xt7dfn10s90r https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7dfn10s90r/data/mets.xml Victor Hammer 1959-05-02 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, May 2, 1959 text Letter from Victor Hammer to Thomas Merton, May 2, 1959 1959 1959-05-02 2023 true xt7dfn10s90r section xt7dfn10s90r near Father Louis:

eVOr since you, looking at ;ho triptych, havo asked me who is the figure
ist (which I couldn't toll you exactly) I am thinkiog about your interpreta-
oing hogiu oophio and also tho mother of Chriot. We were much intrigued by
l but do not remember clearly what it was. Carolyn got the phoﬁostat from

crowning 6hr
tion: she b
mﬁmm you Sui

the catholic encyclopedia, which I enclose. The painting from Howgorad bears a certain
." J.

oi ﬁlority with Hg own painting but i cannot undorztand loo relation to the Russian wriﬁors.

Ty~triptyoh has a otory or rather a happening behind it. Carolyna after coming back from
Europe, where she was in 1951 for the first time, commiooionod m ﬁo do a triptych of a
Radonna ¢ith tho child. At that time we were not married and only after she insisted and
said oho actually wontod the thing, I began to work. Ey first atﬁompt showed a landscape
reaching from one wing over the center panel to the other wizv. This was the background
and in froné of it there was the moﬁher sitti.g with the child on Her lap - ruins around

and at the left wing an eagle looking at the child. 6n the right wing the calvary in the
boowgrounﬁ. Suﬁ that diﬁn't work anﬂ in the course of chomging,tho child grew bifgor nod

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stood in front 0; oho mother. 3? thaﬁ time I had scrapped the eagle and the oolvary,
work’na only on the contor panel. Port of the landscape remained and also the oﬁones
standing anﬂ laying around. All too time we wonéorod why the child had changed so much
and where 1 got the idea that She crowns Him. — Between the town in the backgrouné and
the waste land in tho foreground i that golﬁon rivoﬁ that separates both. But tho huge,
chipped gravestone on the loft bond side of tho foreground, loaning sideways and only
partly soon, overlaps tho river onﬂ part of the townmall in tho background. And for
‘ Boning to como I could find no t We and moans of separating this stone from the townwall
”ﬁﬁloﬁ\bvorleps. I grow a bush behind the otone,oet a snake on its top 9 but as there
are no shadows in the pictures nothing worked. He used to fancy all kindo'of thing
which vmuld do tho trick;ﬁhilﬁXﬁﬁXﬁﬁEEXEIﬁEiﬁEXEﬁxﬁﬁﬂxﬁéﬁﬂﬁ Ono evening when we again worn
siﬁting on ~he bench in front of it, looking at the unfinished painﬁing, Carolyn said:
you havo't int a halo 0: either of ﬁhem .. I immediately realized that a halo of rays
arouzd ﬁlo loosing hand would certainly separate the gravestone in the foreground from
tho townwall ii overlaps. It did so when I had put the rays in. - This IS and IS NOT
port of the artist's éoohnique, buﬁ it is something out of ﬁho roach of incompetent
doubora and oboﬁﬁﬁobionists.

l on very sorry we misood your friends Lax and Reinhardt. I would have liked to talk to
Roinharﬂﬁ as I am still unable to see anything in abstracﬁ art or unéerstand it. These
triangles, squares, doshos and moving lines ought to underlie a work of art (as it is
the caoo in all classic art), tho ought to be hiddon and not-to bo shown. They are
the hard coro, oho skeleton of a work of art. - f we vmre insects wiﬁh thahard crust
outside, abstract art would be appropriate. characteristically enough we depict death
as a skeleton. To no abstract art is pure perversion. Eeinhorzt may be sincere, but

/ - ,

as an abotractionis he is a sinner against the holy Ghost. r/f;'\‘nUZ((=Mf A. L¢,,