in memory of w.g. sebald (2): one leaves behind one's portrait

Wederom een fragment uit Ariadne's Thread: in Memory of W.G. Sebald van Philippa Comber (p. 215-216):

‘Like many of Max's later protagonists, [Matthias] Grünewald was a loner and a melancholic, of the type that came to be known in German as a Sonderling, an eccentric solitary. According to Claudio Magris, the figure of the Sonderling recurs “time and time again in German literature ... many of the heroes of [E.T.A.] Hoffmann and Jean Paul Richter are Sonderlinge ... all inspired by lacerating nostalgia and methodical rigour.” ¹ In this instance, I believe there's an even stronger identification between Max and his protagonist. In the preceding section of the poem [‘As the Snow on the Alps’], he describes a self-portrait by Grünewald, which he had discovered in the library at Erlangen:

... Selbstbildnis eines vierzig bis fünfzigjährigen Malers. Immer dieselbe Sanftmut, dieseble Bürde der Trübsal, dieseble Unregelmäßigkeit der Augen, verhängt und versunken seitwärts ins Einsame hin.

... a self-portrait ... of a painter aged forty to fifty. Always the same gentleness, the same burden of grief, the same irregularity of the eyes, veiled and sliding sideways down into loneliness. ²

No doubt Max would have observed the portrait very closely; at the same time, it seems to be nothing short of a description of himself – down to the details of age, disposition and temperament. It is a passage, I think, to be read alongside the final lines of a poem Max had written some nineteen years before, in 1967:

Man histerläßt sein Porträt Ohne absicht

One leaves behind one's portrait Without intent. ³’

¹ uit Claudio Magris' Danube
² uit ‘Wie der Schnee auf den Alpen’ / ‘As the Snow on the Alps’, deel 1 van Nach der Natur / After Nature (Engelse vertaling door Michael Hamburger) (Nederlandse titel Naar de Natuur)

³ uit ‘Giuliettas Geburtstag’ / ‘Giulietta's Birthday’ in Über das Land und das Wassen – Ausgewählte Gedichte 1964-2001 / Across the Land and the Water – Selected Poems 1964-2001 (Engelse vertaling door Iain Galbraith) (nog niet in het Nederlands verschenen)