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Inspiration

Gerrit Van Oord

 

Everybody knows that artists inspire each other. They constantly present us works that are the fruits of interaction between literature and music, between a novel and a film, or between music and painting. In the most common case, that between literature and cinema, it is inevitable that those people who have read the book from which a film has been drawn ask themselves questions about certain choices regarding the approach to the story in the film. Also inevitable is the comparison between two separate works of art with respect to one"s own knowledge. Despite the fact that two works can be fully enjoyed comparing the one with the other, often it is not possible to discern the concept of the inspiration if the artist did not document the path he or she took.

In "The Song of the Earth" we find ourselves contemplating the works of an artist who frequented for a long time the musical universe of Gustav Mahler. Also, the composer drew inspiration for many of his works from other art forms, especially from literature, for example the German popular poetry "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" and Chinese poetry of the T"ang period (8th-10th Cent.).

Ugo Duse, a great researcher and expert on Mahler, speaks in his famous book about the "literary archetypes" of the composer, which were in fact his sources of inspiration.

What do we mean by inspiration? And how does it arise? Let"s say, we find ourselves contemplating two works: the first one is "the source" and the second "the consequence" or "the result" of the inspiration. Be that as it may, the works remain two concrete and distinct realities, in this case a symphony of Gustav Mahler and a painting by Maria Korporal. We can easily imagine that a person who finds himself observing the painting representing Mahler's Eighth Symphony - maybe an expert or a musicologist specialized in the music of Mahler - will question himself spontaneously on the whys and wherefores of that image and on the inspiration that [has] moved the painter. Whoever attentively has listened to the symphony in detail, on seeing the painting will consider himself [being] able to ascertain the starting point and to recognize the paths taken by the brushstrokes of the painter. Soon, however, he will have to change his mind and admit to being lost, still before realizing it, in his own thoughts and in his convictions, which do not coincide at all with the intentions of the painter.

Only a few things are certain in reference to this phenomenon. Certainly it can be deduced without risking too much that she who has realized the 54 artworks presented here, among which quite a few are paintings of notable pictorial intensity - like that related to the Eighth Symphony for example " has been particularly influenced by Mahler's music. The more we will be able to judge the figurative works in the psychological sense as representing the intensity of the painter, the more we will be able to realize the influence which motivated the artist. It is clear that the artist is not the only one to be so deeply moved by the music of Mahler. This has happened to all those people who love his music.

This is not the whole point. The heart of the matter is represented instead by the fact that artistic ability and genius know how to manage a process of transformation that we are only able to imagine. We can admire very well a certain painting or drawing, but we cannot deceive ourselves that we understand fully what the artist has created with his or her "materials."

 

translated by Maria Korporal,
revised by Stan Ruttenberg (president Colorado MahlerFest) and Patricia Ruttenberg

 

 


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