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Product Details
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: North Point Press; 2nd edition (September 15, 2002)
The encounter with the work of Cezanne was one of the milestones in the life of the poet Rilke. The letters which are collected here show why. Rilke, like Cezanne, was a man who was religious in an unconventional way. He was not interested in any particular concept of God, but in the process of discerning the divine in the sheer existence of things as they are: "All talk is misunderstanding. Insight is just in work." What he admired most in Cezanne's work was his "devout objectivity", the ability to let objects speak for themselves without the intellectual interference by the artist and without preconceived notions. Rilke felt that when Cezanne painted the mountain Sainte Victoire, for example, he wanted to show the essence of the mountain, the mountain pure and simple, nothing more, nothing less. The German edition of the Letters on Cezanne contains an excellent afterword which quotes the philosopher Martin Heidegger who wrote, "we come too late for the Gods, and too early for being," meaning we do not live in the safety of believing in the Gods any more, and we do not trust in simply being yet. Rilke was acutely aware of this state of suspension, and the collection of his letters on Cezanne gives us an idea of how Rilke as an artist intended to make sense of this life in suspension.
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Rilke understands Cezanne as one ' who lived in the innermost center of his work for forty years'. The old man who he describes being thrown stones at by children on his way to his studio where he worked and worked, and only worked from the time he found his vocation at the age of thirty, is the example to Rilke of the totally dedicated artist. This artist has that kind of patience which slowly lets his work enfold, layer upon layer. In this as always with Rilke remarkably beautiful and haunting collection of letters he tells of his encounter with the work of Cezanne and how the true artist brings into fuller being the object he sees and creates. Rilke is quoted in the introduction as he talks of " the scales of an infinitely responsive conscience.. which so incorruptibly reduced a reality to its color content that that reality resumed a new existence in a beyond of color, without any previous memories".
This statement so suggestive is typical of the Rilkean text which seems like poetry itself to offer more meanings than any single reading can grasp.
My brief remarks comment upon a few of those suggestions. I believe readers of this work will be inspired to seeing , reading, and in their own minds through the reading, creating of their own on a higher level.
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I read excerpts of this eight years ago; I read the whole book four years ago, and I since revisit it whenever I can. It’s Rilke’s writings to his wife, Clara Rilke.
He has a meticulously observant and poetic style--a romance--that is absolutely unparalleled.
Below I analyze two of my favorite letters, with a focus on style.
PARIS VIe, 29, RUE CASSETTE, SEPTEMBER 13, 1907 (FRIDAY)
…Never have I been so touched and almost moved by the sight of heather as the other day, when I found these three branches in your dear letter. Since then they have been lying in my Book of Images, penetrating it with their strong and serious smell(1), which is really just the fragrance of autumn earth. But how glorious it is, this fragrance. At no other time, it seems to me, does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste(2), and more than honeysweet where you feel it is close to touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost(3), and yet again wind; tar and turpentine and Ceylon tea. Serious and lowly like the smell of a begging monk and yet again hearty and resinous like precious incense. And the way they look: like embroidery, splendid; like three cypresses woven into a Persian rug with violet silk (a violet of such vehement moistness, as if it were the complementary color of the sun)(4). You should see this. I don’t believe these little twigs could have been so beautiful when you sent them; otherwise you would have expressed so astonishment about them(5). Right now one of them happens to be lying on the dark-blue velvet in an old pen-and-pencil box.Read more ›
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I have never read such a book on Cezanne. Rilke did a rare and wonderful writing and very deep interpretation of one of the most difficult painter of all time!
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Rilke can be difficult but as he muses on an exhibition of Cezanne's paintings in letters to his wife, we can appreciate the struggle to create -- in painting as in writing. A useful book for anyone serious about their creative work.
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This book is great. Each of Rilke's passages is only a couple of pages long, but each one is as rich in language as Cezanne's paintings are rich in color. He can really make you feel what he's talking about, and his love and admiration for "the old man" is touching.
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