Odyssey

Fülszöveg

MIRROR OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
Photographed and designed by Roloff Beny
Text and anthology by Anthony Thwaite
'The Mediterranean is an absurdly small sea;
the length and greatness of its history makes us dream
it larger than it is.' - Lawrence DurrelL
The word 'Mediterranean' conjures up brilliant
images - of sea, sky, landscapes, of history, of art, and
of pleasure. The sense of coherence is due as much to
man as to nature, as different peoples and civilizations
have in succession dominated first one part, then
another, and sometimes the whole complex area and
beyond. 'All our religion,' said Dr Johnson, 'almost
all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us
above savages, has come to us from the shores of the
Mediterranean.'
Those shores are the matter of this book. In it Roloff
Beny explores their whole compass by region and by
theme - by region in dramatic monochrome, moving
round the sea across North Africa, through Spain and
France, down into... Tovább

Fülszöveg

MIRROR OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
Photographed and designed by Roloff Beny
Text and anthology by Anthony Thwaite
'The Mediterranean is an absurdly small sea;
the length and greatness of its history makes us dream
it larger than it is.' - Lawrence DurrelL
The word 'Mediterranean' conjures up brilliant
images - of sea, sky, landscapes, of history, of art, and
of pleasure. The sense of coherence is due as much to
man as to nature, as different peoples and civilizations
have in succession dominated first one part, then
another, and sometimes the whole complex area and
beyond. 'All our religion,' said Dr Johnson, 'almost
all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us
above savages, has come to us from the shores of the
Mediterranean.'
Those shores are the matter of this book. In it Roloff
Beny explores their whole compass by region and by
theme - by region in dramatic monochrome, moving
round the sea across North Africa, through Spain and
France, down into Italy and Greece, and ending in
Turkey and the Levant, and by theme in painterly
colour, evoking the sea, the land and the seasons, fruit,
flowers, trees, and the buildings, modest and grand,
shaped by men over the centuries. Here are the shrines
of faith, pyramids, temples, churches and mosques.
The gods and the people of this inland sea become flesh
in stone and bronze, and their unseen presence suffuses
all the images.
During thirty years 'of wandering, returning to
favoured countries with camera and notebook, Roloff
Beny continually refined his initial romantic vision.
Each image in this book is a distillation - a statue,,a
broken column, a flower - and these moments of
perception come together in a unity that is itself a work
of art, in its own way a fitting product of that classic
world from which it springs.
This personal modern Odyssey by an outstanding
artist/photographer is supported and given another
dimension in words by the poet Anthony Thwaite.
His informed and succinct text introduces the whole
world of the inland sea, and then outlines each of the
six component regions. To this he has added an
illuminating selection of passages in prose and verse by
many writers past and present, from Homer and
Hesiod to Lawrence Durrell, Rose Macaulay, Pablo
Neruda, George Seferis and Freya Stark.
With 133 colour plates, 162 duotone plates,
42 linecuts and 7 maps Vissza