Текст книги "Wittgenstein's Mistress"

Автор книги: David Markson

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All painters did. This was because they compounded pigments.

On my honor, that was how things worked, then.

So possibly the drugstore I forgot to notice in Savona was not called the Savona Drugstore to begin with, but was named after Gauguin.

In Madrid, I once lived in a hotel named after Zurbaran.

Unless perhaps it was named after Goya.

And was in Pamplona.

Although what I would more seriously wish to know is why any of this is now making me think about seagulls.

Aha. Seagulls being scavengers, of course.

When I say being, I mean having been, naturally.

But which in either case was only to suggest that there surely once would have been any number of seagulls at the garbage disposal area.

One has no idea how great a number, but surely a considerable number.

Doubtless other creatures would have come and gone also, of course.

Such as dogs and cats, one imagines.

Then again, perhaps even large dogs would have been leery of that many seagulls.

Certainly cats would have been.

Unless of course there were a considerable number of cats, basically approximating the considerable number of seagulls, which one sincerely doubts.

Actually all I had in mind was a house cat or two, put out for the night.

Once, when I was painting in Corinth, New York, for a summer, I put my own cat out each night.

I remember this because the cat was a city cat and had never been put out before.

Every night for weeks, I worried about that cat.

As a matter of fact I felt quite guilty as well, even though I was never quite certain what it was that I was feeling quite guilty about.

Surely a cat which has been locked up in a loft in SoHo for all of its life will find it agreeable being outside at night, I attempted to convince myself.

Possibly it will even find other cats to associate with, which it has likewise never done before, I additionally rationalized.

Nonetheless my condition of feeling quite guilty continued for the longest time.

Even after I had become reassured that the cat would always come back, so that eventually it would often be as late as noon before I even remembered to look, my condition of feeling quite guilty continued.

Except that by then what I was feeling quite guilty about was having forgotten to let the cat back in.

Frequently I suspected that the cat had done little more than sleep under the porch all night in any event.

Nor have I the slightest notion what this might have to do with the garbage disposal area, since I do not remember a garbage disposal area from the summer when I painted in Corinth, New York.

That summer's garbage was collected at the door.

There is likewise no connection between the cat I am talking about and the cat I saw at the Colosseum, incidentally.

The cat I saw at the Colosseum was gray, and appeared to be playing with something, such as a ball of yarn.

My own cat was russet colored, and was basically slothful.

There is also obviously no connection between my russet cat and the cat which scratches at the broken window here.

Even if for the life of me I cannot remember having put that tape on.

Possibly there was no cat at the Colosseum either.

If one wishes to see a cat badly enough, one will doubtless see one.

Though possibly there was a cat. Possibly it was only the floodlights, when I rigged up floodlights, which made it leery.

Naturally I would have had no way of knowing if it had nibbled at anything behind my back either, since most of the cans I had set out were half emptied by rain in no time.

Before I ever saw one, I would have supposed that castles in Spain was just a phrase, too.

Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover, when I did all of that looking, or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?

In either event people continually looking in and out of windows is doubtless not such a ridiculous subject for a book, after all.

Even though Emily Brontë once struck her dog so angrily that she knocked it out, simply because it had gotten onto her bed when she had told it not to get onto her bed, which is the one thing Emily Brontë did that one wishes she hadn't.

Even if, as I have perhaps said, there are also things Emily Brontë did not do that one wishes she had.

Although which may well be none of one's business either, it finally occurs to me.

And meantime I would appear to have completely forgotten my russet cat's name.

Although what I called the cat at the Colosseum, I am fairly certain, was Pintoricchio, after a minor painter from Perugia who did some frescoes in the Sistine Chapel some time before Michelangelo put in the parts that look like Daumier.

Possibly I will think up a name for the cat outside of my broken window, too.

Then again, I should also perhaps indicate that there is no connection between any of these cats and the cat which Simon once had, in Cuernavaca, and which we never could seem to decide on a name for at all.

Cat, having been all we ever called that one.

Well, and additionally none is connected to the cat which was intelligent enough to ignore the gold coins that his students had painted onto the floor of Rembrandt's studio, either.

Though by stating that, it so happens that I have now simul– taneously solved the question of my russet cat's name after all.

In fact now that it has come back to me, it could not have come back more vividly.

Practically every single day at Corinth, for instance, when I did remember to let the cat back in, I said good morning to it.

Good morning, Rembrandt, being exactly how I said it practically every single time.

Russet as a color that one automatically associates with Rembrandt having been the origin of this, naturally.

Even if russet is perhaps not a color.

In any case it is surely not a color that has anything to do with painting, although admittedly it may be a color that has something to do with bedspreads. Or with upholstery.

Although not being a painting a cat can be russet too.

And being russet is apt to be named Rembrandt.

Which in fact no less an authority than Willem de Kooning found to be a perfectly suitable name, on an afternoon when the identical cat happened to climb into his lap.

Perhaps I have not mentioned that my russet cat climbed into Willem de Kooning's lap.

My russet cat once climbed into Willem de Kooning's lap.

The cat did this on an afternoon when Willem de Kooning was visiting at my loft, in SoHo.

I have forgotten the date of this visit, but I do believe it was not long after the afternoon on which Robert Rauschenberg had also visited, and I had hastily hidden my drawings.

Then again, the reason for Willem de Kooning having approved of the cat's name may have actually had less to do with the cat being russet than with Rembrandt having been Dutch, when one stops to think about it.

Being Dutch himself, de Kooning would have naturally felt certain ties to Rembrandt.

One scarcely means family ties, of course, since one would have surely known about this, had any existed.

Willem de Kooning is descended from Rembrandt, one would have heard.

Then again, who is to argue that he might not have been descended from somebody who had at least once met Rembrandt, on the other hand, which even de Kooning himself would have doubtless not been aware of?

Or from somebody who had been a pupil of Rembrandt, even?

Surely it would have been easy to lose track, after so many years.

How many people would have ever guessed that Maria Callas could be traced all the way back to Hermione, for instance?

Actually, something like this could have been all the more likely if the pupil de Kooning was descended from had never become famous himself, which is generally what happens in any event.

Many pupils not only fail to become famous, in fact, but eventually even go into a different line of work altogether.

Why couldn't Willem de Kooning have been descended from a pupil of Rembrandt who had decided he did not have any future as a painter and had become a baker instead, let us say?

Sooner or later, surely, the man's descendants would have had no idea that anybody in the family had ever been a pupil of Rembrandt at all.

Father was a pupil of Rembrandt before we opened the pastry shop, one can imagine being said. Or even, grandfather was a pupil of Rembrandt.

Certainly it would have stopped being passed down long before Willem de Kooning himself was alive, however.

As a matter of fact Claude Lorrain was actually a pastry cook who decided to become a painter, and one would wager that hardly any of his descendants could have named the man who taught him to bake, either.

Then again, what I have been saying about pupils is not necessarily always the case, as it happens.

Merely from among those who have been mentioned in these pages, Socrates's pupil Plato and Plato's pupil Aristotle and Aristotle's pupil Alexander the Great are three who certainly did become famous.

Even if one does sometimes stop to wonder just exactly what Aristotle might have happened to call Alexander, in those days.

This morning we are doing geography. Will you kindly go to the map and point out where Persepolis is, Alexander the Great?

Who will now recite the passage in the Iliadabout Achilles dragging Hector's body through the dust for us? Is that your hand I see, Alex?

But be that as it may, it furthermore strikes me that Andrea del Sarto is another famous pupil who was only recently mentioned.

Well, and a pupil of Bertrand Russell's not too long ago, either.

As a matter of fact, many more pupils than one had suspected may well become equally as famous as their teachers.

Or even more so.

Ghiberti had a pupil named Donatello, for instance.

And Cimabue once made a pupil out of a boy he found doing drawings of sheep, in a pasture, and the boy turned out to be Giotto.

As a matter of fact Giovanni Bellini had one pupil named Titian, and still another named Giorgione.

Although to tell the truth certain teachers were never really too happy about this sort of thing.

After Titian had become equally as famous as Giovanni Bellini he took in a pupil of his own, but then kicked him out when it looked as if the pupil might become as famous as he was.

Which Tintoretto did anyhow.

I happen to believe the story about Giotto and the sheep, by the way.

I would also suddenly seem to remember that Rogier van der Weyden had a pupil named Hans Memling, even though I would have sworn categorically that I knew no such thing about Rogier van der Weyden.

In any event almost every one of these is a pupil I am sure Willem de Kooning would have found it agreeable to have been descended from.

Well, doubtless he would have found it agreeable to have been descended from Vincent Van Gogh as well, even if he was born less than fifteen years after Van Gogh shot himself.

I am not quite certain how the second part of that sentence is connected to the beginning part, actually.

Perhaps all I was thinking about was that Van Gogh was Dutch too.

One of the things people generally admired about Van Gogh, even though they were not always aware of it, was the way he could make even a chair seem to have anxiety in it. Or a pair of boots.

Cezanne once said that he painted like a madman, on the other hand.

Still, perhaps I shall name the cat that scratches at my broken window Van Gogh.

Or Vincent.

One does not name a piece of tape, however.

There is the piece of tape, scratching at my window. There is Vincent, scratching at my window.

Well, it is not impossible. I suspect it is not very likely, but it is not impossible.

Good morning, Vincent.

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, incidentally.

Although that did put him one ahead of Jan Vermeer, at least.

Conversely I have no idea how many Jan Steen sold.

I do know that at the end of his life Botticelli was lame, and had to live off charity.

Frans Hals had to live off charity, as well.

Well, and again Daumier.

Too, Paolo Uccello was another who died poor and neglected.

As did the Piero who did not hide under tables.

So many lists keep on growing, and are saddening.

Even though the work itself lasts, of course.

Or does thinking about the work itself while knowing these things somehow sadden one even more?

Even Rembrandt went bankrupt, finally.

This was in Amsterdam, which I make note of because it was only a few short blocks away from where Spinoza was excommunicated, and in the very same month.

I am assuming it will be understood that I hardly know that because of knowing anything about Spinoza.

Assuredly, this was a footnote I did once read.

Although what I do only this instant realize is why Rembrandt was always so easily fooled by those coins, of course.

Certainly if I myself were going bankrupt I would keep on bending to pick up every coin I happened to notice, too.

Considering the circumstances, one would scarcely stop to remember that one's pupils had contrived such illusions before.

Merciful heavens, there is a gold coin, one would surely think. Right on the floor of my studio.

Let us hope it does not belong to some troublemaker who will dash up to claim it either, one would think just as readily.

Doubtless Rembrandt's pupils found this endlessly amusing.

Well, unquestionably they did, or they would have scarcely kept on playing the same trick.

Doubtless not one of them ever stopped to give a solitary thought to Rembrandt's problems either, such as the very bankruptcy in question.

I find this sad too, in its way, even though there was never any way to prevent schoolboys from being schoolboys.

Very probably Van Dyck played tricks on Rubens, too. Or Giulio Romano on Raphael.

Although in the case of Rembrandt it might at least explain why his pupils generally failed to become famous, or even went into different lines of work, what with the lot of them being so insensitive.

In fact it was no doubt equally insensitive on my own part to suggest that Willem de Kooning could have been descended from anybody in such a bunch.

I had simply failed to carry my thinking far enough when I made such a suggestion.

Oops.

Carel Fabritius was a pupil of Rembrandt.

Granting that Carel Fabritius was hardly as famous as Rembrandt himself. Still, he was surely famous enough so that Willem de Kooning doubtless could not have minded having been descended from him after all.

As a matter of fact I believe that I myself have even mentioned Carel Fabritius at least once, in some regard or other.

I suppose all one can now do is hope for Willem de Kooning's sake that Carel Fabritius was not one of the pupils who played that mean trick.

Weil, presumably he would not have been able to become Rembrandt's best pupil to begin with, if he had wasted his time in such a way.

Then again, quite possibly in being the best he was the only pupil who had such time to waste.

Quite possibly whenever Rembrandt gave a quiz, for instance, it was always Carel Fabritius who finished first, and then devoted himself to mischief while everybody else was still laboring to catch up.

Many questions in art history remain elusive in this manner, unfortunately.

As a matter of fact Carel Fabritius may have had a pupil of his own, named Jan Vermeer, but nobody was ever able to verify that for certain, either.

Carel Fabritius died in Delft, however, which was one factor that led to such speculation.

I have pointed out Vermeer's own connection with Delft elsewhere, I believe.

But as I have also pointed out, practically two hundred years would have to pass before anybody would become interested enough in Vermeer to look into such matters, and thus a great deal would have already been lost track of.

Well, I have more than once noted how easily that can occur, too.

One thing that does happen to be known is that Vermeer was another painter who went bankrupt, however.

Although it was actually his wife who did that, not long after Vermeer died.

As a matter of fact she owed a considerable bill to the local baker.

This baker was also in Delft, of course, so one is willing to assume it was not the same baker who had himself once been a pupil of Rembrandt.

Then again this is perhaps not so certain an assumption after all.

What with Carel Fabritius having recently moved from the one city to the other, who is to argue that his old classmate might not have done so, as well?

In addition to which, two of Vermeer's paintings had actually been given to this same baker, as a kind of collateral.

Surely your ordinary baker would have been less than agreeable about such an arrangement, and especially in the case of a customer who had never sold a single painting in his life.

Unless of course the baker happened to be somebody who knew something about art himself.

Or at any rate knew enough to go to somebody who was still in the same line of work, for advice.

Tell me, Fabritius, what am I to do about this pupil of yours, who keeps on buying pastry for his eleven children? How long must I wait before any of these paintings become worth anything?

Unfortunately there would appear to be no record of Carel Fabritius's answer, here.

Neither is there any in regard to the connection between Rembrandt and Spinoza, actually, which it occurs to me I had not intended to leave hanging as I did.

Even if there was no connection between Rembrandt and Spinoza.

The only connection between Rembrandt and Spinoza was that both of them were connected with Amsterdam.

Although on the other hand Rembrandt may have painted a portrait of Spinoza.

People often made what they called an educated guess that he had painted such a portrait, in any event.

Most of the subjects of Rembrandt's portraits being unidentified to begin with, naturally.

So all that people were really doing was guessing that one of them may as well have been Spinoza.

In the end this is one more of those questions in art history that has always had to remain elusive, however.

On the other hand it is probably safe to assume that Rembrandt and Spinoza surely would have at least passed on the street, now and again.

Or even run into each other quite frequently, if only at some neighborhood shop or other.

And certainly they would have exchanged amenities as well, after a time.

Good morning, Rembrandt. Good morning to you, Spinoza.

I was extremely sorry to hear about your bankruptcy, Rembrandt. I was extremely sorry to hear about your excommunication, Spinoza.

Do have a good day, Rembrandt. Do have the same, Spinoza.

All of this would have been said in Dutch, incidentally.

I mention that simply because it is known that Rembrandt did not speak any other language except Dutch.

Even if Spinoza may have preferred Latin. Or Jewish.

Come to think about it, Willem de Kooning may have spoken to my cat in Dutch too, that afternoon.

Although what I am actually now remembering about that cat is that it climbed into certain other laps beside de Kooning's, as it happens.

As a matter of fact it once climbed into William Gaddis's lap, on an occasion when Lucien brought William Gaddis to my loft.

I believe there was an occasion when Lucien brought William Gaddis to my loft.

In any event I am next to positive that he did bring somebody, once, who made me think about Taddeo Gaddi.

Taddeo Gaddi scarcely being a figure one is otherwise made to think about that frequently, having been a relatively minor painter.

One is made to think about Carel Fabritius much more frequently than one is made to think about Taddeo Gaddi, for instance.

Even if one is rarely made to think about either of them.

Except perhaps when slightly damaging a painting by the former in the National Gallery, say.

Which happened to be a view of Delft, in fact.

Well, fame itself being basically relative in any case, of course.

An artist named Torrigiano having once been much more famous than many other artists, for no other reason than because he had broken Michelangelo's nose.

Well, or ask Vermeer.

And to tell the truth William Gaddis was less than extraordinarily famous himself, even though he wrote a novel called The Recognitionsthat any number of people spoke quite well of.

Doubtless I would have spoken quite well of it myself, had I read it, what with having gathered that it was a novel about a man who wore an alarm clock around his neck.

Although what I am now trying to recall is whether I may have asked William Gaddis if he himself were aware that there had been a painter named Taddeo Gaddi.

As I have suggested, certainly many people would not have been aware of that.

Then again, if one were named William Gaddis, doubtless one would have gone through life being aware of it.

As a matter of fact people had probably been driving William Gaddis to distraction for years, by asking him if he were aware that there had been a painter named Taddeo Gaddi.

Possibly I was sensible enough not to ask him.

In fact I hope I did not even ask him if he knew that Taddeo Gaddi had been a pupil of Giotto.

Well, doubtless I would not have asked him that, having not even known I remembered it until the instant in which I started to type that sentence.

And in any event the cat may not have climbed into William Gaddis's lap after all.

The more I think about it, the more I seem to remember that Rembrandt rarely went anywhere near strangers.

Even if he and William Gaddis would have remained equidistant from each other at all times, of course.

Well, as any other cat and any other person.

Or even as the cat I saw in the Colosseum and each of those cans of food I put out, also.

Even though there were as many cans as there must have been Romans watching the Christians, practically.

In fact each Christian and each lion would have always remained equidistant from each other, too.

Except when the lions had eaten the former, naturally.

Although I can now actually think of another exception to this rule, as well.

I myself and the cat which is presently scratching at my broken window again might both normally be presumed to be equidistant from each other, too.

Except when the tape happens to stop scratching, at which time there is no cat.

And surely one cannot be equidistant from something that does not exist, any more than something that does not exist can be equidistant from whatever it is supposed to be equidistant from either.

Or can any donkey see that?

It is easier to think about the cat as not existing than about Vincent as not doing so, incidentally.

And meanwhile for some reason I am extraordinarily pleased to have remembered that, about Taddeo Gaddi and Giotto.

Well, and it makes for an interesting connection from Cimabue to Giotto to Taddeo Gaddi, also.

Like the connection from Perugino to Raphael to Giulio Romano.

Even if I have perhaps not mentioned that Raphael had been a pupil of Perugino. Or for that matter that Perugino in turn had been a pupil of the Piero who did not hide under tables, which connects everything even farther than that.

In fact I have now suddenly solved the entire question as to whom Willem de Kooning was descended from.

Willem de Kooning was not descended from anybody. Willem de Kooning's teacher was.

Now heavens. Or should I perhaps give up troubling to correct such nonsense altogether, and simply let my language come out any way it insists upon?

In fact even before I just wrote that Willem de Kooning was not descended from anybody, which was obviously hardly what I meant, I happened to be thinking about Les Troyensagain.

What I would have written about Les Troyens,if I had stopped to put that in, was that nobody ever pays attention to a word Cassandra says in the opera any more than they do in the plays.

Except that if nobody ever pays attention to a word Cassandra says, how can anybody know that nobody pays attention to her to begin with?

Now I suspect I have put that badly, as well.

Certain things can sometimes be almost impossible to put, however.

Once, when I was in the seventh grade, the teacher told us Archimedes's paradox about Achilles and the tortoise.

How the paradox went was that if Achilles was trying to catch the tortoise, but the tortoise had a head start, Achilles could never catch it.

This was because by the time Achilles had caught up the distance of the head start, the tortoise would have naturally gone another distance. And even though each new distance the tortoise could go would keep on getting smaller and smaller, Achilles would still always be that new distance behind.

Now I knew, knew, that Achilles could certainly catch that tortoise.

Even when Achilles was only the tiniest fraction behind, however, and the tortoise could go only the tiniest fraction past that, what the teacher showed on the blackboard was that there would still always be more fractions.

This finally almost made me want to cry.

So now I know that nobody ever pays attention to a word Cassandra says in the opera, but I also know, know, that the way I know it is by having paid attention.

Philosophy is not my trade.

And in fact it was not Archimedes who had the paradox but was Zeno.

Archimedes was killed by soldiers during some war at Syracuse while he was doing his geometry in the sand. With a stick.

Or have I now just done it all over again?

Oh, well, I suppose it is not one hundred percent impossible that Archimedes was killed with the same stick I was trying to say he was writing with.

I have not forgotten Willem de Kooning's teacher.

What I had meant to write about Willem de Kooning's teacher, however, was not that I had suddenly realized whom he was descended from, but whom he was connected to.

As in the connection from Rembrandt to Carel Fabritius to Vermeer, this obviously is.

Except that what I am now thinking about is the person who was next in line, as a pupil of Vermeer. And then the person who was a pupil of the pupil of Vermeer.

And after that all the way down until the next to last pupil of a pupil had a pupil of his own named Willem de Kooning.

Surely this is much more likely than Willem de Kooning himself having been descended from the man who taught Claude Lorrain how to make pastry?

Ralph Hodgson was born fifteen years before Rupert Brooke, and was still alive almost fifty years after Brooke had died on the same island where Achilles had made one of the women pregnant.

And when Bertrand Russell was more than ninety years old, he could still remember hearing his grandfather talk about remembering the death of George Washington.

As a matter of fact, suppose one day when Willem de Kooning was a pupil, his teacher told him something.

Suppose this was something quite simple, even, such as that russet is not a name one gives to a color.

But also suppose that when Willem de Kooning's teacher said that, he was really repeating something he had been told when he himself was a pupil.

And suppose that the teacher who told it to Willem de Kooning's teacher had been told the same thing when he himself was a pupil.

And so on.

So who is to argue that one day Rembrandt might not have been standing next to Carel Fabritius's easel, and Carel Fabritius said he was going to paint something russet, and Rembrandt said that russet is a color one calls a bedspread?

So in a manner of speaking Willem de Kooning was actually apupil of Rembrandt.

This is scarcely to suggest that it was Willem de Kooning who painted the gold coins on the floor of Rembrandt's studio, of course.

Although who is to additionally argue that he might not have finished that quiz even more quickly than Carel Fabritius did?

Come to think about it, however, why is it not possible that all of this might go back even farther still?

Why couldn't it just as readily have been Cimabue who told Giotto about bedspreads, for instance, even long before Gilbert Stuart happened to mention it in passing to George Washington?

This is scarcely to suggest that Willem de Kooning was anywhere in the vicinity when Giotto was drawing the perfect circle freehand either, of course.

Unless, on the other hand, I suddenly make up my mind to imagine that he was.

This very sort of imagining being the artist's privilege, obviously.

Well, it is what artists do.

There is a famous canvas in the National Gallery, of Penelope weaving, and nobody stopped the painter from putting everybody from Ithaca into clothes that people did not wear until practically three thousand years later, during the Renaissance.

In fact it was similarly Leonardo's own doing when he made the table in The Last Supperfar too small for all of those Jewish people who are supposed to be eating at it.

Or Michelangelo's, when he took away superfluous material on his Davidbut left the hands and feet too big.

I have now made up my mind to imagine Willem de Kooning in Giotto's studio.

In fact Giotto is wearing clothes from the Renaissance, but Willem de Kooning is in a kind of sweatshirt.

Actually I have just made the sweatshirt into a soccer shirt. With the word Savona across its front.

Giotto and Willem de Kooning are both equidistant from each other, naturally.

Well, and from the circle.

In fact all points on the circumference of the circle are equidistant from the center of the circle as well, as Zeno proved.

And now Cimabue and Rembrandt and Carel Fabritius and Jan Vermeer are in the studio also.

There is nothing astonishing in my ability to arrange any of this, of course, although in certain ways it is perhaps interesting.

What is especially interesting is that I do not have any idea what Giotto or Cimabue or Jan Vermeer look like.

In the case of Rembrandt and Carel Fabritius I have seen self-portraits. Even if it does not appear necessary for me to visualize which of the many of those on Rembrandt's part happens to apply at the moment.

Willem de Kooning is a special case as well, having once visited my loft.

As a matter of fact I have now put my russet cat into Giotto's studio, also.

Even if russet is traditionally not a name anybody present would give to a color.

I think I will put the cat that scratches at my broken window in, too.

Both cats are now in Giotto's studio.

I suspect I would prefer that Rembrandt not discover what the first of these cats is named, however.

Although in fact Willem de Kooning is aware of the name of that one.

I have no way of telling whether Willem de Kooning might mention to Rembrandt what that cat's name is.