He [Cézanne] reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.
–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to his wife, from Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne
After Paul Cezanne died in 1906, during the next year there was a retrospective exhibit of his work at a Paris gallery. Throughout the autumn of 1907, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke went to that gallery nearly every day to take in the Cezanne paintings. He would then write long letters to his wife describing the work and what he saw in it. These letters were later assembled in a book that expresses the joy and wonder that Rilke found in Cezanne’s paintings.
I came across the passage above about Cezanne’s habit of revisiting subjects again and again. He painted over 30 self-portraits (a handful are above) in his lifetime as well as over 80 versions of Mont Sainte-Victoire. His still life paintings were often new examinations of the same subject matter.
Rilke’s description of Cezanne as being like a dog gazing into a mirror and thinking that it was another dog made me laugh. But it also made me think about how many other artists often revisit the same themes and subjects repeatedly.
For me, it is in my landscapes and the ubiquitous Red Tree. When I think about it, every time I am in the midst of a new painting and it shows itself as Red Tree landscape, I seldom, if ever, think of it as a revisitation of a past painting. No, it always feels like it is something new, something fresh. It may be familiar to me, may spark a feeling of recognition but it seems new to me in that moment.
Another dog in the mirror.
One might wonder why that is so. I can’t say for sure, can only throw out theories based solely on my own glaring lack of knowledge in things such as art or psychology or most anything else. Just guesses really.
Maybe it is mere mental laziness? I might go with that but that is kind of insulting on a lot of levels. If that were the case, why even make the effort to talk or write about it?
Maybe one senses there is something more to be found in whatever that subject is but can’t quite determine what it might be. You need to come back to it again and again.
Kind of like a recurring dream, one that keeps showing up over time as the seemingly same dream but one that is slightly altered in some way that makes it feel somehow new to the dreamer. Certain aspects of the previous dreams remain but some are gone. Some elements that might have been mere background in former dreams suddenly take on greater significance. As a result, though it might have the same overall imagery and scenario the tone and feel of the dream is entirely different.
I could see this being the case with my painting. There is often a repetitive quality, but similar paintings never feel quite the same. There are often subtle (and not so subtle) changes in color, texture, emotion, depth, perspective, and on and on. There are refinements and progressions to the previous incarnations as well as regressions.
Like the recurring dream, some parts move forward to the new dream and some do not.
That dog in the mirror looks familiar but I don’t know it. Yet.
Here’s a tune that has nothing to do with this post other than the fact that it has dog in its title. Maybe that’s more than enough. Anyway, this is Sundog Serenade from the new album, The Southwind, from Grammy-winning guitarist Bill Mize. As mentioned here before, the album cover features one of my Archaeology paintings. That doesn’t matter– this is just a lovely tune for this morning.
Redtree Times 