Earthly and Heavenly Journey of Simone Martini (Green Integer) (Italian Edition) by Mario Luzi

Earthly and Heavenly Journey of Simone Martini (Green Integer) (Italian Edition) Reviews

• 
  Philippe

  Addendum 20.05.20: the more time I spend with this book, the deeper its dark splendour sinks. I am raising my appreciation to five wholehearted stars ...
  
  Mario Luzi, as quoted in the book’s introduction by Barbara Carle,
  
  “In the last book I wrote, Simone Martini, the great painter is called by ‘something’, he is called to return to his origins. It’s not only a question of nostalgia for his country, from Avignon to Siena, from the Papal Court to his city of painters, but it’s a call to his own origins. It’s a call to decipher in depth the meaning of his vocation. For he feels that there is a point art has not yet reached. He feels that art has merely reflected the world, perhaps glorifying it, but not surpassing antinomies and contrasts. He is a great colorist and his chromaticism has enlivened Sienese painting, it has ignited it. And yet he feels that color, even though so luminous is still difference. There is, however, a light that unites everything and he wishes to paint that light, he wishes to attain it.”
  
  This is a book about an ambiguous light, a haloed light that encompasses everything, also the deepest crevices of darkness and evil. Luzi’s mystical vision reminds me of Turner’s late works, of Jung’s intimations of 'a dark God’, on Hofmannsthal’s mute stupefaction expressed in his Letter of Lord Chandos.
  
  “That ambigous
  luminosity again -
  there it is, coming forward, coming
  to the center of the field,
  growing in intensity,
  growing in strength,
  of soul and outline.
  A vision? yes, a vision,
  what else can you call it?
  But it doesn’t rise from the heart
  nor from a dream, it comes
  - he knows this deeply -
  from the seed
  of a remote foresightedness
  of fathers, of sages. It comes
  to him so it may grow clearer as image,
  so it may be imprinted as image
  and his work may shine
  and bewitch him and capture him
  with its siennas , its blues,
  its golds. Oh, delirium
  of unearthly grace."
• 
  Mara

  "A moment
  of universal co-presence,
  of total evidence –
  things go into
  the thought that thinks them, they go into
  the name that names them,
  the miraculous coincidence blazes.
  In that moment
  – gold and lapis lazuli –
  help me, Mary, I will engrave you
  for your glory,
  for the glory of heaven. Amen."
• 
  Ben

  That face, that torch
  in time,
  which covers it, darkens it
  or suddenly rekindles it.
  It is there, it is in the air,
  it undoes
  its substance
  into light
  but it does not consume it.
  Your face that takes
  from every human
  face, woman,
  from every branch
  of the tree struck by lightning,
  it sips humors and aridity
  dearth and enchantment;
  from every scale
  of human pain a stream
  of mortality descends to it,
  it is aware of it.
  And it wins in this,
  its fragility blooms against immortal
  in this anguish.
  Be firm, be always vigilant.
  
• 
  Marco

  Un vero viaggio iniziatico.L'autore ebbe accesso a documenti e conoscenze particolari (insegnò all'universo della Tuscia), la modalità di composizione di questo lavoro rende merito ad anni e (d)anni che pochi altri avrebbero saputo mettere a frutto con altrettanta maestria.