A Limner
I was gently blown away, by a strong story in The New Yorker. It's called The Limner. ( A limner was an itinerant painter of 18th-century America, an artist who usually had little formal training.)
It's about a deaf (racmanah litzlan) painter named Wadsworth, and tells the story of his essence through one incident, the painting of a testy tax collector. He tries to get the rich man to agree to have him paint his children but the man is not interested. This part really resonated for me:
Children were more mobile than adults, more deliquescent of shape, it was true. But they also looked him in the eye, and when you were deaf you heard with your eyes. Children held his gaze, and he thereby perceived their nature.
Adults often looked away, whether from modesty or a desire for concealment, while some, like the collector, held his gaze challengingly, with a false honesty, as if to say, Yes, of course my eyes are concealing things, but you lack the discernment to realize it.
Such clients judged Wadsworth’s affinity with children proof that he was as deficient in understanding as the children were. Whereas Wadsworth believed children’s affinity with him proof that they saw as clearly as he did.
The story is available in full, here.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 8:32 PM
12 Comments:
Thank you for the link to the story. Short, and so complete. Children don't dissemble and one can't before children. As to the whole story, I must admit, this part gave me pause, and then started another train of thought: '... it was habitually the first time that they had seen themselves as someone else saw them.... And there was a seriousness beyond even this.... that often the subject’s next reflection was “And is this perhaps how the Almighty sees me, too?'
The author's idea itself is powerful, and I thought, if only one could keep hold of this in their daily life; but then, thinking of the Chumash, made me wonder - Yosef didn't sin, by seeing Yakov's image. Why not just think of HaShem? Is it that the love of a parent and desire not to disappoint is stronger?
Hi,
I hope you're in an earlier time zone. As for me, I am up, with cold.
I liked that part also, the seriously religious element to the story.
I think we need concrete role models in our human life with other humans. That's one of the lessons of the Yosef Medrash. tHta's one of the ideas behind this artist reflect people back to them as other professionals do as well.
Same time zone - fortified with a shabbos nap (or two). Thanks for the feed back - I hope you are soon with health!
BTW - I was taken by the piece that hit you, but the one I quoted from hit me on a very personal level. I love to play with children, even - when I can to leave a Shabbos table and sit on the floor with them. And I think Sometimes people don't realize to what extent I am absorbing and taking people in...
Children don't dissemble and one can't before children.
I disagree with both those statements. I know from personal experience that both are untrue.
I would love to hea an elaboration of that K, (in an even keeled tone).
That was even-keeled. "Untrue" is not an accusation of lying or intended to insult. It's just a statement of fact.
An elaboration? I have a number of children, and have observed that they do sometimes lie, and can sometimes be sneaky and dishonest (although usually not, thankfully!). And I have observed adults who act one way when alone and another when dealing with children, and the children are unaware that they are dissembling. Heck, I've done it myself on occasion.
This whole idea that children are perfect creatures who cannot lie and can magically detect the falsehoods of others is utter nonsense.
I think children are both Rousseauian innocents and little savages. These contradictions coexist (higher brain, meet your roommate lower brain) and are one reason why child-rearing is not for the faint of heart or the overly romantic.
A friend of mine who has worked all her life in primate research (monkeys, chimps, etc.) once replied, when I commented that babies were cute, "That's so we won't eat them." We instinctively gravitate toward the cuteness, the softness, the innocence and vulnerability of children; all the more shocking, then, when they turn and bite our hand - without apparent regret. :-) It's just the way it is. No judgments from me.
I like the word "deliquescent" excessively. It's beautiful to read and to say, and it conjures melting images.
Thanks Kishke, I hear you.
Thanks Anne for adding your thoughts.
Where is deliquescence in the story?
"more deliquescent of shape, it was true."
'Children don't dissemble and one can't before children.'
Clumsily stated, I acknowledge. I wasn't trying to say that children never lie. And I was thinking of fairly young children. It's not that they never lie, but that they don't try to pretend to be other than themselves, and they seem to see through adults who are phony. But that's just my opinion. I was trying to respond to this passage in the story:
'Children held his gaze, and he thereby perceived their nature....Whereas Wadsworth believed children’s affinity with him proof that they saw as clearly as he did.'
P.S. I like your post Anne.
they don't try to pretend to be other than themselves, and they seem to see through adults who are phony
I certainly agree with the first part with respect to very young children, but that's mostly b/c they don't have the sense yet to know that pretense is sometimes important. As for the second part, I'm not sure what you mean. Phony in what way?
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