No More Learning

The terms "float" and "suttle," relative to their use in the film industry of the 1930s, have not been defined.
10 Axel Kaun• (1912-1983) had just begun to work for Rowohlt-Verlag; SB was introduced to Kaun byGunter Albrecht, whom he had met in Hamburg. The film comedian Josef Eichheim (1888-1945) was also staying at the Pension Kempt with SB; the owner of the Pension, Willy Kempt (n. d. ), and SB went with Eichheim to see two films in which Eichheim had major roles: Der lachende Dtitte (1936; The Chuckling Third) and Der Jiiger von Fall (1936; The Hunter of Fall) (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 232).
11 MaryManningHowe'sjokeaboutW. B. Yeatsisnotknown.
12 The Blind Goddess, a play byGerman expressionist Ernst Toller (1893-1939), was freely adapted by Denis Johnston as Blind Man's Bluff; it opened on 26 December 1936 at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. The reviewer in The Irish Times noted: "Only a very little of the original remains; little more than the theme, something of the plot, and a little of the dialogue" ("Blind Man's Bluff," 28 December 1936: 8).
13 ThomasMann(1875-1955)emigratedtoSwitzerlandin1933,andtotheUnited States in 1938; his brother Heinrich Mann emigrated to France in 1933 and to the United States in 1940. Thomas Mann, his wife, and his children, were stripped of their German citizenship on 3 December 1936 (" 93 Germans Deprived of Nationality: Thomas Mann and His Family Penalized," The Times 4 December 1936: 15; for further details: Nigel Hamilton, The Brothers Mann: The Lives of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1871-1950 and 1875-1955 ! London: Secker and Warburg, 1978] 263-269).
14 "WritetoFoxrockyourself,"i. e. toMayBeckett. Mary Manning Howe was pregnant.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
18/1/37 Berlin W. 50 beiKempt
Budapesterstrasse 45
Dear Tom
Sorry to hear the reproduction arrived in such bad order.
The hunched pose troubled me too the first time I saw, but
1
soon it begins to belong with the face.
426
I talked to the elderly
Jewish art-historian whose acquaintance I made in Hamburg,
who schwarms madly for Schmidt-Rottluff, she was here for
Xmas, about the picture. She poohpoohed & much preferred
the Giorgione here, "an early lyrical work - but then it was an
essentially lyrical talent. " If she went in for spit[t]oons in her
Hamburg home, they would be designed by Schmidt­
Rottluff. The metaphysical alone can claim her interest, and
2
in Brunswick is the Rembrandt family-picture. Signorelli is
2nd class - beside Piero della Francesca. To talk of a tragic in
Brouwer is to talk nonsense, he was a talented Taugenichts &
no more. 3 We disagreed with each other all evening, in a room
with Heckels, Kirchners, wretched Kolbes and frail faces traced
by Rottluff on pebbles polished by the sea, her voice crack­
ling as a whole group of German voices crackles, raining
4
all here. Nolde, Rottluff, Heckel, etc. , de la part de Frau
Sauerlandt, widow of the late director of the Museum in
Hamburg, who wrote a poor book on Nolde and called it Art
of the past 30 Years, to whom Fry dedicated his Art Now, mais
5
putupons in their fastnesses, and I can't say yessir and nosir
any more. So I have lived all the time alone, except for the
acquaintance in the last few days of a young bookseller's
improver who has just been taken on by the publisher
Ruhwoldt [for Rowohlt), who does Hackett, Fleming, Wolfle)
and Romains. Fleming is here with a large propaganda aero­
plane at his disposal, & Wolfle] comes to Berlin as others to
6
18January 1937, McGreevy
the metaphysical is always soulful. All she cares for
down curses on the govemment. I could have visited them
je n'en ai rien fait. They are all great proud angry poor
Sometimes in the evening I go out and drink beer with my host and a film comdedian [for comedian] at the height of his popularity. Strangers pause at
427
the peace of the countryside.
18 January 1937, McGreevy
our table and say to him, where have we seen your face, which
7
to leave Berlin for Dresden last Wednesday but a lump came
between wind & water. They often come there and go away
soon with a little discharge, but this one got bigger and bigger
till only two endurable positions remained, both fully recum­
bent. But I had appointments with the bookseller, on the eve of
his departure for the Riesengebirge, and then finally day before
yesterday, when the thing was at its worst, with the bookseller
8
pleases him & Kempt also.
The last week has been the worst for a long time. I meant
from Hamburg, on his way through to join the other.
He was
to have left here at 8, but missed the train by half a minute, so
I had him from 4 in the afternoon till after midnight. May it be
a long time before I have another 12 such hours. [. . . ] I am very
tired and only want to go home and lie down, but I feel I shan't
be in Germany again after this trip. Travelling as I do, with
the living wage of charity corning through regular every
month, and the aversion to human beings hardening with
every outing, I shall never learn what to do with my tither of
life. But not a word, all roads of comminucation [for communi­
cation], the boreens also, lead to Mrs. Susan Manning, and from
9
I am glad you liked Cascando, the last echo of feeling. 10
The Pergamum altar is impressive barock, not at all
II
predella to the London Madonna, and a separate picture of a
woman lying in receiving visitors. I2 Wonderful Signorellis espe­
cially the big Pan as God of Nature and Master of Music, with
13
her to mother.
beautiful.
The Kaiser Friedrich is terrific. An exquisite Masaccio
a shepherd very like the El Greco son of Laocoon in London. The two del Sartos are the best I have seen, one a portrait of the
428
del Fede. 14 Practically a repetition of the Savoldo Magdalene in London, the same lovely pearl-yellow cloak and hastening
15
A Butinone Pieta that bears out the
18January 1937, McGreevy
Roomfuls of Botticellis and Bellinis, including a wonderful Pieta given to
16
figure, only called here Venetian Woman.
oldJacopo, very Paduan.
little picture in London, Turas, Crivellis, Vivarinis, Ercole de'
Robertis, rather unassuming Mantegnas and a prodigious
17
Carpaccio Entombment.
The usual acres of Titain [for Titian]
at his best, ifyou like that kind ofthing, I haven't been able to
look at him for very long this trip. The Rembrandts and Halses
18
6 or 7 Brouwers in the dark comer that is always reserved
for him, with the first landscapes that have seemed to me to
belong to his spirit. The famous Moon Landscape, that belonged
to Rubens, is of course denied me, having been sent to Paris
19
The two Vermeers and
must be the best outside Holland, ifyou like that kind ofthing.
Very good Terborchs, including a surprising loose bright free courtyard
20
for the Rembrandt & Contemporaries exhibition.
scene, say the Terborch Kupplerin.
De Hooch looking very trivial & Ma[e]s beside them. And
Elsheimers, "pictures" and miniatures and a lovely drawing on
loan from the Louvre, water, night, wood, glades, moon and a
21
tiny fire being kindled on the shore.
Of the 2 Velasquez the
Musicians do not matter very much, and the Countess Olivares
doesn't seem to belong to him at all. It was formerly given to del
22
Mazo, and doesn't seem good enough for del Mazo.
collection is amazing, a roomful of Van Eyck, 3 Flemalle, 3 Hugo van der Goes, 6 van der Weyden, a lovely GeertgenJohn Baptist sitting very gloomy in a landscape. They are all there, except Campin, unless Flemalle is Campin, or Roger v. d. W. 23 There is a Provost adoration that you would like, & Marmion, Foucquet & Daret. The Mabuses are sublime, there is one big bevelled penis,
429
The Flemish
18 January 1937, McGreevy
I forget whether Adam's or Neptune's, like the lady in Tambur­ laine naked in a net ofgold, soigne like a glass or curl oflemon­
rind by Kalf or Heda. 24 The Brueghel (for Bruegel] Proverbs are worthy to be sent to Sir Robert Tate, with key. What happy hours he would spend. But a gallery is not the names in its catalogue and perhaps it would have been better simply to say that I shall leave Berlin clearer in my impatience with the immensely com­ petent bullies and browbeaters and highwaymen and naggers, the Rembrandts & Halses and Titians and Rubenses, the Tarquins ofart. 25 Or is it a pettiness to move away from the art that takes me by the scruff ofthe neck?
Talking about the Tarquins, I was at a Beethoven concert of
the Berlin Symphonic under Eugen Jochum, Leonore, a late
middle piano concerto and the Pastoral. Jochum is the kind of
conductor that one feels must have begun on a bus or a tram.
Furtwangler has spent the whole season in retirement. The horn
passage in the Leonore was as I have always imagined and never
heard it, innaccessibly [sic] distant, sylvan and autumn dusk,
and also as I have never heard it the chum passage for strings,
love's epilepsy. The concerto was pretty and tiresome, rather
like the Fliihlings violin sonata, played by the soloist with a
perspiring stiff-wristed powerlessness that was terrible. And
the Pastorale more irrefragably than ever an insult to the ear
26
and what he calls the "skating, skiing and skiting" and left after a few days. He saw Alan & Belinda in Paris on the way back, Alan
27
and understanding.
I had a long letter from Frank. He couldn't stand Mtirren
as usual halftight which seems to be the best he can do. soon as he got home he went to bed with flu and is only just up again. He went straight through London, otherwise would have looked you up.
430
As
I am glad you are more easy in Harrington Road. I did not feel Black Cottage or whatever it was called was the place for you. Are you still on the Heinemann translation? Or have you been able to take up the Yeats again? 28 I had a very nice letter from him for Xmas, with a gay sad pen & crayon drawing of the west from O'Connell Bridge and fantasies about skating on the rollers of the brain. Charles wrote from Greenock just setting out for Florence. 29
I also find it difficult to keep up with Murphy. From time to
time I get nebulosities from Reavey. The book seems to be now
under consideration by Dent for whom it was read by Richard
Church who at the point of one of Reavey's lunches declared
himself "greatly impressed" . . Reavey invites me to contribute
30
I managed to get in Potsdam just before this plague came on me, in a bright cold weather. Sanssouci is exquisite. It has nothing at all to do with Versailles, it is a big summerhouse and truly an architecture without care. 31 The terraces are rather too heavy for the palace and one is disconcerted at first by the facing all the way up and along of vine frames, but only at first. 32 The shallow green dome not so much rising from the gently bayed centre as resting on it is to a hair the mock heroic that is fitting and with the long low yellow front the chord of just the right interval. And the caryatids are all laughing, pretending to be bowed down. 33 I could not keep away from it, keep (sic] coming back to look at it again from all over the gardens, and was very sad to leave it, feeling that I would not see it again. I went through the rooms, which are very beautiful, but it was painful to be allowed only a glimpse of the countless Watteaus that are there. Voltaire's room is altogether charming and comic, complete
431
18January 1937, McGreevy
to the review he is starting, but presumably he does not pay. And I have nothing I like well enough to give away.
18 January 1937, McGreevy
Princesse de Babylone, with fantastic birds and flowers all over the walls and ceiling and La Fontaine on the chair covers, and yet
34
somehow full of exile and loneliness.
The picture gallery was
an eyeopener; school of Rubens and van der Werff! Practically
nothing else. Nowhere else in the world can there be so many
van der Werffs gathered together in one place. Real pornogra­
35
I saw Maria Stuart and Hebbel's Gyges with Werner Krauss
in the Schauspielhaus. The Schiller remains alive till the last
act without betraying the secret of how it contrives to do so. The
Hebbel is superbly written, full of tense intellectual poetry,
but even Krauss could only put it across here and there. He is
a very great actor. Hebbel is [in] the dramatist pigeonhole, but
36
film-actor who came back highly delighted.
I still hope to have a look at Weimar, Naumburg & Leipzig
on the way to Dresden, but if this thing holds me up much longer I shan't be able to. I don't know when I shall be in London, hardly before May, unless my remaining strength gives out earlier than I have calculated. I shall try and save up to fly home, I can't bear the thought of trains and boats and customs and the case extirpating my arms.
All being well I shall be able to give you an address in Dresden within a fortnight.
Love ever s/ Sam
TLS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/113.
1 SB sent McGreevy a reproduction of Giorgione's Self-portrait as David from the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick; see 22 December 1936, n. 2.
432
phy, that would make Fragonard look like Fra Angelico.
it is as a poet that he counts.
Opera but was not well enough to go. I gave the ticket to the
37
I had booked for Martha(! ) in the
18January 1937, McGreevy
2 SB talked about the Giorgione painting in Brunswick with Dr. Rosa Schapire, having met her in Berlin on 21 December 1936; her collection is described in 14 November 1936, n. 6. She preferred Giorgione's Portrait of Young Man (Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, 12A).
3 Rembrandt, Family Group (1638, Anton Ulrich Herzog Museum, Brunswick, GG 238).
Italian painters Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523) and Piero della Francesca (1420-1492). "Taugenichts" (good-for-nothing).
4 The works by Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner, and German sculptor Georg Kolbe (1877-1947), as well as the stones etched by Karl Schmidt-Ruttloff, were in Schmidt­ Rottluff's flat in Berlin, which Rosa Schapire used while the painter and his wife were out of town (Mark Nixon, 7 May 2006).
5 "Delapartde"(literally,onbehalfof;here,thanksto). AliceSauerlandt'sintro­ ductions: 28 November 1936, n. 14; Sauerlandt and his work: 28 November 1936, n. 10. Herbert Read, not the English art critic Roger Fry (1866-1934), was the author of Art Now; Read's dedication: "To Max Sauerlandt in admiration of his knowledge of the art of all ages and in recognition of his devotion to the cause of modem art" (Art Now: An Introduction to the Theory ofModern Painting and Sculpture [New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Co. , 1933] n. p. ).
"Mais je n'en ai rien fait" (but I did nothing about it).
6 SB's first meeting with Axel Kaun was on 11 January (Tophoven, Becketts Berlin, 119-120; BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 1).
Rowohlt published German translations of Henry the Eighth (1929; Heinrich der Achte) and Francis the First (1935; Franz der Erste) by Irish writer Francis Hackett, and Brazilian Adventure (1933; Brasilianisches Abenteuer), One's Company (1934; Mit mir allein). and News from Tartary (1936; Tataren Nachrichten) by English writer Peter
Fleming (1907-1971). The last was published serially in the Frankfurter Zeitung, and Fleming was on "a ten-day lecture tour. . . hopping from place to place by air" in early 1937 (Duff Hart-Davis, Peter Fleming: A Biography [London: Jonathan Cape, 1974] 198).
Rowohlt also published translations of Look Homeward, Angel (1929; Schau heimwiirts, Engel! ) and Of Time and the River (1935; Von Zeit und Strom) by American author Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938). Wolfe frequently visited Germany (Thomas Wolfe, The Letters of Thomas Wolfe, ed. Elizabeth Nowell [New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1961[ 442; Elizabeth Nowell, Thomas Wolfe: A Biography [Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co. , 1960] 271-277, 325; David Herbert Donald. Look Homeward: A Life ofThomas Wolfe [Boston: Little, Brown and Co. , 1987] 319-326).
Rowohlt was also the publisher of a translation of Le Dieu des corps (1928; Der Gott des Fleisches) and the first six volumes in the novel cycle by Jules Romains, Les Hammes de bonne volonte (from 1932; Die guten Willens sind).
7 Kempt and the actor Josef Eichheim: 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 10.
8 SB refers to Axel Kaun, who was on his way to the Riesengebirge, a sub-Alpine mountain range on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and to Kaun's friend Gunter Albrecht.
433
18 January 1937, McGreevy
9 Susan Manning, mother ofMary Manning Howe and close friend ofMay Beckett.
10 SBreferstohispoem"Cascando. "DublinMagazine,3-4.
11 ThePergamonaltarofZeusandAthena(c. 175BC),a40-foot-tallwhitemarble Hellenistic temple, was taken from its original location in Pergamon (now Turkey) and installed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 1871. Around its base are relief sculptures of battles between the Gods and the Titans; their dramatic gestures and high degree of contour led scholars to describe them as "baroque. "
12 Issues ofprovenance are complicated by the circumstances ofpolitical doctrine, war, and occupation. Nearly 400 works in the collections of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1936 were destroyed during World War II. Further, in the post-war division of the city, the remaining collection was divided between the Berlin­ Dahlem Museum in the West and the Bode Museum in the East. In 1997 these collections were reunited in the Gemaldegalerie in the Kulturforum, Potsdamer Platz, and, from autumn 2006, the Bode Museum reopened with European art from late classical antiquity to 1800.
The Virgin and Child (NGL 3043) by Florentine painter Masaccio (ne Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, 1401-1428) in the National Gallery (London) was painted as the center of an altarpiece for the chapel of Saint Julian in Santa Maria de! Carmine, Pisa. Several panels of the predella of this altarpiece are in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum: The Adoration of the King (58A); The Crucifixion of St. Peter / The Decollation of the Baptist (58B); St. Julian Killing his Parents / St. Nicholas Dowering the Three Daughters (58E) (Henning Bock, Irene Geismeier, Rainald Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis [Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 19961463).
The Lying-in of a Noble Florentine Woman (also known as Birth Scene, SBC) is now thought to be by the younger brother of Masaccio, Giovanni di Ser (1406-1486) (Keith Christiansen, "Some Observations on the Brancacci Frescoes after their Cleaning," Burlington Magazine 133. 1054 Uanuary 19911 15; Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 464).
13 Signorelli'sPanasGodofNatureandasMasterofMusic(alsoknownasCourtofPanand The Education ofPan, KF 79A) was destroyed in 1945; it is reproduced in Tom Henry and Laurence Kanter, Luca Signorelli: The Complete Paintings (New York: Rizzoli, 2002) 172-173.
El Greco's Laocoon and His Sons was on loan to the National Gallery, London, from May 1934 to December 1935; it is now in the collection of the National Gallery, Washington, DC (NGW 1946. 18. 1) Uonathan Brown and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue [Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990164).
14 ThepaintingsbyAndreade! Sarto(alsoAndread'Agnolo,1486-1530)arePortrait of a Young Woman (KF 240, considered to be a portrait of de! Sarto's wife Lucrezia de! Fede) and Mary with the Child (KF 246).
15 The painting in the Kaiser Friedrich collection by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (also Giovan Gerolamo, fl. 1506-1548) is Venetian Woman (also known as St. Mary Magdalene, KF 307); it lacks the iconic alabaster vase of ointment that is in his painting Mary Magdalene (NGL 1031) in London's National Gallery.
The Berlin painting presents a
434
18January 1937, McGreevy
three-quarter figure, whereas the London painting depicts a one-half figure; the dates ascribed to the paintings range from 1527 to 1540.
16 TherewereeightpaintingsintheKaiserFriedrichMuseumbyBotticelliandhis school; there were seventeen by Giovanni Bellini (c. 1431-1516), his school and work­ shop, his brother Gentile Bellini (1429-1507), and his father Jacopo Bellini (1400-c. 1471). The Lamentation of Christ (KF 1678) ascribed to Jacopo Bellini was destroyed in 1945.
17 SB compares the Lamentation of Christ (KF 1144) by Bernardino Butinone (c. 1450-1510) to Butinone's Nativity (NGL 3336) in the National Gallery, London; the latter is an attribution that had been disputed prior to 1929 Uacqueline McCamish, 24 May 1995).
SB mentions Cosimo Tura (c. 1430-1495), of the Ferrarese School; Venetian painter Carlo Crivelli (1430-1495); the Venetian family of painters Antonio Vivarini (1418-1476), Bartolomeo Vivarini (c. 1440 - after 1500), and Antonio's son, Alvise Vivarini (c. 1442 - c. 1505; and Ercole de Roberti (c. 1455-1496), who was active in Ferrara and Bologna.
The Mantegna paintings in the collection were Portrait ofLudovico Cardinal Mezzarota (KF 9), The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (KF 29), and Madonna with Sleeping Child (KFS. 5).
SB refers to the Burial of Christ (KF 23A) by Italian artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460-1525).
18 ForpaintingsintheKaiserFriedrichcollectionbyTitian,Rembrandt,andFranz and Dirck Hals: Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemaldegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 120; 101-102; 58-59.
19 Adriaen Brouwer's Dune Landscape in Moonlight (KF 853B), once owned by Rembrandt, was on loan for the Paris exhibition La Peinture flamande: Rubens et son temps at the Musee de l'Orangerie (November-December 1936) (Charles Sterling, La Peinturejlamande: Rubens et son temps [Paris: Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, 1936] n. p. ).
20 There were eleven paintings by Gerard ter Barch the younger in the collection of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum; SB mentions The Knife Grinder's Family (KF 793), which depicts a brightly lit workman's yard. SB compares it to the painting by Jan Vermeer van Delft (1632-1675), The Procuress (also Die Kupplerin, RPG 1335).
21 Vermeer's two paintings in the Berlin collection are The Pearl Necklace (KF 912B) and The Glass of Wine (KF 912C). There were five paintings by Pieter de Hooch in the collection (see Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemaldegalerie Berlin: Gesamt­ verzeichnis, 62). Two paintings by Dutch genre painter Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693) were in the collection: An Old Woman Peeling Apples (KF 819C) and Repudiation ofHagar (KF 819D, destroyed in 1945).
The gouache thatSB describes by Adam Elsheimer was on loan from the Louvre from November 1936: Evening Landscape (Louvre 18,658).
22 SB refers to The Three Musicians (KF 413F) and Portrait of a Woman (KF 413E) by Diego Velazquez; the subject of the portrait was debated, and in 1936 the Condesa de Olivares was given as one possibility; it is now identifed as Dona Leonora da Guzman, Condesa de Monterrey (Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. ,
435
18 January 1937, McGreevy
Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 123). Spanish painterJuan Bautista de! Mazo (c. 1613-1667) was the son-in-law of Diego Velazquez, and worked with him: this "has led to the attribution to him of several pictures not considered good enough for Velazquez'" (Peter Murray and Linda Murray, eds. , Penguin Dictionary ofArt and Artists [London: Penguin, 1993] 266).
23 The Flemish collection at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum included eleven paint­ ings by or after Jan van Eyck (1390-1441). The South Netherlandish painterRobert Campin (c. 1375-1444) is now accepted as the Master ofFlemalle; the three paintings by him in the Berlin collection are: Portrait of a Man (KF 537), Portrait of Robert de Masmines (KF 537A), and Madonna on a Bank of Roses (KF 1835); from his school, Christ on the Cross (KF 538A) and The Adoration ofthe King (KF 538).
The three paintings by Hugo van der Goes (1440-1482) are Lamentation of Christ (KF 1622), Adoration of the King (KF 1718), and Adoration of the Herdsmen (KF 1622A).
Those byRogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) were the Bladelin Altar (also known as the Mittelburger Altar, KF 535), the Altar of Mary (also known as the Miraflores-Altar, KF 534A), the Altar of]ohn the Baptist (KF 534B), Portrait ofa Woman with Wimple (KF 545D), Saints Margaret and Apollonia (534C). and Charles the Bold, Duke ofBurgundy (KF 545, now given to the Workshop ofRogier van der Weyden).
John the Baptist in the Wilderness (KF 1631) by Geertgen Tot SintJans depicts a meadow landscape.
24 SBreferstoAdorationoftheMagi(HK551B)bySouthNetherlandishpainterJan Provost (1465-1529). In Berlin, the work of illuminator and painter Simon Mannion (c. 1425-1489) consists of wings from the Altarpiece ofSt. Omer showing the life of St. Bertin (KF 1645 and KF 1645A). French painter Jean Fouquet (c. 1425 - c. 1478) was repre­ sented in the Berlin collection by Etienne Chevalier with Holy St. Stephen (KF 1617). Works by South Netherlandish painterJacques Daret (c. 1400-1466) in Berlin are two panels from the Altarpiece from the St. Vast Abbey in Arras: The Adoration of the Magi (KF 527) and The Visitation (KF 542).
SB refers to Neptune and Amphitrite (KF 648) by Mabuse. Zenocrate, consort of Tamburlaine, was wrapped in a sheet of gold when she died, but was not interred until the death ofTamburlaine (Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine II). "Soigne" (care­ fully worked) in the manner of the still life paintings of Dutch artists Willem Kalf (c. 1619-1693) and Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680), which often included glass objects and a spiral of lemon peel.
25 SBreferstoPieterBruegeltheeider'spaintingTheDutchProverbs(KF1720)which illustrated 100 proverbs; a key to the proverbs was exhibited with the painting. Professor Robert William Tate (1872-1952) was Public Orator of Trinity College Dublin from 1914 to 1952 andJunior Dean from 1919 to 1931 (a frank portrait of him can be found in McDowell and Webb, Trinity College Dublin 1592-1952: An Academic History, 400).
Tarquin refers, figuratively, to two legendary kings of the early Romans, Lucius Tarquinius Pricus (616-578 BC) and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 BC).
26 The 13January 1937 concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, with Eugen Jochum (1902-1987) as guest conductor and Eduard Erdmann (1896-1958) as piano soloist, was a Beethoven program that included the Leonora Overture no. 3, op. 72a; Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73 ("Emperor'"); and Symphony no. 6 in F major, op. 68 ("Pastoral"; SB uses the German spelling, "Pastorale'"). SB refers to the
436
trumpet calls in the second section of the Leonore Overture as the "horn passage. " In SB's German diary, he describes a passage that opens with the first violins joined in turn by the second violins, violas, and cellos; it may be this opening of the Presto movement that he calls the "churn passage" (see BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 9). SB compares the Piano Concerto to Beethoven's Violin Sonata in F major, op. 24, no. 5 ("Friihlings sonata").
Following the Wagner festival at Bayreuth in the summer of 1936, Furtwangler went into retirement until March 1937 (Schiinzeler, Furtwiingler, 79-80); see also SB to Morris Sinclair, 27 January 1924 [for 1934], n. 5.
27 FrankBecketthadgonetoMiirren,Switzerland,forhisChristmasholiday. Alan and Belinda Duncan.
28 McGreevy returned to London in December 1936, and was staying at 49 Harrington Road; in the autumn of 1936, he had lived in a cottage in Toppesfield, Essex (see 9 October 1936, n. 1). McGreevy translated Maillart, Oasis interdites: de Pekin au Cachemire (1937; Forbidden Journey: From Peking to Kashmir) for Heinemann. Prior to this, he had been working on his study of Jack B. Yeats.
29 The Jetter from Jack Yeats to SB has not been found. The Jetter from Charles Prentice to SB has not been found.
30 RichardChurch'sresponsetoMurphy:18January1937toMaryManningHowe, n. 2. Reavey's review did not materialize.
31 SanssouciinPotsdam,westofBerlin,wasthesummerhouseofKingFriedrichII (later known as Frederick the Great, 1712-1786), who commissioned Prussian architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753) to design it in 1744, based on his own sketches. Intended as a retreat, Sanssouci has only twelve rooms; SB compares the proportions and decorations with the massive scale of the Palais de Versailles.
32 Thepalaceisatthetopofaterracedhillside,calledthe"Weinberg";eachterrace is faced with grape arbors that can be enclosed by glass doors. SB's winter visit might have contributed to his first impression since the foliage did not then cover the architecture of the cascading terraces.
33 The single-story rococo palace is topped in the center by a shallow dome. The caryatids are decorative rather than structural.
34 TheinteriorofSanssouciwasaccessibleonlyonaguidedtour. Watteau'spaint­ ings in Sanssouci itself were Village Wedding (GK I 5603), Italian Recreation (GK I 5599). and Fair with Comedians (GK I 5602) in the Little Gallery; Watteau's Concert (GK I 5623) was hung in the Audience Room (Gerd Bartoscheck, Curator Bildergalerie, Park Sanssouci, 22 March 2006; Ettore Camesasca, The Complete Paintings of Watteau [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968] 90, 119, 108, 123, 126-127; Petra Wesch, with Rosemarie Heise-Schirdewan and Barbel Stranka, Sanssoud: The Summer Residence of Frederick the Great [Munich: Prestel. 2003] 36-37).
Voltaire had his own room at Sanssouci, with lacquered wood furniture uphol­ stered with embroidered scenes from the Fables of the French writer Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695); the delicate bird and flower decorations on the walls and ceilings were by Johann Michael Hoppenhaupt (1709-1769) and his brother, Johann Christian Hoppenhaupt (1719-1785). SB refers to Voltaire's La Princesse de
437
18January 1937, McGreevy
18 January 1937, McGreery
Babylone (1768; The Princess ofBabylon), a fantasy which takes place in the fortified city of Babylon ruled by King Belus.
35 TheGalleryisaseparatebuildingatSanssoucithathousestheextensivecollec­ tion of Friedrich II. For images of the paintings in the Gallery byRubens and by Dutch artist Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722): G6tzEckardt, Die Gemaide in der Bildergaletie von Sanssoud [Potsdam: Sanssouci, 19751).
In SB's sally, van der Werffs painting is pornographic enough to make Fragonard's work (often regarded as mildly pornographic) seem as innocent and pure as that of Florentine painter and illurninator Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni di Fiesole, fl. 1417-1455).
36 MariaStuart:9January1937,n. 1;Hebbel'sGyges:SBtoMaryManningHowe,18 January 1937, n. 8.
37 Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or the Fair at Richmond), an opera by Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883), was performed at the Staatsoper on 15 January 1937. SB gave his ticket to his landlord Kempt, who gave it to SB's fellow boarder, actor
JosefEichheim (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 11, 14January 1937).
THOMAS McGREEVY LON DON
25/1/37 Naumburg [no greeting]
They call these from his own hand but I don't see it. 3 heads
1
2
Very good modem pictures in Halle and Erfurt. Deep snow everywhere & a sterilizing cold. Met a grand stage decorator in
4
areshanghaiedinWindsor. IwasinWeimarfortheweek-end, in a pub in the Frauenplan. Only a short pause here to see the
Dom,whichisstupendous. GoingontoLeipzigthisafternoon.
3
love with Mexico, Traven & Darius Milhaud. next week from Dresden.
Loves
Shall write early
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; heads ofJudas and Peter on one panel andJohn on the other, "Residenzschloss Weimar; Grossherzog, Wohnraume"; to Thomas McGreevyEsq, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; pm illeg. , Naumburg; TCD, MS 10402/114.
438
25January 1937, McGreevy
1 IntheducalapartmentoftheResidenzschlossWeimarweredrawingsafterthe heads ofthe Apostles in The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519); SB compares the heads ofJudas, Peter, and John on this postcard to similar drawings in the large da Vinci collection in Windsor Castle.
According to records of the Residenzschloss, the drawings were copies made by Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815) in 1807; they were not described in the 1913 catalogue of the Ducal collection (Viola Geyersback, Klassik Stiftung, Weimar; Kate Trauman Steinitz, "The Leonardo Drawings at Weimar," Raccolta Vinciana 20 [1964] 342-344). The drawing of Peter and Judas (as well as that of Thomas and James the Greater from the series) is now in the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (77. 53. 1; 77. 53. 2); the drawing ofJohn that belongs to this series is in a private collection (Pietro C. Marani, n Genio e le passioni, Leonardo da Vinci e ii Cenacolo: precedenti, innovazioni, riflessi di un capolavoro [Milan: Skira, 2001] 196-197, fig. 60).
2 The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Naumburg Dom, dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Goethe lived at 1 Frauenplan for fifty years; the Goethe museum is located there today. SB stayed in the Weisser Schwan in Weimar on Frauentorstrasse, next to the Goethe Haus.
3 SB refers to the modem collection at the Moritzburg Museum in Halle, where he had to sign what was called the "'extra' visitor's book" on 23 January 1937, in order to view the "Schreckenskamrner" (chamber of horrors), paintings that had been segregated from the collection (Wolfgang Bucke, Curator of Painting, Staatliche Galerie Morizburg, Halle, 22 February 1993). In his diary SB lists details ofthe paintings by Heckel, Paul Klee (1879-1940), Millier, Schmidt-Rottloff, Marc, Kokoschka, Nolde, Kirchner, the Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and Lyonel Feininger, including a series of views of Halle (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 23, 23 January 1937; for images and provenance: Andreas Huneke, Die faschistische Aktion "Entartete Kunst" 1937 in Halle, Schriftenreihe zur Geschichte der Staatlichen Galerie Moritzburg Halle [Halle: Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, 1987]; also Hess, Lyonel Feininger, 263, 278-280).
SB also visited the private collection of Marie Weise (nee Herold, 1879-1971) and Felix Weise (1876-1961) in Halle, with works by Kirchner, Munch, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Lehmbruck, and Millier (for SB's conversation with Frau Weise and details of the collection: BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 36-37, 23 January 1937).
On 24 January 1937 SB visited the Anger Museum in Erfurt where the modem collection was still on display on the first floor; he notes works by Kirchner, Gerhard Marek (1889-1981), Kokoschka, Mueller, Feininger, Kandinsky, Nolde, Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919), Heckel, Dix, Schmidt-Rottluff, Barlach, Renee Sintenis (1888-1965), and Christian Rohlf (1849-1938) (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 27, 24 January 1937).
4 HeinzPorep(1888-c. 1956)studiedpaintinginMunichandWeimarasapainter; he designed the sets for the 1935 Halle production of Ottone by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (Giitz Traxdorf, Library ofthe Handel-Haus ofHalle; BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 22).
Prussian-born actor Hermann Albert Otto Max Feige (1882-1969) had written anar­ chist propaganda under the pseudonym ofRet Marut (1917-1923); later he adopted the pseudonym ofB. Traven under which he wrote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927).
439
25 January 1937, McGreevy
Porep had visited Traven inMexico; he was a friend of the French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
30/1 [1937]
[no greeting]
Dresden
bei Hofer Biirgerw:iese 15
Arrived here yesterday from Leipzig, to stay 3 weeks at the most &
probably less. The little I have seen is lovely. The cold is dreadful.
Leipzig was apotheosis of Max Klinger and ignominis [for igno­
1
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Der Dom Zu Naumburg, Klagender Johannes am Westlettner"; pm
31·1·37, Dresden; to ThomasMcGreevy Esq, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; TCD, MS 10402/115. Dating: pm and from 9 January 1937, above.
1 In 1937 Leipzig'sMuseum der Bildenden Kiinste and the Leipziger Kunstverein held a retrospective exhibition of the work ofMax Klinger (1857-1920) displaying nearly 400 works (Gediichtnis-Ausstellung Max Klinger [Leipzig:Museum der Bildenden Kiinste, Leipziger Kunstverein, 1937[ 3).
SB attended the Gewandhaus concert on 28 January 1937 which is discussed in greater detail in his letter toMcGreevy of 16 February 1937 and in its n. 13.
GEOR GE REAVEY LONDON
30/1/37 Dresden bei Hofer
minious]intheGewandhaus. Writealongletteratonce Loves
440
Biirgerw:iese 15
[no greeting]
Above my address here. There may be news from you lying
in Berlin waiting to be forwarded. But whether or no tip us a wink to Florence on the Elbe, which will be too cold to hold me
1
APC; 1 leaf. 1 side; "Schlossmuseum Weimar, A. Durer: Bildnis der Felicitas Tucher, 1499"; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street, London W. C. ; pm 31-1-37, Dresden; tear, center bottom; TxU.
1 Dresden,ontheElbeRiver.
2 "HeilundSiegundfetteBeute"(Hailandvictoryandrichpickings).
{2 February 1937}, McGreevy
for more than a fortnight or 3 weeks. [no signature]
2
Heil und Sieg u fette Beute.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
[2 February 1937) [no greeting]
1
[Dresden]
Che stu fossi meco.
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Antonello da Messine's [sic] Der H. L Sebastian (Martyrdom of St. Sebastian), Amtliche Ausgabe des Ministeriums fiir Volksbildung zu Dresden"; pm 2-2-37, Dresden; to Thomas McGreevy, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; TCD, MS 10402/116. Dating, Place: from pm.
[2 February 1937)
[Dresden]
That you were here with me. S.
1
441
{2 February 1937}, McGreevy
1 "Chetufossimeco"isnotidiomaticinItalianandpresumablyisSB'sinvention on the model ofthe English "Wish you were here," but in Trecento style ("meco" being archaic for "con me" ! with me]).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
15/2/37 Dresden Cher ami
Je m'en doutais, comme disait Poil de Carott[e], quand on lui
1
Murphy ne ton serviteur, t'ecrira sous peu et plus so[uv]ent de Bierevsille-sur-Isar3
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Dom zu Meissen, Schutzpatron EvangelistJohannes"; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street, London W. C. 1, England; pm 15-2-37, Dresden; surface delami­ nated, having been pasted in a scrapbook and removed; TxU.
15/2/37 Dresden Dear George
I thought as much, as Poil de Carotte used to say when what
1
donna a boire [d]u deja bu.
C'est une Dent Par consequent Qui ne mord Aucunement.
2
he was given to drink had already been drunk.
This Dent
I meant Won't quite Bite. 2
442
Murphy born your servant, will write to you shortly and more oftesn from Beerville-on-Isar3
1 SB may be referring to a scene in Jules Renard's Poi! de Carotte (1894; Carrots) in which the child, Poi! de Carotte, is force-fed a soup which he is led to believe is made from his own excretion, as punishment for his having soiled his bed; thereafter he refuses to drink, saying he is not thirsty (Renard, Oeuvres, I, Poi! de Carotte, 666-667).
2 SBpunsonthenameoftheLondonpublisherDent,with"dent"(tooth). Despite Richard Church's positive response to the novel, Dent turned it down (see 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n.