Sketch for a Self-portrait Book

BERNARD BERENSON Sketch for a Self - Portrait PANTHEON Lfc.. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Author and his Publishers are indebted to Sir Edward Marsh and to Eyre Spottiswoode Publishers Ltd., for permission to include in this took part of Sir Edwards translation of La Fontaines Invocation. With the exception of the frontispiece and the por trait of Bernard Berenson as a student in Harvard, all photographs are by LIFE photographer Dmitri Kessel. IN MEMORY OF MY WIFE AND FIFTY YEARS OF COMPANIONSHIP PREFACE Can any mortal portray himself with words, as perhaps he can with chalk or paint The limner has something relatively definite be fore him as he looks into the glass and sees himself mirrored there. I doubt the representative ac curacy of even such an image. But words What can they do but apply this or that epithet, this or that descriptive, interpretative, evocative phrase recount that anecdote, or that praiseworthy, or blameworthy deed A gifted verbal artist may convey some coherent idea of a person he at tempts to portray, but not likely an objective one. No matter what your talent as an author, where are you to catch yourself en flagrant dtlit of being yourself, yours individually, privately, yet repre sentative and consistent Be that as it may be, I for one am not sure just which of my so many selves, at different moments of my life, would represent me most faithfully. I can only attempt to offer glimpses into my present self or selves, those glimpses which in recent years have flashed more recurrently through my mind. Indeed the reader may notice that in this volume, as well as in the Diary which will follow it and in my book on Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts, there is a tendency for certain ideas, certain subjects, certain preoccupa tions to appear again and again as the wooden horses in a merry-go-round. So I have tried to jot down some glimpses into that chaos and to dip into that stream, of consciousness we are accustomed to call self. They are few, for most whirl or flow away. And those few are handed over freed from impurities as it were, and too deodorized by our invincible and irremediable self-regard, to have more value than that of meteoric flashes in a dark sky. Self glimpses might be the best title for this book, or better still Self-dippings, if I could endure the combination of syllables. Glimpses into Self or Dippings into Self sounds awkward and affected. So unless my publisher hits upon a better title, let it be Sketch for a Self-portrait. CASA AL DONO, VALLOMBROSA. September 20th, 1945 PART ONE OFTEN I feel like a cow with sagging udders lowing for calf or milkmaid to relieve her. Or like a plant that oozes ink instead of syrup or resin and craves to have it properly drawn off. Wherefore I enjoy companionship that draws one out to talk, and correspondents who stimulate one to write. To the well disposed there is nothing more effective for either satisfaction than blank paper. When ones own mental state refuses to become creative, remains obstinately impotent, then the ink that is in me searches an outlet and finds it in letter-writing. Thus on travel, although so busy sight-seeing and losing so much time in being carried from place to place, I find leisure tor letters. There are no friends to draw me out in talk and no preoccupations with authorship to absorb me. A pity that talk is not self-registeringl Hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands of yards of paper would preserve my bright sayings, my provoking epithets, my wit, my wisdom, my learn ing in short the outpourings of my heart and mind and spirit I never got over the wonder I used to feel as a little boy that potatoes could fill a sack, water a pail, smoke a room, but words left every recipient empty no matter how much you talked into it. The more the pity, for I was born to talk and not to write and, worse still, to converse rather than to talk and then only with stimulating interlocutors...Read More