flowering parable

scheidegruss

eine dunkle rote rose
brech ich der zum scheidegrusse
deiner liebe bluhend gleichnis
dornig zeichen meiner busse
dornen einzig hal mein lieben
scharfe dornen dir beschieden
ach verbieg, dem niemals wieder
ein rose blühte hienieden!

•

farewell

a dark red rose
I break for the farewell
your love flowering parable
Spiny sign my coach
thorns only keep my love
sharp thorns you allotted
ah bend, the never again
a rose bloomed here below!

reinhard volker

i don't think you could find a worse translation than this google one (unless of course you used a babelfish one). while i could somehow make some of the hoytema translations rhyme, i was at a complete loss here. i guess several reasons: german sounds less like english than dutch does? the translation would make more sense were it translated by someone who actually knows german? please feel free to try your hand.

in any case, this may serve to illustrate the fact that not having been around for these grand magazines doesn't always mean you missed something. this is from meggendorfer blatter, vol. 61, 1905. i scanned the image (on my very poor scanner) from the book i alluded to earlier, la linea viennese, by giovanni fanelli, published in italy by cantini in 1989.

note the chop created by mila von luttich. big M, then a medium-sized L with a teensy V attached fit into the M. this is still not one of my absolute favorites of hers, but i wanted to try the poem thing. she had the ability to embrace many of the styles that were floating around in those times, and still make them her own. more to come.

do you see yourself here?

SLOWLY: a plainsong from an older woman to a younger woman

am I not....olden olden olden
it is unwanted.

wanting,..wanting
am I not....broken
stolen....common

am I not crinkled cranky poison
am I not glinty-eyed and frozen

am I not....aged
shaky....glazing
am I not....hazy
guarded....craven

am I not....only
stingy....little
am I not....simple
brittle....spitting

was I not....over
over....ridden?

it is a long story
will you be proud to be my version?

it is unwritten.

writing,..writing
am I not....ancient
raging....patient

am I not....able
charming....stable
was I not....building
forming....braving

was I not....ruling
guiding....naming
was I not....brazen
crazy....chosen

even the stones would do my bidding?

it is a long story
am I not proud to be your version?

it is unspoken.

speaking, speaking
am I not....elder
berry
brandy

are you not wine before you find me
in your own beaker?

Judy Grahn

“Slowly: a plainsong from an older woman to a younger woman” from love belongs to those who do the feeling: New & Selected Poems (1966-2006). Copyright © 2008 by Judy Grahn.

when i was a young feminist judy grahn was at every poetry reading reading her common woman poems (see some here). i once painted the text of one onto my kitchen wall.

the universal library

the blossoming of access to the world's archives marvels me regularly. i've recently found some which probably everyone already knows about, but in case you don't, i thought i'd tell you.

this all started when i was looking something up in my various books about vienna 1900 -- i can't even remember what now, but probably related to all the printmaker talk... and in one book, all in italian, suddenly tuned in to the fact that all of my favorite images were from someone names m. von luttich, in something called 'meggendorfer-blatter.'

time for google, of course. with that help and a bunch of poking around, i found myself here. (i have to make a depressing personal admis- sion here, that i hesitate to reveal sources because of those who steal and claim ownership; do you lock your doors just because you know the thief will be back? well, if you do, others too can only come so close, and no closer. is this how one wishes to live one's life?) not only issues of the meggen- forfer-blatter journal, but many complete issues of pan, which i have always wanted to see, plus jugend, and numerous others most of which i had never heard.

treasures galore! along with temporary disappoint- ments; not one of the issues of m-b with those of mila's pieces from my book were up yet! I found numerous others, but i still like the first ones best.

numerous other things took me by surprise: by and large, these were quite different from the, say, french journals of the same time. i know it's satire, but were all germans of the time large, unattractive, devious and angry? clearly i've found examples of otherwise, but i am left with the feeling that what we are already familiar with from the ubiquitous dover books is the best and most beautiful of the lot.

each time you click on something and end up at a new page you are given the option of switching the text to english, but if you do so, it only lasts that one page. as that was too annoying for me, most of the time, i had no idea what i was doing. what else is new?

but be sure to note that there are links on most pages that lead you to other pages, many of which offer another group of magazines. there're so many things i've not yet seen, well, let's just say i probably won't be getting much embroidery done for a bit....

what i found to be the easiest way to maneuver was to click on the 'vorschau' tab to see thumbnails of all of the pages, and go in to the ones you want. many pages are text only, and that can get a bit tired going page to page.

now, what i'm not sure of what i'll do is whether i'll wait until the issues i'm interested in are uploaded to show y'all those images, or photograph them from the book, where they're really too small. none of the periodicals displayed are a complete run, but most promise to be at some point.

in any case, if you read french or german, be prepared for some surprises of favorite poets works published, or artists you've known as textile designers, like wimmer, also turning out to be illustrators.

i hope you find some treasures so i can learn more from you.

coming up are some additions online treasures to navigate. meanwhile, can anyone figure out whose signature this is??? -- thanks.

frogs sing, roosters sing

.蛙鳴き鶏なき東しらみけり
kawazu naki tori naki higashi shirami keri

frogs sing, roosters sing
the east
turns light

issa

as van gogh wrote to his brother, 'i think the drawing of the blade of glass and the carnation and the hokusai in *bing's reproductions are admirable... isn't it almost a true religion which these simple japanese teach us, who live in nature as though they themselves were flowers.'

what van gogh probably didn't know was that in japan 'precise rules had been laid down governing the drawing of animals and plants.' through a combination of historical documents and close observation, the artists were required to produce drawings that were 'accurate enough to satisfy a zoologist,' and in doing so revealed their closeness to nature, unlike the europeans who seemed to survey it from afar. 1

the japanese portrayal of animals and plants were true to life but not naturalistic. one found in them a deeper significance, a symbolic element beyond the artistic intent. as a part of historical religions in the area every living thing was both itself, and a representation of the essence it embodied.

in japan, the cock symbolized high esteem. it is also suggested that the bird acquired a religious significance as a representative of peace and the coming of dawn.

the tale of the rooster who made the sun come up is legend; the one with which i am most familiar is the story of chanticleer and the fox, which began with chaucer if not before. two rival inflated egos at the job of trickstering each other, to both the success and the failure of each.

to my eyes, the cock's greatest conceit is his beauty. how graphically dramatic is that bright red against the black or white of the rest of the bird. even in the more multi-colored birds the comb, the tail, and the attitude delight us, and make us laugh with bit of awe.

Is that a
rooster? He
thrashes in the snow
for a grain. Finds
it. Rips
it into
flames. Flaps. Crows.
Flames
bursting out of his brow.

How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren’t, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work

is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?

Galway Kinnell

from Another Night in the Ruins from Three Books. Copyright © 2002 by Galway Kinnell. All rights reserved.

* Artistic Japan

Turning Japanese II

This was the state of the art of printmaking in 1850,
the dark silence before the dawn of the Japanese
influence on everything:

Then the tsunami hit: and the stories
of the means of that onslaught are many.

Perhaps, since the woodblock prints were supposedly used
as wrapping paper on ceramic imports,
they were inadvertently discovered
by painters buying ashtrays.

(That's what they told me on the sightseeing tour to Giverney.)

There were the scholars, vendors, and pilgrims,
many of whom have been discussed here, whose
curiosity drove them to Japan itself as soon
as they could. They were inspired, profoundly awed,
and they looted the back rooms for whatever they could
for museums and private collections.

Extremely important, too were the Universal Expositions
which bloomed on every shore and brought
artist, craftsman, and person-on-the-street
into direct contact with the Japanese items themselves.

To explore the variety in more depth, check out this.

There were entrepreneurs on all shores (also previously
covered here), who opened shops, started magazines (or both),
to display and sell the imports; or in Japan where they began
to marshall artists to produce what the West wanted.

Now, I'm not saying that each artist pictured here was
introduced to Japanese arts and crafts in one of these ways.
What I am saying is that every single one (and all the more
who are not featured here) was influenced none the less.

No longer was the body's content as important as were its bones.
And all of the other Japonisme-y things: flat planes of color,
asymmetry, outlines. Consciously or unconsciously,
people had begun to see differently.

The language changed, and changes still.

charles
clive

tomorrow in wisconsin

art fecundity

I have just recently come across the work
of William Gorge, whose work is clearly
the result of the mating of the work of
Arie Zonneveld and the work of Frances Gearhart.

born in evil days

AS I STEP OVER A PUDDLE AT THE END OF WINTER,
I THINK OF AN ANCIENT CHINESE GOVERNOR

And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?

-- Written A.D. 819

Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What's the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,

When you were being towed up the rapids
Toward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.

You made it, I guess,
By dark.

But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,
And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.

Where is Yuan Chen,
the friend you loved?

Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.

Did you find the city
of isolated men
beyond mountains?

Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?

James Wright

it can't happen here

i watch these governmental fools calling out the national guard,
and have to ask, do they not remember?

lily pond: art detective

yesterday i went through all 968 posts and put the label 'detective' on all of them that did what this post and yesterday's try to do. if you see any that should be marked, or unmarked, please let me know.

to the left and below we have the utamaro image that eventually may have cost him his freedom, and then his life. next the kunisada print, done perhaps in homage. we've seen them before. at the top, though, is a new one to me... apparently jail didn't stop utamaro.

i'll let you know if i find that bird again.

the red rose girls again impress us with their hip-ness, as elizabeth shippen green has volume 4 of artistic japan propping up the child's chessboard.

maybe some day i'll be able to id some of those other books. this one, i happened to have.

and manuel robbe does it again, though in the reference print, the other print is reversed!

i'm certain that many of his prints feature reference prints of his other works; i'll let you know if i figure any more.

i was realizing the other day that i seem to have passed into a different phase. i'm no longer hunting for that print by arthur wesley dow or bjo nordfeldt that i've never seen. there aren't any more.

but now my head is filled with files which allow this kind of connections to click in my brain. so to see some similar posts from earlier in the blog-life, click:

DETECTIVE

(and ps--i've got a lot more in the wings)