Friday 22 January 2010

a tribute to Oriental Elegy

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I go from the feelings, and I think that what always interests me is just those feelings that only a spiritual person could experience: the feelings of farewells and separations. I think that the drama of death is the drama of separation.

In Japanese art there is a concept of mono no aware, sweet sadness, the pleasure of endings, of autumn and seeing a dying leaf. But for Russia, sweet sadness and pleasant farewells are not possible. On the contrary, in the Russian sense of elegy, it's a very deep, vertical feeling, not a delighting one. It gets you deeply, sharply, painfully. It's massive.


Sokurov




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43 comments:

  1. Aleksandr would be touched by your homage i am sure.

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  2. just as i mention Elegiya dorogi in another universe, you appear

    i cannot tell you what this means to me

    these images are so beautiful

    they evoke so much (everything) for me

    i am dumbfounded to see your soul - even if i think i have seen sunlight streaming from a chink at your doorway.

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  3. J'adhère totalement !
    Superbe...
    K'line

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  4. ...la tine e si mai verde...
    :)(:

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  5. Prin nopti tacute,
    Prin lunce mute,
    Aud un glas;
    Din nor ce trece,
    Vad un obraz.

    Cu mintea beata
    Eu plang si cant.

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  6. Je repasse par ici et une fois de plus, je dis J'AIME, J'AIME, J'AIME ! au risque de me répéter et d'exprimer ainsi mon manque d'imagination (pour une fois...)
    Un rêve d'absinthe et d'opium...
    K'line

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  7. Love how the writings and the photos go together, gonna have to check your blog out a lot.

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  8. Je seconde le choeur de K'line, j'aime, j'aime, j'aime...

    Ces images sont frappantes et fortes dans leur sublime coté subtile...

    Almost like under the ocean...

    But a wicked little voice in the back of my mind also was asking... is this what the forest around Tchernobyl looked like at nightfall the day of the accident there... ?

    And I would like to meet your muse one day, to ask her a few questions... like : Where is the fountain your ideas and visions spring from ? In a secret clearing high in the Carpathians perhaps...

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  9. Je ne savais pas que les photos avaient un parfum, une douce odeur qui puisse s'adresser au coeur à travers les pupilles ...:)
    J'aime cette couleur qui correspond tout à fait à cette douce fin, cette brume verte qui flotte dans les airs...
    Mon no aware... ! Maintenant, je connais... grâce à toi !
    Tes images sont sublimes et je me dois de te le dire à chaque fois que je viens sur le pont pour laisser flotter mes pensées en ta douce compagnie ! Je crois que je te connais, à travers tes photos, tes couleurs, tes choix de sujets... La brume a comme traversé cet écran et se disperse autour de mes doigts comme pour m'envouter !
    Cette inspiration qui te traverse et que tu communiques dans tes photgraphies... c'est très beau, raffiné, subtil, toujours à fleur de peau... Ton oeil s'adresse à moi tel une caresse qui vient me révéler l'art que tu as de communiquer tes sentiments et tes idées !
    Jamais je ne saurais te dire Merci pour savoir donner autant d'émotions à travers quelques mots, photographies et sujets...

    Bises sur tes beaux yeux Belle Roxana...

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  10. what jeff said esp the brume verte...

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  11. roxana, why can only a "spiritual" person experience the feelings of farewells and separation?

    and what, are you saying that autumnal feelings are not a big thing in 'western' sensibilities?

    not so sure, not so sure.

    khair...

    hope all is well.

    b.

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  12. how autumnal a post in mid-winter

    (am thrilled by those photos: they have the paradoxical limpid luminosity of a dim, half-dark under-water world)

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  13. love that mossy greeny colour, it gives the pics that surreal under-water feel, beautiful.

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  14. hello ! Beautiful Blog.Regards.Tony.

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  15. L'expression, dérivée de conscience, qui, à Heian Japon signifiait quelque chose comme sensibilité ou tristesse, signifie une sensibilité aux choses.Motoori voulu montrer que le caractère unique de la culture japonaise,l' être la tête du monde, d'autres nations étaient le corps ; en effet la conception du yin/yang; dernière chose chez Roxana Ce qui, pour Motoori, c'est l'esthétique qui se trouve derrière la poésie de la Manyoshu; harmonie avec ls prise de vue art du xx siècles;est la capacité à éprouver le monde objectif de façon directe et sans intermédiaire.

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  16. Michael, if you think he would be, then i am honoured.
    (of course i very much doubt that :-)

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  17. Prospero, dear one - you don't have to tell me anything, i _saw_

    and i know

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  18. K'line, un rêve d'absinthe et d'opium... oui, il faut toujours rêver comme ca, surtout maintenant qu’il fait si froid et nos roses sont fanées et les petites fées sont tristes (j’ai lu ton petit mot sur le blog d’Owen...).
    je suis heureuse que mes images t’ont fait du bien... je t'embrasse de tout coeur.






    Emese, da, dar e un verde din ala, apasator si plin de fum :-)

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  19. wie waere das auf Deutsch, Robert, die letzten zwei Zeilen? mit trunkener Seele / weine und singe ich...

    es ist sehr schoen, nicht wahr? ja, so bin ich durch den Nebel gegangen...

    ein bisschen Baudelaire fuer dich (immer wieder!), aber auf Deutsch diesmal:

    Wenn nicht zu zwein in mondlos stiller Nacht
    Wir Brust an Brust den Schmerz zur Ruh gebracht.

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  20. thank you, Inga! have you changed your blog?





    Tuesday Kid, thank you, you are most welcome, i am glad you enjoyed your visit...





    Owen, yes, as if under water, i have also thought of that... you are always so kind to me, with your praise and enthusiasm...

    unfortunately even without having a Tchernobyl, we have to worry about the situation of the forests, which is very sad. they have cut and stolen so much (illegally, of course) that we wonder what will still be there in a few decades.

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  21. thank you, Inga! have you changed your blog?





    Tuesday Kid, thank you, you are most welcome, i am glad you enjoyed your visit...





    Owen, yes, as if under water, i have also thought of that... you are always so kind to me, with your praise and enthusiasm...

    unfortunately even without having a Tchernobyl, we have to worry about the situation of the forests, which is very sad. they have cut and stolen so much (illegally, of course) that we wonder what will still be there in a few decades.

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  22. Jeff, et moi aussi je dois le redire, a quel point tes paroles m'ont touchée... et je t’imagine la tête perdue dans cette brume fine, comme tu dis :-) mais quand tu en sortiras, tu vas nous offrir de nouveau ta lumière extraordinaire, qui baigne les feuilles et caresse l’écorce des arbres...
    je ne sais pas dans quelle mesure les images laissent transparaître la personnalité du photographe, mais c’est vrai qu’elles en disent beaucoup sur ses rêves et sa manière de „sentir” le monde. je réfléchis à ça chaque fois que je viens chez toi...

    Bises, cher Jeff pour qui la vie est toujours une folle danse...




    swiss, the brume verte is actually one (imaginary) scenery trait i relate to Scotland :-)

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  23. hello, b, if you could ask Sokurov that, i don't know, i can only offer my interpretation: i think he means that only a "spiritual" person (though it still remains to be seen what exact word he used for that in Russian) is inclined to pay attention (or understand, or feel) the metaphysical implications of farewells, that they are not only a simple departure but tell something more profound about loss and human destiny.

    i am afraid i don't understand your second question, i have never said that and neither did Sokurov in my quote, i don't know what you misunderstood, or which one of us :-)

    take care,
    R.

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  24. ffflaneur, always autumn in our souls, i think...
    (i am thrilled with your thrill :-)

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  25. thank you Sorlil, i always think it is very difficult to get a lovely green in photos, i don't know what is wrong with this colour but it often appears shrill - so i am very much pleased with this particular hue of this photos myself :-)



    thank you for your visit, Tony, and appreciation...

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  26. Allan, tu es donc familier avec les recherches de Norinaga, wow... je te remercie pour ton commentaire si interessant, oui, mono no aware ne peut etre vecu en dehors de cette relation direct et intime avec les choses... c'est un concept qui est essentiel pour ce que je fais en photographie, je sais que tu comprends...

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  27. Coming to these pictures, it is hard not to gasp and remain silent, certain that anything one could say is doomed…. I have been lost for days now in this marvelous forest, in otherworldly light (which you capture like a magician!), strange music in the air, the whispers and fleet eyes of kitsune in the shadows….

    This persistent sense of elegy, mono no aware, this is what I love about Japanese literature and film -- but that’s a banal statement, isn’t it? -- this is what anyone loves about Japanese art…. For some of us, in the West, too, this idea (no, not an idea, a certainty? a realization?) is at the base of any aesthetics. I have never been able to believe in the reality of the world … this is not an philosophical stance, it is an instinct … I know for a fact that it is all smoke and dew, forever on the verge of dissolving….. And, of course, I desire the dissolving, the vanishing…. This is what art is, this desire….

    The other day, I was driving, and a kingfisher flew across the road, right in front of the car, very close. A kingfisher, a rare sight around here. A rush, a burst of blue smoke, and threads of fire tangled in the smoke, swirling across my vision, for a second, a moment, an alarm, an excitement, then gone…. What does “beautiful” mean? Does it mean this way in which I long to give you that moment, that intensity, that encounter? But I can’t, you know … I give you these words that mark the place where that gift would be, if it were possible….

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  28. Very good, evocative. You capture the secret places of the greenest canyons of the pacific northwest
    which have always transported me deeply into my heart of hearts.

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  29. remarkable, mysterious and powerful.

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  30. but, James, it is not so with you: everything you say enhances the images, les mots signifient vraiment...
    i agree with you about mono no aware, and i think it is impossible to love Japan without having affinity (much affinity) for this complex and ambiguous feeling. and it's impossible to walk through the Klage-Welt without immediately realizing that this is essential about you as well ("as well", because i think it is also essential about me).

    and imagine, i don't know this bird, i don't think we have it here.and now imagine, once again, what your gift means to me :-)

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  31. Dianne, i am full of joy that my images spoke to your heart of hearts...

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  32. the fog was like that, John, mysterious and powerful. thank you!

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  33. coucou Roxana..:o)
    c'est doux, ouaté, mystérieux...un monde sensible et éphémère...
    j'aime ces paysages voilés...ou les formes s'estompent dans la brume qui les epouse...
    la tristesse sereine....
    bises a toi...et bon weekend...:o)

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  34. so..
    you've been bridging the both ends
    over our troubled spirits.. :p

    sweet--sadness
    grave--ethereality..

    lovely roxana..

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  35. green leaf or dry leaf

    we look for seek the hidden heart
    our tree

    It sweetens us...


    .
    loveliness

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  36. You really have some creative stuff here.

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  37. Have you looked for it? :-)

    kingfisher

    http://coyotescall.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/kingfisher.jpg

    And GM Hopkins:

    "As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
    As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
    Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
    Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name...."

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  38. These images are exquisite. the water/color feel makes me want to drown in them! And on reading Sokurov's words, I realized I'm sitting here nodding. What's the saying? All it takes to make a Russian happy is a bottle of vodka and a nightfull of wrenching farewells? I'm half Russian... and yeah, I'd say that's pretty true. Or maybe, for me, it's only half true ;)

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  39. oui, qui peut resister au mystere des brumes? ta derniere photographie le demontre encore une fois, s'il en etait encore besoin...

    je t'embrasse de tout coeur, Clo du Sud :-)






    Peter, what a surprise! :-) i thought you were too busy with your new corean site to continue visiting...
    yes, i am always "bridging" ends :-) you put it so lovely, thank you!

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  40. James, of course i had looked for it! :-)

    thank you for the poem as well, though Hopkins's language is here too much for my poor tongue, i can't speak these lines loud, the sounds roll like stones in my mouth.

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  41. thank you for visiting, James!

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  42. Elizavetta, thank you so much for coming here and sharing your half-russian musings :-) so do you speak the language? i wish i could, i think its music is the embodiment of that kind of elegy Sokurov talks about...

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