At the School of Seeing

In a previous lecture, Sandra Richter showed some of Rilke's sketches that he continued to make throughout his life. His drawings are restrained and more meditative than virtuosic. They often depict landscapes, architecture, gardens, or figures in tranquil poses; they seem like visual counterparts to his poetry: focused, simplified, directed toward the essential. 

Once again, Professor Frick gave us an extraordinary lecture, showing that Rilke viewed drawing as a distinct form of seeing and contemplation.

Auguste Rodin in his atelier

Rilke deepened this approach particularly during his time in Paris, in the circle of Auguste Rodin. Close observation, patient work, and engagement with the subject were to characterize both his drawing and his writing.

While rarely creating illustrations for his own texts, drawing was more important to him as a means of training his perception.  His drawings provide an intimate insight into Rilke's artistic self-image beyond language.

As a “learnt“ physicist, I was unable to even begin to grasp the depth into which Prof. Frick drew his audience. I have selected four poems from Neue Gedichte (1907) and Neue Gedichte anderer Teil (1908). But instead of trying to analyze them, I would like to make a few personal comments.

Given Rilke's eloquence and his powerful use of language, translating his poems into other languages proves problematic. Red Baron found translations of three of my selected poems on the Internet. I attempted to translate the fourth myself.

Rilke's poem Das Karussell (The Carousel) brings back memories of my late wife Elisabeth. As a child, she spent time in France in 1946, after the war, when her father, a high school teacher of German, French, and English (!), worked as a translator in Vernon.

After the Americans had already "recruited" Wernher von Braun, the French had to make do with the second choice of German rocket scientists, whom they gathered in Vernon. These physicists and engineers naturally did not speak French.

Elisabeth rode the carousel in the Jardin de Luxembourg during a trip to Paris at that time, and her father quoted Rilke. She remembered the line, "And now and then a white elephant," when we took a walk in the Jardin in 2002.

  

Das Karussel

The Carousel

Mit einem Dach und seinem Schatten dreht sich eine kleine Weile der Bestand von bunten Pferden, alle aus dem Land, das lange zögert, eh es untergeht. Zwar manche sind an Wagen angespannt, doch alle haben Mut in ihren Mienen; ein böser roter Löwe geht mit ihnen und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Sogar ein Hirsch ist da, ganz wie im Wald, nur dass er einen Sattel trägt und drüber ein kleines blaues Mädchen aufgeschnallt. Und auf dem Löwen reitet weiß ein Junge und hält sich mit der kleinen heißen Hand dieweil der Löwe Zähne zeigt und Zunge. Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Und auf den Pferden kommen sie vorüber, auch Mädchen, helle, diesem Pferdesprunge fast schon entwachsen; mitten in dem Schwunge schauen sie auf, irgendwohin, herüber –. Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Und das geht hin und eilt sich, dass es endet, und kreist und dreht sich nur und hat kein Ziel. Ein Rot, ein Grün, ein Grau vorbeigesendet, ein kleines kaum begonnenes Profil –. Und manchesmal ein Lächeln, hergewendet, ein seliges, das blendet und verschwendet an dieses atemlose blinde Spiel ... *

Beneath a roof and with its shadow spins for just a little while the stock of painted horses—all are from the land that lingers on before it vanishes. Though some are hitched to carriages, they all show fierceness in their faces; a frightening red lion walks among them and now and then there's a white elephant. Even a stag is there, like in the woods, except he bears a saddle and above it a little blue girl, firmly fastened. And on the lion rides a boy in white, who holds on with a small hot hand; meanwhile the lion shows his teeth and tongue. And now and then there's a white elephant. And on the horses they come passing by, girls also luminous, almost too grown up to join this horse ride; in mid-swing they look up, somewhere, this way -. And now and then there's a white elephant. And so it goes and hurries up to finish, and turns and circles only without aim. A red, a green, a gray sent gliding by, a little profile, barely seen and gone -. And every now and then a smile, turned hither, enchanted, ravishing, and lavishing upon this blind and breathless game ... Translated by Ulrich Fleming

When Prof. Frick cited Rilke's sonnet "Blaue Hortensie", an image vividly appeared in my memory.

Last fall, I was walking in Kirchzarten, a small town west of Freiburg, admiring the flowers in the front yards. Judge for yourself:

Blaue Hortensie

Blue Hortensia

So wie das letzte Grün in Farbentiegeln sind diese Blätter, trocken, stumpf und rauh, hinter den Blütendolden, die ein Blau nicht auf sich tragen, nur von ferne spiegeln. Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau, als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren, und wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren ist Gelb in ihnen, Violett und Grau; Verwaschenes wie an einer Kinderschürze, Nichtmehrgetragenes, dem nichts mehr geschieht: wie fühlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kürze. Doch plötzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen in einer von den Dolden, und man sieht ein rührend Blaues sich vor Grünem freuen.

Like the last green in paint pots these leaves, dry, dull, and rough, behind the flower clusters that do not bear a blue, only reflect it from afar. They reflect it tearfully and imprecisely, as if they wanted to lose it again, and as in old blue stationery there is yellow in them, violet, and gray; Washed out like on a child's apron, No longer worn, nothing happening to it anymore: how one feels the brevity of a small life. But suddenly the blue seems to renew itself in one of the umbels, and one sees a touching blue rejoicing before green.

I had my childhood experiences with wild animals in captivity in the Hamburg zoo.

At Hagenbecks Tierpark, animals did not vegetate behind bars, but "lived" in large outdoor enclosures. Still, I had the feeling that their situation was sad.

I remember how elephants stretched out their trunks across a large ditch to suck up treats visitors held out to them and then put them in their mouths.

And now and then, there was a gray elephant that swung its trunk toward a nearby keeper to give him the Groschen (penny) that a visitor had slipped under it instead of a treat.

25 years later, it was still the same scenario when I visited Hagenbeck Zoo with my children.

Painters at the Jardin des Plantes (1902)

DER PANTHER IM JARDIN DES PLANTES, PARIS

THE PANTHER AT THE PARIS BOTANICAL GARDEN

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht. Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf – Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille – und hört im Herzen auf zu sein. *

His gaze against the sweeping of the bars has grown so weary that it can hold no more. To him, there seems to be a thousand bars and behind those thousand bars, no world. The soft the supple step and sturdy pace, that in the smallest of all circles turns, moves like a dance of strength around a core in which a mighty will is standing stunned. Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides up soundlessly – An image enters then, goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs — and in the heart ceases to be. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum

Torso of Milet at the Louvre in Paris. Found in 1885.

Archaïscher Torso Apollos

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt, darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber, in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt, sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug. Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle; und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. *

We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned too low, gleams in all its power. Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. Otherwise, this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. Translated by Stephen Mitchell

The torso looks at us, and we don't look at the torso? I couldn't help thinking of Brecht's alienation. But Rilke's thoughts go deeper. We should not leave it at a superficial glance at the torso, but ask ourselves, who are we in the face of what is looking at us.

Lettering at the Freiburg Theater

And as I am now, I am not yet adequate to my life. I must change it.

**