Chagall & Cominetti. When Art Inspires Words.

Marc Chagall has always been a favorite and, just until a few hours ago, despite being an art lover, I must confess that I had never heard of Divisionist painter Giuseppe Cominetti. I find hard to say why I felt so drawn to the latter's painting "I conquistatori del sole" (The Conquerors of the Sun) upon seeing it. I guess there is an incendiary touch to it that really works for me. Chagall's "The Revolution", which was in a way his Mona Lisa, a painting that he considered the quintessence of his work and that never left his home in Provence, inspires me in the same way. The main character, indeed Lenin, is a man torn between two worlds: the political and social commitment of the Revolution on one side and the free play of human imagination and art on the other. These two worlds merge in most of my poems. Time to go back to words!



                                                 
                                         Marc Chagall, The Revolution  (1937)

                                               
                             Giuseppe Cominetti, I conquistatori del sole (1907)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Visceral Anne Sexton

Image
I love visceral poets. I love poetry made of flesh and bones, of marrow and heart. And pain. I was seventeen when I first read a poem by Anne Sexton. It was love at first sight. I could not help reading all she wrote from then onward and being so devastated by her words and life. I still retain the magical power with which a sentence of that poem hit me: "My mouth blooms like a cut." If only my verses could be as powerful as this! Anne remains a spirit guide.
Read more

Wearing Poetry

Image
Yes, I proudly wear poetry. Every time I watch my ring I rejoice because those lines were written for me and no one else owns a more precious jewel. It is not the silver that makes it precious, but the beauty of the words that were chiseled on it. More so, it is the meaning of those six lines--that are the final stanza of a longer poem--that move me and remind me how incredible fortunate I am. Nothing like those words. They burn in me like an inextinguishable fire every day.  
Read more

Recalling Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Force of the Past

Image
Today is Pasolini's 36th death anniversary. He was brutally killed on the night of November 2, 1975 in still unclear circumstances and found the following morning by a blue collar on his way to work. Pasolini is possibly Italy's most important poet after Dante. An amazing intellectual who truly loved the lowest classes, which he celebrated in his deeply profound novels and poems. As Jack Hirschman points out, his three initials stand for "Passion, Provocation and Prophecy." This is so true.  I wish to celebrate Pasolini posting Orson Welles' reading one of his poems of which I am also including a translation. "I am a Force of the Past" roars Pasolini. No, he is much more than that. He is still today a Force of the Present and of the Future too.  I am a Force of the Past. My love lies only in tradition. I come from the ruins, the churches, the altarpieces, the villages abandoned in the Appenines or foothills of the Alps where my brothers once l
Read more