Dia X: «Ten Lords a Leaping»

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On the tenth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Ten Lords a Leaping

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

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Christmas Song - 12 Days Of Christmas

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Anthony van Dyck, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and His Brother Lord Francis Villiers (1635, Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, Londres)

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Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Lord John Townshend

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William Hogarth, Lord Hervey and His Friends (c.1738-c.1739, The National Trust, Ickworth, Suffolk)

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George Stubbs, Lord and Lady in a Phaeton (1787, National Gallery, Londres)

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Thomas Gainsborough, Lord Hastings, Governor of India (1783-1784, Museu de Arte, Sao Paulo)

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Thomas Phillips, Lord Byron (1824)

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John Singer Sargent, Lord Ribblesdale (1902, National Portrait Gallery, Londres)

Dia IX: «Nine Ladies Dancing»

Ernesto Canto da Maia, A dança (Séc. XX, Museu do Chiado – Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea)

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On the ninth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

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Christmas Song - 12 Days Of Christmas Lyrics | MetroLyrics

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Edward Burne-Jones, Three Female Figures Dancing And Playing

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Edgar Degas, Dancers in Light Blue (Rehearsing in the Dance Studio) (c.1881)

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William Merritt Chase, A Madrid Dancing Girl (1886)

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Paul Gauguin, La Ronde des petites Bretonnes (1888, National Gallery of Art, Washingon)

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Alphonse Mucha, Dance (1898)

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Henri Matisse, Dance (1912)

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Marc Chagall, La danse de Myriam (1966, Musée national Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice)

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Norman Rockwell, Chello Old Man Little Girl

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

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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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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!

Nuremberga

Alfredo Roque Gameiro, Nuremberga (1885)

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«Nuremberg is a wonderful old city, and looks as if it had been cut out of an old picture-book. The streets seem to have arranged themselves according to their own fancy, and as if the houses objected to stand in rows or rank and file. Gables, with little towers, ornamented columns, and statues, can be seen even to the city gate; and from the singular-shaped roofs, waterspouts, formed like dragons, or long lean dogs, extend far across to the middle of the street. Here, in the market-place, stood Knud, with his knapsack on his back, close to one of the old fountains which are so beautifully adorned with figures, scriptural and historical, and which spring up between the sparkling jets of water. A pretty servant-maid was just filling her pails, and she gave Knud a refreshing draught; she had a handful of roses, and she gave him one, which appeared to him like a good omen for the future. From a neighboring church came the sounds of music, and the familiar tones reminded him of the organ at home at Kjøge; so he passed into the great cathedral. The sunshine streamed through the painted glass windows, and between two lofty slender pillars. His thoughts became prayerful, and calm peace rested on his soul. He next sought and found a good master in Nuremberg, with whom he stayed and learnt the German language.»

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Hans Christian Andersen, Under the Willow-tree (1853).

Chuva...

Hasui Kawase, Rainy season in Ryoshimashi (1931)

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«Any proverbs about weather are doubly true during a storm.»

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Terri Guillemets.

vs. Cultura imaterial

Edward Burne-Jones, Angel

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«For every locomotive they build, I shall paint another angel.»

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Edward Burne-Jones

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E o anjo é dedicado à minha amiga Sandra que faz hoje anos!

Cultura material

Arquitecto Alves de Sousa - Ambiente, Estúdio Mário Navais (FCG - CFT003.024173.ic)

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«Rather than unreflexively adopting a lifestyle, through tradition or habit, the new heroes of consumer culture make lifestyle a life project and display their individuality and sense of style in the particularity of the assemblage of goods, clothes, practices, experiences, appearance and bodily dispositions they design together into a lifestyle. The modern individual within consumer culture is made conscious that he speaks not only with his clothes, but with his home, furnishings, decoration, car and other activities which are to be read in terms of the presence and absence of taste.»

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Featherstone (1991), citado in Woodward, Studying Material Culture. Origins and Premises.

Forma e função

Karin Larsson, cadeira de baloiço.

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«It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.»

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Louis Sullivan (1896).

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Carl Larsson, auto-retrato.

... renovar o homem usando borboletas

Rafael Araujo

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Retrato do artista quando coisa 

A maior riqueza

do homem

é sua incompletude.

Nesse ponto

sou abastado.

Palavras que me aceitam

como sou

— eu não aceito.

Não aguento ser apenas

um sujeito que abre

portas, que puxa

válvulas, que olha o

relógio, que compra pão

às 6 da tarde, que vai

lá fora, que aponta lápis,

que vê a uva etc. etc.

Perdoai. Mas eu

preciso ser Outros.

Eu penso

renovar o homem

usando borboletas.

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Manoel de Barros.

Da esperança

Paul Gauguin, Lane at Alchamps, Arles (Allée des Alyscamps) (1888)

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“Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”

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Laini Taylor.

Castanho

Ernest Biéler, The leaf litter picker (Ramasseuse de feuilles mortes) (c. 1909, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Berne)

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Castanho

Já não voam besouros no ar quente.

Foi-se o Verão embora.

É Outono agora,

tudo está diferente.

É castanha a terra

onde a pá se enterra.

É castanha a folha

que a chuva já molha.

O avô Inverno chega das montanhas,

com os bolsos repletos de castanhas,

e vai sentar-se ao lume da lareira,

fumando o seu cachimbo de madeira.

E para o imitar

(vejam o disparate!)

o neto põe-se a trincar

um pau de chocolate.

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António Manuel Couto Viana, Versos de Cacaracá, Litexa Portugal, 1984.

Ainda a tranquilidade

Vasile Dobrian, Look How the Moon Steps on the White Lonely Hills (Autumn series)

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«It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.»

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Marcus Aurelius.

Tranquilidade (e outro gato)

Thomas Bowman Garvie, Man Feeding his Cat (1891, Castle Morpeth Borough Council)

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“Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.”

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Dalai Lama.

Citação de Rod (para acompanhar um retrato de Biéler)

Ernest Biéler, Portrait de l'Écrivain Edouard Rod (Lausanne Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts)

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“No fundo de cada alma há tesouros escondidos que somente o amor permite descobrir.”

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Édouard Rod