Comments & Greek painting: the paths of poets & modern Greek artists...

Greek landscapes & Greek artists, modern Greek arists


Yannis Stavrou, Olives in Attica, oil on canvas

The field
of olives
like a fan,
opens, and closes
Over the olives,
deep sky,
and dark rain,
of frozen stars...

Federico Garcia Lorca

The Little Ballad of the Three Rivers

The Guadalquivir’s river
runs past oranges and olives.
The two rivers of Granada,
fall, to wheatfields, out of snow.

Ay, Love, that goes,
and never returns!

The Guadalquivir’s river
has a beard of clear garnet.
The two rivers of Granada
one of sorrow, one of blood.

Ay, Love,
vanished down the wind!

For the sailing-boats,
Seville keeps a roadway:
Through the waters of Granada
only sighs can row.

Ay, Love,
that went,
and never returned!

Guadalquivir – high tower,
and breeze in the orange-trees.
Dauro, Genil – dead turrets,
dead, above the ponds.

Ay, Love,
vanished down the wind!

Who can say,
if water carries
a ghost-fire of cries?

Ay, Love,
that went, and never returned!

Take the orange petals,
take the leaves of olives,
Andalusia, down to your sea.

Ay, Love,
vanished on the wind!


Landscape

The field
of olives
like a fan,
opens, and closes.
Over the olives,
deep sky,
and dark rain,
of frozen stars.
Reeds, and blackness,
tremble, by the river.
Grey air shivers.
The olives are full of cries.
A crowd of imprisoned birds,
moving long tails in shadow.

Paisaje

El campo
de olivos
se abre y se cierra
como un abanico.
Sobre el olivar
hay un cielo hundido
y una lluvia oscura
de luceros fríos.
Tiembla junco y penumbra
a la orilla del río.
Se riza el aire gris.
Los olivos,
están cargados
de gritos.
Una bandada
de pájaros cautivos,
que mueven sus larguísimas
colas en lo sombrío.