(no subject)
Je suis venu, calme orphelin,
Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles
Vers les hommes des grandes villes :
Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin.
[I came, a calm orphan
Rich only by my tranquil eyes
Towards the men of great cities
They found much to despise]
-Verlaine from "Le Chanson de Gaspar Hauser"
Saint-Simon thought he saw in this painting a confession of heresy. The unicorn, the narwhal, the obscene pearl in the locket that pretends to be a pear, and the gaze of Maddalena Strozzi fixed dreadfully upon a point where lascivious poses or a flagellation scene might be taking place: here Raphael Sanzio lied his most terrible truth.
The passionate green color in the face of the figure was frequently attributed to gangrene or to the spring solstice. The unicorn, a phallic animal, would have infected her: in her body rest all the sins of the world. Then they realized they had only to remove the overlayers painted by three irritated enemies of Raphael: Carlos Hog, Vincent Grosjean, and Rubens the Elder. The first overpainting was green, the second green, and the third white. It is not difficult to observe here the triple symbol of deadly nightmoth; the wings conjoined to its dead body they confused with rose leaves. How often Maddalena Strozzi cut a white rose and felt it squeak between her fingers, twisting and moaning weakly like a tiny mandrake or one of those lizards that sing like lyres when you show them a mirror. But it was already too late and the deadly nightmoth had pricked her. Raphael knew it and sensed she was dying. To paint her truly then, he added the unicorn, symbol of chastity who will take water from a virgin's hand, sheep and narwhal at once. But he painted the deadly nightmoth in her image, and the unicorn kills his mistress, digs into her superb breast its horn working with lust; it reiterates the process of all principles. What this woman holds in her hands is the mysterious cup from which we have all drunk unknowingly, thirst that we have slacked with other mouths, that red and foamy wine from which come the stars, the worms, and railroad stations.
-Cortázar, from "Cronopios and Famas"
Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles
Vers les hommes des grandes villes :
Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin.
[I came, a calm orphan
Rich only by my tranquil eyes
Towards the men of great cities
They found much to despise]
-Verlaine from "Le Chanson de Gaspar Hauser"
Saint-Simon thought he saw in this painting a confession of heresy. The unicorn, the narwhal, the obscene pearl in the locket that pretends to be a pear, and the gaze of Maddalena Strozzi fixed dreadfully upon a point where lascivious poses or a flagellation scene might be taking place: here Raphael Sanzio lied his most terrible truth.
The passionate green color in the face of the figure was frequently attributed to gangrene or to the spring solstice. The unicorn, a phallic animal, would have infected her: in her body rest all the sins of the world. Then they realized they had only to remove the overlayers painted by three irritated enemies of Raphael: Carlos Hog, Vincent Grosjean, and Rubens the Elder. The first overpainting was green, the second green, and the third white. It is not difficult to observe here the triple symbol of deadly nightmoth; the wings conjoined to its dead body they confused with rose leaves. How often Maddalena Strozzi cut a white rose and felt it squeak between her fingers, twisting and moaning weakly like a tiny mandrake or one of those lizards that sing like lyres when you show them a mirror. But it was already too late and the deadly nightmoth had pricked her. Raphael knew it and sensed she was dying. To paint her truly then, he added the unicorn, symbol of chastity who will take water from a virgin's hand, sheep and narwhal at once. But he painted the deadly nightmoth in her image, and the unicorn kills his mistress, digs into her superb breast its horn working with lust; it reiterates the process of all principles. What this woman holds in her hands is the mysterious cup from which we have all drunk unknowingly, thirst that we have slacked with other mouths, that red and foamy wine from which come the stars, the worms, and railroad stations.
-Cortázar, from "Cronopios and Famas"