María Gainza

María Gaínza, crítica de arte atípica y escritora por necesidad, escribió esta joyita de 160 páginas que parece toda ella una frivolidad de ociosa pero que para nada acaba siendo.
Para tocar el corazón de la realidad había que deformarla, y en esa declaración de intenciones se basa la propuesta, sólo que no sabemos cuál es la realidad y cuál su deformación. Gaínza utiliza la vida y obra de once pintores para contarnos a su familia, pero a veces la cosa parece al revés, que show more utiliza sus historias personales y familiares para hablarnos de arte.
Da la impresión en todo caso que la autora ha recopilado toda la información que tiene en su cabeza sobre arte, literatura y algo de historia de andar por casa, y la ha resumido en estas 160 páginas, con la seguridad de quién se sabe la lección perfectamente y con un manejo del lenguaje, que la convierte en la reina de las metáforas, todo ello sin despeinarse ni un pelo. Mal administrada, se dice en el libro, la historia del arte puede ser letal como la estricnina, pero si te la cuentan con este desparpajo, se convierte en tu asignatura favorita.
Entre las citas que contiene la obrita, hay una de Cézanne que resume perfectamente este librito: “Lo grandioso acaba por cansar. Hay montañas que, cuando uno está delante, te hacen gritar ¡me cago en Dios! Pero para el día a día con un simple cerro hay de sobra.” Pues eso, que una joyita. show less

This was neat, just sparklingly different from anything else I've read in a while. It's at least somewhat autofiction—the narrator, also named María, is an art critic in Buenos Aires, as is the author, and she's said in interviews that there are some overlaps with her life, but only some. Whatever the case, the book is a really well done set of very loosely linked chapters that take off from the idea of how looking at art, and thinking about it, intertwines with a person's life (and often show more changes it). She's a very good art critic to begin with, so her thoughts on the artists who are part of her stories—from Rothko and El Greco through more obscure and local painters—are really interesting, but also very accessible. There's also a very sub-subtext that caught my eye as a writer and researcher, which is where and how do you get to depart from the record and start building your own story? She's obviously researched these artists very closely, but there are also wonderful textural details about their lives that she could have totally woven in herself. Or not—I was toggling back and forth in Wikipedia and WikiArt to look at the pictures and artists Gainza was talking about, but at a certain point I (and probably most readers) will just sit back and take the narrative on faith, so those authorial nuances are always fascinating to me.

Anyway, if you like looking at art and thinking about it past the moment when you're standing in front of the canvas, this is a lot of fun. Very fresh, I thought. And the translation, by Thomas Bunstead, is excellent. show less

From the first page, I was immediately and intensely endeared to the narrator of Optic Nerve. I would follow this narrator on any reading journey, wherever she would lead me, because the places she leads me, sentence by sentence and chapter by chapter, are unexpected, wonderful, startling, and humane.

The chapters hang together loosely. There is no plot to speak of. And yet the pieces and digressions come together again and again to become something whole and true.

The novel situates you in show more the mind of an insightful person, and makes you wiser as she herself becomes wiser. Her epiphanies come to her through the experience of viewing art, and thinking about art deeply. She lets her experience of art reverberate through her life experience.

So, of course I love this novel, because at its core it is championing the idea that contemplation of the arts can be life-changing, enriching, devastating, and above all, an essential part of what makes us human.

To have an entire novel make this case, at a time in the world where there is so much ugliness, and so much attention given to economic utility over aesthetic utility, is a gift.

This is one of the most personally significant books I've read since [b:Laurus|24694092|Laurus|Evgenij Vodolazkin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1429675607s/24694092.jpg|24667251] by [a:Evgenij Vodolazkin|7552779|Evgenij Vodolazkin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1461349756p2/7552779.jpg]. show less

'I know, I know, this is about as far from hard-nosed criticism as you can get, but isn't all artwork - or all decent art - a mirror? Might a great painting not even reformulate the question "what is it about" to "what am I about"? Isn't theory also in some sense always autobiography?'

Fiction, auto-fiction, autobiography, art treatise? All or none of them, María Gainza's work comes to us and, yes, whilst it is a slow-burn, it is the kind of book to make you stop and rethink many show more assumptions. The book constantly varies its narrative perspective: the first-person, our main character called Maria, who is an art critic and part-time tour guide; then we have occasional second-person narration (which doesn't always work), the 'you' creating a distance between us and Maria that we don't really need. And then there are the encounters with the paintings, lovingly described, with their histories laid out before us, as the artists and the colours of their work come alive.

This is a book about thinking about how we see things, the vivid hues of our everyday lives, and how we should pay attention to the things at the edges of our vision, those things seen out of the corner of your eye. The narrator's forays into anecdotes about the artists she is describing are fascinating, and like a good artist, Gainza adds textured layer after layer. It is only by the end, when you metaphorically step back from the work itself and see it as a whole, that you appreciate the series of impressions that have been left behind.

But it is a slow unveiling. Not a lot actually happens, and when it does it is oblique. It is a literate novel, as well, as Maria is fond of quoting other writers. So is it a novel? Auto-fiction? It is what it is, but above all it is a love-letter to the power of paintings to move us and show us a kind of truth that you can't find elsewhere. It is beautifully written and excellently translated by Thomas Bunstead. And, throughout, the city of Buenos Aires is our companion, our background and a character in itself. A gentle, thought-provoking work that deserves to be read. 4 stars. show less