O oráculo
Comecei alguns dias atrás a associar palavras ao mosaico de folhas que, caídas ao chão, começam a fundir-se com o solo (coisas que me vêm à mente quando o observo, nas guardas do livro). E assim começaram a surgir: origami; pele com sardas; almas; tristeza; restos; vestígios; pegadas; fósseis; terra; matéria orgânica; solo; inverno; frio; transformação; ciclo. Me lembrei ainda de algo que não li no Antigo Testamento, mas que é de lá: “[Lembra-te de] que és pó e em pó te hás de tornar” (Gênesis, 3, 19).
As folhas me falam de um ciclo de envelhecimento e de renovação, de recriação. Elas me falam, portanto, de ter sido, de ser e de vir a ser.
A textura dessas imagens, esse “pó”, a textura desse solo (e, dessa forma, seus sentidos), se repetirá em muitas páginas que reproduzem o que passei a chamar de “papel-chão” e que estão meticulosamente distribuídas ao longo do livro. Essa textura de solo, também a sinto na rústica luva, de onde tenho de tirar o livro para abri-lo. Ela está lá também em um ombro sardento, em uma imagem que sugere a silhueta sinuosa de uma mulher…
Por fim (ou, no início), ecoa também na estátua do felino, o que me faz sentir que ele representa alguma força do interior da terra, o próprio solo que eu piso e que contém em si todos os sentidos que vislumbro no mosaico das folhas.
Esse gato, sem orelhas (ou com elas abaixadas, em posição de espreita e ataque), me olha fixamente assim que viro a página. Esse gato é uma fêmea. Posso dizer que a imagem dela (que parece ter algo ainda vivo na boca a escorrer-lhe pelos lábios, quiçá um falcão) é praticamente a única do livro que me olha tão diretamente.
Para que eu não venha a me tornar aquilo em sua boca, é preciso que eu formule à gata uma pergunta (como se, com esse olhar, ela me interrogasse a respeito do que eu estou buscando no livro que começo a abrir; o livro dela, seu templo). E ela me responderá com um oráculo, um enigma que eu mesmo não conseguirei de pronto resolver. Intuo que esse oráculo tem que ver com a minha própria jornada no mundo, com o fazer-me eu mesmo, com o fazer-me homem, (com meus próprios ter sido, ser e vir a ser) e com isso ela me deixará passar.
Deparo-me então com a imagem de um menino em movimento. O menino, aliás, mal se vê, entre uma página e outra, a cabeça borrada pelo movimento. Esse menino que precede a imagem de uma árvore sou eu; aliás, ele é todos os meninos.
Entendo que com esse menino-eu-todos prosseguirei. Há ainda outros meninos nessa primeira parte: dois que estavam em Rainchild (ou lá em Innamincka, talvez), brincando à beira de um lago, com varas nas mãos; outros dois que aparecem atrás de reflexos de folhas.
Sinto um universo mais ingênuo nessa primeira parte, talvez porque ela me remeta a imagens, gostos e jeitos de olhar que são também da minha infância.
O tanque com as carpas me faz ver de novo os lambaris no poço onde o gado ia beber água na fazenda. Quase sinto de novo o gosto dos lambaris, engolidos vivos, misturado com o gosto da água lamacenta do poço. Quase sinto o ardume de quando alguém conseguia acertar uma bolota de mamona em mim, enquanto observo os dois garotos com as varas. Me lembro de finais de tarde inesquecíveis em que, junto com um monte de amigos que eu já não sei mais explicar de onde tinham vindo, eu girava no ar uma vara de bambu para atrair (e matar) morcegos desnorteados. (Que frustração nunca ter conseguido pegar um!)
E o cavalo… Andar a cavalo era o ápice da liberdade, a intensidade máxima da minha vida. Era como se o cavalo pudesse me transformar em alguém muito maior, muito mais poderoso.
Mas não este cavalo. Este cavalo está deitado e não é comum ver cavalos deitados. Na infância na fazenda (e depois na escola) eu ouvia meio encantado que cavalos dormem em pé. Mas este está deitado (assim ele está para mim). Um cavalo deitado é um cavalo abatido, um cavalo que não basta, um cavalo que parece só meio cavalo; um homem que parece ainda ser realmente apenas menino.
Há também uma garota de olhar esguio, mais adiante um ombro com sardas, a imagem da silhueta esfumaçada de uma mulher. Não deixo de ver essas imagens como parte de certa curiosidade ingênua, infantil, em relação à mulher, ao seu corpo, ao seu olhar.
Até o próximo papel-chão e a sequência que resolvi chamar de “da árvore”, sinto nessa minha jornada mais inocência do que sensualidade ou erotismo. Mas justamente esta sequência é um ponto de inflexão.
A segunda parte da minha jornada se inicia com outro cavalo, que para mim representa um cavalo já bastante diferente. Um cavalo que se transformou e que também é capaz de transformar aquele ombro sardento em mulher; que tem um olhar para a mulher que não é mais ingênuo e que nem é apenas um olhar.
Um cavalo de sentido vertical.
Este segundo cavalo é Eros.
Ele está vendado porque é absolutamente indômito. Essa talvez seja a única forma de controlá-lo: colocar-lhe uma venda aos olhos. Este cavalo, assim como o gato do início do livro, me “olha” diretamente. A ele tenho de elaborar outra pergunta – a qual ele me responderá com o mesmo oráculo.
(Os corvos que até agora há pouco voavam fúnebre e tenazmente pousam agora nessa árvore sem folhas. Tornar-se-ão eles as folhas que a árvore perdeu neste longo inverno?)
Mas agora eu já estarei mais próximo de conseguir decifrar o meu enigma, o que talvez signifique estar mais à vontade com a perspectiva de não decifrá-lo jamais.
Serei solo.
Reencontrarei o menino no final do livro, numa foto que também parece estar em Heartbeat, penúltima imagem deste One Tree. Ele ainda estará em movimento. Esse menino me recordará de que, apesar de olhar no espelho e ver a imagem de um homem, ainda sou também eu um pouco menino.
E daí, deste ponto, continuarei a minha jornada.
The oracle
A few days ago I began to associate various words to the mosaic on the endpapers of the book (things that come to my mind when I look at it). Fallen to the ground, the leaves begin to merge with the soil. And thus I began: origami; freckled skin; souls; sadness; remains; traces; footprints; fossils; soil; organic matter; winter; cold; transformation; cycle. It also reminded me of something that I have not read in the Old Testament, but is there: “[Remember] that you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis, 3, 19).
The leaves in that mosaic they speak of aging and renewal, of recreation. As for that, they speak of having been, being and becoming.
The texture of these images, this “dust”, the texture of the soil (and thus its senses), appear again on many pages that reproduce what I have come to call “ground-paper”. These pages are meticulously distributed throughout the book. I also feel this soil texture on the rough slipcase from where I have to take the book, in order to open its pages. It’s there also in an image of a freckled shoulder; in another one, which suggests the sinuous silhouette of a woman…
Finally (or maybe at the beginning), I can also see this texture on the statue of the cat. Because of that, I have a feeling that this female cat represents such a strong power, something that comes from deep inside the Earth, from the very ground I tread. She contains in herself all the senses I see in the mosaic of leaves.
This cat without ears (or with her ears lowered like if she was waiting to attack) stares at me as soon as I turn the page. I can say that the image of the cat (which seems to have something still alive in her mouth, trickling down from her lips, maybe a hawk) is almost the only one in the book that looks at me so directly.
In order to prevent myself from becoming that thing in her mouth, I must ask the cat a question (as if, with that look, she interrogated me about what I’m looking for in the book which I begin to open: her book, her temple). And she’ll answer me with an oracle, a puzzle that I myself won’t be able to solve right away. I intuit that the oracle has to do with my own journey in the world; with me becoming myself; with the making of myself as a man (therefore, with my own having been, being and becoming).
With that, she’ll let me through.
And so I see the image of a moving boy. Actually, the boy can hardly be seen, between one page and the other, the head blurred because of the movement. This boy preceding the image of one tree is me; in fact, he is all of the boys.
I understand that I’ll continue my journey with this boy-me-all. There are also other boys in this first part: two that were in Rainchild (or maybe over there in Innamincka), playing beside a lake with some sticks on their hands; other two behind reflections of some leaves.
I feel here in this first part a more naive universe, maybe because it brings me back to my own childhood. Images, tastes and manners of looking that were also mine.
The carps in the water make me revisit the little tetra fishes (we used to call “lambari”) in the pond where the cattle had to come in order to drink water. I can almost feel again the taste of those fishes with that muddy water. We used to swallow them alive and wet. Also, while I observe the two boys by the lake, I can almost feel again the pain I used to feel when someone’s castor bean would hit some part of my body. And I also remember unforgettable evenings, during which me and a bunch of friends (I can’t recall where they came from, how they got there) kept on spinning a large bamboo stick in order to attract (and supposedly kill) disoriented bats. (It was so frustrating I never got to kill a single bat!)
And the horse… Ridding a horse was the ultimate freedom experience, my life’s climax. The horse could make me a lot bigger, a lot more powerful.
But not this horse. This horse is lying down and horses don’t really use to lie down. In my childhood at the farm (and afterwards at school) I used to hear with some wonder that horses slept standing up. But this one is lying down (this is how it is to me). A lying down horse is a depressed horse, a horse that is not enough, a horse which is only half a horse, a man that isn’t yet fully a man.
There is also a girl with an awry look; a little further, a shoulder with freckles; the smoky silhouette of a woman. I cannot look at these images without noticing a certain ingenuous curiosity, some childish look towards the female universe, their body, their way of looking.
Until the next ground-paper and the sequence I decided to call “the tree”, I find in my journey more innocence than sensuality or eroticism. But this is then a turning point.
The second part of my journey begins with another horse. This one is very different, though. He is a transformed horse, which can also transform that freckled shoulder into a woman. He is a horse that looks to the woman with less naivety. In fact, he doesn’t just look to the woman.
A vertical horse.
This second horse is Eros.
He is blindfolded because he is absolutely indomitable. This is probably the only way to control him: to cover his eyes. This male horse, like the female cat from the beginning of the book, “looks” directly to myself. To him I have to draw up another question to which he’ll answer with the same oracle.
(The crows were tenaciously flying their funeral flight and now they perch in this leafless tree. Will they become the leaves that the tree has lost in this long winter?)
But now I’m getting closer to deciphering my riddle. This could mean, though, that I’m becoming more comfortable with the idea of not ever deciphering it.
I’ll be soil.
I’ll meet again the boy at the end of the book, in a picture that was also in Heartbeat, second last image of this One Tree. He is still in forward motion. This boy will make me remember that, despite seeing the image of a man when I look to the mirror, I am also in part a boy.
From then, I must continue my journey.
Machiel (18 de fevereiro de 2012)
You know, the cat still talks to me when I begin in the book: “be careful boy, I will be watching you until the end”. She or he has been with me for about ten years now, and he or she has done this from our start, even before I began making this book.
Lovely piece Daniel, more to follow!
Helena Rios (19 de fevereiro de 2012)
beautiful text, Dani!
Do you remember that on the film called ‘The Neverending Story’ the sphinxes had to keep the eyes closed to let someone pass through them? Because nobody resists to the sphinx’s look, that brings all the world’s enigma. We must have courage and self-confidence to keep the sphinx’s eyes closed. And I think that we must close our eyes too, and look inside, to have courage and self-confidence.
Renata Mosaner (24 de fevereiro de 2012)
Gostei do texto. Enquanto lia me senti flanando entre imagens mentais…
De início, lendo o trecho sobre o mosaico de folhas e suas associações, veio à tona na minha cabeça uma imagem do filme Lavoura Arcaica, em que o protagonista deita e se cobre de folhas secas. Acho essa imagem fortíssima (e belíssima). Não lembro ao certo, mas talvez ele até trace comparações entre essas folhas e diversas coisas, entre elas, a pele da menina pela qual é apaixonado (a “pele com sardas” que você sensivelmente cita). Isso é lindo!
É visível que as correlações e interpretações apresentadas no ensaio não surjam apenas de características formais da imagem, mas vêm de algo mais sensível: de memórias da própria infância, de sensações, etc. Acho que está aí a leveza da coisa… abraçar varias historias (a infância, os livros do Botman, a lógica dos ciclos…) como se fosse apenas uma.
Muito legal. Parabéns.
Flavia (24 de fevereiro de 2012)
Daniel, lindo texto, e além disso, uma ótima viagem traçar paralelos com o que você conta da infância na fazenda, o que imagino que é a vida do Machiel na Europa, o que vemos nos livro, o que lembro da minha própria meninice… Memórias, desafios, imaginação… Lindo!
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Daniel, great text and beside that a great trip to see connections with what you tell about your childhoon in a farm and what I imagine of Machiel’s life in Europe, and what we see on the book, and what I remember of my own childhood… Memories, challenges, imagination… Great!
Machiel (19 de março de 2012)
Wat een lelijke poes!!
Hans is a good friend. He works in gardening and he is crazy about photography and photobooks. He must be close to 65 years old. When One Tree was printed he came right away, to get one of the very first copies. He sat at my table and began looking at the book. Of course soon he met the cat. His voice sounded over-exited and agitated: “wat een lelijke poes” and he quickly moved on. After three or four pages, he went back to the cat, looked at it and yelled again: wat een lelijke poes!! It means ‘what an ugly cat’. He must have told me how ugly my cat was five times for sure, almost angry. A week later I was sitting next to him in his car and I told him how much Magda and I had laughed about this story of the ugly cat. He braked and stopped his car, looked at me and did it again, still very agitated: “Machiel, I have never seen such an ugly cat in my life!!”. This time I asked him to stop giving me a laughing crisis (I got tears in my eyes from it) and I also asked him how good his eyes were. “Hans, it is a statue, did you think it was a real cat?”. He looked at me in disbelief, he had been sure the cat was real.
At my opening in Amsterdam a woman walked up to me, telling me how happy she was to see my work. And then her expression changed: “but I have to ask you a question, and I am afraid to know the answer: what ever happened to that poor cat?”. Of course I had Hans as a reference and I could quickly tell her the truth.
The truth is that Hilary took me out for lunch in New York, I drank wine and am not used to drinking in the day. Afterwards, I left him and walked away not knowing where I was going. I met the statue of the cat, walked on first and then came back to photograph it.
Weeks later I found the cat on my film. I made a small print. It felt as if I had brought a visitor home, someone to watch over things. She refused to go into Rainchild, but she stayed very present in the following years.
“Ground-paper” is as close as can be, to us feeling.
When the book was printed the endpapers, with the leafs, were done in the beginning. As soon as ink and image were on the paper, I felt touched, emotional. It was about the skin of my fingers moving over that structure, the sound that made. I told the printer I would love to have a whole book done on that paper. Crazy and too expensive was his reply. We’ll see. Maybe the “ground-paper” textured feeling of the chest of the cat is what really brought it all on. There I see something where I find photography at its best: it has to do with the unsharpness and the suggestion the chest-part gives. And with the sharp gaze directed towards us. This gaze, at a second instant, hits our emotion: because despite the troubles below, we are being looked at with an expression that is beyond words.
The blindfolded horse is not blindfolded.
Between Daniel and Flavia are touched the secrets of the heart, my heart. Some things are too painful to talk about. What better place for them, than the gutter of a book?
Yes, the boys playing are in one of the Rainchild dummies, called Innamincka. If I recall correctly, this comes from aboriginese language and means: a deep, dark hole. And also: a place where children play.
Daniel sees a lot, almost everything. But you also make me laugh, sorry, in the same way Hans makes me laugh. It is something about a certain seriousness and the fact that Eros can come around any corner
When I imagine a he-cat, I see resignation. And also determination. When I imagine a she-cat, I see wisdom and solitude. With both I imagine a sense of protection.
Ok, the blindfolded horse is blindfolded, I believe in the freedom of letting go.
Daniel (25 de março de 2012)
Yeah… maybe I’m really talking more about myself than anything. As always… But it is also about me after feeling the ground-paper depth of this book! Thank you for letting me know myself better!
*
É! Talvez eu esteja mesmo falando mais de mim do que de qualquer coisa. Como sempre… Mas é sobre mim depois de ter podido sentir a profundidade-papel-chão desse livro! Obrigado por permitir que eu me conheça melhor!