A wrap-up post on Walter Pater's Imaginary Portraits and a couple of "portrait"-like short stories.
A few Online resources for Walter Pater
Project Gutenberg's link for Imaginary Portraits
All Walter Pater's works at Project Gutenberg
Imaginary Portraits discussion: Chapters 1 - 2
Imaginary Portraits discussion: Chapter 3
Imaginary Portraits discussion: Chapter 4
Non-"Portrait" portraits
I enjoyed the four stories that made up Imaginary Portraits so I decided to read a couple of additional “portraits”. “The Child in the House” was published in Macmillan’s Magazine in August 1878. The somewhat autobiographical piece is a look at Florian Deleal’s childhood and what Pater called “the process of our brain-building.” This was Pater’s first “imaginary portrait,” a term he coined in a letter sent to the editor of Macmillan’s, meaning for readers to react like they would in front of portrait and speculate what became of the character.
There are many similarities to the stories in Imaginary Portraits. There is much artistic detail provided in descriptions (with emphasis on light and dark again), intricate sentences with many complex clauses, and a movement of time back and forth while telling the story. Unlike the other portraits, this one does entail a sense of escape unless nostalgia counts as such. In the development of Florian, there is an emphasis on the appreciation of beauty and the awareness of pain and death. “For it is false to suppose that a child’s sense of beauty is dependent on any choiceness or special fineness, in the objects whch present themselves to it, though this indeed comes to be the rule with most of us in later life; earlier, in some degree, we see inwardly…”. In relating the big and little things that Florian reminisces about, the story becomes a study on memory associations and events/things that shape us. His awareness of death and pain heighten his appreciation of beauty.
In describing Florian’s development, Pater emphasizes sensory perceptions. Florian “was led to assign very little to the abstract thought, and much to its sensible vehicle or occasion”, the senses being “instinctive in his way of receiving the world…”. As Florian ages, his interest in religious imagery deepens and he uses religion to interpret what is happening to and around him. While nothing much happens in the story, it is a good introduction to the later portraits in their impressionistic technique and intricate writing.
“Apollo in Picardy” was published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in November 1893, and feels both the same and as a mirror image of “Denys L’Auxerrois.” The similarity with Denys goes beyond the mythic component:
The difference between the description of Apollyon and the name Apollo in the title promoted some of the dissonance within the work. The name Apollyon can be traced to a fallen biblical angel, whose name translates from the Greek as “destroyer”. Apollyon is the opposite of the Prior, who produces his writings through discipline instead of through creative energy. Discipline and order are used to suppress the imaginative and free yearnings of everyone, with the exception of Apollyon (and previously in Denys). People that are exposed to Apollyon, though, blossom and become more creative without realizing it. In contrast, religion is shown as a stifling habit, devoid of original intent or higher meaning. The transcendence comes from listening to Apollyon’s music or in the play of his games, freeing the individual to experience and enjoy life.
Pater doesn’t seem to be rewriting the ancient myths so much as updating them to reflect the modern world. Greek and Roman myths allowed opposites to coincide, maybe not always peacefully but at least together. Whether the myths were meant to symbolize contrasting natures such as the conscious vs. unconscious or sensual vs. spiritual, there was coexistence or mingling in the opposites. The feeling after reading “Apollo in Picardy” and “Denys L’Auxerrois” is that there is no more coexistence in our divided drives, to the detriment of the sensual. Apollyon kills Hyacinthus (who discovered “his true self for the first time” upon his visit to Picardy) during their games. Denys’ death comes at the hands of those he liberated. Pagan and Christian rites are mingled to the detriment of those participating. Such internal and external differences can no longer live side by side, the modern mind unable to bring dissonance into harmony (or so Pater seems to be saying).
In addition to the complexity of his writing and his emphasis on the influence of impressions, an additional technique that Pater foreshadows in modern writing is the uncertainty of events and characters. Instead of an omniscient narrator, at times gossip and rumor are allowed to stand unchallenged and unanswered. Was Apollyon involved with murder and other wayward actions? Was Denys responsible for the vineyard murder? Even he is unsure. The uncertainty of actors and actions yields an extremely ambiguous reading, dovetailing nicely with the unreconciled division within characters and events. Pater’s modern mythmaking reveals a troubling trend in individual consciousness, unable to live in harmony with the unconscious or society.
I’ll stop with Pater at this point (for now) even though there are several other short stories that are considered “portraits”. Next up is Eça de Queirós’ The Relic.
“Duke Carl of Rosenmold”
Having read this several weeks ago before a vacation break and work overload, I run the risk of leaving out much of what struck me as important or good about this story. While enjoying it, I did feel it was the weakest of the four portraits in the collection. Or at least the one that connected the least.
Several things come together in Imaginary Portraits with this story: the setting is continental Europe, the time is a not-so-golden past, the characters involve mythical gods (or pale imitations of them) come back to life, art criticism is couched within the fiction, and themes involving escape are common. In this story we see Duke Carl, who is compared to Apollo by his countrymen, discovering the beauty and importance of the Italian Renaissance. There are several thematic facets of Apollo that reside in Carl: a bringer of light, a discoverer of truth, and a patron of the arts. With the use of light, artificial sources versus natural light has important symbolism in the story.
Yet Carl is often described as “a really heroic effort of mind at a disadvantage.” He valued pale imitations of masterworks, intimating that he is a pale imitation of the god Apollo. When a masterpiece from the Renaissance is unveiled in Rosemond, no one is able to comprehend and appreciate its greatness. The cheapening of ideals comes to fruition with his Tom Sawyer-like fake death and funeral which he Carl witnesses. While this echoes the romanticism of death by Sebastian Van Storck, it highlights once again the ennui and decay in continental Europe (especially as compared to the Renaissance)…or maybe I’m reading too much judgment in Pater’s descriptions.
One additional theme that also appears to shine through is Pater’s belief that knowledge of the past is indispensible in understanding the self. Carl’s trip through the German countryside and yearning to learn more about the source of the Italian Renaissance shows one attempt at achieving this. However he works alone, drawing wrong conclusions “without a ray of light from others.” He reads too much into things and gets his history wrong while being “without suspicion of the cynic afterthought that such historic soul was but an arbitrary substitution, a generous loan of one’s self.”
Carl’s new poetic code was going “straight to life,” seeking adventure without considering the responsibilities of his title in order “to cheat a little the profound ennui of actual life.” In a tactic similar to his mock funeral, he directs his lover (a common country lass) with a test of her devotion. While his disappearance is unexplained, certainly ignoring larger political and military events going on around him played a role in his demise. The story begins its conclusion with this explanation:
”The Enlightening, the Aufklaerung, according to the aspiration of Duke Carl, was effected by other hands; Lesser and Herder, brilliant precursors of the age of genius which centered in Goethe, coming well within the natural limits of Carl’s lifetime. As precursors Goethe gratefully recognised them, and understood that there had been a thousand others, looking forward to a new era in German literature with the desire which is in some sort a “forecast of capacity,” awakening each other to the permanent reality of a poetic ideal in human life, slowly forming that public consciousness to which Goethe actually addressed himself. It is their aspirations I have tried to embody in the portrait of Carl.”
This explanation leaves me a little uncertain. Is Pater trying to say that gods and myths are not tied to one person but more a product of what is happening in the public spirit? Or that people like Carl, untalented yet above the surrounding level, can improve the chance for the culmination of true greatness—fulfilling his aspiration that greatness reappear in the world? Or some other meaning altogether?
By recasting ancient myths in modern times (or in the case of Denys L’Auxerrois, in medieval times), much of the original intent of the myths have been discarded. Whether they were originally meant to explain natural causes or explore the division of the conscious versus the unconscious is no longer as important since science had improved greatly and psychology was burgeoning. Areas that myth still help explain, regardless of time, is in the search for meaning and in the understanding of creation. The updating of these myths is a lot more open-ended than the original myths, highlighting the dual nature of many of the original mythic characters. Regardless of the ultimate meaning intended, these portraits allow Pater to use fictional characters to comment on art, analyze the human condition, and investigate the relationship between past and present.
”Sebastian had come to think all definite forms of being, the warm pressure of life, the cry of nature itself, no more than a troublesome irritation of the surface of the one absolute mind, a passing vexatious thought or uneasy dream there, at its height of petulant importunity in the eager, human creature.”
He seeks to obtain “the restoration of equilibrium, the calm surface of the absolute, untroubled mind, to tabula rasa” by extinguishing or suppressing oneself. Sebastian rejects the materialism he sees around him and embraces a nihilism that leads him to attempt suicide. Once again, escape, symbolic and literal, is a major theme in these portraits.
As in the previous portraits, Pater clearly ties the internal life and the society as a whole. Despite being highly regarded by everyone, Sebastian is physically sick in addition to a melancholy spirit. Society tries to engage Sebastian, but usually for its own benefit—free dinners, marriage prospects, wealth seeking—things to benefit the individual at the exclusion of others. Pater intends Sebastian’s life to be a cautionary tale judging from the attending physician’s comment at the end of the portrait of the disease emerging “on people grown somewhat over-delicate in their nature by the effects of modern luxury.” In addition, Pater seems to be coming down hard on the romantic view of suicide…just because death was inevitable doesn’t mean that it should be sought before its time. When actively seeking death, Sebastian saves the life of a child. Finding a purpose that lies beyond one’s self gives meaning and purpose lacking in all other aspects of his life. While the emerging disease is literal, it also represents a metaphorical tuberculosis (and melancholy) that can affect those becoming too “delicate” in nature.
A strong watery component fills this portrait, starting with the setting itself. Holland is described as half land, half water and constantly under threat of being consumed by the sea. The storm at the end of the story shows the delicate balance and reliance on the dykes for the country’s wellbeing. In addition to describing life around this constant watery threat, Pater’s language adds to the feel. One example: “…(T)he monotonous tide of competing, fleeting existence.”
Emerging from these portraits are philosophical views embodied in tragic fables. Next will be the final portrait in this collection, “Duke Carl of Rosenmold,” and hopefully some additional stories by Pater that fit the Imaginary Portraits mold.
”Beside that unreal, imaginary light upon these scenes, these persons, which is pure gift of his, there was a light, a poetry, in those persons and things themselves, close at hand WE had not seen. He has enabled us to see it: we are so much the better-off thereby, and I, for one, the better. The world he sets before us so engagingly has its care for purity, its cleanly preferences, in what one is to SEE—in the outsides of things—and there is something, a sign, a memento, at the least, of what makes life really valuable, even in that. There, is my simple notion, wholly womanly perhaps, but which I may hold by, of the purpose of the arts.”
Pater adds reviews of Watteau’s work as well as includes one (Pater’s?) view of art. In the quote, the journalist shows a relationship between life and art, but as you are immersed more in the story the feeling that life should be treated as art shines through. The transcendent reaction from viewing his work is not to be limited to art, but can be used when viewing the world as well. The world itself does not become better, despite the journalist’s belief that that is what Watteau wants, but how we view the world can change.
As I read through this story, I kept hearing echoes of a few themes within To the Lighthouse. Pater’s elaborate sentence construction, with numerous intricate clauses, also felt familiar. Here is Pater’s description of Watteau having difficulty translating his impression of a scene to canvas: “(H)e is often out of humor with himself because he cannot project into a picture the life and spirit of his first thought with the crayon.” It’s easy to see how Watteau could have been Lily Briscoe’s great-great-great-grandfather. Additional reflections on the purposes of writing and usefulness of art, as well as some thoughts on memory, tie the stories together even more. I’m not trying to overdo the similarities, but did want to point them out.
An additional theme in the story is one of Watteau’s unhappiness and desire to escape. For a while he constantly moves, first from his poor home and then between patrons. Over and over the journalist mentions he despised the society he moved in, describes his demeanor as melancholy, and notes the lack of peace he found even when successful. Changing the way people see the world is not the same as changing the world, and the melancholy Watteau feels appears to hasten his demise. The bird trapped in a chapel, fluttering to escape until it eventually dies, becomes a metaphor for the artist. When Watteau dies of consumption, it is noted that “He has been a sick man all his life. He was always a seeker after something in the world that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all.”
Chapter 2, “Denys L’Auxerrois,” is a retelling of the Dionysus myth, set in 13th century France. The first part of the story feels like a travelogue, focusing on the architecture of a few towns in the Burgundy/Chablis region (I guess the story has me focusing on wine). As the narrator happens upon some stained glass and a tapestry, he is told the story behind the pieces. Denys l’Auxerrois is an updated Dionysus. His appearance brings bountiful harvests (especially of grapes and the resulting wines) and a wild atmosphere complete with ecstatic gatherings. An artistic high-point was reached during his appearance in the area, including the creation of a pipe organ, yet the exuberant atmosphere he engendered was unsustainable. Denys also seemed set apart from the change in the area.
The story begins by noting of past “golden ages” as people like to recall but as the tale of Denys progresses the reader begins to question how much better things were “back then.” In this case the gold turns out to be a thin, gilded layer on top of something much more base. This gilding was symbolized by several things but one interesting one was the change in the area's wines that had been judged phenomenal--before the bottle was empty the contents would turn rancid. Wild tales begin to circulate about Denys’ followers, so he hides himself among artisans finishing a cathedral. He guides much of the work without them always realizing it and their work took on a progression that was repeated regardless of medium: gaiety, followed by the grotesque, and finally a “well-assured seriousness.” This, along with the note that Apollo’s picture was on the organ-case, highlights the conflict of the two gods.
The finding of a child’s skeleton in the foundation of an ancient bridge calls into question the notion of a golden age at any time (the bridge was from the Roman Empire) as well as the feeling of the past coming back to haunt the present. The gaiety and frenzy that Denys had engendered could not be sustained and brings forth a darker side within his followers as they dismember their former leader. The melancholy that Denys seems to feel is the realization that there is no resolution between Dionysus and Apollo, only a delicate balance. There is no return to a golden age as there never was one initially. Or, if the time of Denys was meant to be represent one, the golden age has a dark core.
Interesting stories so far, and I look forward to the last two...
