Some thoughts on the colors in Mallarme's La Pipe

The prose poem, La Pipe, by Mallarme minimizes color. The world described is foggy, dusty, and darkened. The two exceptions “les feuilles bleues” and “les bras rouges” are notable in contrast. I do not understand “les feuilles bleues du soleil” but can see the red and weathered arms of a hardworking woman who brings him coal. The undetermined shades between black and white, in brows and grays, set a tone for the poem. A tone that can perhaps best be seen in the paintings of Whistler, with whom Mallarmé was friendly.

Whistler studied painting in Paris and then based himself in London. In his prints of the river Thames, Whistler presents subtle tonal variations that seem interested in the qualities of water and air over matter and substance.

There is no research provided here that confirms a connection between “La Pipe” and Whistler’s paintings. This reader, however, of Mallarmé’s poem could not help but offer a visual simulacrum of the poem as a means of enhancing the reading experience. The poem evokes a time and place, and does so intentionally. These paintings likewise offer an ephemeral experience of a time and place and may perhaps bring another reader to a heightened appreciation of Mallarmé’s poem.

This picture, Nocturne The Thames, Battersea (1878) evokes the winter that Mallarme describes, “mouillé de bruine et noirci de fume” with the shades of shadows. It is also set on the water as Mallarme describes himself “grellotant sur le pont du steamer” and then the “riches dames…/sont dechiquetes par l’air de la mer.”

The drawing, By the Balcony (1896), is how I imagine Mallarme wrapped in blankets during this cold winter when he “revu par la fenêtre ces/arbres malades” even though the view from the window here is at an elevation. The smudged pencil marks at the bottom of the drawing are suggestive of “la poussière du charbon.” There is not enough of the room to tie it absolutely to “une chambre/sombre aux meubles de cuir saupoudres” but the intention is just to offer a visual hint of the poem.

Whistler and Mallarmé were ruthless in pushing the boundaries of their respective arts and establishing the importance of form over content. Neither Whistler nor Mallarmé were interested in developing a story that the reader or viewer could narrate as an understanding of the picture or poem. Neither were they interested in producing art that did not challenge the recipient. Whistler’s paintings are not intended to be views of a bridge or waterfront but rather to produce a visual effect that is possible only through fine art. Mallarmé was not attempting to describe an event or experience but enliven and renew words. In “La Pipe” the words are descriptive but describe nothing. Nothing happens but a memory. The words have produced no action; in fact, the reader has gone backwards in time to “Hier” and arrived at the nowhere that is the infinite eternal.

Between the first word, “hier” and the last word, “toujours”, we are always saying goodbye to the past, capturing the present only through senses that send us into memories. A pipe that can extend the smoking experience, stretching the present into the future, is also liable to the past. Even we, the reader, are not permitted the present of reading the poem since we are asked to journey into the past with the poet. Time is the gray between the black and white of then and later. The fog and the dust of the London scene are like our own experience of time, fading and unclear.