blog




  • Essay / To the painter Swaminathan

    Richard Gott, Guardian Although the Mexican Octavio Paz Lozano (1914-1998) is famous as an anthropologist, essayist, teacher, critic and translator, it is as a poet that he enjoys a worldwide reputation and has received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990 for his passionate writing with broad horizons, characterized by sensual intelligence and humanist integrity. Paz published numerous works during his life and his poetry was translated into English by Samuel Beckett, Charles Tomlinson, Elizabeth Bishop and Muriel Rukeyser. His earlier poetry clearly shows his Marxist and surrealist tendencies as well as the deep influence of Hinduism and Buddhism on him. His later poetry reflects his passions such as modern painting and his ideas about love and eroticism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Most of his works are available in English through the translation of the eminent translator Eliot Weinberger, who is the editor of The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz 1957-87. Octavio Paz served as Mexico's ambassador to India and immersed himself deeply in the country and was able to escape the tourist image despite cultural and language barriers. His explorations of our country are visible in some of the very titles of his poems: Madurai, Vrindaban, The Day in Udaipur, Sunday in the Elephanta Caves, the trilogy on Himachal Pradesh. In Light of India is Paz's most personal prose work to date and in his acknowledgments he states that "it is not a systematic study, but a more or less ordered gathering of thoughts, impressions and of the objections that India has aroused in me.” . He mentions his close friend J. Swaminathan whom he met during his second stay in India and describes him as “a painter and a poet, he was a spirit who united an originality of vision with intellectual rigor”. The poem To the Painter Swaminathan is Octavio Paz's dedication to Jagadish Swaminathan, whom he describes as an iconoclast and India has been an overwhelming presence in his creative life and this is quite evident in the poem. Paz maintained admirable poise and balance in his approach to “the immense reality of India” and avoided the two extremes of dislike and admiration. This special quality sets him apart from the multitude of writers who portray a skewed perspective of India and its people. Paz's poems are full of a language that sings and takes one's perception out of everyday life. In the poem To the Painter Swaminathan, Paz skillfully uses various hues and shades to present a picture of immense passion that stirs the reader's mind through its intimate connection with our culture, civilization, philosophy, art and philosophy. The poet witnesses the creative frenzy of the painter at work, trying to gauge his colors and breathe new life into the canvas with the help of a simple cloth, a knife and a fan of colors. Paz takes the empty canvas as a challenge because the void must be filled in a meaningful way, otherwise the vocation becomes fruitless. Seeing the painting, the narrator remembers the matador's moment of truth when he comes face to face with the raging bull. The narrator describes the colors in such detail that they come to life as he reads the poem: the blue flame of cobalt, the burnt amber greens fresh from the sea, the Mexican red that gradually transforms into the black of Kali. lips. Kali is the Indian goddess known for her ferocity. She is artistic and looks at life in an abstract way. Kali in Indian mythology is known as the goddess of beauty, power and the art of pushing someone beyond their limit so that they.