The tulip and the vase

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

In May, I would open the window for sunbeams to explode on a precious vase full of tulips. Sit on the floor, cross-legged, I would be absorbed in a dispute between the beauty of the vase and that of the flowers. 

“Fifty years after the end of tulipomania, the first of the so-called tulip vases began to appear, strange tall pagoda-like creations with spouts jutting out at the top and sides. For a long time it was assumed that the vases were used either for displaying tulip flowers or for growing tulips indoors, the bulbs placed over water in spouts, much as hyacinths are grown today.“ (Pavord 1999;  180)


The extravagant craze called tulipomania happened in The Netherlands around 1630 and overwhelmed fortunes and men. Tulips came from East. Wild species bloomed in the steep mountains and the wide valleys of Central Asia, thriving on harsh winters and torrid summers. Single and simple flowers showed basic colours, sometimes with a black blotch at the base or stripes along the petals, but with such a variety of combinations that, today, the species classified are more than 120. For nomadic tribes who lived in that desolated land they were the sign of incoming spring and new life. Around 1050, tulips were cultivated in refined Persian gardens. Their name, composed with the same letters of the name of Allah, lâleh, echoed in legends of eternal love and passion. Later, they were the beloved flowers of the Sultans when Ottoman Istanbul was a town of gardens and green spaces. Tulips embellished the secret court in the Palace of Joy or Topkapi Saray and sumptuous night parties celebrated their blooming. Probably around the second half of the sixteenth century, they reached without clamour Europe, their name recalling the oriental shape of the turban. Little by little, they gained interest and fame as decorating plants, after having been studied for medical purposes and experimented in bold recipes. The inexplicable mutations of their colours thrilled botanists and amateurs, while for rich merchants and wealthy artisans they emerged as the symbol of fortune and success. Speculations rose to absurd levels transforming the flower in a luxury commodity, such as exotic birds and ornate fountains.

“Blue and white chinoiserie-style Delft ware was avidly collected in the late seventeenth century, mixed with genuine Chinese porcelain in special display cabinets. … [] As well as the popular pagoda design, Delft flower pots also appeared in the shape of busts of Turkish sultans… But whether in the shape of pyramids, sultans or other guises, there is little evidence that these flower pots were ever used for growing tulips. Only since the beginning of this century they have assumed the name (and by extension the function) of tulip vases.” (Pavord 1999; 182)

Ceramics was just one of the several crafts that made Delft prosperous and famous in the seventeenth century. Faiences, first influenced by Italian and Spanish traditions, found in this country new colours and patterns. The famous cobalt blue replaced more varied and brilliant hues in country scenes and marine landscapes, gorgeous flowers and Chinese figurines. Demand expanded as people began to use ceramic plates and jugs in everyday life instead of those made of wood, skin or tin. Special pieces were created to be displayed on shelves. Among vases, the tulipiere was an ingenious creation, inspired by Persian, each flower standing alone in its own vessel, in elaborated and impressive structures.

“But their use remain a puzzle. None of the hundreds of flower paintings of the Golden Age shows flowers in a Delftware holder.” (Pavord 1999; 180)

This is not the only mystery. But in the long history of the tulip, it is the image of those vast expanses of wild tulips in bloom after a dreadful winter that attracts me most. Between the vase and the flower I would chose the ephemeral beauty of the tulip.

Further reading:
The Tulip, Anna Pavord, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 1999
Tulipomania, Mike Dash 1999; italian edition: La febbre dei tulipani, Mike Dash, RCS Rizzoli Libri Spa Milano 1999
Les faiences de Delft, Jan Boyazoglu Louis de Neuville Jacques, Grancher Paris 1980


Photos:
Travelinagarden.

Link:
The Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam:
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/BK-14852-A?lang=en

The Queen of Spade - Alexander Pushkin

Supposing Hermann turning the last of three fated cards had won the game. Supposing he had fallen in love with the innocent Lizaveta during their secret rendezvous. Supposing Alexander Pushkin had written a happy-ending for his work titled “Pikovaja dama”, or “The Queen of Spade”, published in Russia in 1834.

Despite being a short story, it is divided into chapters, six chapters. Epigraphs, sometimes in French, anticipate their content, introduce the characters and unfold an articulate plot. In a winter night in St. Petersburg, a group of army officers is lingering over a late dinner with champagne and talks, after long hours spent playing cards. The story of the Countess Anna Fedotovna, one of the men’s grandmothers, slipped into the conversation awakening their interest. Once a stunning beauty with a strong character and a condescending husband, she lost a fortune playing faro, a card game, when she lived in Paris sixty years before. An adventurer rescued the noble dame disclosing three secret cards that played consecutively would win back her money. This is what happened and during her entire life, she never confessed the secret, but once. At early dawn, the sceptic group of men breaks up, but for one of them these casual words have changed his life.

Hermann has German origins, a solid position as officer in the engineers and a small inheritance he firmly protected from his innate love for gambling. He appears quiet and composed when, night after night, he assists endless card games without touching any cards. The story of the old noble dame captures his mind, revealing the possibility to increase his small treasure in a simple and safety way. He succumbs to this idea, sifting through improbable solutions to get hold of the secret. A pair of young black eyes, glanced at the window of the Countess Fedotovna’s palace, shows him the way.

The eyes are those of Lizaveta Ivanova, the Countess Fedotovna’s pretty ward. Sad eyes indeed: she lives among carriage rides and sumptuous balls according to the capricious and despotic desires of the Countess. Lizaveta knows that just marriage can save her. A few days later, while she is embroidering sitting at the window, she casually glimpses the eyes of a young soldier looking at her from the corner of the street. The passionate but respectful letters she receives from the man, Hermann of course, quickly conquer her heart. Her first, distant answers give way, in less then three weeks, to a nocturnal meeting after a ball at the embassy. She sends him a letter with detailed instructions to guide the man up to her bedroom. Here, she waits for him in her evening dress with flowers in her hair, surprised by her own courage and audacity but a little anxious.

The night where love should have triumphed became a dramatic failure. The sudden death of the Countess, frightened by the threatening pistol of Herman, puts an end to Hermann’s hopes and Lizaveta’s love. He discloses his real intentions and the young girl realizes the frailty of her illusions.
Three days later, Hermann falls in a troubled sleep after the turmoil of the funeral. The ghost of the Countess appears, unknown forces obliged her to reveal the three cards: three, seven and ace. Excited Hermann played the fated cards, one a night, in front of an astonished public. But, the third night, the last card he turns is the queen of spade. He loses everything.

He could never win. We know that behind this irreproachable man, there is an ambitious and cold mind. Greed unleashes all his withheld passions and devours his mind. His obsession to attain wealth is shaded with gloomy words, with evil and ominous signs without remorse or regret.

He could never marry the sweet Lizaveta. He sent her words of love copied from a book and deceived the young girl to reach the old Countess and her secret. She easily falls in his trap. Love is the magic words that could save her but, lonely and inexperienced, she shaped this love according to romantic novels and dreams. 

I read the story again and again. Pushkin describes a reality he knew very well with few words and great skill. Time and place are enriched with details to sketch the Russian aristocracy with its rites and secrets. It created a realistic scenario where romance is just something in the air and supernatural creeps along the story to burst at the end. He interpreted popular themes that fascinated and scared, opposing good to evil, old to new, transforming the trivial desire for money in an amusing, intriguing and ironic story. Poems are considered his best works. He approached prose during his last years, when he dedicated times and energies to explore the story of his country. He believed that good prose needs a different style: essential, with short, simple sentences, no flourishing adjectives,  no lingering on emotions, only facts and actions. Pikovaja dama was a great success and a source of inspiration for future artists.

Pushkin could have finished here, with the mocking image of the dead Countess winking at Hermann from the card on the table, the queen of spade. Instead, he wrote the conclusion. 

Last summer, after visiting Pushink’s house in St Petersburg, it seemed that he was died just from a few weeks and not in 1837. Turning around a corner, halting in a wide square, looking the water of a canal, or glancing beyond the door of a smoky café there were traces of his life. They were not the wild, crazy days of a young boy who discovered love, pleasures and fame. They were the last days of a man around his forties, married to one of the most beautiful girl of the country, father of four children, with uncertain finance and the fame of classic poet, where classic meant just old. He was suffocating. The malicious, envious and gossip court poisoned everyday of his life. The severe censure, managed directly by the tsar, spied every thought and judged every sentence paralyzing any action or work. In the museum, tourists’ heads turned in sync towards a door, the bed, the imposing library while a voice in the headphones recalled the snow, the duel, the hurried steps and the mortal wound.

He wrote the conclusion: Herman becomes insane and Lizaveta marries another man. In life, everything can happen. For a man who had had love and glory but fought for hope, madness was freedom. A happy-ending.

Further reading:
La Dama di Picche e altri racconti - Aleksandr Puskin Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. Milano 1998 (this is italian edition I read).


Photos:
Travelinagarden: St. Petersburg 2009.