Page 36 - Studio International - February 1971

he has introduced a new motif which opens the and unnecessary to enter into all these details, "I painted it on the 6th," he explained, "after
way to a comprehensive interpretation of the but a work of art cannot be looked upon only the evening together with Alex Moszkowski...
esoteric aspects of his paintings. Strindberg as a 'thing by itself'. All the internal and external Now the spell is broken. The Night of jealousy
met Frida Uhl in January 1893, and in her events and circumstances which can be uncovered has unfortunately lost its power over me." I
book, Strindberg and his Second Wife, she has in connection with the creation of a work of laughed till I nearly died. Cause and effect—the
given the background to the painting. He had art are of importance if one wants a human and contrast was too grotesque... "Your jealousy is
already declared his love for her but there were social experience from art, and not the magnificent. The dedication flatters me. It
many tensions in their relationship. In a letter dissatisfaction of being simply a connoisseur'. really is worth being unjustly suspected when
dated March 6, 1893, she wrote, 'Dear friend, Two days later, on March 9, Strindberg came the result is such a painting." ' At the back of the
if you would like to fetch me here at 7 o'clock on a visit of betrothal. Frida Uhl writes : 'First painting, Strindberg also wrote: 'The painting
this evening I would be very happy—but he delivers himself of a big flat object, 6o-7o cm is expressive; the sea, clouds, a watchman
unavoidably I am accompanied by one Mr long, wrapped in paper ... He takes the gift out symbolize the Night of Jealousy.'
Moszkowski, but in any case he won't give you of the wrapping paper ... Tempest. Eruption of Carl Ludwig Schleich, in his memories of
any grounds for anger.' She comments later, the elements. Black night and black sea. Waves Strindberg, tells of an episode during this second
`Alex Moszkowski did not drive him to fury, in lashed by the storm rising from bottomless, marriage which reveals how Strindberg's latent
spite of his great capacity for playing the part of phosphorous-shimmering depths, throwing jealousy flared up as a result of a mere dream
Othello... we parted company early and coldly. themselves against the shore with white foam which he thought Frida had had. Schleich
I was hoping to say some kind words to on the bare yellow teeth of the rocks —a dark concludes 'He did not so much live with his
Strindberg—but both followed me correctly to forewarning beast. And round about and over wives as observe them—constantly; they lay not
the door, each one to protect me from the other.' them, grey clouds, far-away sky, shoreless in his arms but under his dissecting knife.
Strindberg went back to his hotel after this spaces sinking into the grey. On the back he To return to Munch's painting Jealousy,
meeting, and during the night he painted The had written : one can only conclude that in Strindberg's
Night of Jealousy. Next day, March 7, was the Miss Frida Uhl commentary jealousy is not the fear of losing
critical day in their relationship. Frida sent a Night of jealousy the beloved, but the fear of homosexual contact.
letter to Strindberg, he met her, and their from the painter (Symbolist), August Strindberg When Strindberg's one-act play Creditors was
engagement followed. It may seem superfluous 9 March 1893. performed in Berlin in January 1893, it was
reviewed by Frida Uhl. In this play a young
S painter takes the wife of an older man. The
divorced man returns. Jealousy flares up.
Strindberg poses the question: What is
jealousy ? And gives the definition: Jealousy is
not the fear of losing, but the fear of dividing.
And the reason which, according to him, makes
the idea of a division so dreadful ? When a man
loves a woman (says Strindberg) his desire
streams towards her. Now if another man loves
the same woman at the same time, and is united
with her in love, then the streams meet and
mingle, and the two men are in this way brought
into sensual contact with each other. But this
meeting of similar poles is for the normal man
so unbearable and horrible that often he would
even prefer death.
The most absurd expression of this idea
appears in a letter to a Swedish scientist-friend
in January 1894 : `Do you know what Sansclou
is ?... Sansclou is a Dröppel. A Dröppel is a lot
of semen, male, in a vagina. If now a man enters
a female full of semen, he can get another man's
semen in his organs, or testes, and so the semen
germinates, and the man becomes pregnant in a
perverse form, which can only be stopped by
lowering the temperature (by icebags !).'
What Strindberg writes in the essay on
Munch holds good also for himself (and for
Gauguin): ' ... the esoteric painter of jealousy,
death and sorrow'. In addition both Strindberg
and Gauguin showed identical behaviour
patterns in their marriages and towards their
children. Their attitude towards the professional
art critics is one of non-reconciliation. Munch
made a number of caricatures of his critics,
often with a text : 'Because he failed as an
author and had to wear blue spectacles, he
became an art critic.' J. P. Hodin writes that
Munch's strongest attack on the critics was a
print with the text 'My garden is manured'. A
66