The date of the Feast of the
Annunciation
is 25 March; in 1937, Good Friday was celebrated on 26 March.
Samuel Beckett
Shouldn't you get paid a retainer between acceptance & performance?
5
I have pre-vented an invitation from Geoffrey by writing a card to Mrs Frost, asking her to put me up for a week, for I don't expect to stay longer in London. If Geoffrey were alone I would be glad to stay with him, but not as it is. Charles is in Greenock or Galloway but may be in London early in April. 6
I don't like Munich. I don't like to think of the places I am missing by not going on, Augsburg, IBm, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Colmar, Strassburg, Frankfurt - but shall be very glad to get out of here. Of course the pictures are wonderful. Did you not see the Van Goghs, including the self-portrait, and the Cezannes, including the railway cutting that I think you sent me a postcard ofonce, when you were here? 7 They are scattered all over the place now, as a result of the burning of the Glaspalast some years ago and the transferring of the big exhibition that was there to the Neue Pinakothek, and again the brand new "House of German Art", looking like a Pompeian railway terminus, will be ready. 8
I think the Paul in the 4 Apostels is Diirer's last & best word,
9
betterthananythinginthePaumgartneraltar. Thepainterthat interested you was probably Engelbrechtsen. He was the teacher
469
25 March 1937, McGreevy
ofLucas v. Leyden. The picture is a big lamentation, with rows of
kneeling nuns & demons. I don't find it interesting. 10 The Dirk
Bouts are wonderful & the Davids. The Rubens I haven't looked
at. I take him for granted, like the wonders of modem science.
11
pictures, including one by my dear Hamburg Ballmer; a private
gallery man, who still dares to exhibit Marc & Nolde; a conser
vator in the Bavarian National Museum, who filled me up with
Rhine wine & brandy & showed me his Klee, his translation of
Sappho with drawings by Sintenis, his sister-in-law & his wife.
Another friend of Rilke, who he declared resembled Proust in his
"decentralisation of the soul", which did not pass without a loud
12
Then there are the 17 Brouwers.
I have met a few pleasant people; an actor, with some good
protest from the ex-expert.
And a few painters, including the
one & only German surrealiste, one Ende. He knew a daughter of
Con Curran & disparaged Ernst, Picasso & Dali for their "want of
13
integrity" (! ) and schwarmed for Shem the Penman.
There is absolutely nothing to go to in the evening, neither film, play, opera nor concert. I did attend, full of pious expect ation, a concert of violin sonatas with Furtwangler at the piano looking like an invertebrate trying to sprain its back assisted by the first fiddle of the Berlin Philharmonic. It was fearful. They played the earliest Mozart & Beethoven they could find, nothing like as well as Paddy Delaney & Lennox Braid would have done, & then the brand new GROSSE SONATE that Furtwangler has been moulting over all winter. It was unspeakable & lasted over an hour. The maximum determination (to get it all off his chest in a modem manner) & the minimum ability, a frenzy of impo tence, with reverberations from everyone from Berlioz to Bartok. My musical susceptibility seems all concentrated in my arse, which ached diabolically. And the whole thing in a
Wesleyan chapel half inclined to be rococo. 14 470
Everyone urges me vehemently to go to the mountains, & the valleys, but I have not been outside half a mile's radius from the Marienplatz in any direction. A typesetter in the Hofbrauhaus, pale with the need to stay sober for the morning edition, demon strated to me that there were as many Masters of the Death of the Virgin as there were Masters and Dead Virgins, but only one Zugspitz[e]. 15
Please God you won't be gone when I am in London. I can't tell you for certain the day of my arrival but probably the afternoon ofthis day week. Ifmoney comes in time to let me buy my ticket & let you know for certain in advance, I shall do so.
God love thee, Ever
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves; 6 sides; lenerhead <HOTEL LEINFELDER, MUNICH>; TCD, MS 10402/124.
1 McGreevywashavingteethpulled;asSBwrotetoMaryManningHowe:'"Hislast teeth have been macbethed" (21 March 1937, TxU).
An exhibition, "Recent Paintings by Holmes Ravenhill," opened on 25 February at the Cooling Galleries, London.
2 The Beckett family had several Kerry Blue terriers. Gerald Pakenham Stewart, who shared rooms with SB at Trinity College Dublin, recalls that when SB "ran over and killed his own Kerry Blue terrier, he was heart-broken" (19 January 1992; Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 80). The dog SB mentions here was called Wolf.
3 CroydonwasthenLondon'smainairport.
4 "Sehenswiirdigkeiten"(sightsworthseeing).
Neither Houghton Mifflin's letter to Reavey nor Reavey's letter to SB has been found; in his diary SB notes that Reavey's letter indicated that Houghton Mifflin and Nott had backed down, that Murphy was being read by Boris Wood, and that Reavey was considering doing the book himself (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 22, 20 March 1937).
5 McGreevy'sworkonaplay,whetherhisown,oranadaptationortranslation,is not known.
6 GeoffreyThompson. Mrs. Frost,34GertrudeStreet. CharlesPrentice.
7 Atthistime,theVanGoghpaintingsinthecollectionoftheNeuePinakothekin Munich were Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (8672), View ofAries (8671), and The Plain at Auvers (9584).
471
25 March 1937, McGreevy
25 March 1937, McGreevy
SB observed that the Vincent van Gogh Self Portrait was inscribed to Paul Gauguin (BIF. UoR, GD 5/f. 95). The painting was in the collection of the Neue Staatsgalerie from 1919 until 1938 when it was removed and exhibited as "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate art), then sold to a private collector in 1939 by the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne, Switzerland, and finally given to the Fogg Museum, Harvard University, in 1951 (no. 1951. 65; Sarah Kianovsky, Assistant Director of Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts, The Fogg Gallery, 2 March 2006).
Paintings by Paul Cezanne were The Railway Cutting (8646), Still Life with Commode (8647), and SelfPortrait (c. 1878 to 1880, 8648).
8 TheMunichGlaspalastwasbuiltin1854anddestroyedbyfireinJune1931;asa result, much of its collection was initially placed in the Neue Pinakothek. From February to April 1937 an extensive exhibition of German art, "Figur und Komposition im Bild und an der Wand" (Figure and Composition in Painting and on the Wall), was held at the Neue Pinakothek. This exhibition displaced a portion of the Museum's modern collection which was hung temporarily in the Library of the Deutsches Museum on Museum Island.
When the Museum of German Art designed by Paul Ludwig Troost was opened by Hitler on 18 July 1937, the German collections were shifted to the new building; this, together with the confiscation of those works declared "entartet," again reconfigured the collection of the Neue Pinakothek.
9 "Apostels,"AnglicizingofGermanspelling.
Diirer's diptych St. John and St. Peter (545) and St. Paul and St. Mark (540) is known as the
Four Apostles, also called Four Holy Men (since Paul was not one of the Apostles). The Paumgartner Altar consisted of the centerpiece, Birth of Christ (706); the left panel, Stephan Paumgartner as St. George, and, on the back, The Virgin of the Annunciation (701); and the right panel. Lukas Paumgartner as St. Eustachius (702).
10 TheNorthNetherlandishpainterComelisEngelbrechtsen(alsoEngelbrechtsz, c. 1460-1527) was the teacher of Lucas van Leyden; SB refers to Lamentation over Christ (H. G. 245).
11 Works by Dutch painter Dieric Bouts (also Dierick, Dirk, c. 1415-1475) in the Alte Pinakothek: The Arrest ofChrist (990), St. John the Evangelist (H. G. 75), and Christ Rising from the Dead (H. G. 74). Paintings by Netherlandish artist Gerard David (c. 1460-1523) in the Alte Pinakothek: The Adoration of the Magi (715), Mary with Children (L. 684), and Christ Bidding Mary Farewell (L. 685).
In his diary, SB lists the seventeen paintings by Adriaen Brouwer in the collection of the Alte Pinokethek in Munich (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 5, 7). There were sixty-four paintings by Rubens in the collection.
12 Kluth had given SB an introduction to actor and director Kurt Eggers-Kestner (1891-1967); Ballmer had painted a portrait of his children (BIF, UoR. GD 6/f. 19). SB also spent some time with Joseph Eichheim, the actor he had met in Berlin.
Gunter Francke (1900-1967) exhibited work by Marc and Nolde in his gallery in 1937 (Hilmar Hoffmann, Ohne Auftrag: zur Geschichte des Kunsthandels, I: Miinchen, Sonderschau der Kunstmesse "Art Frankfurt," Frankfurt am Main vom 21-26 April 1989, ed. Rupert Walser and Bernhard Wittenbrink [Munich: Walser and Wittenbrink, 1989] 266-268). See also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 239.
Hans Rupe (1886-1947), a conservator in the Bavarian National Museum, translated a selection of the poems ofthe Greek poet Sappho (c. 612 - c. 557 BC), illustrated by the
472
German sculptor Renee Sintenis: Sappho (Berlin: Holle, n. d. ). Rupe had been a friend of the German poet Rainer Maria von Rilke (1875-1926). See also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 238-239.
13 SBmetGermanpaintersJosefScharl(1896-1954),EdgarEnde(1901-1965),and Joseph Mader (1905-1982); the work of Scharl and Ende was declared "degenerate," and Scharl emigrated to the United States at the end of 1938.
SB met Ende on 19 March 1937 and was shown "avalanches" of his pictures (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 17). Ende knew the Irish student of art history Elizabeth Curran (m. Solterer, 1915-2004). Her parents were Helen Laird Curran (1875-1957), a found ing member of the Abbey Theatre, and Constantine Peter Curran (1883-1972), a lawyer active in the Irish freedom movement and a friend of James Joyce. Ende talked of Max Ernst (1891-1976), Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dali (1904-1989), as well as James Joyce.
"Schwarmte" (was effusive, written with an English ending as "schwarmed").
14 On16March,WilhelmFurtwanglerandHugoKolberg(1899-1979),firstviolin ist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, performed in an evening of chamber music at the Bayerischer Hof, Munich. They played sonatas for violin and piano: Mozart's Sonata in G major, K 379; Beethoven's Sonata in A major, op. 30, no. 1; and Furtwangler's Grosse Sonate in D minor, no. 1 (Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten 10 March 1937: 4). SB refers to Hector Berlioz and Bela Bart6k (1881-1945) (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 91).
Patrick Delaney (n. d. ) was Professor of Violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music from 1896 to 1946 (Richard Pine and Charles Acton, eds. , To Talent Alone: The Royal Irish Academy of Music, 1848-1998 [Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1998] 523). B. Lennox Braid (1878-1944) was a Dublin-area choral director, organist, and accompanist.
15 The Marienplatz in central Munich was between SB's hotel and the museums.
The typesetter has not been identified. The Hofbrauhaus is a Munich beer hall founded in 1579.
Among many unnamed artists known only by the titles of their paintings, there is the Master of the Death of the Virgin (fl. 1440-1450), a German engraver; prominent in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek is the work of the Master of the Life of the Virgin (fl. 1460-1480), with seven panels of an altarpiece (H. G. 618-624 /22-28).
The Zugspitze is the highest peak (9,718 feet) in Germany, located in the Garmisch Partenkirchen area of Bavaria, on the border with Austria.
ARLAND US SHER
DUBL I N OR CAP PAGH, CO. WATERFORD
26/3/37 Miinchen
Susser Arland
A song? Good God. Feldeinsamkeit without the warmth,
if that is a Begriff; or One man went to mow, without the dog,
473
26 March 1937, Ussher
26 March 1937, Ussher
sincemusicisnotoneofyourtumbles. Mypooroldbluebitchis
very sick, she has what Fielding died of without the belief in
2
pleased you; by Slevogt or Corinth I forget which, but there was no reproduction to be had. A whiskers like Tom [for Roger] Casement, no chin and a red wet lip showing the lining. 3
Why Karg freitag? Because ofthe so stingy redemption? What a pity it did not coincide with the Feast of the Annunciation,
4
Ratschluss der Erlosung. The Ayes have it, but only just. And are
3 in 1 a quorum? Surely rather a caucus. And on the right hand
on the earth beneath and as it were in the margin a visitation, i. e.
5
when my father gave a dinner party & my mother presided.
The journey is over. I am tired. I have bitten off more that
[for than] I can spit out. I had meant to go on, Augsburg, Ulm,
6
I shall be in London at the end of next week and stay there a few
days. Then back to the whispering gallery, or rather crypt. I only
want to sit for aeons alone in a room that I haven't to pay for, &
no Sehenswurdigkeiten. You might write a few kind words to 34
7
with [? __] have anus guards.
Things are so bad that I am reading Hans Carossa. Peach
Kirkwood Hackett & sacred wafers. "Verlerne die Zeit, dass nicht dein Antlitz verki. immere, und mit dem Antlitz das Herz. "9 Can you beat it.
What anthology? 10 474
tarwater.
I found a portrait of your Keyserling that would have
1
instead of merely very nearly.
There is a lovely picture in Berlin by Konrad Witz, called the
the first station. Witz indeed. He was born in Nantes.
My memoirs begin under the table, on the eve of my birth,
Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Strassburg, Colmar, but it is aus.
Gertrude St. , S. W. 10, to break the shock. All the policemen
8
26 March 1937, Ussher I hear Cecil has ceased to inspect. I met an art historian in
11
It is more than I can do to go on.
My kindest regards to your wife, to your father, to your daughter.
Gehorsamst12 Sam
ALS; 1 leaves; 2 sides; letterhead <HOTEL LEINFELDER. MUNCHEN>; TxU.
1 "Susser"(sweet;mydear).
SB refers to a song by Brahms. "Feldeinsamkeit" (In Summer Fields), op. 86, no. 2. "Begriff' (concept).
"One man went to mow" refers to a popular children's song: "One man went
to mow/ Went to mow a meadow/ One man and his dog/ Went to mow a meadow/ Twomenwenttomow . . . "
2 The Beckett family dog, Wolf. Joseph Fielding suffered from dropsy, edema, jaundice, and gout, but probably died from "peritoneal cancer or cirrhosis of the liver" (Donald Thomas, Henry Fielding [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990[ 391). Fielding took an infusion of tar in water, a remedy for dropsy recommended by Bishop Berkeley in Siris (1744) (Pat Rogers, Henry Fielding: A Biography [London: Paul Elk, 1979] 213.
3 SBreferstoapaintingnotbyGermanartistMaxSlevogt(1868-1932),butbyLovis Corinth, Eduard, Count van Keyserling (no. 8986) in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich: it depicts the German writer Keyserling (1855-1918), with a full upturned mustache; Sarah Purser's portrait Roger Casement, Patriot and Revolutionary (NG! 938) depicts Sir Roger Casement (1864-1916) with a similar mustache as well as a full beard. Inadvertently, SB writes the name of Roger Casement's brother Thomas Hugh Jephson Casement (1863-1939), who established the Coast Life Saving Service in Ireland. SB also conflates Eduard Graf von Keyserling with his cousin Hermann Graf von Keyserling whose book Ussher had requested that SB find for him (see 31 December 1936, n. 10).
4 "KargFreitag"(meagerFriday)ratherthan"Karfreitag"(GoodFriday).
The date of the Feast of the Annunciation is 25 March; in 1937, Good Friday was celebrated on 26 March.
5 Der Ratschluss der Erliisung (The Decree of Redemption) by German-born Swiss painter Konrad Witz (c. 1400 - c. 1446), seen by SB in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, is now in the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin (KF 1673). The painting depicts the Trinity with iconography of the Incarnation: God the Father on his throne designating an obedient Christ as redeemer, with a dove between them to represent the Holy Spirit hovering over the open book; a lamb just behind them, and a key suspended between them to signify the sacrifice and key of the house of David; Mary and Elizabeth, both pregnant,
475
Dresden who had seen his picture.
26 March 1937, Ussher
are depicted in the right foreground. The painting is considered the "Visitation" or first station of the life of Christ; it is one panel from the Altarpiece of the Mirror of Salvation (also known as The Heilsspiegel Altarpiece) which was painted c. 1435 for the Leonhardskirche in Basel; its panels were dispersed in 1529. One double-sided panel is in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (see 15 June 1938, n. 2).
"Witz" (joke).
Konrad Witz's birthplace is now known to be Rotweill, Germany; he was admitted to the Basel Guild of Painters as "Master Konrad of Rottweil" in 1434. Several times SB notes in his German diary that Witz's birth place was Nantes, and he reports that he had annoyed Gunter Francke in Munich by mentioning that Witz was French (BIF, UoR: GD 3/f. 1, 18 December 1936; GD 4/f. 18, 21 January 1936; GD 6/f. 45, 25 March 1937; and GD 6/f. 71, 31 March 1937; Mark Nixon).
Konrad Witz was the son of the painter Hans Witz (n. d. ) whose identity has historically been confused with other painters, one of whom worked in Nantes at the beginning of the fifteenth century Uosef Hecht, Konstanz, "Der Aufenthalt des Konrad Witz in Konstanz: Ein Problem und seine Li:isung Neue Forschungen zur Lebensgeschichte des Meisters," Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte 6. 5/6 11937], 353-370; Emmanuel Benezit, ed. , Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de taus ! es temps et de taus ! es pays, 3rd edn. [Paris: Grund, 1976] 774).
6 SB uses the German spelling of these towns, with the exception of Colmar which, in German, is Kalmar. "Aus" (over).
7 Although St. Paul's Cathedral in London has a "whispering gallery," SB here refers to Dublin.
SB planned to spend a week with Mrs. Frost, 34 Gertrude Street, London.
8 SBomitsawordhere.
9 GermanpoetandnovelistHansCarossa(1878-1956). "PeachKirkwoodHackett" may refer to Mme. Eva Kirkwood Hackett (1877-1968), theatre producer in Dublin in the 1930s and later a film actress.
"O verleme die Zeit, / Dass nicht dein Antlitz verkiimmre / Und mit dem Antlitz <las Herz! " (Learn to disregard time so that your countenance may not wither away, and with your countenance your heart) is from Hans Carossa's poem "Ein Stem Singt" (A Star Sings), first published in Gedichte (1923) and reprinted in Hans Carossa and Eva Kampmann-Carossa, Gedichte: Die Veriiffentlichungen zu Lebzeiten und Gedichte aus dem Nachlass (Frankfurt: Insel, 1995) 64-65. SB writes the standard form, "verkiimmere," whereas the poem uses the contracted form, "verkiimmre. "
10 It is not known which anthology Ussher had - presumably - mentioned in his letter.
11 While Cecil Salkeld may have had a position as an Inspector, this has not been confirmed. Will Grohmann was familiar with Salkeld's work (see 16 February 1937, n. 14).
12 Arland Ussher's first wife was Emily (nee Whitehead, c. 1898-1974), his father was Beverley Grant Ussher (1867-1956), and his daughter is Henrietta Owen Ussher Staples (b. 1926).
"Gehorsamst" (most obediently).
476
30 March 1937, Albrecht
GUNTER ALBRECHT HAMBURG
30/3/37 Miinchen Pension Romana
Akademiestrasse
Dear Gunter Albrecht
Very many thanks indeed for your letters and the Fontane,
which I neither possess nor have read. I am sorry you have had
such trouble in getting in touch with me. Three weeks ago I left
instructions with the Postlagernd to send on everything here.
Perhaps it is their duty to get tired after a fortnight, when the
1
Germany. I am tired and can see nothing more, all the surfaces remain surfaces and that is terrible. I had meant to go on by Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Strassburg, Kolmar, Karslruhe [for Karlsruhe], Frankfurt, Berlin again and home from there, and as I write the names I curse the small capacity that excludes the possibility, temporarily at least, oftheir being anything more than names. I fly from here next Friday morning, straight to London, where I shall stay probably a week before going on to Dublin.
It was a strange zigzag from Berlin: Halle (to see the
Moritzburg pictures), a Buhnenbildner in love with Mexico
where he met Traven and the Weise Collection, (mostly
Kirchners), Erfurt (chiefly to see the Heckel frescos which are
not particularly good), Weimar, Naumburg, Leipzig (where even
the colossal Klinger Exhibition and a concert in the Gewandhaus
could not console me), and from there with relief straight to
2
instructions are not renewed.
I write to you almost on the eve of my departure from
Dresden. I was content there for three weeks. I met a lot of
477
30 March 1937, Albrecht
friendly and intelligent people, including a whole colony of Russians, blue with blood and privations taken good-humour edly. Biely and vodka go well together I found. Also the dancer Palucca and a charming art historian now duly in deep disgrace but also good-humoured, too interested in the phenomenon to think of exile, Will Grohmann, with to his credit books on and catalogues of Klee and Kandinsky and Baumeister and others. 3 Through him I was enabled to visit the Ida Bienert collection, which must be one of the best modem collections in Germany, practically everything from Cezanne to Mo[n]drian except the Briicke, which is not represented at all: the best Kandinsky I have seen, quantities of Klee and three lovely Picassos. And a portrait by Kokoschka of a woman I used to know in Paris years ago! 4
As you say the pictures in the Zwinger are vilely hung
and lit. The Rembrandt room, Director Posse's pride and
joy, is a scandal. The Vermeer Kupplerin, cowering between a
Rembrandt old man and a Bal philosopher and beneath some
thing enormous and dirty by I think Eeckhout, was literally
invisible. I saw it for the first time the day I left in the full light
of one of the end rooms, where a copyist had contrived to have it
5
left leg destroyed by some damn 19th century restorer in the
service of a taste offended by the putto with the bird, now
painted over with senseless landscape. I saw the X-Ray photo
6
Flemish or Italian primitives) it remains a splendid collection. I never saw a better Antonello than the St. Sebastian. 7
The Zwinger itself, in spite of the here and there very irres olute restoration, has still enough ofwhat Poppelmann meant it
478
temporarilytransferred. TheGiorgioneisinamess,thewhole
graph, which however doesn't show very much.
But in spite of the wretched presentation and the gaps (no
to have to give one the essence and the melancholy of barock. There are sad passages, the arcades leading up to the entrance on the garden side. I felt the Kronentor was wrong, too high and florid, an over-statement. But it was so from the beginning, according to Bellotto, whom I refuse to call Canaletto. 8
I made a few halfhearted excursions, in spite of the weather, to Meissen, where some of the Dome [for Dom] statues are probably by the Naumburg Master, and to Pillnitz, where the core on the water is lovely. 9
I saw more whores in Dresden, whores ofthe old school, any evening I felt so inclined, than in all the months since October and all the places since Hamburg put together. Sachsischer Stiitzwechsel! 10
From Dresden it went on by Freiberg, Bamberg, Wiirzburg, Niirnberg, and Regensburg. Niirnberg was so horrible, as I more or less expected, that I extended my resentments even to the Great Period and found good reasons, mostly connected with the expulsion of the Jews in 1499 (they didn't get back for nearly 4 centuries) and the Wittenberg catastrophe of 1517, for impugning the value of Stoss and Kraft and Pleydenwurff and Vischer and Wohlgemut [for Wolgemut] and even the great AD himself. The Diirer room in the Germanisches Museum is another scandal, the portrait of Wohlgemut eked out with the dreariest of workshop Kitsch and a copy of the Apostles! 11
I am too close to Miinchen to say anything more definite than that I infinitely prefer Hamburg or Berlin. Perhaps it is the Fohn! I spend most of my time needless to say in the Alte Pinakothek, which I now know so well that I can walk through the entire collection without having to pass a Rubens! 12 I haven't made any of the prescribed excursions, Garmisch, Mittenwald,
479
30 March 1937, Albrecht
30 March 1937, Albrecht
Konigsschlosser, etc. , and shall not, in spite ofan Alpine sportive
compositor picked up in the Hotbrauhaus who assured me that
there were as many Masters of the Death of the Virgin as there
13
I exchanged a few politenesses with a girl in Severing's
bookshop who knew you and Kaun in Leipzig. You were "der
grosse Schwarze" in her phraseology. I shall have the pleasure
there in an hour's time of being introduced to Alverdes, whose
Kleine Reise I began but did not go on with. 14 I have been reading
a lot of Carossa, Geheimnisse, Gion and Fiihrung, kindly lent
by Kaun, and find it, to ne [for be] quite frank, bloody awful in
the end, the complete flight into style. I met yet another friend
of Rilke, every second person of a certain degree of culture in
German seems to have been a friend of Rilke, a conservator
in the Bavarian Nat. Museum, who assured me that Rilke linked
15
were Masters and Dead Virgins, but only one Zugspitz[e].
up with Proust in his "decentralisation of the soul".
I also met
the actor Eggers-Kestner, whom you may remember from the
time he was in Hamburg. He has a lovely picture by Ballmer,
Kluths and Ruhwohlds [for Ruwoldts] and the politest of polite
Hartmann watercolours. He gave me Ballmer's Aber Herr
Heidigger [for Heidegger]! to read and a MS Deutschtum u.
Christentum in the same direction but too Steinerisch for the
16
nicht, ich will nicht".
I saw that Munich legend Valentin and found him a come
dian of the very first order but perhaps just beginning his
18
think you have already: 6 Clare Street, Dublin, l. F. S. Let us keep in touch with one another. In the very throes of labour camp and military service you will have plenty to get off your chest
480
non-initiate.
drawings but the reply, in a very terrified tone, was "lch will
I have just rung up Piper to try and get the Barlach
17
decline.
The rest I leave over for another letter. My home address I
and - I hope - leisure to do it. I was very glad to hear your painter friend had had some success. Remember me to him. I hear
19
Yours ever
s/ Sam Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf,2 sides; BIF,UoR,MS 5037.
1 On28March,SBreceivedEffiBriest(1894)byGermanpoetandnovelistTheodor Fontane (1819-1898) (BIF,UoR,GD 6/f. 55).
"Postlagernd" (paste restante).
2 In this letter SB summarizes his experiences in Germany since leaving Berlin: rather than repeat information,the notes supply cross-references.
"Lebensstufen" ("Stages of Life"),Erich Heckel's fresco on the four walls of a room in the Anger Museum,Erfurt,was painted in 1922-1924. SB admired the figure of the German poet Stefan George (1868-1933) surrounded by members of his circle,but observed that the fresco was crowded with iconography and was not in good repair (BIF,UoR,GD 4/f. 27,24 January 1937; see also Mechthild Lucke,Erich Heckel,and Andreas Huneke, Erich Heckel, Lebensstufen: die Wandbilder im Angermuseum zu Eijurt [Dresden: Verlag der Kunst,19921). Later in 1937,and through the war,the entrance to the Heckel room was blocked offto hide it from the Nazis; as a result,the fresco suffered damage from prolonged damp and cold,but it is now on view in the Anger Museum,having undergone restoration.
The Max Klinger Exhibition in Leipzig: SB to Thomas McGreevy,30 January 1937,n. 1; the concert in the Gewandhaus on 28 January in Leipzig: SB to Thomas McGreevy,16 February 1937,n. 13.
3 The colony of Russians in Dresden,especially the Obolensky and von Gersdorff families: 16 February 1937; for the lecture on Bely: 23 February 1937.
Through Heinz Porep, SB met the German dancer and choreographer Gret Palucca (1902-1993),formerly married to Ida Bienert's son Fritz Bienert (1891-1969). Palucca introduced SB to the art historian Will Grohmann. Grohmann's writings: 16 February 1937,n. 14.
4 SB's visit to Ida Bienert's collection is discussed in 16 February 1937. Bienert purchased many of Kandinsky's works directly from the artist (Grohmann's catalogue of her collection is comprehensive only through 1933: Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, 21, fig. 36, 36-42; later acquisitions as well as the current ownership of Kandinsky works in her collection can be found in Hans K. Roethel and Jean K. Benjamin,Kandinsky, Catalogue Raisonne ofthe Oil Paintings, 2 vols. [Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press,1982-1984] I,346,476; II,672,851; and watercolors can be found in Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky Watercolours: Catalogue Raisonne, II [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1994] 150,156,280,337,373).
There were thirty-nine paintings by Paul Klee in the Bienert Collection (Grohmann, ed. ,Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, 21-22,figs. 43-59). Picasso paintings in her
481
Grimm is married.
Kindest regards to your family.
30 March 1937, Albrecht
30 March 1937, Albrecht
collection were Woman with Hat, Waltz, and the gouache on paper The Seamstress (23-24, figs. 7-9).
Bienert also then owned the portrait of Nancy Cunard, Englanderin, painted by Kokoschka in 1924: see 16 February 1937, n. 15.
5 TheZwingerMuseuminDresdenanditsDirectorHansPosse:16February1937, n. 2 and n. 11.
Vermeer's Kupplerin (The Procuress) and its hanging in the Rembrandt Hall of the Zwinger are described in 16 February 1937, n. 8 and n. 9; it was hung between paintings by Rembrandt and Salomon Koninck and under a painting by Ferdinand Bo! , not Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-1674).
SB's last visit to the museum was on 17 February:
See it, in the good light, really for first time, the man on left clearly, and the lurid evening sky through space between him & [? woman], that does not function in the Rembrandt room, & that flattens & defines the key of the whole picture, gives it substance & immediacy, an immediacy of the everlasting transitory, situates it in eternity. Without it the picture was [. . . ] adrift, overcrowded, overheated, only excellent genre. With it it is Vermeer. (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 5, 17 February 1937, Nixon and Knowlson transcription)
6 Giorgione'sVenusintheZwingercollection:16February1937,n. 4.
7 SBreferstoAntonellodaMessina'spaintingTheMartyrdomofSt. Sebastian;acard of this image was sent to McGreevy on 2 February 1937, and SB describes it further in 16 February 1937 (see also n. 7 to that letter).
8 SB'sdiscussionofthearchitectureandrestorationoftheZwinger:16February 1937, n. 2. The Kronentor, the tower that crowns the main entrance of the Zwinger Palace, is depicted in The Zwinger Palace in Dresden by Italian painter Bernardo Bellotto (NPG, 629; see bildarchiv. skd-dresden. de/). Bellotto adopted Canaletto as his name outside of Italy, but SB recognizes this as the name of his uncle and master Canaletto (ne Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768).
9 On12February,SBwenttoMeissen. Thesculpturesinthechoirandcomersofthe mid-Gothic Dom in Meissen (c. 1260-1280) are ascribed to the thirteenth-century Naumburg Master; they are larger than life-size, but less naturalistic than his sculptures in Naumburg (Hans-Joachim Mrusek, Drei sachsische Kathedralen: Merseburg, Naumburg, Meissen [Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1976] 370).
On 16 February, SB went to Pillnitz; he describes the town which is dominated by the Schloss Pillnitz designed by Matthaus Poppelmann with steps down to terraces, and from there to the edge of the Elbe River.
10 "Sachsischer Stiitzwechsel" (Saxon support system); SB compares the prosti tutes lined up along the street to "Stiitzenwechsel," a pattern typical of Romanesque architecture in Saxony that alternates styles of piers or columns; he has noted this term in his German diary when describing the Dom in Hildesheim.
11 FreiberginSaxony. SB'sdiscussionofNuremberg:7March1937.
12 The "Fohn" (warm, dry wind from the Alps) is often thought to be a cause of illness or nervousness, called F6hnkrankheit (Fohn-sickness).
482
30 March 1937, Albrecht
The sixty-four paintings by Rubens in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich in 1936 were hung in Rooms V and VI, and in Cabinets XII and XIV; the rooms were located off a loggia, and the Cabinets were entered through the rooms (Karl Baedeker, Das Deutsche Reich und einige Grenzgebiete, Reisehand! ruch fiir Bahn und Auto [Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1936] 472).
13 SBdidnottaketypicalexcursionsfromMunich:Garmisch-Partenkirchen(where the 1936 winter Olympics had been held) and Mittenwald in the Bavarian Alps, and Kiinigsschliisser, the castle of King Ludwig II (1845-1886) near Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. SB mentions the Hofbrauhaus, the compositor, the Masters ofDead Virgins, and the Zugspitze in his letter of25 March 1937.
14 SBvisitedSevering'sbookshopinMunichatthesuggestionofPorep'sfriend, the dentist Dr. Richard Zarnitz. Axel Kaun: 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 10.
"Der grosse Schwarze" (the big dark one).
SB met German writer and editor Paul Alverdes (1897-1979) at the bookstore on this day; SB began Kleine Reise: Aus einem Tage! ruch (1933; Small Journey: From a Journal). Alverdes is best known for his novel Die f'. feiferstube (1929; The Whistler) which he discussed with SB (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 63).
15 Axel Kaun had lent SB Hans Caressa's Geheimnisse des reifen Lebens: aus den Aufzeichungen Angermanns (1936; Secrets of the Mature Life: From the Notations of Angermann), Der Arzt Gion (1931; Doctor Gion), and Fiihrung und Geleit, ein Lebensgedenkbuch (1933; Guidance and Companionship: A Life Memoir).
SB refers to Hans Rupe (see 25 March 1937, n. 12). In his diary, SB recorded his discussion with Rupe about Rilke and Proust (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 77).
16 The art collection ofKurt Eggers-Kestner included a painting ofthe children of Eggers-Kestner by Ballmer (see 25 March 1937, n. 12), several works by Kluth including a portrait of Barlach, and unidentified watercolors by Hartmann. SB had met artist Hans Martin Ruwoldt through Grimm (see 28 November 1937 [for 1936], n. 15, and Beckett, Alles kommt aufso vie! an, 50-51).
Karl Ballmer, Aber Herr Heidegger! Zur Frei! rurger Rektoratsrede Martin Heideggers (Basel: Verlag von Rudolf Geering, 1933; But Mr. Heidegger! Concerning Martin Heidegger's Freiburg Inaugural Address as Rector).
I have pre-vented an invitation from Geoffrey by writing a card to Mrs Frost, asking her to put me up for a week, for I don't expect to stay longer in London. If Geoffrey were alone I would be glad to stay with him, but not as it is. Charles is in Greenock or Galloway but may be in London early in April. 6
I don't like Munich. I don't like to think of the places I am missing by not going on, Augsburg, IBm, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Colmar, Strassburg, Frankfurt - but shall be very glad to get out of here. Of course the pictures are wonderful. Did you not see the Van Goghs, including the self-portrait, and the Cezannes, including the railway cutting that I think you sent me a postcard ofonce, when you were here? 7 They are scattered all over the place now, as a result of the burning of the Glaspalast some years ago and the transferring of the big exhibition that was there to the Neue Pinakothek, and again the brand new "House of German Art", looking like a Pompeian railway terminus, will be ready. 8
I think the Paul in the 4 Apostels is Diirer's last & best word,
9
betterthananythinginthePaumgartneraltar. Thepainterthat interested you was probably Engelbrechtsen. He was the teacher
469
25 March 1937, McGreevy
ofLucas v. Leyden. The picture is a big lamentation, with rows of
kneeling nuns & demons. I don't find it interesting. 10 The Dirk
Bouts are wonderful & the Davids. The Rubens I haven't looked
at. I take him for granted, like the wonders of modem science.
11
pictures, including one by my dear Hamburg Ballmer; a private
gallery man, who still dares to exhibit Marc & Nolde; a conser
vator in the Bavarian National Museum, who filled me up with
Rhine wine & brandy & showed me his Klee, his translation of
Sappho with drawings by Sintenis, his sister-in-law & his wife.
Another friend of Rilke, who he declared resembled Proust in his
"decentralisation of the soul", which did not pass without a loud
12
Then there are the 17 Brouwers.
I have met a few pleasant people; an actor, with some good
protest from the ex-expert.
And a few painters, including the
one & only German surrealiste, one Ende. He knew a daughter of
Con Curran & disparaged Ernst, Picasso & Dali for their "want of
13
integrity" (! ) and schwarmed for Shem the Penman.
There is absolutely nothing to go to in the evening, neither film, play, opera nor concert. I did attend, full of pious expect ation, a concert of violin sonatas with Furtwangler at the piano looking like an invertebrate trying to sprain its back assisted by the first fiddle of the Berlin Philharmonic. It was fearful. They played the earliest Mozart & Beethoven they could find, nothing like as well as Paddy Delaney & Lennox Braid would have done, & then the brand new GROSSE SONATE that Furtwangler has been moulting over all winter. It was unspeakable & lasted over an hour. The maximum determination (to get it all off his chest in a modem manner) & the minimum ability, a frenzy of impo tence, with reverberations from everyone from Berlioz to Bartok. My musical susceptibility seems all concentrated in my arse, which ached diabolically. And the whole thing in a
Wesleyan chapel half inclined to be rococo. 14 470
Everyone urges me vehemently to go to the mountains, & the valleys, but I have not been outside half a mile's radius from the Marienplatz in any direction. A typesetter in the Hofbrauhaus, pale with the need to stay sober for the morning edition, demon strated to me that there were as many Masters of the Death of the Virgin as there were Masters and Dead Virgins, but only one Zugspitz[e]. 15
Please God you won't be gone when I am in London. I can't tell you for certain the day of my arrival but probably the afternoon ofthis day week. Ifmoney comes in time to let me buy my ticket & let you know for certain in advance, I shall do so.
God love thee, Ever
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves; 6 sides; lenerhead <HOTEL LEINFELDER, MUNICH>; TCD, MS 10402/124.
1 McGreevywashavingteethpulled;asSBwrotetoMaryManningHowe:'"Hislast teeth have been macbethed" (21 March 1937, TxU).
An exhibition, "Recent Paintings by Holmes Ravenhill," opened on 25 February at the Cooling Galleries, London.
2 The Beckett family had several Kerry Blue terriers. Gerald Pakenham Stewart, who shared rooms with SB at Trinity College Dublin, recalls that when SB "ran over and killed his own Kerry Blue terrier, he was heart-broken" (19 January 1992; Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 80). The dog SB mentions here was called Wolf.
3 CroydonwasthenLondon'smainairport.
4 "Sehenswiirdigkeiten"(sightsworthseeing).
Neither Houghton Mifflin's letter to Reavey nor Reavey's letter to SB has been found; in his diary SB notes that Reavey's letter indicated that Houghton Mifflin and Nott had backed down, that Murphy was being read by Boris Wood, and that Reavey was considering doing the book himself (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 22, 20 March 1937).
5 McGreevy'sworkonaplay,whetherhisown,oranadaptationortranslation,is not known.
6 GeoffreyThompson. Mrs. Frost,34GertrudeStreet. CharlesPrentice.
7 Atthistime,theVanGoghpaintingsinthecollectionoftheNeuePinakothekin Munich were Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (8672), View ofAries (8671), and The Plain at Auvers (9584).
471
25 March 1937, McGreevy
25 March 1937, McGreevy
SB observed that the Vincent van Gogh Self Portrait was inscribed to Paul Gauguin (BIF. UoR, GD 5/f. 95). The painting was in the collection of the Neue Staatsgalerie from 1919 until 1938 when it was removed and exhibited as "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate art), then sold to a private collector in 1939 by the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne, Switzerland, and finally given to the Fogg Museum, Harvard University, in 1951 (no. 1951. 65; Sarah Kianovsky, Assistant Director of Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts, The Fogg Gallery, 2 March 2006).
Paintings by Paul Cezanne were The Railway Cutting (8646), Still Life with Commode (8647), and SelfPortrait (c. 1878 to 1880, 8648).
8 TheMunichGlaspalastwasbuiltin1854anddestroyedbyfireinJune1931;asa result, much of its collection was initially placed in the Neue Pinakothek. From February to April 1937 an extensive exhibition of German art, "Figur und Komposition im Bild und an der Wand" (Figure and Composition in Painting and on the Wall), was held at the Neue Pinakothek. This exhibition displaced a portion of the Museum's modern collection which was hung temporarily in the Library of the Deutsches Museum on Museum Island.
When the Museum of German Art designed by Paul Ludwig Troost was opened by Hitler on 18 July 1937, the German collections were shifted to the new building; this, together with the confiscation of those works declared "entartet," again reconfigured the collection of the Neue Pinakothek.
9 "Apostels,"AnglicizingofGermanspelling.
Diirer's diptych St. John and St. Peter (545) and St. Paul and St. Mark (540) is known as the
Four Apostles, also called Four Holy Men (since Paul was not one of the Apostles). The Paumgartner Altar consisted of the centerpiece, Birth of Christ (706); the left panel, Stephan Paumgartner as St. George, and, on the back, The Virgin of the Annunciation (701); and the right panel. Lukas Paumgartner as St. Eustachius (702).
10 TheNorthNetherlandishpainterComelisEngelbrechtsen(alsoEngelbrechtsz, c. 1460-1527) was the teacher of Lucas van Leyden; SB refers to Lamentation over Christ (H. G. 245).
11 Works by Dutch painter Dieric Bouts (also Dierick, Dirk, c. 1415-1475) in the Alte Pinakothek: The Arrest ofChrist (990), St. John the Evangelist (H. G. 75), and Christ Rising from the Dead (H. G. 74). Paintings by Netherlandish artist Gerard David (c. 1460-1523) in the Alte Pinakothek: The Adoration of the Magi (715), Mary with Children (L. 684), and Christ Bidding Mary Farewell (L. 685).
In his diary, SB lists the seventeen paintings by Adriaen Brouwer in the collection of the Alte Pinokethek in Munich (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 5, 7). There were sixty-four paintings by Rubens in the collection.
12 Kluth had given SB an introduction to actor and director Kurt Eggers-Kestner (1891-1967); Ballmer had painted a portrait of his children (BIF, UoR. GD 6/f. 19). SB also spent some time with Joseph Eichheim, the actor he had met in Berlin.
Gunter Francke (1900-1967) exhibited work by Marc and Nolde in his gallery in 1937 (Hilmar Hoffmann, Ohne Auftrag: zur Geschichte des Kunsthandels, I: Miinchen, Sonderschau der Kunstmesse "Art Frankfurt," Frankfurt am Main vom 21-26 April 1989, ed. Rupert Walser and Bernhard Wittenbrink [Munich: Walser and Wittenbrink, 1989] 266-268). See also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 239.
Hans Rupe (1886-1947), a conservator in the Bavarian National Museum, translated a selection of the poems ofthe Greek poet Sappho (c. 612 - c. 557 BC), illustrated by the
472
German sculptor Renee Sintenis: Sappho (Berlin: Holle, n. d. ). Rupe had been a friend of the German poet Rainer Maria von Rilke (1875-1926). See also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 238-239.
13 SBmetGermanpaintersJosefScharl(1896-1954),EdgarEnde(1901-1965),and Joseph Mader (1905-1982); the work of Scharl and Ende was declared "degenerate," and Scharl emigrated to the United States at the end of 1938.
SB met Ende on 19 March 1937 and was shown "avalanches" of his pictures (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 17). Ende knew the Irish student of art history Elizabeth Curran (m. Solterer, 1915-2004). Her parents were Helen Laird Curran (1875-1957), a found ing member of the Abbey Theatre, and Constantine Peter Curran (1883-1972), a lawyer active in the Irish freedom movement and a friend of James Joyce. Ende talked of Max Ernst (1891-1976), Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dali (1904-1989), as well as James Joyce.
"Schwarmte" (was effusive, written with an English ending as "schwarmed").
14 On16March,WilhelmFurtwanglerandHugoKolberg(1899-1979),firstviolin ist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, performed in an evening of chamber music at the Bayerischer Hof, Munich. They played sonatas for violin and piano: Mozart's Sonata in G major, K 379; Beethoven's Sonata in A major, op. 30, no. 1; and Furtwangler's Grosse Sonate in D minor, no. 1 (Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten 10 March 1937: 4). SB refers to Hector Berlioz and Bela Bart6k (1881-1945) (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 91).
Patrick Delaney (n. d. ) was Professor of Violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music from 1896 to 1946 (Richard Pine and Charles Acton, eds. , To Talent Alone: The Royal Irish Academy of Music, 1848-1998 [Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1998] 523). B. Lennox Braid (1878-1944) was a Dublin-area choral director, organist, and accompanist.
15 The Marienplatz in central Munich was between SB's hotel and the museums.
The typesetter has not been identified. The Hofbrauhaus is a Munich beer hall founded in 1579.
Among many unnamed artists known only by the titles of their paintings, there is the Master of the Death of the Virgin (fl. 1440-1450), a German engraver; prominent in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek is the work of the Master of the Life of the Virgin (fl. 1460-1480), with seven panels of an altarpiece (H. G. 618-624 /22-28).
The Zugspitze is the highest peak (9,718 feet) in Germany, located in the Garmisch Partenkirchen area of Bavaria, on the border with Austria.
ARLAND US SHER
DUBL I N OR CAP PAGH, CO. WATERFORD
26/3/37 Miinchen
Susser Arland
A song? Good God. Feldeinsamkeit without the warmth,
if that is a Begriff; or One man went to mow, without the dog,
473
26 March 1937, Ussher
26 March 1937, Ussher
sincemusicisnotoneofyourtumbles. Mypooroldbluebitchis
very sick, she has what Fielding died of without the belief in
2
pleased you; by Slevogt or Corinth I forget which, but there was no reproduction to be had. A whiskers like Tom [for Roger] Casement, no chin and a red wet lip showing the lining. 3
Why Karg freitag? Because ofthe so stingy redemption? What a pity it did not coincide with the Feast of the Annunciation,
4
Ratschluss der Erlosung. The Ayes have it, but only just. And are
3 in 1 a quorum? Surely rather a caucus. And on the right hand
on the earth beneath and as it were in the margin a visitation, i. e.
5
when my father gave a dinner party & my mother presided.
The journey is over. I am tired. I have bitten off more that
[for than] I can spit out. I had meant to go on, Augsburg, Ulm,
6
I shall be in London at the end of next week and stay there a few
days. Then back to the whispering gallery, or rather crypt. I only
want to sit for aeons alone in a room that I haven't to pay for, &
no Sehenswurdigkeiten. You might write a few kind words to 34
7
with [? __] have anus guards.
Things are so bad that I am reading Hans Carossa. Peach
Kirkwood Hackett & sacred wafers. "Verlerne die Zeit, dass nicht dein Antlitz verki. immere, und mit dem Antlitz das Herz. "9 Can you beat it.
What anthology? 10 474
tarwater.
I found a portrait of your Keyserling that would have
1
instead of merely very nearly.
There is a lovely picture in Berlin by Konrad Witz, called the
the first station. Witz indeed. He was born in Nantes.
My memoirs begin under the table, on the eve of my birth,
Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Strassburg, Colmar, but it is aus.
Gertrude St. , S. W. 10, to break the shock. All the policemen
8
26 March 1937, Ussher I hear Cecil has ceased to inspect. I met an art historian in
11
It is more than I can do to go on.
My kindest regards to your wife, to your father, to your daughter.
Gehorsamst12 Sam
ALS; 1 leaves; 2 sides; letterhead <HOTEL LEINFELDER. MUNCHEN>; TxU.
1 "Susser"(sweet;mydear).
SB refers to a song by Brahms. "Feldeinsamkeit" (In Summer Fields), op. 86, no. 2. "Begriff' (concept).
"One man went to mow" refers to a popular children's song: "One man went
to mow/ Went to mow a meadow/ One man and his dog/ Went to mow a meadow/ Twomenwenttomow . . . "
2 The Beckett family dog, Wolf. Joseph Fielding suffered from dropsy, edema, jaundice, and gout, but probably died from "peritoneal cancer or cirrhosis of the liver" (Donald Thomas, Henry Fielding [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990[ 391). Fielding took an infusion of tar in water, a remedy for dropsy recommended by Bishop Berkeley in Siris (1744) (Pat Rogers, Henry Fielding: A Biography [London: Paul Elk, 1979] 213.
3 SBreferstoapaintingnotbyGermanartistMaxSlevogt(1868-1932),butbyLovis Corinth, Eduard, Count van Keyserling (no. 8986) in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich: it depicts the German writer Keyserling (1855-1918), with a full upturned mustache; Sarah Purser's portrait Roger Casement, Patriot and Revolutionary (NG! 938) depicts Sir Roger Casement (1864-1916) with a similar mustache as well as a full beard. Inadvertently, SB writes the name of Roger Casement's brother Thomas Hugh Jephson Casement (1863-1939), who established the Coast Life Saving Service in Ireland. SB also conflates Eduard Graf von Keyserling with his cousin Hermann Graf von Keyserling whose book Ussher had requested that SB find for him (see 31 December 1936, n. 10).
4 "KargFreitag"(meagerFriday)ratherthan"Karfreitag"(GoodFriday).
The date of the Feast of the Annunciation is 25 March; in 1937, Good Friday was celebrated on 26 March.
5 Der Ratschluss der Erliisung (The Decree of Redemption) by German-born Swiss painter Konrad Witz (c. 1400 - c. 1446), seen by SB in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, is now in the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin (KF 1673). The painting depicts the Trinity with iconography of the Incarnation: God the Father on his throne designating an obedient Christ as redeemer, with a dove between them to represent the Holy Spirit hovering over the open book; a lamb just behind them, and a key suspended between them to signify the sacrifice and key of the house of David; Mary and Elizabeth, both pregnant,
475
Dresden who had seen his picture.
26 March 1937, Ussher
are depicted in the right foreground. The painting is considered the "Visitation" or first station of the life of Christ; it is one panel from the Altarpiece of the Mirror of Salvation (also known as The Heilsspiegel Altarpiece) which was painted c. 1435 for the Leonhardskirche in Basel; its panels were dispersed in 1529. One double-sided panel is in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (see 15 June 1938, n. 2).
"Witz" (joke).
Konrad Witz's birthplace is now known to be Rotweill, Germany; he was admitted to the Basel Guild of Painters as "Master Konrad of Rottweil" in 1434. Several times SB notes in his German diary that Witz's birth place was Nantes, and he reports that he had annoyed Gunter Francke in Munich by mentioning that Witz was French (BIF, UoR: GD 3/f. 1, 18 December 1936; GD 4/f. 18, 21 January 1936; GD 6/f. 45, 25 March 1937; and GD 6/f. 71, 31 March 1937; Mark Nixon).
Konrad Witz was the son of the painter Hans Witz (n. d. ) whose identity has historically been confused with other painters, one of whom worked in Nantes at the beginning of the fifteenth century Uosef Hecht, Konstanz, "Der Aufenthalt des Konrad Witz in Konstanz: Ein Problem und seine Li:isung Neue Forschungen zur Lebensgeschichte des Meisters," Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte 6. 5/6 11937], 353-370; Emmanuel Benezit, ed. , Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de taus ! es temps et de taus ! es pays, 3rd edn. [Paris: Grund, 1976] 774).
6 SB uses the German spelling of these towns, with the exception of Colmar which, in German, is Kalmar. "Aus" (over).
7 Although St. Paul's Cathedral in London has a "whispering gallery," SB here refers to Dublin.
SB planned to spend a week with Mrs. Frost, 34 Gertrude Street, London.
8 SBomitsawordhere.
9 GermanpoetandnovelistHansCarossa(1878-1956). "PeachKirkwoodHackett" may refer to Mme. Eva Kirkwood Hackett (1877-1968), theatre producer in Dublin in the 1930s and later a film actress.
"O verleme die Zeit, / Dass nicht dein Antlitz verkiimmre / Und mit dem Antlitz <las Herz! " (Learn to disregard time so that your countenance may not wither away, and with your countenance your heart) is from Hans Carossa's poem "Ein Stem Singt" (A Star Sings), first published in Gedichte (1923) and reprinted in Hans Carossa and Eva Kampmann-Carossa, Gedichte: Die Veriiffentlichungen zu Lebzeiten und Gedichte aus dem Nachlass (Frankfurt: Insel, 1995) 64-65. SB writes the standard form, "verkiimmere," whereas the poem uses the contracted form, "verkiimmre. "
10 It is not known which anthology Ussher had - presumably - mentioned in his letter.
11 While Cecil Salkeld may have had a position as an Inspector, this has not been confirmed. Will Grohmann was familiar with Salkeld's work (see 16 February 1937, n. 14).
12 Arland Ussher's first wife was Emily (nee Whitehead, c. 1898-1974), his father was Beverley Grant Ussher (1867-1956), and his daughter is Henrietta Owen Ussher Staples (b. 1926).
"Gehorsamst" (most obediently).
476
30 March 1937, Albrecht
GUNTER ALBRECHT HAMBURG
30/3/37 Miinchen Pension Romana
Akademiestrasse
Dear Gunter Albrecht
Very many thanks indeed for your letters and the Fontane,
which I neither possess nor have read. I am sorry you have had
such trouble in getting in touch with me. Three weeks ago I left
instructions with the Postlagernd to send on everything here.
Perhaps it is their duty to get tired after a fortnight, when the
1
Germany. I am tired and can see nothing more, all the surfaces remain surfaces and that is terrible. I had meant to go on by Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Strassburg, Kolmar, Karslruhe [for Karlsruhe], Frankfurt, Berlin again and home from there, and as I write the names I curse the small capacity that excludes the possibility, temporarily at least, oftheir being anything more than names. I fly from here next Friday morning, straight to London, where I shall stay probably a week before going on to Dublin.
It was a strange zigzag from Berlin: Halle (to see the
Moritzburg pictures), a Buhnenbildner in love with Mexico
where he met Traven and the Weise Collection, (mostly
Kirchners), Erfurt (chiefly to see the Heckel frescos which are
not particularly good), Weimar, Naumburg, Leipzig (where even
the colossal Klinger Exhibition and a concert in the Gewandhaus
could not console me), and from there with relief straight to
2
instructions are not renewed.
I write to you almost on the eve of my departure from
Dresden. I was content there for three weeks. I met a lot of
477
30 March 1937, Albrecht
friendly and intelligent people, including a whole colony of Russians, blue with blood and privations taken good-humour edly. Biely and vodka go well together I found. Also the dancer Palucca and a charming art historian now duly in deep disgrace but also good-humoured, too interested in the phenomenon to think of exile, Will Grohmann, with to his credit books on and catalogues of Klee and Kandinsky and Baumeister and others. 3 Through him I was enabled to visit the Ida Bienert collection, which must be one of the best modem collections in Germany, practically everything from Cezanne to Mo[n]drian except the Briicke, which is not represented at all: the best Kandinsky I have seen, quantities of Klee and three lovely Picassos. And a portrait by Kokoschka of a woman I used to know in Paris years ago! 4
As you say the pictures in the Zwinger are vilely hung
and lit. The Rembrandt room, Director Posse's pride and
joy, is a scandal. The Vermeer Kupplerin, cowering between a
Rembrandt old man and a Bal philosopher and beneath some
thing enormous and dirty by I think Eeckhout, was literally
invisible. I saw it for the first time the day I left in the full light
of one of the end rooms, where a copyist had contrived to have it
5
left leg destroyed by some damn 19th century restorer in the
service of a taste offended by the putto with the bird, now
painted over with senseless landscape. I saw the X-Ray photo
6
Flemish or Italian primitives) it remains a splendid collection. I never saw a better Antonello than the St. Sebastian. 7
The Zwinger itself, in spite of the here and there very irres olute restoration, has still enough ofwhat Poppelmann meant it
478
temporarilytransferred. TheGiorgioneisinamess,thewhole
graph, which however doesn't show very much.
But in spite of the wretched presentation and the gaps (no
to have to give one the essence and the melancholy of barock. There are sad passages, the arcades leading up to the entrance on the garden side. I felt the Kronentor was wrong, too high and florid, an over-statement. But it was so from the beginning, according to Bellotto, whom I refuse to call Canaletto. 8
I made a few halfhearted excursions, in spite of the weather, to Meissen, where some of the Dome [for Dom] statues are probably by the Naumburg Master, and to Pillnitz, where the core on the water is lovely. 9
I saw more whores in Dresden, whores ofthe old school, any evening I felt so inclined, than in all the months since October and all the places since Hamburg put together. Sachsischer Stiitzwechsel! 10
From Dresden it went on by Freiberg, Bamberg, Wiirzburg, Niirnberg, and Regensburg. Niirnberg was so horrible, as I more or less expected, that I extended my resentments even to the Great Period and found good reasons, mostly connected with the expulsion of the Jews in 1499 (they didn't get back for nearly 4 centuries) and the Wittenberg catastrophe of 1517, for impugning the value of Stoss and Kraft and Pleydenwurff and Vischer and Wohlgemut [for Wolgemut] and even the great AD himself. The Diirer room in the Germanisches Museum is another scandal, the portrait of Wohlgemut eked out with the dreariest of workshop Kitsch and a copy of the Apostles! 11
I am too close to Miinchen to say anything more definite than that I infinitely prefer Hamburg or Berlin. Perhaps it is the Fohn! I spend most of my time needless to say in the Alte Pinakothek, which I now know so well that I can walk through the entire collection without having to pass a Rubens! 12 I haven't made any of the prescribed excursions, Garmisch, Mittenwald,
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30 March 1937, Albrecht
30 March 1937, Albrecht
Konigsschlosser, etc. , and shall not, in spite ofan Alpine sportive
compositor picked up in the Hotbrauhaus who assured me that
there were as many Masters of the Death of the Virgin as there
13
I exchanged a few politenesses with a girl in Severing's
bookshop who knew you and Kaun in Leipzig. You were "der
grosse Schwarze" in her phraseology. I shall have the pleasure
there in an hour's time of being introduced to Alverdes, whose
Kleine Reise I began but did not go on with. 14 I have been reading
a lot of Carossa, Geheimnisse, Gion and Fiihrung, kindly lent
by Kaun, and find it, to ne [for be] quite frank, bloody awful in
the end, the complete flight into style. I met yet another friend
of Rilke, every second person of a certain degree of culture in
German seems to have been a friend of Rilke, a conservator
in the Bavarian Nat. Museum, who assured me that Rilke linked
15
were Masters and Dead Virgins, but only one Zugspitz[e].
up with Proust in his "decentralisation of the soul".
I also met
the actor Eggers-Kestner, whom you may remember from the
time he was in Hamburg. He has a lovely picture by Ballmer,
Kluths and Ruhwohlds [for Ruwoldts] and the politest of polite
Hartmann watercolours. He gave me Ballmer's Aber Herr
Heidigger [for Heidegger]! to read and a MS Deutschtum u.
Christentum in the same direction but too Steinerisch for the
16
nicht, ich will nicht".
I saw that Munich legend Valentin and found him a come
dian of the very first order but perhaps just beginning his
18
think you have already: 6 Clare Street, Dublin, l. F. S. Let us keep in touch with one another. In the very throes of labour camp and military service you will have plenty to get off your chest
480
non-initiate.
drawings but the reply, in a very terrified tone, was "lch will
I have just rung up Piper to try and get the Barlach
17
decline.
The rest I leave over for another letter. My home address I
and - I hope - leisure to do it. I was very glad to hear your painter friend had had some success. Remember me to him. I hear
19
Yours ever
s/ Sam Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf,2 sides; BIF,UoR,MS 5037.
1 On28March,SBreceivedEffiBriest(1894)byGermanpoetandnovelistTheodor Fontane (1819-1898) (BIF,UoR,GD 6/f. 55).
"Postlagernd" (paste restante).
2 In this letter SB summarizes his experiences in Germany since leaving Berlin: rather than repeat information,the notes supply cross-references.
"Lebensstufen" ("Stages of Life"),Erich Heckel's fresco on the four walls of a room in the Anger Museum,Erfurt,was painted in 1922-1924. SB admired the figure of the German poet Stefan George (1868-1933) surrounded by members of his circle,but observed that the fresco was crowded with iconography and was not in good repair (BIF,UoR,GD 4/f. 27,24 January 1937; see also Mechthild Lucke,Erich Heckel,and Andreas Huneke, Erich Heckel, Lebensstufen: die Wandbilder im Angermuseum zu Eijurt [Dresden: Verlag der Kunst,19921). Later in 1937,and through the war,the entrance to the Heckel room was blocked offto hide it from the Nazis; as a result,the fresco suffered damage from prolonged damp and cold,but it is now on view in the Anger Museum,having undergone restoration.
The Max Klinger Exhibition in Leipzig: SB to Thomas McGreevy,30 January 1937,n. 1; the concert in the Gewandhaus on 28 January in Leipzig: SB to Thomas McGreevy,16 February 1937,n. 13.
3 The colony of Russians in Dresden,especially the Obolensky and von Gersdorff families: 16 February 1937; for the lecture on Bely: 23 February 1937.
Through Heinz Porep, SB met the German dancer and choreographer Gret Palucca (1902-1993),formerly married to Ida Bienert's son Fritz Bienert (1891-1969). Palucca introduced SB to the art historian Will Grohmann. Grohmann's writings: 16 February 1937,n. 14.
4 SB's visit to Ida Bienert's collection is discussed in 16 February 1937. Bienert purchased many of Kandinsky's works directly from the artist (Grohmann's catalogue of her collection is comprehensive only through 1933: Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, 21, fig. 36, 36-42; later acquisitions as well as the current ownership of Kandinsky works in her collection can be found in Hans K. Roethel and Jean K. Benjamin,Kandinsky, Catalogue Raisonne ofthe Oil Paintings, 2 vols. [Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press,1982-1984] I,346,476; II,672,851; and watercolors can be found in Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky Watercolours: Catalogue Raisonne, II [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1994] 150,156,280,337,373).
There were thirty-nine paintings by Paul Klee in the Bienert Collection (Grohmann, ed. ,Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, 21-22,figs. 43-59). Picasso paintings in her
481
Grimm is married.
Kindest regards to your family.
30 March 1937, Albrecht
30 March 1937, Albrecht
collection were Woman with Hat, Waltz, and the gouache on paper The Seamstress (23-24, figs. 7-9).
Bienert also then owned the portrait of Nancy Cunard, Englanderin, painted by Kokoschka in 1924: see 16 February 1937, n. 15.
5 TheZwingerMuseuminDresdenanditsDirectorHansPosse:16February1937, n. 2 and n. 11.
Vermeer's Kupplerin (The Procuress) and its hanging in the Rembrandt Hall of the Zwinger are described in 16 February 1937, n. 8 and n. 9; it was hung between paintings by Rembrandt and Salomon Koninck and under a painting by Ferdinand Bo! , not Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-1674).
SB's last visit to the museum was on 17 February:
See it, in the good light, really for first time, the man on left clearly, and the lurid evening sky through space between him & [? woman], that does not function in the Rembrandt room, & that flattens & defines the key of the whole picture, gives it substance & immediacy, an immediacy of the everlasting transitory, situates it in eternity. Without it the picture was [. . . ] adrift, overcrowded, overheated, only excellent genre. With it it is Vermeer. (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 5, 17 February 1937, Nixon and Knowlson transcription)
6 Giorgione'sVenusintheZwingercollection:16February1937,n. 4.
7 SBreferstoAntonellodaMessina'spaintingTheMartyrdomofSt. Sebastian;acard of this image was sent to McGreevy on 2 February 1937, and SB describes it further in 16 February 1937 (see also n. 7 to that letter).
8 SB'sdiscussionofthearchitectureandrestorationoftheZwinger:16February 1937, n. 2. The Kronentor, the tower that crowns the main entrance of the Zwinger Palace, is depicted in The Zwinger Palace in Dresden by Italian painter Bernardo Bellotto (NPG, 629; see bildarchiv. skd-dresden. de/). Bellotto adopted Canaletto as his name outside of Italy, but SB recognizes this as the name of his uncle and master Canaletto (ne Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768).
9 On12February,SBwenttoMeissen. Thesculpturesinthechoirandcomersofthe mid-Gothic Dom in Meissen (c. 1260-1280) are ascribed to the thirteenth-century Naumburg Master; they are larger than life-size, but less naturalistic than his sculptures in Naumburg (Hans-Joachim Mrusek, Drei sachsische Kathedralen: Merseburg, Naumburg, Meissen [Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1976] 370).
On 16 February, SB went to Pillnitz; he describes the town which is dominated by the Schloss Pillnitz designed by Matthaus Poppelmann with steps down to terraces, and from there to the edge of the Elbe River.
10 "Sachsischer Stiitzwechsel" (Saxon support system); SB compares the prosti tutes lined up along the street to "Stiitzenwechsel," a pattern typical of Romanesque architecture in Saxony that alternates styles of piers or columns; he has noted this term in his German diary when describing the Dom in Hildesheim.
11 FreiberginSaxony. SB'sdiscussionofNuremberg:7March1937.
12 The "Fohn" (warm, dry wind from the Alps) is often thought to be a cause of illness or nervousness, called F6hnkrankheit (Fohn-sickness).
482
30 March 1937, Albrecht
The sixty-four paintings by Rubens in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich in 1936 were hung in Rooms V and VI, and in Cabinets XII and XIV; the rooms were located off a loggia, and the Cabinets were entered through the rooms (Karl Baedeker, Das Deutsche Reich und einige Grenzgebiete, Reisehand! ruch fiir Bahn und Auto [Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1936] 472).
13 SBdidnottaketypicalexcursionsfromMunich:Garmisch-Partenkirchen(where the 1936 winter Olympics had been held) and Mittenwald in the Bavarian Alps, and Kiinigsschliisser, the castle of King Ludwig II (1845-1886) near Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. SB mentions the Hofbrauhaus, the compositor, the Masters ofDead Virgins, and the Zugspitze in his letter of25 March 1937.
14 SBvisitedSevering'sbookshopinMunichatthesuggestionofPorep'sfriend, the dentist Dr. Richard Zarnitz. Axel Kaun: 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 10.
"Der grosse Schwarze" (the big dark one).
SB met German writer and editor Paul Alverdes (1897-1979) at the bookstore on this day; SB began Kleine Reise: Aus einem Tage! ruch (1933; Small Journey: From a Journal). Alverdes is best known for his novel Die f'. feiferstube (1929; The Whistler) which he discussed with SB (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 63).
15 Axel Kaun had lent SB Hans Caressa's Geheimnisse des reifen Lebens: aus den Aufzeichungen Angermanns (1936; Secrets of the Mature Life: From the Notations of Angermann), Der Arzt Gion (1931; Doctor Gion), and Fiihrung und Geleit, ein Lebensgedenkbuch (1933; Guidance and Companionship: A Life Memoir).
SB refers to Hans Rupe (see 25 March 1937, n. 12). In his diary, SB recorded his discussion with Rupe about Rilke and Proust (BIF, UoR, GD 6/f. 77).
16 The art collection ofKurt Eggers-Kestner included a painting ofthe children of Eggers-Kestner by Ballmer (see 25 March 1937, n. 12), several works by Kluth including a portrait of Barlach, and unidentified watercolors by Hartmann. SB had met artist Hans Martin Ruwoldt through Grimm (see 28 November 1937 [for 1936], n. 15, and Beckett, Alles kommt aufso vie! an, 50-51).
Karl Ballmer, Aber Herr Heidegger! Zur Frei! rurger Rektoratsrede Martin Heideggers (Basel: Verlag von Rudolf Geering, 1933; But Mr. Heidegger! Concerning Martin Heidegger's Freiburg Inaugural Address as Rector).
