Ainulindalë - Melancholy & Longing

            Ainulindalë is a Folk project from France. Inspired by the writtings of Tolkien. Their music is composed by acoustic guitars, flute, violin, male & female vocals & choirs, including a large group of musicians. Their new album "Nevrast" is out now. You can hear it on its entirety below. 

To support the band you can buy the album here : 

http://ainulindale.bigcartel.com/

                         

 Ainulindalë official facebook:

facebook.com/ainulindaleofficial

Fascist image, Spartan Order & The Death of The West

"The defeat of fascism should not make us forget that the image exists, that it still remains grand, and that others may find it again under new names. The very term fascism will no doubt founder, because it is too freighted with calumnies, because it is lost in a sea of shadows under a malignant mist. But what does the word matter? We all know that Spartan order, Spartan man, is the sole shield that will remain when the shadow of death rises before the West. Lenin prophesized that fascism would be the last form taken for survival by the societies that do not surrender without a fight to Communist dictatorship. If the West no longer has strength, if it disappears like an old man drowns, we can do nothing for it. But if it rises to defend itself, Lenin’s prophecy will come true. Under a different name, a different face, and no doubt without any projections of the past, in the form of a child we do not recognize, the head of a young Medusa, the Spartan order will be reborn: and paradoxically, no doubt, it will be the last defense of Freedom and the good life"

Mauriche Bardeche "Qu’est-ce que le fascisme?" (1961)

125 Years After...

20th of April 1889

            In the past, present and FOREVER : HEIL HITLER!

   

Check also:

ADOLF HITLER - The Greatest Story NEVER Told!

ORDER OF THE DEATH`S HEAD "Pogrom Ritual" New Album!

Copies from the Previous album "Hakenkreuz" Still Available through 

Totenkopf Propaganda Productions 

www.thepaganfront.com/totenkopfpropaganda

The Dark Side of The European Psyche

Some years ago, around that time of the year, i did a post (You gonna find it in the end of this thread) about the dark parts of the European Heritage & History. Few days ago, accidentally i found an intresting blog based on the same concept. Its creator had the very good idea to put the art (Along with the basic info) of several painters with themes inspired by the dark side of the European soul and many historical events.

The name of the blog is DARK CLASSICS Art Gallery and the web address is:

http://darkclassics.blogspot.com

"Through the centuries artists have imagined a pallet of creatures, monsters, ghosts, witches, as a means of expressing their stories and personal impressions. At the same time, through such works they show the spirit of time and fears of people in their age.

Dark Classics is a online gallery of these artists, which contains basic information about the artworks, artist biographies and movies about them. Blog not only deals with strange creatures, but also explores the dark side of art in landscapes, portraits and abstractions.

I do not own any of these pictures. All images and texts are property of their respective owners and provided for educational purposes only. Any works posted against the wishes of the copyright owner will be removed from Dark Classics by request."

Previous Related Post:

Malleus Maleficarum - Hexenhammer

                                       

The Roosters & Blackbirds of Medinaceli

Its been sometime already since i posted about a visit , or to put it better, a pilgrimage to a historical place or monument. Thats mainly because the last time a heavy rainfall broke the photo-camera(Usually i dont have a photo camera with me. Mostly i use photos taken of the photo-camera from the people that we are going to together.Whats the point of using 2-3 cameras the same time anyway).

Coming to this thread. This time i choose to post photos from a visit that took place in a Spanish village named Medinacelli. The village is located between  Mardid and Zaragoza. In the North-West part of Spain. Watching it from distance and getting close and closer, i had a feeling that this place have something unusual and special. That day the weather was not by our side (A very annoying sun towards our faces, very few clouds and a wet atmosphere) while we were taking the turns and going up to the hills. When we arrived, our driver took-off a piece of paper, and gave us to read an article about Medinaceli. What makes a small village somewhere in Spain so special? How can you describe a place where that on its soil had walked by El Cid, Ezra Pound and Miguel Serrano? 

This is what the article was about. So i decided to use some of its parts here. In between those parts i use photos that we took that afternoon.

"The Death of Ezra Pound" 

By Miguel Serrano (Translated by Alex Kurtagic)

"I later carried on northwards, toward a tiny town, near Madrid—Medinaceli—, where the Cid once sought refuge during his exile—a town of stones and ruins, Roman and Visigothic, heavy with Iberian mystery, perhaps Celtic, Druidic. The town is on a steep incline, on a hill, and overlooks a dry, arid sea of grizzly, yellow, lunar waves, like a vision from a dead planet. At times, on the distant horizon, there appears a solitary tree, placed there by beauty, by that someone who takes pleasure in ordering the Castilian landscape in order to later contemplate it from the summit of Medinaceli through the old Roman Arch, remnants of an ancient fortification."

"The journalist Eugenio Montes told that during the last interview he held with the poet (Blogs Comment: He means Ezra Pound) —likely many years ago— the latter had asked him, “Do the Cid’s roosters still crow at dawn in Medinaceli?” And he added that Pound had visited Medinaceli in 1906, following the Cid’s route. Pound loved The Poem of the Cid, which he considered superior to the Song of Roland. He had visited Spain in order to retrace the Way of “The Champion”. In this way he had arrived at that small village high up in the heights, which remains as it was during the Middle Ages"

A Monument in Medinaceli

"Days later I returned to Medinaceli. I found that a man from Chile lived there, professor Fernando del Toro Garland. We talked. He also talked to me about the article by Eugenio Montes and about Pound’s words regarding the Cid’s roosters. It had occurred to him to suggest to the Spanish authorities to erect a monument to Pound in Medinaceli, which recorded there the quote from Pound and the passing through those parts, at the beginning of the century, of the great American poet. I encouraged him in his determination. From that moment we were in contact, personally or by letter. Thus I followed the ups and downs of his efforts. The town’s Spanish authorities and several friends in Madrid collaborated with enthusiasm. Carvers and stonemasons transported with their mules an enormous stone, desquamated by the millennia, from the Celt-Iberian hills, through the raw winter’s snow. Mediaeval blacksmiths forged old and simple letters to be affixed upon the stone, bearing the quote from Pound, “Do the roosters still crow at dawn in Medinaceli?”"

"The most beautiful square was chosen in that town high up in the heights (‘Medina’ means ‘city’ in Arabic; ‘celi’ means ‘sky’), and there, below an aged tree, the stone was embedded. It would also be a fountain, for water would run over its creased and cracked surface. That stone is like Pound’s face during his final years. The 15 May 1973—St Isidor’s day and the date of the town’s annual festival—was chosen for the monument’s inauguration. I took it upon myself to ensure that Olga Rudge, Ezra Pound’s companion, would be able to attend. Olga was seventy-eight and never went anywhere. But she went to Medinaceli."

"Also present in Medinaceli were a few American painters who lived there. And also all the townsfolk in their Sunday best, with their well-cared suits; their berets; their shepherd’s crooks; their staffs of pilgrims of the heights; their noble aspects, made out of Castilian rock; their sons; their grandsons, already departing for the cities on the plains, cities without poetry. They were all there to pay homage to that poet from another land, from another world, which they never knew, which they never read—because many cannot read—, but which they know from within, with their rock souls, which resemble the face of the dead poet, of the ecumenical poet. Also there were the dogs and mules that accompanied and brought the stone; also there was the smith, the town’s priest, the Civil Guard, and the wine and the water and the bread, the grass and the birds of Medinaceli, of Old Castile. Also there were the roosters of Pound and of the Cid. Of those vanished warriors."

"On the afternoon of the homage ceremony, before the entire town, as I have said, and also before Pound’s heroic companion, was lifted the Spanish flag that draped the monument, the ‘face’, the ‘stone under elm’. And then, up on the elm, sung a blackbird. And the town commented on this event and will continue to comment on it for a long time, because the dwellers of those ancient ruined cities, of the towns of yesteryear, are like the Greeks of legend, like the Celts, and the Druids; and discover in a birdsong, on a day of auspices, an event worthy of interpretation, which in this manner fills their lives until their deaths

A blackbird still sings in Medinaceli. And it sings for Ezra Pound."

Previously Related Threads:

ALATRISTE: A Triumph of Honour, Courage & Patriotism!

CARA AL SOL

Viva La Muerte! - The Life of José Millán Astray

Democracy - The Offspring of Corruption

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)

Karl August Krazeisen : A Soldier-Artist in The Hellenic War of Independence

Karl August Krazeisen (1794 - 1878) was one of the many volunteers who took part in Hellenic revolution of 1821 against the Turks and their allies. In Hellas , the volunteers that stand in the side of Hellas are called Philhellenes (Click the word to see more info). What makes Karl A. Krazeisen special is that except an officer , he was also a very good artist. A painter that in the pauses between the battles, he was asking and finally managed to make many portraits from the most known Hellenic warriors and fighters of that time. 

For more about his life and pictures of this portraits click HERE

Also , here is parts from an interview in a local newspaper that the curator of the National Gallery speak about K.A. Krazeisen and his works during an exhibition that took place in Hellas in 2005.

What are you presenting in the Nafplion exhibition?

The portraits of the 1821 war heroes, lots of portraits of

philhellenes, poets, writers, as well as drafts of ethological scenes

in Aegina and Ambelakia.

Kratzeisen also drew the two new vessels that had been acquired by the

Greek fleet at a difficult time: the frigate Hellas and the steamship

Karteria. The officer himself never signed his works, which means that

had his family not decided to sell them to Greece, we would not have

known who the artist was. His signature appears only on works he drew

in 1931 in Munich. More specifically, Kratzeisen's brother-in-law

offered to sell the works which he had held on to, aware of their

great worth. He was a professor of Romanian descent who decided to

approach [[Nikolaos] Gyzis, who was also a professor in Munich. When

the painter saw the works, he immediately realized that they had to be

acquired by the Greek state.

Are there any portraits of our independence heroes by other artists?

Kratzeisen was the only one who depicted the freedom fighters. The

difference is clear if one sees the works of other artists who had

imagined the war heroes based on related readings. [The freedom

fighters] Odysseus Androutsos, Papaflessas and Marcos Botsaris all

qualify for this category, as they had already died and weren't

depicted by the Bavarian but by other artists who tried to imagine

what they looked like. In his well-known painting «Grateful Greece,»

Gyzis presented a series of freedom fighters based on Kratzeisen's

works, as well as other figures who are the result of his imagination.

What kind of a character was Kratzeisen?

He lived and grew up during the romantic period of liberation

movements. Although we don't know too much about his artistic

education, we do know that he drew all the time. He had also served as

a fashion designer for the Russian army, meaning he designed its

attire. Kratzeisen joined the army, a vocational choice that offered

security, considering that, historically, this was the post-Napoleonic

era. A Bavarian, but also a philhellene, he decided to come to Greece

and fight on the side of the struggling populace. He took off with an

expeditionary force established by the Bavarian leader Ludwig I. The

force's objective was to train Greece's new army. It is certain that

he was intelligent and had grasped that he was living an historic

moment. He must have been on the alert constantly, and both drew and

took part in battles.

He made the fighters sign the portraits?

The signatures are a sign of authenticity. They also show who was

better educated by the way they signed their names.The signatures also made it to the lithographs, providing historians with information. [Georgios] Karaiskakis, for example, died before

Kratzeisen managed to complete his portrait.In it, one can see that he suffered from tuberculosis and was downcast. But his gaze remained intense and Kratzeisen depicts him

with fiery eyes.

Apart from the drawings, did the Bavarian leave behind any writings?

He didn't leave us any memoirs and didn't keep notes... Kratzeisen's hand does not make mistakes. He had a good eye and talent.

He portrays the individuals, not the battles, knowing that portraits enchant and condense history.

Previous Related Posts:

25th March of 1821 - The Hellenic Revolution

The Hellenic Revolution of 1821 Through The Eyes of Peter Von Hess