xt773n20gk0f https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt773n20gk0f/data/mets.xml  Victor Hammer 1955-11-08 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Victor Hammer to Thomas Merton, November 8, 1955 text Letter from Victor Hammer to Thomas Merton, November 8, 1955 1955 1955-11-08 2023 true xt773n20gk0f section xt773n20gk0f ’ EELLr Father Louis:

Thank you for your letter of October 2A. Ky wife nnfl I are
t hear that the treislstion of the sermons is Under way en£.}nogreesing,
a translation will be necessary in order to br n; about a decision of the
of thejneebers of the Anvil Press as to whether to yrint it or not.
You ask me whether I have given further thought to y or text.
have. Your text means a great deal to me, but I wouldn't be surprised
a rn that to most people it would mean little more than your Emaoue name.
,reat thought, your thought is staple and not new, which notes it difficult
erstxnd. Joule I not know you and brother Giles personally, I too would
re understoodo Since I have seen you in the monastery and exchanged ideas
so that your text is largely autobiographical and that it reveols more
inner self than the facts told in the Seven story Mountain. l an curious
tether the sermons themselves (in translation) are as intelligible to
wwemmmm mtmlmMOfwwiMwmaflmnmwymMflyflfl.
I may be mistaken but it seems to no that the same thought, that
, as a result of understanding is expressed in the last two scenes of
play, Der Schwicrige, the Difficult one. Here too, humility opens
30, please let us have the translation and let us hope we will be
e to puclish the piece.
postumous
After a while I shall send you a translation of the three/frag”
zxents of Fieilen a Gennan philosopher of the second half of the nineteenth cen-
t ry. I thought of him when reading t.e*on p. 2n of your notes on ‘acrod Art: *scntence
" Jhst St. Bernard condemns is attachment to aesthetic pleasure,... Fiedlcr also
euonasises that aesthetic pleasure is not the key to the understanding of works
of art, and that the essence of art, its secret, has nothing to do with aesthetics
in its modern sense of a rhilosophy of the perception of the beautiful. Your
notes to the sermons of the Bl. Guerric, and Fiedler's theory have one feature in
connon: they are only understandable for those who already know. Those who do not
yet kn w, out wknt to know, will be helped when they genuinely and humbly seek
underst ending-f .

It took me almost thirty years of reading Fiedler in order to realize
what he was talking about. If now I would try to word Fiedler's theory in an own
te ms would, in brief, say: our apparatus of vision, the eyes, can perceive only
in the manner of flat or curved planes, that is, in two dimensions. Visual actuality,
i.o. three—dimensional seeing can only be realized in and through works of classic
art. Primitive art does not go beyond twghdimensionsl perception; it states its
IECtS on uninterrupted, as it were on unfrmned , planes. Classic art sees and pro~
duces three—dnnensionally. In order to achieve this it has turned deliberately away
away from the uninterrupted planes, from the fields, from the environment of earth

 

 1 1 _, up a weave 011C losure, tine frazne 01"? ,
ace, ‘2 - 1 . Art bee comes 8 3321" ituil, int. ellectual, hex-nan;
civilized r11" J'thin :1 <'1efinite 1‘11'1euo1‘k (0.1: 1110115311110, crystelii
spiritual charact ter) it ere tes :1 i‘oregr‘mmd chat gn.1s]'1es the onloelem' 301.191.1111,
Site t1:0fra;:1e, 71‘ an 1-.‘i'n; - :1 111 to realize depth visually, as a third dimension;
1find LIE 121 1:01" a{1011116 the main I.) 11110 rises, acting 23.5135 1 ‘3 a, beci'qjjz'ounc‘x.
met in the elevation the ground "1.10.11 can be
call; three dimensione in (asi11ggle act 0.-
TE‘::°L‘% is the 'ri 33.25.] it: of ‘éiviliz ed man who turns his ey'e‘ to:
place 01" the gods. Nee-113?}: :0 tie plea: sure is involve «i, he is lifted
vision. The secret of art then, to Fie-iler, its cseence, consiets
threcqfiflensional since. :7 two-dimensional sun-.1153.

. . , .ntingg. The
1101 nee-:1 ' " '.=';":3i)eci'.i'~.re, to
, 9.1m- forms must
- the frame.

tum-“$011001 that one 01121 09;;
enougl'l *is

mt; the urtis" cc>3.eei\ e13 his work:
emotion, d. ever
does not «"2111' - crm or 3.1

u.

c that, those of {wire 13111) consist
ox :yremd maneufiqr 10mm, then
ced accordig to recipe, 1.6. aca-

1 f1‘017' the aceéécissié?

, of alas sic 91“; (01' as t

- - 10111151, 1 10:13.12), 01,319, be.
t. .at such ' Jerks of wt can be pro -1:
flow thmis the genuine (‘lu‘blf‘f‘t‘l""c.

~31. .'x

'P'm Hair..- 01‘ of fa. thing-j x-zhich, 130-111 e" -' 21::1' . 1:051: of art is from
full;r am we =<.".'1et"m)1' he produce '. . '~ .:=' 0 ', ' -- ')e 01' whether an
21'1an .3 of existence amide" Eli: T' ' act ~' '~i: '1‘. '- —L- '1? 1' create
3.000111. 1- necessity. ti etever thing, 1d .ee -' 01y, the artist
shapes, dead material, suitetra .zt m1, until it ‘11: 3 t: 11111:. ' t}: 11'. four; 0;? b61113:
“ii-nick 501‘ 318100 is three-dimensional space. Yet, 1101; 011135111 011013115 but .1130
in. sculpture 011' architecture the artist ch nonly Uroduce 11:19.13 he 8113. any other
003101" is 001111)elled to a- sac :ive in t1I0—11'W“1'"'00J tt' ' -
M
‘i‘hilo the (artist active-l" she pee the
ri \‘mu ;or artistic truth, the 001001-25”,b
mt merely- faced. with the suostratum, that - beautizs Ul
acetic and so on .Lorms. Are t‘ne1 e cri 0 enable
th of ' e work of art in urstiarx? In 1311'“ (3'0?de 3101»; :.;it
artistic truth? who are tee teachers 130 open his 21323.3?

01‘ three—d;'1.:ne11sion';l space,
, the ”via t'01'i'.?1, tne

t‘). a. picture of Chardin where the table on

erects a. mouse of ' represents the foreground and acts as such; . wall they
'°' “11"icate 1311.11; tine 13;.» , slightly mlled. out of it,'-J3151'1es the 01110022} '- little
farther 119111 111 " so the t he can. see the ’00" better, or 101' that 1 11'” '2' thrc e—

Shall

I
ad
Clif'enSiOQ-Cnl. : , “1300?.

01'- shell the . , ' ' picture of 1.1052113: , - fur traders 0n

 

 he A1ssouri and Show ho* the stone
ground with z-fllich the si>ect.'1tor can
. inding boat with the beast
pointed out to him, or - ,
Does he realize that that ebrench of a need tree, sticx
the backzround maizes the boat float between it

now, doea he e“perience the Jestnees of space?

Is this eeethetic pleasure, or is it visibility created by el‘e
Dear Father Louis, it seems that St.Bernard knew what he was talkh “
I l-mow, all this could be said with Z'lllch more grace than I am ,_ . _ a" ‘. I trhgzj
to be as clear as Ibesiblc

.. a

e Discovery' of the H1
1 i

IWe finellx 50Llnd the book of Snell: T11nd. It was
quietl, ri ht in front 01 our noses @1110 we looadf or t everywhere
' pill eeuo 1t tomorrow. You have to welt for the liedler r, I have to

I
11
1
.(

your 6033.
My friend Grune iu s 11. Kolbshefin‘write 3thratl {aritain has talked of

several time}, he tells me also that three years ago while Marita 111

you wrote to him about a “if azn ;ou ha*, the you 'J'uld retire to a g.

Strasbou. . Both were convine eq‘ th1s place must be Kolbsheim. Alas, says my

nothing CB“C 01 1t. I wish you Jere installed in the little 1".ouse next to

ch1pel,a two room place wheie you real y could quietly wouluoue If;

nzy little boon what I sai fljout Kolbshebn and its situltion you voo1c

of what you dreamt.

Ele1ee Pena the? me to brother Giles, and my wife wants to be “ewenoe7e”
to bot h of yen. As soon as I have finished my tript fch, ind it should. be fl”lUflF
soon, I shall wr1te and fini out what would oe best to show it in you1 wOuaStef‘
at least for a few hours when we are there.

Yours in hrist