In the purplish roses (and the same in other things) the happy only sees roses and the sad one only sees thorns. Embroidered flowers on poems that speak of flowers. I couldn't have found anything more suited to the content of my blog. It was last week visiting CASA DECOR 2021 in Madrid. This year it was held in a particularly emblematic and unique building, the Casa de Tomás Allende, in the Plaza de Canalejas with the Carrera de San Jerónimo. This extraordinary building is a sample of the regionalist architectural style, designed by the Cantabrian architect Leonardo Rucabado and built between 1916 and 1920.
The mainland, that is, the house-palace, moved me more than the content of CASA DECOR, but I have to say that visiting the space of María Santos, I found something that really made me think that the visit had been worth it.A bright and spectacular bathroom.
Attached to the back of the mirrors I found this little treasure, pages torn from a book of poems from the early 19th century whose theme was flowers and whose authors were as varied as José de Espronceda, Gabriel García Tassara, Enrique Gil and Joaquin Bartrina.
I discovered Bartrina in these verses, this first quatrain of her poem is a harbinger of her near death at the age of 30.twenty four years agoThat I live alone with meAnd I've been wishing for four yearsDivorce myself.
Joaquín Bartrina suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis that led to his premature death, however it is said that his continuous mental crises and catastrophic and disappointing vision of life led him to commit suicide. He was a journalist, playwright, zarzuela librettist and creator of a new poetic genre, the arabesque. In the daring of his verses, he shows a certain ingenuity. . Campoamor is wrongly attributed to his most famous aphorism, If you want to be happy, as you tell me, don't analyze, boy, don't analyze».Menéndez y Pelayo, staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy, said of him «Whoever wants to know the heterodox literature of recent years, can pay attention to... the very strange pessimistic, atheist and Heinians of the Catalan poet Bartrina, Bartrina had real wit (much more than judgment and taste), but she versified very badly and wrote the Spanish language incorrectly»and yet, I add... versifying like this is ingenious and fun, at least for me. This is how he talks about the diamond:that beautiful jewel,tear, it seems, from some star,he found, with anger and with deep bitternessthat it was just a little bit of carbon.”Algo" is the compilation of all his poetic work. The author only saw two editions of his book (1874 and 1877), the third and last one was posthumous. And having read some of her poems, I think that Bartrina deserves at least one Sunday afternoon reading, black tea and a blanket
don't you think so? poor Joaquín reviled by Menéndez Pelayo, I praise his ingenuity and regret his suicide.
That is why instead of reminding you of some of his most pessimistic verses I leave you with these:
Why the pleasure is less that desire in love? For the fruit shall not be as beautiful as the flower”.