Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

points I felt the eyes of the Gods on me! A heathen, pantheistic trinity? I feel they are female,
Goddesses!"
Walter rose and hands behind his back began pacing the room. "Alexandra, when we
looked at this painting together, you already had a hunch that some strange Gods were
present in Botticelli’s paintings. Why do you think that they are female?"
Alexandra smiled. "Botticelli’s visions are heathen dreams, if you wish. They leave one
suspended in fluid time. Our linear, post-Renaissance time appears to me the invention of
men. Would it surprise you if I told you, that women experience time as circular? Their time is
fluid like in Botticelli’s paintings, which is what makes me suspect his Gods are female."
Walter stopped his pacing and stared expectantly at Alexandra. "I have never heard of
circular time. What do you mean, women experience time as circular?"
Alexandra hesitated a moment and then said. "When I gave birth to Otto, I had an
experience of flying over my body. I later learned that this is a death experience. A woman can
physically and sensually experience her death at the time of giving birth. This morning I finally
understood that this leads to a circular time concept. Birth, love, and death repeat themselves
in a circle."
"What do you mean?" asked childless Sally in her heavily accented Boston American. "I
am scared of death."
Alexandra sighed and glanced at Konrad. "Men, who cannot share this experience, were
driven to invent a linear time that vanishes in a supra-mundane infinity, heaven, God, nirvana,
where they can dissolve and find rest, peace, redemption."
Friedrich said. "In Einstein’s theory all bodies are spread out along space-time lines on
which there is actually neither past nor future. Einstein is a man! We cannot perceive this time
—except maybe shamans and clairvoyants like you could. Would you think that our future state
of awareness would show a circular time?"
"Friedrich, this exceeds my judgment. Intuitively I would say yes, but my mind works
differently from yours. Maybe you will discover that your four-dimensional time lines are really
curved and turn back onto themselves. I don’t know."
Walter stopped his wanderings in front of Alexandra. "So, now you will ask the question
of what will happen to art in the future?"
"Yes, that is one of my questions. I met a young composer in Munich a few months ago,
who writes music to abstract ‘paintings’ he sees, and Kandinsky is talking about painting the
music he hears. In both cases time and painting will be combined in some way."
"Oh," said Friedrich, "both of these men have a special gift, they see abstract colors in
music. And you do too."
Walter gazed at Alexandra. "I never heard of this ability. How do you do that?"
She said nonchalantly, "I don’t do anything, it happens. I have seen colors in music
since I was a child and only my meeting with Webern, the composer, and Kandinsky has made
me aware that this was a special gift."
Walter insisted. "Then how do they want to combine music and painting? I fail to
comprehend."
"Kandinsky asked me whether I could paint what I saw to Weberns music: rapidly
moving and changing geometrical forms in very strong colors. I guess I could, but who will hear
the music to such a painting? Now I suppose Kandinsky will try to find a way. Maybe he will
paint a succession of canvasses, each a snapshot in time, like a film. Have you ever seen a
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