Work

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?

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.

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

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.

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?

Painting is something that takes place among the colors

December 13, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

OCTOBER 21, 1907 (Part 1)

… There’s something else I wanted to say about Cézanne: that no one before him ever demonstrated so clearly the extent to which painting is something that takes place among the colors, and how one has to leave them completely alone, so that they can come to terms among themselves.

Their mutual intercourse: this is the whole of painting.

Paul Cezanne. L’Estaque with red roofs. 1885.

Whoever meddles, whoever arranges, whoever injects his human deliberation, his wit, his advocacy, his intellectual agility in any way, is already disturbing and clouding their activity.

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his conscious reflection, his progressive steps, mysterious even to himself, should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition.

Alas, the artist who waits in ambush there, watching, detaining them, will find them transformed like the beautiful gold in the fairy tale which cannot remain gold because some small detail was not taken care of.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

The work. Art and consciousness

Ideally, an artist should not meddle in their own work…

A radical idea, to which Rilke returns to time and again. More radical then than it is now, after more than a century of inquiries into the nature and inner workings of human mind.

It is an act of acceptance of the conscious mind’s ultimate inability to understand (let alone control) what’s going on in (and emerges through) the body, and the deep ocean of the unconscious.

Perhaps paradoxically, there might be more truth to it for a poet than for a painter.

The poet’s medium, language, is something they deeply and unconsciously KNOW from early childhood. The painter’s medium has to be mastered consciously and deliberately.

On the other hand, it is much easier for the language, this medium of talkative, narrative mind, to interfere with the stream of poetry than it is with painting, which exists as it were on another plane.

Seeing practice: Mutual intercourse of colors

There is an area of intense color contrast in this still life, an area where red and green clash and almost quarrel with one another. Click the image to zoom in on this area, just where fruits are seen against the bottle.

Paul Cezanne. Fruit and jug on a table. C. 1894.

Do you see how different this contrast seems when it appears in the context of the whole picture plane?

All we basically have to do is to be there, but simply, ardently

December 11, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

… all we basically have to do is to be there, but simply, ardently, the way the earth simply is, consenting to the seasons, light and dark and altogether in space, not asking to rest upon anything other than the net of influences and forces in which the stars feel secure.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 19, 1907 (Part 2)

<…> After this devotion, in small ways at first, lies the beginning of sainthood: the simple life of a love that endured; that, without ever boasting of it, approaches everything, unaccompanied, inconspicuous, wordless.

The real work, the abundance of tasks, begins, all of it, after this enduring, and whoever has not been able to come this far may well get to see the Virgin Mary in Heaven, and certain saints and minor prophets as well, and King Saul and Charles le Téméraire—:

but as for Hokusai and Leonardo, Li Tai Pe and Villion, Verhaeren, Rodin, Cézanne—of these, not to mention the good Lord, all he will ever learn, even there, is hearsay.

Ah, we compute the years and divide them here and there and stop and begin and hesitate between the two.

But how very much of one piece is everything we encounter, how related one thing is to the next, how it gave birth to itself and grows up and is educated in its own nature,

and all we basically have to do is to be there, but simply, ardently, the way the earth simply is, consenting to the seasons, light and dark and altogether in space, not asking to rest upon anything other than the net of influences and forces in which the stars feel secure.

Some day the time and composure and patience must also be there to let me continue writing the Notebooks of Malte Laurids; I now know much more about him, or rather: the knowledge will be there when it is needed …

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

THE WORK

I read this letter, and see a miracle.

Here and now, in this moment, we are witnessing Rilke becoming what he is, and has always been, and will always be.

The real work begins after enduring…

SEEING PRACTICE: how related one thing is to the next

Rilke writes:

But how very much of one piece is everything we encounter, how related one thing is to the next…

Our brains are trained to see separate objects, not how inseparable they are from what surrounds them. But find a moment or two in your day, and pay attention to how things are related, to the spaces in between, to how very much of one piece is everything. Just rest your awareness in the space BETWEEN objects, not on the objects themselves.

Limitless objectivity

December 9, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

It is this limitless objectivity, refusing any kind of meddling in an alien unity, that strikes people as so offensive and comical in Cézanne’s portraits.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

October 18, 1907 (Part 2)

<…> This labor which no longer knew any preferences or biases or fastidious predilections, whose minutest component had been tested on the scales of an infinitely responsive conscience, and which so incorruptibly reduced a reality to its color content that it resumed a new existence in a beyond of color, without any previous memories.

Paul Cezanne. Rocks at L’Estaque. C. 1882.

It is this limitless objectivity, refusing any kind of meddling in an alien unity, that strikes people as so offensive and comical in Cézanne’s portraits.

They accept, without realizing it, that he represented apples, onions, and oranges purely by means of color (which they still regard as a subordinate means of painterly practice), but as soon as he turns to landscape they start missing the interpretation, the judgment, the superiority, and when it comes to portraits, there is that rumor concerning the artist’s intellectual conception, which has been passed on even to the most bourgeois, so successfully that you can already see the signs of it in Sunday photographs of couples and families.

Paul Cezanne. Little girl with a doll. 1904.

And here Cézanne naturally strikes them as utterly inadequate and not worthy of discussion.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

SEEING PRACTICE: Cézanne’s portraits

I think Rilke is absolutely right: Cézanne’s limitless objectivity becomes almost unbearable to us, threatening even, in PORTRAITS.

What stares us in the face is the fleeting, illusory nature of our feelings and concerns and, ultimately, of our selves and our subjective identities. It is not exactly flattering to the ego to see itself reducible to color content…

The idea of “artist’s intellectual conception” is as good a defense against this realization as any.