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Pós-guerra na Europa, o Terror francês… e Leonardo

julho 27, 2006 at 10:22 pm (abstraindo, matutando)

Alguns comentários sobre livros são tão bem feitos que, além de despertar a vontade de ler os livros propriamente, já se aprende um bocado somente lendo a crítica.

Procurando informações sobre “Postwar”, de Tony Judt, descobri o comentário de Anthony Gottlieb no New York Times de 16 de outubro de 2005. “Postwar”, uma descrição detalhada da recuperação da Europa depois da Segunda Guerra, é tido pelo NY Times como um dos melhores livros de 2005. [Abaixo Der Hirte por Georg Baselitz (1966). O quadro faz parte de uma série chamada “Heróis” ou “Os novos tipos”. Segundo o texto do catálogo de um leilão da Christie’s em 2001, é o retrato de um homem aos andrajos e cheio de dúvidas num terreno devastado (em contraste à natureza sublime da tradição romântica alemã), provavelmente um soldado derrotado voltando para casa.]

One of the pleasures of this rich and immensely detailed book is its portrayal of Europe’s recovery from the devastation of 1945 as an organic regrowth. What seemed back then to be the twitching limbs of the dying was in fact the stirring of new life.

As Judt movingly draws it, the picture of Europe at the end of World War II is pitiful almost beyond bearing. Some 36.5 million Europeans are reckoned to have died between 1939 and 1945 because of the war. Tens of millions more were uprooted by Hitler and Stalin. In the immediate aftermath of Germany’s defeat, the continent was scarred with violent retribution, purges and outbreaks of what in some places — like Greece and Yugoslavia — amounted to civil war. As Judt notes, the war in Europe did not really end in 1945 at all. Neither did the persecution of Jews end with the closing of the death camps: well over a thousand Jews were killed in Polish pogroms after the liberation of Poland.

É horrível, mas faz sentido. A Polônia talvez tenha sido o país mais cruelmente devastado durante a guerra, e quando existe confusão não é raro a corda arrebentar do lado mais fraco, neste caso os judeus que sobreviveram ao holocausto e que tentaram voltar para casa. A respeito disso, outro livro interessante acaba de ser lançado e comentado na Magazine do NY Times deste último domingo: “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz. An Essay in Historical Interpretation”, por Jan T. Gross. O primeiro capítulo do livro pode ser lido aqui.

Voltando ao comentário de Gottlieb sobre “Postwar”, de Tony Judt:

Continuing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the fact that Germany was not always the source of it, is a topic to which the author returns often. While Germany quite rightly bore the brunt of the blame for Europe’s tragedy, other villains slipped away unnoticed. It was Austria, after all, that gave the world “Waldheimer’s disease” — the inability to remember what you did during the war, named for Kurt Waldheim, a secretary general of the United Nations who became Austria’s president in 1986. In a country of under seven million inhabitants, there were still more than 500,000 registered Nazis in Austria at the end of the war. Austrians were greatly overrepresented in the SS and among concentration-camp staff. Tellingly, over 38 percent of the members of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra were Nazis, compared with just 7 percent of the Berlin Philharmonic. And in an epilogue on modern European memory, Judt reminds us that the sickness that fueled Auschwitz is not fully cured. In 2000, criticizing a study of a wartime massacre of Jews by their Polish neighbors, Lech Walesa, the hero of Poland’s anti-Communist uprising and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, dismissed the study’s author as “a Jew who tries to make money.”

One of the starkest indications of the “Himalayan” task facing Europeans in 1945 was the destruction of the housing stock. Germany had lost 40 percent of its homes, Britain 30 percent and France 20. (In Warsaw 90 percent of homes were gone).

Gottlieb continua, falando da economia européia no pós-guerra e do plano Marshall. [Acima está Man in a Cap por Francis Bacon, uma composição inacabada usando uma foto de Joseph Goebbels, por volta de 1943.]
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Na edição de 5 de junho, a New Yorker trouxe Adam Gopnik comentando dois livros sobre o terror na França revolucionária. Um dos livros é “The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France”, por David Andress. [Abaixo Marat assassiné, por Jacques-Louis David (1793).]

(…) Andress sets out to demonstrate, the Terror was also a consequence of the reactionary encirclement of France by the other powers of Europe. Those powers had learned nothing and forgotten nothing; they had it in for Republican France, and intended to restore a vengeful absolutism to the throne. What drove the Terror was not a crazed intellectual desire to extend the Revolution to every corner of existence but a desperate desire to maintain its achievements in the face of opposition. Robespierre and his group were revolutionary butchers, but they were butchers surrounded by vampires. “It is necessary to maintain a sense of proportion,” Andress writes in his introduction.

O outro livro vem a detalhar o magistrado deste terror — “Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution”, por Ruth Scurr.

“Fatal Purity” is in its way just as rewarding, because of what Robespierre represents: the ascent of the mass-murdering nerd—a man who, having read a book, resolves to kill all the people who don’t like it as much as he does. (…) It is often said that terror of this kind is possible only when one has first “dehumanized” some group of people—aristocrats, Jews, the bourgeoisie. In fact, what motivated the spectacle was exactly the knowledge that the victims were people, and capable of feeling pain and fear as people do. We don’t humiliate vermin, or put them through show trials, or make them watch their fellow-vermin die first. The myth of mechanical murder is almost always only that.

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Para terminar o post com aspectos mais nobres da natureza humana, outro comentário que vale a pena ser lido do começo ao fim é Renaissance Man, também por Adam Gopnik (New Yorker de 17 de janeiro de 2005), falando de dois livros recentemente publicados sobre a vida de Leonardo da Vinci.

When I was a teen-ager, I wrote a science-fiction story about Leonardo da Vinci. (…) Sensing, sadly but with characteristic prescience, that the market in occult stories involving strange codes hidden in Leonardo’s works was essentially nil, I left the story unfinished; just recently, a new pair of Leonardo books brought it to mind. The basic notion—that Leonardo is so weird that he might as well be from another planet—turns out to be hardy enough to have survived even a century of scholarship aimed at replacing romantic, otherworldly Leonardo with historical Leonardo, a man of his time.

Gopnik apresenta “Leonardo”, por Martin Kemp, e “Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind”, por Charles Niccholl. O primeiro o sumário de sua obra, o segundo recheado de história social e especulação bem embasada. Nas palavras de Gopnik:

[T]hey complement each other almost perfectly: Kemp’s is Leonardo seen from the inside out, Nicholl’s from the outside in. Kemp explains Leonardo’s principles of design and his theory of the world from an intense knowledge of his mind and drawings; Nicholl shows where his ideas came from and who paid to subsidize them, through a broad rendering of his life and times.

O comentário de Gopnik é cheio de coisas fascinantes sobre a vida e obra de Leonardo, como sua tentativa de transcender arte e beleza na busca por um sistema universal de proporção que explicasse a natureza — o que, ele não sabia, dois séculos mais tarde seria chamado de força gravitacional por Isaac Newton. Já que lhe faltava uma matemática mais avançada, seus processos mentais eram visuais e geométricos. [Na foto à esquerda, a Ponte Leonardo em Aas, Noruega, construída em 2001 a partir de uma idéia de Leonardo em 1502.]

E Gopnik tem mais a dizer sobre a imensa popularidade de estórias envolvendo códigos escondidos nos trabalhos de Leonardo…

A cultural anthropologist, a hundred years from now, will doubtless find, in the unprecedented success of “The Da Vinci Code” during the time of a supposed religious revival, some clear sign that, in the Elvis mode, what a lot of Americans mean by spirituality is simply an immense openness to occult superstitions of all kinds.

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NY Times: He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t

julho 25, 2006 at 11:57 pm (abstraindo, matutando)

O New York Times de ontem trouxe um artigo que explica muito bem como os conflitos e agressões domésticas e políticas se escalam: He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t, por Daniel Gilbert. Virtualmente em todas as sociedades e religiões, a retribuição de uma agressão dá justificativa aceitável para fazer-se aquilo que seria proibido em outras condições. Mas estudos recentes mostram que o indivíduo se lembra das causas de suas próprias ações, mas somente das consequências das ações do outro — isto é, o indivíduo usualmente não se lembra do que fez para causar uma ação do outro.

In a study conducted by William Swann and colleagues at the University of Texas, pairs of volunteers played the roles of world leaders who were trying to decide whether to initiate a nuclear strike. The first volunteer was asked to make an opening statement, the second volunteer was asked to respond, the first volunteer was asked to respond to the second, and so on. At the end of the conversation, the volunteers were shown several of the statements that had been made and were asked to recall what had been said just before and just after each of them.

The results revealed an intriguing asymmetry: When volunteers were shown one of their own statements, they naturally remembered what had led them to say it. But when they were shown one of their conversation partner’s statements, they naturally remembered how they had responded to it. In other words, volunteers remembered the causes of their own statements and the consequences of their partner’s statements.

Um outro estudo conduzido no University College London mostra que as pessoas tendem a retribuir cutucadas com força 40% maior…

Although volunteers tried to respond to each other’s touches with equal force, they typically responded with about 40 percent more force than they had just experienced. Each time a volunteer was touched, he touched back harder, which led the other volunteer to touch back even harder. What began as a game of soft touches quickly became a game of moderate pokes and then hard prods, even though both volunteers were doing their level best to respond in kind.

Each volunteer was convinced that he was responding with equal force and that for some reason the other volunteer was escalating. Neither realized that the escalation was the natural byproduct of a neurological quirk that causes the pain we receive to seem more painful than the pain we produce, so we usually give more pain than we have received.

A tragédia aumenta quando os adversários não são do mesmo tamanho. Em 28 de fevereiro o New York Times trouxe Beyond Rivalry, a Hidden World of Sibling Violence, Katy Butler fala de como os grandes intimidam os pequenos, e se estes tentam retribuir as coisas pioram. E os pais confortavelmente ignoram o que acontece debaixo do seu nariz. Ano passado li um livro um tanto chocante mas muito elucidativo, A Natural History of Families, por Scott Forbes. O autor descreve como em várias espécies — inclusive a humana — a rivalidade entre irmãos é alimentada pelos pais que, conscientemente ou não, querem ver os filhos disputando pelo seu amor e cuidados. O que nos faz humanos é lutar contra tal impulso, mas ainda assim o impulso é forte e persistente, mesmo que os recursos para cuidar da prole sejam abundantes. Amor fraterno e proteção dos mais fracos são construções sociais da civilização humana — nada naturais.

Lá em cima está Isacco respinge Esaù (1290-1295), um afresco na Basilica di San Francesco em Assisi, atribuído à Giotto di Bondone. Mais abaixo, José atirado no poço, uma iluminura para o livro do Gênesis por Messire Jehan de Mandeville (1360-1370), J. Paul Getty Museum em Los Angeles.

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New Yorker: American Abstract

julho 25, 2006 at 9:54 pm (abstraindo, matutando)

Dia 11 de agosto próximo estará fazendo 50 anos da morte de Jackson Pollock. A New Yorker de 31 de julho traz um artigo falando da exposição celebrando sua obra no Guggenheim, sua vida e trabalho: American Abstract, por Peter Schjeldahl.

Born in Wyoming, Pollock came to New York, from California, in 1930. He was mentored at the Art Students League by Wood’s American Scene colleague Thomas Hart Benton. He soon found the Expressionist and Surrealist tendencies of the downtown avant-garde more congenial than Benton’s mannered figuration, partly because he was tormented by a belief that he could never draw properly. But a sense of nationalist mandate stayed with him. It’s an undertone in his famous reply to the German painter and pedagogue Hans Hofmann, who had suggested that he try working from nature: “I am nature.” The glowering Westerner who became known as Jack the Dripper seemed to speak not just for the country but as it, in person: the Great American Painter, at a moment that was hot for Great American thises and thats. His helplessly photogenic, clenched features, broadcast by Life in 1949, made him a pinup of seething manhood akin to Marlon Brando. It wasn’t even necessary that Pollock be a great artist, though he was. Unlike Wood, he countered the humiliating authority of European modern art not by rejecting it but by eclipsing it. Abstraction may have still scandalized most Americans, but suddenly it was a homegrown scandal, with nothing sissified about it. The macho pose, an obligatory overcompensation for aestheticism in the nineteen-fifties, ill suited a man whose ruling emotion was fear, which sprung from an anxious childhood in a ragged, nomadic family. But it sold magazines.

Acima está Autumn Rhythm – Number 30, pintado por Jackson Pollock em 1950. O original está no Metropolitan em Nova Iorque, seus mais de 5 metros de largura e quase 3 de altura ocupando uma parede inteira, é um quadro impressionante, a gente se perde dentro dele. Ao lado, Blue Poles (1950), residente na National Gallery of Australia, em Canberra.

Palavras de Eli Siegel em seu artigo “Beauty and Jackson Pollock, Too” (1955):

The unconscious, as artistic, goes after unrestraint, but unrestraint as accurate; and when unrestraint is accurate, the effect on mind is still that of beauty. And:—if his work is successful, there is in this work, power and calm, intensity and rightness, unrestraint and accuracy—and these, felt at once, make for beauty.

Para brincar de Pollock, eu recomendo jacksonpollock.org (este flash foi roubado de Michal Migurski, mas a vantagem é que permite trocar as cores de tinta).

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Este exemplar da New Yorker vem também com um artigo sobre a Wikipedia, que em março atingiu 1 milhão de artigos (a Encyclopædia Britannica tem apenas 120 mil): Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?, por Stacy Schiff.

[Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder] says that he is on a mission to “distribute a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet in their own language,” and to an astonishing degree he is succeeding. Anyone with Internet access can create a Wikipedia entry or edit an existing one. The site currently exists in more than two hundred languages and has hundreds of thousands of contributors around the world. Wales is at the forefront of a revolution in knowledge gathering: he has marshalled an army of volunteers who believe that, working collaboratively, they can produce an encyclopedia that is as good as any written by experts, and with an unprecedented range.

Wikipedia is an online community devoted not to last night’s party or to next season’s iPod but to a higher good. It is also no more immune to human nature than any other utopian project. Pettiness, idiocy, and vulgarity are regular features of the site. Nothing about high-minded collaboration guarantees accuracy, and open editing invites abuse.

(…) As was the Encyclopédie [by Diderot and d’Alembert, 1751-80], Wikipedia is a combination of manifesto and reference work. Peer review, the mainstream media, and government agencies have landed us in a ditch. Not only are we impatient with the authorities but we are in a mood to talk back. Wikipedia offers endless opportunities for self-expression. It is the love child of reading groups and chat rooms, a second home for anyone who has written an Amazon review. This is not the first time that encyclopedia-makers have snatched control from an élite, or cast a harsh light on certitude.

Preciosas instruções para curar soluços, via Wikipedia.

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SigSag

julho 10, 2006 at 5:01 pm (abstraindo, matutando)

Acaba de entrar em órbita o SigSag, blog da minha irmã tecelã, bordadeira, escultora, tricoteira, crocheteira, florista e tantas outras coisas. Eu vinha insistindo com ela que criasse um blog para registrar suas artes, pois muitas coisas ela dá de presente e assim acaba esquecendo do que já fez.

Cada peça tem toda uma estória, além da beleza dos materiais crus e do produto final, existe a inspiração, o aprendizado das técnicas, as conversas de quando se estava trabalhando com mais alguém. São lembranças tão importantes e que a gente retoma cada vez que olha para aquele trabalho.

Minha amiga Gisele foi quem me inspirou a convencer minha irmã a criar seu próprio blog. E agora a Gisele e seu grupo de amigas arteiras criaram um blog dos seus encontros semanais de costura, quilting, bordados e troca de receitas culinárias. Batizaram-no de Minerva’s Circle, em homenagem à deusa romana dos trabalhos manuais e sabedoria. Ao lado está Minerva et les Muses, por Jacques Stella (1640-45).

Quando eu era criança, minhas tias e suas amigas se reuniam semanalmente na casa da minha avó, e ficavam trabalhando nos seus crochês, bordados e maquinações. Era muito divertido, peças maravilhosas foram criadas nestes encontros, as inspirações se multiplicavam, as técnicas eram passadas de uma à outra. Minha avó fazia uns riscos à mão livre e saia bordando com fios e fitas. Ela podia tirar a idéia de uma revista ou de outra pessoa, mas ao invés de copiar exatamente ela criava os moldes com as próprias mãos e ia inventando enquanto o trabalho tomava forma. Quantas bolsas, toalhas de mesa, vestidos e blusas nós sobrinhas e netas ganhamos, uma peça mais linda que a outra. Felizmente ainda tenho comigo alguns dos tesouros criados pela avó e tia que já se foram.

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