Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

vanishing point, and all were disturbing. "Are you saying that this is the reason for the strange flavor of the Botticelli?""Well yes, but less easily demonstrated is that from each of these infinitely far, imaginary points I felt the eyes of theGods 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 arefemale?"Alexandra smiled. "Botticelli’s visions are heathen dreams, if you wish. They leave one suspended in fluid time. Ourlinear, post-Renaissance time appears to me the invention of men. Would it surprise you if I told you, that womenexperience time as circular? Their time is fluid like in Botticelli’s paintings, which is what makes me suspect his Gods arefemale."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. Ilater learned that this is a death experience. A woman can physically and sensually experience her death at the time ofgiving birth. This morning I finally understood that this leads to a circular time concept. Birth, love, and death repeatthemselves 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 timethat 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 neitherpast nor future. Einstein is a man! We cannot perceive this time—except maybe shamans and clairvoyants like youcould. 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 youwill 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 thefuture?""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 becombined 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 to music since I was a child and only mymeeting 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 geometricalforms in very strong colors. I guess I could, but who will hear the music to such a painting? Now I suppose Kandinsky willtry to find a way. Maybe he will paint a succession of canvasses, each a snapshot in time, like a film. Have you ever seena film, Walter? So far this art is not very exciting, because the filmmakers have such lousy taste. Another way toincorporate time in a painting could be to show several poses on the same canvas. I don’t know, happen it will, we haveexhausted the spatial experiments of the Renaissance."Walter shook his gray head, and Alexandra in a spontaneous jump in her logic blurted out what had been on her mind allday. "I ask more. Where can I find an understanding that includes my experiences of the past years, Otto’s birth, themiserable people I take care of, the ups and downs of a great love? My inherited Christian religion no longer fills this gap.I have practiced your advice to be aware of my actions everyday. I have found its limitations. I have exhausted therational knowledge of the three-dimensional reality of the Renaissance. I am ready to leave it behind."Walter, with bewildered eyes, said in a pleading voice. "You cannot do that. Only the smallest number of people havegrasped the humanist ideas of the Renaissance. I appreciate your outburst, a teacher knows that his instructions havesucceeded when his student puts him down. You have become yourself in those five years since our long conversationsin this house. You have achieved your Renaissance, but other people are still much in need of its message. You have tohelp me spread the humanist ideas that are at its core."Alexandra looked at him with her unrelenting blue eyes. "Walter, Massacio, Petrarca, and Michelangelo did not wait forthe rest of mankind to understand the implications of their having uncovered God’s derrière, as you put it! They simplyfollowed their visions. It is on us to make sense of our time."With bated breath Konrad watched her. She was flying so high that nobody could reach her. They did not have herintuitive imagination. In none of the disciplines she had touched did she have any credentials, whether it was Friedrich’sphysics, Dahl’s psychology, Webern’s music, Walter’s lifetime expertise in art, or the philosophy of religion. With her116