Letters on Cézanne

Rilke's prayerful responses to the french master's beseeching art For a long time nothing, and then suddenly one has the right eyes. Virtually every day in the fall of 1907, Rainer Maria Rilke returned to a Paris gallery to view a Cezanne exhibition. Nearly as frequently, he wrote dense and joyful letters to his wife, Clara Westhoff, expressing his dismay before the paintings and his ensuing revelations about art and life. Rilke was knowledgeable about art and had even published monographs, including a famous study of Rodin that inspired hisNew Poems. But Cezanne's impact on him could not be conveyed in a traditional essay. Rilke's sense of kinship with Cezanne provides a powerful and prescient undercurrent in these letters -- passages from them appear verbatim in Rilke's great modernist novel,The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.Letters on Cezanneis a collection of meaningfully private responses to a radically new art. Rainer Maria Rilkewas born in Prague in 1875 and traveled throughout Europe for much of his adult life, returning frequently to Paris. There he came under the influence of the sculptor Auguste Rodin and produced much of his finest verse, most notably the two volumes ofNew Poemsas well as the great modernist novelThe Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.Among his other books of poems areThe Book of ImagesandThe Book of Hours.He lived the last years of his life in Switzerland, where he completed his two poetic masterworks, theDuino ElegiesandSonnets to Orpheus.He died of leukemia in December 1926. Joel Ageehas also translated Elias Canetti, Friedrich Duuml;renmatt, Gottfried Benn, and another collection of Rilke's letters,Rilke and Benvenuta: An Intimate Correspondence. He won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for his translation of Heinrich von Kleist'sPenthesilea,a verse play. He is the author ofTwelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germanyand lives in Brooklyn. Virtually every day in the fall of 1907, the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke returned to a Paris gallery to view an exhibition of works by Paul Ceacute;zanne. Nearly as frequently, he wrote rich and joyful letters to his wife, Clara Westhoff, expressing his awe before the paintings and his ensuing revelations about art and life. Rilke was knowledgeable about art and had even published monographs, including a famous study of Rodin that inspired certain of hisNew Poems.But Ceacute;zanne's impact on him could not be conveyed in a traditional essay. Rilke's sense of kinship with Ceacute;zanne provides a powerful and prescient undercurrent in these letterspassages from them would subsequently appear verbatim in Rilke's great modernist novel,The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Letters on Ceacute;zanneis a collection of meaningfully private responses to a radically new art. "[This collection] says more about art than any other book I know . . . These letters distill the essence of what a painting truly is . . . The greatness of Ceacute;zanne could be conveyed only by an artist equally great."Howard Moss,The New Yorker "In the reverent and attentive Rilke, Ceacute;zanne recruited a writer with the right eyes for his work."Harvey Blume,Art of New England "[The letters] are themselves extraordinarily peaceful and concentrated, seeping with the sense and recognition of Ceacute;zanne's colors, in nature as on canvas, colors which seem a part of Rilke himself, of the words and paper."John Bayley,The New York Review of Books "Rilke makes the feeling and views around great artreal,weaving into his letters the indescribable thing that gives us beauty, truth, pleasure."Helen Frankenthaler,Art & Antiques