Francisco de Zurbarán – Saint Agatha

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Agatha, 1630-33

In the first half of the seventeenth century Francisco de Zurbarán, perhaps the spookiest painter of the Spanish Baroque, painted a series of portraits depicting female saints and virgin martyrs which is surprisingly vibrant in colour and mood, at least compared to his other paintings. Zurbarán painted around twenty such portraits and all of them present the image of youth and delicate beauty: the saints are painted as rosy-cheeked girls, elegant and serene, and most importantly – beautifully dressed in sumptuous fabric in all colours and shade, from mustard yellow and rich red to greens, blues and even some splendid Veronese pink. In his time Zurbarán got his fair share of criticism for portraying the virgin martyrs in such a lavish way, accentuating more their worldly beauty and rich attire rather than their humility and piousness. And indeed, they look more like dainty princesses than martyrs. Still, there is something that clearly marks them as saints and not princesses: their attributes; a visual symbol that helps us recognise which saints is presented in the painting. Our sweet little saint Agatha here is painted carrying her cut off breasts on a platter and that is how we know the painting shows Saint Agatha and not some other saint.

Agatha of Sicily (c. 231-251) was an early Christian saint born in Sicily and the story goes that, according to Jacobus de Voragine’s “Golden Legend”, the young Agatha took a virginity vow and, on many occasions, rejected the romantic offers of Roman prefect Quintianus. This all happened during the persecutions of Decius and eventually Quintianus reported Agatha to the authorities. He imagined that Agatha, when faced with torture and death, would give in to his demands, but instead she prayed to god for courage. Part of her torture included her breasts being cut off with pincers. She was suppose to be burnt at the stake but an earthquake prevented this and then she was sent to prison where St Peter the Apostle appeared to her and healed her wounds. She died in prison, remaining faithful to her ideals.

In Zurbarán’s portrait, not a trace of suffering, torment or pain can be seen on her delicate pale face, only perhaps a tinge of wistfulness. Her slender figure is arising from the darkness of the background like a beautiful sculpture and there is nothing in the painting that distracts us from the real motif: Saint Agatha. She’s gazing in the distance with her large dark eyes while her breasts, so pale and so beautifully sculpted, stand on the platter like two delicious cupcakes. Around her neck a pearl necklace, her dress falling beautifully. I like other female saints portraits as well but Agatha showing off her cut off breasts is perhaps the most interesting to me because it’s kinda provocative and naughty. Just imagine what an outrage these tits would cause if the theme of the painting wasn’t religious but worldly. Here are some other paintings from the same series:

Francisco de Zurbarán, Santa Dorotea, 1648

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Dorothy, 1640-50

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Ursula, 1635-40

Juan de Valdés Leal – In Ictu Oculi

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

This is the one and only thing I have thought resembled a truth in society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes.“

(Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human)

Juan de Valdés Leal (1622 – 1690), In Ictu Oculi, 1670-1672

In 1670-72 Spanish Baroque painter Juan de Valdés Leal was commissioned by the Brotherhood of Charity to paint two paintings, “In Ictu Oculi” and “Finis gloriae mundi”, for the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville. The sombre and dark paintings fit perfectly with the mood that characterised the sixteenth century in Spain. The “vanitas” genre of painting captures the mood of the times because it unites the themes of the religious spirit bordering with fanaticism, the fascination with death and the obsession with the transience of earthly life. A dark, dramatic and foreboding atmosphere is seeping out of this painting like spilt ink colouring the white paper in the sea of darkness. Arising from the dark background is the figure of a grim reaper who is holding a scythe and a coffin and with his right hand pointing at the letters written above a candlestick “In ictu oculi” meaning “in the blink of an eye”. How nice of the grim reaper to point out the title of the painting for us. His left foot is standing on the globe; how very dainty. Bellow the grim reaper stretches a cluttered landscape of earthly life, filled with material possession such as books, globe, jewellery, crowns; everything that the soul cannot take to the spiritual realm. The colours – hushed down, sombre, faded, apart from that shiny pink and red – serve to convey the mystical and dark mood. Motif of transience was all the rage in the Spanish Baroque poetry and here is a poem by Pedro Calderon de la Barca called “These flowers, whose pomp“:

THESE flowers, whose pomp was joyous to behold,
When the white dawn awoke them out of sleep,
At eve shall be a ruin fit to weep,
Lulled in the darkling night’s embraces cold.
This posy bright with listed hues of gold,
Snow-white and purple, rivalling heaven’s bow,
Will be a warning to our life below;
So doth one day its little life enfold.

To flower, the rose displayed her buds at morn,
And to grow old and wither, did she flower;
One is her cradle and her grave forlorn.
So men behold brief fortune’s earthly dower,
To die upon the day when they were born,
For the past ages are but as an hour.

The verse “the past ages are but as an hour” goes well with the motif of the painting “In Ictu Oculi”; a rose blooms and withers quickly, compared to the rose our human life is long, but compared to eternity it is not. We are surrounded by things that remind us of transience and yet we dread it the most. The other painting, “Finis Gloriae Mundi”, further emphasises not only the passing of everything on earth but also the pointlessness of success, reputation and everything humans spend (or waste?) their life chasing after. The main part of the painting are the two coffins positioned in different directions and they hold the rotting, decaying bodies of a bishop and a knight who both enjoyed fame and repute, though of a different nature, but are both now – dead. In the dark background, another skeleton and a pile of bones and skulls are also painted. Can things get any creepier here? There are times and day when nostalgic thoughts and trips down memory lanes rip my heart in two, but on other occasions thoughts of transience fill me with bewilderment and passion at once because if life passes quickly, if “life is a dream” as Calderon de la Barca wrote, then why waste a single second of it not enjoying it, not being ecstatic that you are alive – while you are alive. In a second you’ll be ashes, so rejoice while you can.

Juan de Valdés Leal, Finis gloriae mundi, 1672

Rogelio de Egusquiza – The End of the Ball

“I am like a winged creature who is too rarely allowed to use its wings. Ecstasies do not occur often enough.”

(Anais Nin)

Rogelio de Egusquiza, The End of the Ball, 1879

Dear diary,

All was quiet in the salon, but laughter, loud voices of drunk guests and music were coming from the ballroom. I had too much champagne and my cheeks were burning so I retreated to the salon for a while. The enveloping silence seemed strange after the noise in the ballroom. My heart was beating loudly under the corset laced so tightly that it made me wonder how it would beat at all. I reclined on the sofa and laid my head on my hand. Warm orange light from the lamp on the end table cast a warm glow on the chamber and I easily sank into reverie. The gorgeous pink tulle dress adorned with crimson red roses that I had made especially for the occasion made me feel as if I were a capricious butterfly flying from flower to flower, dancing with one gentleman and then with the other. But now its stiffness made it hard to breathe and I couldn’t wait to take it off. The roses which were fresh and fragrant just this afternoon were now withered. The soft fabric was now soaked with my sweat and heavy perfume. My aching feet longed to walk freely on the fur carpet, their silk confinement was tormenting, but how they made me dance with Julio but moments ago! I knew he would come, even though mama hoped he wouldn’t.

My heart was beating so fast when I saw him approaching me; so tall and slim, dressed in a dark suit in the latest fashion, with his silky chestnut hair and dark eyes that seemed to look through me. He took my hand and the orchestra started playing again a beautiful tune which brought tears to my eyes, for it filled me with ecstasy and melancholy at the same time. I felt Julio’s warmth so close to my body, and yet I could feel his absence as well. I was too aware that the music would stop, the dance end and we would part until… who knew? Julio was unpredictable with his travels, I never knew when and if his next letter would arrive, and what other ladies held his attention. I longed to join him in his travels, but I knew I was too weak, weak and scared of life I would be no companion. I felt his strong arm around my waist as the music carried us in swirls across the room. The scent of flowers in the air mingled with the rich manly smell of Julio’s body. Minutes felt like a dream. I followed his steps and laid my head on his shoulder. I wondered whether he would inhale the scent of my hair.

I wondered what he was thinking, but dared not assume that this moment held as much importance to him as it did to me. Julio was a man that didn’t belong to anyone, and I was but a girl who longed for the ecstasies in life; a winged creature who was too rarely allowed to use its wings. These kind of ecstasies did not occur often enough. I knew that the very next day I would be sitting in the drawing room and doing embroidery under mother’s watchful eyes, and I felt tears swelling in my eyes when I compared the endless rapture of the moment with the boredom that awaits me, from dawn to dusk. Such was my life, perhaps one day I would dare to sail the seas that I dream of and that Julio had told me about. But at that moment, breathing the same air as Julio, nothing else existed for me but the pure delight of his presence. I softly sank my nails into the fabric of his coat and sighed: I wish this moment would never end… But I could hear the orchestra’s playing was getting quieter and the enchanting tune was slowly drawing to an end. I closed my eyes and…

Your Isabel

Rogelio de Egusquiza, A reverie during the ball, 1879

Here is a photograph that Rogelio de Egusquiza used to paint the painting

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

Federico Lorca – Cordoba, Distant and Lonely

Warm earthy colours, soft silvery transitions, and hints of blue. A woman, a horse, and a vase. Broken fragments are tickling our imagination. The mood of this painting goes well with Lorca’s poem ‘The Horseman’s Song’, at least for me. Both artworks are pure avant-garde; Jean Metzinger was considered the forerunner of Cubism, and Lorca nurtured a style that combined modernistic tendencies in European poetry with tradition of his homeland Andalusia. In ‘The Horseman’s Song’, he repeats certain motifs – olives, horseman, Cordoba, Moon, wind and road – developing the mood of anxiety and mystery. Who is the horseman? And why won’t he see his beloved Cordoba again?The utter strangeness of this poem and its mood of desolation and death endlessly captivate me.

Jean Metzinger, La Femme au Cheval (Woman with a horse), 1911-12, oil on canvas

The Horseman’s Song
‘Córdoba
Distant and lonely.

Black steed, big moon,
and olives in my saddlebag.
Although I know the roads
I will never reach Córdoba.

Across the plain, through the wind
Black steed, red moon.
Death is staring at me
from the towers of Córdoba.
Oh, how long the road is!
Oh, my valiant steed!
Oh, death awaits me,
before I reach Córdoba.

Córdoba.
Distant and lonely.’

There was a full moon (in Gemini) last two nights. If you go out for a walk, or just move your curtains, say hello to the moon, and think of Lorca this evening, the strange beauty of his poetry deserves it.