Una vida tranquila

Intertwined with the scenes of a film as a counterpoint, A Peaceful Life traces the trajectories of three artists who chose calm and contemplation not only as a way of understanding their craft, but also as a way of being in the world. Although its pages appear Fra Angelico, Ajmátova, Emily Dickinson, Falla, Britten, Thoreau, Etty Hillesum, the monks of De Dios y Hombres, Fray Luis de León, Josep Pla or Simone Weil, due to their own tendency to recollect this hybrid book Above all, he seems to be looking for something similar to what the paintings of Giorgio Morandi, the poems of Jane Kenyon or the short piano pieces of Frederic Mompou aspired to. In addition, while defending a simple poetic, luminous and away from noise, A quiet life reflects the reverse of a confessional testimony, an implicit autobiography from which any type of self is absent. Coradino Vega finished this book just before the pandemic broke out, when a certain accelerated and excessive way of living had long become the pattern of our day. Now, however, his commitment, withdrawn by austerity in the face of the bustle of overcrowding and fashions, by attentive calm in the face of the deterioration of nature and the distractions of technology, has involuntarily acquired an imperative topicality and a double relevance .