some works by august rodin

ما الفنّ إن لم يكن تَرنيمةً وأغنيةً مُدوِّية، تُعلي من شأن الحواس وتُمجّدها؟ ينبغي للفنون أن تُصنَّف وفق الحواس: فثمّة فنٌّ للعَيْن، كالرسم والعمارة والتصوير الفوتوغرافي والسينما؛ وثمّة فنٌّ لّلَمس، كالنحت؛ وثمّة فنٌّ للأذن، كالموسيقى والغناء؛ وثمّة فنٌّ للسان، كفنون الطهي وثمّة فنٌّ للأنف، كصناعة العطور. وهناك فنونٌ تجمع أكثر من حاسّة، كالشعر والخطابة وكذلك النحت، وأخرى تُشرك الجسد كلَّه، كالرَقص. حتى أبسط أشكال الفن، التي حلت محلها الفنون الراقية، نشأت من الرغبة في التلذذ بالعالم الّذي تُقدمه الحواس. للعالم الحسّي فنونه، كما للعالم العقلي علومه، وهذان القطبان هما ما تتراقص حوله كينونة الإنسان في سموها.

كتبتُ أيضًا؛ في عام ٢٠٢٠، من ضمن تأملات ما زالت مستمرة عن الفن: تكمن أهمية الفن في أنه العزاء الذي لن يقدمه لك أحد، تجربة لمس شعور الفنان تشبه الوقوع، صدفةً، في صدرٍ واسع يرحِّب بالنحيب الذي كنت تخفيه عن العالم، لكنك ترعاه وتحميه كطفلٍ أنجبتَه عن طريق الخطأ.

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Ring Verse, “The Lord of the Rings”, 1954.

Berufung. The Appeal. 1941. Arno Breker.

Djävulens öga (The Devil’s Eye) - Ingmar Bergman - 1960.

Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) directed by Paul Morrissey.

“The crimes of extreme civilization are certainly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarity because of their refinement, the corruption they presuppose, and their superior degree of intellectuality.”

— Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Les Diaboliques (1874), translated from the original french text.

"Analysis again. But where? How? Well, everywhere possible. Where unskirtable contradictions come to the surface. Where disturbing breaches of meaning trip us up amidst daily banalities, impossible yet perfectly viable loves, all kinds of constructivist passions that mine the edifices of morbid rationality... It can be individual, for those who tend to lead their lives as if it were a work of art; dual in all possible ways, including, why not, a psychoanalytic couch, as long as it has been dusted off; multiple, trough group, network, institutional, and collective practices; and finally, micropolitical by virtue of other social practices, other forms of auto valorizations and militant actions, leading, through a systematic decentering of social desire, to soft subversions and imperceptible revolutions that will eventually change the face of the world, making it happier. Let's face it: it is long overdue."
(Guattari, "Entering the Post Media Era," p.306)

"Dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs."

— Charles Baudelaire.

“A certain emperor always bore the fleeting nature of all things in his mind, in order not to value them too seriously, and to be able to live quietly in their midst. Conversely, everything seems to me much too important for it to be so fleeting; I seek an eternity for everything: ought one to pour the most precious salves and wines into the sea? My consolation is that everything that is true is eternal: the sea will wash it up again.”

Theodore Meets in the Wood the Spectre of His Ancestor Guido Cavalcanti by Henry Fuseli, c. 1783.

We three
When all these things are done
And the stream of blood
Has veiled the murky air
With paws of crimson

Which the sun sucks upwards
Then we shall dance
All thy blood
Around thy tomb

And over the piled corpses
I will lift my limbs
High with each step
And all the folk who’ll see me there

Yea, all who from afar only my shadow see will say
For a great king
All his flesh and blood
Hold high festival and solemn revel

And blessed is he
That hath children
Who will dance around his holy tomb
Such royal dances of victory