Rilke or Rodin ?
Rodin. By Rainer Maria Rilke. (Grey Walls Press. 7s. 6d.)
AN essay on a sculptor by a poet of Rilke's distinction is almost inevitably more immediately fascinating than even the best-informed article by a critic or historian. It may be that the poet's essay reveals more of the poet than the sculptor, but nevertheless it will show at least an immediate sympathy, a moving sensitivity denied to the coldly objective authority,. -Id this particular case the author not only felt deeply but was also the secretary and intimate friend of his subject. Rilke on Rodin is therefore something which must be read without fail. But oddly enough—or perhaps it is not so surprising—Rilke is always present in exalted mood, while Rodin remains as unrevealed as a clay model shrouded with a damp cloth. The essay might as easily apply to Rembrandt as to Rodin in that it is a warm tribute to a great humanist. True, certain pieces of sculpture are described very beautifully, and at times a passage such as that which describes the vitality of the small statuary which swarms on Gothic cathedrals shows Rilke to have a highly developed visual sense in addition to his lyrical gift for words. I quote it in full as a wonderfully acute prose picture : There were small figures, animals particularly, that moved, stretched or curled; and although a bird perched quietly, it contained the element of flight. A sky grew behind it and hung about it ; the far distance was folded down on each of its feathers' and should these feathers spread out like wings the wide expanse of them would be quite great. There was stillness in the stunted animals that stood
to support the cornices of the cathedrals or cowered and cringed beneath the consoles, too inert to bear the weight-; and there were
dogs and squirrels, woodpeckers and lizards, tortoises, rats and snakes. At least one bf each kind ;-these creatures seemed to have been caught in the open, in the forest and co ,roads, and the compulsion to live under stone tendrils, flowers and leaves. must have changed them slowly into what' they were now_and were to remain for ever.
But where is Rodin ? What of the particular gifts of that great artist whose popularity is at present, -overshadowed by the con- temporary addiction to the egg and te punctured pebble ? Well, Rodin is to Rilke a iort of turgid titan whose primary concern is the same _warm, heavy, drooping sexuality, lit with the same sombre emotions . of a heroic and religious kind, which are characteristic not only of Rilke's own verse but also of Mahler's music. The "Vienna romantic" might be a name for it. It is the cult of the womb-searchers which in due course produced Freud to act as a guide through the involved convolutions which lead back to mother. It may be that Rodin felt like that, but here it seems to me Rilke is writing about Rilke and scores a clear .miss as far as Rodin's Gallic temperament and sense of the plastic is concerned. " Bodies " says Rilke every few paragraphs. "Bodies that touched one another" —" that body which desired to be enwrapped within itself without the aid of aught external." " Now there is no doubt that Rodin was possessed oT a deep sensuality and that some of his sculpture is an expression of 'sexual impulses, but I suspect that, like 'any other plastic artist of his stature, the real issue was the sculptured one and the sexual was secondary to it. Rilke is concerned with the significance of gesture with the weight of bodies and with emotional reaction, which is only half the truth about Rodin. He looks for significance first, emotion second and 'form last of all, which is a purely romantic point of view.
However, once one accepts the limitation of Rilke's intense romanticism in his "approach to sculpture, and it is not, after all, an unlikely reaction from a romantic poet, the book becomes intensely interesting, mainly because Rilke's admiration for Rodin and his work is so intense. The author is so genuinely moved by "The Burghers of Calais," for instance, and his gift of verbal expression is so considerable that he really does contrive to give' a vivid and convincing life to his description of the celebrated group. Added to this is the sense of immediacy which the book conveys by virtue of the fact that it was written by someone with an intimate personal knowledge of the master and his studio. The translators seem to me to have done a very tolerable job, though I cannot compare it with the original, which I have not read ; and Padraic Colum con- tributes an adequate preface. The illustrations are not exceptional,
but all in all the book is well worth its price. MICHAEL AYRTON.
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