Double self portrait with RousseauThe Romantic
He was always a ‘ romantic’. Early on he read an essay by Einstein who said that the impetus behind all human endeavor was either fear or longing and Garbo certainly connected to the longing part.
He wrote while on an extended stay at the American Academy in Rome:
"I have found myself in love again… at my age (a Steppenwolf, I suspect has lay hidden in a chrysalis of my own making). She is so utterly beautiful to behold …I am smitten.
‘An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze' …yes I am in love.
She willingly submits to my most suspicious scrutiny and ignores all my approval , for she has yet to give me even the smallest hint of noticing my arousal, my covet-ness, or my coy gestures aimed at gaining entrance to the secrets of her grandeur.
I willingly yield and pray for her to rejoin, but her very nature is to demure and lay silent beneath her exquisite façade, her patina of unreachable beauty.
Would that I slave for an eternity, I fear I should never approach the awesome beauty of my love
And her name is painting."
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Years later he read to me some passages from his ‘notes’ and after reading the above, removed his glasses and turned toward me speaking rather sheepishly:
“I forget which ancient Greek said, ‘Though the power is lacking… the lust is nevertheless praiseworthy.”
