Malende Dichter. Und ich mischte die Farben und vergaß die Welt: Fjodor Dostojewski, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Federico Garcia Lorca, Johann Wolfgang von ... Miller, Sylvia Plath, Marcel Proust u.v.a.

by Donald Friedman, Eva Plorin (Translator)

Dies ist ein Buch für all jene, die sich für Literatur, Kunstgeschichte und die Wechselbeziehung der Künste interessieren. »Überhaupt können die Dichter nicht genug von den Musikern und Malern lernen«, schreibt Novalis in seinem Roman Heinrich von Ofterdingen, und Goethe formuliert in seinen Maximen und Reflexionen in Bezug auf die bildende Kunst: »Man suche nur nichts hinter den Phänomenen. Sie selbst sind die Lehre.« Dass sich viele Dichter mit den verschiedenen Theorien zur bildenden Kunst beschäftigt haben, ist von der Forschung längst entdeckt worden, wie viele von ihnen aber selbst zu Pinsel, Bleistift oder Farbtube griffen, ist weniger bekannt. Manche von ihnen mussten sich jeden Tag aufs Neue entscheiden, ob sie nun Maler oder Dichter sein wollten, für andere wurde das Malen überlebensnotwendig, und wieder anderen war ganz bewusst, dass sie keine Meisterwerke vollbringen würden.

Donald Friedman hat für die amerikanische Ausgabe seines Buches über vierhundert Bilder zusammengetragen, von denen in der hier vorgelegten Fassung 220 Gemälde und Zeichnungen gezeigt werden. Texte zu den Bildern geben Aufschluss über biografische Daten, Lebensumstände und künstlerisches Werk.

Mit Fjodor Dostojewski, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Federico Garcia Lorca, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann Hesse, Patricia Highsmith, Franz Kafka, Henry Miller, Sylvia Plath, Marcel Proust u.v.a.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Writing

220 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2007

About the author

Sometime trial attorney and perennial procrastinator, presently novelist, short story writer, and essayist, I’m the author of the multiply translated The Writer’s Brush, Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers, which The New York Times Sunday Book Review described as “sparkling audaciously on every page,” and which the American Libraries Association called “a grand feat of research and interpretation.” My first novel, The Hand Before the Eye, black comic and shot through with religious themes—praised by Publishers Weekly for “its impassioned finale of spiritual redemption,” was a Vanity Fair Hot Type Recommendation. You’re My Dawg, Dog: A Lexicon of Dog Terms for People, has brought pleasure equally to dog and word lovers.

I was born in Philip Roth’s neighborhood, the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey, but did most of my growing up in suburban South Orange. There, at ten, I enrolled in private art classes and began oil painting which continued through high school.

At Washington University, St. Louis, where, apart from occasional cartoon contributions to the college paper and private sketching, my art career came to an end, and my creative impulses were mainly expressed in fiction writing. It was then that I sensed a connection between the urge to draw and paint and to write, but had no idea what it could be. When I ran across a reference to D. H. Lawrence’s paintings it made an impression; as did a book of Henry Miller’s watercolors that someone gave me not long after.

In the years that followed graduation, after I’d gotten my J.D. from Rutgers Law School and an L.L.M. from New York University Law School, had started practicing law, married and raised two children, I continued to make notes about writers who were artists from which The Writer’s Brush eventuated. I also began to study fiction writing and to write in the early morning before going to work. Now I have three novels under my belt and a fourth in the works.

Reviews

[Hannah Garden]

I “read” this the same way my little brother “read” my Archie comics—by looking at every picture. If you look very closely and thoughtfully at each picture it’s the same, it’s reading.

Anyway this book is very good and VERY beautiful.

[Tammy Marie Jacintho · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explores writers in the visual arts. It is a breathtaking book! Donald Friedman, William Gass and John Updike study 200 famous writers and their brilliant visual works. The art of Baudelaire, Pearl S. Buck, the Bronte Sisters, Hart Crane, Winston Churchill, e.e. cummings, Ferlinghetti, Kafka, D.H Lawrence, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Alexander Pushkin, George Sands, Wallace Stevens, Mark Twain, John Updike, William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas, and W.B. Yeats are but a few of the extraordinary artists covered in this book. The art oftentimes illuminates the writing; sometimes, it throws you off balance. But it is a great resource to further explore, the inner landscape of writers, writers you have come to cherish. I found this book inspiring.

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When I was a child, I covered my walls with poems—sheets and sheets... Two of my walls were covered in paper—paper with words all over them. My closet, which was a big closet, was covered—floor to ceiling—with drawings. Of course, I only put the good ones up... I wanted my accomplishment to be before me, leading me out of the house where I lived.

Even today, I find it difficult to choose between my two loves. It would seem a staggering number of artists and writers have the same problem. Or is it a gift? This book proves: where there is a mind and an eye the hand must follow. Oftentimes, the creative impulse cannot be satisfied with one medium.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reichhaltig, enzyklopädisch und schön bebildert. Ich habe einiges gelernt. Leider sind die Texte ziemlich schablonenhaft.

[Sherry (sethurner) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a large book, heavy, lavishly illustrated. In it the author gives biographies of writers who painted, drew, or sculpted, and especially discusses their thought on the connections between the written word and images created in art. This is a tremendous reference book, one I'm rationing out to about thirty pages a day. I find myself being surprised at familiar poets and novelists who also made art (Enid Bagnold, Elizabeth Bishop, William Faulkner), and delighted to discover writers whom I did not know (Russell Edson, Carol Emshwiller).

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous 'directory' of legendary writers who were also, artists. A short bio of each writer is included--as well as their experiences with art and writing. Some of their artistic works are included as well. Used for my undergrad senior thesis on the relationship of literature and art for the Bronte sisters and it was quite useful not only with my formation of my thesis, but also with its citations, in leading me on to more research.

[Elizabeth Scott Tervo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Chase-Foster recommended this book recently. It’s excellent! It’s very interesting to see that many well-known writers also created very nice visual art, and to think about how their literary and visual efforts are alike or not alike. I especially enjoyed seeing GK Chesterton’s illustrations for The Man who was Thursday, and Thurber’s illustrations.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book -- loved seeing amazing authors who are also talented artists -- pen and ink drawings by Victor Hugo; Bronte sisters Charlotte & Emily watercolors and pencil drawings; and so many more. Cover art of this book by Sylvia Plath entitled Two Women Reading.

[Anna Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Nonfiction book!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Writer’s Brush is one of those books that makes a simple question feel unexpectedly rich: what happens when writers pick up a brush, a pencil, a pen, or whatever happens to be near the desk, and make images instead of sentences? Donald Friedman has gathered a fascinating collection of visual work by writers, and the pleasure is not in discovering that every novelist or poet was secretly a great artist. Most were not. That is actually part of the charm.

The book works because it treats these drawings and paintings as extensions of imagination rather than auditions for a museum wall. A sketch by a writer can feel oddly intimate, not because it is technically perfect, but because it lets you see a different route through the same mind. The hand that built a paragraph suddenly makes a face, a landscape, a creature, a private joke, a little visual confession. Some pieces are graceful. Some are strange. Some are frankly awkward. But almost all of them are revealing.

There is a real delight in moving from one writer to another and seeing how differently the visual impulse appears. A drawing can show discipline, vanity, humor, fantasy, restlessness, or boredom. It can look like a secret hobby, a marginal note that escaped, or a small rebellion against the tyranny of words. The book is especially enjoyable when it makes the connection between the writing life and the visual life feel natural rather than forced.

It is not a perfect book. The format is stronger than the prose at times, and a few entries feel more interesting as curiosities than as works that hold attention on their own. But that is almost inevitable with a collection this broad. The unevenness is part of the browsing pleasure. You turn the page not knowing whether you are about to find a beautiful surprise, a charming oddity, or evidence that a beloved writer was wise to stay mainly with sentences.

The Writer’s Brush is thoughtful, unusual, and generous. It does not try to prove that writers are visual artists in disguise. It suggests something better: that creativity often leaks across borders, and that even a rough drawing can tell us something about how a mind plays when it thinks no one is grading the result.

[Maria Azpiroz · Rating 4 out of 5]

La versión en español es muy buena pero aclara es abreviada. Son 200 obras y no 400. No lo sabía o habría encargado versión en inglés.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

A behemoth of a book (heavy). 457 pages, 203 writer/artists, 71 writer/artists not included for various reasons
oldest writer/artist: Goethe, youngest, Jonatha Lethem