“Threshold of Birds”: A Dialogue Between Painting and Poetry

The literary images of the poet and the suggestive, poetic canvases of the artist Soledad Sevilla seemed born to meet. The book published by La Cama Sol builds an intimate and solid alliance through both bodies of work.

Portrait of Soledad Sevilla (on arteinformado.com) and cover of the book Umbral de Pajaros (Ed. La Cama Sol)

The publication of the complete Spanish edition of Umbral de Pajaros, the book in which the Portuguese poet Eugenio Andrade sings to light and to the intimate, absolute essence of things, is wonderful news. But if in this edition Andrade’s austere and brilliant lyricism is combined with the work of the painter Soledad Sevilla, the event takes on a new dimension. The publishing house La Cama Sol has released a volume that blends both bodies of work, achieving a deep and essential symbiosis that turns it into a small literary and artistic jewel. Andrade’s text is regarded as one of his most intense books: conceived and created during the Carnation Revolution, the poet extols pleasures and gifts without giving up reminding us that all things are perishable. For her part, Soledad Sevilla’s work captures the light and color of her Mediterranean, but it also carries us into the darkness of night. Thus, the two seemed destined to meet: when they stand side by side they manage to generate new sensations. They expand in every direction and take on a new identity.

Viaje a Sils Maria (2014). Painting by Soledad Sevilla

At the publishing house they speak to us of the space of Sevilla and of Andrade: an inner space. “To write a poem or paint a canvas is, for both of them, a way of traveling inward, of inviting one to enter, to push open a door, open a window and let oneself be received by the light we carry within, even in the heart of the night. That is what Soledad does with her works. That is what Eugenio does with his poems. That is what they both do in this book of day and night, light and shadow.” Like these opposing concepts, the images of Soledad Sevilla’s work and the lyricism of Eugenio Andrade sometimes complement each other, at other times confront one another. But they always feed off each other and engage in dialogue, both emerging strengthened from the passion or the combat. The light that filters through the brushstrokes of the artist’s canvases illuminates the poet’s verses, which return it again, filtered anew. Thus, the book Umbral de Pajaros invites the reader to take off and fly, carried along by color and word.

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