H. Adler - Panorama

Johannes is caught up in other conversations, but toward the end he also hears Haschke, and says, “You should not be envious of anyone or complain about their family. It’s simple. Each is granted the circumstances that best suit him. It only matters to recognize them and to make something good out of them. On one’s way one shouldn’t melt into sentimentality.”—“Oh, you’re so right, Johannes, you are always right! Don’t think that I am really envious of Yolanda and her family! I’m happy that she has it so good. I also have it good when my sins are so great. For then is the grace of God even greater. Martin Luther was right, even if I never was a Protestant, when he said that one should sin deeply, in order to truly experience grace.” Johannes only says softly that one should watch out for one’s tongue getting caught up in idle chatter and parroting, especially when repeating mistaken ideas. Meanwhile more and more people arrive, Frieda responding to the doorbell and opening the door, but then it rings once more, and because Frieda isn’t there Haschke walks out to answer, as guests pour into the kitchen and then leave it, lively voices filling every room in the apartment, as Frieda appears with a woman named Greta, and they announce that it’s almost eight o’clock, almost everyone is there whom they expected, so they should all gather in the tower room and begin, during which time Frieda and Greta will get tea ready in the kitchen, at which Johannes gets up and turns to all those around him with a soft smile and says, “Yes, indeed, let us devote ourselves to the path!” Everyone heads into the studio, in the foyer and waiting room the lights are turned off, while in the tower room only the two standing lights and the eternal light are lit, chairs having been brought in from the other rooms, everyone gathering around the table except two or three, Haschke being one of them.

Josef is introduced to the regular guests, among whom is Spiridion von Flaschenberg, who animatedly turns to him, “Josef? Josef is a wonderful name. From both the Old and the New Testament. Have you ever thought about your name before? I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you should look into it. I hope you’ll soon come to visit me. Sunday mornings everyone — and by that I mean everyone, people, gods, spirits, and demons — are welcome to visit. The entire cosmos gathers at my place. Take down the address: Flaschenbergianeum, Balbinggasse 6, Electrical Number 8 to the final stop, then right on the first street you come to, and then the next left, where you’ll already see the address, Flaschenbergianeum 9-11, home of the cosmos.” At this Herr von Flaschenberg abruptly turns away from Josef and talks with other guests, making elaborate sweeping gestures with his hands, as Josef meets another man, Herr Ringel, who with his red beard looks sort of like a professor of history, though he is in fact an academic painter, he also inviting Josef to visit him, saying, “I live a quite humble existence. Today no one values artists. Raphael’s paintings were, in a word, met with triumph when they emerged from his studio. Back then people knew how to honor the great, but today the world is awash in mediocrity. Hardly anyone believes in me, though indeed future times will erect a memorial and place my paintings in the most honored and sanctified places. That will no longer be galleries and museums, which are to blame more than anything for why no one understands painting today. Everyone is caught up in naturalism. And whoever doesn’t paint in a naturalist manner is considered an outrage, mad, or just a fool — that is to say, an artiste . People have gotten used to looking at even the work of the past as naturalistic. Above all, no one knows anything about color. If you want to understand painting, then please don’t visit any gallery, but instead come to me. I live for the most part in squalor, but no one buys paintings these days. And instead of Master Ringel I’m called Herr Ringel, which is really an insult, for art is mastery, not the pedestrian. The path to art has three stages: apprentice, assistant, and master. Painting is also a craft, not a trade. Through its nature as a craft it differs from arts like poetry and music, where there are no masters in this sense. In music the nonsense about maestro usually signifies a decline, it being diametrically opposed to the ancient notion of music. Musicians use it, I agree, but to err is human. But certainly it would sound ridiculous to say ‘Master Goethe,’ yet painters are indeed called masters. The term ‘Old Masters’ is still commonly used even today.”

Haschke then interrupts, saying, “Oh, Ringel’s paintings are epiphanies. He paints only while lost in concentration. It’s marvelous! Oh, what paintings they are!” Ringel adds, “I don’t mean to praise my own work. But in all modesty I can say that since my days at the academy I have not done a single naturalistic painting. I have dissolved all forms, I work only with color. Color is light, and thus it is divine. Each single color is a mystery that God, as it were, manifests in the rainbow. God himself cannot be painted, the Jews and Muhammad being correct about this. One can’t even paint the sun, the ultimate symbol of Him. But God’s manifestations can be painted, which share the colors we see in the rainbow. This is, as it were, my mission. I paint the path to God, and in a truly modern way, through bright colors and not in the illuminated darkness of Rembrandt, who for all his greatness was no painter. The Old Masters were also not genuine painters, but rather illuminators or colorists, they used color only for coloration, as a surface element, without having experienced it as a spiritual essence. That’s also true of Titian, who attained the most, but I have made a considerable step beyond, as it were.” Haschke then interrupts again, saying, “Oh, it’s marvelous! You have to see it! I have one of Ringel’s paintings, naturally just a small one, but for me it is greater than all the other paintings in the modern gallery. It hangs above my bed between a reproduction from a Sistine Chapel Madonna and the Mona Lisa . Ringel’s painting is not done in oils but rather pastels, like the dust of a butterfly on colored paper. I tell you, it’s like a dream. I have it framed in a magenta frame, for Ringel says that magenta is the color of the future. The painting is titled The Awakening of the Soul . Oh, it’s marvelous! One figure lifts another one high, both pointing upward to where light pours down. It’s deeply symbolic. At night I dream about it and am in a good mood when I wake up, look at the painting, and begin to concentrate.”

Ringel wants to continue to explain his marvelous painting to Josef with the help of Haschke, but things are about to get under way, as Yolanda declares soothingly that there will be plenty of time later on to talk about painting, and that Josef can indeed visit Ringel if he’s interested in modern painting. Then everyone quiets down and gathers together, though Herr von Flaschenberg uses the time for an extended explanation of a very important poem that came to him, which just yesterday he wrote down while on the streetcar, a cosmic poem whose inspiration came to him as he rode home with Achter from the registry. Spiridion is a registrar at an insurance firm and often explains in reference to his position that, through his work, insurance is tied to the entire cosmos and to eternal justice, but just yesterday while on his way home, as he thought to himself, it occurred to him to compose a poem in much the same manner that the electrical winds its way through the chaos of the city and finds its way to the harmony of the spheres. Meanwhile the other members of the group grow impatient, they don’t want to delay the evening any longer, some asking to hear the poem, which they know Herr von Flaschenberg has in his briefcase, since he always carries his new poems around with him until there are enough to fill a new book, which happens at least once a year, he urging everyone he knows to take a subscription, writing long dedications to them in their copies which end “with exceptional love” or “in burning brotherhood.” Spiridion also wants to say something quite brief about his poem, but he has to shut up, because Johannes, who smiles continually, gives a sign for all to quiet down, he wants to read something, as someone hands him the writings of Meister Eckhart, whom even Ringel recognizes with the title “Meister.” Johannes reads aloud an excerpt quietly in a graceful flowing voice and concludes, “And so one must penetrate to the truth, to the one and only, which is God himself, without seeking a manifest being, for thus one arrives at a unique state of wonder. One should remain immersed in this wonder, because human understanding doesn’t have the ability to get to the heart of the matter. Whoever wants to truly understand the wonder of God, he easily attains such knowledge within himself.” Johannes closes the book and smiles again, a smile seeming to continually rest upon his face, though it’s not frozen there but rather is joyfully alive, as he shakes his head in mild surprise and says, “That’s wonderful. Yes, it is all that simple. One doesn’t need big words. In the end, we all arrive at the same place.”