Page 70 - Studio International - July August 1972

English-speaking reader ? Well, yes, certainly: it has some sense of what is involved in of 'elements', each enumerated with too much
but only if editor and translator realize what a translating from Apollinaire: it is looking for clarity. What he seems to be saying, in that
curious, daunting project this is, in the case of the right conjunction of whimsy and staccato, last 'en raison même de leur arrangement', is that
the writer they have chosen. Far more than the imprecise—almost the faded—and the the guitar is a guitar, the Poet is a Poet, just
any of his fellow poet-critics, Apollinaire definite. I'm afraid that the present translation because every element of their volumes is there,
believed in 'poetic' art criticism. He believed does not begin to do any such thing. (Abel's on canvas, arranged in a logical order. The
that a critic could and should write equivalents success is not accidental. At the time he was guitar doesn't look like a guitar, but it is one, as
for the works he admired: that his strategy working on Les Peintres Cubistes he must completely as a painting can make it, and
had to be mannered and indirect. Otherwise he have been drafting his article for View on independently of whether we see it or not. It's
committed the mortal sin: he was banal about Lautréamont —it's still the best thing in a train of thought that is thick with idealist
the extraordinary. About the works of Chinnery, English on the subject.) connotations.
go ahead and be ordinary, time-serving, Curiously enough, there are other places No doubt by now the reader is disagreeing
deferential. But about Picasso, be as good as where Susan Suleiman's literalness is a help, with my extrapolation. But Cubism is like that:
Picasso. not a hindrance. What did Apollinaire say, or there are no agreed interpretations, and there
It is a mad strategy, of course. For understand, about Cubism ? It's a question never will be, thank God, any art-historical
Baudelaire and Gautier, the duty of an art often asked, and once again the answer turns consensus about Picasso's intentions. The truth
critic was to be literal, scrupulously subservient on the poet's particular, difficult language. The is, that passage from Apollinaire is full of the
to the visual. Apollinaire despised their fact is, Apollinaire almost never described signs of difficulty—that is what makes it
humility, he refused Baudelaire's famous Cubism in detail, and when he did his language attractive. Just for once, here's the poet
prescription for criticism, he would not tended to be especially opaque. Does that attempting to be pedantic, precise: trying to
`transformer sa volupté en connaissance'. We indicate evasion, or incomprehension, or a describe a pictorial logic. I would trade that
have to judge how that strategy works, wrestling with difficult ideas ? We can't begin one paragraph for pages of waffle about the
particularly when it is addressed to an art which to give an answer until we're sure of his Fourth Dimension (p. 222) or any amount of
loathes the literary and the anecdotal. And meaning: and that in turn will probably talk about 'the formation of a stark and sober
unfortunately for the translator, our verdict involve—on our part—a theory of Cubism and art' (p. 151). And there are other passages like
will necessarily turn on particular judgements an idea that Apollinaire must mean this and not it: I would cite especially his discussion of 'the
of tone, vocabulary, decorum. that. In one more exercise in translation, the complete representation of an object' in an
Take, for example, a paragraph from French is strictly necessary. It is Apollinaire article he wrote for Der Sturm in February 1913
Apollinaire's article on Picasso, first published on the mechanics of analytical Cubism, (p. 268-9). In his own way, almost in between
in 1905. What he is doing here is a kind of writing probably in mid-1912: it's as close as he times, Apollinaire puzzled over Cubism—as
dramatis personae of Picasso's Blue Period: but ever came to explaining the look of Picasso's much as it deserved.
a very approximate list of characters, and one in and Braque's pictures in 1911, and describing In the end, Apollinaire is not a great critic:
which the plots of imaginary Picassos are their peculiar equivocation between the not as good as the critics whose method he tried
continually indicated, then suppressed. Lionel abstract and the figurative: to contradict. When he wrote about Cubism
Abel, in his 1944 translation for Les Peintres `Irritant les plans pour représenter les his insights were occasional, and surrounded
Cubistes, rendered it like this : volumes, Picasso donne des divers éléments qui by clichés. And I almost never sense that I'm
`The women one no longer loves come back to component les objets une enumeration si listening to Apollinaire's insights, something
mind. By this time they have repeated their complete et si aiguë qu'ils ne prennent point quite different from studio wisdom or art-world
brittle ideas too often. They do not pray; they figure d'objet grace au travail des spectateurs conversation. Apollinaire never invented his
worship memories. Like an old church, they qui, par force, en perçoivent la simultanéité, own Picasso, in the way that Baudelaire did his
crouch in the twilight. These women renounce mais en raison même de leur arrangement.' Delacroix or even Ezra Pound his
everything, and their fingers are itching to Edward Fry, in his standard book of Cubist Gaudier-Brzeska.
plait crowns of straw. At daybreak they texts, translates the passage thus : Pound and Apollinaire make an odd but
disappear, they console themselves in silence. `Representing planes to denote volumes, interesting comparison. I think that Pound's
They cross many a threshold; mothers guard Picasso gives so complete and so decisive an 1916 memoir of Gaudier-Brzeska is better
the cradles, so that the new-born may not enumeration of the various elements which criticism than anything that Apollinaire ever
inherit some taint; when they bend over the make up the object that these do not take the wrote. That's not because it's better informed,
cradles, the little babes smile, sensing their shape of the object. This is largely due to the and not because it's right—on the contrary,
goodness.' efforts of the viewer, who is forced to see all the Pound is as wrong about Gaudier as Baudelaire
Susan Suleiman, in the present volume, does elements simultaneously just because of the was about Guys, or Creeley about Frank Stella.
it like this : way they have been arranged.' It's because in writing about Gaudier, Pound
`These women who are no longer loved Susan Suleiman does it like this : pushes forward his own aesthetic: he reaches
remember. They are tired of ironing their `Picasso represents volumes by imitating conclusions about working in stone that he tries
brittle ideas today. They do not pray; their planes, and in doing so, he enumerates the to transfer to his work in verse. For all the
devotion is to their memories. They huddle in various elements that compose an object so Caligramme gestures, I don't think that's ever
the twilight like an ancient church. These completely and so acutely that these elements true of Apollinaire. And secondly, it's because
women are giving up, and their fingers are take on the appearance of the object, not in his memoir of Gaudier, Pound tells us
eager to weave crowns of straw. At daybreak, because of the effort of the viewers who something about sculpture—even Cubist
they disappear, they have consoled themselves necessarily perceive their simultaneity, but sculpture—that nobody but an outsider could
in silence. They have passed through many because of their very arrangement on the have had the simplicity, the nerve, to spell out.
doors : mothers protected the cradles so that canvas.' (p. 279780) In all truth one is tired of the dilettante's
the newborn babes would not be ill favored; In this case, quite simply, Fry is wrong— his `piece' about painting; but there is such a thing
when they leaned over, the little children passage is nonsense, for all its superficial as naiveté, and it has its advantages. When he
smiled to know them so kind.' clarity—and the present translator is right. writes about pictures Apollinaire is never
Abel's translation is not brilliant: it has one or Apollinaire is trying to explain the way a naive; since he is never quite expert, that is a
two errors, an odd alteration of tense. But it has cubist picture is figurative in spite of itself, in pity. q
a cadence which corresponds to the original, spite of offering the spectator only a labyrinth TIM CLARK

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