Chillida and Poetry

Abstract

For Chillida, the word poetry has above all a genesic sense, and he resorts to it precisely when dealing with creation: «Aren’t construction and poetry essential components of all the arts?» If, for the physicist Minkowski, when the poet speaks «he returns to being the energy of an origin» (something intangible related to time), construction (linked to space) brings us closer when Heidegger says: «To be work is to establish a world». That’s why construction and poetry encompass both things. Chillida soon makes contact with Heidegger and writes an intense book entitled El arte y el espacio (Art and Space), but he also pays homage to the poet Jorge Guillén, seduced by his verse: «The deepest thing is air». On the other hand, since poetry is linked to music, where, says Walter Pater, «no distinction is made between matter and form», Chillida also approaches it. As a consequence, together with his homage to Saint John of the Cross, we find the one dedicated to John Sebastian Bach. Thus his works can be called: Rumour of Limits, Sound Spaces, Music of the Spheres, Vibrations…