Rainer Maria Rilke and Vilhelm Hammershøi. On the relationship between visual art and poetry at the turn of the century

Abstract

The paper examines the impression of two paintings by the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) on Rilke, "Self-Portrait" from 1889 and "Portrait of a Young Girl" from 1892, which is a portrait of the artist's fiancée Ida Ilstedt. Rilke admired the Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885). The kind of looking serves as a common point of reference both of the visual arts and of literature. When he visited Copenhagen during his stay in Sweden in 1904 Rilke was influenced by his admiration for Jens Peter Jacobsen. Rilke had gained access to the art collection of Alfred Bramsen, Hammershøi's patron. Thus he got the opportunity to see others of Hammershøi's works. Here comes the analysis of two paintings. The conscious kind of looking of the two persons was what Rilke was interested in. In "Self-Portrait" a concentrated and objective view; in the Portrait of Ida Ilsted an innocent and meaningless open view somewhere between inside and outside. The two portraits thus thematize the conscious view that Rilke admired at Jacobsen. The works highlight the importance of different kinds of view in later works of Rilke and in the Letters on Cézanne