Pickman's model

HP Lovecraft, photograph from 1915

Pickman's model (original title: Pickman's Model ) is the title of a short story by the American writer HP Lovecraft . The written work was in 1926 a year later in the magazine Weird Tales published in 1939 and in the anthology The Outsider and Others added, with the history of the publishing house Arkham House began.

A German translation by HC Artmann was published in 1972 in Volume 19 of the Fantastic Library and in Volume 9 of the Luther's Horror Magazine series published from 1972 onwards .

The eerie and, for the author, quite successful story belongs to the genre of fantastic horror stories and is about a painter named Pickman, whose gruesome pictures caused a sensation, alienation and rejection and who has disappeared without a trace.

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Der Nachtmahr, Johann Heinrich Füssli

The story takes place in Boston . From a first-person perspective , the narrator Thurber reports in an often colloquial manner of unsettling experiences with Pickman that shattered himself.

At the beginning of the long monologue explains and justifies it against Eliot its aversion , subways to use and stated that he would refuse to lead the police to the secluded home of the painter, whose position he already remembered only vaguely. There he saw "something" - and has not been able to enter any cellars since then .

Lately Thurber has been visiting the ingeniously gifted, albeit morbidly inclined, artist, whose strength was portraiture , more and more frequently. For hours he listens to the philosophical speculations that are remote enough to let him be sent to the “madhouse”. He learns that one of Pickman's ancestors was hanged in the course of the Salem witch trials and that Cotton Mather was watching "with an unctuous expression".

Thurber, who considers Pickman to be a "thoroughly precise, almost scientifically acting realist ", speaks of the "true artists" of the macabre, Francisco de Goya , Gustave Doré and Johann Heinrich Füssli , whose nightmare makes you shudder. and compares them with Pickman: "There has probably been no other painter since Goya who could have put the expression of sheer hell into an antliz." The picture " Ghouls eating" is a progressive work that the Museum of Fine Arts, however, was not accepted.

From Disparates: Folly of Fear, Francisco de Goya

Some time later, Pickman leads the narrator in the semi-darkness through a maze of dilapidated streets in the North End to a secluded house, in the basement of which he paints his visions because the atmosphere is thickest there. The shapes of the pictures are horrific: "The tremendous abomination, this nameless soul-wracking corpse stench ... this pathological, perverted fantasy cannot be described with human words."

One study is called "Accident in the subway" and shows a teeming pack of monsters crawling up from a crevice and spreading over the platform to devour passengers. In order to show Thurber his actual studio, the painter leads him into the cellar room, in which there is a fountain from the 17th century, and shows him some unfinished pictures that are also appalling. Suddenly he unveils a painting that shows a hellish vision that makes the narrator scream: “A gruesome blasphemy, ... a forbidden monster” that devours a person's head like a “child enjoying himself on a candy cane does. ”Suddenly it seems as if the painter is listening intently and frightened. He pulls out a revolver, leaves the room, leaving Thurber behind, who hears a squeak and scratch and thinks of giant rats. Shortly afterwards, he hears a strange clatter, an incomprehensible torrent of words and six revolver shots, with which the soon-to-be-returned Pickman claims to have driven away bloated rats. The two separate. Thurber later finds an old photograph that he involuntarily took with Pickman and that is the reason why he no longer wanted to speak to him. The photo shows that human-devouring creature - but here as a real model, as it is "a flash shot of life ...".

Background and worldview

Triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights , right panel (inside): Hell

In addition to chemistry, astronomy, and other natural sciences , Lovecraft was also interested in the fine arts . Frank Belknap Long describes how much painting impressed him from his youth and later, in addition to constant reading, influenced the development of the Cthulhu myth . Without his familiarity with the eerie painting of the 19th century, his stories would still have been good, but would not have been able to paint the gloomy regions so vividly and evoke the horrors so intensely. Long believes that in addition to Goya, Lovecraft may have had the somber visions of Hieronymus Bosch in mind - humans with animal heads, monsters hatching from eggs, goblins with sharp teeth, and other disgusting creatures - when he imagined some of Pickman's monsters.

Lovecraft himself gave the mythological background of his stories: They all had the legendary or fabulous foundation that the earth was “once inhabited by another race ... that fell and was driven out while practicing black magic , but lives on outside, ready at any time To take possession of the earth again. "

Lovecraft represented a mechanistic and deterministic worldview, which was composed of two essential elements: He understood the universe as a system governed by eternal laws, in which everything is causally connected so that there can be neither chance nor free will . For him, existence was material. Non-material entities like the soul or the spirit are impossible. The view associated with the name Albert Einstein , to understand matter as a form of energy, did not contradict this, but was for him “the trump card of materialism, show that matter ... is in reality exactly what the spirit has always been believed to be . ”This also led him to give up any religion that he could no longer explain with scientific principles.

In his preliminary remark, Lovecraft differentiated between different forms of the uncanny in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature . Based on his basic assumption that the strongest and oldest form of human fear is that of the unknown, he worked out the components of the “cosmic horror” with which he differentiated other, conventional ghost stories . "The true scary story contains more than just secret murder ... A certain atmosphere of breathless and inexplicable fear of external, unknown forces must be present ... an ominous and special abolition or submission of those fixed laws of nature which are our only security from the attacks of chaos and the Demons of the unexplored universe are. "

The fear of the unknown in other dimensions, the horror of the cosmic darkness, does not only affect children, who are always afraid of the dark, but also everyone who is ready to open up to the "inherited impulses". He will tremble as soon as he thinks of the hidden worlds that " pulsate in the abyss between the stars ."

particularities

During Lovecraft's lifetime, the work was published in two anthologies of Christine Campbell, 1929 in By Daylight Only and 1937 in Not at Night Omnibus .

Some of the statements by the painter Pickman correspond to Lovecraft's aesthetic principles, which he also formulated in theoretical writings. Thus, Giorgio Manganelli out that Pickman consider it his duty to "make the nuances of the human psyche visible" and the narrator him "almost scientific foregoing (s) Realist (s)" for keeps.

The North End district is part of a typical Lovecraft location that also plays a role in other stories - such as The Music of Erich Zann - and does not allow the narrator to remember the exact address. For Lovecraft, the space in which the storyline takes place is one of the most important means of creating the feeling of the uncanny. He succeeds in this by suggesting strange geometrical or spatial proportions that seem to contradict custom, indeed the laws of nature. When the bottom of reality slowly disappears or foreign dimensions open up, fear and horror can rise. Lovecraft described the dilapidated district and the winding streets in great detail. When he visited the area a little later, he was disappointed that much of the district had been razed to the ground to make way for more modern buildings. He described to his friend Donald Wandrei that the winding alley and the house of his short story had been destroyed. So he had a real house in mind when he wrote his story.

reception

When it comes to the literary quality of his texts, questions of the subtext and the rather flat character drawing are raised above all those of the style . Critics are always bothered by his conspicuous use of certain adjectives .

In the “union” with the gruesome, which is initially described as disgusting, Rein A. Zondergeld believes that the erotic component of Lovecraft, who was an inhibited hermit , can be felt . In his opinion, Lovecraft's style, which often revels in “obsolete expressions and archaisms”, can only convince in a few good stories and often turns horror into ridiculous.

Jörg Drews admits the sometimes questionable constructions of many stories, but considers the style to be entertaining and quotes from Pickman's model . If there "canine beings ... with the texture of viscous slime and gray, warmly flowing rubber" penetrate into earthly reality, "not an eye remain dry."

In the opinion of Fritz Leibers, however, who speaks of “scientific-realistic” elements, Lovecraft's style has changed over time. While in his early work he made use of well-sounding lyrical prose and adjectives "almost Byzantine", he later switched to a more neutral representation, even if he never completely overcome the tendency to vividly paint the events in this way.

Frank Belknap Long , a close friend of Lovecraft and a connoisseur of his oeuvre , considers Pickman's model to be his most convincing story. The otherwise present mythological background of the cosmic horror is more indistinct for him than in the other works, the monsters have a different quality reminiscent of the Frankenstein sphere . Also S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz explained in its Lovecraft Encyclopedia that the aesthetic principles mentioned by Thurber which correspond Lovecraft. For the narrator of the story, only the talented artist can find the proportions and colors of the surfaces that appeal to the latent instincts of the viewer and awaken dormant feelings of strangeness or repressed memories of horror.

For Giorgio Manganelli, the story is less about the horror itself than about the question of how it can be used to create a work of art. The technique of "Lovecraft's Poetics of Horror" consists in portraying the "corrupt" visions of violence and the "perspective of hell" with icy-realistic accuracy. Manganelli characterizes Lovecraft as an exact and realistic realist who pursues an ambitious, perhaps presumptuous poetics of horror. Lovecraft does not want to be a visionary, but a "chronicler of horror" who describes the monsters with crystal clarity. If, on the other hand, the horror manifests itself slowly or suddenly at the end of the story, the writer is obliged to describe it in its shapelessness. When Lovecraft now touches these images, he renounces scientific accuracy and becomes a “sensual instrument of vision. Then he describes the only misshapen monster he has had thorough experience with, himself. "

literature

• Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz: Pickman's Model . In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia , Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, pp. 204-205, ISBN 0-9748789-1-X .
• Fritz Leiber: A literary copernicus . In: Franz Rottensteiner (ed.): HP Lovecrafts kosmisches Grauen , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 65-66, ISBN 3-518-39233-6 (= fantastic library , volume 344).

Web links

Wikisource: HP Lovecraft: Pickman's Model  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kalju Kirde , Bibliography on HP Lovecraft, in: About HP Lovecraft , Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 295
2. ↑ HP Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model", in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 16
3. ↑ HP Lovecraft, “Pickmans Model”, in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 21
4. ↑ HP Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model", in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 31
5. ↑ HP Lovecraft, “Pickmans Model”, in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 18
6. ↑ HP Lovecraft, “Pickmans Model”, in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 26
7. ↑ HP Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model", in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 34
8. ↑ HP Lovecraft, "Pickmans Model", in: Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 38
9. ^ Frank Belknap Long, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Dreamer on the Night Sid , Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin 1975, p. 96
10. ^ Frank Belknap Long, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Dreamer on the Night Sid , Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin 1975, p. 98
11. ↑ Quoted from Jörg Drews , Howard Phillips Lovecraft, The rats in the walls , in: Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon , Vol. 10, Munich, 1990, p. 623
12. ↑ S. T. Joshi, "HP Lovecraft, life and thought", in: About HP Lovecraft , Franz Rottensteiner (ed.), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1984, p 202
13. ^ HP Lovecraft, Die Literatur des Grauens , Edition Phantasia, Linkenheim 1985, p. 19
14. ↑ HP Lovecraft, Die Literatur des Grauens , Edition Phantasia, Linkenheim 1985, p. 22
15. ^ HP Lovecraft, Die Literatur des Grauens , Edition Phantasia, Linkenheim 1985, p. 19
16. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, "Pickman's Model". In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia , Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, p. 205
17. ^ Giorgio Manganelli , foreword, in: HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastische Bibliothek, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 7
18. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, "Pickman's Model". In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia , Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, p. 205
19. ↑ Rein A. Zondergeld, “Lovecraft, Howard Phillips”, in: Lexikon der phantastischen Literatur , Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastische Bibliothek, Frankfurt 1983, p. 161
20. ↑ Rein A. Zondergeld, “Lovecraft, Howard Phillips”, in: Lexikon der phantastischen Literatur , Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastische Bibliothek, Frankfurt 1983, p. 160
21. ^ HP Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model", in Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastic Library, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 26
22. ↑ Jörg Drews , Four Reviews, in: About HP Lovecraft , Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 201
23. ↑ Fritz Leiber Jr. , "A literary Copernicus", in: About HP Lovecraft , Franz Rottensteiner (Ed.), Fantastic Library, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 51
24. ^ Frank Belknap Long, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Dreamer on the Night Sid , Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin 1975, p. 144
25. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, "Pickman's Model". In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia , Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, p. 205
26. ^ Giorgio Manganelli, foreword, in: HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastische Bibliothek, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 7
27. ^ Giorgio Manganelli, foreword, in: HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Geistergeschichten , Fantastische Bibliothek, Volume 19, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972, p. 7