Anxiety, Doris Salcedo, van Gogh : Translating ‘A flor de piel’
Gift of Pamela Harriman in memory of W. Averell Harriman. Thanks for NGA for use of image in public domain.
The Spanish expression a flor de piel conjures an image that, while beautiful, seems to mislead us.
The expression translates into English roughly as emotions running high. Both of the nouns in this expression are familiar to people who have studied even a little Spanish. Flor is usually flower while piel means skin.
So it sounds like this expression perhaps likens people in excited states to the fragility of flower petals, or to sensations that are temporary or make us vulnerable.
The expression suggests “a sensation so overwhelming that it is expressed physically through a coloring of the body’s surface,” wrote Lauren Hinkson, a curator at the Guggenheim, in a web posting about an artwork, titled “A flor de piel.” (There’s a link at the end of this essay to find this webpage and other materials I used in my research.)
But the roots of the expression “a flor de piel” appear to be in leather making.
The flor here means a layer of animal hide. A flor de piel refers to “the act of bringing up the innermost skin (which is the softest) to the top,” wrote the author of the helpful Spanishskulduggery Tumblr site in a 2014 post.
“So not only does it implicate `raw emotion’ but also `sensitivity’, and a stronger nuance…
