The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence E-Book

Paula Modersohn-Becker

• Herausgeber: ERIS
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 162

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke first met in 1900 at the Worpswede artists' colony—a focal point of the kind of artistic innovations that were set to transform twentieth-century European culture. Modersohn-Becker and Rilke went on to enjoy an intense friendship over a period that saw both of them having to confront personal and financial challenges as they pursued their artistic vocations. This friendship was cut short by Modersohn-Becker's tragically early death in 1907, but it left in its wake a remarkable series of letters. As fascinating and evocative when discussing the nature of married life and the difficulty of furnishing one's home as they are when exploring the expressive possibilities of art and poetry, the letters exchanged by Modersohn-Becker and Rilke are a testament to both correspondents' exceptional descriptive gifts and penetrating social intelligence. Brought together in English for the first time here and introduced by an illuminating essay by the art historian Jill Lloyd, The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence provides a fascinating view of everyday life during an exceptionally fertile and exciting period of cultural production.Praise for Paula Modersohn-Becker: "Among the painters, along with Picasso and Matisse, who created modernism in the first years of the twentieth century."—John Colapinto, The New Yorker "[A] brilliant early twentieth century painter."—Sheila Heti, The Brooklyn RailPraise for Rainer Maria Rilke: "Rilke unquestionably is one of the essential poets who wrote in German during the twentieth century." —Harold Bloom "The poetry he left behind is priceless."—John Banville, The New York Review of Books

Leseprobe

The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence

ERIS

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All rights reserved

Introduction © 2024 Jill Lloyd

Correspondence, the selection and notes © 2024 Rainer Stamm

Correspondence, the translation © 2024 Ulrich Baer

“The Singer Sings Before a Child of Princes”, the translation © 1991 Edward Snow. Reprinted here by permission of North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The moral rights of the authors and the translator have been asserted.

The right of Rainer Maria Rilke, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Jill Lloyd, and Rainer Stamm to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

ISBN 978-1-916809-73-4

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover: Left, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke (May/June 1906); Right, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Self-Portrait with Green Background and Blue Irises (c. 1905). Images courtesy of Paula Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung.

Copyright © designed by Alex Stavrakas

Contents

Introduction: Paula Modersohn Becker and Rainer Maria Rilke: An Amitié amoureuse

Jill Lloyd

The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence

Requiem for a Friend

Rainer Maria Rilke

Notes

Rainer Stamm

A Note on the Text

Introduction

Paula Modersohn Becker and Rainer Maria Rilke: An Amitié amoureuse

Born just a year apart in the mid-1870s, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Rainer Maria Rilke were trailblazers in art and poetry at the dawn of the twentieth century. They trod parallel paths, which sometimes converged—and at other times drew apart. But their correspondence bears witness to their lively, ongoing dialogue and underlying creative affinities. Emotions, shared enthusiasms, ideas, and aspirations motivated this unusual friendship, although Rilke only became aware of Modersohn-Becker’s power and originality as an artist late in the day. They paid tribute to each other as best they could, through painting and poetry. Modersohn-Becker’s haunting portrait of Rilke, and Rilke’s meditative poem “Requiem for a Friend”, written in the aftermath of Modersohn-Becker’s untimely death, commemorate the importance each held in the other’s life.

Rilke and Modersohn-Becker met in the summer of 1900 in the German artists’ colony of Worpswede, which lies to the north of Bremen in a flat, windswept landscape of peat bogs, heather, and silver birch trees. In their search for ‘unspoiled’ nature, artists including Modersohn-Becker’s future husband, Otto Modersohn, and her teacher Fritz Mackensen discovered Worpswede in the late 1880s. Attracted by their work, the young, aspiring artist Paula Becker joined the artists’ colony in 1898 to attend life-drawing classes alongside other women who were excluded from state-run art academies until 1919, when German women finally won the right to vote.

Becker joined the liberal-minded, progressive wing of the colony, which included the sculptress Clara Westhoff—with whom Becker forged a close friendship—and the artists Otto Modersohn and Heinrich Vogeler. This ‘family’ of artists, as they called themselves, enjoyed nude bathing, moonlit dancing, and weekly concerts and poetry readings in the music room at Vogeler’s Jugendstil-inspired villa, Barkenhoff, which was set in manicured gardens. Guest speakers joined them on occasion, and one such event in 1898 brought Rilke to Worpswede for the first time. In the summer of 1900 he returned, spending several weeks in this creative community. Modersohn recalled how Rilke read his works aloud in “his wonderfully soft, vibrating voice” and cast an intoxicating spell over everyone present1. Modersohn-Becker recorded her first impressions of the poet in her journal: “a refined, lyrical talent, gentle and sensitive, with small, touching hands. He read poems to us, tender and full of presentiment. He is sweet and pale”2.

For Rilke, the Worpswede episode was a period of respite following the difficulties of his second Russian journey and the end of his love affair with Lou Andreas-Salomé3. His encounter with two spirited, talented young women—Clara Westhoff and Paula Becker—who had recently returned from their first joint visit to the art capital of Paris, helped him to see his way forward. He was attracted to both, but initially seemed to enjoy a more passionate exchange of ideas with Becker. They “spoke of Tolstoy”, he recorded in his journal, “of death…of beauty…of the capacity to die and the wish to die, of eternity and why we feel related to eternity”4.

When Rilke left Worpswede in early October, he committed a small sketchbook of his poems to Becker’s care. This marks the beginning of their correspondence; Rilke wrote that as there had not been an opportunity to say goodbye, they were “actually still together—as often as we meet somewhere in related thoughts”5. Throughout the autumn they maintained a lively exchange of letters, with Rilke sending Becker books by authors he admired, and copies of his own poems. One of these, “The Singer Sings Before a Child of Princes” (dedicated to “the pale child” who “enrich[es] the singer | with [her] fate”6), was inspired by Modersohn-Becker, whose hair Rilke described as being spun from “Florentine gold”7. This poem frames the beginning of the amitié amoureuse between poet and artist, just as “Requiem” frames its end8.

The following winter Becker and Rilke met frequently in Berlin, where the poet established a temporary home in nearby Schmargendorf and the artist attended cookery classes in preparation for her marriage to Modersohn. They continued to exchange letters, sometimes on a daily basis, and attended art exhibitions in each other’s company. But there was a sudden change of mood in February 1901, when Rilke and Clara Westhoff announced their plan to marry. All through this period, Rilke had maintained a parallel, intimate correspondence with Westhoff, which Modersohn-Becker apparently knew little about. She was taken by surprise and felt excluded from their intimacy—a sentiment that was doubtlessly reinforced by the birth of the Rilkes’ daughter Ruth in the first year of their marriage.

Rilke considered that Modersohn-Becker was failing to appreciate the new demands on Clara and the financial difficulties that were weighing on the couple, while the artist felt that she had lost her closest female friend. This came as a heavy blow, for Westhoff was her confidante when it came to matters of art, and remained “of all my friends, the one I care about the most”9. Although Modersohn-Becker showed no real interest in the collective women’s movement, she strongly believed in the rights and equality of individual women. She accused Westhoff of having sacrificed her core identity to her marriage: “you have stripped off a lot of your old self and put it down as a coat for your king to walk upon”10.

This disagreement brought one of the fundamental differences between artist and poet to light: whereas friendship for Modersohn-Becker involved passionate attachment, Rilke regarded it as a refined art of leaving one another alone. “Friends don’t protect us against loneliness”, Rilke had pondered, “they only limit our solitude”11. Taking it upon himself to reply to the artist’s letter to his wife, he charged Modersohn-Becker with possessiveness, and adopted a preaching tone: “I consider the highest task in the relationship between two human beings to be this: that one guards the solitude of the other”12. Still missing Clara later that year, Modersohn-Becker reconsidered the poet’s advice: “Rilke once wrote [me] that it is the duty of husband and wife to keep watch over each other’s solitude. But isn’t a solitude that someone has to keep watch over merely a superficial solitude? Isn’t true solitude completely open and unguarded?”. She sought nevertheless to reassure herself: “this walking alone is good; it reveals to us many depths and shallows we would never be aware of with someone else along”13.

Rilke initiated a reconciliation when he learnt that Modersohn-Becker was planning her second visit to Paris in the winter of 1903. Together they attended a sale of Japanese art at the Hôtel Drouot, which deeply impressed Modersohn-Becker, and she spent many evenings in the company of the Rilke-Westhoff couple. However, the artist found her erstwhile friends glum, work-obsessed, and self-centred. She considered that Rilke had imposed his fanatical work ethic on his wife and suppressed her former joie de vivre. Once again, this points towards a fundamental difference in their respective world views. While the artist embraced life (she loved to skate, dance, stride bareheaded through the stormy Worpswede landscape, and drink in the sights and sounds of Paris), the poet believed that great art necessitated sacrifice and a relinquishment of life’s joys and temptations. He often felt himself divided between these opposing demands.

The situation was not improved by the publication of the poet’s monograph on the Worpswede artists’ colony14. Rilke failed to mention any of the women artists affiliated with the group in his book, and Modersohn-Becker condemned it as a “nut” that was “hollow at its core”, in spite of all its “talk and beautiful sentences”15. Moreover, when Rilke wrote a letter of introduction to Auguste Rodin for Modersohn-Becker in March, he described her as “the wife of a very distinguished painter”16, ignoring her own identity as an artist. In a letter to her husband at this juncture, Modersohn-Becker wrote disparagingly of Rilke as “gradually diminishing to a rather tiny flame which wants to brighten its light through association with the radiance of the great spirits of Europe”17.

The next turning point in their volatile relationship came when Rilke visited Worpswede in 1905 for the Christmas holiday. On this occasion the poet was struck for the first time by Modersohn-Becker’s artistic achievement; he was completely taken aback by the originality of the paintings he saw in her studio. Rilke wrote soon afterwards to his patron Karl von der Heydt (whose cousin August later became one of Modersohn-Becker’s major collectors):

The most remarkable thing was to find Modersohn’s wife developing her painting in a way all her own, recklessly and straightforwardly painting things that are very Worpswedish, and yet that no one before her has ever been able to see and paint. And on this very idiosyncratic path, strangely close to Van Gogh and his artistic direction.18

Rilke’s belief in Modersohn-Becker as an artist established a new basis of trust at a time when the artist certainly needed trusted friends. For she was preparing to break free from her marriage and the narrow confines of Worpswede, convinced that the only way to fulfil her potential—to become herself—was to move to Paris and devote herself entirely to her art.19 The Rilke-Westhoff couple were among the very few people who supported her decision. A few days before her departure she wrote to Rilke, thanking him for buying a small painting as a tangible gesture of support.20 She wrote of her ambition to take part in the Salon des Indépendants the following year, and expressed new feelings of confidence and excitement: “I feel”, she wrote, “as though I have been given the gift of a new life that promises to become beautiful and abundant. I feel too that, if there is anything lodged inside of me, it ought to be redeemed”. And then, when it came to signing her letter to her poet friend:

And now I am at a loss as to how to sign this letter. I am not Modersohn, and I am also no longer Paula Becker.

I am Me,

and hope to become ever more so.

That is probably the final goal of all of our efforts.21

Modersohn-Becker was clearly dissatisfied with her marriage22, but Rilke’s conviction that the artist had to be ready to make sacrifices in life to achieve great work may also have influenced her decision. This ongoing dilemma was one that Rilke hauntingly evoked in his memorial poem, “Requiem”. At the time, he encouraged Modersohn-Becker’s decision to dedicate herself entirely to her artistic destiny. Once she had established herself in Paris—with the help of a loan from Rilke—something of the warmth and openness of their original friendship returned. The poet introduced Modersohn-Becker to his circle, which included the feminist writer Ellen Key and the Norwegian writer couple Johan and Ellen Bojer, with whom she forged an independent friendship. Rilke was employed as Auguste Rodin’s secretary when Modersohn-Becker arrived in Paris in February 1906, but after he was dismissed in May the poet and artist often spent time together. They ate vegetarian meals at his favourite restaurant and enjoyed outings to the Parc de Saint-Cloud and Chantilly. When the Rilke-Westhoff couple left the summer heat of Paris for the Belgian coast in July, Modersohn-Becker considered joining them, although Rilke discouraged her and recommended Brittany. And when the poet arrived at the Villa Discopoli in Capri the following winter, he wrote to his artist friend about the colours of the southern landscape and sent her reproductions of Pompeian paintings that reinforced her passionate interest in ancient art.

This period of renewed friendship was unusually fertile and productive for both. After separating from Rodin, Rilke focused on writing new poems in preparation for the publication of the expanded edition of the Book of Images (1906), and in the summer months a flood of new work appeared that made its way into his New Poems23. Modersohn-Becker meanwhile struggled with financial difficulties and continuing pressure from her husband and family to return to her married life. But she stood firm, and many of her most exciting, groundbreaking works were created within this timeframe, including her paintings of mothers and children, her magnificent still-lifes and figure paintings, and her revolutionary Self-Portrait on Her Sixth Wedding Day (25 May 1906), which is considered to be the first nude self-portrait ever painted by a woman artist.

During this period of self-discovery (for both poet and painter), self-portraiture played a vital role.24 Several of Modersohn-Becker’s compelling self-portraits depict her resting her hand on her chin, creating the effect of a ‘mock beard’ that is often associated with the ceremonial beards of Egyptian Pharaoh sculptures in the Louvre, which she greatly admired. A more explicit version of this Pharaoh’s beard features in her intimate portrait of Rilke, along with a semi-open bard’s mouth and clouded yet observant eyes. Their respective kingly beards hint at underlying affinities and place poet and artist on an equal footing. Modersohn-Becker’s focus on her head and her hand references the dual sources of the artist’s creative power. With her move to Paris, she had assumed control over her life. Although the issue was complicated by her continuing need for Modersohn’s financial support, her break with her husband meant that she no longer had anyone ruling over her. Going forward—or so she believed at the time—she would be her own king.25

This affirmation of equality was a factor in the relationship between poet and artist that distinguished it from many of Rilke’s other bonds with women. Usually he played the dominant role, although it was the women who stood up to him—Lou Andreas-Salomé, Modersohn-Becker, and, eventually, Clara Westhoff—whose friendship he valued most. Despite their differences, there were important affinities between Rilke’s and Modersohn-Becker’s world views to which she may well be alluding in these ‘companion’ portraits. Underlying everything was the core importance that they both attributed to nature as a pantheistic life force, and as a deep source of inspiration and imagery. The shining autumn chestnuts that Modersohn-Becker sent on a threaded chain to Rilke—which he passed through his hands like a rosary (letter No. 10)—paid tribute to what the poet described as “the small things hardly noticeable” in nature, which “can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable”26.

Both were passionately involved with the other’s means of expression. Modersohn-Becker was a voracious reader; an important theme of her conversations with Rilke was the books they shared and discussed. According to her husband she had “more intellectual interests and a more spirited mind than anyone else”27. Her own literary talent shines through in her clearly expressed, heartfelt letters to her husband, friends, and family, which brought her fame before her paintings were widely known.28 Rilke, in his turn, was fundamentally shaped by his transformative encounters with works of art. His experiences of Rodin and Cézanne (both of whom Modersohn-Becker greatly admired) were crucial, but he was also profoundly affected by Westhoff and Modersohn-Becker, who, he acknowledged, taught him to see things to which he had previously been blind. “How much I am learning through the gaze of these two girls”, he wrote in his journal, “especially the blond painter, who has such brown and watchful eyes”29.

It was Cézanne, above all, that bound the work of the poet and artist together. Modersohn-Becker and Clara Westhoff discovered Cézanne at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery during their first visit to Paris in 1900. Recalling the impact of his paintings, she wrote that they affected her “like a thunderstorm, like some great event”30. She subsequently visited Auguste Pellerin’s collection in Neuilly, where she saw early works by Cézanne that she judged “magnificent”31. Later that year, a major Cézanne retrospective was staged at the 1907 Salon d’Automne. This event, which Rilke visited and re-visited obsessively, gave rise to the poet’s probing, transformative descriptions in his Letters on Cézanne, which, although they were addressed to Clara, may well have been written with Modersohn-Becker in mind. Rilke’s relentless attempts to capture the essence of Cézanne’s vision—to define his perfectly pitched gaze—echoes Modersohn-Becker’s core ambition to render nature “as it appears when our eyes are unclouded and clear and can see things in their rare essence”32. For both Rilke and Modersohn-Becker, Cézanne was the artist who best achieved the magical distillation of life into art, maintaining a rare and perfect balance between the two.

Sadly, Modersohn-Becker never saw the Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d’Automne. Faced with the unavoidable reality that she could not support herself financially, the artist had taken the decision in September 1906 to return to her husband. They spent the winter in Paris—while Rilke was in Capri and Clara in Egypt—picking up the pieces of their relationship, and the following spring they returned to Worpswede. By then Modersohn-Becker was expecting the child that she had long wished for, and she went home to prepare for the birth. Rilke sent her the catalogue of the Salon d’Automne and the issues of the Mercure de France that contained Émile Bernard’s “Souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne et lettres inédites”. In late October, Clara visited Modersohn-Becker in the final stages of her pregnancy and read Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne aloud. Although the artist had previously expressed reservations about Rilke’s writings, which she sometimes felt to have more style than substance, she praised him for his recent work. She considered his latest essay on Rodin to be “more mature and also simpler”. “It seems to me”, she wrote, “that in this piece the youth with all his tender exuberance is disappearing, and that there is beginning to emerge a man with fewer words that say more”33.

There is a sense in this period that both Modersohn-Becker and Rilke felt they had let each other down. “Just do not expect anything of me”, she wrote to him. “Otherwise I may disappoint you, since it might be a long time yet before I amount to anything”34. In retrospect, Rilke regretted discouraging his friend from joining his family in the summer, thinking that such a visit might have dissuaded her from returning to her former life. But he urged her to “leave [him] with [his] expectation, which is so great that it cannot be disappointed”: “I still believe that your life has the strength to replace, compensate, and come into its own at any cost”35. This belief was indeed justified. For just as the poet conquered new realms for poetic language in his Letters on Cézanne and his New Poems