As
it seemed fitting, we decided to return to the theme of last year’s
“Hommage à Guillaume Apollinaire“ during the exhibition period
of 2018-2019. This time, we are honoring the great French poet with
our latest book. Each chapter is dedicated to a color and begins with
the name of a composer followed by a piece of music set by the same
to one of Apollinaire’s poems. This is yet another way to continue
our tradition of bringing together visual arts with poetry and music
in our events and art books. Doubtlessly, our artistic creativity
also draws on the poetic soulscape inhabited by the famous poet, art
critic, and friend of Picasso’s for an entire year.
Guillaume Apollinaire’s Time in the Rhineland
It
was Guillaume Apollinaire’s stay only a stone’s throw away from
here that inspired us to name our studio gallery in Bonn-Königswinter
after the famous poet (2018 saw the 100th anniversary of his death). Emulating Apollinaire’s inventive
avantgarde mind, “Apollinaire” Studio Gallery follows a novel
concept giving artists from around the world a unique platform to
present themselves. In the context of our international competition
series “Enter into Art”, it will serve as a reputable stage to
innovative art shows and art book presentations in the future. Only a
short “Sunday walk” away stands the half-timbered castle Neuglück
where Apollinaire worked as a private tutor to a family of
Francophile aristocrats between August 1901 and August 1902.
Apollinaire’s
stay in Germany was a stroke of luck for the history of literature.
Getting paid in advance, he could take in the poetic scenery around
him at his leisure and make it his own through songs and poems. The
writing he produced during this time is lasting proof of how
important it is to promote the arts by providing appropriate social
settings! Later in his life, Apollinaire returned to the Rhineland
once again. Together with artist Robert Delaunay, he visited August
Macke in Bonn, where he met the young Max Ernst. He kept his distance
from Germany after 1914, which is only understandable.
But
how exactly does the “genius loci” of our area manifest itself in
his work? Apollinaire
was 21 when he stayed in Germany. This was before he became part of
the literary bohemia at Montmartre and mingled with people like
Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger, and Marcel Duchamp. With a series of
accomplished poems in his pocket, he returned from Germany to Paris
where he dedicated himself to publishing his work, and building a
successful career as a poet. The Rhine poems mark a first poetic
climax of his work. Although he had written poems before this time,
his stay at Neuglück
was the true starting point of his career as a poet.
The Young Poet at Neuglück
Castle
Doubtlessly,
the “Rhénane” and Apollinaire’s other later poems, too, were
strongly influenced by the impressions he gleaned from this area.
This became the subject of academic research in Ernst Wolf’s
dissertation “Guillaume Apollinaire und das Rheinland“
(“Guillaume Apollinaire and the Rhineland” - Shortly after its
publication in 1937, the author was forced to emigrate to Sweden/ the
United States.) Especially the scenery around Neuglück
Castle was both new and fascinating to
the young poet. Back then, the elegant half-timbered castle set on
top of a hill was the only building far and wide. The deep coniferous
forest depicted in Apollinaire’s poem “Les Sapins” (“Fir
Trees”) still exists today. We can assume that before he came to
Germany, the only geographic settings familiar to the young poet had
been Mediterranean landscapes and the city of Paris he had hardly
left.
The
wind, the fir trees, the triad of garden, forest, and fields, the
sunsets from up here, the elegant half-timber construction, and his
first love - the entire pastoral surroundings of Neuglück
with their northern mood keep reappearing throughout Apollinaire’s
work. Fall was his favorite season, and in this area, fall is
magnificent. This, too, influenced his creative work. Most of the
poems he wrote in the Rhineland were composed in the fall of 1901:
The stormy season with its dying nature became the epitome of death
in Apollinaire’s poetic landscape. It is highly probable that
Neuglück
also served as a setting for the poems “Passion“ and “Le Vent
Nocturne“ (Night Wind). “Automne“ (“Aurumn”), “Les
Colchique“ (“Autumn Crocuses”), and „L‘Automne malade“
(“Autumn Ill”) also prominently feature the season.
It
was during his stay in Germany
that young Apollinaire first discovered folk songs. A German folk
song is sung in his poem “Nuit Rhénane“ (“Rhine Night”). In
what may be his most important poem - “La Chanson du Mal-Aimé”
(“Song of the Poorly Loved”) - he mentions the Rhineland winter
and his love for the English woman Annie Playden who was working as a
governess at Neuglück
while he
was staying there. She was his first love. He went to see her in
London later, but eventually, Annie Playden emigrated to America. The
experience of failed love also played a part in shaping the depiction
of our local scenery in his work, giving it a sentimental touch, and
turning it into a melancholy soulscape.
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| Arp-Museum |
The
romantic castles and ruins of the actual Rhineland, on the other
hand, appear only marginally in Apollinaire’s lyrical imagery. In a
letter to his mother, he compares the vineyards in the nearby Rhine
Valley with the Mediterranean Riviera of his childhood. Legend has it
that the poet met his lover in the midst of this lyrical landscape,
at Bahnhof Rolandseck, where the Arp-Museum
is located today. The nearby island of
Nonnenwerth was once home to the composer Franz Lisz, and Beethoven
was born in the Rhenish city of Bonn. This is also the landscape of
William Turner, Heinrich Heine, and Lord Byron. Although Apollinaire
always remained fond of the south, the northern scenery around
Neuglück
also inspired him greatly.
Aesthetic Observations
Apollinaire‘s
stay in our area, however, was only one of several factors that
motivated us to make his artistic views the conceptual foundation of
our projects. Just like the famous poet, we cultivate a connection
between contemporary art and meditative observation, poetry, and
sound, because each color is a tone contributing to the completion of
harmony. The same is true for poetry. The picturesque Rhineland
inspired Apollinaire to compose some of the most melodious verses in
French literature. Just like the haiku poets, he found a lot of his
poetic impulses while hiking through nature, and the seasons feature
prominently in his poetry. The two opposing landscapes right here at
our doorstep are also a continuous source of inspiration to Gabriele
Walter, and continuously prompt her to write new haiku poems. We are
happy to include them in our group projects and keep building upon
the poetic flair of our surroundings.
It
was also in Germany that Apollinaire wrote his first art reviews.
Being a proponent of free verse and modern painting, even his reviews
resembled melodious sonnets. At the same time, his observations on
art have inspired us to make our own, and, like him, give artists the
opportunity to present themselves in a unique way (also see:
“Featured Artist”). In his book “The Cubist Painters –
Aesthetic Meditations” he coined the term “Orphism”. After
staying with Robert Delaunay for a while, he drew parallels between
Delaunay’s abstract art and music.
What
Rainer Maria Rilke is to the Germans, Guillaume Apollinaire with his
linguistic brilliance and musicality is to the French. No matter what
part you look at, his verses can be enjoyed like pleasant little
tunes, his works offer a unique sense of linguistic ecstasy. In one
of his verses, Apollinaire compares the rustling of the wind with the
sound of an organ. Not only in the context of Dadaism does
Apollinaire’s poetic form appear as a musical composition of
sounds, colors, and mental rhythms comparable to the poetic work of
Hans Arp.
Apollinaire’s Poems Set to Music
Although
Apollinaire has left us little on how he felt about the subject of
music, and believed himself to lack musicality, we want to pursue the
question of his musicality a little further. In this context, it
seems useful to look at the review he wrote about the premiere of
Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau’s ballet “Parade” in 1917 for which
Picasso had designed the stage set. Apollinaire hailed Satie as an
avantgarde artist and lists Stravinsky as one of several Futurist
artists. In his aesthetic observations, he talks about color and
rhythm mutually influencing each other.
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| Studio Gallery "Apollinaire" |
Much
more important than his comments on music, however, is the fact that
his poetry has inspired more than 40 different composers. The
epoch-making success and musicality of his poems is reflected in the
music many famous composers have written to them. Apollinaire’s
later work mainly inspired traditional composers, as his poetry did
contain traditional elements. On the other hand, two characteristic
features of his more modern poetry have inspired composers: its
musicality and the sound of its language.
The
Swiss composer Arthur Honegger was the first person to set
Apollinaire’s writing to music. It is possible that the poet knew
of and heard these compositions. For his “Six poémes” for vocals
and piano written between 1915 and 1917, he chose poems from the
“Alcools”. Dimitri Schostakovitsch set several parts of his 14th
symphony, which centered on the subjects of death and parting to
Apollinaire’s words, translated into and sung in Russian. Several
composers including Léo Ferré, Daniel Ruyneman, Jean Absil, Louis
Beydts, Lionel Daumis, Jacques Lasry, and Jean Rivier were inspired
by the poem “Le point Mirabeau”, resulting in as many musical
versions of it.
When
Francis Poulence heard the poet recite his own work at various
occasions, he was taken with his musicality and mode of presentation.
He was overjoyed when Apollinaire’s friend Marie Laurencin thought
she could hear the poet’s voice in Poulenc’s songs. Poulenc
dedicated a lot of attention to the musicality of language and saw
himself as a musician inspired by “Apollinaire and Eluard”. His
cycle “Caligrammes” written in 1948 was based on seven poems from
Apollinaire’s poetry collection of the same name. Chansonniers like
Marcel Mouloudji and Léo Ferré were also among those who sang
Apollinaire’s poems. Our own selection of music set to
Apollinaire’s words was determined by our wish to establish a
connection with the Rhineland and the homage put together by Kurt
Ries.
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Prelud exhibition
in Bad Breisig |
His
“Hommage à Guillaume Apollinaire“ was shown in Cologne, Bad
Breisig and Bernkastel-Kues in the context of our video projection
“Touring the World through Art“, and presented anew in
combination with 24 traveling haiku written by Gabriele Walter. Our
exhibition space enabled us to add this as a bonus event to our “5th International Enter-into-Art Installation” featuring small
paintings. This gave the participating artists from around the world
a chance to present paintings in larger formats, too. The pictures
from the video projection and the traveling poems will be published
in the art book “A Fine Art Journey”.
Feel free to click Google Translate in the sidebar and get help and read it in
your mother language.
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Art Show at Studio Gallery Apollinaire -
Multimedia Art Lounge for Innovative Screen and Video Presentations
of Large-Scale Paintings and Art Objects |
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