Natal V: O Menino Jesus

Catena (Vincenzo di Biagio), The Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1520, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nova Iorque)

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Ó meu Menino Jesus

Vinde ao meio da Igreja

Que vos quero adorar

Onde todo o mundo veja

Ó meu Menino Jesus

Vestido de azul celeste

Eu hei-de aprender a ler

Vós heis-de ser o meu Mestre

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Natal da Beira (link)

Natal IV: Pinheiro ... e votos de Feliz Natal!

Paul Klee, Pinheiro bravo, Kiefer (1932 - exposto em Lisboa em 1972)

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«Há muitos anos, há dezenas e centenas de anos, havia em certo lugar da Dinamarca, no extremo Norte do país, perto do mar, uma grande floresta de pinheiros, tílias, abetos e carvalhos. Nessa floresta morava com a sua família um Cavaleiro. Viviam numa casa construída numa clareira rodeada de bétulas. E em frente da porta da casa havia um grande pinheiro que era a árvore mais alta da floresta.»

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Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, O Cavaleiro da Dinamarca (link para o texto completo)

Natal III: Estrela

(link)

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«Então uma noite, entre as estrelas do céu, aparecia uma que brilhava mais que todas.

- Esta é a estrela, dizia a avó.

E era uma estrela que nos guiava. (...)»

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Manuel Alegre, Uma Estrela (link para o conto completo)

Natal I: Rosas

George Sloane, The Story of the Rose (1902)

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«That summer the roses bloomed their splendid best. The little girl had learned a hymn in which there was a line about roses that reminded her of their own flowers. She sang it to the little boy, and he sang it with her: 

"Where roses bloom so sweetly in the vale,

There shall you find the Christ Child, without fail."»

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Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen.

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(link)

Imaginário

Annibale Carracci, Virgin and Unicorn (A Virgin with a Unicorn) (1605, Palácio Farnese)

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"This is a child!" Haigha replied eagerly, coming: in front of Alice to introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an Anglo-Saxon attitude. "We only found it to-day. It's as large as life, and twice as natural!"

"I always thought they were fabulous monsters!" said the Unicorn. "Is it alive?"

"It can talk," said Haigha, solemnly.

The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said "Talk, child."

Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I never saw one alive before!"

"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the Unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?"

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Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

Fantasia

Paul Klee, Miraculous Landing (1920)

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“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”

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Dr. Seuss

Arcádia

Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or Pastoral State (1834, New-York Historical Society)

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What, know you not, old man (quoth he)—

Your hair is white, your face is wise—

That Love must kiss that Mortal's eyes

Who hopes to see fair Arcady?

No gold can buy you entrance there;

But beggared Love may go all bare—

No wisdom won with weariness;

But love goes in with Folly's dress—

No fame that wit could ever win;

But only Love may lead Love in.

To Arcady, to Arcady.

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H. C. Bunner

...To retain the spirit-world of childhood

Beatrix Potter, ‘The Rabbits’ Christmas Party’ (c. 1890)

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"I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense."

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Beatrix Potter (via Myth & Moor).

Da esperança

Ernest Biéler (via Pinterest)

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«The transformation of despair into hope is alchemical work, creative work. And what all transformations have in common, writes Rebecca Solnit, is that they begin in the imagination.

"To hope is to gamble," she says. "It's to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty are better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk. I say all this to you because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. I say this because hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope."»

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Via Myth & Moor (os "negritos" são meus)

Resiliência

Wassily Kandinsky, Fragile (1931, Musée des Beaux Arts, Nantes)

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«The greatest glory in living

lies not in never falling,

but in rising every time we fall.»

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Nelson Mandela

Neve

Toshi Yoshida, Aspen (1973)

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«"Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.' And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about - whenever the wind blows - oh, that's very pretty!" cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. "And I do so wish it was true! I'm sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown."»

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Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Branco? Frio... mas quase no Natal

Pyotr Konchalovsky, The tree in frost (1933)

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Frost grows on the window glass, forming whorl patterns of lovely translucent geometry.

Breathe on the glass, and you give frost more ammunition.

Now it can build castles and cities and whole ice continents with your breath’s vapor.

In a few blinks you can almost see the winter fairies moving in . . . But first, you hear the crackle of their wings.

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Vera Nazarian (via The Dutchess)

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Caminhando...

Michael Sowa, On The Road

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«The distance is nothing when one has a motive.»

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Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

Natureza

Jacob van Ruisdael, Road through Fields of Corn near the Zuider Zee (c. 1660-1662, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)

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«O que é fascinante na natureza é a correspondência entre a ordem microscópica e a desordem global, o contraste entre a organização, com as suas simetrias bem definidas, duma folha ou duma flor, e o desenvolvimento competitivo e aleatório dum campo de erva ou duma floresta. O crescimento orgânico da natureza é uma competição entre estas duas tendências, entre a regularidade da poupança de energia e a generalização da confusão ou caos entrópico (primeira e segunda lei da termodinâmica). Mas a percepção destas ordens e desordens depende da distância a que se coloca o observador (…). Vista de longe, a floresta exibe uma certa arquitectura de conjunto, mas com a aproximação a desordem instala-se para finalmente a ordem voltar a ser recuperada na intimidade do close-up».

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Jorge Calado, «Documentos para artistas – As relações entre a fotografia e a pintura», p. 33, in Henriques, Ana de Castro, Castro, Catarina Maia e (coord.). 1993. Silva Porto 1850-1893: exposição comemorativa do centenário da sua morte. Lisboa: I.P.M..

Escrever ao Pai Natal

Wuanita Smith, Girl and Friends Writing Letters, illustration for The Christmas Letter (c. 1905–1907, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

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«Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."»

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Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).

Bom Dezembro

Jacob van Huysum, Twelve months of flowers: December (séc. XVIII, Ftzwilliam Museum)

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Bom Dezembro!