; a quest in which he succeeded.

These are the landscapes full of life and soul, landscapes which tremble and breathe, scream when the warm wind blows from the south, and laugh when the Moon brings the nocturnal caresses on solitary path and olive groves. It’s because of this heartful that my imagination connects them with the wonderful poetry of Federico García Lorca and here is his poem called “Landscape”:

The field
of olive trees
opens and closes
like a fan.
Above the olive grove
there is a sunken sky
and a dark shower
of cold stars.
Bulrush and twilight tremble
at the edge of the river.
The grey air ripples.
The olive trees
are charged
with cries.
A flock
of captive birds,
shaking their very long
tail feathers in the gloom.

Joan Miró, Siurana, el camí (Siurana, the Path), 1917

Precosia throws the tambourine
and runs away in terror.
But the virile wind pursues her
with his breathing  and burning sword.

The sea darkens and roars,
while the olive trees turn pale.
The flutes of darkness sound,
and a muted gong of the snow.

Are these swirls of yellow, these brooks of green and trembling shadows of lilac; is this a field the gypsy girl is running away from the satyr wind who yearns touch “the blue rose” of her womb in Lorca poem “The Gypsy and the Wind”? I adore these kind of landscapes which look as if the painter smoked some weed and then took his colours and started painting, and I think they fit perfectly with the mood of Lorca’s poetry because Lorca felt things with his heart, not with logic, and possessed a gift of conveying an atmosphere in a few words or a few lines. He felt Spain, the people and the nature very deeply and appraised and idealised the life of the gypsies. I love Lorca’s passion for living which comes out in his verses, and that means accepting both the joys and the sadnesses that come on the way, that passionate yet tragic perception of life is really inspiring to me. When I gaze at Miró’s landscapes, I imagine Lorca’s imagination in colours, in swirls, an explosion of beauty.

Magical Nocturnal World of Federico Beltran Masses

Deep midnight blues, cold and distant femmes fatales entranced by the melodies from afar, silver stars and guitars, hints of Spanish folklore, aloof guitar players with closed eyes, luscious full red lips, shining golden fabrics, nocturnal somnambulist atmosphere; welcome to the magical worlds of Federico Beltran Masses and Federico Lorca.

Federico Beltrán Massés, Carnaval, ca.1925

I think that the visual companion to the magical world that Federico Lorca has created in his poems, particularly those from his poetry collection ‘Gypsy Ballads’ (1928), can be found in paintings of Federico Beltan Masses, not just because they are both Spanish and are named Federico, but because the mood, poetic images, and characters from Lorca’s poetry all found their way in Masses’ paintings. Although Beltran wasn’t officially inspired by Lorca, I feel that their wellspring of inspiration is somewhat similar; it’s deeply rooted in Spanish tradition, and similar motifs occur in their poems/paintings, such as moon, nocturnal atmosphere, guitar. In Lorca’s poetic world, passion is the initiator of everything, and the atmosphere rises to that of immense ecstasy and beauty, somnambulism, enchantment, and the feeling of trance and being utterly lost in time and space.

Federico Beltran Mases, The Venetian Sisters, 1920

Lorca’s perception of the word was more sensual and passionate than rational, and his poems are the result of his deep experiences of the life of Spain, its landscapes and its people. He was inspired by tradition, but he leaned to avant-garde, and he is usually associated with Surrealism. As you’ll see further on, his poems are often based on metaphors and symbols, and are very musical and acoustic, because he enjoyed works of Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven, and perhaps subconsciously inter weaved his poems with this charming musicality. Characters in Beltran’s paintings often seem entranced by some melodies that we cannot hear, but are pervading their nocturnal landscapes painted in deep shades of blue that often appears blackish with a few silver stars in the sky.

Federico Beltran Masses, Tres Para Uno (Three For One), c. 1934

In ‘Tres Para Uno’ a tanned gentleman entertains three ladies with a guitar while the gondolas sway dreamily in midnight water of the silent Venice that sleeps in the background. ‘Three maidens of silver’ with pale, ghostly, almost greyish complexions, shiny sensual red lips and large elongated eyes. Something about their appearance frightens me, especially the woman on the right, with a grey streak in her hair. Beltran modelled her on his wife. All four seem strange, like vampires, wondering through the lonely streets of Venice at night, half-drugged half-mad, searching for a victim to entrance with their dead-cold gazes and melodies from the guitar.

Guitar as a symbol leads me again to Lorca and his poem ‘Riddle of the Guitar’:

‘At the round

crossroads,

six maidens

dance.

Three of flesh,

three of silver.

The dreams of yesterday search for them,

but they are held embraced

by a Polyphemus of gold.

The guitar!‘

Luisa Casati, Federico Beltrán Masses, Luisa Casati, 1920

Beltran Masses loved painting at night, and the story goes that Luisa Casati, a rich and extravagant Italian heiress once turned up in his studio in Venice and demanded that to be painted instantly, he indulged her happily. Nocturnal setting is present in most of his paintings, and this specific dreamy, dark, sensual blue is often called ‘Beltran blue’, because it pervades his canvases. Imagine a world where night would rule, with moon and stars – that would be really magical. Notice the attention Beltran places on details such as the shine of Casati’s dress.

Beltran was popular amongst Hollywood actresses and actors, but his popularity unfortunately waned when the World War II broke out; that’s because that world of glamour, decadence and frivolity disappeared over night. Some have drawn parallels between Beltran and Kees van Dongen; both painted glamorous worlds of rich people, but van Dongen was a Fauvist and his style of painting is more stylised.

Federico Beltran Masses (1885–1949), Passion, 1932

Neither Lorca nor Beltran presented the real world in their poems and paintings, but a nocturnal fantasy, led by passions, enchantments, moonwalking, ecstasy… In Passion we can see that famed Venice gracing the background. In all of Beltran’s paintings there’s a sense of escapism, whether through dreams and fantasy, eating exotic fruit, listening to sounds of guitar, surrounded with pretty women, riding a gondola through Venice and daydreaming about elegance and luxury.

And now for the end, Lorca’s guitar again:

The Six Strings

‘The guitar
makes dreams weep.
The sobbing of lost
souls
escapes through its round
mouth.
And like the tarantula
it spins a large star
to trap the sighs
floating in its black,
wooden water tank.‘ (*)

Pola Negri and Rudolf Valentino by Federico Beltran Masses (1885–1949), 1920s