Plexus (11 page)

Returning to the street I involuntarily raised my eyes, as if to greet Mrs. O'Melio, who used to harbor all the stray cats of the neighborhood on her flat roof. There were over a hundred which she fed twice daily. She lived alone, and my mother always hinted that she must be
cracked. Such Gargantuan solicitude was beyond my mother's comprehension.

I walk slowly towards the South Side where I will catch the cross-town trolley for home. Every store front is rich with memories. After twenty-five years, despite all the changes, all the work of demolition, the old dwellings are still there. Faded, ill-kept, crumbling, like sturdy old teeth they still “do their work.” The light that once animated them, the radiance they once shed, are gone. It was in summer that they were especially redolent; they actually perspired, like human beings. The owners felt a pride in keeping their homes neat and trim; the glow of fresh paint, the deep shadows thrown by the awnings, were the reflections of their own humble spirits. The homes of the physicians were always a little better than the others, a little more pretentious. In the summer one entered the doctor's office through beaded curtains which tinkled as one swished through. The doctor always seemed to be a connoisseur of art; on the walls there were usually somber oil paintings framed in heavy gilt. The subject matter of these paintings was thoroughly alien to me. We had nothing like these on our walls; our pictures were given us by tradesmen at holiday times, bright, vile chromos which we looked at every day and forgot instantly. (Whenever my mother felt obliged to give something away to some poor neighbor she always chose a picture from the wall. “Thank God we're rid of that,” she would murmur. Sometimes I would run to her with an offering of my own, a bright new toy, a pair of boots, a drum, because I too was surfeited with possessions. “Oh, no Henry, not
that!”
I can hear her say. “That's too new!” “But I don't want it any more,” I would insist. “Don't talk that way,” she would answer, “or God will punish you.”)

Passing the old Presbyterian Church. At two o'clock the Sunday school class used to meet. How delightfully cool it was down there in the basement where we congregated! Outside the heat danced from the pavement. Big flies
buzzed away, darting in and out of the shadows. When I think of what
summer
then meant to me, the tangible, earthborn summer which shimmered and vibrated throughout the long, festive days, I think of Debussy's music. Was he a lion of the Midi, I wonder? Did he have an African strain in his blood? Or were those plangent melodies studded with clustered chords an expression of yearning for a sun he had never known?

Every joyous period I have known seems to be connected with the sun. Thinking of Mr. Roberts, our Sunday school superintendent, I think not only of that blazing orb in the sky but of the celestial warmth which this queer old Englishman radiated. His long flowing moustache, the color of corn, his cheery, ruddy face, what health and confidence they imparted! He always appeared in the same cutaway suit with grey spats and an ascot under his chin. Like the minister and the deacons of the church, he was a wealthy man. They ought to have moved to better quarters long ago, but they were attached to the old neighborhood and, besides, they enjoyed patronizing the poor and humble. At Christmas time they were truly bountiful with their gifts. My mother was frightfully impressed by this largesse; it was probably on this account that I grew up a Presbyterian instead of a Lutheran.

That evening, rehearsing my boyhood days with Mona, it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a good touch to send the old minister, who was still alive, a sample of my work. I thought it might make him feel good to know that one of his “little boys” was now a writer. God knows what it was I sent him but it had anything but the desired effect. Almost by return mail I received my manuscript back together with a letter couched in impeccable English, telling me of his sorrow and bewilderment. That I, who had been nurtured in the shelter of the fold, should descend to such crude, realistic means of expression, pained him. There was something in his letter about the garbage can, I remember. That riled me. Without wasting time, I sat
down and replied in the most abusive terms, informing him that he was a fool and a dotard, that my one aim in life was to live down the stupid nonsense he had tried to implant. I added something about our Lord and Saviour which, though apt, was intended to upset him still more. As a crowning insult, I advised him to clear out of the old neighborhood, which he did not and never had belonged to. I added that I hoped to see the Star of David supplanting the Cross next time I passed the venerable old edifice. (My wish, incidentally, was soon thereafter gratified. The place did become a synagogue! And the rectory, where our dear minister once lived, was taken over by an aged rabbi with a flowing white beard.)

After I sent the letter I was of course repentant. What a silly thing to do! Still playing “the bad boy.” It was just like me, though to revere the past and to spit on it. I was doing the same thing with friends—and with authors. I accepted and cherished out of the past only what I could convert to creative ends.…

Did I mention Van Gogh whose
Letters
I was then reading and recently reread after a lapse of twenty years? What excited me was Vincent's flaming desire to live the life of an artist, to be nothing but the artist, come what may. With men of his stripe art becomes a religion. Christ long dead to the church is born again. The passionate Vincent redeems the world through the miraculous use of pigment. The despised and forsaken dreamer re-enacts the drama of crucifixion. He rises from his grave to triumph over the unbelievers.

Over and over again Van Gogh speaks of desiring nothing more than to lead the simple life. He is extravagant only in the use of his materials. Everything goes into his art. It is such a thorough sacrifice that, by comparison,
the lives of most painters seem pale and worthless. Van Gogh knows that he will never be recognized in his lifetime; he knows that he will never reap the harvest of his toil. But the artists to come—perhaps his renunciation will make it easier for them! That is his most profound wish. In a thousand different ways he says: “For myself I expect nothing.
We
are doomed.
We
live outside our time.”

How he sweats and struggles to get together fifty good canvases which his brother is to exhibit to a scornful, contemptuous world! The last few years of his life he is truly a madman. But a madman in the proper sense of the word. All flame and spirit, he overflows with creative energy. He is the cup which runneth over. And he is alone.

It is difficult to get women to pose, at Aries. His paintings are atrocious, people say. “They are just full of paint!” I laugh and weep when I read this.
Full of paint!
How terrifyingly true! How ironic that this wonderful thing which had come to pass (the saturation of canvas with color, with pure riotous color), that this dream of all the great painters (at last realized) should be used against him! Poor Van Gogh! Rich Van Gogh! Almighty Van Gogh! What a cruel, blasphemous jest! As if to say of a man of God—
“But he is too full of God!”

I should like to paint in such a way, says Van Gogh, that every one who has eyes may see clearly what is there. It was in this way that Jesus spoke and lived. But the blind and the deaf are with us always. Only they see, only they hear, only they act who are filled with the precious holy spirit.

We know that for a long time Van Gogh abstained from using color, that he forced himself to work with pencil, charcoal, ink. We know too that he began by studying the human figure, that he sought to learn from nature. Yes, he was training himself to read what was hidden beneath the shell. He consorted with the poor and humble, with downtrodden workers, with outcasts. He adored the peasant,
extolling
him
rather than the man of culture. He studied the shapes of things, the feel of objects. He familiarized himself with all that was common and everyday so that later, when he would have acquired the necessary skill and technique, he could render this world of the ordinary, the commonplace, the everyday in the light of a reality divine. What Van Gogh desired was to make this all too familiar world familiar in a new sense—in an everlasting sense, so to speak. He wanted to show that it was not clothed in evil and ugliness, that it was never dull or boring, that we have only to look at it with loving eyes to recognize its splendor and magnificence. And when he had accomplished this, when he had given us a new earth, he found that he was no longer able to cope with the world: he voluntarily sought out an asylum.

It took almost fifty years for the man in the street to realize that a Christ, manifesting himself as painter, had lately been in our midst. Suddenly, due to the immense popularity of a sensational book, thousands upon thousands take to visiting the museums and galleries; they converge like a Niagara upon the intoxicating masterpieces of that despised and forlorn genius, Vincent Van Gogh. Reproductions of his work are to be seen everywhere; they sprout in the most unexpected places. Van Gogh at last arrives. At last “the great failure” comes into his own. His faith was justified, apparently. His sacrifice was not in vain. For not only does he reach the masses, what is more important, he influences the painters.

In one of the letters—back in 1888!—he writes: “Painting promises to become more subtle—more musical and less sculptural—
enfin elle promet la couleur.”
He underlines the word color. How prophetic his insight! What is modern painting if not a hymn to color? Tantamount to revelation, the free, audacious use of color precipitated a liberation undreamed of. Centuries of painting are annihilated overnight. Unbelievable vistas open up.

In those wonderful letters in which Van Gogh relates
his discoveries about the laws of color (most of which were formulated by Delacroix), he dwells at some length on the use of black and white. One should not eschew the use of black, he writes. There is black and there is black. Did not Rembrandt and Franz Hals employ black, he asks? And Velasquez too? Not just black either, but twenty-seven different kinds of black. It all depends what kind of black, and how one employs it. The same for white. (Soon Utrillo is to demonstrate the validity of Van Gogh's apperceptions. Is not his white period still the best?)

I speak of black and white because it was inevitable that this revolutionary in the world of color should dwell on first and last things. In this he reminds us of those true sons of God who fear not evil or ugliness but embrace and incorporate them in their world of goodness and beauty.

When the nineteenth century crumbled on the field of Armageddon the old barriers were burst asunder. The demonic artists who dominated that century contributed as much to the undermining of the past as did the statesmen and militarists, the financiers and industrialists, the revolutionaries and the propagandists who had paved the way for the debacle. The war of 1914 seemed like the end of something; it was however only the culmination of something long overdue. Actually, it opened up vast new horizons. Through its work of demolition it afforded outlet to vast new fields of energy. The period between the first and second World Wars is rich in artistic production. It is in this period, when the world is about to be shaken to its foundations a second time, that I was taking form. It was a difficult period primarily because one had to rely so exclusively upon himself, upon his own unique powers. Society, torn by all manner of dissension, offered the artist even less support and encouragement than in Van Gogh's time. The very existence of the artist was challenged.
But was not everyone's existence menaced?

Emerging from the second World War, there is a vague
feeling that the earth itself is threatened with extinction. We have entered into another apocalyptic era. The spirit of man is being convulsed as was the earth itself in ancient geologic periods. It is death we are shaking off—the rigidity of death. We deplore the spirit of violence which is prevalent, but to burst the bonds of death the spirit of man must be driven. The most dazzling possibilities enfold us. We are infused and invested with powers and energies heretofore undreamed of. We are about to live again as human beings, in the full majesty which the word human implies. The heroic work of our forerunners seems now like the work of sacrificial victims. It is not necessary for us to repeat their sacrifices. It is for us to enjoy the fruits. The past lies in ruins, the future yawns invitingly. Take this everyday world and embrace it! That is what the spirit urges. What better world can there be than this in which we have full responsibility, each and every one of us? Labor not for the men to come! Cease laboring altogether and create! For creation is play, and play iş divine.

That is the message I get whenever I read the life of Van Gogh. His final despair, ending in madness and suicide, could be interpreted as divine impatience. “The Kingdom of Heaven is here,” he was shouting. “Why do ye not enter?”

We weep crocodile tears over his lamentable end, forgetting the burst of splendor which preceded it. Do we weep when the sun sinks into the ocean? The full magnificence of the sun is revealed to us only in the few moments preceding and following its disappearance. It will appear again at dawn, another magnificence, another sun perhaps. All during the day it nourishes and sustains us, but we scarcely give heed to it. We know it is there, we count on it, but we offer no thanks, no devotion. The great luminaries, like Nietzsche, like Rimbaud, like Van Gogh, are human suns which suffer the same fate as the celestial orb. It is only when they are sinking, or have sunk from sight, that we become aware of the glory that was
theirs. In mourning their passing we blind our eyes to the existence of other new suns. We look backwards and forwards but never does our gaze pierce direct to the heart of reality. If we do occasionally worship the solar body which gives us warmth and light we reflect not on the suns which have been blazing since eternity. We accept unthinkingly the fact that all space is studded with suns.