Magnolia Feast

Absolutely click on the images. They really live only when enlarged.

Maria Thoidou: Της αγάπης το μετάξι (Love’s silk) (3'06"). From the album Της αγάπης το μετάξι (1994).

Επέρασε πολύς καιρός οπου τον περιμένω καράβι που δεν φαίνεται στη θάλασσα χαμένο. Μού’χε τάξει, μού’χε τάξει της αγάπης το μετάξι. Πες μου βοριά, πες μου νοτιά ανατολή και δύση μήπως τον εθωρήσατε αυτόν πού’χ’αγαπήσει. Μού’χε τάξει, μού’χε τάξει της αγάπης το μετάξι. Ήμουν ανθός στα χέρια του, στα μάτια του φεγγάρι μα τώρα που μ’αρνήθηκε το φως μου τό’χει πάρει. Μού’χε τάξει, μού’χε τάξει της αγάπης το μετάξι.

Long time has passed since I’ve been waiting since I have not seen the ship lost on the sea I’m keeping, I’m still keeping love’s silk tell me north, tell me south sunrise and sunset whether you have seen him whom I would love I’m keeping, I’m still keeping love’s silk I was a flower in your hands the moon I was for your eyes but since you have left me light has left me, too I’m keeping, I’m still keeping love’s silk

The Bernadette Method

It would be hopeless to attempt to condense into one post the long, complex and fascinating history of the mnemonic use of images. We have touched several times upon this issue whose literature is increasing every day (one of the most recent and best summaries is Lina Bulzoni’s La stanza della memoria. Modelli letterari e iconografici nell’età della stampa, Rome: Bulzoni 2001, about which we intend to write later). Emblem books offer precious examples of images that inspire meditation, direct the reception of the teachings and anchor them in the memory. In Francisco de Monzón’s Norte de Ydiotas (Compass of ignorants, 1563), for example, a woman meditates along the row of images in an imaginary church. This is the first image which represents with its Malevichian blackness the darkness of all sin:


The Jesuit Sebastián Izquierdo in his Práctica de los ejercicios espirituales, written in 1675 and later published in several translations and versions offered an illustrated guide to the Ignatian spiritual exercises. By clicking on the picture below you can see all the series.


Image meditation was a favorite method of the Jesuits who, beginning with the monumental Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (1593) of the Mallorcan Jerónimo Nadal (1507-1580) published a long series of such meditations that belong to the summits of printing of their age. Here is a page of one of them, the Via vitae aeternae (1620) of Antoine Sucquet:


Here we only want to record one of the examples of the survival of this genre in the 20th century. While it is much simpler than the above, richly elaborated models, nevertheless it is much more “physiological”, as it is based on the phenomenon of retina memory.

This means that the impression left by a long observance of a black silhouette on a white background will also continue if we close our eyes. This was the starting point of the “Bernadette Method” that spread quite rapidly since the 30s until the Second Vatican Council explicitly rejected its catechetical use.

The Salesian Bernadette sisters of Thaon-les-Vosges – and chiefly Sister Mary of Jesus – published in 1934 their first series of pictures, inspired by Father Émile Bogard. Soon they had a collection of four times hundred and fifty images on the life of Christ, the Old and New Testament, church history and Catholic teaching, and all this in the most various forms: on postcards, cartoons, games, maps and notebook covers. Meanwhile, the pedagogical use of the method was widespread and gained general acceptance.




One of the most interesting traits of the method was that it explicitly fought against the invasion of modern images which, in the form of films, posters, propaganda materials and illustrated revues penetrated into all areas of daily life. In the years immediately preceding WWII the sisters fought on several fronts against all forms of modernism, Communism and the immoral images of movies, with the weapon of these concise silhouettes where no superfluous detail diverts the attention from the central message. Their motto was Ut videant – “so they might see”. Their ideal spectator watched for long the images, repeatedly read their captions and the comments accompanying them – usually in a hard and militant tone –, and even recited them aloud.

Today the originals of the pictures can be found in the Museum Nicéphore Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône. The Éditions Matière has recently published an abundant selection of them which provides with a new meaning the motto videre est credere.

It would be interesting to examine whether there was any connection between the Bernadette silhouettes and the ligne claire trend of pre-war French bande dessinée working with clear-cut contours which has created just in these years its most successful series, the Adventures of Tintin.

El Método Bernadette

No se nos ocurrirría aquí ni intentar esbozar la historia tan larga, compleja y apasionante de la utilización mnemotécnica de las imágenes. Hemos tratado muchas veces de estos temas y la bibliografía a disposición del interesado crece día a día (por dar un solo título reciente recomendamos la lectura de Lina Bulzoni, La estancia de la memoria. Modelos literarios e iconográficos en la época de la imprenta, Madrid: Cátedra, 2007). También en nuestros libros de emblemas encontramos preciosos ejemplos de reflexión sobre la importancia de la imagen para actuar en la mente del lector, mover su ánimo y guardar la experiencia profundamente en la memoria. Francisco de Monzón, por ejemplo, publica en 1563 su Norte de Ydiotas, donde una mujer medita en el interior de una iglesia sin poder contener los suspiros contemplando una serie de imágenes. Esta es la primera de ellas.


Un paso más dio el jesuita Sebastián Izquierdo al publicar en 1675 (con múltiples traducciones y reediciones luego) su Práctica de los ejercicios espirituales, un método para realizarlos de manera abreviada con la sola guía de los grabados contenidos en el libro. Si pulsáis sobre la imagen podréis verlos todos.


Los jesuitas fueron los grandes impulsores de estas prácticas de meditación por imágenes, y produjeron, desde el inicial impulso del padre mallorquín Jerónimo Nadal (1507-1580) con sus Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (1593) y a lo largo de todo el período barroco, auténticas obras maestras de la imprenta, como por ejemplo esta Via vitae aeternae  de Antoine Sucquet (1620).


Pero aquí solo queríamos dejar constancia de un ejemplo de pervivencia de esta técnica en el siglo XX. Se trata, en cierto modo, de algo más simplificado pero también mucho más «fisiológico», pues juega con el fenómeno de la persistencia o memoria retiniana.

Es decir: la impresión que deja la observación continuada de una silueta negra sobre un fondo blanco y que, al cerrar los ojos, aún seguiremos viendo. En esto se basa el  «Método Bernadette». El método se difundió muy rápidamente por todo el mundo antes de que el Concilio Vaticano Segundo rechazara explícitamente su utilización catequética.

Las hermanas «Bernadettes» de San Francisco de Sales en Thaon-les-Vosges, siguiendo las indicaciones del padre Émile Bogard, se pusieron manos a la obra —en especial la hermana Marie de Jésus— y sacaron la primera entrega de imágenes en 1934. En poco tiempo tenían cuatro colecciones de 150 tablas (600 tablas) con la vida de Cristo, el Evangelio, la Biblia, la historia y la doctrina de la Iglesia; y en diferentes formatos: postales, viñetas, paneles, juegos, cartas geográficas, cuadernos… Mientras tanto, su uso pedagógico se iba generalizando y ganando adeptos.




Uno de los puntos más interesantes es que era un método que luchaba explícitamente contra la invasión de la imagen moderna, su maligna perfusión en todos los ámbitos de la vida cotidiana y la capacidad de pervertir las costumbres tradicionales que se advertía en el cine, la publicidad, la propaganda y las revistas ilustradas. Las buenas hermanas quisieron contraatacar y vencer todo modernismo, luchar contra el comunismo y la oscuridad moral de las salas de cine, todo a la vez, en aquellos años inmediatamente anteriores a la Segunda Guerra Mundial, por medio de estas sobrias imágenes en negro sobre blanco, donde nada despistaba del mensaje principal. Ut videant («para que vean», o «lo que hay que ver») era su motto. El lector/espectador tenía que fijarse atentamente en las imágenes, leer las sucintas inscripciones y los comentarios que eventualmente las acompañaban, en general de tono duro y agresivo, e incluso pronunciar luego esos comentarios en voz alta.

Hoy en día, los originales están el museo Nicéphore Niépce, en Chalon-sur-Saône. Y Éditions Matière ha publicado un libro con abundante material. Aquí tiene sentido pleno la expresión castiza: «ver para creer», pero nos tememos que los resultados no fueron los esperados.

Y una última observación: quizá vale la pena investigar la relación de estas siluetas con el desarrollo de la línea clara de la bande dessinée cuyo máximo exponente sería, hacia los mismos años, las aventuras de Tintin.

Istanbul

A great advantage of the Poemas del Río Wang in comparison to thematic blogs is that everyone can decide which genre he or she prefers to regard it. We do not know much about this – although we are curious of it –, and only rarely we get to know that someone reads it primarily for its Russian or Persian topics, for the posts on old prints and manuscripts or for the translations of poems. Petya, who is already considered our habitué, had been admittedly attracted by the travel reports. When some weeks ago he went for the first time to Istanbul, he also collected ideas from Río Wang, and after coming home he shared with us the following photos. Thanks a lot. It is good to see in how many ways people look at this city that we love so much.

Move the mouse above the tiles for the pictures and their captions. (This does not work in Google Reader). By clicking on the tiles you can enlarge the pictures.

Never come Monday

“The first one to notice it was old Capper Wambley. And Capper was a very important man. He was the knocker-up in the village of Polkingthorpe Brig—that is to say, he got up early every morning and went round with his pole, tapping on the bedroom windows and waking up the people in time for them to get to work. And this particular morning old Capper knew there was something wrong.

He felt it first as he stepped outside his cottage and coughed in the dark to clear his lungs, and looked up at the sky to see what kind of weather it was.

He felt that there was something wrong with the day, and then he decided what it was. It was still Sunday.


For a moment or two he felt fair flabbergasted at this, for he remembered that the day before had been Sunday, too.

«Ba gum,» Capper said to himself. «This is a champion do, it is an’ all. No doubt summat should be done.»

Now old Capper Wambley was very old, so he sat down on the edge of the curb, and after a while he came to the conclusion that what ought to be done was to think about it. So he began thinking about the very strange event.

«Now,» he said to himself, «it don’t seem reasonable and proper that we should hev two Sundays in a row. Let us see if we can get it sorted out. Now the thing for a chap to do to prove it, is to decide what is the difference between a Sunday morning and a weekday morning.»

Old Capper thought and thought, and he saw that the only difference between the two was that on a weekday morning he wakened the people up, and on a Sunday morning he didn’t.

«So, if Ah doan’t wakken the village up this morning, it is a Sunday morning,» he said to himself.


Soon the window went up, and John Willie Braithwaite’s head popped out of the window.

«Ah’m wakkened,» John Willie said. «Whet time is’t?»

Now old Capper could see that John Willie wasn’t awake, but was just moving in his sleep the way men did from their tiredness and weariness of getting up before dawn. But he knew it didn’t matter this morning.

«Ah just wakkened ye to tell ye it’s another Sunday morning,» old Capper said. «Soa tha c’n goa on back to bed an’ sleep i’ peace.»


Some people were inclined to believe Capper, and some were not.

«Now lewk here, Capper,» Gollicker said, «Ah doan’t but admit that it does seem Sundayish, like, but how are we off to be sure?»

Old Capper thought a while. Then he saw the answer.

«Well, here’s the way us can tell,» he said. «Now if this be a weekday, the mill whistle’ll blaw the fifteen minutes, wean’t it?»

«Aye,» they agreed.

«But if it be a Sunday, like Ah say, the mill whistle wean’t blaw the fifteen minutes, will it?»

They all agreed that was true. So they stood round old Capper, who had one of the few watches in the village, and they waited. They all looked at his watch and saw it said twenty to six, then nineteen to six, then eighteen and seventeen and sixteen. And the second hand went round and finally it said quarter to six. But no whistle blew, largely because John Willie Braithwaite who was supposed to be there at 5:30 and get up steam and pull the whistle cord, was still home and sleeping warmly beside his wife.

«Well,» old Capper says, «that shows it maun be a Sunday again, and now ye can all away hoam and get another hour’s sleep.»


Old Capper went off home himself, and was just making himself a little bit of breakfast, when Rowlie Helliker came in.

«Capper,» Rowlie said, «Ah hear that tha discovered this is another Sunday.»

«Aye, that’s soa,» Capper replied.

«Well,» Rowlie went on, «isn’t hewing two Sundays in a row just a varry little bit irregular, as tha maught say?»

«It is that, lad,» Capper told him. «But tha maun remember us is living in varry unusual times.»


«Piffle,» said Mr. Bloggs.

«Oh, aye?» asked Sam, his dander getting up. «Can tha tell me what day it is now i’ Japan?»

«Its Monday,» Mr. Bloggs said.

«Oh, pardon me, Mr. Bloggs,» the schoolmaster said «Just as a matter of academic accuracy…» and then he studied his watch carefully «but in Japan now it is Tuesday.»

«Tuesday?» roared Mr. Bloggs.

«There, tha sees,» Sam said. «There don’t seem to me to be noa sense to this day stuff. If it’s Monday, as tha says’ down i’ Greenwich; and if it’s Tuesday, as t’schoolmeaster says, i’ Japan; then Ah say it’s just as liable to be Sunday up here.»

«Nonsense,» yelled Mr. Bloggs. «I know what the matter is. You’re all lazy and you wanted another day off. So you call it Sunday.»

«Nay lad,» Sam replied. «There’s six weekdays to one Sunday, so it seems to me like it were six to one i’ thy favor that we’d hev an extra workday i’stead of an extra restday. Simply because tha lost, tha maun’t be a bad sport about it.»


«Fiddlesticks,» Mr. Bloggs said, now thoroughly angry. «If this is Sunday, then what’s tomorrow? Is it Monday or Tuesday? Or do we lose a day?»

«Happen Ah’m the man to clear that up,» the Capper said, rising to his feet. «Us doesn’t skip noa day at all. T’ thing is that t’ days o’to’week have gate tired o’turning, soa now they’re stuck, like, and wean’t goa no further they wean’t.»

«How ridiculous,» Mr. Bloggs snorted. «If that were so we’d get no further and tomorrow would be Sunday, too, wouldn’t it?»

The Capper scratched his head and thought a moment. Then he looked up quickly.

«Ba gum, lad,» he said. «Tha’s hit t’ nail o’ t’ yead. Tomorrow is off to be Sunday.»


There was only one flaw. The pubs had to go on Sunday closing hours, which allows no man to buy a pint of beer unless he is a legal traveler who has come so many miles. But this did good in a way, because many men walked the legal number of miles, and that way they saw parts of their own country they never would have seen otherwise, and they saw what other towns and villages looked like.”

Eric Knight: Never Come Monday, in: The Flying Yorkshireman (1942)

7 kms of space seepage along the national road 7, Siófok, Tanácsház street (112 km) – Zamárdi, Kocsi pub (112+7 km). Km numbers are displayed with the mouse. Enlarge the map.

Saints

While traveling from Buenos Aires to Azul in Argentina, wherever there was a shady spot or a group of trees along the road in the infinite pampas, we have seen again and again something like a small chapel or niche that we have first considered as a sign to recall the place of a fatal accident as it is often done in other countries in memory of family members or friends.


However, when we mentioned them to Julia, it turned out that we were mistaken. These were little oratories or sanctuaries dedicated to Gauchito Gil, the bandit healing post mortem the son of the policeman murdering him. Dead for more than 130 years, his unauthorized legend has not ceased to gain adherents throughout Argentina. Every 8 of January, in scorching summer, his grave some eight kilometers from Mercedes in the province of Corrientes attracts more than 250 thousand devotees. And the devotion of his companion, the San La Muerte is also on the increase.


Gauchito Gil is one more of those popular saints not accepted by the Vatican but gaining each day more followers all over America. Moreover, in 2006 his tomb received for the first time an archbishop’s visit. You should better listen to the whole story as it is told by Nieves Concostrina in her characteristic style in the program “Polvo eres” of the Radio Nacional of Spain, dedicated to the most curious funeral cults all over the world:

Figures comparable to these Argentine ones can be found in Mexico, where the popular – and unauthorized – cult of La Santa Muerte and of Jesús Malverde, labeled as “the saints of drug dealers” is quite impressive:

The cult of Jesús Malverde and Gauchito Gil is rooted in a social background which proclaims – as one of the several songs dedicated to Gauchito formulates – that “the innocence of the people is called necessity.”

Aby Warburg in 1895 among the Pueblo Indians

These images come to mind when reading in Aby Warburg: “laughing at the comic element in the folklore is a serious error, because in that very moment you lose the understanding of the tragic element” (Schlangenritual). Of course in the case of this newly coined folklore with its cruel iconography, laughing is the more difficult job.


The popular devotion to the bandit who was a benefactor of the poor can be easily understood. But the other figure accompanying it in the same sanctuaries, the Death with its scythe and other grotesque, emaciated and aggressive attributes can be only explained through a process of inversion. In a similar way to what Aby Warburg says about how Asclepius taught people to use the poison and image of the snake as a pharmakon, a sympathetic remedy against the sufferings and violence of humanity. This cult is also an attempt of the domestication of death with the means of iconography.

Santos

En Argentina, yendo de Buenos Aires a Azul, vimos cerca de las cunetas, allí donde había algo de sombra o arbolado en la repetida llanura de la Pampa, unas como capillitas u hornacinas que tomamos inicialmente como señales puestas para recordar el lugar de un accidente mortal, tal como suelen hacer en otros países los familiares o amigos del difunto.


Al comentárselo a Julia, nos sacó del error: eran pequeños oratorios o santuarios dedicados a Gauchito Gil. Muerto hace más de 130 años, su leyenda, poco certificada, no ha dejado de ganar adeptos en todo el territorio argentino y cada 8 de enero, en el verano abrasador, concita alrededor de su tumba, a unos ocho kilómetros de Mercedes, en la provincia de Corrientes, hasta a 250.000 devotos. También aumenta en Argentina la devoción a San La Muerte.


Gauchito Gil es otro de estos santos populares no aceptados por el Vaticano pero que van ganando cada día más adeptos a lo largo de la geografía americana. Con todo, en la romería de 2006 recibió por primera vez la visita de un arzobispo ante su tumba. Lo mejor es escuchar cómo resume toda la historia, con su estilo particular, Nieves Concostrina en el programa de Radio Nacional de España «Polvo eres»:

Figuras simétricas a estas argentinas que acabamos de mencionar se encuentran en México, donde ya es imparable la conocida presencia popular de La Santa Muerte. Pero también impresiona allá la veneración marginal a Jesús Malverde, tachado de «narcosanto».

Jesús Malverde y Gauchito Gil arraigan en un fondo social que —como se oye en una de las muchas canciones dedicadas al Gauchito— clama: «la inocencia del pobre se llama necesidad».

Aby Warburg, en 1895, con los indios Pueblo

Estas imágenes nos han venido a la memoria esta mañana al leer esta frase de Aby Warburg: «reír del elemento cómico del folclor es un grave error, porque en ese preciso instante se pierde la comprensión del elemento trágico» (Schlangenritual –trad., El ritual de la serpiente, México: Sexto Piso, 2004–). Desde luego, en el caso de este folclor de nuevo cuño, con su  dura iconografía, lo difícil es reírse.


La veneración popular hacia el bandido benefactor de los humildes se entiende bien, claro está. Pero esta otra a la que se liga en esos mismos santuarios, la de la Muerte con su guadaña y sus atributos más grotescos, descarnados y hasta agresivos quizá deba explicarse por un proceso de inversión. Leyendo a Aby Warburg pensamos que puede que funcione psicológicamente de manera semejante a como Asclepio enseñó a la humanidad a utilizar a la serpiente, su veneno, su imagen mortal, como phármakon, como remedio para una humanidad padeciente y violenta. Un intento de domesticación iconográfica.