O scenă din viața unui pictor călător

by César Aira

Romanul are in centru un pictor din secolul XIX, Johan Moritz Rugendas, nascut in Germania si cunoscut datorita panzelor sale ce infatiseaza scene din America de Sud si America Latina. Fascinat in cea mai mare masura de Argentina, el se straduieste sa capteze „misteriosul vid ce se intinde dincolo de linia orizontului“. Temerara sa calatorie in lumi exotice il face sa infrunte capriciile naturii, lupta din care de-abia iese cu viata. Aira surprinde cu maiestrie experienta unica a artistului si trairile lui la limita.

Genres: Fiction, Art, Historical Fiction, Latin American, Spanish Literature, Literature, Novella

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires (about Copi and Rimbaud) and at the University of Rosario (Constructivism and Mallarmé), and has translated and edited books from France, England, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in Argentina, and certainly one of the most talked about in Latin America, Aira has published more than eighty books to date in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Spain, which have been translated for France, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Russia, and now the United States. One novel, La prueba, has been made into a feature film, and How I Became a Nun was chosen as one of Argentina’s ten best books. Besides essays and novels Aira writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In 1996 he received a Guggenheim scholarship, in 2002 he was short listed for the Rómulo Gallegos prize, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be a landscape painter means to be present at the feast of the nature…

Rain, sun, two whole days of impenetrable fog, night winds whistling, winds far and near, nights of blue crystal, crystals of ozone. The graph of temperature against the hours of the day was sinuous, but not unpredictable. Nor, in fact, were their visions. The mountains filed so slowly past that the mind amused itself devising constructivist games to replace them.

And there is a human factor as well…

His youth was almost over in any case, and still he was a stranger to love. He had ensconced himself in a world of fables and fairy tales, which had taught him nothing of practical use, but at least he had learnt that the story always goes on, presenting the hero with new and ever more unpredictable choices. Poverty and destitution would simply be another episode.

But after the painter’s personal disaster reality becomes warped and it continues to warp more and more…
The more warped becomes reality in the painter’s consciousness the greater is the artist.

[Adina ( on a short Hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book for sale in small library and decided to give the author a try. César Aira is a prolific contemporary writer and a finalist of The Man Booker International Prize 2015. One of his main themes, also present in the book I read, is Argentina in the 19th century.

The title of the book (i.e. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter) summarizes the theme of the book in a very simplified manner. The painter in question is Johann Moritz Rugendas, a famous Austrian landscape painter in the 19th century. You can see a picture of the artist below (if everything goes well technically):



The books starts as a biography of the painter and we are given a short introduction to the character. He traveled to Latin America three times and under to the influence of a famous naturalist, Alexander Humbold, decides to dedicate his life to recording in paintings the landscapes and life of Latin America.

During his third trip, he decides to finally visit the pampas of Argentina, his obsession, as he thought that he could find the ultimate source of inspiration in the endless planes. He chose to enter Argentina from Chile by crossing the Andes. The crossing and the description of the landscape was one of my favorite parts of the book as I am fascinated with the Andes scenery and did a bit of hiking there. I found a picture from the plane from one of my trips to Chile.



Now, there is a painting of the Andes by Rugendas



When our hero arrives in Mendoza and then continues to the pampas, the story becomes surreal. He has a traumatic accident which leaves him disfigured and in incredible pain. The forced solitude caused by his horrific face and his dependence on morphine to ease the pain alters his vision of the world and his art gains new enlightened levels. "It was as if he had taken another step into the world of his paintings."



The main merit of the author for me was the way the surreal and fact were combined. The story reads as a biography and it was hard to separate fact from fiction. Also, for a novella, it packs a lot of deep ideas which do not feel cramped inside just to be there as I've read in quite a few books.

Although the prose could be dry in some places I believe it is a book worth reading.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘It was another proof of art’s indifference; his life might have been broken in two, but painting was still the “bridge of dreams”.’

In order to achieve the depth of soul and vision necessary to become a true artist, Rainer Maria Rilke prescribes a life of solitude. However, this exchange of artistry for solitude may come at a very high price. While on a journey through Argentina to paint landscapes, German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas suffered a tragic accident that left him with an horrifically maimed face and damaged nervous system. As his disfigurement and bouts of pain separate him from his companions, pushing him inward towards his own solitude, his new morphine fueled vision unlocks the inner beauty of the world and pushed him further into an elevated artistic spirit. ‘It was as if he had taken another step into the world of his paintings.’ César Aira’s An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is a succinct allegory of an artists solitude and place in the wide world, as Aira’s compact prose illustrates a grand portrait of artistic history and the delicate balance of existence.


Landscape by Rugendas

Aira is so precise, so exacting with his language, that this succinct novella retains the broad scope of a lengthy novel. In 80pgs, Aira covers a story and a deep well of ideas that could easily have been discussed for hundreds of pages, yet, the reader does not feel that Aira has slighted them with his brief, but powerfully moving, book. Every word hangs perfectly in balance, not a word out of place, which is impressively fitting with many of Rugendas and his companion’s investigation of balance in the world. Although Episode finds its roots in factual biography, this is, for all intensive purposes, a fictionalized account of Rugendas, however, like the way Rugendas’ hallucinations blend with reality, the blend of fact and fiction opens up the inner beauty of life and art that is impenetrable to fact and common reality.

’And yet, at some point, the mediation had to give way, not so much by breaking down as by building up to the point where it became a world of its own, in whose signs it was possible to apprehend the world itself, in its primal nakedness.’

To further embody this sentiment, Aira crafts his fictional account to resemble a biographic novel, writing as if citing letters that don’t actually exist and interspersing encyclopedic asides of biographical information. This seemingly factual information grows in the soil of fiction to become something far greater. ‘Reality was becoming immediate, like a novel.’

Having studied in the genre of physiognomy of nature, a scientific approach to landscape painting laid out by the ideas of Alexander von Humboldt, Rugendas reproduced exactly species to create a perfect, scientific totality.

‘[Rugendas'] aim was to apprehend the world in its totality; and the way to do this, he believed, in conformity with a long tradition, was through vision…The artistic geographer had to capture the “physiognomy” of the landscape by picking out its characteristic “physiognomic” traits…The precise arrangement of physiognomic elements in the picture would speak volumes to the observer’s sensibility, conveying information not in the form of isolated features but features systematically interrelated so as to be intuitively grasped…The key to it all was “natural growth,” which is why the vegetable element occupied the foreground…’

The artistic style has him reproduce exact, scientific elements in each painting to maintain an accurate image of reality, to highlight a specific moment in fluid history. As he reproduces small details of flowers to better capture the whole of a landscape, when drawing the Indian cattle raids, he comments that each toe, each tiny element of the Indians body is an expression on the whole of the man, which then must be reproduced, ‘seeing it as part of the multitudinous species, which would go on making nature. Continually reappearing from the wings, the Indians were, in their way, making history.’

History itself becomes an important motif of the novella. On their journey, each vision absorbed into them contains some statement on the history of the world, and mans mark he has made on it.

‘The mules were driven by human intelligence and commercial interests, expertise in breeding and bloodlines. Everything was human; the farthest wilderness was steeped with sociability, and the sketches they had made, in so far as they had any value, stood as records of this permeation.’

While storytelling is often the method for passing down history, Rugendas argues that ‘art was more useful that discourse.’ If all the storytellers fell silent, he argues that history could be better passed down by ‘a set of “tools,” which would enable mankind to reinvent what had happened in the past, with the innocent spontaneity of action.’ Rugendas argues for repetition, that all of humanity’s actions deserve to happen again to better learn from them. The repetitions of events lead to the telling of humanity, and each individual part speaks volumes to the whole. Like the reproduction of individual flora and fauna to create an accurate landscape, each scene, like the Indian raid, is an individual piece to the larger portrait of history. ‘The scenes would be part of the larger story of the raid, which in turn was a very minor episode in the ongoing clash of civilizations.’

Aira blend of fact and fiction, with the purpose to create a poignant statement fact or fiction couldn’t achieve on it’s own, Rugendas new-found, and highly paid for, vision of the world is a blend of reality and nightmare. ‘Nature, in its nineteen vegetal phases, adapted itself to his perception, enveloped with Edenic light: a morphine landscape.’ Each of his hallucinations carry with it fragments of reality, and the two combine on paper to illustrate a truth in the world that was once hidden to him before.. Whereas he must cover himself behind a veil, the veil of reality is lifted before his eyes. ‘Rugendas had come to the conclusion that the lines of a drawing should not represent corresponding lines in visible reality, in a one-to-one equivalence. On the contrary, the line’s function was constructive.’ His surrealistic paintings embody a truth nobody else had been able to envision.

’He was like a drunk at the bar of a squalid dive, fixing his gaze on a peeling wall, an empty bottle, the edge of a window frame, and seeing each object or detail emerge from the nothingness into which it had been plunged by his inner calm. Who cares what they are? asks the aesthete in a flight of paradox. What matters is that they are.’

His new facial strangeness and ugliness opens up the beauty of strangeness in the world. Rugendas companion, Krauss, spends much time pondering the balance of the world, and with Rugendas, we see Rilke’s balance of artistry and solitude come to life in mortifying glory. The man leaves humanity all but behind to fully embody painting.

This is an incredible novella that seems like a trick of the eye must have taken place as so much knowledge is packed into such a small space. Like the best of short fiction, each word is fitted perfectly together to build a grand story — each word is like each physiognomic detail in Rugendas paintings. Aira is certainly not an author to be passed over as he is able to create such a fine balance of fact and fiction as well as beauty and grotesquery. As stated by Roberto Bolaño in the forward: ‘[Aira’s] novels seem to put the theories of Witold Gombrowicz into practice, except, and the difference is fundamental, that Gombrowicz was the abbot of a luxurious imaginary monastery, while Aira is a nun or novice among the Discalced Carmelites of the World.’ If prayer is literature, than Aira certainly offers up some powerful prayer to the literary gods.
4/5


Cattle Raid as depicted by Rugendas

‘All these scenes were much more like pictures than reality. In pictures, the scenes can be thought out, invented, which means that they can surpass themselves in terms of strangeness, incoherence and madness. In reality, by contrast, they simply happen, without preliminary invention.’

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 3 out of 5]

واقعه ای در زندگی یک نقاش منظره ، کتابی ایست از سزار آیرا ، نویسنده آرژانتینی ، او در این کتاب به سفر روگنداس ( هنرمند و نقاش آلمانی قرن نوزدهم ) از طریق رشته کوه آند به بوینس آیرس پرداخته .
یوهان موریتز روگنداس :
هنرمند و نقاش آلمانی قرن نوزدهم بوده که به خاطر ثبت تصویری دقیق و هنرمندانه زندگی و مناظر آمریکای لاتین در اوایل قرن نوزدهم شهرت جهانی دارد. او هم یک هنرمند با استعداد و هم یک مشاهده‌گر دقیق و مستندساز دوره‌ای مهم در تاریخ آمریکای جنوبی بوده .
نقطه عطف زندگی روگنداس که بخشی از آن داستان کتاب آیرا شده ، زمانی بود که او به دعوت الکساندر فون هومبولت، دانشمند برجسته و جهانگرد مشهور، که قصد داشت مناظر استوایی، زندگی روزمره، گیاهان و جانوران بومی ، شرایط بردگان آفریقایی ، زندگی در شهرها و معادن ، آثار باستانی و فرهنگ اینکاها را ثبت کند ، به آمریکای لاتین سفر کرد. هومبولت روگنداس را به عنوان هنرمندی مناسب برای این کار برگزید.
آیرا فصلی از زندگی واقعی روگنداس را با عناصر داستانی درهم آمیخته. حادثه اصابت صاعقه، را باید نقطه عطف داستان روگنداس دانست . این حادثه نه تنها بدن روگنداس را مجروح و صورت او را به یک هیولا تبدیل کرده ، بلکه دیدگاه او به جهان، حافظه‌اش و حتی نحوه خلق آثار هنری‌اش را هم تغییر داده. آیرا نشان می دهد که چگونه یک لحظه ناگهانی می‌تواند مسیر زندگی یک فرد را برای همیشه دگرگون کند.
نویسنده سپس به زندگی سخت روگنداس و دردهای طاقت فرسا و مهلکی که او باید تحمل می کرده ، پرداخته . اسپاسم ، گرفتگی و سپس انبساط عضلات صورت به همراه چهره ای از قیافه افتاده ، روگنداس را برای دیگران به فردی غیر قابل تحمل ، تبدیل کرده بوده . روگنداس کتاب ، هم چنین به میگرن و دیگر انواع سردردی دچار میشده که برای تحمل آن چاره ای جز استفاده از مورفین در دوزهای بالا نداشته . این گونه ، نقاش شوربخت داستان با هر سردرد و مورفینی ، بیشتر در دنیای اوهام و توهم فرو می رفته .
اما نقاش نگون بخت با وجود تمامی درد و رنج ها که چاره ای جز تحمل آن ها ندارد ، تلاش می کند تا صحنه رویایی خود ، یعنی نقاشی کردن صحنه ای از هجوم سرخ پوستها را ترسیم کرده و این گونه آن را مستند کند .
در پایان ، واقعه ای در زندگی یک نقاش منظره ، ترکیبی ایست از واقعیت و خیال . آیرا کوشیده فصلی از زندگی روگنداس و تلاش های او را برای مستند سازی با استفاده از الهام و خیال نشان دهد .

[Garima · Rating 4 out of 5]

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras

The power of art can easily be compared to the marvels of nature since both contribute a great deal in understanding life. If nature reflects the beauty of life, art helps in seeing that beauty through the kaleidoscopic vision of an artist. As that vision broadens, so does the dimensions of the said beauty and we reach an epiphany, both as a creator and a witness of art, where we break free of the conventions and discover new ways of presenting and finding various facets of life and subsequently come across the fact that there lies an inexplicable shred of beauty in the apparent ugliness of many things. Such discovery can be a lifelong process for some while for others, an occurrence of a single event is enough to attain a whole new perspective accompanied with a renewed confidence and strength to give shape to a dream, no matter how farfetched it appeared before.

Such an Episode occurred in the life of our Landscape Painter, Johan Moritz Rugendas. He along with his friend, Robert Krause set out on a journey to Latin America in order to paint the pristine beauty of the landscapes and to capture the physiognomy of nature. This phrase alone is worth considering the ambition, depth and uniqueness of the task undertaken by Rugendas and suggests about the difficulty involved in executing it. Artists are stubborn creatures. If they are clear about what they want to achieve and look forward for an ideal opportunity to fulfill their dreams, then nothing, almost nothing, can stop them if they find that one chance. Rugenda experienced such moment and with that this novella also elevates to a level of pure genius.

I have immense respect for short story and novella writing format. The challenge involved in carving out something captivating and yet maintaining the charm of brevity is no child’s play. Everything needs to be done within limited means and if the scope of the writing can’t get wider, it needs to be dug deeper and that’s exactly what Aira did with this book. Like other readers, this book left me fascinated with everything it packed under the guise of the label ‘novella’. Aira’s writing has the quality of being easily approachable even when he’s writing about the technical aspects about the art of painting. I never thought I would read such things and enjoy them too. The twist in events and the impeccable style in which the narrative shift is executed, clearly establishes Aira’s talent. There were numerous instances when the surrealism becomes the focus of storytelling but the sheer honesty of the teller manifested through his words were enough for me to assume surreal as nothing less than real. In short, this book satisfied me as a reader and proved that sometimes best things indeed come in small packages.

Highly recommended!

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface, this novella is describing an episode from the travels of Johann Rugendas, the artist and the follower of Alexander von Humboldt’s aesthetic and work methods circa the beginning of the 19th century. We first meet Rugendas while he is crossing from Chile to Argentina through the mountains and pampas. However, a dramatic accident takes place and makes Rugendas to turn back. I do not want to go further into the plot. Let’s just say that physiognomy of nature, an idea spelled out by Humboldt as a method of seing the world, plays a cruel but ironic joke with Rugendas’s appearance and makes him to revaluate understanding of his art. Respectively, for us there is an obvious symbolism to unpack. On this level, the story reads like a mixture of an adventure novel with an essay by an art historian. It is pretty dramatic and stylish, but follows the logic of this type of an adventure story. I am convinced Aira uses this form of historical fiction to subvert it, not only in relation to the fact/fiction ratio but also to make fun over the naivety of this genre. Symptomatically, the degree of irony bordering absurd grows with degree of tension in the plot. At the end i was not even sure whether i am reading the “reality” of the story or some form of a hallucinatory dream by the one of its protagonists. In any case, that was exciting.

This is just one level. On another level, i suspect the novel is an insight into the relationship between Humboldt’s aesthetic, the philosophy surrounding its development and later 20th century surrealism as well as the commentary on the nature of art and the process of its creation. And, on this level, I found this work a bit illusive.

There were a several half-page passages which on the first reading were kind of very profound and enigmatic. Using the heavily overused phrase, it made me “deeply engage with the text”. On the second reading, I would start to think how much meaning i personally add into the text by reading it as opposed to Aira’s words. And sometimes, on the third reading, I would understand his thought but I would struggle to agree with his analogies.

The example of my “struggle” is presented in the next few paragraphs, (and you can skip them unless you are interested in this peculiar puzzle of the book related to philosophic transgressions). Let’s look at this passage:

The Germans continued with their work (sketching the raid by the Indians). New impressions of the raid replaced the old ones. Over the course of the day, there was a progression - though it remained incomplete- towards unmediated knowledge. It is important to remember that their point of departure was a particularly laborious kind of mediation. Humboldt’s procedure was in fact a system of mediations: physiognomic representation came between the artist and nature. Direct perception was eliminated by definition. And yet, at some point, the mediation had to give way, not so much by breaking down as by building up to the point where it became a world of its own, in whose signs it was possible to apprehend the world itself, in its primal nakedness.

This is something that happens in everyday life, after all. When we strike the conversation, we are often trying to work out what our interlocutor is thinking. And it seems impossible to ascertain those thoughts except by a long series of inferences. What could be more closed off and mediated than someone else’s mental activity? And yet this activity is expressed in language, words resounding in air, simply waiting to be heard. We come up against the words, and before we know it, we are already emerging on the other side, grappling with the thought of another mind. Mutatis mutandis, the same thing happens with a painter and the visible world. It was happening to Rugendas what the world was saying was the world.

I think i understand what Aira means in the first half of the passage: the painter is painting the world; and by this process he adds to the world as well - his person and his picture is the part of what this world is. Incidentally, in another book, I’ve come across the views of Schelling, a German idealistic philosopher and Humboldt’s contemporary. He believed that “the area of human life in which the highest self-awareness are reached, including the understanding of the essential oneness of human being with the rest of what is, is creative art. Thus the ultimate aim of existence of everything is realised in the creation of great art, and great artists are the incarnation of that part of total reality that reveals to itself the reasons for its own existence.” * This would chime nicely with the idea of the first part of the passage.

However, I cannot fully appreciate the analogy between the painter and someone “grappling with the thought of another mind.” The thoughts of another mind in this example are necessary mediated by language. These are not “unmediated knowledge”. One can argue that the art of the painter would always be mediated by his sight as well of course. But even if we consider the sight providing the painter with “unmediated” knowledge, it would still not be comparable with the situation when the language is used for mediation between the two people. The situation when a person expresses his thoughts in language is closer to the one when a painter expresses his vision through his own painting.

There is another way how to approach this analogy: if we assume that nature is silent for the painter like the person is silent for his interlocutor initially presenting an enigma. But then the person start talking; in a similar way, the nature opens up to the painter and he can see it more clearly over-sudden. At this case, the analogy would work. But it would not correspond to the accretion of art into the world: “a mediation gives way by building up to the point where it became the world itself”.

This is how hard the certain Aira’s passages made me argue with myself (or was it with him?).

Another and easier example: “Reality was becoming immediate like a novel.”. It is a very beautiful simile. But does it work when one describes a raid by Indians? Yes, it is subversive enough as one would expect reality in general more immediate than any novel. And yes, for some of us a novel could be more immediate. But only to the point until we want to refill our cup of tea.

In combination, these two layers of the cinematic imagery with a “historical” plot and philosophic transgressions work together to create a subversive, colourful and masterfully told novella. But the one which probably still perplexes me with some of its philosophic passages. And I bet it perplexes me more than Aira himself who long has moved on to writing his other fictions.


*
A passage about Schelling is taken from Confessions of a Philosopher: A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper.

[Mutasim Billah · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Changing the subject is one of the most difficult arts to master, the key to almost all the others.”

Johann Moritz Rugendas was a renowned German landscape painter of his time. He was particularly well-known for his work in the Americas. Inspired by Alexander von Humboldt, he sought financial support for an ambitious project of recording pictorially the life and nature of Latin America. In his word, it would be "an endeavor to truly become the illustrator of life in the New World". In 1831 he traveled first to Haiti, and then to Mexico. In Mexico, he did drawings and watercolors of Morelia, Teotihuacan, Xochimilco, and Cuernavaca. He also began to practice oil painting, with excellent results. After becoming involved in a failed coup in 1834 against Mexico's president, Anastasio Bustamante, Rugendas was incarcerated and expelled from the country.



Johann Moritz Rugendas


From 1834 to 1844 he travelled to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Bolivia, and finally returned in 1845 to Rio de Janeiro. Well-accepted and feted by the court of Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, he executed portraits of several members of the royal court and participated in an artistic exposition. At the age of 44, in 1846, Rugendas departed for Europe.



Enterro de um Negro na Bahia (Funeral of a black man in Bahia)


His depiction of black culture in his works are widely discussed. In some images, for example the Enterro de um Negro na Bahia, Rugendas identified the dead body of a "black man with another corpse: the suffering Christ the ‘Savior’ honored by the city’s name. Catholic themes and romantic images of slavery were common themes.


An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is a fictionalized account of an eventful trip to Latin America taken by Rugendas, in search of inspiration. A painful misfortune befalls him that gives him new perspective. At this point, the writing becomes surrealist and the scenes become eerily intense as the sheer willpower of the artist allows him to continue painting.

"It was as if he had taken another step into the world of his paintings."

What I most enjoyed about this book were the descriptions of the landscape as Rugendas travels to Argentina through Chile. A must-read if you are into Latin American lit.

[brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is like a goddamn greek myth in its symmetry and simplicity. a painter traveling through the mountains and plains of argentina is struck by lightning and turned into some kind of a freak: physically deformed, enlightened, twisted, destroyed, dragged down, flattened, elevated... and everything is suddenly different. the natural world itself seems less a collage of beautiful randomness than a coded mosaic... aarrrggghhh! manimals, indian raids, endless horizons, the subtle distinctions of angled sunlight... aira packs into 87 pages more than most novelists manage in 400. bravo!

[Armin Ahmadianzadeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

"واقعه‌ای در زندگی یک نقاش منظره" رمان کوتاهی(نوولا) از سزار آيرا است که حول محور نقاش آلمانی، یوهان موریس روگنداس، و یک روایت تخیلی از تجربه‌های زندگی‌اش در آمریکای لاتین می‌چرخد.

این داستان روگنداس را دنبال می‌کند که به یک سفر اکتشافی در سراسر آمریکای جنوبی می‌رود تا الهاماتی برای نقاشی‌های منظره‌اش پیدا کند. در طول سفرش، او با یک بدبختی دردناک مواجه می‌شود که دیدگاه او را نسبت به زندگی و هنر تغییر می‌دهد.

آيرا با استفاده از لحن علمی به بررسی زندگی روگنداس می‌پردازد و به موضوعاتی مانند نقش هنرمند، عمل خلق، و تعامل بین واقعیت و نمایش هنری می‌پردازد. روایت همچنین به فرآیند تبدیل شدن به یک هنرمند مستقل در دنیای مدرن اشاره دارد، زیرا روگنداس از تلاش برای نمایاندن جهان به‌طور عینی به ایجاد پیش‌بینی‌های ذهنی در هنر خود منتقل می‌شود.

در اصل، "واقعه‌ای در زندگی یک نقاش منظره" تأملی بر رابطه بین هنر، هنرمند و دنیای اطراف آنها ارائه می‌دهد، زیرا روگنداس تجربه‌ای تحول‌آفرین را تجربه می‌کند که در نهایت رویکرد او را به هنر خود شکل می‌دهد.


کمی درباره یوهان موریس روگنداس:

یوهان موریس روگنداس (۱۸۰۲-۱۸۵۸) هنرمند آلمانی بود که به خاطر نقاشی‌ها و طراحی‌های منظره‌اش شناخته می‌شود. او در خانواده‌ای هنرمند به دنیا آمد و ابتدا زیر نظر پدرش و دوست خانوادگی‌اش، آلبرت آدام، تحصیل کرد و سپس به آکادمی هنرهای زیبای مونیخ رفت. روگنداس به خاطر نقاشی‌هایش از آمریکای جنوبی، به ویژه برزیل، که شامل مناظر، مردم بومی و زندگی روزمره بود، شهرت پیدا کرد.

روگنداس بین سال‌های ۱۸۲۱ تا ۱۸۴۷ به طور گسترده‌ای در سراسر آمریکای لاتین سفر کرد و بیش از ۵۰۰۰ نقاشی و طراحی تولید کرد. او همچنین تاریخ‌نگار، دانشمند و جغرافیدان بود و آثارش مورد حمایت دوست و حامی دیرینه‌اش، الکساندر فون هومبولت، قرار داشت. هنر و نوشته‌های روگنداس به طور قابل توجهی به درک فرهنگ و مناظر آمریکای لاتین در قرن نوزدهم کمک کرد.

پ.ن:
"واقعه‌ای در زندگی یک نقاش منظره" یک اثر داستانی تاریخی است، به این معنی که در حالی که بر اساس رویدادها و شخصیت‌های واقعی ساخته شده است، اما همه چیز در کتاب منعکس کننده حوادث واقعی زندگی نیست.

این نوولا از زندگی یوهان موریس روگنداس به عنوان نقطه شروع استفاده می‌کند، اما سزار آیرام در تخیل تجربیات و زندگی درونی روگنداس در زمانش در آمریکای جنوبی آزادی‌های خلاقانه‌ای به خرج می‌دهد. در حالی که برخی از عناصر داستان ممکن است بر اساس حقایق تاریخی باشد، مانند پیگیری‌های هنری و سفرهای روگنداس، دیگر جنبه‌ها تخیلی یا زیباپردازی شده‌اند تا یک روایت جذاب ایجاد کنند.

مهم است که به خاطر داشته باشیم که داستان‌های تاریخی اغلب مرز بین واقعیت و تخیل را محو می‌کنند و از عناصر واقعی برای الهام‌گیری یک داستان استفاده می‌کنند و در عین حال اجازه تفسیر خلاقانه و مجوز هنری را نیز می‌دهند.

به‌شخصه اونطور که باید نتونستم با متن کتاب ارتباط زیادی برقرار کنم یا حالا به‌خاطر نثر سزار آیرا، یا ترجمه کتاب. از کتاب انتظار داشتم که پیرنگ داستانی منسجمی داشته باشه که از نظر من حداقل نداشت و بیشتر کتاب مباحث علمی و هنری بود و حالت جستارگونه داشت تا داستانی. صرفا دو سه جا رنگ‌و‌بوی داستانی به‌خودش گرفته بود که باعث شد به‌کتاب دو ستاره رو بدم.

و نکته دیگه هم که نتونستم اطلاعات موثق و قابل اعتماد زیادی در موردش کسب کنم این بود که آیا واقعا در زندگی واقعی روگاندس مورد اصابت صاعقه قرار گرفته بود(اونم دو بار) یا صرفا در داستان سزار آيرا این اتفاق افتاده و همچنین اون اتفاق ناگوار بعد از صاعقه که پاش به رکاب اسب گیر کرده بود ...

دوست دارم بدونم آیا اینا اتفاقات واقعی بودن یا صرفا زاییده خیال سزار آیرا!

امتیاز من به‌این کتاب: ۲ از ۵

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Said, a bit too loud, "Ha! Wow!" immediately after finishing its perfect ending. Not to hype it too much but maybe a new favorite short novel? It's a little like the Bartlebooth sections in Perec's Life: A User's Manual crossed with "Fitzcarraldo"? Imagine if Herzog exhumed Kinski for one last old-timey (early 1800s) South American romp . . . Seriously swell lit. Very little dialogue (no quotes; no conventional literary fiction dramatization; no character-revealing convos etc; no sections rendered as freakin' .PPT files). Mostly exposition. Objectively fantastic sentences (examples to come), the product of clear perception, perfect phrasing, insightful and often odd, but never feels "languagey." Similes are rare and wielded with extreme care, like a knife to the udders of night. If he'd filled out the summarized scenes with traditional dramatization this would have maybe felt like The Radetzky March in spirit. As is, it's 87 pages of awesome fictional biography, and, as such, feels like a novel due to density and evocation of a world. Shades of Sebald, Bolano (his most vivid bits), but more accessible -- easier reading, more focused, at times way more gripping (vividly described, very active things happen!)? Anyway, Señor Aira has earned another fan. Might try to read some of his stuff in Spanish once I exhaust what's available in English (apparently only 4 of ~60 novella-length books have been translated)? The translation, by the way, reads ridiculously well.

If you're trying to figure out which little Aira book to read first in English (only five or six of 80+ are available so far) I'd suggest you start with this one, as I did. Ghosts was a semi-distant second for me, with the others falling way back, almost like they were by another writer.

[Vesna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's difficult to describe the magic of what César Aira does in this book, an experimental fusion of the factual and imagined biography of a 19th century German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas and his journey through the Argentinian pampas, because neither the "plot" nor even the main protagonist Rugendas really matter. (A more extreme version of it is in his recently translated The Divorce in which the divorce is only a starting point and the rest of the book has nothing to do with the divorce.) They serve as the outer frame within which Aira fictionalizes an episode (in fact at least two closely connected episodes) as a catalyst in Rugendas's transformation as an artist and as a literary device for Aira's fascinating ruminations about the arts as a subjective reconstruction of reality (the "landscape" can be even hallucinatory) and other subjects such as history as a series of repetitions. The novel unfolds through a series of events in the mastery of Aira's realistic prose behind which he weaves the ideas about the gap between reality and the presentation of reality in any form of communication, including the artistic one. This paradoxical nature of his own writing is quietly constructed with supreme craftsmanship and intelligence.

This lengthier quote sums it up, I think, the best.

Both of them [Rugendas and his companion Krause, another painter] had been making these discrete sketches with the sole aim of composing stories, or scenes from stories. The scenes would be part of the larger story of the raid, which in turn was a very minor episode in the ongoing clash of civilizations.

And then he illustrates it with a commonplace analogy as he occasionally also does elsewhere in the book:

There is an analogy that, although far from perfect, may shed some light on this process of reconstruction. Imagine a brilliant police detective summarizing his investigations for the husband of the victim, the widower. Thanks to his subtle deductions he has been able to “reconstruct” how the murder was committed; he does not know the identity of the murderer, but he has managed to work out everything else with an almost magical precision, as if he had seen it happen. And his interlocutor, the widower, who is, in fact, the murderer, has to admit that the detective is a genius, because it really did happen exactly as he says; yet at the same time, although of course he actually saw it happen and is the only living eyewitness as well as the culprit, he cannot match what happened with what the policeman is telling him, not because there are errors, large or small, in the account, or details out of place, but because the match is inconceivable, there is such an abyss between one story and the other, or between a story and the lack of a story, between the lived experience and the reconstruction (even when the reconstruction has been executed to perfection) that widower simply cannot see a relation between them; which leads him to conclude that he is innocent, that he did not kill his wife.

I only wish there was more of his humorous side in the book as in the quoted last witty twist, something we find in abundance in his Artforum, another gem from this genius of his own experimental "procedure" of writing (not incidentally, it's the key term he uses for the act of imagining and painting in this novel).

[Cosimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uscendo dagli armadi

“Rugendas, spettatore di sé stesso, si vide brillare per un istante di orrore che, disgraziatamente, si sarebbe ripetuto. La criniera del cavallo era tutta irta, come l'aletta di un pescespada. A partire da quel momento, Rugendas divenne una visione strana ai suoi stessi occhi, come succede nelle disgrazie personali, quando ci si domanda: perché doveva succedere proprio a me?”

Johann Moritz Rugendas, pittore di viaggio ottocentesco, discendente di una famiglia di pittori di battaglie di origini fiamminghe e catalane, lavora con il metodo della “fisiognomica della natura” di Alexander Von Humboldt e il suo destino, nel pelllegrinaggio tra le Ande e la Pampa argentina con il fidato amico Krause, viene colpito da un evento imprevedibile e misterioso: un fulmine scarica tutta l'energia su di lui e sul suo cavallo, sfigurando il suo volto e privandolo dei connotati umani. Così, sconfitto e squilibrato, egli decide di intraprendere un'ultima sfida: mettere sulla tela un evento spietato, violento e casuale, un malòn, ovvero un'incursione di indios armati per impadronirsi del bestiame e delle donne dei bianchi. César Aira ci regala una vicenda allucinata e surreale, suggerendo un'interpretazione paradossale secondo cui cosa importa quel che sono, ciò che importa è che sono, continuando la sua lotta corpo a corpo con le parole, alla ricerca della possibile e impersonale visibilità di ciò che è nascosto. La specificità di questa storia è nell'ambiente e nel paesaggio di tropici e pianure: bambù, latanie, palme, mimose, iniga, malvacee, cactus, banani e fiumi, foreste e montagne. Cordigliera e panorama, il variopinto che documenta il fantastico; entro questi tratti Aira delinea una riflessione sull'arte e sulla vita, su chi siamo e quali maschere indossiamo, per occultare le ossessioni e osservare il mondo senza essere visti, in un delirio febbrile e nevralgico. E poi scrive che è un enigma conoscere ciò che ci cambia, in questo caso un fatto così improbabile da risultare non rappresentabile e spezzare un'esistenza in due, prima e dopo di esso, costituendosi sia l'atto che l'agente come monstrum. La letteratura di Aira è ripetizione, un oggetto trovato già pronto nella quotidiana esplorazione dell'ignoto, l'automatica grafia rituale con la quale incontra il caotico altro da sé. Solo la malinconia, nel sopravvivere all'istante, può ispirare grandi idee e inedite testimonianze.

[cypt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soundtrackas, nors ne toks turtingas ir skalsus kaip šita knyga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6GhC...

O knyga - be galo gražus kąsnelis, toks gal net etiudas, miniromanas. Persiskaito vienu prisėdimu, bet apimtis apgaulinga: yra labai tirštas ir norisi iškart imtis antrą kartą, nes visa įspūdinga pirma pusė, apmąstymai apie gamtos perteikimą tapybos priemonėmis slysta lengvai, tarsi neskatina prie jų sustoti, nors yra labai įdomūs. Vokietis tapytojas, prisiskaitęs Humboldto, leidžiasi į Pietų Amerikos miškus, kad tapytų - o gal suprastų? - gamtovaizdžius, gilinasi į juos, tada, per knygelės vidurį, įvyksta tasai Nutikimas, ir visa antra pusė - persivertimas iš natūralizmo, gamtos analizės ir eksperimentavimo su ja, į Goya'iškas pamėkles. Tapytojui jau rūpi nebe perprasti ir išnagrinėti, - mes išvis nebežinome, kas jam rūpi, nes po Nutikimo esam išmetamos ir išmetami iš jo galvos ir tematome keistą, nesuprantamą ir baisiai atrodantį žmogų.

Bet o ar knygos pradžioje, siekdamas moksliniu pažinimu grįsto santykio su gamta, jis mažiau išprotėjęs? Mes juk nežinom - tik taip atrodo, nes pirmoje pusėje girdėjom jo mintis ir kartu su juo gėrėjomės tais keistais vaizdiniais.

Žiauriai gražu. Gal ne tiek pats siužetas, netgi ne tiek visi aprašymai (nors jie kaip reta įspūdingi), bet tas perspektyvos šuolis ir kartu su juo - pokytis viso mūsų skaitymo ir supratimo, visas žmogaus vaizdas. Labai senoviškai taikliai padaryta: kol jis gražus, "normalus", tol mes girdim jo balsą, matom jo akimis, bet vos tik sukeistėja - tuoj pats tampa žvilgsnio objektu, gamtos dalimi, dar vienu weird egzempliorium gamtos keistotekoje.

Aistės Kučinskienės vertimas - toooks fainas, tikiuosi, ji daugiau vers visko. Visa ironija tų taksonomijų atžvilgiu, simpatija ir sykiu šiluma - vietom net juokiaus, pvz kai indėnai atbėga į antpuolį rėkdami Aaaa! Uuuuu!

Tuščiame danguje sprūstelėjo paukštis. Toli horizonte, tartum vidudienio žvaigždė, stovėjo vežimas. Kaip atkartoti tokias lygumas? Tačiau kelionė juk tikrai anksčiau ar vėliau bus atkartota. Dėl to jie turėjo būti atsargūs, nors kartu ir ryžtingi; atsarga reikalinga, kad kur nors nesuklystum taip, jog atkartoti taptų nebeįmanoma, o ryžtas - kad šis nuotykis būtų vertas dėmesio. (p. 34)

Tačiau šiuo slogiu laiku pastebėjo, kad išsipasakodamas Luizei nesugeba visko įamžinti dokumentiškai tiksliai. Arba, kitaip tariant, net ir užfiksavus viską (nes jai galėjo pasakoti bet ką), vis tiek lieka neišsakytų dalykų. Tai buvo vienas tų atvejų, kai visumos nepakanka. Galbūt dėl to, kad esama kitų "visumų", nors gal labiau todėl, kad didelis pasaulis, kuris sukasi lyg dangaus kūnai, susilieja su kosminiu judėjimu, ir taip kai kurios pusės lieka paslėptos amžiams. Norėdami tą įvardyti šiuolaikišku terminu, kurio laiškuose nėra, sakytume, kad tai - "retorinės elokucijos" problema. (p. 54-55)

Rašydamas stengėsi būti visiškai atviras. Tą grindė tokia mintimi: jei iš esmės tiek pat pastangų reikia sakant tiesą ir meluojant, kodėl tad nepasakius tiesos, nieko nenutylint, be dviprasmybių? Net jei tai tik eksperimentas. Tačiau lengviau pasakyti, nei padaryti, ypač dėl to, kad šiuo atveju daryti ir reiškia sakyti. (p. 58)

O juk iš tiesų juos supo gamta, kuri įkvepia, nes viskas joje nauja - Rugendas net prašydavo draugo patvirtinti, jog tai objektyvi tikrovė, o ne jo sąmonės trikdžių sukelta haliucinacija. Painios augmenijos apsuptyje paukščiai šaižiai ir padrikai giedojo nežinomas giesmes, nuo jų žingsnių išsilakstydavo patarškos ir gauruotos žiurkės, ant uolų atbrailų tykojo stotingos auksakailės pumos. Virš bedugnių sklandė susimąstęs kondoras. Bedugnių gelmėje buvo dar kitos bedugnės, o iš gilaus podirvio lyg bokštai stiebėsi medžiai. Jie matė, kaip sprogsta klykiantys gėlių žiedai, dideli ir mažulyčiai, kai kurios tų gėlių atrodė lyg su letenomis, kai kurios - lyg su apvaliais inkstais iš obuolio minkštimo. (p. 62)

Atrodo toks - keista - aforistiškas ir sykiu nė kiek nemoralizuojantis, nepatronizuojantis tekstas. Daug "tiesų apie givenimą", bet jos taip švelniai ir su ironija pasakomos, kad į pirmą planą išeina jau nebe tiesos, net ne poetika, o tiesiog švelnus skaitymo įspūdis. Gal čia tas literatūrinis tapybiškumas, nežinau. Bet skaitydama stebėjausi, kaip taip nutinka: kai tekstas neturi, pvz, Seethaleriui būdingo Gilumo ir Reikšmingumo, jis pasidaro neįsivaizduojamai talpesnis.

[Stephen P(who no longer can participate due to illness) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is short though usually referred to as slim, at eighty eight pages. Its prose, rather than slim, deepens in ever reaching transcendental layers never revealing intention. There is no trace of crafting it down or trying to say more. The allotted pages were precisely what this story called for and where it ended. It was created in the absence of the tools of the post modern trade. Its immediacy ran the length of the novel maintaining its tightened grip to the last word.

Each of Aira's words are important in this seamless narrative, thoughtful, crafted, quietly carrying the weight of its meaning. The story can be read with equal relevance, as in all excellent literature, in different ways. I will try to express my reading of it and not repeat reviews already written by more able goodreads reviewers.

After gasping at the sheer beauty of the landscape descriptions of lush vegetation, mountain passes, luminous skies, I watched Aira, lived with him through it, create a journey of an individual passing through the stages of art, battling through the passage into becoming an artist.

Rugenda, a disciple and friend of the landscape painter Humbolt, who himself had developed a revolutionary theory within the confines of landscape painting, began his journey with the younger German painter, Robert Krause, from Mexico to Chile and Argentina. Carrying the measurements and boundaries of civilization, the world with them they kept barometric records, estimated wind speeds with a sock of white cloth, two glass capillary tubes containing liquid graphite as an altimeter. Mercury from a thermometer suspended from a pole provided them light. Leisurely, they sought Humbolt's physiognomy of landscape, nature. Nature's perils and beauty, country dwellers and indians, their feuds and battles began the leaving of civilization behind and the entry into the wild. Rugenda's disfigurement due to a an accident propels his passage. The clear trails turn to sinuous dark pathways.They ride into the night appearing as shadows of giraffes, bats delicately brush their faces. Rugenda's disfigurement is lit by moonlight.

We descend on the trail with them, Rugenda traveling deeper into the sinews of the creative unconscious, its lurid dangers and promise of unspecified reward. I understood the risks and now let him go on without me. I watched him cover his disfigured face with a black veil, creating a pin-prick vision, an impressionist scope, as increasingly, without plan, he delves into himself, rising up, filling himself. The world seen through his eyes, through the mantissa veil, is new, disfiguring. Increasingly obsessed with work and his own vision leaving Humbolt's quadrants behind for an existence of search and discovery. Due to his disfigurement, his new vision through the eyes of his self, Rugenda is now the isolated artist removed and never able to return to his home, back into the the world he knew. Life is now created in its vivid rawness no longer requiring its veil as Aira has discarded his, to reach beyond the safety of boundaries.

The final scene is a haunted image of a lone artist removed from the world, embedded in his art as it creates itself beneath his hand. The image will be embedded within the reader and remain without any sign of receding.

[Helga · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Since art is eternal, nothing is lost.

This is a fictionalized adventurous expedition of Johan Moritz Rugendas, the German landscape painter to Argentina. He intends to journey far into the south, to unexplored regions, in order to capture the essence of the wild landscape and depict it as he sees it.
But things don’t go as planned…

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot damn! Starts out in a digressive historical mode that's reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, then seamlessly incorporates breathless action sequences and genuine grotesquerie while ruminating on the nature of art and perspective. Exquisite and surprising. Basically a perfect novella.

[Caro the Helmet Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting piece of literature which I wish I could like more than I did. It was interesting and it somewhat reminded me of short stories by Borges and Carpentier's The Lost Steps, especially the latter. But maybe because it was too short to get into it - once you warm up it's over - or maybe I myself lack certain qualities to enjoy it - I ended up slightly underwhelmed. Nevertheless, Aira got me hooked, he's definitely staying on my reading radar.

[Mansoor · Rating 3 out of 5]

واقعه‌ای در زندگی یک نقاش منظره چیزی بیش از شرح واقعه‌ای از زندگی نقاش به خواننده عرضه می‌کند. در واقع، بیشتر بازگویی فصلی از زندگی اوست. نقاش یادشده کسی نیست جز روگنداس، هنرمند آلمانی قرن نوزدهمی که به منظره‌پردازی‌هایش از آمریکای لاتین شهره است. هومبولت، طبیعیدان برجسته‌ی آلمانی، روگنداس را "پدر و بنیادگذار هنر بازنمایی تصویریِ سیماشناسی طبیعت" لقب داده بود. اگر از این لقب چیزی سر در نیاوردید، باید کتاب را بخوانید
🤣

زبان رویاگون و انگیزنده‌ی آیرا خواننده را سخت تحت تاثیر قرار می‌دهد. صحنه‌پردازی و توصیفات دقیقش هم از این رمان کوتاه اثری تحسین‌برانگیز ساخته. با این حال، در پایان کار احساس می‌کنی که اثر نیمه‌تمام مانده و بناست ادامه یابد. انگار منتظر فصل‌های بعدی‌اش هستی

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 5 out of 5]

... his life might have been broken in two, but painting was still the “bridge of dreams.”

A portrait of the artist as a questing eye, constantly interrogating the world and himself for meaning, for purpose. Johann Moritz Rugendas is a real historical figure. His actual paintings can be found in museums and online, but his biography is just the starting point of this surrreal journey into a landscape that slowly evolves from a static, naturalistic perspective into a dynamic, impressionist one.

Rugendas was a genre painter. Hid genre was the physiognomy of nature, based on a procedure invented by Humboldt. The great naturalist was the father of a discipline that virtually died with him: ‘Erdtheorie or ‘La Physique du monde’, a kind of artistic geography, an aesthetic understanding of the world, a science of landscape.

The painter’s famous mentor developed a set of rules for depicting nature based on scientific principles and modular elements that could produce, when combined on a canvas, as close a reproduction of reality as the talent of the artist allows. Cesar Aira, after a biographically faithful introduction of Rugendas to the readers and a quick recap of his journey to South America, plunges us directly into the fateful expedition from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires. Rugendas and his fellow painter Krause crossing of the Andes, followed by a thunderous and almost fatal incident in the Argentinian pampas are like the crossing of the Rubicon in the artist’s life: the inflection point in his vision, the before – after milestone in the way Rugendas interacts with the world and with the empty canvas.

His youth was almost over in any case, and still he was a stranger to love. He had ensconced himself in a world of fables and fairy tales, which had taught him nothing of practical use, at least he had learnt that the story always goes on, presenting the hero with new and ever more unpredictable choices.

A near-death experience, followed by crippling injury and conscience altering pain relieving drugs, could have put an end to a less dedicated artist. The painter is struck by lightning twice during a thunderstorm on the pampas, and later dragged face down over rough ground by his spooked horse, resulting in extensive facial damage . For Rugendas, the episode is instead a call to arms, a way to reject the common place, the trivial and to focus on his vision. A triumph of mind over matter.

>>><<<>>><<<

This is not my first story by Cesar Aira, and it will definitely not be my last. I thought I knew what to expect, but I am once again simply in awe at the density of ideas and emotions, at the elegance and compactness of his style that can achieve in less then 100 pages what others writers would spread over several volumes of prose.
For me, this particular novel wins on two separate but closely intertwinned levels: the historical account and the artistic expression. The considerations regarding Rugendas the painter are just as valid for a music composer or a novelist and mirror the same 19th century movement from from reproduction of nature to narrative interpretation.

The seeds of the change in vision for Rugendas precede the moment of epiphany on the stormy pampas. The strict rules established by Alexander von Humbold were already under assault from the humbling experience of the Andean landscape. As a hiking enthusiast who was lucky enough to witness directly the beauty of the glaciers and lakes in Patagonia, the account of the mountain crossing by Rugendas and Krause was a sure way to make me feel invested in the story:



Peaks of mica kept watch over their long marches. How could these panoramas be rendered credible? There were too many sides; the cube had extra faces. The company of volcanos gave the sky interiors. Dawn and dusk were optical explosions, drawn out by the silence. Slingshots and gunshots of sunlight rebounded into every recess. Grey expanses hung out to dry forever in colossal silence; airshafts voluminous as oceans.

Similarly powerful and masterfully rendered is the descent into the endless sea of grass that eventually leads to Buenos Aires – a destination Rugendas is forced to abandon after his grievous injury. Yet, that initial destination turns out to be a false one – the truth the painter is searching for is to be found in the interaction between man and nature, a point literally driven into his head by tremendous forces outside his control.

In the glorious evening light of the 20th of January, they wondered at the assembly of silence and air. A drove of mules the size of ants appeared in silhouette on a ridgetop path, moving at a star’s pace. The mules were driven by commercial interests, expertise in breeding and bloodlines. Everything was human; the farthest wilderness was steeped with sociability; and the sketches they had made, in so far as they had any value, stood as records of this permeation. The infinite orography of the Cordillera was a laboratory of forms and colors. In the meditative mind of the travelling painter, Argentine opened before them.

One of the most memorable scenes illustrating the way nature permeates human habitation is that of Rugendas first observing the huge ox-driven wagons the farmers in San Luis province use to navigate the trackless and muddy sea of grass that leads to the capital:



These were contraptions of monstrous size, as if built to give the impression that no natural force could make them budge. The first time he saw one, he gazed at it intently for a long time. Here, at last, in the cart’s vast size, he saw the magic of the great plains embodied and the mechanics of flat surfaces finally put to use.

Moving even deeper into landscape as story, Rugendas and Krause set out towards distant homesteads, hoping to witness an Indian raid on the colonists. The impoverished and hungry natives, using only spears and arrows, are trying to steal cattle from gun wielding and well organized farmer militias. This standard scene of so many western movies, witnessed by Rugendas in a fog of fever and opium dreams, becomes a precursor of the Impressionistic school that will put emphasis on light, color, movement, emotion.

The lid had been taken off the world specifically to reveal the conflict, the clash of civilizations, as at the dawn of history. They came to a vast prairie, heard shots in the distance and set off at a gallop.

... the transformation would be accomplished not in the dimension of time but in that of meaning. The idea could give rise to a totally different conception of reality. In his work, Rugendas had come to the conclusion that the lines of a drawing should not represent corresponding lines in visible reality, in a one-to-one equivalence. On the contrary, the line’s function was constructive.

I found the artistic arguments in the end overpowered the historical facts of the expedition. They have a timeless quality that remains pertinent to modern writers and painters who continue today Rugenda’s struggle to escape the rules and the limitations of their chosen medium in order to communicate more directly with their audience.

All these scenes were more like pictures than reality. In pictures, the scenes can be thought out, invented, which means that they can surpass themselves in terms of strangeness, incoherence and madness. In reality, by contrast, they simply happen, without preliminary invention.

Humboldt’s procedure was, in fact, a system of mediations: physiognomic representation came between the artist and nature. Direct perception was eliminated by definition. And yet, at some point, the mediation had to give way, not so much by breaking down as by building up to the point where it became a world of its own, in whose signs it was possible to apprehend the world itself, in its primal nakedness. This is something that happens in everyday life, after all.

Cesar Aira invites us to take the argument even further, pointing out that language is also a method of mediation, of translation from one experience to another, from the creator to the viewer / listener. It’s kind of incredible how he managed to pack both an adventure/ exploration story and a philosophical essay in such a tight package.

[Jim Elkins]

[This is a stub, and it's one of the first reviews I wrote, c. 2008, originally on LibraryThing. I read Aira for years -- see the eight other reviews of his books, some long, all more recent.]

A stupendous novel, a real achievement in a very brief compass. Aira is a strange and somewhat scattered novelist -- his method guarantees he relinquishes control over his forms, and sometimes, as in "How I Became a Nun," he helps his narrative become less linear -- but his pace, his wit, his descriptions, and even his philosophic asides are tremendous. He is genuinely surprising. It's not just the plot twists that took me by surprise, it was individual descriptions and sudden parenthetical comments.

An aside on philosophic asides. This book is full of them, but none are over 1/2 page long. they aren't laboriously planned and unfurled with trumpet fanfares, like some of Milan Kundera's. They aren't faux-philosophy -- dogmas and cliches masquerading as paradoxes and profundities, as in Cees Nooteboom or Javier Marias. And Aira's philosophic asides aren't arch, ironic, and elliptical, as in Umberto Eco. When Aira wants to say something about representation, reality, expression, or communication, he does so brilliantly and quickly.

As an art historian, I wouldn't recommend this for understanding nineteenth-century painting, although there is some good material on Humboldt's theories of nature. This book is not wholly invented (it's taken from an historical narrative), but it's fiction, very odd and unpredictable. If Aira can discipline himself the way Pynchon did to write "Gravity's Rainbow," he will be one of the principal novelists of the next few decades.

[Moshtagh hosein · Rating 4 out of 5]

هر نویسنده آمریکای لاتین یک بُعد خاص داره،این یکی رئالیسم جادویی رو ول کرده و به سوررئالیسم جادویی گراییده :).

[Nick Grammos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A German artist named Rugendas crosses over the Andes from Chile to Argentina.

He paints what he sees:

Each day was larger and more distant. As the mountains took on weight, the air became lighter and more changeable in its meteoric content, sheer optics of superposed heights and weights.

He stops ahead of the fabled pampas. It’s the early 19thC. He has an accident in bizarre circumstances that belongs in Westerns; it should stop him. But it transforms him. The ranchers are kind and helpful. He gets back on his feet. There is conflict between settlers and local indigenous. They pursue a battle around the plains and hills.

Rugendas wants to paint the battles as though they exist as an element of the landscape. He pursues this idea as though it were possible to exist between past and present, outside of racial and historical divides, subvert the colonial script.

The procedure of the combat between Indians and white men mirrored that of the painters: it was a matter of exploiting the balance between proximity and distance.

Each Aira novel starts at a place from which it exponentially grows into an artistic event. It seems to just happen, contained only by the idea that its limits are defined only by narrative and artistic requirements. Imagination has few limits except those imposed by the author.


Note

Apologies for deleting this book and comments from my list. I was attempting to remove a duplicate.

[Tijana]

Hm, šta reći. Sesar Aira već decenijama fura svoj lični fazon: objavi po četiri knjige (tm) godišnje, s tim da imaju po sto strana. Osim kad imaju dvadeset.
Tako se i ovde zapravo radi o noveli zasnovanoj na prelomnom trenutku u životu devetnaestovekovnog nemačkog slikara Rugendasa koji je godinama i decenijama putovao po Južnoj Americi i slikao je. Prelomni trenutak je... pa, preloman, pa da ne ulazimo u detalje.* Recimo da početak i naročito prepiska sa Humboltom podsećaju na Kelmanovo Premeravanje sveta, ali da vrlo brzo sve ode u nekom desetom smeru.
Aira piše malo čudno: naizmenično se ređaju suvoparno referisanje o Rugendasovoj biografiji, malčice domaštavanja, uživljavanje u slikarsku filozofiju i epistolarni diskurs (recimo) i fenomenalni trenuci čistog ludila za koje ne znate kad će da sevnu i nestanu. Verovatno za to imamo da zahvalimo njegovom pisanju slobodnim stilom i neopterećenosti sklopom zapleta, obimom ili, recimo, krajevima - ova priča završava se kao nožem presečena. Jeste da je to smisleno kad čovek malo prosedi nad stranicom, ali prvih nekoliko sekundi prosto tragate za makar još dve rečenice na susednoj strani, toliko je kraj uspešno nagao.

*blurb nam je sve saopštio o tome, a bogami i o raspletu priče, pa ga slobodno preskočite.

[Ugnė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magiškas realizmas šiame kūrinyje gimsta tiesiog iš dykumos miražų, kelionės nuovargio ir ligos pasekmių. Viena vertus, atrodo tokia paprasta istorija ir kam iš viso šitai pasakoti, kita vertus ta paprasta istorija žavi savo kasdienybės sapnais ir netikėtumais.

[ατζινάβωτο φέγι. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Βαράμο – 2/5

Ο αφηγητής του Βαράμο δηλώνει πως σκοπό έχει να μας εξηγήσει πως ένας γραφέας τρίτης τάξεως σε ένα υπουργείο ξαφνικά θα γράψει ένα αριστούργημα. Μοιάζει συναρπαστική σαν ιδέα έτσι δεν είναι ?? Ε λοιπόν η εκτέλεση καταλήγει βαρετή και κλέινει απότομα μοιάζοντας εξαιρετικά λίγη.Στο πυρήνα βρίσκεται η τυχαιότητα και η ρευστότητα των επιλογών του Βαράμο αλλα και του κόσμου που τον περιβάλλει. Πως μια επιλογή από τις άπειρες φαίνεται να καθορίζει (ή να σκιαγραφεί) τις επόμενες.Όταν περιγράφει και αναλογίζεται με μια φιλοσοφική διάθεση τα θέματα που τον απασχολούν, παρακολουθείς με ενδιαφέρον αλλα όταν αυτά πάνε να γίνουν πράξη μεσω της ιστορίας σε χάνει. Παρουσιάζονται όχι με λογική αλληλουχία αλλα ρέπουν προς το σουρεαλιστικό πολλές φορές. Συγκρατώ τις φιλολογικές παρεμβάσεις του αφηγητή σχετικά με την ανασύνθεση των γεγονότων που οδήγησαν στη συγγραφή του ποιήματος μέσα από την μελέτη του.

Ένα επεισόδιο από την ζωή του ταξιδευτή ζωγράφου - 3/5

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy crap, this is a masterpiece. A tiny, weird, 87 page masterpiece. Aira's portrait of Rugendas has an easy going, almost flat tone to it. Which might be why the incredible way he curls sentences about art and seeing around and through each other works so well. There is this ominous sense of space at work throughout the book, of the physical presence of the blasted, Argentinian pampas which is somehow always right in front of you, yet also delicately remote, somehow just past perception. Nearly every paragraph in this book has at least one deliriously recursive sentence which seemed to turn the whole world as the characters and as the reader perceive it, inside out. Very few writers are able to do that with such consistency, but for whatever reason, several of them come from Argentina. Aira writes from an odd little world that is somehow completely his own. Highly recommended.

[Jolanta (knygupė)]

3.5*

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter [2000/06] – ★★★★

A curious novella which is part travelogue, part biography, part historical fiction, part meditation on art, and part tribute to the beauty of Argentinian landscape.

What a landscape artist would be capable of doing for the love of art? Can they be capable of risking their life? What is human life in comparison to the eternity which is art?, they may ask. In today’s world of extravagant selfies, some taken in exotic locations and maybe even under relatively dangerous conditions, this short novella by Argentinian fiction writer César Aira may even feel ironically relevant again. Aira takes the real story of German landscape artist Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802 – 1858) and re-imagines one of the episodes from his life when Rugendas travelled as a documentary painter across tropical jungles and mountainous scenery of South America. César Aira’s 90 page-book surprises with its simplicity, humour and insights into the craft of an artist.

The foreword to this novella is by no other than Chilean literary master Roberto Bolaño (Amulet), and César Aira tells us that Johann Rugendas was a talented genre painter and a follower of eminent polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859). Relying on the latter’s ideas regarding botany and perspective, Rugendas aimed to capture the “physiognomy of nature” in his paintings, distilling “the science of landscape”. He was taught that the landscape artist should be “sensitive to the processes of growth operative in all forms of life” [Aira/Andrews, New Directions, 2006: 8], and was a natural with a brush: “Everything in his pictures was bathed in simplicity, which gave them a pearly sheen filled with the light of a spring day” [Aira/Andrews, New Directions, 2006: 11]. And, he could not have chosen a more worthy of his attention subject – the beauty, people and customs of Latin America.

Aira’s trademark economy of style is evident in his novella, which can be characterised by simplicity and clarity, instilling a sense of exploratory adventure and wonder, if nothing else – the wonder for one exotic, far-away place and the mysteries of art-making. Together with his friend and fellow artist Robert Krause, Rugendas traversed the continent, sketching and painting along the way, and the focus of our episode is Argentina. There, as Aira tells us, our heroes faced particular challenges, including the strangeness of the new climate, the unpredictable behaviour of its fauna (an unexpected attack of locusts), and the disastrous consequences of a riding accident. Our protagonists do not want it to be known to everyone, but they are secretly hoping for some calamity to befall their hosts in one place in rural Argentina, and that is so that they would be able to picture it in their artworks. That calamity they long for is either an earthquake or an Indian raid. One should be careful what one wishes for…

🌴 Like in a beautiful sketch, Aira renders his novella in elegant brushstrokes, maintaining interest and providing insight into the mind of its eccentric protagonist. Perhaps similar to a preliminary draft of a painting, the book sometimes feels incomplete and haphazard, like a fragment of a bigger work, but, nonetheless, it is still an evocative depiction of reality duly recorded and creatively interpreted.

[Sini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mijn derde Airaatje in korte tijd, en het was weer dikke jolijt. Dit boekje (87 blz. slechts) bevat ook nog een juichend voorwoord van Bolano, die Aira een van de grootste Spaanstalige schrijvers noemt en vervolgens uitputtend uitlegt dat Aira met helemaal niemand ter wereld te vergelijken valt. Het eerste vind ik wat moeilijk te beoordelen, maar het laatste is waar: misschien dat ik mij daarom zo met Aira amuseer!

Ook dit boekje, dat nota bene als een van zijn conventioneelste geldt, is weer heerlijk maf. Het verhaal draait deze keer om de (fictieve) lotgevallen van de (werkelijk bestaande) schilder Rugendas (1802-1858), een landschapschilder die het 'gezicht' wil afbeelden van de onontgonnen Zuid-Amerikaanse natuur. En tja, zo'n verhaal wordt bij Aira dan een volkomen onnavolgbare reeks grillige overpeinzingen over de onbegrijpelijk complexe rijkdom van deze wereld. Hij fabuleert, fantaseert en filosofeert weer dat het een lieve lust is. De beschrijvingen van het gigantische berglandschap en de overdadige onbekende vegetatie aldaar zijn even adembenemend als de beschrijvingen van de onbegrijpelijke leegte van de Argentijnse pampa's. De passages over kunst als representatie (als afbeelding van de wereld en tegelijk als zoektocht naar de naakte realiteit voorbij elke afbeelding) zijn even inspirerend en onnavolgbaar als de passages over de fragiliteit van ons lichaam en ons gezicht. Het enorme natuurgeweld waarin Rugendas terechtkomt is even surrealistisch beschreven als de transformatie (mentaal en fysiek) die Rugendas door dit natuurgeweld ondergaat. En al helemaal fascinerend is de enorm verhevigde waarneming die Rugendas door dit alles bereikt, waardoor hij de wereld anders gaat zien en anders gaat schilderen: realistische schilderkunst versmelt bij hem met surrealistische schilderkunst, ogenschijnlijk statische tableaus zijn voor hem vloeiend en permanent in beweging, en elk object verandert in zijn optiek totaal van gedaante en betekenis zodra er ook maar het kleinste verschuivinkje optreedt in het perspectief. De wereld is vol van monstruositeiten voor hem, met een bijna ondraaglijke intensiteit van klank, kleur en verscheidenheid. En de onze is dat eigenlijk ook: het enige verschil (zo lijkt Aira te suggereren) is dat de manisch hallucinerende Rugendas hem scherper ziet.

Het is allemaal nogal cerebraal en intellectualistisch wat Aira doet: je moet wel houden van kunstfilosofie en filosofie over taal en betekenis, want anders verveel je jezelf te pletter bij hem. Als je ervan houdt om je 'in te leven' in de personages krijg je het ook moeilijk: Aira verlustigt zich aan spektaculaire taferelen, grille plotwendingen en bizarre filosofie, maar karakterontwikkeling en psychologische diepgang interesseren hem niet. Eigenlijk geeft hij alleen maar ruimte aan zijn verwondering over de barokke rijkdommen in en buiten ons hoofd. En daarover vertelt hij dan, volkomen ongeremd. Mij beviel ook dit boekje weer zeer: ik begin aan de volgende!

[Laura Leaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tiny gem, weird and beautiful. On the surface, the story is about Johann Moritz Rugendas, a nineteenth century landscape painter and what happened to him during his foray into Argentina to paint the scenes he saw. More specifically, to paint the landscape by seeing "the processes of growth operative in all forms of life." It was enjoyable to look up the images of Rugendas's paintings online in order to get a better idea of his style (influenced by the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt). Here's a description of the landscape that Rugendas saw, according to Aira:

"Urgent, impertinent birds flung outlandish cries in the tangled vegetation, guinea fowl and hairy rats scampered away before them, powerful yellow pumas kept watch from rock ledges. And the condor soared pensively over the abysses. There were abysses within abysses and trees rose like towers from the deep underground levels. They saw gaudy flowers open, large and small, some with paws, others with rounded kidneys of apple flesh. In the streams there were siren-like molluscs and, at the bottom, always swimming against the current, legions of pink salmon the size of lambs."

Apparently the story is "true" insofar as the historical Rugendas did indeed suffer a calamity on the "radical flatness" of the Argentinian pampas. According to one online source, "Rugendas had a serious riding accident late in 1837. Disfigured by a fractured skull and suffering from neurological disorders, Rugendas took a long time to recover his health." In the novel, Aira imagines him hit by lightning. Twice. Aira takes this account and forms it into something both realistic and surreal simultaneously. Everything is filled with electric energy and soft edges. Rugendas sketches and paints under the influence of opiates and extreme pain, and the writing captures both the twisted agony and the beauty of the painter's journey.

The book is a contemplation. What it contemplates is the surprise - and I found it thought provoking and moving.