Le feu sacré

Ozias Leduc source

I had arrived at the country house on the night of Friday the 13th, where in general we dine by candle light. It had been a fairly long drive with some heavy traffic where it wasn't expected. But we were happy to arrive, light the fires and begin a peaceful weekend. We didn't know what had happened back in Paris. Then just before going to bed, my worried sister called from the US thinking we were still at the apartment.

Sometimes we know there is far too much said of tragedy in the media - classic and social - and our minutes of silence could easily be multiplied by 1000.  Yet how is it possible to speak again of art, of beauty, fabrics, decoration and other privileged preoccupations in a blog such as mine without aknowledging our mourning after the barbarous acts of terror in our beloved Paris,
in our beloved world ?

The right words lack before the gravity of this situation 

but words are the first things we have at our disposition to find unity. And because in communicating we reinforce our courage, I have borrowed these from Edmond Rostand's proud Chantecler, 

C’est la nuit qu’il est beau de croire à la lumière.

It's at night that faith in the light is admirable.

C'est la bonne heure

Carl Holsoe

Now is the best time when the lamp is lit -

All is so quiet and consoling tonight, 

In such silence you could hear even feathers fall.

Now is the best time when, gently

Comes the beloved  

Like a breeze, like smoke 

So softly, so slowly.

She says nothing at first – and I listen to her; 

And her soul that I hear clearly,  

I surprise shining forth 

So I kiss it on her eyes.

Now is the best time when the lamp is lit, 

When confessions of loving each other the lasting day 

Come forth from the bottom of our hearts, 

Come from their transparent depths to light.

C'est la bonne heure où la lampe s'allume
Tout est si calme et consolant, ce soir,
Et le silence est tel, que l'on entendrait choir 

Des plumes.

C'est la bonne heure où, doucement, 

S'en vient la bien-aimée,

Comme la brise ou la fumée,

Tout doucement, tout lentement.

Elle ne dit rien d'abord - et je l'écoute ;

Et son âme, que j'entends toute, 

Je la surprends luire et jaillir 

Et je la baise sur ses yeux.

C'est la bonne heure où la lampe s'allume,

Où les aveux

De s'être aimés le jour durant,

Du fond du coeur profond mais transparent, 

S'exhument.

Émile Verhaeren

Schalcken lights the way

A Young Boy Holding a Candle Behind a Halloween Mask  

image: repro-tableaux

The mysterious chiaroscuro effects in the work of 17th century Dutch artist Schalcken so seized writer Le Fanu's 19th century Irish imagination, that he worked the painter into two of his Gothic tales. From a passing mention in Green Tea to an entire story as a romanced character in The Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter, the artist surely played a part in situations he had not foreseen through the bravura of his paintings.

'There are some pictures,' said I to my friend, 'which impress one, I know not how, with a conviction that they represent not the mere shapes and combinations which have floated through the imagination of the artist, but scenes, faces, and situations which have actually existed. When I look upon that picture, something assures me that I behold the representation of a reality.'

from The Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Boy blowing on a fire brand to light a candle  

National Museum Scotland

I was very touched by the Schalcken painting of Ceres looking for Proserpina of my last post, stumbled across in museum in Bourges. It was just the right moment to come upon it, when the days had begun to shorten and fade into a grey mist and so, I looked for more. Now that I know that Schalcken made a specialty of flame lit pictures, indeed, painted scene after scene of illuminations contained in the darkest of surroundings, I'm once again contemplating of how diffferent we would all be without our wonderful, but sometimes glaring, electrified world. Just one wavering candle seems to reveal the generosity of darkness better than anything else.

Gottfried Schalcken 1643-1706, self portrait  image: Wikipedia

Here he is, quite the devil.  Part of the Leiden Fijnschilder's, or fine painter's, movement, Schalcken was a genre painter  who worked in an exquisite and highly polished manner. His master was Gerrit Dou, himself a student of Rembrandt. Reputed to be rude and uncouth with just the right nasty temper to set off his ill-mannered ways, it was no wonder the Dutch painter had problems getting along in society.  He didn't really fit into England where he lived from 1692–1697 and where he painted William III. Most known as a virtuoso of the candle lit painting and all the fuliginous obscurity which that implies, Le Fanu imagines him like this in his story:

"There are few forms upon which the mantle of mystery and romance could seem to hang more ungracefully than upon that of the uncouth and clownish Schalken--the Dutch boor--the rude and dogged, but most cunning worker in oils, whose pieces delight the initiated of the present day almost as much as his manners disgusted the refined of his own; and yet this man, so rude, so dogged, so slovenly, I had almost said so savage, in mien and manner, during his after successes, had been selected by the capricious goddess, in his early life, to figure as the hero of a romance by no means devoid of interest or of mystery."

That romance was writer LeFanu's fantasy, enflamed most likely by the view of not one particular painting, but several--and of his own imaginings.

Girl at the Window  image: National Museum Cardiff

"I had often been struck, while visiting Vandael, by a remarkable picture, in which, though no connoisseur myself, I could not fail to discern some very strong peculiarities, particularly in the distribution of light and shade, as also a certain oddity in the design itself, which interested my curiosity."

 Maiden with a Candle image: Repro-tableaux

"In its hand the figure bears a lamp, by whose light alone the form and face are illuminated; the features are marked by an arch smile, such as pretty women wear when engaged in successfully practising some roguish trick..."

Lady admiring an earring by the light of a candle  image: Repro-tableaux 

  "Your fancy has not deceived you, my good friend, for that picture is the record, and I believe a faithful one, of a remarkable and mysterious occurrence."

Sheridan Le Fanu's color sense and close interplay with the painter's art are demonstrated when at the end of his fiction he states that by limiting his literary palette he has chosen a starker focus.

"This tale is traditionary, and the reader will easily perceive, by our studiously omitting to heighten many points of the narrative, when a little additional colouring might have added effect to the recital, that we have desired to lay before him, not a figment of the brain, but a curious tradition connected with, and belonging to, the biography of a famous artist."

One artist shows just as much virtuosity as the other.
***

for the full tale: The Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter

and a BBC production: Schalken the Painter