Exactitude, truth, action, are of the domain of words. Therefore not native to Germany, land of music, abstract thought, visions. It is most at home in France, in England. He dislikes the music of England.
He loved the Basque Country. The soil seemed an ancient fatherland where he must have lived, loved, suffered. There the wandering winds of summer, the slightest motion of water, sound of the human voice, awoke imperious memories. Everything touched his heart.
In life we may be always stumbling upon our ancient and forgotten dwelling places, where in some other dress of flesh we played. One life for the manifold mind is inconceivable, for its uselessness, its injustice. Lives are multiple. Science will teach us how, some day, to remember.
In Holland he was unhappy. He felt fear like a child, in that melancholy country, filled with the inexplainable silences of water; strange, too dim shadow-lighting; and a sky where rain clouds shift.
The brush of Franz Hals won him. He says that if genius ever proved itself nature’s outlaw, it is in the paintings Hals made after eighty. Then to Hals came fresh fluency, supreme disdain of details. Then genius deluged him with the power to fling forth reality.
He refuses to worship Rubens, because Rubens never suffered. He who has not suffered can not attain excellence. But Rubens touched his painter’s sense to emotion. Rubens has all greatnesses, all richnesses. But he has not suffered! Therefore I refuse to place him among the few. Masters are always alone, bowed beneath weight of lofty power.
He dwells upon the prolific exuberance of the few who take no account of creative energy. At length they sweep beyond human, beyond material limits. Dürer was one of these, when, to illustrate little books, he made designs too grandiose for walls of antique palaces, vainly dreaming there would be at least a few who could comprehend him.
Redon lived the life worth while. What a vulgar stupidity is money beside it! It can give neither ideas, emotions, nor even comprehension or appreciation of what money can buy. The pure joy of the heart is honey. It dwells hidden in deep centers of flower-gold. It is not easy to find nor procure. God has to send his winged messengers to collect the honey of the heart.
Seeing is supposed to be something of general possession. The fact is, it is unusual. It is not eyes which keep men from being blind. Once some savages from Tierra del Fuego came to France. Redon looked at them. He called them proud, haughty, cruel, powerful, grotesque. They made him vision the perished primitive world. He found in them grandeur. He saw all the other grandeurs of civilization, too, shine in their eyes. He enjoyed their uncorrupted, plastic beauty. They were rare bronzes; fine, firm. They had not learned the error of decoration.