Colors and words

Black and white behave perfectly colorlike next to the other colors

December 21, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

black and white <…> behave perfectly colorlike next to the other colors, their equal in every way, as if long acclimatized.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 24, 1907 (Part 4)

The use of white as a color was natural to him from the start: together with black, it defined the two limits of his wide-open palette,

Paul Cezanne. The black marble clock. C. 1870.

and in the very beautiful ensemble of a black stone mantelpiece with a pendulum clock, black and white (the latter in a cloth that covers part of the mantel and hangs over its edge) behave perfectly colorlike next to the other colors, their equal in every way, as if long acclimatized.

(Differently than in Manet, whose black has the effect of a light being switched off and yet still stands opposed to the other colors as if coming from some other place.)

Brightly confronting each other on the white cloth are a coffee cup with a heavy dark-blue stripe on the edge, a fresh, ripe lemon, a cut crystal chalice with a sharply scalloped edge, and, way over on the left, a large, baroque triton shell—eccentric and singular in appearance, with its smooth, red orifice facing the front.

Its inward carmine bulging out into brightness provokes the wall behind it to a kind of thunderstorm blue, which is then repeated, more deeply and spaciously, by the adjoining gold-framed mantelpiece mirror;

here, in the mirror image, it again meets with a contradiction: the milky rose of a glass vase which, standing on the black pendulum clock, asserts its contrast twice (first in reality, then, a little more yieldingly, in reflection).

Space and mirror-space are definitively indicated and distinguished—musically, as it were—by this double stroke; the picture contains them the way a basket contains fruit and leaves: as if all this were just as easy to grasp and to give.

But there’s still some other object on the bare mantelpiece, pushed up against the white cloth: I’d like to go back to the picture to see what it was.

But the Salon no longer exists; in a few days it will be replaced by an exhibition of automobiles which will stand there, long and dumb, each one with its own idée fixe of velocity.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

Presence. Intercourse of colors

As you read this portrait-in-words of a still life, don’t you find it hard to believe that it is written completely from memory?

Earlier, Rilke wrote about the greatness of Cézanne’s watching. In these descriptions from memory, we see his own great watching: the sheer quality of presence and attention he brought to this encounter with Cézanne.

I had to re-read the letter, following the flow of words around the picture with more focused attention, to even find that single object he forgot… Did you?

The inner equilibrium of Cézanne’s colors

December 19, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

… the inner equilibrium of Cézanne’s colors, which never stand out or obtrude, evokes this calm, almost velvetlike air which is surely not easily introduced into the hollow inhospitality of the Grand Palais.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

October 24, 1907 (Part 2)

When I made this remark, that there is nothing actually gray in these pictures (in the landscapes, the presence of ocher and of unburnt and burnt earth colors is too palpable for gray to develop),

Paul Cezanne. Chestnut Trees at the Jas de Bouffan. 1887. Click to zoom in (on Google Art Institute website).

Miss Vollmoeller pointed out to me how, standing among them, one feels a soft and mild gray emanating from them as an atmosphere,

Paul Cezanne. Still Life with Curtain and Flowered Pitcher. 1985.

and we agreed that the inner equilibrium of Cézanne’s colors, which never stand out or obtrude, evokes this calm, almost velvetlike air which is surely not easily introduced into the hollow inhospitality of the Grand Palais.

Paul Cezanne. Harlequin. 1890. Click to zoom in (on Google Art Institute website).

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

STORYLINE: INTERCOURSE OF COLORS

Many painters and art historians have attempted to define “color harmony”, and my guess is, these attempts will go on so long as men can breath and eyes can see.

This is in our nature, to try and “define” our words, our languages teasing us everyday with the organic fluidity of what we (with charmingly naive arrogance) call “meanings”.

(Rilke wrote once that happy is he who knows that beyond all languages sits the Unsayable.)

But I don’t expect that, in my lifetime, I will see a better description of what “color harmony” actually is than what Rilke gives in this letter.

SEEING PRACTICE: COLOR HARMONY

Cézanne mastered every register of this ancient organ of color. He could fill the seemingly grey with every color of the rainbow (and more), and bring the boldest, most intense colors into the state of quiet conversation with one another.

The paintings I have chosen for this segment range from the muted lightness of an evening forest to the bold pattern of Harlequin’s attire. Yet the effect described by Rilke is there in all and every one of them.

Gray, literally gray, cannot be found in Cézanne’s pictures

December 18, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

To his immensely painterly eye it didn’t hold up as a color: he went to the core of it and found that it was violet there or blue or reddish or green.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 24, 1907 (Part 1)

… I said: gray—yesterday, when I described the background of the self-portrait, light copper obliquely crossed by a gray pattern.

Paul Cezanne. Self-portrait in front of pink background. 1875.

I should have said: a particular metallic white, aluminum or something similar, for gray, literally gray, cannot be found in Cézanne’s pictures.

To his immensely painterly eye it didn’t hold up as a color: he went to the core of it and found that it was violet there or blue or reddish or green.

Paul Cezanne. Still life with red onions. 1896- 1898. Click to zoom in (on Google Art Project).

He particularly likes to recognize violet (a color which has never been opened up so exhaustively and so variously) where we only expect and would be contented with gray;

but he doesn’t relent and pulls out all the violet hues that had been tucked inside, as it were; the way certain evenings, autumn evenings especially, will address the graying facades directly as violet, and receive every possible shade for an answer, from a light floating lilac to the heavy violet of Finnish granite.

Paul Cezanne. A turn in the road. 1882. Click the image to zoom in (on Google Art Project).

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

STORYLINE: Intercourse of colors

If I were to name my absolute favorite in this extraordinary sequence of letters, this may well be the one.

It embodies and reenacts the very essence of painting: its ability to open our eyes to what we haven’t seen before, couldn’t even imagine seeing.

And Rilke not only describes, but intensifies this effect: what one might have missed in Cézanne, one cannot miss now, once it is named.

And the way he compares Cézanne to autumn evenings, in his ability to pull out colors from nature, to make the nature respond to the painter’s eye, just like it responds to the sunlight…

SEEING PRACTICE: GREY

Even the imperfections of reproductions conspire to help us see what Rilke is talking about here.

In the still life above, the reproduction pulls out and exaggerates the colors hidden in Cézanne grays. If you click to zoom in, you will see a more muted (and closer to life) image; but zoom in on the gray areas, on all the secret hues of grey. Zoom in on the landscape to see how difficult it is to transmit this experience of grey in reproduction.

And what about “real life”? Can one “zoom in” on its grey areas to recognize the hues which so often stay unseen, both literally and metaphorically?

How great this watching of his was, and how unimpeachably accurate

December 17, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

And how great this watching of his was, and how unimpeachably accurate, is almost touchingly confirmed by the fact that, without even remotely interpreting his expression or presuming himself superior to it, he reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter-of-fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 23, 1907

I wondered last night whether my attempt to give you an impression of the woman in the red armchair was at all successful.

I’m not sure that I even managed to describe the balance of its tonal values; words seemed more inadequate than ever, indeed inappropriate; and yet it should be possible to make compelling use of them, if one could only look at such a picture as if it were part of nature—in which case it ought to be possible to express its existence somehow.

For a moment it seemed easier to talk about the self-portrait; apparently it’s an earlier work, it doesn’t reach all the way through the whole wide-open palette, it seems to keep to the middle range, between yellow-red, ocher, lacquer red, and violet purple.

In the jacket and hair it goes all the way to the bottom of a moist -violet brown contending against a wall of gray and pale copper. But looking closer, you discover the inner presence of light greens and juicy blues, which intensify the reddish tones and define the lighter areas more precisely.

In this case, however, the object as such is more tangible, and the words, which feel so unhappy when made to denote purely painterly facts, are only too eager to return to themselves in the description of the man portrayed, for here’s where their proper domain begins.

His right profile is turned by a quarter in the direction of the viewer, looking.

The dense dark hair is bunched together at the back of the head and lies above the ears so that the whole contour of the skull is exposed; it is drawn with eminent assurance, hard and yet round, the brow sloping down and of one piece, its firmness prevailing even where, dissolved into form and surface, it is merely the outermost contour containing a thousand others.

The strong structure of this skull which seems hammered and sculpted from within is reinforced by the ridges of the eyebrows; but from there, pushed forward toward the bottom, shoed out, as it were, by the closely bearded chin, hangs the face, hangs as if every feature had been suspended individually, unbelievably intensified and yet reduced to utter primitivity, yielding that expression of uncontrolled amazement in which children and country people can lose themselves,—except that the gazeless stupor of their absorption has been replaced by an animal alertness which entertains an untiring, objective wakefulness in the unblinking eyes.

And how great this watching of his was, and how unimpeachably accurate, is almost touchingly confirmed by the fact that, without even remotely interpreting his expression or presuming himself superior to it, he reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter-of-fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.

Fare well … for now; perhaps you can see in all this a little of the old man, who deserves the epithet he applied to Pissarro: humble et colossal. Today is the anniversary of his death …

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

STORYLINE: The work

Rilke draws an interesting triangle here, between Reality (or “facts”), Colors (painting), and Words (language). Colors and Words are alternative means of portraying Reality, but they are also, in themselves, parts of Reality.

In his description of the portrait of Mme Cézanne, he aimed to approach the painting as if it were part of nature (rather than a representation of something else). Here, he aims to describe not the painting as an independent part of reality, but rather the man represented in the painting, the reality behind the painting — and this is easier for words to do, for here’s where their proper domain begins.

But he is really describing both the painting and the reality reenacted in it, isn’t he?

SEEING PRACTICE: Cézanne

For Rilke, the reality portrayed in the painting seems much more tangible here than in the portrait of Mme Cézanne (I include it below again for the sake of comparison). And for him, this intangibility of the object being portrayed is a sign of Cézanne’s growth as an artist, of the turning point in the evolution of art.

Do you see what he means?

Paul Cezanne. Portrait of Madame Cezanne. 1878.

My blood describes it within me, but the naming of it passes by

December 15, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

In my feeling, the consciousness of their presence has become a heightening which I can feel even in my sleep; my blood describes it within me, but the naming of it passes by somewhere outside and is not called in.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

The Salon is closing. This co-creative encounter between Rilke and Cézanne is almost over.

But we still have a week worth of letters ahead of us, to cleanse and enrich our sense of vision.

OCTOBER 22, 1907, Part 1

<…> the Salon is closing today. And already, as I’m leaving it, on the way home for the last time, I want to go back to look up a violet, a green, or certain blue tones which I believe I should have seen better, more unforgettably.

Already, even after standing with such unremitting attention in front of the great color scheme of the woman in the red armchair, it is becoming as irretrievable in my memory as a figure with very many digits.

And yet I memorized it, number by number. In my feeling, the consciousness of their presence has become a heightening which I can feel even in my sleep; my blood describes it within me, but the naming of it passes by somewhere outside and is not called in.

Did I write about it?

Paul Cezanne. Portrait of Madame Cezanne. 1878. Click the image to zoom in (on Google Cultural Institute).

A red, upholstered low armchair has been placed in front of an earthy-green wall in which a cobalt-blue pattern (a cross with the center left out) is very sparingly repeated; the round bulging back curves and slopes forward and down to the armrests (which are sewn up like the sleeve-stump of an armless man).

The left armrest and the tassel that hangs from it full of vermilion no longer have the wall behind them but instead, near the lower edge, a broad stripe of greenish blue, against which they clash in loud contradiction.

Seated in this red armchair, which is a personality in its own right, is a woman, her hands in the lap of a dress with broad vertical stripes that are very lightly indicated by small, loosely distributed flecks of green yellows and yellow greens, up to the edge of the blue-gray jacket, which is held together in front by a blue, greenly scintillating silk bow.

In the brightness of the face, the proximity of all these colors has been exploited for a simple modeling of form and features: even the brown of the hair roundly pinned up above the temples and the smooth brown in the eyes has to express itself against its surroundings.

Colors and words. Intercourse of colors

The painting Rilke describes is reproduced here, so we can appreciate, in awe and wonder, the precision with which he remembers it. It is fully alive and present in his memory.

I can barely believe he berates himself for not remembering it better, MORE UNFORGETTABLY.

SEEING PRACTICE: PRESENCE AND MEMORY

For me, this letter is a painful reminder of how little we remember of our life experiences, even the most intense and memorable of them.

Which means, basically, that we bring very little of ourselves, of our presence into the brief and fleeting moments of our short lives.

Just try to look at a painting, and then describe it, for yourself, without looking at it. Or, better still, describe your favorite painting without looking at it, and THEN compare your description with a reproduction.

Secretly listening in his eye’s interior

December 14, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

… he (van Gogh) wanted or knew or experienced this and that; that blue called for orange and green for red: that, secretly listening in his eye’s interior, he had heard such things spoken, the inquisitive one.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

Rilke continues his thoughts on the conflict between artistic insight and the artist’s conscious awareness of it, their ability to put their insights into words (here is the first part of the letter). The “writing painter” he mentions here is Émile Bernard.

OCTOBER 21, 1907 (Part 2)

Vincent Van Gogh. The Langlois bridge at Arles with women washing. 1888.

That van Gogh’s letters are so readable, that they are so rich, basically argues against him, just as it argues against a painter (holding up Cézanne for comparison) that he wanted or knew or experienced this and that; that blue called for orange and green for red: that, secretly listening in his eye’s interior, he had heard such things spoken, the inquisitive one.

And so he painted pictures on the strength of a single contradiction, thinking, additionally, of the Japanese simplification of color, which sets a plane on the next higher or next lower tone, summed up under an aggregate value; leading, in turn, to the drawn and explicit (i.e., invented) contour of the Japanese as a frame for the coordinated planes; leading, in other words, to a great deal of intentionality and arbitrariness—in short, to decoration.

Vincent Van Gogh. Self-portrait with felt hat. C. 1887. Click to zoom in (on van Gogh’s museum site).

Cézanne, too, was provoked by the letters of a writing painter—who, accordingly, wasn’t really a painter—to express himself on matters of painting; but when you see the few letters the old man wrote: how awkward this effort at self-explication remains, and how extremely repugnant it was to him.

He was almost incapable of saying anything.

The sentences in which he made the attempt become long and convoluted, they balk and bristle, get knotted up, and finally he drops them, beside himself with rage.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

THE WORK

The idea that a painter shouldn’t be able to express their insights in words would rob many a great painter of the title. Cézanne, by the way, would be one of them (his letters to Bernard, the only ones Rilke read, represent only a fraction of his writing).

This is one of Rilke’s ideas I find really hard to swallow (I wrote more about it here.)

On a more personal note:

I know, of course I know, that my resistance to this idea is not about defending van Gogh at all (who absolutely doesn’t need my defense).

It is my own self I am defending, my own identity, being as I obviously am a “writing painter”, and so perhaps not really a painter.

But when all is said and done, each of us has to follow the path of one’s own unique expression, towards and beyond one’s “custom-made” risks and dangers. In the end, all of them have to be faced and transcended for something new and meaningful to emerge.

Thus Rilke shows me the trail of the law of my own growth, at the time when this help across time and space is most needed and welcome.

SEEING PRACTICE: VAN GOGH’s indescribable reality

There are two self-portraits in this post, Cézanne’s and van Gogh’s, for you to compare.

This is one of van Gogh’s self-portraits that may lead the spectator to the idea of “intentionality and arbitrariness”, so unprecedented and unusual is the mutual intercourse of colors here.

Vincent van Gogh. Self-portrait with grey felt hat. 1887. Click to zoom in (on Van Gogh Museum site).

But what if we take a leap of faith and see it AS IS, trusting van Gogh to show us HIS indescribable reality, not an arbitrary stylistic invention?