Mallorca Series 02/3

‘NUREDDUNA’ and ‘SONG of MELISIGENI’

My inspiration to create these works came from the epic poem ‘Legacy of Greek Genius’ and of course the beautiful countryside of Mallorca

This classic poem written by the cleric’ Miquel costa i Llobera’ (Pollenca, -1854 Palma-1922) sets most of the verse in the Talaiotic settlement of ‘Ses Paisses’ near Arta, Mallorca.

SUMMARY OF THE PLOT.

The tribe of the Holm Oak wish to make a sacrifice to their gods of some travellers who have dared to leave their Greek ship anchored on the coastline, and to explore the island. Melisigeni, assisted by his lyre, sings his final mortal farewell.

His rhapsodic voice stills the ritual cries of the tribe and fills the heart of Nuredduna- the virgin oracle-with light. She reclaims this prisoner as a sacred victim of the god of the cave. Melisigeni is abandoned in the depths of the Arta Caves, but at night Nuredduna frees him, because she has received a message of love from him that only she has seen and which means that he deserves to go on living.

When the cruelest members of the tribe, who have mistrusted the oracle’s sudden change of mind, ask her to show them the prisoner, she dismisses them as bloodthirsty and reveals, to them this is what she has learnt from the song of Melisigeni. Furious, they stone Nuredduna, who takes refuge in the cave and finds the lyre that the poet has left there and embraces it so as to die comforted by the poetry, which had stirred her so.

‘SONG OF MELISIGENI’

4 ft by 4 ft: PAINT PIGMENT, TILE PAINT, ACRILIC PAINT, BITUMEN PAINT, MARBEL DUST, OGANIC MATERIAL, LEAD, PLASTER, STRING, ADDESIVE,

‘NUREDDUNA’

Triptych

9ft by 6ft 8 inch: PAINT PIGMENT, TILE PAINT, ACRILIC PAINT, BITUMEN PAINT, MARBEL DUST, OGANIC MATERIAL, LEAD, PLASTER, STRING, ADDESIVE

This moving poem shows the soul of this magnificent country ‘in the raw’ and gave me the outlines to both my paintings.  So its only ‘just’ I dedicated the paintings to the people’s of Mallorca.

Commissioned in Mallorca by Steve Sharp 2002/3