THREE POSSIBLE WAYS

    There were three possible ways of punishing man for the Fall:  the mildest was the way actually used, expulsion from Paradise;  the second was destruction of Paradise;  the third – and this would have been the most terrible punishment of all – was the cutting off of life everlasting and leaving everything else as it was.

Franz Kafka, The Third Notebook  from The Blue Octavo Notebooks, Cambridge, Exact Change, 1991
 

TURN, TURN, TURN -- THE PASSING OF ROUSSEAU

 There was not much time for joy remaining.  One evening he visited me in the ancient cloister on the Boulevard des Invalides in which I then made my home.  The high windows were open wide to the breeze drifting in from the park across the way, and it was so dark I could scarcely see his features.  But I gathered from an undertone in his voice that he was in a solemn mood.   So he was.  He fell to talking about war, and he hated war.  “If a king tries to start a war,” he declared with great gravity,  “a mother should go to him and forbid it.”


  On July 14, 1910 – the last Quatorze Juillet he lived to celebrate – I went to his room.  There were other callers and he was dressed for the holiday and on the point of pouring some wine.  “Do you love peace ?” he demanded, and when I said yes, we all drank to peace.  Then he took me by the hand, led me to the window and pointed out the German flag – my native flag – fluttering among the others below.


 On a hot August day a few weeks later I knocked at his door.  Receiving no answer, I walked in.  He lay on a bed, ghastly pale.  There was a painful sore on his leg.  He was so apathetic that he didn’t even brush away the flies which buzzed around his face, but did talk of getting up soon and going on with his painting.  Some days after that, I came home to find a note saying that he was dying in Necker Hospital and begged me to come as soon as possible.  I rushed there and found him sinking fast.  For hours I sat by his bed, and he clasped my hand tightly.  Two days later he died.  He was 66 years old.

Turn, Turn, Turn -- The Byrds (Link)

Pictures:

Upper:  Henri Rousseau, The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming To Greet The Republic As A Sign Of Peace, 1910, Musée Picasso, Paris.

Lower:  Henri Rousseau, The Customs Post, 1890, Courtauld Institute Gallery of Art, London. 

Text: Wilhelm Uhde, Five Primitive Masters (translated by Ralph Thompson), New York, Quadrangle Books, 1949. 

Some Mother's Son -- The Kinks (Link)

JUST A CONVERSATION ABOUT LE DOUANIER ROUSSEAU

  

Self-Portrait, 1890, National Museum, Prague

  “He was born in Laval, Department of Mayenne, in 1844, the son of a tinsmith.  His mother is said to have been so excessively pious that she spent far more than the family could afford on delicacies to give to the local clergy when they came to call.  I do not believe – as I used to – the story about Rousseau’s going to Mexico in the 1860s as a regimental musician in Maximilian’s army.  He was, however, a sergeant during the Franco-Prussian war, and claimed to have seen some front-line action.


    Settling in Paris after the war, he entered the municipal toll service and began to paint in his spare time.  There are a number of stories about how he happened to take up painting in the first place.  According to one, he was urged to it by Alfred Jarry (“Père Ubu”), who also came from Laval and  whose father had been a friend of Rousseau’s father.  According to another, Gaughin is supposed to have made a bet that any completely naïve person could paint if given a chance – and having met Rousseau started him off.  It is needless to argue whether such stories are true or false.  Rousseau’s sense of artistic mission was so strong that he required no external stimulus.  It is commonly believed that he was 40 or 41 when he began -- i.e., that he began around 1885.  But the works dating from this period are technically so skilled that it may be taken for granted that he started earlier.”

The Snake Charmer, 1907, Musée d’Orsay, Paris



Wilhelm Uhde, Five Primitive Masters (translated by Ralph Thompson), New York, Quadrangle Books, 1949.


Slapp Happy: Just A Conversation (Link)