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Introduction

 

In 1988-1989 Maria Korporal completed the project "The Song of the Earth", which consists of 54 drawings and paintings, each of these representing a musical work of Gustav Mahler. The Lieder aus "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" have been expressed in a series of drawings/collages of small size, while ten larger pastel drawings are dedicated to the Kindertotenlieder and the Lieder nach Rückert. Ten paintings, each measuring 100 x 210 centimeters, form the heart of the project and contain the most remarkable elements. They are inspired by Mahler's ten Symphonies, although it might be better to speak of nine and of one unfinished work. The idea of incompletedness has been caught in the tenth painting.

Gustav Mahler's musical works have both inspired and influenced some examples of fine art in the past. But here we have something different. As far as known this is the first time that Mahler's entire musical production has been studied and interpreted by another artist as a reality sui generis and has become as such the starting point for another artistic reality, expressed with very different means.

 

The starting point of the project goes back to March 1988. Maria Korporal explains: "I was reading in the newspaper about Mahler's Titan, which at that time had existed exactly 100 years. This reminded me of my first encounter with the genius, which had taken place five years earlier in the Dutch town Breda, where I was a graduate in Fine Arts at the St. Joost Academy. Out of curiosity I had bought a bargain record of the First Symphony of Gustav Mahler. I had vaguely heard of the composers name, but I did not have the slightest idea of the kind of music he had written. At home, listening to the first movement with their magnificent so-called Naturlaut, and the transformation of a childrens song into a utmost tragic funeral march, which happens in the third movement, I was deeply moved."

Remembering this experience in the spring of 1988, she bought a brandnew tape of the First Symphony. But obviously times had changed. Maria Korporal moved to Italy after graduating and got involved in painting and drawing. After doing eight large drawings with a literary theme, various paintings and some bookcover designs she got carried away by Mahler. In September 1989 she could put the last stroke on the painting-like construction which would have to represent the Tenth Symphony:

"For the last one and a half years I've listened to every piece of music left by the composer and read all I could find in the way of autobiografical, biographical and musicological analyses; I took long walks in a Mahler spirit on the Monte Soratte (where I found a studio in June 1988) and suffered demonic influences. As a result of living and working in this beautiful landscape north of Rome I was able to make a total of fifty-four paintings and drawings."

 

 


Introduction

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