introduction texts
Inspiration
Gerrit
Van Oord
Everybody
knows that artists inspire each other. They constantly present us works
that are the fruits of interaction between literature and music, between
a novel and a film, or between music and painting. In the most common
case, that between literature and cinema, it is inevitable that those
people who have read the book from which a film has been drawn ask
themselves questions about certain choices regarding the approach to the
story in the film. Also inevitable is the comparison between two
separate works of art with respect to one’s own knowledge. Despite the
fact that two works can be fully enjoyed comparing the one with the
other, often it is not possible to discern the concept of the
inspiration if the artist did not document the path he or she took.
In
“The Song of the Earth” we find ourselves contemplating the works of
an artist who frequented for a long time the musical universe of Gustav
Mahler. Also, the composer drew
inspiration for many of his works from other art forms, especially from
literature, for example the German popular poetry “Des Knaben
Wunderhorn” and Chinese poetry of the T’ang period (8th-10th Cent.).
Ugo
Duse, a great researcher and expert on Mahler, speaks in his famous book
about the “literary archetypes” of the composer, which were in fact
his sources of inspiration.
What
do we mean by inspiration? And how does it arise? Let’s say, we find
ourselves contemplating two works: the first one is “the source” and
the second “the consequence” or “the result” of the inspiration.
Be that as it may, the works remain two concrete and distinct realities,
in this case a symphony of Gustav Mahler and a painting by Maria
Korporal. We can easily imagine that a person who finds himself
observing the painting representing Mahler’s Eighth Symphony – maybe
an expert or a musicologist specialized in the music of Mahler – will
question himself spontaneously on the whys and wherefores of that image
and on the inspiration that [has] moved the painter. Whoever attentively
has listened to the symphony in detail, on seeing the painting will
consider himself [being] able to ascertain the starting point and to
recognize the paths taken by the brushstrokes of the painter. Soon,
however, he will have to change his mind and admit to being lost, still
before realizing it, in his own thoughts and in his convictions, which
do not coincide at all with the intentions of the painter.
Only
a few things are certain in reference to this phenomenon. Certainly it
can be deduced without risking too much that she who has realized the 54
artworks presented here, among which quite a few are paintings of
notable pictorial intensity — like
that related to the Eighth Symphony for example —
has been particularly influenced by Mahler’s music. The more we will
be able to judge the figurative works in the psychological sense as
representing the intensity of the painter, the more we will be able to
realize the influence which motivated the artist. It is clear that the
artist is not the only one to be so deeply moved by the music of Mahler.
This has happened to all those people who love his music.
This is not the whole point. The heart of the matter is represented instead by the fact that artistic ability and genius know how to manage a process of transformation that we are only able to imagine. We can admire very well a certain painting or drawing, but we cannot deceive ourselves that we understand fully what the artist has created with his or her “materials.”
translated by Maria
Korporal,
revised by Stan Ruttenberg (president Colorado
MahlerFest) and Patricia Ruttenberg
Inspiration - Gerrit Van Oord
Marianne Korporal alias Mahlerianne - Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Mahler, Cantor of the "Crisis" - Giorgio Boari Ortolani
Gustav Mahler - biography
Maria Korporal - biography