In Search of Albrecht Dürer, by Barbara Ponomareff

Self Portrait, by Albrecht Dürer, (Germany) 1500

In Search of Albrecht Dürer
(1471-1528)

                                         Let me reach through the scrim of five centuries 
                                         with the language and hindsight of today - to see
                                         what I can hold.

​
Morning

Outside the window 
water saturates the sky,
the branches are smudged, 
soft rivulets course 
through a distorted heaven.

This dreamy otherness 
with its mellow linearity
asks for the brush,  
just a touch of colour 
and an abundance of water.

The willow branches 
hang low over the stilled water,
each one tipped by a quivering 
globule of liquid.    
Willing and pensive they sway
over their own reflection.

This suspension of light, 
this diffusion of water in air 
feels like a breath held – 
when I do breathe out 
and open the window, 
the moist, invigorating 
morning air brushes my face.

Below me, in the workroom,
I hear footfall, 
the clearing of phlegm 
from a night-time throat, 
and the soft shuffle 
of my apprentice
going about his duties.

I will be down shortly.

**
​
What is Beauty?

What is beauty I am asked time and again,
my answer, “I do not know,” 
never satisfies. Pressed, I suggest – 
usefulness, pleasure, and harmony 
but never seem to give satisfaction.

Beauty, my eye tells me, 
is there in the unformed figure 
of the young girl, 
her already too tight bodice 
encasing her like a bud,
in her unfocussed gaze, 
her lack of knowing, 
much like in her counterpart, 
the old woman, the withered crone 
of my drawings,
with her ropey neck, emptied out clavicles,
caved-in cheeks and mouth drawn tight 
that speak of the life endured.

I remember 
reaching for the charcoal stick
to release my compassion 
into the fluting, draping lines, 
the faint criss-cross strokes
across her chest, her heart.

But her gaze, that vast pool 
of disillusionment, has let go 
of life’s concerns and 
found a new focus – 
blankly resigned  
to whatever time is left.

How quickly her familiar face 
had taken shape under my hand, 
as I, with a son’s loving surety,
smudged the charcoal’s soft burr
to soften the lines that life engraved,
and that I, it seems,  
was destined to retrace.

Young Girl of Cologne and Agnes Dürer, by Albrecht Dürer (Germany) 1520

Double Portraits

As I smooth out the latest likeness 
of Agnes, my wife, on the worktable, 
I wonder what made me explore 
the “double-portrait” the way I have.

There are several of them by now,
all done over the past year – 
in the latest, a young girl from Cologne,
dreams herself outward
just beyond the imagined frame,
while my Agnes, her back turned on the girl,
fastens her eyes unswervingly
somewhere beyond the margin.

She will not approve of her likeness, I think – 
not, that she would tell me as much – 
she never lost that tightly wound look 
that I caught in my first drawings of her.

And she would be right. There is pain here,
the pain of the childless woman 
trapped in my portrait next 
to the great absence in her life.
Am I cruel to touch that wound 
with my fine silverpoint pencil, 
which line-by-line makes this absence 
become flesh beside her?

In other portraits: 
“Young woman-Old woman”,
or “Tobler and Pfinzig,” 
the pairings were dictated by reason, 
urged on paper by my entranced hand 
which loves texture of dress and ornament, 
yet also tries to delve beneath the surface 
of skin and bone to snag character 
in a pair of pursed lips, or the burn and gleam 
of a pair of  eyes.

Only one double portrait stands apart: 
“Caspar Sturm – River Landscape”.
Caspar, a huge solid man just took possession 
of the page. His rough-hewn jaw, dimpled chin,
sensitive mouth a perfect study in contrasts – 
even his eyes with their characteristic cast
of one eye looking fiercely ahead, 
while the other, obliquely turned right, 
speak of the man.

I well remember his soft cap, its complex
many-folded shape, earflaps slightly askew
as if he had just walked in off the street.

No, Caspar’s portrait 
would not suffer another’s by its side. 
Instead, I filled in a delicate river landscape, 
its shore lined with heavy fortifications 
like the ramparts of an old town. 
More of a dreamscape, than one seen 
by the daytime eye.

I was never sure whether Caspar
approved of this likeness, 
whether he even recognized himself. 
Perhaps he just thought 
I had done well by showing the intricate folds 
of his homely cap and the narrow ribbon
that tied his shirt shut at the neck.

By way of an afterthought – 
two years later, this very same Caspar,
aided our man Luther’s escape 
to the Diet of Worms.

**

Noon – or Thereabouts

There is always a part of me
that harkens to the noises
of the household, 
the part, furthest removed 
from my point of concentration.

At times, my hand 
does one thing, while I, 
in another realm, 
pursue something yet unthought.
I may hunt down this elusive prey
for days, even weeks. It even 
invades my sleep – often to good effect.

This silent pursuit along 
a fine-honed edge of attention
can lead me to a place, where
what my eyes have held,
and what my hands have learned,
coalesce to bring forth something new.

This liminal space 
I consider my real workshop.
Untouched by weather, the tempers 
of the household, considerations 
of economy, practicality,
and above all, the desire of others,  
it is my one free space.

Madonna with the Siskin, by Albrecht Durer (Germany) 1506

Carduelis Spinus -  Siskin

My apprentices often scatter the leavings 
of their meals along the windowsill.
Just now, a slight, scrabbling sound 
from the open window 
makes me lift my head from the quarto sheet, 
and I see, as expected, the compact 
olive green body, the cadmium-yellow 
streaked wings, the sooty bib 
and the tell-tale, inked cap of a siskin.

They are numerous around here, filling the air
with their ascending and descending trills, 
their effortless, rapid twitter. 
Their flitting about, their sudden disappearances
remind me of the old tale of the Siskin’s magic stone: 
the one they guard closely in their nests 
to assure invisibility. 

Some time ago I painted one such bird  –  
made him permanently visible.
In Madonna with the Siskin, a humble siskin 
alights on the infant’s left arm, 
wings aflutter, it animates the whole scene.

Wing of Blue Roller, by Albrecht Dürer (Germany) 1512

Wings: Blue Roller and Angels

I cannot recall the exact moment 
when fate dropped the wing 
of the Blue Roller on my worktable. 
Not the whole bird, 
just its neatly severed wing.
There it lay, spread out 
like a fan from the orient,
in breathtaking colours 
of indigo, iron ore, 
verdigris and wet clay.

It recalled the charming tale,
apocryphal or not, of the male, 
who as part of his courtship dance, 
presents, holding a feather in his beak.

This wing unfurled, 
its complex layers, gradients 
of colour culminating in veritable 
cumulus clouds of grey-tinged green, 
is held by the deep indigo band 
of the shoulder.

How well I remember the pleasure 
of losing myself in the minute strokes 
of the downy afterfeathers, which, 
light as air, put one in mind of  
the very idea of flight.

How often have I crowded 
my scenes of veneration 
with countless putti and angels?
The whirr of their wings
have filled whole images. 

I wonder, are these the wings 
of my belief, or of my doubt?

Self Portrait, by Albrecht Dürer (Germany) c. 1491

“Behold the Man”

This is the beginning: age thirteen.
My very first self-portrait, 
its tender half-profile catches
the still slumbering awareness
of my younger years,
each subsequent portrait, in tandem 
with my standing in the world, 
moves in increments
from delicate silverpoint to 
the “undying” colour of oil.

What was I searching for 
beyond the act of showing?
Beyond the sumptuous silk, the lavish fur trim, 
the brocade and tassels, my indulgent 
depictions of hair and my fair countenance, 
beyond documenting my increased 
value to the world?

Yet, I remember other portraits 
amongst the many – where, 
by unmasking skin, bone and sinew 
my body speaks truer.  
One, in particular, where my probing look 
reaches out from the canvas 
and shows a troubling awareness 
in the hand raised to shield my face.

Was I trying to lift the veil that slides
between us and our true knowing of who we are?
That sphere just below, and beyond our ken,
where we, and what we might be, lies dreaming? 

Yes, I was searching. Am doing so still.
Am still, above all, my own “Man of Sorrows.”

Dream Vision, by Albrecht Dürer (Germany) 1525

The Dream

This dream, this vision of the night,
ineffable and powerful, took hold of me
between Wednesday and Whitsuntide:

… great waters fell from the sky four miles on,
they hit the earth with such cruel, momentous
splashing, such a fury of sound, that all 
of the land appeared drowned.

Some of it fell further away, some closer,
giving the appearances of slow motion – 
but wherever the water hit, it did so accompanied
by strong winds and a sound so wrenching, it
tore me out of the dream and left me trembling – 
and for a long time, I could not find back to myself…
    May God turn everything for the best.*

When I surface sucking the air
like a man returned from near drowning,
I reach for my pen and watercolours.

A delicate wash of cobalt
seeps in loose runnels from a wan sky,
the center column, in a deeper hue,
piles volume on volume.

Masses of water spreading
above patches of delicate ochre
that dot a bereft landscape.

Why this dread? Why this feeling
of apocalyptic doom?
What unnameable thing 
fills me with such terror?

Could it be the undoing of form
as colour drips like hot wax
from an amorphous sky?

Or is it the very loss of line,
of verisimilitude that throws
my art into question?

*translation my own

**

Night Thoughts

How rare these moments of true silence
during a sleepless night

            a silence in which the world itself
            seems to have fallen by-the-way

and yet, I discern a cooling breeze
playing in the far-off trees, 

            then, a short scuffle in the courtyard below
            as if the dogs were torn out of their dreams

much later, further off, but coming closer,
a rumbling of wheels on cobblestones,
their grating metallic ring reverberating on stone

            I must have fallen asleep just now – 
            found myself back in Antwerp – on the ship.
            Once more, we were about to be swept 
            out to sea, helpless puppets at the mercy 
            of the fickle elements
    
           my life, my life’s work, 
           the grandeur,
           the hardship, the pain, 
           the joy and the glory
           no more than the ephemeral gestures 
           of wave after wave 
           dissolving.

Finally, the sound of early morning bells,
their intermingling harmonies, 
and the discordance of one belfry 
competing against the others like a rival belief

         call me back to the work still undone,
         and the remaining years 
         waiting to be rounded off.

Barbara Ponomareff

​Barbara Ponomareff lives in southern Ontario, Canada. By profession a child psychotherapist, she has been fortunate to be able to pursue her lifelong interest in literature, art and psychology since her retirement. The first of her two novellas, dealt with a possible life of the painter J.S. Chardin. Her short stories, memoirs and poetry have appeared in Descant, (EX)cite, Precipice and various other literary magazines and anthologies. She has contributed to The Ekphrastic Review on numerous occasions and was delighted to win one of the recent flash story contests.