Vincent Van Gogh

If it is good, one can’t live to see it recognized

December 2, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

Basically, if it is good, one can’t live to see it recognized: otherwise it’s just half good and not reckless enough …

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

In the first part of this letter, Rilke observes visitors to the Salon, and their utter inability to see Cézanne’s work (even when it is already in the Salon, allowed and sanctified by the art world).

OCTOBER 16, 1907 (Part 2)

… One cannot expect that a time that is capable of gratifying aesthetic requirements of this order should be able to admire Cézanne and grasp anything of his devotion and hidden splendor.

The merchants make noise, that is all; and those who have a need to attach themselves to these things could be counted on the fingers of two hands, and they stand apart and are silent.

Edouard Manet. A bar at the Folies Bergere. 1882.

And someone told the old man in Aix that he was “famous.” He, however, knew better within himself and let the speaker continue.

Paul Cezanne. A boy in a red vest. 1890.

But standing in front of his work, one comes back to the thought that every recognition (with very rare, unmistakable exceptions) should make one mistrustful of one’s own work.

Vincent van Gogh. Sower with setting sun. 1888.

Basically, if it is good, one can’t live to see it recognized: otherwise it’s just half good and not reckless enough …

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

THE WORK. THE OLD AND THE NEW

… if it is good, one can’t live to see it recognized: otherwise it’s just half good and not reckless enough …

These words have been playing themselves in my head for many years now, as a counterbalance to our age’s pervasive belief that if the work is not recognized, it cannot be any good. This belief is built into the very foundation of what is called “art world”: quality in art is in effect equated with the art world’s recognition of it.

As though our age were somehow better at seeing than that of Cézanne, Monet, van Gogh, Rilke… But is it?

SEEING PRACTICE

Kandinsky believed that every work of art is eventually understood. For him, that meant a lot: that the spectator partakes in the same inner experience as the artist. In Kandinsky’s own words: the spectator souls vibrates in response to the work, playing as it were the motive embodied by it.

It is not the same as “recognition”: an art work can be “officially” recognized without being truly understood.

Nowadays, Cézanne, Monet, van Gogh are as “recognized” as it gets. Their exhibitions tend to be blockbusters, so much so that tickets often have to be secured well in advance. And the public certainly behaves more respectfully than those ladies and gentlemen Rilke witnessed in 1907.

But do we truly see the paintings, do we fully understand them? Is our age capable of grasping anything of Cézanne’s devotion and hidden splendor?

To stand for the whole world and all joy and all glory

November 21, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

And (like van Gogh) [Cézanne] makes his “saints” out of such things; and forces them—forces them—to be beautiful, to stand for the whole world and all joy and all glory, and doesn’t know whether he has persuaded them to do it for him.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 9, 1907 (Part 4)

… Out there, something vaguely terrible on the increase; a little closer by, indifference and mockery, and then suddenly this old man in his work, painting nudes only from old sketches he had made forty years ago in Paris, knowing that Aix would not allow him a model.

“At my age,” he says—“I couldn’t get a woman below fifty at best, and I know it wouldn’t even be possible to find such a person in Aix.” So he uses his old drawings as models.

And lays his apples on bed covers which Madame Brémond will surely miss some day, and places a wine bottle among them or whatever he happens to find. And (like van Gogh) makes his “saints” out of such things; and forces them—forces them—to be beautiful, to stand for the whole world and all joy and all glory, and doesn’t know whether he has persuaded them to do it for him.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

SEEING PRACTICE: THINGS as Saints

Rilke returns to the idea of making “saints” out of simple things, like van Gogh, as though forgetting that this is actually his own idea. Van Gogh wanted to paint saints, or people-as-saints.

That everything he painted became as-saints: this is pure Rilke.

So is it the artists — van Gogh, Cézanne, Rilke — that make “saints” out of things, and “force” them to be beautiful?

Or is it their essence, their inalienable quality, to be sacred, and beautiful, and joyful — and all the artist does is show us what already is, as it is?

Once we have seen them as saints in paintings, can we then, from now on, see them like this in our daily lives?

Devotion to what is nearest

November 12, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

But this devotion to what is nearest, this is something I can’t do as yet, or only in my best moments, while it is at one’s worst moments that one really needs it.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

OCTOBER 4, 1907

… one is still so far away from being able to work at all times.

Van Gogh could perhaps lose his composure, but behind it there was always his work, he could no longer lose that. And Rodin, when he’s not feeling well, is very close to his work, writes beautiful things on countless pieces of paper, reads Plato and follows him in his thought.

But I have a feeling that this is not just the result of discipline or compulsion (otherwise it would be tiring, the way I’ve been tired from working in recent weeks); it is all joy; it is natural well-being in the one thing that surpasses everything else.

Perhaps one has to have a clearer insight into the nature of one’s “task,” get a more tangible hold on it, recognize it in a hundred details. I believe I do feel what van Gogh must have felt at a certain juncture, and it is a strong and great feeling: that everything is yet to be done: everything.

But this devotion to what is nearest, this is something I can’t do as yet, or only in my best moments, while it is at one’s worst moments that one really needs it. Van Gogh could paint an Intérieur d’hôpital, and on his most fearful days he painted the most fearful objects.

Vincent Van Gogh. Ward at the hospital in Arles. 1889.

How else could he have survived.

This is what must be attained, and I have a definite sense that it can’t be forced. It must come out of insight, from pleasure, from no longer being able to postpone the work in view of all there is to be done.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

THE WORK

Is it possible to “work at all times”? Science tells us that it is not (but then, its findings change so dizzyingly rapidly nowadays…)

For Rilke, staying “within the work” all the time is unequivocally a prerequisite for any real achievement. This is the lesson he reads in the lives of Rodin, van Gogh, and then, later on, Cézanne… He looks at them, and finds himself lacking.

But in the course of these letters, one sees how his work unfolds when he as it were is not looking, effortlessly.

This book itself, undoubtedly one of his major achievements, is being written while he is trying to force himself to do something else (and even, at some later point, resolving that he must never write about Cézanne at all…).

SEEING PRACTICE: FEARFUL OBJECTS

Rilke writes: “… on his most fearful days he (van Gogh) painted the most fearful objects — how else could he have survived”. Here is another example, a drawing from the asylum van Gogh stayed in after his breakdown.

Vincent van Gogh. Vestibule in the Asylum. 1889. Click to zoom in (on van Gogh museum website).

We now know it must have been one of the bad, most fearful days, because when van Gogh felt up to it, he ventured to paint outside. And he is drawing the most fearful things: the walls he imprisoned himself in, the door which only seems open, because he cannot cross the threshold.

Can we, too, look at our fears with this courage, with this kind of attention?

A great splendor from within

November 11, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

But in his paintings (the arbre fleuri) poverty has already become rich: a great splendor from within.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

In this letter, Rilke is still under the impression of Van Gogh’s reproductions. He writes:

Would that you were sitting with me in front of the van Gogh portfolio (which I am returning with a heavy heart). It has done me so much good these two days: it was the right moment.

Isn’t that what we are doing here, trying to be with him in front of these paintings?

But this letter is as much about van Gogh’s life as it is about his paintings. Rilke recounts his biography — from his work in an art gallery, to service as an evangelical pastor, and then to being a painter, and then to madness. This is where the part of the letter included below begins…

OCTOBER 3, 1907

What a biography. Is it really true that everyone is now acting as if they understood this and the pictures that came out of it?

Shouldn’t art dealers and also art critics be really more perplexed about or else more indifferent to this dear zealot, in whom something of the spirit of Saint Francis was coming back to life?

I am surprised by his quick rise to fame. Ah, how he, too, renounced and renounced.

His self-portrait in the portfolio looks needy and tormented, almost desperate, but not devastated: the way a dog looks when it’s in a bad way. He holds out his face and you take note of the fact: he’s in a bad way, day and night.

But in his paintings (the arbre fleuri) poverty has already become rich: a great splendor from within.

Vincent Van Gogh. Peach trees in blossom. 1886.

And that’s how he sees everything: as a poor man; just compare his parks.

These too are expressed with such quietness and simplicity, as if for poor people, so they can understand; without going into the extravagance that’s in these trees; as if to do that would already be taking sides.

Vincent Van Gogh. Park at Asniers in spring. 1887.

He isn’t on anyone’s side, isn’t on the side of the parks, and his love for all these things is directed at the nameless, and that’s why he himself concealed it. He does not show it, he has it.

And quickly takes it out of himself and into the work, into the innermost and incessant part of the work: quickly: and no one has seen it!

That’s how one feels his presence in these forty pages: now, haven’t you been next to me after all, just a bit, in front of these pictures? …

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

STORYLINE: POVERTY. SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE

Rilke returns to the concept of poverty several times.

In this letter, it can be understood as literal, material, “real-life” poverty: the lack of money. But as this storyline unfolds, the more profound, inner meaning becomes more apparent — touching the biblical meaning of poverty as a prerequisite for reaching the kingdom of heaven.

Poverty as the lack of heritage, the lack of cultural baggage we bring to any new experience. In the modern parlance, the lack of “cognitive biases” and social conditioning.

This concept is intrinsically linked to the theme of not being “on anyone’s side”, of love being so completely spent in the act of painting that what remains is simply reality as it is.

SEEING PRACTICE: AS A POOR MAN

In my lifetime, I have certainly spent more time in front of van Gogh’s painting than Rilke did at the time he was writing this letter (if only because I am much older than Rilke was at the time).

And it would have never occurred to me to say that van Gogh sees things “as a poor man”. That is, that something in his vision is set free by his poverty. That he sees something that a rich person would never be able to see.

Can you see in van Gogh’s paintings what Rilke is writing about? More interestingly, is it possible to pause the flow of daily life and see one’s surroundings “as a poor man”, without the baggage of our possessions, our heritage, our experiences, our identities?

Utter lack of prejudice or of pride

November 10, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

… how much there is in all this that reminds one of the “saints” he promised himself and resolved to paint at some much later time! (In that one letter.)

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

This is the second part of Rilke’s description of van Gogh’s portfolio (the first part is here).

Van Gogh’s letter he mentions here is one of his many letters to Theo Van Gogh . On September 10, 1889, he writes:

Had I had the strength to continue, I’d have done portraits of saints and of holy women from life, and who would have appeared to be from another century and they would be citizens of the present day, and yet would have had something in common with very primitive Christians.

OCTOBER 2, 1907 (PART 2)

… Or an old horse, a completely used up old horse: and it is not pitiful and not at all reproachful: it simply is everything they have made of it and what it has allowed itself to become.

Or a garden, or a park, which is seen and shown with the same utter lack of prejudice or of pride;

Vincent Van Gogh. Public park with weeping willow. 1888.

or, simply, things, a chair for instance, nothing but a chair, of the most ordinary kind: and yet, how much there is in all this that reminds one of the “saints” he promised himself and resolved to paint at some much later time! (In that one letter.)

Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh’s chair. 1889. Click to zoom in (on the website of National Gallery, London).

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

STORYLINE: THE WORK. REALITY

Another recurrent motive: all aspects of reality are equal in their profound realness, be their chairs, or lawns, or saints. For Rilke, recognition of this fundamental equality is an essential quality of a newly emerging art.

And van Gogh makes this equality more visible to us than we are capable of seeing it ourselves.

SEEING PRACTICE: SIMPLY, THINGS

A click on the reproduction of “Van Gogh’s Chair” will lead you to the high-resolution version on the website of National Gallery.

But what if we could recall this image whenever we see a chair, and realize that they all have the same striking, saint-like, realness of presence and color? I sometimes think that this alone could awaken us from the slumber we tend to call “real life”.

Face-to-face with van Gogh reproductions

November 9, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

And (I) had them today, and gained such joy and insight and strength from them.

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke, on van Gogh reproductions

On October 1, 1907, Rilke met an acquaintance of his, Mathilde Vollmoeller, a German painter. She had just returned from Amsterdam with a portfolio of van Gogh reproductions, which she lent to Rilke for a few days.

In this letter, he describes the portfolio, and I did my best to include all the paintings he mentions. Some of them were easy to find. In other cases, many of van Gogh’s paintings would fit Rilke’s description, so I had to choose one or two to bring you as close as possible to re-living Rilke’s experience face-to-face with van Gogh’s reproductions.

I split this letter in two, to give you more time with the paintings.

OCTOBER 2, 1907 (PART 1)

I spent a good, quiet hour: under the protection and in the feeling of yesterday’s letter from you, drinking my last sip of tea, face-to-face with the van Gogh reproductions.

We hadn’t gone through the whole portfolio yesterday, and so I was permitted to take them home with me, and now I have them to myself for a few days. And had them today, and gained such joy and insight and strength from them.

These are plain, not especially sophisticated but very appealing, reproductions of forty works, twenty of them dating back to the time before van Gogh came to France. Paintings, drawings, and lithographs, especially paintings.

Blooming trees (as only Jacobsen could do them),

Vincent van Gogh. Orchard in blossom. 1889. Click to zoom in (on Van Gogh Museum site).

plains in which human figures are distributed and moved about far and wide; and it still goes farther back behind them into the sheet and gets all bright at its farthest reach, as if continuing beyond the limits of the page.

Vincent van Gogh. Tulip fields near the Hague. 1886. Click to zoom in (on Van Gogh Museum site.)

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

STORYLINE: COLORS and Words

How implicitly obvious it is for Rilke that there is fundamentally no difference between art forms, between language and color…

Van Gogh does blossoming trees as only Jacobsen could do them (Jens Peter Jacobsen was a Danish poet and novelist, whom Rilke called him his “tutelary spirit” (Back to text)). Be it paints or words, they are but materials for an artist to re-enact reality.

In a sense, what Rilke is gradually learning in these letters is to do landscapes as only Cézanne could do them.

SEEING PRACTICE: VAN GOGH’S indescribable reality

A click on any (or all) of reproductions will bring you to the high-resolution versions on Van Gogh Museum website. You can then zoom in on the blossoms to see just how exactly they are done out of paint (a luxury Rilke couldn’t even dream about).

The more I look at them, the more I appreciate just how alchemy-like painting really is.