Wittgenstein's Mistress (17 page)

Possibly there was no cat at the Colosseum either.

If one wishes to see a cat badly enough, one will doubtless see one.

Though possibly there was a cat. Possibly it was only the floodlights, when I rigged up floodlights, which made it leery.

Naturally I would have had no way of knowing if it had
nibbled at anything behind my back either, since most of the cans I had set out were half emptied by rain in no time.

Before I ever saw one, I would have supposed that castles in Spain was just a phrase, too.

Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover, when I did all of that looking, or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?

In either event people continually looking in and out of windows is doubtless not such a ridiculous subject for a book, after all.

Even though Emily Brontë once struck her dog so angrily that she knocked it out, simply because it had gotten onto her bed when she had told it not to get onto her bed, which is the one thing Emily Brontë did that one wishes she hadn't.

Even if, as I have perhaps said, there are also things Emily Brontë did not do that one wishes she had.

Although which may well be none of one's business either, it finally occurs to me.

And meantime I would appear to have completely forgotten my russet cat's name.

Although what I called the cat at the Colosseum, I am fairly certain, was Pintoricchio, after a minor painter from Perugia who did some frescoes in the Sistine Chapel some time before Michelangelo put in the parts that look like Daumier.

Possibly I will think up a name for the cat outside of my broken window, too.

Then again, I should also perhaps indicate that there is no connection between any of these cats and the cat which Simon once had, in Cuernavaca, and which we never could seem to decide on a name for at all.

Cat, having been all we ever called that one.

Well, and additionally none is connected to the cat which was intelligent enough to ignore the gold coins that his students had painted onto the floor of Rembrandt's studio, either.

Though by stating that, it so happens that I have now simul-
taneously solved the question of my russet cat's name after all.

In fact now that it has come back to me, it could not have come back more vividly.

Practically every single day at Corinth, for instance, when I did remember to let the cat back in, I said good morning to it.

Good morning, Rembrandt, being exactly how I said it practically every single time.

Russet as a color that one automatically associates with Rembrandt having been the origin of this, naturally.

Even if russet is perhaps not a color.

In any case it is surely not a color that has anything to do with painting, although admittedly it may be a color that has something to do with bedspreads. Or with upholstery.

Although not being a painting a cat can be russet too.

And being russet is apt to be named Rembrandt.

Which in fact no less an authority than Willem de Kooning found to be a perfectly suitable name, on an afternoon when the identical cat happened to climb into his lap.

Perhaps I have not mentioned that my russet cat climbed into Willem de Kooning's lap.

My russet cat once climbed into Willem de Kooning's lap.

The cat did this on an afternoon when Willem de Kooning was visiting at my loft, in SoHo.

I have forgotten the date of this visit, but I do believe it was not long after the afternoon on which Robert Rauschenberg had also visited, and I had hastily hidden my drawings.

Then again, the reason for Willem de Kooning having approved of the cat's name may have actually had less to do with the cat being russet than with Rembrandt having been Dutch, when one stops to think about it.

Being Dutch himself, de Kooning would have naturally felt certain ties to Rembrandt.

One scarcely means family ties, of course, since one would have surely known about this, had any existed.

Willem de Kooning is descended from Rembrandt, one
would have heard.

Then again, who is to argue that he might not have been descended from somebody who had at least once met Rembrandt, on the other hand, which even de Kooning himself would have doubtless not been aware of?

Or from somebody who had been a pupil of Rembrandt, even?

Surely it would have been easy to lose track, after so many years.

How many people would have ever guessed that Maria Callas could be traced all the way back to Hermione, for instance?

Actually, something like this could have been all the more likely if the pupil de Kooning was descended from had never become famous himself, which is generally what happens in any event.

Many pupils not only fail to become famous, in fact, but eventually even go into a different line of work altogether.

Why couldn't Willem de Kooning have been descended from a pupil of Rembrandt who had decided he did not have any future as a painter and had become a baker instead, let us say?

Sooner or later, surely, the man's descendants would have had no idea that anybody in the family had ever been a pupil of Rembrandt at all.

Father was a pupil of Rembrandt before we opened the pastry shop, one can imagine being said. Or even, grandfather was a pupil of Rembrandt.

Certainly it would have stopped being passed down long before Willem de Kooning himself was alive, however.

As a matter of fact Claude Lorrain was actually a pastry cook who decided to become a painter, and one would wager that hardly any of his descendants could have named the man who taught him to bake, either.

Then again, what I have been saying about pupils is not necessarily always the case, as it happens.

Merely from among those who have been mentioned in these pages, Socrates's pupil Plato and Plato's pupil Aristotle and Aristotle's pupil Alexander the Great are three who certainly did become famous.

Even if one does sometimes stop to wonder just exactly what Aristotle might have happened to call Alexander, in those days.

This morning we are doing geography. Will you kindly go to the map and point out where Persepolis is, Alexander the Great?

Who will now recite the passage in the
Iliad
about Achilles dragging Hector's body through the dust for us? Is that your hand I see, Alex?

But be that as it may, it furthermore strikes me that Andrea del Sarto is another famous pupil who was only recently mentioned.

Well, and a pupil of Bertrand Russell's not too long ago, either.

As a matter of fact, many more pupils than one had suspected may well become equally as famous as their teachers.

Or even more so.

Ghiberti had a pupil named Donatello, for instance.

And Cimabue once made a pupil out of a boy he found doing drawings of sheep, in a pasture, and the boy turned out to be Giotto.

As a matter of fact Giovanni Bellini had one pupil named Titian, and still another named Giorgione.

Although to tell the truth certain teachers were never really too happy about this sort of thing.

After Titian had become equally as famous as Giovanni Bellini he took in a pupil of his own, but then kicked him out when it looked as if the pupil might become as famous as he was.

Which Tintoretto did anyhow.

I happen to believe the story about Giotto and the sheep, by the way.

I would also suddenly seem to remember that Rogier van der
Weyden had a pupil named Hans Memling, even though I would have sworn categorically that I knew no such thing about Rogier van der Weyden.

In any event almost every one of these is a pupil I am sure Willem de Kooning would have found it agreeable to have been descended from.

Well, doubtless he would have found it agreeable to have been descended from Vincent Van Gogh as well, even if he was born less than fifteen years after Van Gogh shot himself.

I am not quite certain how the second part of that sentence is connected to the beginning part, actually.

Perhaps all I was thinking about was that Van Gogh was Dutch too.

One of the things people generally admired about Van Gogh, even though they were not always aware of it, was the way he could make even a chair seem to have anxiety in it. Or a pair of boots.

Cezanne once said that he painted like a madman, on the other hand.

Still, perhaps I shall name the cat that scratches at my broken window Van Gogh.

Or Vincent.

One does not name a piece of tape, however.

There is the piece of tape, scratching at my window. There is Vincent, scratching at my window.

Well, it is not impossible. I suspect it is not very likely, but it is not impossible.

Good morning, Vincent.

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, incidentally.

Although that did put him one ahead of Jan Vermeer, at least.

Conversely I have no idea how many Jan Steen sold.

I do know that at the end of his life Botticelli was lame, and had to live off charity.

Frans Hals had to live off charity, as well.

Well, and again Daumier.

Too, Paolo Uccello was another who died poor and neglected.

As did the Piero who did not hide under tables.

So many lists keep on growing, and are saddening.

Even though the work itself lasts, of course.

Or does thinking about the work itself while knowing these things somehow sadden one even more?

Even Rembrandt went bankrupt, finally.

This was in Amsterdam, which I make note of because it was only a few short blocks away from where Spinoza was excommunicated, and in the very same month.

I am assuming it will be understood that I hardly know that because of knowing anything about Spinoza.

Assuredly, this was a footnote I did once read.

Although what I do only this instant realize is why Rembrandt was always so easily fooled by those coins, of course.

Certainly if I myself were going bankrupt I would keep on bending to pick up every coin I happened to notice, too.

Considering the circumstances, one would scarcely stop to remember that one's pupils had contrived such illusions before.

Merciful heavens, there is a gold coin, one would surely think. Right on the floor of my studio.

Let us hope it does not belong to some troublemaker who will dash up to claim it either, one would think just as readily.

Doubtless Rembrandt's pupils found this endlessly amusing.

Well, unquestionably they did, or they would have scarcely kept on playing the same trick.

Doubtless not one of them ever stopped to give a solitary thought to Rembrandt's problems either, such as the very bankruptcy in question.

I find this sad too, in its way, even though there was never any way to prevent schoolboys from being schoolboys.

Very probably Van Dyck played tricks on Rubens, too. Or Giulio Romano on Raphael.

Although in the case of Rembrandt it might at least explain why his pupils generally failed to become famous, or even went
into different lines of work, what with the lot of them being so insensitive.

In fact it was no doubt equally insensitive on my own part to suggest that Willem de Kooning could have been descended from anybody in such a bunch.

I had simply failed to carry my thinking far enough when I made such a suggestion.

Oops.

Carel Fabritius was a pupil of Rembrandt.

Granting that Carel Fabritius was hardly as famous as Rembrandt himself. Still, he was surely famous enough so that Willem de Kooning doubtless could not have minded having been descended from him after all.

As a matter of fact I believe that I myself have even mentioned Carel Fabritius at least once, in some regard or other.

I suppose all one can now do is hope for Willem de Kooning's sake that Carel Fabritius was not one of the pupils who played that mean trick.

Weil, presumably he would not have been able to become Rembrandt's best pupil to begin with, if he had wasted his time in such a way.

Then again, quite possibly in being the best he was the only pupil who had such time to waste.

Quite possibly whenever Rembrandt gave a quiz, for instance, it was always Carel Fabritius who finished first, and then devoted himself to mischief while everybody else was still laboring to catch up.

Many questions in art history remain elusive in this manner, unfortunately.

As a matter of fact Carel Fabritius may have had a pupil of his own, named Jan Vermeer, but nobody was ever able to verify that for certain, either.

Carel Fabritius died in Delft, however, which was one factor that led to such speculation.

I have pointed out Vermeer's own connection with Delft elsewhere, I believe.

But as I have also pointed out, practically two hundred years would have to pass before anybody would become interested enough in Vermeer to look into such matters, and thus a great deal would have already been lost track of.

Well, I have more than once noted how easily that can occur, too.

One thing that does happen to be known is that Vermeer was another painter who went bankrupt, however.

Although it was actually his wife who did that, not long after Vermeer died.

As a matter of fact she owed a considerable bill to the local baker.

This baker was also in Delft, of course, so one is willing to assume it was not the same baker who had himself once been a pupil of Rembrandt.

Then again this is perhaps not so certain an assumption after all.

What with Carel Fabritius having recently moved from the one city to the other, who is to argue that his old classmate might not have done so, as well?

In addition to which, two of Vermeer's paintings had actually been given to this same baker, as a kind of collateral.

Surely your ordinary baker would have been less than agreeable about such an arrangement, and especially in the case of a customer who had never sold a single painting in his life.

Unless of course the baker happened to be somebody who knew something about art himself.

Or at any rate knew enough to go to somebody who was still in the same line of work, for advice.