Inspiració [ins pi r si 'o]                 Catalan

Antoni Brosa Sádaba	In Catalan, apart from the meaning of drawing air into the lungs, inspiració refers to the birth of ideas, feelings, decisions in the mind. It is almost always the result of an external influence: environment, an experience, a vision or a supreme being. In fact, there is a divine quality closely associated with it. Some of the synonyms used in Catalan, such as religious enlightenment, metaphorical lightning or flame, and muse, emphasizes the power and the different nuances of the word.
Inspiració comes to Catalan from the ecclesiastic Latin word inspiratio. Originally the word inspiration was closely associated with a religious experience. The related verb inspire carries the meaning of instilling something that comes from God: “God wanted to inspire the burgher and his wife with divine grace”, wrote Ramon Llull, a great Catalan writer of the XII century. It is also interesting that our word is etymologically related to the word spirit.   With the romantic writers in the 19th century, the meaning of poetic, literary and artistic exaltation appears.   Jacint Verdaguer, a modern Catalan poet, valued inspiration highly. In Canigó, inspired in the mountains of the Pyrennes, “ardent inspiration” links “the ideas”. Joan Maragall, intellectual and poet himself, wrote Praise on the word, claiming that every “living word” is born in a “light of inspiration” leading to sincere speech. He wrote that “God creates in the inspired word of the poet”.   The painter Salvador Dalí  stresses “the pure instinct, the pure inspiration” that engenders an art uncontaminated by culture or intelligence. All of them seem to be inspired by a very different kind of things, even including the work of other artists, as we can see in the painting that inspired Joan Miró.

I personally am not especially inspired. The only thing I can remember about the first time I got inspired is a prosaic one. I was sitting an exam on mathematics when I was 13 or maybe 14. I recall I was trying to solve one of the exercises and suddenly I saw some clue –a formula, I don’t know really what it was– in the exam of another classmate that was near to me. I remember quite well that that wasn’t matter of copying. Then I was able to solve the problem and I felt that as a "flash of inspiration". As you can see, nothing to do with any artistic matter or purpose.

More recently, sometimes –very few times, in fact–, my wife and I go to a dinner party. There is a condition to go there: to make a poem about one of the courses of the meal we are going to eat, such as potatoes, melons, carrots and so on. It’s not a formal party and very often the poems are pretty basic, as in my case. It’s the only thing I’ve done related to some kind of artistic creation. So I take my laptop, I think of the theme again and again, I look for words and synonyms in the dictionaries, and little by little, writing and rewriting, I make it. In fact, a matter of heavy work. Very prosaic.

My view on inspiration is a kind of exciting feeling you experience sometimes when you suddenly get something that you were trying to do or find or discover, such as solving a problem. It’s a description that owes a great deal to the romantic tradition.

I’ve heard from a doctor who is involved in a research on creativity among schizophrenics that there is some kind of barrier in the brain that normal people have very well "built" but in schizophrenic people the barriers "leak" sometimes and increases creativity. Perhaps something physiological like that occurs in artists that have a very unusual (mad?) way of seeing the world, such as Dalí, Van Gogh, etc.

Interview Questions

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Giuseppe Arcimboldo

I saw on your own web Flowering of inspiration by Salvador Dalí. I found it very interesting, but since it’s on the inspiration web and on sale as a lithograph I would prefer to include the former ones. As you said, I suppose Gala was the omnipresent inspiration in this gouache. But I think that in this case it’s not so important because the core of the painting is flowers instead of a head. What do you think? After asking a teacher friend, she told me that perhaps the inspiration comes from the paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo although in a more simplistic way. Some critics have noticed this inspiration in some etching of Dalí.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

I've been investigating writers' and artists' conception of inspiration. I think that this would be the most interesting part of the book for the reader would then be able to make cultural comparisons of meaning and their relevance to different people.

I don’t have any material or references in English about this subject. Jacint Verdaguer talks about inspiration mainly through his poems. In his case, there is a "divine inspiration" (and this is repeated elsewhere), as he wrote in another line as well, probably due to he was a priest. A complex character that was involved in exorcisms too. Some of his works have been translated into English. You can find some information here.

The place of birth is wrong (Folgueroles instead of Riudeperas). Even though they say that L’Atlàntida has been translated into English, I don’t have this reference and I don’t know if it is true. There are some information about translations at the URL.  These are the only things I’m aware of in English. Of course, at Britannica.com there is more information but it isn’t free and I can’t access it.

Regarding Joan Maragall, his essays on poetry called Praise on Word, Praise on Poetry and Praise on People haven’t been translated into English. It gives a view about inspiration that comes from the romantic tradition. Almost the same applies to Salvador Dalí, who wrote a few interesting articles about his view on arts only in Catalan or in Spanish. I suppose that’s not enough but I don’t have anything else. I’m sorry. If you feel there is a damaging lack of concrete quotes, I can do some more digging.

 I was wondering how you know that the paintings, for example the Interior Holandés was inspired by The lute player?

Back Painting Gala, Dalí		(Dalí from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalized by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected in Six Real Mirrors (unfinished), 1972-73, Museum of Figueres – Spain)
inspired by:
		Johannes Vermeer –Dutch as well– called The Allegory of Painting (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1666-67).
The Allegory of Painting, Johannes Vermeer