Jan van Huysum's Flower Piece - Couverture rigide

Wergeland, Henrik

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9781904559382: Jan van Huysum's Flower Piece

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1904559387 ISBN 13 : 9781904559382

Editeur : Maia Press Limited, 2009

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Pr�sentation de l'�diteur :

The painting "Vase with Flowers" by the Dutch artist Jan van Huysum was in a private collection just outside Christiania (now Oslo) when the Norwegian firebrand and poet Henrik Wergeland saw it early in 1840. The picure is 'metachronic': flowers from various seasons have been placed together in a combination that could not exist in reality. Exactly the same description can be applied to Wergeland's extraordinary tour-de-force, "Jan van Huysum's Flower Piece". The poem adopts a free attitude towards historical events and people, refers to fictitious works of art by real painters, and zigzags between verse and prose in a glorious rejection of conventional literary form. It is writing inspired by and derived from imagination alone, anchored only loosely in reality.Far from indicating a lack of research or ignorance on Wergeland's part, the poem represents the triumph of romanticism: the sovereign right of the work of art to rise above what is contingent. It is an ekphrasis and a meta-poem. Its main theme is the terrible price of beauty, the high existential cost of art. Plants that grow in ashes and blood, nourished by crumbling bones and watered by tears - these are what produce the loveliest of flowers. Wergeland, who died young after a troubled life, knew what he was talking about, and "Jan van Huysum's Flower Piece" is perhaps his confession. It is a principal work of Nordic romanticism.

Biographie de l'auteur :

Henrik Wergeland (1808-45) is Norway's greatest romantic poet, author of visionary poems, satires, national anthems, sea shanties, prose pieces and political treatises. He is idolised as a national figure who was deeply involved in the emergence of Norway into independence after 400 years of Danish rule. This new translation of one of his greatest works has been commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.

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