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Dedicated to Heinrich Wölfflin and Virginia Woolf

Wölfflin and Woolf or What Kind of Sun?

Imagine your favourite aunt is coming to tea. And yes, you do like her, aunt Virginia. Although, sometimes, yes, sometimes she is, one must say, really weird.
This time she seems to be in a good mood, and she indeed seems to be there, to be present, with you. Because she is questioning you, as, at times, it is her habit to do.
And since you are not a precocious child, you will only later understand that she is also exploiting you, you and your child-like views of the world, the views you do hold as a child and do express as a child, your child-like and your childish views (this is another matter, but even a not-precocious child might see the difference between childish and child-like). Anyway, and back to aunt Virginia.
What did you do today, she asks (because she is a writer, and one has explained to you that she, all the time, has to collect things she then will think about, and also reuse in her book. So be careful about what you say (and don’t make her angry).
And you are careful and you just say: I got up today (which is evident, since obviously you are with her eating cookies and having some tea, and obviously you are not in your bed anymore.
And she says, since she is really inquisitive: Yes, but what was it that did wake you up?
Hm, the sun, you say (good point, even if it actually might not have been true, but it does sound more poetic).
What kind of sun? she now goes on to question you, obviously having become interested in your flam, your little lie. What kind of sun, an angry sun? Or was it a nice sun? she asks.
And now you would think: Never thought about it, are there many kinds of suns? I always thought there was just this one sun. And yes, sometimes it does happen: the sun does wake you, rather aggressively, because it, the sun, has found the right angle, and with a pointy, harpoon like sun ray it does wake you up.

But now enough of questioning, because now you turn, deliberately into a precocious child, precocious and maliciously playful.
Because your aunt, aunt Virginia, just might be curious, and as a writer she is allowed to be curious, but this goes to far. Why does’t she gather these materials on her own? Enough of exploiting the young poet in you.
And now you start to play with her. Because as a precocious child you are allowed to quote Goethe. And Wölfflin. Does she know Wölfflin? This might be an interesting move. And experiment to question if, indeed, she is well-read. And you say (since your German is good):
»Wär nicht das Auge sonnenhaft,
Wie könnten wir das Licht erblicken?
Lebt nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft,
Wie könnt uns Göttliches entzücken?«

And now she laughs, aunt Virginia. Because she has taped you. You have quoted (in German) from Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre (that also is quoted by Wölfflin). And she laughs, and she says. Yes, you must be eye, but you must also be a dreamer.
All right, she’s good, she’s got a point. She does know Wölfflin (does she read German?).
This is what Heinrich Wölfflin, the Swiss art historian, said about Arnold Böcklin, the Swiss painter.
This is it. You must be eye, but you also must be a dreamer.

And back to her question, no, our question. What kind of sun was it that did wake you up? Was there a sun, a particular sun?
Because both are perfectly right. Wölfflin (with Goethe) and Woolf. If the sun would not be in you, you would not be able to perceive the sun. And only if, in some way, you are, your senses are perceiving the pointy, harpoon like ray of sunlight, the sun will actually be able to wake you up.
But what kind of sun? An angry sun, or a romantic sun, a sun of the classics, a classic sun, in a word. A sun of art historians, or a sun of writers?
And to find out you must go back to sleep, or: you must now turn to be dreamer. Since, at least if you are also an artist, you are eye and dreamer, and the angry sun might be inside you as the nice one, the romantic sun as the classic, and also all other suns, potentially.
And this she did teach you, once, when coming to tea, back then, and many years ago, when questioning you, the precocious child, no, the child-like child (and also the childish child), because the precocious child is the invention of your own dreaming. And in a way you did exploit her like she, then, did exploit you, as a child. And you, your aunt Virginia and you, are now even. Because she did something to foster your visual apprenticeship, and you did something (at least in a way) to foster her writing. (24 June, 2015)

(Sun Skiing drawing: DS; sources: Woolf documentary on youtube.com, with recollections of relatives of Virginia Woolf; Andreas Ay, Nachts: Göthe gelesen [on Wölfflin reading Goethe], p. 136)

What Kind of Sun (drawing: DS)

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