catch a scent of salt

1812

.亡母や海見る度に見る度に
naki haha ya umi miru tabi ni miru tabi ni

my dead mother--
every time I see the ocean
every time...

Issa's mother died when he was a small child. In his diary, this haiku is followed immediately by another ocean poem:

murasaki no kumo ni itsu noru nishi no umi

on purple clouds
when will I set sail?
western sea

In mythic terms, the western sea separates this world from the Pure Land. The ocean, then, is a barrier between this world and the next, keeping Issa separate from his beloved mother.

Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

OUR VALLEY

We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.

You probably think I'm nuts
saying the mountains
have no word for ocean,
but if you live here
you begin to believe
they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper and you can barely catch
your breath because you're thrilled and terrified.

You have to remember this isn't your land.
It belongs to no one,
like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours.
Remember the small boats
that bobbed out as the waves rode in,
and the men
who carved a living from it
only to find themselves
carved down to nothing.
Now you say this is home,
so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,
wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

Philip Levine

(c) copyright 2011 Philip Levine

MOTORCYCLE CRASH

DYING MAN (inner voice): Don't look at me so stupidly! Haven't you seen anyone croak before? Shit, is it this easy? I'm lying in a puddle, stinking like an oil tanker. I can't really end up here like a cow shit! Everything so clear! How they stand there gawking at me. The oil puddle...

DYING MAN (Inner voice): Karin, I should have told you yes-terday... This thing got out of control. ...I'm so sorry. Karin! Now I'm lying here. I can't simply... I have to... Karin, there are so many things I still have to do! Karin, Baby, things look bad for me.

DAMIEL
(speaking for the DYING MAN):
As I emerged from the valley out of the fog into the sunshine...
The fire
at the edge of the prairie...
The potatoes in the ashes...
The boat-house
far off at the lake...

DAMIEL and the DYING MAN:
The Southern Cross,
The Far East,
The Great North,
The Wild West,
The Great Bear Lake!

DYING MAN:
The Isles of Tristan de Cunha.
The Mississippi Delta.
Stromboli.
The old houses of Charlottenburg.
Albert Camus.

DYING MAN :
The morning light.
The child's eyes.
Swimming in the waterfall...

(click to see the scene)

VOICE OF THE DYING MAN (off screen):

The flecks of the first raindrops.
The sun.
Bread and wine.
Skipping.
Easter.
The veins of leaves.
The fluttering grass.
The colors of the stones.
The pebbles on the river bed.
The table cloth in the open air.
The dream of the house...

...in the house.
The neighbor asleep in the next room.
Sunday's peacefulness.

The horizon.
The light from the room...

In the garden.
The night flight.

Biking with no hands.

The beautiful stranger.

My father

My mother.
My wife.
My child.


from Wings of Desire

Wim Wenders and Peter Handke 1

when brittany was a place

gauguin stressed the need for firm outlines filled with flat areas of color. some call it cloisonne-ism, but i'd call it something else.

frequently, he used the same yellow paper for his prints as hokusai used as covers for his manga.

it is said he both used and was influenced by emile bernard. it is also said that the reverse is true.

with the advent of railroads and portable painting kits, artists rushed to the edges of france, to brittany, to pont-aven and beyond. artists from throughout the world, even japan.

As an artist escaping in search of “primitivism,” Gauguin was not the first to find Pont-Aven, Brittany. According to historian Caroline Boyle-Turner, the small French village had been drawing in artists since the early 1860’s. Artists were attracted to the region because of its strong local culture and religious fervor. The village, located on the Aven river, was populated by a group who, as Boyle-Turner puts it, maintained qualities of “a cultural past that was governed less by French culture then by a fascinating amalgam of Celtic, Druidic and medieval Christian folklore.” This blend of ancient elements created an environment where artists believed they could encounter a more “primitive” and “true” people.

As Gill Perry points out, this “primitivism,” while still in existence, had diminished by the 1880’s, the peak of Pont-Aven’s popularity among artists and the period when Gauguin was working there. Technical advances in farming as well as the continuing increase in revenue from tourism had helped to move Brittany forward into the modern world and away from the timelessness artists had come looking for. Thus, Perry asserts that artists working in Brittany were more specifically recreating ideas of the “primitive” they were in search of rather than representing the true Breton culture around them. 1

gauguin said, ""Study the silhouette of every object; distinctness of outline is the attribute of the hand that is not enfeebled by any hesitation of will." is this not the heart of calligraphy as well?

"Gau- guin paid little attention to classical perspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of colour, thereby dispensing with the two most characteristic principles of post-Renaissance painting." again.

whatever the context, the explanation, or audience, the impressionists, the nabis, and the pont-aven circle of printmakers, benefited themselves from exposure to the prints from japan, and changed western art forever.

love & destruction

max kurzweil, a founding member of the vienna secession, lived a charmed life, filled with love, sunlight, and the sparkling waves. though he may have been outshone by his fellows (klimt, moser), he was an enthusiastic contributor to the movement's journal ver sacrum (sacred spring), loved teaching as well as being a father.

or so it appeared until he killed himself in 1916 at the age of 49. he made this print of his wife in 1903.

kanae yamamoto was an innovator as well, being a pioneer in the sodaku hanga movement in which unlike the generations before him, the artist himself carried out the whole process of creating the prints, from cutting the wood to doing the printing. he also joined with others in the movement to start their own magazine, hosun (little things).

having come from a modest family, kanae was supporting himself as an illustrator from an early age. while in europe to explore the art movements there, he became aware of the socialist movements gaining strength, and when he returned to japan, he worked tirelessly to bring art education to children and the poor.

having developed the obsession, though, he began to ignore his own artwork. just before he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 64 he destroyed all of the woodblocks of his works with a hatchet.

(thanks to bibliodyssey for turning me on to kanae.)