Art – Reading Markson Reading

Pg. 36 of David Markson’s copy of Classic Art: An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance by Heinrich Wolfflin:

On which Markson put a check next to the following passage:
“As we saw, Leonardo retained only one great line, the indispensable one of the table, yet even here there is something new. I do not mean the omission of the projecting ends—he is not the first to do that; the innovation lies in having the courage to depict a physical impossibility in order to obtain a heightened effect. The table is far too small. If the covers are counted it is clear that all the people there could not have sat down. Leonardo wishes to avoid the effect of the Disciples lost behind a long table, and the impression made by the figures is so strong that no one notices the lack of space.”

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The other day I created a post, using a scan from this same book by Wolfflin, re: the oddly large size of the hands and feet on Michelangelo’s David. In that post, I mentioned that Markson made note of this fact of the large extremities of Michelangelo’s David in a couple of his pre-tetralogy novels, and in both instances associated the largeness of David’s extremities with the smallness of the table in Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Perhaps this was because the information came from the same book?

Heinrich Wolfflin’s Classic Art: An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance.

Or perhaps—even more important than the source—he liked linking the largeness of the one with the smallness of the other?

“Table in The Last Supper’s too small. Hands and feet on Michelangelo’s David are too big.” (Springer’s Progress, Pg. 76).

“In fact it was similarly Leonardo’s own doing when he made the table in The Last Supper far 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 David but left the hands and feet too big.” (Wittgenstein’s Mistress, Pg. 148).

Whether the extremities are too big, or whether the table is too small, the point is that art doesn’t have to accurately reflect reality.
(And actually couldn’t, even if it wanted to.)

“People speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. Where and when has anyone ever seen a natural work of art?
Asked Picasso.” (The Last Novel, Pg. 9)

“No artist tolerates reality, Camus said.” (This Is Not A Novel, Pg. 105).

“The act of painting transforms the painter’s mind into something similar to the mind of God.
Said Leonardo.” (This Is Not A Novel, Pg. 178).

The artist thus imagines and creates an alternative reality.

“This very sort of imagining being the artist’s privilege, obviously.
Well, it is what artists do.” (Wittgenstein’s Mistress, Pg. 148).

Art doesn’t have to accurately reflect reality.

“Art is not truth. Art is a lie that enables us to recognize truth.
Said Picasso.” (Vanishing Point, Pg. 108).

The first page of David Markson’s copy of Picasso Drawings by Maurice Jardot:

On which Markson wrote as an inscription:
“—Markson, London 1967”

—-

     Seeing that this is a book specifically of drawings by Picasso, I thought I’d post this scan with a quote of Picasso’s re: drawing (as retold on pg. 2 of Markson’s This Is Not A Novel):
     “When I was their age I could draw like Raphael. But it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like they do.
     Said Picasso at an exhibition of children’s art.”

Because it is Easter, I thought I’d include a Picasso drawing of the crucifixion to show how after a lifetime he could “draw like they do”…

Also, since it is Easter today, I thought I’d add to today’s post a line from Springer’s Progress (one of my favorite Markson novels which I discussed a bit yesterday):
“Writing one more poem too. Happy Easter, dear keester.” (Pg. 82).

I am not a religious man, but I do wish all my fellow readers (of Markson reading) a sincere happy holiday:
Happy Easter, dear keester.

Pg. 47 of David Markson’s copy of Classic Art: An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance by Heinrich Wolfflin:

On which Markson put a check next to the following sentence:
“What is Michelangelo’s ideal of youthful beauty? A gigantic hobbledehoy, neither man nor boy, a stripling at the age when the body stretches itself and the huge hands and feet seem to have no relation to the size of the limbs.”

—-

     The oddly large size of the hands and feet on Michelangelo’s David was mentioned by Markson in his pre-tetralogy novels Springer’s Progress and Wittgenstein’s Mistress (and in both instances this was done in conjunction with a mention of the oddly small size of the table in Leonardo’s The Last Supper):
     “Table in The Last Supper’s too small. Hands and feet on Michelangelo’s David are too big.” (Springer’s Progress, Pg. 76).
     And:
     “In fact it was similarly Leonardo’s own doing when he made the table in The Last Supper far 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 David but left the hands and feet too big.” (Wittgenstein’s Mistress, Pg. 148).

Pg. 102 of David Markson’s copy of Landscape into Art by Kenneth Clark:

On which Markson placed a check next to the following story:
“But against this we have the testimony of Mrs. Simon. She had been surprised when a kind-looking old gentleman, sitting opposite her in the train, had put his head out of the window during a torrential downpour, and kept it there for nearly nine minutes. He then withdrew it, streaming with water, and shut his eyes for a quarter of an hour. Meanwhile the young lady, filled with curiosity, put her head out of the window, was duly drenched, but had an unforgettable experience. Imagine her delight when in next year’s Academy she was confronted with Rain, Steam, Speed, and hearing someone, in a mawkish voice, say, ‘Just like Turner, ain’t it. Who ever saw such a ridiculous conglomeration?’ was able to answer ‘I did.’ In fact the evidence of anybody who had the misfortune to be caught in the same storm as Turner, is that his observation was extraordinarily accurate.”

—-

     Markson relays this story, in a much more succinct form, on pg. 17 of This Is Not A Novel:
     “A woman named Mrs. Simon:
     Who watched an elderly man on a train put his head out a window during an unrelenting November thunderstorm and hold it there for fully ten minutes.
     And a year later at the Royal Academy came upon Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed on exhibition.”

     While on the subject of Turner, and storms, and accurate observations:
     “Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm.
     Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm.
     One’s language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.”
     Says Kate on pg. 12 of Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress.

Pg. 22 of David Markson’s copy of I, Michelangelo, Sculptor by Michelangelo:

On which Markson placed a check next to something Michelangelo said to Pope Julius II re: mural painting:
“It is not my trade.”

—-

On pg. 86 of his masterpiece Wittgenstein’s Mistress, Markson has Kate bring up that same Michelangelo quote:
“Painting is not my trade, is another thing that Michelangelo once said. When he said this was when a pope told him that the Sistine Chapel might look more agreeable with some pictures up on top.”

Though this was a dig at painting—Michelangelo, of course, considering himself more a sculptor—let us not forget that even being a sculptor wasn’t so glamorous at the time either:
“In the Renaissance, the difference between a sculptor and a common stonecutter, which eluded Michelangelo’s magistrate father—and who considered his son’s elected career demeaning.” (Pg. 180 of Markson’s Vanishing Point).

     Immediately preceding that passage in Vanishing Point, Markson wrote:
     “For all the renown achieved by many, painters and sculptors in antiquity were considered little better than manual workers on a level with blacksmiths or shoemakers.
     Cf. Plutarch: No well-born youth would want to be Phidias or Polyclitus, however much he may admire their art.” (Pg. 180).

     Throughout history, we’ve never been very good to those who choose artist as a profession.
     Sure, once they reach a certain celebrity status, we praise them.
     (Those who do achieve that level of appreciation being very few and far between).
     Or long after they’re dead, we praise them.
     (Though many more equally talented are forever forgotten).
     But if there’s any immediate take-away from Markson’s tetralogy it is that collectively we humans treat our artists rather poorly.
     We have little respect for their trade.

The first page of David Markson’s copy of Bonnard by Raymond Cogniat:

     On which Markson has written the inscription:
     “Markson
     NYC 1968”
     Amid an ordered chaos of black ink scribbles created through a crosshatching pattern.

—-

I could, of course, mention here the few times the artist Pierre Bonnard is mentioned by Markson in his tetralogy (The Notecard Quartet: Reader’s Block, This Is Not A Novel, Vanishing Point, and The Last Novel), but the crosshatched pattern around his name in this scan has me thinking about the interwoven nature of Markson’s late novels.

Crosshatching can be defined as:
“The layering of planes of parallel lines on top of each other in order to create a gradient or texture in a drawing.”

Could there be a better metaphor for the inner workings of the Notecard Quartet?

Markson’s tetralogy is a series of planes of parallel fragmented thematic factoids interwoven into one another in order to create a gradient or textured prosaic poem.

The tetralogy is an ordered chaos of cultural detritus written in a sort of literary crosshatching pattern.

The first page of David Markson’s copy of Michelangelo by Ludwig Goldscheider:

     On which Markson wrote as an inscription:
     “Markson N.Y.C.
     ————___1964”

—

As any reader of Markson’s late novels knows, they are filled with what he told Michael Silverblatt on KCRW’s Bookworm were “incidental odds and ends, intellectual snippets—whatever you might call them—about literary people, about artists, about composers, about even sometimes sports figures.”

And Markson always threw in these little “incidental odds and ends,” even in his early books, even though they have more of a narrative.
Going all the way back to his early detective novels you can already see his interests and obsessions with intellectual trivia forming.

Though all Markson’s books are filled with these little bits of information, he rarely repeated the same tidbit twice.

     Also in the Silverblatt interview, Markson said:
     “I try not to repeat anecdotes.”
     And when further talking with Silverblatt about why he doesn’t put the same anecdotes in different books:
     “I don’t want people to be stumbling over the same story.”

True, a handful reoccur in a couple books, but for the most part, each little nugget is entirely unique in every new book.

One of the few tidbits used more than twice though is one about Michelangelo—specifically about him never taking off his boots, even to bed.

Some iteration of this information appears in four of Markson’s books (only one of these appearances is in his final tetralogy The Notecard Quartet though).

     The first mention of this story of Michelangelo and his boots is all the way back in Markson’s 1970 novel Going Down.
     On pg. 187:
     “And yet all I remember half the time are things like Michelangelo wearing his boots to bed.”

This factoid is mentioned again on pg. 7 of Markson’s next novel Springer’s Progress:
“Dana get authentically grieved at him, find himself pondering that Michelangelo wore his boots to bed.”

     And on pg. 185 of Wittgenstein’s Mistress:
     “Have I ever mentioned that Michelangelo practically never took a bath in his life, by the way?
     And even wore his boots to bed?
     On my honor, it is a well known item in the history of art that Michelangelo was not somebody one would particularly wish to sit too close to.
     Which on second thought could very well change one’s view as to why all of those Medici kept telling him don’t bother to get up, as a matter of fact.”

     Lastly, in The Notecard Quartet, on pg. 23 of Vanishing Point, Michelangelo and his boots reappear:
     “At certain seasons he kept those boots on for such a length of time that when he drew them off, the skin came away altogether with the leather.
     Said Ascanio Condivi, a friend of Michelangelo’s.”

Pg. 131 of David Markson’s copy of I, Michelangelo, Sculptor by Michelangelo:

On which Markson wrote in the margins next to a mention in a letter of “Sebastiano”:
“(Sebastian del Piombo)”

—

Sebastian del Piombo is mentioned in one of Markson’s books—also, no surprise, in relation to Michelangelo.

     On pg. 80 of Vanishing Point:
     “Pope Leo X, to Sebastiano del Piombo, as to why he was holding off on commissions for Michelangelo:
     There is absolutely no getting on with the man.”

     From pg. 192 of Wittgenstein’s Mistress:
     “Certainly I would have found it more than agreeable to shake Michelangelo’s hand, no matter how the pope or Louis Pasteur might have felt about this.
     In fact I would have been excited just to see the hand that had taken away superfluous material in the way that Michelangelo had taken it away.
     Actually, I would have been pleased to tell Michelangelo how fond I am of his sentence that I once underlined, too.
     Perhaps I have not mentioned having once underlined a sentence by Michelangelo.
     I once underlined a sentence by Michelangelo.
     This was a sentence that Michelangelo once wrote in a letter, when he had lived almost seventy-five years.
     You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.
     On my honor, Michelangelo once wrote that.
     As a matter of fact I am next to positive I would have liked Michelangelo.”

There is absolutely no getting on with the man.

Pg. 83 of David Markson’s copy of Art on the Edge: Creators and Situations by Harold Rosenberg:

On which Markson placed a check next to Rosenberg writing:
“Mitchell repudiates automatism; ‘I don’t close my eyes and hope for the best,’ she is quotes as saying.”

—

I don’t close my eyes and hope for the best.

Of course, this is a quote from abstract expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, defending her painting style, while repudiating automatism.

     Her only mention in Markson’s Notecard Quartet has her seemingly repudiating something else entirely, another artist with whom she sometimes associated:
     “That tampon painter.
     Joan Mitchell called Helen Frankenthaler.”
     From pg. 132 of The Last Novel.

Pg. 18 of David Markson’s copy of Lautrec by Denys Sutton:

On which Markson placed a check in the margin next to the following:
“For Lautrec, the brothel was a sort of club, where he would stay for weeks on end. He felt at home there and, as he wittily observed, they were the only places where one’s shoes were properly cleaned.”

—

     This witty observation of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s is recounted in Markson’s This Is Not A Novel on pg. 131:
     “Parisian brothels. The only place where one’s shoes were ever properly shined.
     Said Toulouse-Lautrec.”