YAREAH Magazine Issue 19. December 2011
7to 7
Literature - Arts
Rubens. The Three Graces
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
A New Hello
by Martin Cid
In 2009, Yareah magazine started its way to discover what is Art and what is the deep meaning of Literature. A marvelous way, full of great collaborators, people who love to magnify men and women reminding them that not only are they a body of basic functions but a brain with thoughts, feelings and hopes. David and Goliath by Michelangelo, 1509
Y
areah magazine worked and 18 issues were published. We studied James Joyce and One Thousand and One Nights, we terrorized with Vampires and we questioned with Ovid and Kafka, we loved the Avant-garde movement and we learned with Zola or Ruyard Kipling… So many issues, so many studies, so many authors and artists. We liked to compare an old author with
The Peasant and the Birdnester by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568
lucky hope. You can read about our seven lucky painters and authors and you can admire or criticize them. a Yareah magazine is a field of fantasy n e w and freedom and all is possible here. one and We hope you enjoy the magazine so illustrated much as we enjoy our work. t h e i r thoughts with current artists or crafters: a world of fantasy and colour, a world of ancient Myths which revived again. Yareah was a bilingual (English-Spanish) magazine but now, and after a break of several months, the magazine has started again, with the same objectives and structure but only in English language (internet has improved its translators and our strength is limited). ‘Seven to Seven’ is our new issue (19). Michelangelo. Seven is our Moses lucky number and our
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Literature
Seven Writers of our Memory Seven is the number of this return of Yareah. Seven is a beautiful number, full of holly me mories (remember the Bible, where ‘Seven times Seven’ means the infinite) and full of lucky promises (tradition said it is the number of Fortune).
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e are not superstitions but, well, you never know and, in any case, we wouldn’t like to face with that powerful goddess, who removes and places at will. Then, we should choose our seven favorite writes as well as our seven painters for the art section, and this is a laborious task since we could choose a hundred or even a thousand. The first one (any doubt) must be Homer. He is the first well-known author of the history and his main characters, the heroes and heroines of our childhood. The second one (there is no doubt either) must be Cervantes since Don Quixote not only is the best novel of every time but (in our point of view) the most hilarious. We haven’t got many problems to choose the following two writers: Dickens, the creator of the novelistic modern structure, and Shakespeare, who would disagree with this last choice? From here, the going gets tough. Joyce?, Zola?, Cortazar?, Hugo?, Scott?, Faulkner?, Borges?, Kipling?, Dos Passos?, Hemingway?, Tolstoy?... Yes, it is really difficult the selection. Fortunately, we are speaking about our Seven Lucky Writers nor about the best
ones. The fifth (the whole Yareah team agrees) should be Poe. ‘The Raven’ has been a poem which excited the youth of all of us (it will be for some reason, we don’t believe in causalities). Well and what about the two remaining? We remember as an interesting experience the issue dedicated to Metamorphosis: ‘Ovid vs. Kafka’, well suited to our current vagaries. Then, Ovid
will be the sixth. And the seventh is Oscar Wilde since the preface to Dorian Gray is a song for Arts. Seven to Seven. Seven writers and Seven painters that you will find in 19 issue of Yareah magazine: December 2011 together with our thoughts and experiences besides them. Lucky 2012!
Sabela Baña
Elisabeth VigĂŠe-Lebrun. Alexandra and Elena Pavlovna
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Charles Dickens, a master for writers of all time In 1859, Charles Dickens wrote ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. It is a novel set in Paris and London, before and during the French Revolution. It ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature and it is a reference to every novelist and screenwriter, es pecially for Dickens’ way of introducing characters: slowly, step by step, forcing the reader to
desire meet the ideal Lucy Manette or the cynic Sidney Carton, because the reader has heard about them before. Maybe the first time was only a whisper, a word that other character has pronounced; maybe the second time was a gossip that someone has said between two sentences; maybe three pages after we need to know who Dickens wants. ‘More Dickens and less Shakespeare’ Matt Damon claims in the film Hereafter (directed by Client Eastwood). Then, American films have learned of Dickens’ way of setting up on the screen heroes and heroines, cowboys and princess, killers and wonderful girls… The result has been a success. Here, it is the famous beginning of...
A Tale of Two Cities I t was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,
View of Toledo, The Greek
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we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock lane brood.
Kindred Spirits, Asher B. Durand, 1849
France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Wood-
man, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.
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Literature
Cervantes and His Hidden Meanings
by Martin Cid
‘Seven to Seven’ is the name of this new issue of Yareah Magazine. Seven writers, seven painters, seven lucky new desires. Of course, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (15471616) must be one of the writers. He wrote novels, poems, plays and his magnum opus ‘Don Quixote of La Mancha). Here, and to honor Cervantes, it is the beginning of the best novel of any time and a curious interpretation about Rocinante, his horse.
Rocinante, Don Quixote’s Horse kinny, emaciated, thin and tired, the good horse is riding to the afterlife. We are in La Mancha, in the middle of the yellow Spain, old country of dreams: where else? Only the voice of centuries can explain what is the meaning of a skinny horse travelling through silent words. Rocinante does not represent the silly loyalty of an animal following its crazy owner, a knight out of the books of chivalry. Rocinante is the wise traveler who knows that the value of a trip is simply to learn to live and to die, and to achieve the afterlife in appropriate conditions to start again: it is the eternal return. Cervantes’ main character is Rocinante, because La Mancha is a desert of wheat, don Quixote is the ghost of its questions, Sancho Panza is the sad reality and its goal is to understand the meaning of the existence. It is not worth rebelling, it is not worth pausing, if it does not learn now, it will learn afterwards.
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Saint George, by Rubens, 1607
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Literature
Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
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n a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lancerack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than muon, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income.
The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as The Vision of Saint John, well as handle the bill-hook. by the Greek, 1608-1614 The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of not to stray a hair's breadth from the a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a truth in the telling of it. very early riser and a great sportsman. You must know, then, that the aboveThey will have it his surname was Qui- named gentleman whenever he was at xada or Quesada (for here there is leisure (which was mostly all the year some difference of opinion among the round) gave himself up to reading authors who write on the subject), al- books of chivalry with such ardour and though from reasonable conjectures it avidity that he almost entirely neglected seems plain that he was called Que- the pursuit of his field-sports, and xana. This, however, is of but little im- eventhe management of his property; portance to our tale; it will be enough and to such a pitch did his eagerness
and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels...
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Odyssey by Martin Cid
A writer is a liar
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ave you ever known a handsome writer? Noo ooo (you will answer), all of them are terribly ugly, po orly dressed; sometimes unshaven, and some others without a teeth (see Corta zar or Eco if you have any doubt). H ave you ever heard about a polite wri-
ter? Of course, no (neither me). They have bad temper, they behave eccentric and the list of drunkards would be interminable (recently, Saramago has said he is abstemious: well, every rule has one exception, but no more than one). Nevertheless, the majority of them have had no problems with the opposite sex and on the contrary, women have raffled their company (the same with authoresses and their relationship with men). A miracle? I don’t think so. I think they know how to express their feelings and how to guess the feelings of others, they know how to communicate and above all (and this point is essential when courting), they are specialists in entertaining and in resolving desperate situations. Years ago, I entered in a fashioned pub with some friends. We saw a group of nice girls and approached to them. But the repellent brother of the best one (a guy with round granny glasses, who seemed librarian) said:
The Genius of Alexander, by Elisabeth VigĂŠe-Lebrun, gift of her to the Hermitage in 1814
-Only if you know the beginning of the Odyssey, you can speak with these girls. Poor boy! Because I knew those verses by heart and even drunkard (sorry, but I am a writer too), I can recite them. Then, badly dressed and smelling to smoke (another vicious), I got my pur-
pose. T o honor that day, I leave here the beginning of this fantastic poem and my Homeric anecdote. If the anecdote is true, it is yours who must say‌ But, remember, a writer is a liar.
YAREAH Magazine Odyssey
Literature Translated by Samuel Butler
by Homer, 800 B.C.E.
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ell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who tra velled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he
visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as Jeremiah, by Michelangelo, years went by, there came a time when Sistine Chapel there to accept a hecatomb of m u s t the gods settled that he should go needs make back to Ithaca; even then, however, sheep and oxen, and was enjowhen he was among his own people, ying himself at his festival; but the love to Agamemnon's wife unrightehis troubles were not yet over; never- other gods met in the house of Olym- ously and then kill Agamemnon, theless all the gods had now begun to pian Jove, and the sire of gods and though he knew it would be the death pity him except Neptune, who still men spoke first. At that moment he of him; for I sent Mercury to warn persecuted him without ceasing and was thinking of Aegisthus, who had him not to do either of these things, been killed by Agamemnon's son inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to would not let him get home. Now Neptune had gone off to the Orestes; so he said to the other gods: take his revenge when he grew up and Ethiopians, who are at the world's end, "See now, how men lay blame upon us wanted to return home.... and lie in two halves, the one looking gods for what is after all nothing but West and the other East. He had gone their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he
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Literature
Ovid, From Rome to Eternity
The Metamorphoses, by Ovid F or Western art and lite rature, The Metamor phoses by Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BC – 18AD) is one of the best clas sical sources. It is a poem of 250 myths which has inspired Dante, Brueghel, Bernini, Shakespeare, Rubens and Kafka.
Although the majority of the myths that Ovid related are much older than his poem (for example, the famous story of Daedalus and Icarus in Book 8 has been found on 6th century BP vases), it was his poem which popularized them for ever. We must not forget that he was the most popular writer in his time, much more than Virgil, and a graffiti about Ovid has been found on the walls of Pompeii. In the first verses, Ovid maintains to be writing one continuous poem, not an
anthology of myths. For this reason and in spite of several anachronisms, the poem has chronological progression: it begins with the story of creation and finishes with Augustus on the throne. Furthermore, Ovid’s central idea is always the same: nothing is permanent. This principle is much more important than the own metamorphosis and some stories only try metamorphoses as an incidental element.
Prometheus, by Rubens, 1611
We could see the organization of the poem as a first part (books 1-2) where gods act like humans, a second part (books 3-6) where mankind suffers a cause of gods, a third part (books 6-11) where mankind is suffering a cause of themselves and a forth part where humans become gods. The introduction is the History of the Creation.
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Literature
Fable III
Translated by : Henry Thomas Riley
The formation of man is followed by a succession of the four ages of the world. The first is the Golden Age, during which Innocence and Justice alone govern the world. he Golden Age was first founded, which, without any avenger, of its own accord, without laws, practised both faith and rectitude. Punishment, and the fear of it, did not exist, and threatening decrees were not read upon the brazen tables, fixed up to view, nor yet did the suppliant multitude dread the countenance of its judge; but all were in safety without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its native mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing waves, that it might visit a foreign region; and mortals were acquainted with no shores beyond their own. Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns; no trumpets of straightened, or clarions of crooked brass, no helmets, no swords then existed. Without occasion for soldiers, the minds of men, free from care, enjoyed an easy tranquillity. The Earth itself, too, in freedom, un-
T
gathered the fruit of the arbute-tree, and the strawberries of the mountain, and cornels, and b l a ck b e r r i e s adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and acorns which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. Then it was an eternal spring; and the gentle Zephyrs, with their soothing breezes, cherished the flowers produced without any seed. Soon, too, the Earth unploughed yielded crops of grain, and the land, without being renewed, was Trees Newburgh, New whitened with York, by Asher B. Duran, 1849 touched by the hathe heavy ears of corn. rrow, and wounded by no ploughsha- Then, rivers of milk, then, rivers of res, of its own accord produced nectar were flowing, and the yellow everything; and men, contented with honey was distilled from the green the food created under no compulsion, holm oak.
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Literature
No Artist is Ever Morbid By Isabel del Rio
ere, the preface of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde. A declaration of what is Art, or maybe Arts because Wild uses this word in the Latin sense, and Art (with capital letter) includes Music, Literature, Dramatiza tion and Plastic expressions.
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‘An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.’ Wilde says and, yes, Art must be away from worldly Concerns since Art is looking for hidden worlds, authentic for the life of any person though not material or practical. ‘We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.’ Wilde keeps on saying and, yes, what we must admire in artists is the intention (sometimes superhuman) of dialoguing with gods trying to understand the real questions: Why are we in this world? What is the limit of good and evil? Or, even, does that limit exist? ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is an attempt to see our two sides and to dare to cross the mirror of our instincts and, then, to reach our primitive origins, at the time that man was born: why and for what? The question remains in the air, it is the same question
Saint Bartholomew, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1534-1541
that religion or philosophy try to answer but, in my opinion, Art is in a bet- My religion is Art, my philosophy is Art ter to answer because it is neither and Art my mirror: the mirror of Dorian Gray. dogmatic nor forget the feelings.
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Literature
The Picture of Dorian Gray Preface by Oscar Wilde, 1890 T he artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impres sion of beautiful things.
unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the The highest as the lowest form of cri- musician. ticism is a mode of autobiography. From the point of view of feeThose who find ugly meanings in be- ling, the actor's craft is the type. autiful things are corrupt without being All art is at once surface and symbol. charming. Those who go beneath the This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in surface do so at their beautiful things are the cultivated. For peril. Those who read these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful the symbol do so at their peril. things mean only beauty. It is the spectaThere is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, tor, and not life, that art really or badly written. mirrors. That is all. The nineteenth century dislike of rea- Diversity of lism is the rage of Caliban seeing his opinion about a work of own face in a glass. art shows The nineteenth century dislike of rothe manticism is the rage of Caliban not that work is new, seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of c o m p l e x , the subject-matter of the artist, but the and vital. morality of art consists in the perfect When critics use of an imperfect medium. No artist disagree, the desires to prove anything. Even things artist is in accord with himself. that are true can be proved. We can forgive a No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an man for making a
useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
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Literature
Edgar Allan Poe: a Thorny Path
The Raven is the most famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Its publication was difficult (all in Poe’s life was a thorny path). Critics accused him of using an incorrect English, good men of choosing a sordid subject, and good women did not accused him because they did not read his poems. However, this rhythmical poem has been a source of inspiration for future writers and its gothic atmosphere has deleted young generations. Of course, The Raven is one of the Seven Lucky Texts that we choose for this new issue of Yareah Magazine: ‘Seven to Seven’.
The Raven
First published in 1845
O
nce upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door Only this, and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Winter landscape with a
Nameless here for ever- bird, by Bruegel the Elder, 1565 more. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
YAREAH Magazine So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating `'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is, and nothing more,' Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, `Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!' This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!' Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. `Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; 'Tis the wind and nothing more!' Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
Literature flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, `Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven. Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as `Nevermore.' But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only, That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
YAREAH Magazine Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.' Then the bird said, `Nevermore.' Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, `Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore Of "Never-nevermore."' But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking `Nevermore.' This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er, She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. `Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
Literature `Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' `Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' `Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting `Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore!
Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel
YAREAH Magazine
Literature
Was William Shakespeare a brand? By Isabel del Rio
W
e know very little about the greatest writer of England. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and died in 1616 after writing 37 plays and 154 sonnets and being the most successful pla yer in London. His father was a glove-merchant, unable to read or write, and his mother a religious woman but unedu cated.
wledge of classical and modern languages, of weapons and ships, of medicine and laws, of courtesan life and mythology, of holly history and geography… If John Milton was able of using eight thousand words (a well-read person uses four thousand), William Shakespeare managed more than twenty thousand and most of them were Italian, French or Spanish terms, and if Jack London or Stevenson could speak about shipwrecks due to their trips, William Shakespeare speaks of them with the same precision but without doing His friend Ben Jonson claimed that an only trip on ship. Shakespeare knew very little about clas- Very many investigators ask if William sical languages because he had a basic Shakespeare was the simple actor born education. His daughter Judith signed in Stratford-upon-Avon that we supwith a cross and his daughter Susanna pose or if William Shakespeare was can sign but cannot write a letter. We another person or even more than one: have only six signs of Shakespeare in his plays were published seven years four different documents, the signs are after his death and never before. not of the same hand and experts In these circumstances, there are very argue that his lawyers were who signed many candidates to be Shakespeare: these documents by him and –what it Chistopher Marlowe; Francis Bacon; is worst- we do not have any manus- Edward the Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; cript by him and the list of his posses- and even the Queen Elisabeth. sions included on his will do not say Precisely, it was her, Queen Elisabeth, anything about he had an only book. who was very interested in promoting However, his works show spread kno- the English culture as a way of impro-
ving the English national feeling in a time where England was a threaten country, with very many internal and external problems. Yes, I can image her with a team of writers planning the next famous play, the same as today screen players do in Hollywood. Nothing new on the earth!!! William Shakespeare’s tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, King Lear, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline. William Shakespeare’s histories: King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VIII. Main William Shakespeare’s comedies: All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor , A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Winte-
YAREAH Magazine r's Tale. ‘To be, or not to be’ is the beginning of a soliloquy from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (written about 1600), Act
Hamlet
Literature III, Scene 1. It is the most famous good since a master piece must have quote from the play and probably, in different levels of understanding… See world literature. However, there is di- the yours!! sagreement on its meaning, that is
To Be or Not to Be
by William Shakespeare, 1600
T
o be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrage ous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of trou bles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his Quietus make With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will, The heart-ache, and the And makes us rather thousand Natural shocks bear those ills we That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis have, a consummation Than fly to others Devoutly to be wished. that we know not of. To die to sleep, Thus Conscience To sleep, perchance to does make Cowards Dream; Ay, there's the of us all, rub, Venus at a Mirror, And thus the Native by Rubens, 1615 For in that sleep of hue of Resolution death, what dreams may come, Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, And enterprises of great pitch and moment, Must give us pause. There's the respect With this regard their Currents turn awry, That makes Calamity of so long life: And lose the name of Action. Soft you now, For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time, The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely, Be all my sins remembered. The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
YAREAH Magazine
7 Painters of Luck
ARTS/ARTE
By Isabel del Rio
I
f we speak about the seven best painters of the History, it would be easy the selection. In a chronolo gical order we would name: Leonardo da Vinci, since he established the geometrical perspective; Caravaggio and his perfect contrasts between light and darkness; Velazquez’ magic atmosphere; Rem brandt’s naturalism; Goya and his constantly seeking of new themes and shapes; Picasso because he is the last classic painter, that one who takes up the old tradition in the best possible synthesis; and Rothko (yes, I know this last election is questionable) but the difficult way of the abs traction that Kandinsky star ted reaches the top with him.
happy person and successful artist who run a big studio in Antwer p. He painted to nobility, priests and art collect o r s throughout Europe and he was a humanist scholar and diplomat. He was knighted by Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England, while made love with However, this issue of Yareah maga- his beautiful last wife, Hélène Fourzine (19) is not dedicated to the Seven ment (she inspired the voluptuous fiBest Painters but to the Seven Painters gures of The Three Graces). However, who has had Luck on their brush… or Rubens is not the painter who gives me maybe in their smile… or in the lucky luck but The Greek (Domenico Theoinheritance that we have received of tocopuli), a painter and architect of the them: the election is now complicate Spanish Renaissance. but that does not scare us because Art The Greek’ has been present in very is not a silly knowledge. many nice events of my life and his exTo me, a lucky painter was Rubens, a pressionist full-color paintings have
Michelangelo painted by Giulio Bonasone, 1546
gladdened my days for my childhood, when I spent some wonderful summers in a house near the Mediterranean Sea, with a living room decorated with copies of his works. Yareah magazine has its lucky painter too and she is Sabela Baña (no doubt), a current Spanish abstract artist who has accompanied this magazine from
YAREAH Magazine the very beginning, with her texts and geometrical compositions of personal colors. And how about Michelangelo Buonarroti? Well, his life was painful (day and night quarreling with that stingy Pope called Julius II) but it is impossible do not admire his frescos, charcoals or sculptures (think of his David) without feeling the greatness of the human being and pride in belonging to its History. The same happens with Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, favorite artist (and friend) of the queen Maria Antoinette. She suffered threats and harassment after the queen was guillotined but far from the Revolutionary France, she triumphed again and she has left us the most beautiful portraits of the Russian, German and England society, all of them different, all unique. Now, we have five lucky painters but we need seven, since seven is the lucky number. Last night, when I was preparing this article and thinking about what I would say, I was in a bar with
ARTS ams.’ ‘I agree,’ our partner Zara claimed, ‘he is the most suitable artist to feel like eating, dancing, drinking… and other lucky actions. He should be one of our lucky painters of this month.’ Therefore the joy of living was the main reason for them to choose and artist and following this thought, the name of Asher B. Duran grew rapidly. He was an American painter from the 19th century who praised Nature and Self Portrait by Peter mankind as a Paul Rubens 1623 part of it. It is some other members of the magazine team, all of them very fond of sure that an artist so hopeful in our futalking and laughing in the pubs or in ture must give good luck. the old typical taverns. I asked them Then, we have the Seven Lucky Painand Martin Cid, our editor, said quickly: ters of this issue, those Seven who will ‘Bruegel. To me, a lucky painter is Pie- illustrate our text and pages, those ter Bruegel, the Elder, since he has Seven who will accompany us in this painted the most perfect taverns that a difficult way of thinking about Literaperson can imagine in its sweetest dre- ture and Art.
YAREAH Magazine
ARTS/ARTE
Interview with Rococo painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun By Isabel del Rio
Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun is famous worldwide for having been the painter of Queen Marie Antoinette of France. She was buried in Louveciennes on March 30, 1842, under a tombstone where she had ordered to engrave "I rest at last". Today, after so long and thanks to the ef forts made by the team of "The Girls of Oil", she has temporarily returned from retirement and she has granted an exclusive interview to talk about the lights and shadows of her busy life.
Q
uestion – Was your ca reer so complicated and exhausting as to engrave on your tombstone "I rest at last�? Vigee-Lebrun - Yes, no doubt. My father, who was also a painter, died when I was 12 and my family was in a precarious economic situation. My mother, who was a woman of extraordinary beauty, remarried to resolve the situation but I, as I had a great affection for the memory of my father, I decided to follow his footsteps and to become independent, to honor his devotion to the art and as a small act of rebellion against a stepfather who I never finished to admit. At 16, I already had my own workshop in Paris. Then, everything was rather chaotic and I was involved in one of the most turbulent periods in history: the French Revolution of 1789. It was a social and cultural change and I was forced to live struggles, wars, an exile and ... even a divorce!
Question - What do you mean by "even a divorce"? Do you blame to the terrible events in 1791, which led king Louis XVI to the guillotine, of the crisis of your marriage? I married Pierre in 1776 and now, I guess I ought to remain free to develop my work but then, I was an ambitious young woman who wanted to be internationally known as the best portrait painter of the moment. However, loneliness eats into my soul and I changed my plans. The early years of marriage were good, we travelled a lot and that helped me to develop my painting. The trip we made to the Netherlands, for example, it was crucial for me because I studied in depth the work of the Flemish school. In addition, my daughter Julia was born. Afterwards, our relations cooled, partly because my pace of work. Everyone wanted a Vigee-Lebrun portrait and I have three daily sessions of customers posing for me. My health deteriorated and the digestions were bad because of nervousness: Pierre and I hardly met.
We could have taken the lives of so many distant bourgeois couples, but when they killed the king and the queen, my protector, was imprisoned, I suffered harassment and attacks. Pierre was frightened and he did not protect me or accompanied me in exile. Alone, I ran away with my daughter. Question - In any case, Pierre, an art dealer, helped you in your beginnings. Was your profession a factor to consider when you accepted him as husband? Vigee-Lebrun - Absolutely not. His profession damaged the mien. When I became a member of the Academy of Arts in France, I had many opponents. Not because of the quality of my work (as it has been repeated later) or for being a woman (the Academy already had other feminine members) but by the profession of my husband. They did not like a person who negotiated with what they consider non-negotiable: Art. Question - What was Queen Marie Antoinette of France like?
YAREAH Magazine Vigee-Lebrun - A remarkable lady and very well prepared. On the contrary to the superficial and frivolous image that the "children of the revolution" have passed. But, of course, they had to lie to justify her murder. The queen promoted many talented feminine artists, a generation of women who fell into obscurity after 1789. French Revolution Equality meant that women were also guillotined, nothing more. Question - What about the exile? Those years were artistically positive, you even painted Byron, the Romantic poet. Vigee-Lebrun - Yes, a whole character Lord Byron. I painted very many important people, also the Russian royal family. I saw beautiful places and I met clever people but they were sad years away from home too. I longed for Paris. Question - But you came back, and by popular acclaim. How did you find the Paris of Napoleon? Vigee-Lebrun - I did not like. Napoleon and his cronies treated me with respect and orders continued but the world was upside down. I count these "before and after" in my autobiography published in 1835. I recommend it to anyone who wants to know how an artist lived before and after those murderers, called ‘sans culottes’, broke into history. Question - It is clear that you do not have very good opinion of them. Were you able to forgive over the years?
ARTS
Self Portrait by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun,1790
Vigee-Lebrun- I am Catholic but I remember them with horror. They killed my friends and acquaintances. I do not know why current people admire that revolution so much. Equality was a complete fiction. Isabel del Rio explains very well all those historical falsehoods in her book "The Girls of Oil, women painters and sculptors before 1789" and she has been kind enough to include a cover
page with a picture of mine: my “Self-Portrait with Straw Hat”. And so, Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun said goodbye, with Rococo courtesy, pride of having been one of the greatest painters of old times. It was a placid afternoon in Paris ... a Lebrun afternoon.
YAREAH Magazine Issue 20. January 2012
Murillo Mark Twain