El Olvido

Cosa curiosa: las verdades de la vida se desdibujan porque tendemos a olvidarlas a causa de nuestra naturaleza dañada. Una de ellas: la vida consiste en comenzar y recomenzar, como dice San Josemaría de Balaguer.

A veces comenzamos y otras veces recomenzamos, si queremos y si tenemos el valor, a pesar de los pesares.

A partir de hoy, este blog se llamará LO DESDIBUJADO y, a lo mejor, le daré un nuevo aspecto.

¿Existe el Arte?

Aquí está un breve texto extraído del libro La Historia del Arte de E. H. Gombrich:

No existe, realmente, el Arte. Tan sólo hay artistas. Éstos eran en otros tiempos hombres que cogían tierra coloreada y dibujaban toscamente las formas de un bisonte sobre las paredes de una cueva; hoy, compran sus colores y trazan carteles para las estaciones del metró. Entre unos y otros han hecho muchas cosas los artistas. No hay ningún mal en llamar arte a todas estas actividades, mientras tengamos en cuenta que tal palabra puede significar muchas cosas distintas, en épocas y lugares diversos, y mientras advirtamos que el Arte, escrita la palabra con A mayúscula, no existe, pues el Arte con A mayúscula tiene por esencia que ser un fatasma y un ídolo. Podéis abrumar a un artista diciéndole que lo que acaba de realizar acaso sea muy bueno a su manera, sólo que no es Arte. Y podéis llenar de confusión a alguien que atesore cuadros, asegurándole que lo que le gustó en ellos no fue precisamente Arte, sino algo distinto.

De acuerdo, no existe el Arte. Pero, ¿existe el arte? Si existe, ¿qué es? ¿Es posible darle una definición? En algún momento seguiré tratando este tema en este blog.

Aproximación a la Historia del Arte

Hay muchas definiciones acerca de la historia del arte. La de E. H. Gombrich me llama especialmente la atención por su expresión sencilla. Dice:

La historia del arte es una rama de la historia, denominación cuyo origen se halla en un término griego que significa pregunta. Lo que a veces se describe como los diversos métodos de investigación artístico-histórica debería, por tanto, entenderse como esfuerzos para tratar de responder a las distintas preguntas que podemos hacernos sobre el pasado. Qué preguntas queramos hacernos en un momento dado depende de nosotros y nuestros intereses, mientras que la respuesta dependerá de la evidencia que el historiador pueda sacar a la luz.

The Turin-Milan Hours

Madonna Enthroned with the Child (The lower scene represents Christ Preaching)
by Master of the Prament of Narbonne
c. 1380
Illumination on parchment,
203 x 284 mm
Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Madama, Turin

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This is the main illumination of the page of the “Turin-Milan Hours”, now known as the “Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame de Duc Jean de Berry”, is an incomplete illuminated manuscript of exceptional quality and importance. It contains several miniatures of about 1420 by Jan van Eyck, his brother Huber can Eyck, or artists very closely associated with them. About a decade later Barth´´elemy d´Eyck may have worked on some miniatures.

The French art historian Paul Durrieu published his monograph, with photographs, on the Turin Hours in 1902, two years before it was burnt. He was the first to recognise that the Turin and Milan Hours were from the same volume, and to connect them with the van Eyck brothers. The art historian Georges Hulin de Loo, in his work on the Milan portion published in 1911 (by which time the Turin portion was already lost), made a division of the artists into "Hands" A–K in what he thought was their chronological sequence. This has been broadly accepted – as regards the lost Turin portion few have been in a position to dispute it – but the identification of them has been the subject of great debate, and Hand J in particular is now sub-divided by many. Hands A–E are French, from before the division of the work, Hands G–K are Netherlandish from after it, and Hand F has been attributed to both groups.

According to the Prof. Conrad Schoeffling, the “Turin-Milan Hours” took seventy years to complete, from 1380 to 1450. It was probably Jean, Duke of Berry, who commisioned in 1380 an illuminated manuscript of ambitious proportions, one that would combine a book of hours, a missal, and a prayer book. The missal contained all the text necessary for a layman to follow daily mass and other church functions throughout the year. The third book contained those prayers which were particular favorites of the French royal family.

The Annunciation (the lower scene represents Moses and the Burning Bush)
by Master of the Baptist
c. 1400
Illumination on parchment,
203 x 284 mm
Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Madama, Turin

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The same scholar also pointed out that the first series of illustrations, begun around 1380, was painted by the Master of the Prament of Narbonne. This French artist decided on the order of the pages, made preliminary sketches, and completed several of the most important miniatures. In 1405, the Duke of Berry commisioned a group of painters to finish the book. They were under the supervision of another anonymous artist, the Master of the Baptist. However, the work was interrupted again around 1412 when the Duke, losing interest in his project, presented the first part of the manuscript, which contained a complete book of hours, to his treasurer, Robinet d'Estampes. After the Duke of Berry´s death in 1416, the remaining two sections of the manuscript, the missal and the prayer book, passed to John of Bavaria, Count of Holland, who commissioned the young and highly gifted Jan van Eyck to complete the work. A series of miniatures were executed about 1424, but later, after John's death, the artist took the missal and prayer book with him when he went to serve Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. After Jan van Eyck's death in 1441, Philip the Good commissioned a second series of Flemish illustrations, which finally completed the work. The artist selected followed on in the tradition of van Eyck, clearly using the latter's sketches and compositions. After Philip, the manuscript ended up in the collection of the House of Savoy. In 1720, the prayer book was donated to the National Library of Turin, but became a victim of the fire in 1904. The missal, now known as the Turin-Milan Hours, went to the library of the Earl of Agile in the late 17th century. It was acquired in the early 19th century in Milan by Prince Gian Giacomo Trivulzio. In 1935 the manuscript was presented by the Trivulzio family to the Museo Civico in Turin.

The page size is about 284 x 203 mm. Nearly all the pages illustrated with miniatures have the same format, with a main picture above four lines of text and a narrow bas-de-page ("foot of the page") image below. Most miniatures mark the beginning of a section of text, and the initial is a decorated or historiated square. Often the bas de page image shows a scene of contemporary life related in some way to the main devotional image, or an Old Testament subject. The borders, with one exception, all follow the same relatively simple design of stylised foliage, typical of the period when the work was started, and are largely or completely from the first phase of decoration in the 14th century. In the pages completed in the earlier campaigns the borders are further decorated by the miniaturists with small angels, animals (mostly birds), and figures, but the later artists usually did not add these.

The single exception to the style of the borders is a destroyed page, with the main miniature a Virgo inter virgines by Hand H. The border here is in a richer and later 15th century style, from 1430 at the earliest, partly overpainting a normal border, which has also been partly scraped off. This is probably because the original border contained a portrait of a previous owner, of which traces can be seen.

The Prof. Conrad Schoeffling wrote: “it is virtually impossible to find another single work that documents the transition from medieval to modern times as clearly as the Turin-Milan Hours.”

Aspiración

La aspiración de E. H. Gombrich:

Me gustaría abrir los ojos, no desatar las lenguas.

¿Por qué?

Porque en tiempos de una creciente fraseología de la historia
y crítica del arte, vale la pena reinstaurar nuestro sentimiento de
asombro ante la imagen.

Espacio

Hace poco, relativamente poco, tuve una conversación con una “joven arquitecta”, bruta pero sensible, fascinada por Piet Mondrian y el concepto espacial de Tadao Ando, maestro de forma y espacio...

Hay espacios que cantan, hay espacios que gritan.
Hay espacios que susurran, hay espacios que gimen.
Hay espacios que elevan, hay espacios que absorben.
Hay espacios silenciosos, hay espacios silenciados.
Tantas posibilidades.

El espacio. Hay muchos modos de construirlo: con pincel, cámara de foto, cámara de video, luz, hilo, papel, madera, piedra, notas musicales, etc.

El espacio. Se puede construirlo con el pensamiento, la memoria, el espíritu y el tiempo.

El espacio y el tiempo, gemelos con quienes jugaba Eduardo Chillida aprendiendo de la Naturaleza y de Johann Sebastian Bach.

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LA MAR Y BACH, así se titula un texto de Chillida. El autor escribe:

Mi agradecimiento a la mar, mi maestro, ella me ha mostrado alguno de los muchos secretos que oculta, o mejor, que la conforman. La mar es siempre nunca diferente pero nunca siempre igual. Me ha dicho que nada se repite, que nunca dos olas fueron iguales.

También Juan Sebastián Bach (otra mar) es mi maestro. Me reveló las sutiles relaciones entre el tiempo y el espacio, el poder expansivo del tiempo audible y su relación con el espacio conformador o conformado, positivo o negativo.

Quizá una anécdota nos puede ayudar. Entrando por primera vez en Santa Sofía, tuve la impresión de estar entrando en los pulmones de Juan Sebastián Bach. Aquel espacio poderoso y expansivo parece haber sido el arquitecto de esa obra, en la que lo contenido (espacio) ha producido el continente (la arquitectura).

Si tomo las alas de la aurora, si voy a parar a lo último del mar, también allí tu mano me conduce. (Salmos, 139: 7-12)

No soy fan de Chillida; sin embargo, su visión me atrae y admiro su actitud.

Learning

The artists see with hands, hear with hands and feel with hands.

John Maeda describes: "Listening is no different than the artist´s skill to see(...). To see, is to learn. To hear, is to learn. And to feel, is to learn ... deeply.