The right eyes: Rilke on painting

Rilke on painting

Main navigation

Elena Maslova-Levin

The error of writing about art

by

… as always when I fall into the error of writing about art, it was valid more as a personal and provisional insight than as a fact objectively derived from the presence of the pictures.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

Rodin’s drawings were announced as a part of that year’s Salon, but something went wrong. Instead, they were exhibited at Bernheim-Jeune, a Parisian art gallery. So Rilke went there to see them.

He had already seen many of them while working with Rodin on his biography.

OCTOBER 15, 1907 (Part 1)

There indeed were the drawings, many pages which I already knew, which I had helped frame in those cheap white-gold frames that were ordered in such enormous quantities, back then.

Which I knew: but did I really know them?

There was so much in them that seemed different to me (is it Cézanne? Is it the passing of time?); what I had written about them two months ago had receded to the limits of validity.

It still was valid, somewhere; but, as always when I fall into the error of writing about art, it was valid more as a personal and provisional insight than as a fact objectively derived from the presence of the pictures.

Auguste Rodin. Drawing. Click the image to see more at Tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica

It bothered me that they were so self-explanatory, so easy to interpret; I found myself limited precisely by what ordinarily seemed to open up all sorts of vistas. I would have preferred them like that, without any statement, more discreet, more factual, left alone with themselves.

I admired individual pieces in a new way, and rejected others which seemed to glitter in the reflections of their interpretation; until I reached works which I had not known.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE

The theme of “subjective and objective” in art is present in the letters in two guises, from two (apparently different) vantage points:

From the point of view of an artist: do I express (subjective) feelings, or (objective) facts, THINGS, reality?

And as a spectator, or a reader: do I connect with a work of art because it touches me personally, subjectively? Or dare I look beyond that, into the reality of its objective presence?

But if a poet writes about art, these vantage points are merged together.

SEEING PRACTICE: OBJECTIVE PRESENCE

We are often attracted to works of art that have some personal emotional significance for us; that resonate with something in our own interior, on a deeply personal, subjective level. Is this the only way to really CONNECT with a painting, or a song, or a poem?

What Rilke, I think, dances around and approaches from different angles is that a work of art tells (or shows) us a glimpse of objective reality, beyond and above any personal significance we might project onto it.

It is interesting to think about one’s favorite painting(s) in this way: not in terms of one’s own emotional response to them, but as a pathway to a richer reality.

The good conscience of these reds, these blues, their simple truthfulness

by

As if these colors could heal one of indecision once and for all. The good conscience of these reds, these blues, their simple truthfulness, it educates you…

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 13, 1907 (Part 2)

Today I went to see his pictures again; it’s remarkable what a surrounding they create.

Without looking at a particular one, standing in the middle between the two rooms, one feels their presence drawing together into a colossal reality.

As if these colors could heal one of indecision once and for all. The good conscience of these reds, these blues, their simple truthfulness, it educates you; and if you stand among them as ready as possible, you get the impression that they are doing something for you.

Paul Cezanne. Still life with apples. 1894. Click the image to zoom in on Google Cultural Institute.

You also notice, a little more clearly each time, how necessary it was to go beyond love, too; it’s natural, after all, to love each of these things as one makes it: but if one shows this, one makes it less well; one judges it instead of saying it.

Paul Cezanne. Chateau Noir. 1894.

One ceases to be impartial; and the best—love—stays outside the work, does not enter it, is left aside, untranslated: that’s how the painting of moods came about (which is in no way better than the painting of things).

They’d paint: I love this here; instead of painting: here it is.

In which case everyone must see for himself whether or not I loved it. This is not shown at all, and some would even insist that it has nothing to do with love.

The love is so thoroughly used up in the action of making that there is no residue. It may be that this using up of love in anonymous work, which produces such pure things, was never achieved as completely as in the work of this old man.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

THE WORK. LOVE. SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE

Isn’t it interesting, and revealing, that Rilke uses the exact same expression, “no residue”, with regard to LOVE and COLOR (in the previous letter)?

He is so decidedly on the side of painting of (and writing) THINGS, not FEELINGS. The objective, not the subjective.

If there is a place for LOVE in a work of art, it is in the process, completely used up in the making. Paradoxically, if it is intentionally expressed, it stays outside the work.

SEEING PRACTICE: CONSCIENCE OF COLOR

The good conscience of these reds, these blues, their simple truthfulness…

It is an unusual way to think about colors: do they have conscience, good or bad? Are they truthful, or false?

Or loud, pretentious, deceitful, manipulative?

It is not only about painting, it is also about colors we see daily (even as we look at the screens of our phones, or our computers).

The color of a flower, or a tree trunk, or the sky: they never lie. But what about our houses, and cars, and the visual noise of advertisements?

Urge to comprehend everything

by

…how deeply we are placed on the ground of all transformation, we most changeable ones who walk about with the urge to comprehend everything and (because we’re unable to grasp it) reduce immensity to the action of our heart, for fear that it might destroy us.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 13, 1907 (Part 1)

Early this morning I read about your autumn, and all the colors you brought into your letter were changed back in my feelings and filled my mind to the brim with strength and radiance.

Yesterday, while I was admiring the dissolving brightness of autumn here, you were walking through that other autumn back home, which is painted on red wood, as this one’s painted on silk.

And the one reaches us as much as the other; that’s how deeply we are placed on the ground of all transformation, we most changeable ones who walk about with the urge to comprehend everything and (because we’re unable to grasp it) reduce immensity to the action of our heart, for fear that it might destroy us.

Paul Cezanne. Large pine and read earth. 1895.

If I were to come and visit you two, I would surely also see the pageant of moor and heath, the hovering bright green of the meadows, the birches, with new and different eyes.

Though this transformation is something I’ve completely experienced and shared before, in part of the Book of Hours, nature was then still a general inducement for me, an evocation, an instrument in whose strings my hands found themselves again.

Paul Cezanne. The brook. 1900.

I was not yet sitting before her; I allowed myself to be swept away by the soul that emanated from her; she came over me with her vastness, her grand exaggerated presence, the way prophesy came over Saul; exactly like that.

I walked about and saw, saw not nature but the visions she gave me. How little I would have been able to learn from Cézanne, from van Gogh, then. I can tell how much I’ve changed by the way Cézanne challenges me now.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

COLORS AND WORDS. REALITY

Rilke mentions his book of poems, The Book of Hours: Love poems to God, as a premonition of the transformation he is experiencing in 1907.

Here is a poem from this collection which, I think, gives us a glimpse of what he means (translation by  Babette Deutsch, from 2009 edition):

Although, as from a prison walled with hate,
each from his own self labors to be free,
the world yet holds a wonder, and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the winds, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the aging alleys that reach out endlessly?
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life — who really lives it? God, do you?

SEEING: we most changeable ones

The rhythms of nature are so varied: some things exist on a time scale for grander than our own, others arise and disappear before our eyes, like waves, or in the course of a single day or season, like flowers.

So what does he mean when he says: “we most changeable ones”?

As we go through life, it is so easy to get caught in the illusion of our own sameness. Our environment changes, but the self seems to be constant.

But when one truly sees, sitting before Nature (like a dog), having let go of this urge to comprehend everything, then all that remains of the self is the fluid, constantly changing vantage point.

 

The color is totally expended in its realization; there’s no residue

by

[Cézanne] somehow makes use of it, personally, as no one has ever used color before, simply for making the object. The color is totally expended in its realization; there’s no residue

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

Rilke continues his conversation with Mathilde Vollmoeller in front of Cézanne’s paintings. If you missed the first part of the conversation, here it is.

OCTOBER 12, 1907 (Part 3)

<…> And then we looked at “artistic” things which he may have made in Paris, when he was associating with others, and compared them with those that were unmistakably his own; compared them, that is, with regard to color.

Paul Cezanne. The turn in the road at Auvers. 1873.

In the former, color was something in and for itself; later he somehow makes use of it, personally, as no one has ever used color before, simply for making the object.

The color is totally expended in its realization; there’s no residue.

Paul Cezanne. Mont-Sainte Victoire. C. 1890.

And Miss V. said very significantly:

It’s as if they were placed on a scale: here the thing, there the color; never more, never less than is needed for perfect balance. It might be a lot or a little, that depends, but it’s always the exact equivalent of the object.

I would never have thought of this; but facing the pictures, it is eminently right and revealing.

I also noticed yesterday how unselfconsciously different they are, how unconcerned with being original, confident of not getting lost with each approach toward one of nature’s thousand faces.

Confident, rather, of discovering the inexhaustible nature within by seriously and conscientiously studying her manifold presence outside.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

Intercourse of colors. The work

Rilke writes about “discovering the inexhaustible nature within by seriously and conscientiously studying her manifold presence outside“.

Gottfried Richter writes in “Art and Human Consciousness” that Cézanne once said:

The landscape mirrors itself, thinks itself within me… Perhaps this is all nonsense, but it seems to me as though I myself were the subjective consciousness of this landscape…

Richter’s book has no bibliographical references, and I haven’t managed to trace the quote so far. But it resonates strongly with Rilke’s words about the nature within and its presence outside, and their point of connection in painting.

It is also a precise and direct description of a “peak” painting experiences: the experience of a tree, or an apple, or even a shoe seeing ITSELF through the painter.

SEEING PRACTICE: Cézanne (EARLY WORK)

Two landscapes are included with this letter, an early work and a mature one. Can you see the difference in color Rilke writes about here?

He sat there in front of it like a dog, just looking

by

He (Cézanne) sat there in front of it like a dog, just looking, without any nervousness, without any ulterior motive

Mathilde Vollmoeller to Rainer Maria Rilke

OCTOBER 12, 1907  (Part 2)

I recently asked Mathilde Vollmoeller to go through the Salon with me sometime, so that I could see my impression in the presence of someone whom I believe to be calm and not distracted by literature. Yesterday we went there together.

Cézanne prevented us from getting to anything else. I notice more and more what an event this is. But imagine my surprise when Miss V., with her painterly training and eye, said:

He sat there in front of it like a dog, just looking, without any nervousness, without any ulterior motive.

And she said some very good things about his manner of working (which one can decipher in an unfinished picture). “Here,” she said, pointing to one spot,

this he knew, and now he’s saying it (a part of an apple); right next to it there’s an empty space, because that was something he didn’t know yet. He only made what he knew, nothing else.

Paul Cezanne. Still life with water jug. 1893.

“What a good conscience he must have had,” I said. “Oh yes: he was happy, way inside somewhere …”

THE WORK

On October 9, Rilke described Cézanne’s process as “willful“.

What a distance to today’s insight (in the span of only three days, and one conversation with a painter friend): he only painted what he knew.

The very opposite of willfulness.

This is the essence of Cézanne process.

SEEING PRACTICE: LIKE A DOG (INDESCRIBABLE REALITY)

What does it mean: he sat there like a dog? I think it means LANGUAGE-LESS: without letting words interfere with his perception of reality, indescribable reality.

It must have been especially significant for Rilke, whose life’s work was to reenact reality in WORDS.

But it is also something nearly impossible to achieve to any of us, so deeply we are all caught in the internalized models of reality created by our languages. Most of the time, we only see things we can name.

What if we all could find some time and space today to see the world as it is, as vibrations of light and color, if even for a brief moment?

A few regular light planes, like the face in a portrait by Manet

by

Everything is simplified, reduced to a few regular light planes, like the face in a portrait by Manet. And nothing is insignificant and superfluous.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 12, 1907 (Part 1)

These are the days where everything is all around you, luminous, light, barely intimated in the bright air and yet distinct; even what is nearest has the tones of distance about it, is taken away and only shown, instead of being put there, as usual;

Paul Cezanne. Houses at the l’Estaque. 1880.

and all the things that are related to distance—the river, the bridges, the long streets, and the extravagant squares—have been absorbed and hugged close by that distance, are painted upon it, as if on silk.

Paul Cezanne. Bend in Forest Road. 1906.

 

Edouard Manet. Berthe Morisot with a bouquet of violets. 1872.

You can feel what a light-green carriage can be on the Pont-Neuf or some red that can’t contain itself, or simply a poster on the fire wall of a pearl-gray group of houses. Everything is simplified, reduced to a few regular light planes, like the face in a portrait by Manet.

And nothing is insignificant and superfluous.

The bouquinistes along the quai are opening their boxes, and the fresh or withered yellow of the books, the violet brown of the volumes, the green of a portfolio: everything is right, is valid, takes part, adds its sound to the ensemble of bright correspondences.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

LANDSCAPE OF WORDS. THE WORK

Another of Rilke’s landscapes, now with a direct comparison to a painting. And not to a landscape even, this would have been too straightforward. To a portrait!

This landscape, including this comparison, was later included, almost word-by-word, in Rilke’s novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge  — “work” done not as “work”, just as a fruit of unfolding life.

SEEING PRACTICE: Nature like Paintings

The common sense is to compare paintings to nature: are they true to life? Are they realistic?

But the way we see nature is informed by paintings we see, and let sink deeply into our sense of vision. Do you, too, sometimes feel that the best way to describe what you see in nature is to remind the listener of a painting?