The Sadness of George Sand

Gegants are extremely large papier maché figurines, intricately clothed and painted to represent legendary figures: kings, queens and mythical folkloric characters. The hollowed-out, wooden-framed body allows a large, presumably quite strong person to clamber underneath, lift the thing up and make it ponce down the street in flamboyant carnivalesque parades. Each city in Catalonia is represented by unique gegants: in Barcelona look out for Jaume I and Violant d’Hongria as well as the Gegants de Santa Maria de Mar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Zk7krmF_U

La Mercè, patron saint of Barcelona, according to legend, appeared to Jaume I one late September evening way back in 1218, proposing a saving-Christians-from-the-blood-thirsty-Saracens campaign. Much later, in 1687, the virgin Mercè delivered Barcelona out of the perils of a giant plague of locusts. In ongoing grateful celebration the city celebrates every September: fireworks, dances, music, correfoc and gegants ...among other things.

While Violant’s eastern European origins draw attention to the early cultural diversity of the nation and its celebrations, in the postmodern global era the cultural integration and indeed also non-integrations are ever more visible. In this year’s warm ups to Mercè, intercultural synthesism raised its head quite appropriately on the Rambla, where two new gigants were officially inaugurated under the watchful eyes of Jaume and Violant: Frédéric Chopin and George Sand.

As I stood watching, a happy tipsy little Pole excitedly taps me on the shoulder announcing that his friend personally supervised the creation of the monster figurines. “Catalans are practically Polish,” he added with a grin.

I turned back and found myself fixated on Sand’s face; she seemed to be lost in a tragic world of anguish. Whereas Chopin just looked formally dull. Perhaps she wasn’t enjoying her 1838 visit with Chopin to Barcelona (represented here), before going on to Mallorca. Her giant lips are too tense to be painted so red and they somehow clash with the deep blue bags that have been boldly streaked under her eyes. This doesn’t seem to be the face of the rebel writer, vivacious defier of the social and class norms of 19th Century France. Dressed in prim robes she seems far removed from the perils of male garments and aromatic cigarette smoke. Is it the sudden conformity of the gegant costume imposed upon her that brings sternness, a heart-rending solemnity to her demeanour? Is it a growing sexual apathy? Surely not regret for times gone by? Is she worrying about her children and their uncertain futures? Is that heavy fabric itching her papier maché skin? Or is it a foreboding of the hard conflictual times to come, with Chopin’s deteriorating health a reminder of her own iridescent but also ephemeral youth? She writes: “One changes from day to day, and...after a few years have passed one has completely altered.”