31 july 2026

31 july 2026

John Bjarne Grover

On Rilke's 5th Duino Elegy

It has been said many times, I think, that the 5th elegy is about Picasso's artwork 'Les saltimbanques' which allegedly hung on the wall of Hertha Koenig in München when Rilke was there. From Gerhard Oberlin: Zu Rainer Maria Rilkes Gedicht "Die fünfte Elegie":

"Zu den Quellen dieser Elegie ist seit spätestens 1914 auch Picassos Ölgemälde La famille des saltinbanques zu rechnen, das er der Kunstsammlerin Hertha Koenig zum Kauf empfohlen hatte, bevor er es in deren Münchner Wohnung im Jahr darauf einige Monate lang vor sich sehen und bewundern konnte. Es soll dieselbe Gauklertruppe darstellen, die Rilke im Jardin du Luxembourg einst erlebt hatte".

Picasso: La famille des saltinbanques
Source of the reproduction

However, I recently discovered a perhaps even more relevant artwork to this elegy of Rilke - it is Giambattista Tiepolo's "The Madonna of Carmel and the Souls of the Purgatory" (I dont know who made the title):

Tiepolo: The Madonna of Carmel and the Souls of the Purgatory
Source of the reproduction

I notice particularly the lines (translated with translate.google.com):

Aber der junge, der Mann, als wär er der Sohn eines Nackens
und einer Nonne: prall und strammig erfüllt
mit Muskeln und Einfalt. But the young man, as if he were the son of a neck
and a nun: plump and firm, filled
with muscles and simplicity.

The 'Nacken' is very visible in the pointing angel, and the 'Nonne' no less - she is in black and white to the left just under the Madonna. "...mit Muskeln und Einfalt" is the prostrate man with the muscles down left. It seems that most of the elegy can be recognized in this work of Tiepolo which shows the Madonna giving the black textile to Simon Stock.

If Rilke had seen this artwork before he wrote his elegy? That is not so important - it is probably a matter of universals anyhow. I myself found twice (with one week's interval) a black and humid textile when entering tram #1 in downtown Vienna. Perhaps one can see this artwork of Tiepolo as showing an arriving train or tram - coming up from the lefthand half of the canvas. That is like me - the tram #1 was coming from my lefthand side.

In addition, I looked a little closer at one of the two textiles I found with one week's interval - it was partwise folded so that it was double in a part of it (maybe in one third or a half of it - but I could not unfold all of it so I cannot tell it more precisely). This reproduction from the Pinacoteca di Brera shows the details a little better - it is seen that the textile to the left folds around the body of the angel - and hence it corresponds to the fold on the textile I found. This is what Rilke calls 'Aufschlag' - but would he have used this word if he was reproducing an impression from this artwork of Tiepolo?

Here is the 5th Duino Elegy of Rilke

2/8-2026: Today I came across yet another interesting observation with high relevance for this complex: The socalled 'Nazca Lines' are giant formations in the landscape made from a culture in Peru probably some 2-3000 years ago. Here is a collection of the more important ones. One of the more mysterious is the socalled 'astronaut' or 'giant' - or 'owlman' - an appr. 25 meter high figure carved into a mountainside. From this photo I made a contrast-enhanced version which I compare with Picasso's 'Les saltimbanques' horizontally mirrored:

Photographically enhanced version of 'The giant'
(Source of the reproduction)
Picasso's 'Les Saltimbanques' horzontally mirrored
(Source of the reproduction)

One sees the same 'train' or 'tram' coming. For the second of the black textiles I found, there was a woman sitting on a seat behind it (I asked if it were hers, which it was not, she said). Both the textiles were humid - hence the water jar next to Picasso's sitting woman.

From this image I excerpt the following detail which I enhance for contrast and light to show the outlines of the sitting woman to the left of the group - and I notice also the 'black textile' character of the darker field between her and the rest of the group:

Photographically enhanced detail of the photo
Source of the reproduction

The position of this image carved into the mountainside is here marked in red - in this satellite image from the area:

The landscape with the 'giant' in red
Google map source of the screenshot
Detail of the landscape
Google map source of the screenshot

The 'giant' (or socalled 'astronaut') is found near the tail of the 'bull' (or Auerochs, sort of) that faces rightwards. Interestingly, the bull seems to put its nose towards the stalk of a flower the petals of which are seen to the right. This is another of the large and ancient 'geoglyphs' in this Nazca landscape:

'The flower'
(source of the reproduction)

The theory forms itself from this simple example - that the phenomenon really is a case of 'the fifth dimension' - comparable to the phenomenon of the mountain 'Khumbutse' between Mount Everest and my own 2,71 cm long 'white stone' ('lapis philosophorum'). In the article 'The fifth dimension' I discuss some further aspects of this under the examples - such as Tizian painting the geography or geology of Venus centuries before it could be photographed by a NASA spacecraft. The theory therefore will naturally be that all the ancient giant images of the Nazca landscape in Peru could have been of this 'fifth dimension' type - with the mountainous landscape at the 'astronaut' or 'giant' being a good example. See e.g. also the feet of the 'bull' - how they could resemble the image called 'the hands':

The landscape 'bull' or 'Auerochs'
(Google map source of the screenshot)
'The hands'
(source of the reproduction)

The conclusion is that the large and mysterious images carved into the landscape of Peru a few thousand years ago could have been made by a culture exploring the fifth dimension, as I call it. Of course the humans of those days could not see the satellite images - but they could 'feel' them in their minds, with an esthetic intuition. This phenomenon could also explain the similarity of Rilke with Picasso and Tiepolo - and here also the ancient image in the moutainside of Peru. Or the similarities of Tizian with the geography of Venus. It is the innate human semiotic constitution that 'controls' these similarities - and hence, as follows thereby, also the shape of our world. The world of the humans is what we are able to conceive it as - but not all that which falls outside our limited semiotic constitution. Which probably is quite a lot, as these examples tell. Hence the socalled Nazca lines could have given the culture of those days access to knowledge beyond our otherwise limited understanding.

PS I was not aware of these 'Nazca lines' before I read this sad newspiece today. 'Naska' is norwegian for 'pilfered'. I did not steal any lines, though. ('Tryna' is norwegian 'slang' for 'falling forwards with the face down onto the ground').