Rene Char: Night chimera

Congé au Vent (Wind Away)

   Camped in the hillsides near the village are fields of mimosa. During the gathering season, it may happen that, some distance away, you meet an extremely sweet-smelling girl whose arms have been busy during the day among the fragile branches. Like a lamp with a bright nimbus of perfume, she goes her way, her back to the setting sun.

   To speak to her would be sacrilege.

   The grass crushed beneath her slippers. Give her right of way. You may be lucky enough to make out on her lips the chimera of the damp of night.

René Char, from Fureur et Mystère (1948)

A native of Provence, the poet René Char (1907-1988) had the gift of capturing expansiveness in the small frame of verse. It was freedom he valued, and he invited the reader to walk in the “great spaces of the self”, uniting the universal and the deeply personal.

Originally part of the French surrealist movement, Char reflected the complexities of the “fury and mystery” of World War II in occupied France. Directness and passion are coded into the landscape of his descriptive flow. For Char was no mere wordsmith: he was a man of action and astonishing bravery, commanding a Resistance cell from Céreste in the eastern Luberon.

The short prose-poem Congé au Vent  appears in René Char, Selected Poems, edited by Mary Ann Caws and Tina Jolas (pub. New Directions, New York). This is a superb introduction to his work, with English translations and the original on opposite pages.

You only have to go as far as the title of Congé au Vent to get a taste of Char’s wordplay – and the delicacy of these excellent translations. Wind Away is the English title, which is perhaps too lyrical quite to capture the holiday or 'day off' sense of “congé” – I think Off in the Wind, the more literal translation, would work better for me.

But to quibble is to engage, and that was above all, what René Char intended his poetry to do.

The painting used to illustrate the poem is Long Shadows – Provence by Maryanne Jacobsen which I’ve written about here. The richness of the evening colours and the path leading on seem to catch the essence of Char’s words. If you would like to find out more about the Surrealist Movement, there is an excellent article here on Artsy.net.

Long Shadows - Provence

This gorgeous oil painting by Maryanne Jacobsen is called Long Shadows - Provence. The scene with its subtle and skilled use of blue and orange arrested me as soon as I glimpsed it unexpectedly – for it depicts the side of our property and the track that leads up towards the road into the village.

There, on the right is the fountain and what was once a drinking trough for horses and other animals; to the left is the side of the main farmhouse. It is astonishingly true to life, but what Maryanne has captured better than any photograph is the depth of colour and the way the flames of sunset in the west are thrown against the rising land. The contrast deepens the indigo and purple as evening sinks into darkness.

An ex-dancer and artistic director of a ballet company, Maryanne Jacobsen lives in Florida and is rapidly building a reputation as an artist. Her work has been juried into the annual exhibition of The American Impressionist Society, and she received the People’s Choice Award in the Venice Art Center’s fall exhibition, among many other accomplishments.

One of the wonders of the world now is the way we can all connect, across continents and seas, at the click of a mouse or keyboard. I discovered Maryanne’s enchanting art blog Paint Dance a while ago when I was searching for paintings of Provence.

We corresponded with a view to featuring one of her pictures on this blog. She asked me to wait a while. Meanwhile, she watched the three-minute film I made with family and friends last summer - and here, wonderfully achieved, is one of the scenes in that film. For somehow, she has read the true atmosphere from the patterns of light in a few frames of video.

With a true artist’s eye she brings a mysterious and romantic quality to the perspective through superb mastery of colour. The bumpy track seems to lead the eye up the path. Flecks of bright light suggest that even now there are still patches of heat on the dust.

Is writing or art more effective if you already know the place that the painter or writer describes? Possibly, that issue is double-edged both for reader and writer. How disappointing if the creative work failed to capture the very essence of a place! Alternately, when a portrait in paint or words succeeds – or exceeds expectation - the place in life will always glow with an extra dimension of understanding.

To find out more about Maryanne Jacobsen’s art, click here for her Paint Dance blog and here to see Long Shadows - Provence in the context of her site.