A Brief Glimpse of Gibran

 We have been reading and studying Kahlil Gibran since the 60s and have found so much wisdom, beauty and truth in his writings and artwork. We would like to quote some excerpts from John Walbridge's study of Gibran- 'Gibran, his Aesthetic, and his Moral Universe. To read the entire work please go HERE! We hope you enjoy this page and the beauty and wisdom of Gibran!

Gibran, his Aesthetic, and his Moral Universe

Kahlil Gibran was born in about 1883 in Bisharri, a beautiful but impoverished Maronite Christian village in northern Lebanon. His father was an agent of a local warlord; his mother from a family of priests.  When he was twelve, his mother left his father and immigrated with her children to America.  The family settled in the slums of Boston.  The social workers of the local settlement house spotted Gibran’s remarkable talent for drawing and introduced him to a circle of young avant garde intellectuals, who made a pet of him, encouraged his talent for drawing, and gave him serious books to read.  In 1896 he was sent home to attend high school.  He spent six years in Lebanon and returned with the rudiments of an Arabic literary education superimposed on his precocious readings in 1890s avant garde literature.  Once back in Boston he seriously pursued his art and also began publishing poems and stories in the Arabic newspapers of New York and Boston.  In 1908 Mary Haskell, the headmistress of a girls’ school and the most important of his several patronesses, sent him to a Paris art school for two years.  Shortly after returning to America, he moved to New York to be nearer the centers of art and Arab-American literary culture.  He spent the rest of his life in New York, never completely successful in supporting himself by his art.  His ethereal paintings, though unquestionably beautiful and moving, were completely outside the mainstream of art in his time.  He died in 1931.  His body was taken back to Lebanon for burial in his home village.

Though in Gibran’s own mind he was primarily a painter, it was his writing that made his reputation.  His simple and vivid short stories and "prose poems" were immensely influential in Arabic literature.  They were soon published in collections and have been in print in Arabic ever since.  By about 1916 he was experimenting with writing in English.  The resulting pieces were carefully edited by Mary Haskall.  The first work, The Wanderer, appeared in 1919.  His most famous work, The Prophet, appeared in 1923 and became immensely popular.  It was followed by several other English works..
JohnWalbridge
         ( Near Eastern Language-Indiana University)
         
"I followed the generations from the banks of the Congo to the shores of the Euphrates, to the mouth of the Nile and to Mount Sinai, to the courts of Athens and to the churches of Rome, to the alleys of Constantinople and to the great buildings of London.  Everywhere I saw slavery being carried in processions towards the altars and being called God.  They poured libations of wine and perfumes at its feet and called it Angel.  They burned incense before its images and called it Prophet.  Then they fell down prostrate before it and called it the Holy Law."

On Love

-The Prophet-

Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

-Kahlil Gibran-

If You Would Like To Read The Prophet Online

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(Gibrans paintings are from an obscure Arabic book published in Beirut
years ago by Wahhab Kairuz. I think he did an equally obscure English
version in Switzerland. The originals are in the Gibran museum in Bsharri)

All Gibran Paintings © Telfair Museum in Atlanta-2004

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