WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.710 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.710 --> 00:00:02.576 align:middle line:90% Here's a poem for Gail Orlen. 00:00:02.576 --> 00:00:05.700 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:08.700 align:middle line:90% The Face of Durer. 00:00:08.700 --> 00:00:10.950 align:middle line:84% I love Durer's paintings for a number of reasons. 00:00:10.950 --> 00:00:13.050 align:middle line:84% He and Bruegel are probably my favorite painters. 00:00:13.050 --> 00:00:16.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:16.890 --> 00:00:18.967 align:middle line:84% And I think one of the reasons with Durer-- 00:00:18.967 --> 00:00:21.300 align:middle line:84% I didn't realize it until I was thinking about this poem 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:23.910 align:middle line:84% last night and what went into it. 00:00:23.910 --> 00:00:27.660 align:middle line:84% I think one of the reasons, because I associate Durer 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:32.549 align:middle line:84% so much with a sense of sureness of self-knowledge, 00:00:32.549 --> 00:00:35.850 align:middle line:84% self-identity, whatever, partly through the self-portraits 00:00:35.850 --> 00:00:40.620 align:middle line:84% that he did, is that his paintings seem that sure to me. 00:00:40.620 --> 00:00:45.990 align:middle line:84% They seem not sculptural, but not really human either-- 00:00:45.990 --> 00:00:49.410 align:middle line:90% not exactly of this world. 00:00:49.410 --> 00:00:53.550 align:middle line:84% And in this particular portrait, this self-portrait 00:00:53.550 --> 00:00:56.250 align:middle line:84% which was done in the year 1500 is full face, 00:00:56.250 --> 00:01:00.435 align:middle line:84% Durer looking at you, looking at himself painting himself. 00:01:00.435 --> 00:01:03.330 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.330 --> 00:01:08.280 align:middle line:84% There is a kind of intense scrutiny to it. 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:11.340 align:middle line:84% I mean, it may be just the painter's eye. 00:01:11.340 --> 00:01:15.540 align:middle line:84% But it's always seemed more than that to me. 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:17.910 align:middle line:84% It's a Christ-like self-portrait. 00:01:17.910 --> 00:01:20.220 align:middle line:84% He looks like Christ in the painting. 00:01:20.220 --> 00:01:22.230 align:middle line:84% I read a beautiful thing that I jotted down 00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:25.380 align:middle line:84% from somewhere last night that said something to the effect 00:01:25.380 --> 00:01:27.930 align:middle line:84% that Durer recognized that Christ 00:01:27.930 --> 00:01:29.195 align:middle line:90% had been an honest teacher. 00:01:29.195 --> 00:01:32.235 align:middle line:90% It was wonderful and unusual. 00:01:32.235 --> 00:01:35.370 align:middle line:90% 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:39.527 align:middle line:84% And two other things are included within the poem 00:01:39.527 --> 00:01:40.360 align:middle line:90% which are important. 00:01:40.360 --> 00:01:44.130 align:middle line:84% One is that the portrait was done in the year 1500, which 00:01:44.130 --> 00:01:47.460 align:middle line:84% was a time when people believed, or many people believed, 00:01:47.460 --> 00:01:51.600 align:middle line:84% the world might come to an end as we do every night at 6 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:55.290 align:middle line:90% o'clock if you watch the news. 00:01:55.290 --> 00:02:00.480 align:middle line:84% The other is that there's an inscription, which 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:02.820 align:middle line:84% given the fact that this is one of the masterpieces 00:02:02.820 --> 00:02:11.670 align:middle line:84% of Western art given the intensity of it, is strange. 00:02:11.670 --> 00:02:15.090 align:middle line:84% I've included the inscription within the poem. 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:17.670 align:middle line:84% It begins "I, Albrecht Durer," and concludes 00:02:17.670 --> 00:02:18.510 align:middle line:90% "at the age of 28." 00:02:18.510 --> 00:02:21.140 align:middle line:90% 00:02:21.140 --> 00:02:23.700 align:middle line:90% For Gail. 00:02:23.700 --> 00:02:27.360 align:middle line:84% The face of Durer is perhaps the face of Christ. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:30.780 align:middle line:84% Had he a moment alone in the gel at the city of Jerusalem 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:34.470 align:middle line:84% just before his deliverance to another intelligent enough 00:02:34.470 --> 00:02:38.670 align:middle line:84% to both ritualize the judgment and absolve himself. 00:02:38.670 --> 00:02:43.170 align:middle line:84% Thus, perhaps the honest face of Pilate also. 00:02:43.170 --> 00:02:45.540 align:middle line:84% Men like this recognize each other, 00:02:45.540 --> 00:02:48.450 align:middle line:84% are aware of the burden of another's seriousness, 00:02:48.450 --> 00:02:51.840 align:middle line:90% which justifies their own. 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.840 align:middle line:84% I, Albrecht Durer, the northerner, 00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:57.240 align:middle line:84% have painted my own portrait here 00:02:57.240 --> 00:03:01.320 align:middle line:84% in the proper colors at the age of 28. 00:03:01.320 --> 00:03:06.400 align:middle line:84% Outside, that is 1500, the world is crazed with its own ending. 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.360 align:middle line:84% There's allowed no believable consolation. 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:14.040 align:middle line:84% Sometimes at midday, only the rumble of carts may be heard. 00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:17.820 align:middle line:84% All he is doing is bearing witness to himself, 00:03:17.820 --> 00:03:22.050 align:middle line:84% though he will be the first and last of us to do so. 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:24.750 align:middle line:90% No revelation, none at all. 00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:29.100 align:middle line:84% Unless his genius is itself the progress of revelation. 00:03:29.100 --> 00:03:32.490 align:middle line:84% The figure emerges from its black background, 00:03:32.490 --> 00:03:36.240 align:middle line:84% the hand's singular gesture, the face that helps 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:39.540 align:middle line:90% identify-- identify the future. 00:03:39.540 --> 00:03:44.100 align:middle line:84% There will be no plague, no further wars or oppressors. 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:48.990 align:middle line:84% We shall stand like this a long time as before a mirror, 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:51.470 align:middle line:90% as before one another.