Kahlil Gibran: Poet, Painter, Prophet

The poet artist Kahlil Gibran

The Kahlil Gibran Collective

Kahlil Gibran: Poet, Painter, Prophet

The Poetry of Kahlil Gibran

The Art of Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran Art

Poem Analysis of Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet: Why is it so loved?

Pioneer of the New Age

* * * * * * * * * * *

In 1932, the content of Gibran's studio in New York, including his furniture, his personal belongings, his private library, his manuscripts and 440 original paintings, was transferred to his native town Bsharreh. Today, these items form the content of the Gibran museum.

Originally, a grotto for monks seeking shelter in the 7th century, the Mar Sarkis (Saint Sergious) hermitage, became Gibran Khalil Gibran's tomb, and was later turned into his museum.

By the end of the 17th century, Carmelite monks living in the Qadisha valley, the sacred valley, began construction of a new monastery, which was completed in 1862. more

In 1926, while in New York, Gibran decided to buy the monastery for his retirement and the hermitage as his final resting place. Upon his request, his sister Mariana purchased both the monastery and the hermitage. On the 22nd of August 1931, Gibran's mortal remains reached Bsharreh. The transformation of the new monastery into a museum did not occur until 1975 when the Gibran National Committee restored the monastery and built a new wing in the eastern side. The floors of the museum were linked through an internal staircase to create a harmonious space where the works of Gibran are to be exposed.

In his last will, Gibran bequeathed all his works and his studio furniture to Mary Haskell, leaving for her to decide whether to accept them as a token of gratitude or to bequeath them to his native town Bsharreh. Remembering his nostalgia for his hometown Mary fulfilled what she knew was his desire.

During the next two years, 1931-1932, the treasures found in Gibran’s studio were freely tossed about. But the combined efforts of Mary Haskell, the Gibran Youth Committee and Gibran’s Lebanese friends, Gibran’s legacy was shipped from his studio in New York to Bsharreh. Afterward, the Gibran National Committee was founded. His paintings were exhibited in many places in Bsharreh. But from the election of the first Committee until the 1971 election, the constant concern was to create a suitable museum to receive the paintings of Gibran. Many schemes and architectural designs were presented. A settlement was finally attained by Members and Director Farid Salman of the Gibran National Committee in 1971 when they decided to convert the monastery into a museum. Throughout 1973-1975, the monastery slowly began to take the shape required by Gibran’s idea of seclusion.

• An annex, joining the basement to the upper storey, was added to the existing building. The walls were purposely kept rough to the rough-hewn aiming to create a harmony between them and the paintings backgrounds. Tunes for the flute were chosen among dozens of entries. They are played by Farid Fakhry, who, in his own words, offered them as a gift to the spirit of my brother Gibran. And the monastery was finally transformed into Gibran Museum to embrace with its sixteen halls his masterpieces, manuscripts, personal library, archives and furniture including his bed and his easel, brought back from his apartment in New York. His address appears on one of his leather briefcases (room III).

• From Hall XVI, seven steps lead down to the ancient hermitage where Gibran now rests in the heart of the rock halfway between the Holy Qadisha Valley and the Cedars of Lebanon. All the masterpieces are exhibited in the 12 rooms of the three floors of the Museum, leading at the end to Gibran's tomb. The rooms are all numbered with roman numbers, firebrand on cedar wood tablets. Giban's resting place is separated from room XVI by seven stone steps carved in the rock of the monastery. The old hermitage is the cemetery. To the west side is another collection of ­some of Gibran's personal belongings and furniture: his painting corner, small casesand boxes, a short bed, a table witness of the artist's sleepless nights spent in company ­of words, a chair... They all remind us of Gibran's New York studio. Towards the north side, we can read the epitaph that Gibran wished to be written on his tomb. Through the cracks of the piece of wood appear parts of the coffin. Then going eastward, we see in a cornet two chandeliers and a portrait of Gibran painted by his friend Youssef Hoayeck, when they were in­ Paris.

• Getting to the exit is a portrait of Gibran painted by the Lebanese artist Cezar Gemayel.

In 1995, the museum was further enlarged and supplied with up-to-date equipments enabling it to exhibit the entire collection of Gibran's manuscript, drawings and paintings.

A plan for the whole site including extensions, a parking and an access road was executed in the summer of 2003 with the aim of preserving this part of the Lebanese heritage molded into a privileged cultural and touristic site.

* * * * * * * * * * *

For images of Kahlil Gibran's artwork go to

Gibran National Committee. 

All images courtesy of the Gibran National Committee

Images courtesy of the Gibran National Committee

* * * * * * * * *

The Literary and Art Legacy

of the Cedars

Amid the natural beauty of Lebanon

13 FEBRUARY 2016, 

SAYDE TAWK

K

ahlil Gibran, Illustration from The Prophet

Amid the natural beauty that dwells in the mountains and valleys of Lebanon, there also dwells a legacy of art and literature that draws as much admirers as the panoramic and historical sites do. In one of these mountains, a poet and artist discovered the secret of the Cedars’ immortality and spread his branches across the whole world and beyond time. Gibran Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese artist from Bcharri, is a valued heritage for Lebanon and an inspiration for many other local artists and poets whose steps are treading on the path he tracked towards timeless creativeness drawn from a breathtaking town.

The prominent artist of the cedars to start with is Gibran, who was born in 1883 in Bcharri, Lebanon. He emigrated with his family to the United States where he first resided in Boston and moved later to New York. Gibran was physically away from his home country and hometown, yet his love and affection to his roots had a great influence on his art and manifested in most of his works. His most famous work The Prophet has been translated into over 40 different languages rendering him as third bestselling author after Shakespeare and Laozi. The book consists of 26 prose poetry essays dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death. The essays are written as a dialogue between the prophet, Almustafa, who has lived in the foreign city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home, and a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition. The themes convey a strong belief in the healing power of universal love and the unity of everything in life.

Gibran wrote in both Arabic and English and his works include Rebellious Spirits, Broken Wings, A Tear and A Smile, The Madman, Mirrors of the Soul, Between Night & Morn and many others. Gibran’s museum in Bsharri displays the complete collection of his art consisting of 480 original paintings that mainly portray the themes of nature and the origin of human beings. Gibran undoubtedly influenced countless people around the world with his art and literature. However, his influence is deeply distilled in the spirit of his hometown people who regard his art as a great source of inspiration for intellectuality and creativeness.

For instance, Roudy Rahme is a painter, sculptor, and poet from Bsharri, who made of the dead Cedar trees in the Cedars Forest an open art museum displaying his works of art. His Lamartine Cedar in the Cedars Forest monumental sculptures entered the Guinness World Record in 2007 as the largest natural sculpture sight in the world consisting of 70 immense humanized sculptures. On the other hand, Hoda Barakat is a prominent literary figure born in Bsharri in 1952. She resided in Paris while working on her Ph.D., and returned to Lebanon following the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, which is the main setting in most of her novels that dealing with male figures struggling with the moral conventions of society. Her novel The Stone of Laughter won Al Naqid Prize and was the first Arabic novel to have a homosexual man as a central character. Barakat’s other important work is The Tiller of Waters, which won the Naguib Mahfouz medal for literature. Her recent work is The Kingdom of This Earth. This novel highlights the Maronites of Bsharri who fortify themselves against their enemies. Just like her predecessor, Barakat always carries her hometown in her heart despite the miles and miles separating them.

Another prominent local poet is Malek Tawk whose romantic poetry and poems have Bsharri and its culture as their main theme. His works are written in colloquial Arabic. The themes of tyranny and oppression found in Gibran Khalil Gibran’s writings have a great influence on his writings. Among his works that are still in manuscripts are Grape Clusters (1955), Pile of Sin (1970), Good to Die for Lebanon (1976), Pounding on Doors (1999), The Heretic (2006), and others. Following in his footsteps, his eldest son Antoine Malek Tawk, born on the 2nd of July, 1947, began writing poetry at the age of 15 becoming a renowned poet across the country. He was among the participants in the honoring festival of Gibran Khalil Gibran held in Bsharri in 1962. Since 1995, Antoine has been the organizer of a poetic and musical event held every year in the first week of September in Bsharri. Great Lebanese poets and musicians participate in this event, and each year a famous artist is honored. Among his major works are Strangle the Storyteller and Stone the Sorcerer, Mira written in loving memory of his wife who passed away and A Multiple Woman in which he uses post-modernist techniques.

The small town of Bsharri continues to witness the rise of great writers, artists and poets who never cease to draw their inspiration and motivation from the heavenly beauty of the local nature and the genius of their intellectual ancestors. There are many more to write about as the small corners in the world happen do hold the greatest human magic and wisdom waiting for us to notice and appreciate them. This article is dedicated to Farah Tawk, the daughter of Antoine Malek Tawk, who is no less of a genius then her father and her grandfather.