Ho avuto l’onore di essere accettato per la partecipazione alla mostra di Carnet di Viaggio che si terrà al Centro Culturale Candiani di Mestre, dal 05-10-2012 al 21-10-2012.
Personalmente sarò a Mestre dall’inaugurazione della mostra fino alla Domenica, per poi far ritorno a Firenze e lasciare al centro Candiani i miei carnet selezionati.
Vorrei ringraziare infinitamente Andrea Longhi per il grande aiuto che mi ha dato, e tutti gli amici del Associazione Culturale Matite in Viaggio per avermi concesso questa esperienza che sarà sicuramente bella e stimolante, per il supporto e l’infinita pazienza.
Presenterò alla mostra 4 carnets, tutti realizzati su Moleskine Giapponese.
Due Carnets sono dedicati a Lijiang, più precisamente uno è il Carnet de Voyage sulla città di Lijiang visitata nel 2005, provenendo da Dali; sull’altro Carnet mi sono invece concentrato sulla regione di Lijiang ed il monte Yu Long Xue Shan ai cui piedi si trova Lijiang; considero questo secondo carnet molto importante perchè nelle tavole finali ho dipinto il villaggio di Yu Shui Zhai (il Villaggio dell’acqua di giada) documentando la vecchia porta di ingresso al villaggio che ho appreso esser stata abbattuta e sostituita da un altro ingresso.
Lijiang, Japanese Moleskine – Carnet I
Questi due Carnet sono i miei “pezzi storici” assieme al Carnet su Pechino (Moleskine acquerello), che ho presentato assieme a “Rotolo dei 9 Draghi” lo scorso Novembre al Rendez Vous di Clermont Ferrand, a cui a questo giro, purtroppo, non parteciperò perchè non sono stato selezionato…; c’est la vie!!!
Lijiang, Japanese Moleskine – Carnet II
Altro Carnet a cui sono legatissimo è il primo dedicato alle Cinque Terre, su Riomaggiore, iniziato e praticamente completato nella settimana splendida ed enormemente importante per me come carnettista con Stefano Faravelli.
Le Cinque Terre – Carnet I. Riomaggiore
Infine, ultimo carnet in mostra è il primo di quelli dedicati ai muesi navali europei, in questo caso il Museo Navale di Barcellona, visitato nell’estate del 2009.
Fragmento do Mar – Carnet I: Museo Navale di Barcellona
Tenterò di postare sviluppi, pensieri ed impressioni direttamente da Mestre nei 3 giorni in cui sarò alla mostra.
This Carnet on Japanese Moleskine is dedited to “The Drifter”, a Taylor Steele Movie with Rob Machado as starring and drifting…
Well, there’s plenty of words with which I could try to describe how I knew this movie, why and how much I care ’bout, why I’ve made a Carnet focused on it and from it inspired, etc…
But…
I don’t think it really matters, as I don’t wont to bug anyone with my elucubration (dreaming-up).
My way of painting, as carnets as other media, is just a way of expression, a need of mine materializing in colors, drawings and notes. Thus this carnet is just a reaction springing out from the so full of beauty Taylor and Rob drifting around Bali and Indo. Sometimes, chatting with my beloved, we state that this is a real carnet de voyage, a travel truly lived, natural and humans sights truly seen and recorded, with the eyes of the surf [er].
What I really felt soooo fine, so cool, is a sensation of deep immersion into the drifting of the mind and the feelings springing out from a travel which, I think, is the incarnation of a travel made inside ourself, feelings different in forms but that I perfectly re-found in what I lived in 2005 in China, drifting completely alone…
Tiantan Gongyuan – promenade to the filend where I trained in Taiji
In this carnet I met again versus the very hard attempt in describing by painting a sum of sensation which touch sound and smell…, like in Tiantan Gongyuan (Beijing) the sound of the deep magik silcence of the sun rising-up from the East gate, and the hot sound of the shout by far-away people concealed in the deep of the sacred wood practicing Qigong exercises…
The Drifter – attempt in painting the sound of whave
as here in The Drifter the sound of the bells in the beginning, and of the powerfull wiping-out of waves…
As in Sipping Jetstreams someone told, I’m only trying to read the whole book…
This is the portrait of Sofia made on 50 x 70 paper with Sennelier Oil Pastels.
It’s some months I was working on, and this morning just was the right one to finish working…; just would like to paint form the same picture another one, but a bit different! As I planned to change the close up with something like that
and start working in Maerican-Neoimpressionist style making the first tones in acrylic, and then work with oil pastels.
Faróis distantes,
De luz subitamente tão acesa,
De noite e ausência tão rapidamente volvida,
Na noite, no convés, que consequências aflitas!
Mágoa última dos despedidos,
Ficção de pensar…
Faróis distantes…
Incerteza da vida…
Voltou crescendo a luz acesa avançadamente,
No acaso do olhar perdido…
Faróis distantes…
A vida de nada serve…
Pensar na vida de nada serve…
Pensar de pensar na vida de nada serve…
Vamos para longe e a luz que vem grande vem menos grande.
Faróis distantes…
30-4-1926
Poesias de Álvaro de Campos. Fernando Pessoa. Lisboa: Ática, 1944
“There was once a man who became unstuck in the world – he realized that he was not his car, he realized that he was not his job, he was not his phone, his desk or his shoes. Like a boat cut from its anchor, he’d begin to drift.”
“There was once a man who became unstuck in the world – he took the wind for a map, he took the sky for a clock, and he set off with no destination. He was never lost.”
“There once was a man who became unstuck in the world – instead of hooks or a net, he threw himself into the sea. He was never thirsty.”
“There was once a man who became unstuck in the world – with a Polaroid camera he made pictures of all the people he met, and then he gave all the pictures away. He would never forget their faces.”
“There was once a man who became unstuck in the world – and each person he met became a little less stuck themselves. He traveled only with himself and he was never alone.”
“There was once a man who’d become unstuck in the world – and he traveled around like a leaf in the wind until he reached the place where he started out. His car, his job, his phone, his shoes – everything was right where he’d left it. Nothing had changed, and yet he felt excited to have arrived here – as if this were the place he’d been going all along.”
To
Ifav,
and all
people who
make me possible
to come to Clermont
living for 3 days
in the fullness
of art
Biographical note
I was born in September of 1976, the 13th , and since a child I love the art, drawing, painting, making models. Fortunately both my family and teachers always encouraged me to practice such activities.
I had got an MA2 degree in Egyptology at University of Pisa in 2004, and one year later I’ve started to study for a second MA2 in Digital Humanities, discipline where computational is applied to human sciences: such experiences confirmed me about the importance and ever-growing use digital instruments applied to artistic, linguistic, historical and literature domains. The encounter with Professor Roberto Rosselli del Turco initiated me to the text digital encoding.
After the travel of 2005 in China, I start to study the Chinese Calligraphy, which I use to practice yet today among the study of Chinese Language. Moreover I start to study the Sigillography and the traditional Chinese Art, adopting watercolor and crayons as my mains medium for my Carnet de Voyage, while I prefer the oil medium for paintings of wider dimension and different approaches.
About my way of oil-painting, I feel I had two main encounters which mostly influenced me: first of all the style which I use to call “neo-impressionist” of the American Cape Code School of Art, founded by Master Charles Hawtorne and pursued by Lois Griffel. Then the discovery of Sennelier oil pastels, with a so peculiar unctuousness and creamy texture which permitted to me a wider freedom of pictorial expression.
During my travels in Chine I had the possibility to visit the city of Lijiang, a little center situated on Tibetan Plateau; here I met the Naxi People, one of the many official ethnic minorities of China. I thus began to study their ancient culture, founded on the “Dongba” religious tradition, and their pictograph writing system (the only one alive at today…) which me greatly wondered.
My studies focused on Naxi – Dongba tradition thus began to be appreciated by specialists and scholar, as I was invited to expose some research project in China (Kunming 2009) and in France (Pris 2007, Arras 2010).
As I’m living and working in Florence ’till 2004, as often having the possibility to go to Paris and Beijing for my researches, I could appreciate and study the greatest master-works. In China I had the possibility to meet the opera of both traditional painters as 陈容 Chen Rong (1235–1262), 石涛Shitao (1642-1707) e 八大山人 Bada Shanren (1626-1705), and as contemporary painters as徐惟辛 Xu Weixin (1958 ) and关则驹 Guan Zejiu (1941).
In 2007 I’ve frequented the Art-Atelier of Marzia Pieri, when I could delve into the colored crayons; in the same time I started to deepen the painting by watercolor under the guide of Master Azad Nanakeli, who delighted with his unique style of using colors “very grind”.
Finally, meeting Stefano Faravelli, at the beginning just by his Carnets, then pursued and matured when I had the possibility of working with him in the summer of 2010 in Riomaggiore, and other meetings culminated with the Rendez-Vous du Carnet de Voyage in Clermont-Ferrand, into the November of 2011. The precious friendship with Master Faravelli influenced me enormously, especially in the way of conceiving my Carnets, and in the deepness and total self-immersion into the the Carnet itself; I thus began to consider and realize not just Carnet de Voyage, but also Carnet of study, alias monography-Carnets focused on one or more thematics, as the Carnet dedicated to the Egyptian Western Desert Caravans Routes, or the one dedicated to The Scroll of the Nine Dragons, a deep study and a copy of the masterwork of 陈容 Chen Rong.
Guestbook
During the preparatory for the XII Rendez-vous of the Carnet de Voyage, thinking about how to set up the stand, Claudia and I could simulate the disposition and the setting-up thinks to the accurate documentation sent by Ifav (Association Il Faut Aller Voir). An idea lightened in my head, and it seemed suited: make a Carnet available to people who would passed by my Stand, free to any initiative wished by every guest and passerby.
The leaping idea immediately self-transformed in a more articled and intense project: at first, the perfect support for this kind of guestbook had to be a Japanese Moleskine, then it would be possible to unwind such memory of our first Biennale, as a sequence of images and colors which would permitted us to travel, even if sitting at my Stand, letting people to take me where and how they would.
Days and sad daily-life passing by, I then started to conceive this idea as a need of expression: I would that people passing-by my stand could get an impression of myself, and then desire or not to make something on my Moleskine. I wish that people could touch a foot-step of my person, and over there embroider what they would like to do.
Here then spread out the first plate of my Livre d’or dedicated to 2011 Randez-vous: Sofia Brugnatelli gently blow over the Hokusai’s floating landscape, and papers and hats fly away together with the guy sit on the flying-open-book (logo of Ifav), exactly as Sofia was, a girl who learned to fly immersed into literature and writing, everything while I, from Florence, pilgrim to Clermont-Ferrand, and in the meantime Claudia looks at the sky, and at the papers that like thoughts are flying away.
Soon Claudia’s beautiful hair became blue waves whiping out in white foam, and yet again beloved Hokusai backs with his marvelous waves outlining and foaming into the deep blue sea, the same sea which Sofia used to chant smelling its perfume: I remember her, and the other people could read about in her “Costruisci il tuo Totem (build your totem) ” . It is the same sea which Claudia loves, the same sea and the same waves which myself, as a child, used to surf skiving the scholl, sensations that thanks to the “Drifter” Rob Machado I could relish again in their real essences.
From the coverpage of “Gli Ulissi Ebrei”, collection of the writings of Sofia Brugnatelli, I took little paper-cuts in which appears the inscription “per sempre (for ever) ”, and the initial glentle blowing make the paper-cuts to spread out all over the Carnet…, for ever!
The essence of this Carnet, the nature of mine and I believed somehow of any Carnettist really deepen in such paper-caskets, takes me thinking about the “self-making” of a Carnet de Voyage, and linked to the novels of Jean Pierre Faye and his conception of literature and novel: immediately I bud on the Carnet excerpts of his masterwork “Le Recit Hunique”, part of the envelope of letter he wrote to my mum at the time when she was translating his romance “La Cassure” as her degree in French language and literature. I also cut parts of a handbill which Faye himself sent to my mum about the collective movement “Tel-Quel”; I desire to deep my Carnet in the deepest and most intimate corner of my heart and loves: tel quel!!!
Everything then was made by itself, with signatures, dedications,drawings and little masterworks. Among them I love to look and look again at the Poisson du Pacifique squirmed from a Carnet Marin of Madame Marie-hélène Puget, the “Trabocco” of the friend Marco Pallini Palmar, the black pattering kitty of Laure Fissore, and the splendid lobster of Stefano Faravelli, the most Taoist creature among all the animals, master of the walking-back, as he had written, transparent as I am… Tel Quel!
Texts, English translation
[pg. 9]
From an handbill of TEL QUEL, 1964 “Sommaires des numéros parus”, Editions du Seuil: final page of the handbill
“ TEL QUEL is the first wide review exclusively directed by young writers. It yelds a new critic point of view about literature of yesterday and of today. It’s orienting the literature of tomorrow. “
[pg. 10, 11]
Up: frontispiece of envelope, autograph sender is Jean Pierre Faye writing to Paola Farulli, my mum, during their correspondence for my mother’s translation of Faye novel “La Cassure”.
Down: Jean Pierre Faye, 1967 “Le récit hunique”, Collection “Tel Quel”, aux éditions du seuil: from the back cover-page. For English translation, many thanks to Carl Freeman.
“ Presenting these freely improvised texts together is justified if they complete each other and, in particular, form an original pattern.
Here, extended story-telling may be seen developing, the gradual progression of writing: discovering and reacting.
Their final hostelries, their random staging posts, are named Sartre, Charles Sorel, Nouveau Roman, Jakobson, or Artaud.
The Huns arrive and, believe it or not, they make their entry through language or story. But what matters is what emerges from that. ”
My totem rises-up behind the Tyrrhenian Sea, where the fisherman’s boats landing decoying flocks of white seagulls. Their calls echoing in the whole city of Livorno, their wings making the most of Sirocco’s draughts and their clumsy figure alight on the shoulders of the Four Moors (a monument with four Saracen pirates enchained by Leopoldo Duke behind the Medicean harbour of Livorno)
There will be right the center of my universe, it will real be that site to determinate my space: leaving from the bronze brocade skirt I’m leaving from home.
If I half-close my eyes and I look-back my shoulders I see the gloomy of my eyelid slowing turning into blue. Dribs and drabs the colored platform is moving, ’till is resembling the sea.
[13]
If I should divide my life and looking for a symbol to be linked to a moment, the first one could be the sea.
Then the totem could begin to take form and, at the place of the buffalo muzzle, would appear a sea-water bottle. I believed that the sea had seen me grow-up; I used to take a rest sitting astride on the legs of the Saracen pirates, staring at the waves: they were rushing rising-up, whiping-out against the dock turning themselves into foam. The scent of seaweeds and fishes was sharp but infinitely cheering.
When I was a child I used to feel the champion of a not-considered freedom, I was the spokeswoman of the Moors: at heart
[14]
I liked their tale of beggars framed-up by the great hero Leopoldo, but the end with their death was disappointing.
In my tales I was able to save them, because as I am a sea-creature in the under-water city where I was living, there was a place also for the beggars. Their mouths didn’t answer to me and their proud faces cried, but I didn’t miss any opportunity to rescue them telling that sooner or later something have to change. Growing-up, I just used to sit on the stairs, at their feet, and from there smelling the sea.
Under the sea-water bottle there are the Saracens.
[15]
Then a train took me away from my totem, thus carrying on the building was definitely a problem, but many years of my life could be summed-up by just one headword: a ball, more exactly a Mikasa volley-ball. By it I’ve learn how to live, forgetting the past with sadness, rising-up my head and going on. By the ball I’ve learned that if we don’t play in team we cannot win; sport is able to absorb myself like a pleasant grip, offering many emotions and the power for struggle.
Under the Saracens an empty space means sadness, homesick, melancholy, and lower a ball, more exactly a Mikasa.
1994 September, the 24th
Original texts
[pg. 9]
TEL QUEL, 1964 “Sommaires des numéros parus”, Editions du Seuil
« TEL QUEL est la première grande revue exclusivement dirigée par de jeunes écrivains. Elle apporte un point de vue critique nouveau sur la littérture d’hier et d’aujourd’hui.
Elle oriente la littérature de demain. »
[pg. 10, 11]
Jean Pierre Faye, 1967 “Le récit hunique”, Collection “Tel Quel”, aux éditions du seuil
« Laisser se rassemblern des textes qui ont eté improvisés gaiement, est défendable, s’ils font tous ensemble, quelque dessin unique par surcroît. Ici l’on pourrait voir, en train de se faire, la longue narration des récits, la longue marche de l’écriture découvrant et agissant.
Ses dernières auberges, ses relais de hasard ont nom Sartre ou Charles Sorel, Nouveau Roman, Jakobson, Artaud? Mais ce qui importe est ce qui vient, par cela.
Les Huns arrivent, Et croyez-le ou non ; ils viennent par le langage ou le récit. »
[12]
Sofia Brugnatelli, 1998 “Gli Ulissi Ebrei” : 43 – 45 “costruisci il tuo totem”
“ Il mio totem si erge dinanzi al mar Tirreno, dove le barche dei pescatori arrivano attirando l’attenzione di stormi bianchi di gabbiani. I loro versi echeggiano in tutta la città di Livorno, le loro ali sfruttano le correnti di scirocco e la loro figura goffa si posa sulle spalle dei Quattro Mori.
Sarà proprio quello il centro del mio Universo, sarà quel sito a determinare il mio spazio: allontanandomi dai drappi dei gonnellini di bronzo mi allontano da casa.
Se socchiudo gli occhi e mi guardo dietro le spalle vedo il nero delle palpebre trasformarsi lentamente in blu. E a poco a poco, la piattaforma colorata si muove, fino ad assomigliare al mare.
[13]
Se dovessi dividere la mia vita e cercare un simbolo che si colleghi ad un momento, il primo sarebbe il mare.
Allora il totem comincerebbe a prendere forma e, al posto del muso del bisonte, apparirebbe una bottiglia d’acqua marina. Credo che il mare mi abbia visto crescere; mi riposavo seduta a cavalcioni sulle gambe dei pirati saraceni, e guardavo le onde: si alzavano impetuose, si stagliavano contro la banchina e diventavano spuma. Il profumo di alghe e di pesci era penetrante ma infinitamente rassicurante.
Quando ero bambina mi sentivo la paladina di una libertà non considerata, ero la portavoce dei Mori: in fondo
[14]
la loro storia di briganti incastrati dal grande eroe Leopoldo mi piaceva, ma il finale con la loro morte era deludente. Nelle mie storie riuscivo a salvarli perchè io ero una creatura marina e nella città subacquea dove vivevo, anche per i briganti c’era posto. Le loro bocche non mi rispondevano e i loro visi orgogliosi piangevano, ma non perdevo occasione per rassicurarli che prima o poi qualcosa sarebbe cambiato. Crescendo mi limitavo a sedermi sugli scalini, ai loro piedi e da lì annusavo il mare.
Sotto la bottiglia di vetro ci sono i saraceni.
[15]
Poi un treno mi portò via dal mio totem e continuare a costruirlo fu decisamente un problema, ma molti anni della mia vita si possono riassumere sotto un’unica voce: un pallone, più precisamente un Mikasa. Con quello ho imparato a vivere, dimenticando con tristezza il passato, sollevando la testa e andando avanti. Con la palla ho imparato che se non si gioca in squadra non si può vincere; lo sport riesce ad assorbirmi come una piacevole morsa, regalandomi tante emozioni e la capacità di lottare.
Sotto i saraceni uno spazio vuoto significa tristezza, nostalgia, malinconia e ancora più in basso una palla, più precisamente un Mikasa.
With a week of delay, I’ve finally rubbed a punch of minutes to write about the most beautiful art event I had the luck to be invited to be part of, the 12th Edition of Biennale of the Carnet de Voyage, named the Rendez-vous du Carnet de Voyage, which was from 18 to 20th November in the beautiful and peaceful city of Cloermont-Ferrand, not faraway from Lyon.
Claudia and I, accustomed to other artistic and/or cultural event in Italy, was immediately hit by the perfect organization and warm welcome of the Association “Il faut aller voir” in the huge and beauty Polydrome, where the biennale took play. Just think that we also can had a parking for our car without paying nothing…just saying: “hello, this is Stefano Zamblera, I have to expose at the Rendez-vous”… incredible!!!
After a day passed in setting up my stand, number 237 , just few steps from Faravelli’s who had number 232, we then discovered the most famous Creperie in Clermont and have a nice dinner eating any sort of salade and sweet creep, and a delicious icecream!!!
The 1st day of Biennale, many classes of pupils were taken there to visit our stands, and we was literally submerged by boys and girls askin’ me to paint a dragon or a Chuette (°.°) … a very nice time (lasted all the day!!!) in which it was possible to touch by hand how much could be enveloped the school in the art activities…, and how good are the teachers which get out from class to make pupils breathe the air is in your city; pupils are going to be the citizen of tomorrow,,,ain’t them?
The second and third day of Biennale, we spend many many ours in chatting with people who passed by our stand, asking about the tecniques I used in my paintings, asking for the places I visited and painted, and many many competent questions I was so glad to answer…
I really felt satisfied and stimulate in going on with some works I’ve just thought about, but never dare to invest the few free-time I still have from daily life made of completely different things about art and peindre!!!
Finally I’m so happy to have met in Clermont Marco Pallini [Palmar] as a so good friend and so good artist,,,his watercolors and his book focused on Trabocchi is simply delicious and amazing!!!
I’m so happy to have shared such fantastic days with Stefano Faravelli, master of painting, philosophy, art, and a dear friend!!! Claudia and I were so happy to have met Madame Marie-hélène Puget, with her Carnes Marin she was for us the best artist we discovered here, and we used to love to get to her stand in the so few free-time we had to leave our stand, watching at her incredible style o f painting by ink and crayons!!!
Finally….backing home!!! I have the Guestbook I just prepared for people to sign-up, paint, drawing and make whatever they’dd like to do!!! Just start to work hard and happy for the next Rendez-vous and for the Barcellona event of the Book of Art,,, à bientot!!!
Conclusion: just say…yet another day and yet another time there!!! And I am so happy that many many people which passed at my stand, signed or did something, or just take a look to the guestbook see Sofia Brugnatelli’s portrait and maybe take a look to her “Gli ulissi ebrei”
Today (weekend!!) I finally had the time to create and update the pdf of the complete preliminary paper of my Arras 2010′s topic “Creatures mythiques animales dans les manuscrits naxis“.
Having published it online, I’ll be able to quote this work directly in my definitive paper, which is going to be published in the official acts of the congress: in that way I’ll be able to indicate some parts and some sources which are fully explained and available online, in order to be accorded to the authors recommendations, in particular for the length of the paper itself.
The complete preliminary paper is in English, whilest the final official publication will be in French, thanks to Madame Nathalie Beaux; it’s available directly from here, below there’s the complete URL.
Créatures mythiques animales dans les manuscrits naxis
Complete study made for Arras Congress: “Les signes d’animaux et de créatures mythiques en Orient et en Occident“
This is the complete work I’ve made and written for Arras 2010 congress, focused on the signs dedicated to mythical animals in Naxi – Dongba tradition.
According to the “recommandation aux auteurs” edited for “Arras Publication du Colloque” the paper I wrote in English, from which I derived the slides of the presentation of the the congress presented by Mademoiselle Laura Benedikter was too much longer: 1650.00 characters against the edge of 35.000 permitted by the recommandation. Moreover a French traduction is required for the final pubblication of the acts of the congress, thus for the latter – thanks to Nathalie Beaux – a complete revision and edition of the written studies of the topics is required.
I truly believe that all the material I’ve written should be helpful to be published here, avoiding dipsersion of data, expecially for the concordances and attestations I’ve realized about the animal-deities signs into Naxi Dongba manuscripts, and the cross references among Naxi – Dongba cultural elements and Tibetan/Indian/Chinese ones.
My study of texts of manuscripts, iconographies, detailed analisys of signs of animals associated to supernatural entities evinced:
·Ssù – serpent cult. Based of the veneration of the serpent-tailed and human-body spirits, a life-god entity. Propitiated for granting prosperity and fertility, closely associated to rain and water, able to provoke terrible misfortunes if got hungry with humans. In this study it’s directly related to the traditions of kLu in Tibet,Nāga
in India and Long in China
·Bird-god cult. Bird deities are powerful, strong, able to suppress the serpents-spirits and devour them. Able to spell charms, allied to Shilo the founder of Dongba tradition. In this study the bird-gods of Naxi – Dongba pantheon are associated to mythologies of Khyung–chen of Tibet and Garuda of India.
·Serpent vs. Eagle fight myth, here directly related to the mythologies of kLu versus Khyung-chen of Tibet and Naga versus Garuda of India
As emerged from manuscripts and according to Naxi tradition, I mean the central figure of DongbaShilo not just as the founder of Dongba religion, but as directly related to the Enlightened Buddha sTompa gShen-rab ofBön tradition.
Methodology of research
According to the theme of the colloque, the methodology of study I adopted mostly consisted in the research of signs from documents, as the signs are pictographs which were made of an animal-based graphic unit, directly relate to deities. Once they’ve been found the study of the functions of signs ad of the context was the way followed:identification of readings and meanings associated to pertinent signs, alias the research of the signs’ phonetic and semantic values, the identification and the interpretation of iconographic motifs associated to the pertinent sign.
Then I studied the context, which here is meant as the study of the signs surrounding the pertinent one in an adjacent part of text (mostly the rubric containing the pertinent pictograph), as the research of eventual relationship with surrounding signs in adjacent parts of text for the identification of eventual association patterns among signs,.
Once sign was identified as pertinent, alias study of the sign and its contexts evinced that by this significant a deity was meant, then a deeper analysis I started, focused on the detailed study of the iconography represented by the sign and its variants, the reconstruction of iconologies, also with the help of cross-studies focused on related (but non necessary Naxi) cultural, iconographic and iconologic elements; this methodology permitted to the author some integrations with non Naxi – Dongba directly related documentation, as Indian, Tibetan and Chinese.
First stage of my study, which consisted in the identification of pertinent signs, was performed bythe analysis of available sources which contains attestations of pictographs with an animal-based graphic unit. Nature of available sources evinced the possibility of making use of two kind of attestations: direct and indirect attestations.
·Direct attestations: are those performed directly from documents belonging to Naxi – Dongba pictographic tradition: manuscripts, scrolls, wall-paintings, handcrafts and sculptures. Some hundreds of documents are available online thanks to Harvard Yenching web resources, which consist in a selection from their collection of 598 manuscripts. By this web resource is possible to perform direct analysis over Dongba manuscripts, avoiding the difficulties in retrieving of documents.[1]
·Indirect attestations: are those made and evinced from documents which not belong to Naxi – Dongba tradition, but directly or indirectly dedicated or related to Naxi culture and Dongba, in particular dictionaries, Naxi mythology and Dongba culture dedicated studies.[2]
By this two ways of attestation, the signs I identified as pertinent, alias signs associated and identified as a deity, I then recorded in a concordances’ system, with manuscripts’ page, rubric, reading and meaning.
As introduced upper, further analysis of surrounding contexts I performed for identification of possible association of signs: sources evinced a number of not casual association, here meant as recurring pattern, with peculiar reading and meaning, pertinent inside the context of animal-deities belonging to Naxi – Dongba Pantheon.
Such group of pertinent signs evinced by sources from direct and indirect attestations, on a corpus of78 manuscripts,[3] according to contexts and to dedicated bibliography, scored 1242 attestations of signs of animals associated to 2 main groups of iconographies of deities:
◦reptile – gods iconography,
with 513 attestations
◦bird – gods iconography,
with 729 attestations
Analysis of context which the pertinent signs belong to, evinced to me a very complex pantheon of gods with many subgroups of deities, both in reptile and bird forms: reptile and bird iconographies thus here I meant as two main classes of gods, as from contexts they appear to be antagonist, while inside bird and reptile group of deities the different form of spirits are often in close interaction, share a common origin, and acts in strong influence and interaction with/against humans.
The reptile – deities iconographies was thus characterized of different and distinguished kind of supernatural entities:
·serpent-tailed, human headed with trilobate crown, associated to many readings: Ssù, Llü–mun, Ssaw–ndaw and/or mute sign
·dragon iconography, associated to the reading Lu
·serpent iconography, associated to the reading Shi-zi
The bird – deities iconographies also contains at least 3 different gods:
·iconography, associated to the reading Khyu–t’khyu
·iconography, associated to the reading Dter–gko
·iconography, associated to the reading Yu–ma
For full work please, browse the table of contents below, or the menu on the nav-abr of the header, or again on the right frame: data, concordances and statistics here quoted are completely available.[4]
This paper and all linked material here available in English language is recorded under a Creative Commons license, here published and freely shared for academic purpouse, available to every scholar dedited to Naxi People and Culture and Dongba tradition.
For an exemple of Harvard Yenching manuscripts pertinent to the theme studied (the Ssù cult) and for crossing references with Joseph Rock manuscripts’ collection please, cfr:
[2]Particular attention was focused on Dongba pictographs dictionaries and monograph studies dedicated to Dongba religious tradition, with an eye especially focused on Joseph Rock and Chas McKhann works . In particular cfr.: Rock J., 1952, 1963, 1972; McKhann C., 1989, 2003c, 2003d
[3]Here manuscripts are grouped in 3 clusters, just for a more comfortable layout. Data are available online:
Ho avuto l’onore di essere accettato per la partecipazione alla mostra di Carnet di Viaggio che si terrà al Centro Culturale Candiani di Mestre, dal 05-10-2012 al 21-10-2012.
