A magnificent novel about the friendship between Rainer Maria Rilke and Heinrich Vogeler, their work and their women – sensitive, well informed, atmospheric and clever
In June 1905, Heinrich Vogeler is at the height of his success. He is about to be honored with the Gold Medal for Art and Science for his oeuvre, but more specifically for the painting “Concert or Summer’s Evening at the Barkenhoff”, which was completed after five years of work. While it is publicly celebrated as a masterpiece, for Vogeler it is the product of failure on three fronts: His marriage is in crisis mode, his confidence in his own art is faltering, and a fragile friendship is falling apart. Rainer Maria Rilke, the literary star shining brightly over the Worpswede artist colony, and his “soul mate” Vogeler have grown apart from each other – and the painting makes this painfully clear. Rilke is conspicuously absent between the women he loves.
Klaus Modick reveals what led the two men to each other and later divided them, what stake the women may have had, the art, money and politics. While en route to the award ceremony, Vogeler recalls the founding of the artist colony in Worpswede, the magic of his first encounter with Rilke in Florence, the euphoria of a collective awakening – and Paula Modersohn-Becker and Clara Rilke-Westhoff, the women with whom Rilke was involved in a scandalous love triangle.
