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Angkor - 2003
Angkor - 2003
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-25 13:29:32
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dug its claws into everything, and loosening its grip is not likely to be an easy task. In fact, the restoration work has been limited to the reinforcement of a few ceilings and some sloping walls. I lingered somewhat amidst that gigantic nature which conferred life on the ruins, trying to guess what these monuments must have been once, and thinking of how many people must have toiled for this king with his mad dream of greatness.
To know that I was so near Banteay Srei, which is in an off-limits area, and that I couldnt go there, was something I simply couldn’t swallow, so the urge to go back there was very strong.
No one knows why Banteay Srei is called the “Citadel of Women”, but it is probably because its small-scale architecture and its closely-packed, even extreme ornamentation suggests the harmonious grace of the female figure, to which may be added the composure of its structural solidity and the frivolousness of its decoration. Indeed, the beautiful Banteay was little more than a toy compared with that great “beast” the Bayon.
“Citadel of Women” came to world notice in 1924, after Andre Malraux’s unsuccessful attempt to make off with several works. This, of course, is the same Malraux who later became a world-famous writer and Minister of Information and Culture in de Gaulle’s government. After disembarking in this isolated place, together with his wife Clara and friend Louis Chevasson, he removed from the temple a few bas-refliefs which, sent down the river, should have arrived in Saigon and then France. Arrested by the colonial authorities, he was condemned to three years of prison, but thanks to the intervention of a few Paris intellectuals, he managed to regain his freedom six months later. Of this adventurous journey in Cambodia there remains, for the benefit of the whole world, his splendid novel The Royal Way (La Vie royale), which is the store of two Europeans who hope to reach the lost city, yet to
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See photographs from:
Cambodia Gallery
