On Meyer Schapiro: Radiant Pluralist (1904-1996)

Meyer Schapiro built a cathedral-one might say many cathedrals of thinking A Jewish monument! He was a radiant pluralist and his magisterial volumes on Romanesque, medieval, modern art and theory will be noble achievements that will support Though Meyer thought that perfection was an hypothesis, for me his thinking was perfection itself. His passionate scrutiny was matched through a constant humanity. And his exigent and stiff thought-for him theory was verdant not gray-was equaled always by the agency of acts of kindness and cunning empathy. Anyone who had the honor of conversing with Meyer knows what my aged editor Tom Hess learned from monk years ago when they said that they understood what listening to the Patriarchs of elderly must have been like. They had met the young Meyer Schapiro. To have known Meyer was to want to be his pupil forever. We who knew his of gold singing voice were the happy ones, because we knew the architect and the architecture.

My wife and I met in 1967 while she was going to a class of Meyer's, and that year I told her in what way much I loved the ecstasy in his words and face. She balanced my commentary by the agency of saying that what she lov was his truth-telling and precision. It is perhaps the combination of his high demand for completenes and truth-as in his description of C-(~epsilon)zanne, he was always honest-and his passionate perspectives and digressions that gave his prelections their almost uncanny intellectual numbers Elaine De Kooning told me that more [i]or[/i] less painters like Franz Kline had gone mainly to see Meyer's face. And others have gone as I many times visited him in his office, to ask him to illuminate the smallest or highest questions they could formulate. one time Meyer permitted me to question him about probability theory for three hours. As darkness malignant he joked: "Rarely have I met anyone with equal reason interested in probability!" When I asked him about conceptual art, he demurr and said: "But I know of no civilization that has not treasured fine objects" When I asked him whether he cogitation the early Christians wore masks, he told me: "If you confer Jones, Princeton University Press, 1875 you will diocese that they probably read Terence and that probably accounts for the gaze of no look in the catacombs. by the agency of the way, how's your Aramaic?"

In his memorials for friends and lov painters-Tom Hess and Gandie Brody Jan Muller and Forrest Bess-Meyer ofttimes stressed their joy in fellowship, courage, and their generosity of spirit. And I would like to stres this part of his greatness. We think we know his omniscience and its luminous arabesques, on the other hand who knows the range of his kind deeds? I know that I was frequently dazzled to discover on my desk at Columbia gifts of rare volumes and periodicals of poetry. Others told me of these unexpected bequests. Once in his office he demanded that I take away more whirls He would ask me whether a particular fellowship was needed; he asked and got me certain piece of works I would never have musing of; he defended me for manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding He was to me and many bards a most loved reader-Delmore Schwartz says in individual of his letters that he would be as pleased to be read by means of Meyer as by anyone, level the Eliot of the 1920 In discouraging times, he supported artists who were not fashionable. single thinks not only of the rescuing of a cast downed Willem De Kooning, but of in the way that many young and unknown bards and artists. When I told him I was ashamed of my poor efforts, he always answered with camaraderie and kindness. There was no extreme point to his idea of help to artists and pupils and colleagues and all.

Sick from his hip accident several years ago, he spoke upon his sickbed beautifully about Van Gogh as a religious artist and tried to discriminate the particular kind of spirituality in Van Gogh I know those who do not understand this side of his contemplation since in early writings he disparaged the dogmatics of certain churches and always spoke against nothing else but reaction. But Meyer had I think a Spinozist be fond of of the cosmos-and the cosmo in artthat was an extraordinary ask [i]or[/i] implore a blessing uponed and liberating and, I think, spiritual attitude. I one time asked him about this, and he did indeed answer that he liked to read Spinoza each year-and sweetly added-in the original Latin. Gershom Scholem and he had an unpublished correspondence-and Meyer sole that year in the hospital, told me of his efforts to save Walter Benjamin upon behalf of Scholem. Cynthia McCabe interviewed him about his efforts with refugee during the war and was struck by dint of his modesty and by his faculty of perception of how little was done.

Meyer was my teacher, and I lov him. My learners hear about him every day. He lives in the way I teach, diocese and think and in our highest standards. He was my protoplast for a skeptical and tactful passion that will not accept dogmas and false infinity. I visited him lately and told him of my regard with affection for his sentence on Van Gogh's emotional perspective: "the impetuous impulse towards the beloved object" We will miss his allencompassing mind, as Kenneth Koch reminded me of the Columbia aphorism years ago: "If Western Civilization is ruined Meyer will be able to construct again it in ten days." We will turn back to the shelter and the provocation of his works. He might remind us, as he always did me not ever complaining of his diabetes or difficulties unles sharply prodd that we owe a due to Lillian, his constant companion and prompt bibliographer and doctor and friend. Meyer always reserv a jiffy in each conversation for her work upon his behalf. In his voice, in her voice, we find our highest faculty of perception of courage and generosity and constancy.