Morisot, Manet and Mallarme, Part 3

There are women who seem able to do it all. Whether with the benefits of financial support, psychopharmaceutical aids, or some inherent grace beneath it all, these women can do what the rest of us can not. We may seek to ridicule them, present their hidden anxieties, reveal their personal crises, but in truth, we all know, that some women–in the words of possibly the greatest advertising campaign of all time–just do it.

In Mallarmé's piece on Morisot what becomes most apparent to me is his admiration for her ability to manage so many roles, of which the two most important are clearly her studio time and her social requirements. He sees her as the well-respected painter, the considered and considerate hostess of a Salon, a mother, the sister-in-law to the sometimes difficult Edouard Manet whose paintings also adorned her home, a sister to whom she remained intimate even when her sibling abandoned painting upon marrying, a considerate friend, an avid letter writer (as they all seem to have been! Though I guess we write emails), and, dare I say it, a beautiful home-maker.

Perhaps because we live in such a competitive age, or perhaps because we fear difference after the Social Revolution of the 60s and 70s, whatever the reason we seem disinclined these days to recognize, respect, or revere greatness. Whether in our civic leaders, our friends, or larger peer group, I see a disposition interested in finding the flaw. Is it not obvious that undoubtedly it is there? Is it necessary to highlight it?

I have said nothing here about the quality of Mallarmé's writing most commonly termed obscure because it has been discussed at such length in so many other places. He is notoriously difficult, known to have written his prose then gone back and deleted words so that what remained was a spare, almost terse, presentation of his object of focus. No matter how obscure he might be, however, that he admired her is clear. And he does not hesitate to state all the ways in which she was great. We could perhaps be encouraged to do the same, not necessarily of our immediate circle–who may in truth not be "great" with that in no way diminishing their wonderful and important place in each of our lives, though we likely each know at least one truly great person–but perhaps of those celebrities, politicians, and other luminaries whose lives we permit to have plastered across our screens and papers to feed some longing that we need not indulge.

Some people are great. Let's let them be.

Morisot, Manet and Mallarmé, Part 2

Through her salon, through Mallarmé's untiring interest in anyone interesting, Morisot and Mallarmé became good friends. A book of their corrrespondence was eventually published. These letters indicate their mutual appreciation for fine music, their pleasure at each other's conversation.

In March of 1896, Mallarmé wrote the introduction to the catalogue of her retrospective Durand-Ruel. This first portion is often reprinted in Mallarmé's writings, including in Divagations. The rest of this will be a translation of his piece, with some comments provided in brackets, but a more considered discussion offered tomorrow. His writing is intentionally halting, slow-paced where a familiarity with the cuts of Emily Dickinson, for example, can provide a guide as to how to read him. He is always difficult but there is satisfaction in time.

The translation by Jill Anderson in Mallarmé in Prose edited by Mary Ann Caws is beautiful and clear. She does an amazing job of maintaining qualities of his style while also making it comprehensible in English. Since English does not have gendered nouns, or have verbs that agree in gender, keeping all the tangents that Mallarmé allows makes much of the sense disappear in English. It is necessary to alter his phrasing or order a little in order to permit the English reader to enjoy what he is saying. On the other hand too loose a translation could reduce the forcefulness of his language. She balances it perfectly. She begins:

Such a profusion of bringt, iridescent paintings, assembled here, precise in detail, exuberant, impulsive, patiently awaiting future acclaim...

Fortunately she is now well recognized, written about, thought about, and she remains for me a wonderful example of what is possible, as a woman and as a creative person.

Morisot, Manet and Mallarmé, Part 1

Edouard Manet, Stephane Mallarmé 1876

Mallarmé wrote a typically difficult, but lovely, introduction to the catalogue of Berthe Morisot's work in 1896. She had died the previous March, leaving her daughter Julie, to his educational guidance. He writes about her work "So many clear canvases iridescent, here, exact, impulsive, they can wait with a future smile" and goes on to discuss how little she was known though she balanced life and art, her Salon and her painting, always welcoming, admirable. His language requires a slow pace, and knows his reader would know her all too well, visiting this retrospective of her work.

After she and her sister had shown a keen interest, a passion even, for painting, their surprisingly liberal mother for that time, allowed them to continue studying painting under Corot. Through his guidance she had a painting shown in the 1864 Salon and thereby came to know Manet in 1867, sitting for his next Salon submission Balcony, her mother often accompanying her so that her reputation would not be questioned by being in an artist's studio, alone.

Edouard Manet, Balcony 1868

Le Repos 1870

Berthe Morisot 1869

Manet would produce several more paintings of her, which contributes to the gossip that they were amorous of one another, although she married his brother. She and her sister are known to have burned some of their letters to each other, which fact is used to suggest they were hiding some encounter, and both young ladies admit in letters that they kept to have found Manet attractive, if slightly crazy. Whatever romance may have been there was kept secured from the public, then and now, so we do better to appreciate the friendship between the two artists, their attention to each other's work, than to our own lascivious imaginations.

Berthe Morisot with a Fan 1872

The portrait most often reproduced is the one where she is in mourning. It is often used to represent her though she also did a self-portrait.

Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with Bunch of Violets 1872

Berthe Morisot, Self-Portrait 1885

 She mostly preferred to have her daughter in any self-portraits. These portraits with her daughter provide the warm scenes of domesticity that women of her time were permitted to paint.

This interior landscape is one of the reasons that Morisot can seem banal, pastel in color and emotion. Her paintings show women reading, chasing butterflies, sitting in gardens or on balconies. They avoid city streets and the outside world of the flâneur, the wanderer in mind and heart and spirit. They are content within the safe enclave of the privileges accorded a bourgeois woman, who is nonetheless permitted to paint. She is undeniably an Impressionist, but as the next post will show, Mallarmé was able to appreciate her in full.

Berthe Morisot, Lady at her Toilette 1885

Gaspard de la Nuit: Fantaisies à la mannière de Rembrandt et Callot par Louis Bertrand

Felicien Rops, frontispiece 1868 edition

Art has always two antithetical sides, as if of a medal where one side would show the likeness of Paul Rembrandt, and the reverse, that of Jacques Callot. - Rembrandt is the philosopher with a white beard which spirals as it ends, his mind absorbed in meditation and prayer, who closes his eyes to gather himself, talking to the spirits of beauty, science, wisdom and love, and burning to penetrate the mysterious symbols of nature. - Callot, however, is the lancer and saucy braggart strutting about the place who makes noise in the tavern, who caresses the daughters of gypsies, who swears by his sword and his gun, whose only concern is to wax his mustache. The author of this book has considered art under this double personification.

In 1842 Bertrand's book of poems was released, after the efforts of several faithful friends, including the rather famous Sainte-Beuve who wrote the introduction to this first edition, but especially the concentrated efforts of David D'Angers. His book would become a cornerstone for Baudelaire, Mallarmé and the symbolists, Breton and the surrealists. Baudelaire acknowledges his influence on his prose poem text Le Spleen de Paris because Bertrand is largely considered the founder of the form, even if unknown and ignored. 
 

The strange text folds over and over on itself so that the voice of the narrator becomes confused among characters and authorial presences.

Bertrand's strange prose poems embrace the pictorial as the Romantics generally did, but all the more so for claiming to be inspired by two great artists and opening with a discussion of art. After a quote from Sainte Beuve and a poem, the next page presents a shaggy dog story in which the narrator recounts being told that art is not many things by a man who starts off seeming friendly, becomes increasingly strange, and then thrusts a book on him. The man, he discovers the next day, who had offered his name as he was leaving, Gaspard de la Nuit, is the devil. The narrator, unable to return the book, wishes him to burn in hell and decides to publish the book. We get the next Preface from which the above quote is excerpted, followed by a dedication to Victor Hugo dated 1836, then finally the title page of the 'devil' book simply titled Les Fantaisies de Gaspard de la Nuit.

Beyond the issue of art within the contained text of the poems, he also imagined the art of the published book. He specified directions not only for the layout of the text, but the illustrations he desired and where they might be placed. Three pages of notes included with the manuscript to the editor were ignored. He was not a great artist but he did produce some drawings that give a sense of what he imagined the artist could do better. Unfortunately, despite his interest in ensuring the role of the visual in his work, it would not be there, except for the occasional frontplate, or page ornamentation.

Les Chants de Maldoror

Isidore Ducasse, better known in the literary world under the pseudonym Comte de Lautreamont, published in 1869 a strange book in six parts entitled, Les Chants de Maldoror. He became known as the forefather of surrealism after Philippe Soupault and André Breton had his work republished, impassioned by the work.

The surrealists, in general, embraced him. Magritte and Dali both produced illustrated text. Besides his cover for the work, I have included one of Magritte's illustrations that is reminiscent of a scene in the second song in which the narrator explains he was deaf until one day looking up at the sky, and then looking even higher, he saw a throne made of human excrement and gold on which sat a proud body, covered in a dirty hospital shroud, called The Creator, who held in his hand the trunk of a body which he brought to his eyes, then nose, then mouth. At which point you can well imagine that he did devour the flesh. His feet dipped in a boiling sea of blood from which humans bobbed up for air before sinking immediately. One body digested, he would plunge his hand around the neck of another and eating the head first, then the legs and arms, occasionally cry out: "I created you; thus do I have the right to do with you what I want. You have done nothing to me, I do not suggest to the contrary. I make you suffer, and that for my pleasure". In response to this sight, the young deaf boy lets out a piercing scream, the first sound he ever hears.

The book is known for its depiction of cruelty and evil. There are some scenes that are truly horrendous, à la Sade but without the fixation on sex, with the ability to be cruel across the terrain of the mind and flesh. These moments are so well described, some characters seem so easy to envision, that it is not terribly surprising that artists would want to sketch out their own images for these bizarre 'songs'.

Dali's imagination easily transferred. In 1933, Albert Skira who had already published Ovid's Metamorphoses illustrated by Picasso and some poems of Mallarmé illustrated by Matisse, requested that Dali provide engravings for this text that was so important to the surrealists. Dali had been recommended by Picasso, who was then producing the cover for the first issue of the surrealist journal Minotaure, being published by Skira. Though Dali was involved in the journal from its first issue, he would only produce a cover for the eighth issue, which was financed by the Englishman Edward James whose patronage supported the Dalis in 1936. Magritte, also occasionally supported by James, would produce 77 illustrations for a 1948 edition of the text published in Belgium.

Though Les Chants are boringly dark (as anyone who has read Sade will understand), they have moments for anyone of interest. The surrealists were particularly taken with it because the author was such a mystery, little known of him and dying suddenly, buried quickly and then moved to another location. Though Ducasse published this text anonymously and at his own cost, he began writing a second book, of which we only have the first two sections Poems I and Poems II, which was to:

replace melancoly with courage, doubt with certainty, desperation with hope, complaints with responsibility, skepticism with faith, sophistry with cold calm, and pride with modesty. 

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.