Collage 573

We are in Volume III, Part Three, Chapter XXXIII. Moscow is in flames. Pierre is wandering around and happens upon a family who has gotten separated. They fear that one of their kids is in a burning house. Pierre attempts to rescue the child who he thinks is in the burning house, but later finds her under a garden bench just outside the house that the French soldiers are looting.

... the sensation of heat and smoke and quick movement produced on Pierre the usual exhilarating effect of fires. This effect was especially strong on him because, at the sight of this fire, he suddenly felt freed of his burdensome thoughts. He felt young, cheerful, adroit and resolute. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 401-402, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 926-927

Collage 572

Trish Crapo
from page 399-400, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 924-926

This is one of only two or three collages I had the great pleasure to actually make in the E. Boston studio with Team Tolstoy. It was amazing to me to see the many different ways of working, many of them looser and more abstract that mine. I still remember sitting on a pillow on top of a plastic cooler -- just the right height and surprisingly comfortable! -- working alongside these five very talented women.

In this passage, Pierre is walking through the burning city of Moscow when he discovers a woman, an old nanny and three children sitting by "a heap of household belongings: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks." The woman throws herself at Pierre's feet. "'Somebody please help us,' she managed to say through her sobs. 'My little girl! ...My daughter! ...My youngest daughter got left behind!"

I guess I imagined the sad cartoon of the little girl with the bird on her head to be the lost daughter and hoped that she would make her way through Moscow to be reunited with her family.

Collage 571

In this piece I wanted to convey the horror and chaos of the burning of Moscow.
Lucy Arrington
from page 397-398, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 923-924

Collage 570

Prince Andrei, mortally wounded, receives a visit from his beloved Natasha. She begs forgiveness for her betrayal. With newfound clarity and compassion, he tells her he loves her even more than before.

Meanwhile, Moscow burns.

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 395-396, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink, 35mm film negative
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 921-923

Collage 569

Inspired by Eva Hesse.

Emma Rhodes
from page 393-394, volume 2 of original text
collage, plastic
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 920-921

Collage 568

He was the same as always; but the inflamed color of his face, his glittering eyes, rapturously fixed on her, and especially his tender, childlike neck, rising from the turned-down collar of his shirt, gave him a special, innocent, boyish look, which she had never seen in Prince Andrei before. She went up to him, and with a quick, supple, youthful movement dropped to her knees.

He smiled and gave her his hand.

p. 918

Lynn Waskelis
from page 391-392, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 918-920

Collage 567

Try to visualize Natasha lying on a pile of straw covered by a thin sheet. She can hear the constant moaning of some wounded soldier, who she imagines is Prince Andrei. She has decided that she must see him. "Already that morning, when she had been told about the wound and Prince Andrei's presence, Natasha had decided that she must see him... She knew that the meeting would be painful, and was all the more convinced that it was necessary.

Lucy Arrington
from page 389-390, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 916-918

Collage 566

Trish Crapo
from page 387-388, volume 2 of original text
collage, glitter, graphite
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 915-916

In this scene, Sonya tells her cousin Natasha to come to the window: "I think the whole of Moscow will burn down, it's such a terrible glow! Natasha, look now, you can see it from here through the window..." But even this tragedy can not distract Natasha from the "stupor" into which she had fallen when she learned of the news that her beloved Prince Andrei had been wounded.

It seems to me now, seeing the collage again, that I went quite literally for the shapes of flames, using tissue papers, foil and scraps of wallpaper. Drawing is foreign and intimidating to me and I had been making loose, abstract drawings just to get used to the feel of a pencil. These I ripped and have been using scraps of them in collages throughout the War and Peace Project.  ~Trish

Collage 565

The Rostov family is camped a few miles from Moscow. They have just noticed a glow from the city. Here I wanted to evoke the chaos of Moscow in flames. "Lord have mercy!... it's windy and dry! Oh, Lord! you can even see the sparks flying!

Lucy Arrington
from page 385-386, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink, dried flower petal from geranium in our studio
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 913-915

Collage 564

Pierre has been hovering close to madness these past days. As the captain tells his stories of love and duty, Pierre's emotions and memories become hyper lucid. He reflects on his love for Natasha, of her love and betrayal of his best friend. Moscow is on fire, yet he observes the glow and sees beauty and poetry. - Adrienne

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 383-384, volume 2 of original text
collage, string
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 912-913

Collage 563

"Oh les femmes, les femmes!"

Lynn Waskelis
from page 381-382, volume 2 of original text
collage, dried flowers from Yasnaya Polyana
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 910-912

Collage 562

A lot of string was used in the studio this session. Lucy used it almost exclusively in the previous collage and Adrienne used some in one of the next ones. The way I made interlocking shapes and colored them in with ink is very much the way I usually work when I paint. So this is one of those pieces that is a link between collage and painting. What I love about collage is the effortlessness of creating interesting texture and pattern. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 379-380, volume 2 of original text
collage, thread
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 909-910

Collage 561

Someone brought a bunch of string to the studio & I let myself get carried away playing with it. I have to admit, I wasn't very controlled about it, but I did have fun!

Lucy Arrington
from page 377-378, volume 2 of original text
collage, thread, graphite, ink
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 908-910

Collage 560

Trish Crapo
from page 375-376, Volume 2 of original text
collage, thread, marker
made 6/17/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 905-907

It's interesting the synchronicity that happens across collages in this project! Because I live too far from the East Boston studio to come in regularly, I often work alone out here in Western Massachusetts. I had not known that Lola had written in French on the preceding collage when I scrawled "J'ai ete a Paris," in gold pen across mine.

I chose the phrase because in this scene Pierre is dining with French officers who had burst into a Moscow apartment and almost killed a man that Pierre protects, begging the French not to harm a "drunken, insane man."

It is not clear whether Pierre is being taken prisoner or not, as he is served roast lamb, an omelette, tea, vodka, wine and kvass, all of which he partakes of hungrily. (Thus the bits of wrapping paper printed with images of food...)

The merriment around the table increases incrementally with the bottles of vodka and wine, and one of the French officers tells Pierre that if he had not told him he was Russian, he would have thought he was Parisian. "Vous avez ce ...je ne sai quoi..." the officer says, to which Pierre replies, "J'ai été a Paris (I was in Paris), j'y ai passé des annés (I spent years there)."

Collage 559

Pierre had decided not to vacate Moscow like all the other nobility. Instead, he hatched a plot to assassinate Napoleon. It really wasn't much of a plan; he never even decided which weapon to use or how he would get access to Napoleon. In any case, shortly after the French sack Moscow, some French soldiers find Pierre in a house and are questioning him. A French officer is confused about Pierre's identity and asks him whether he is a Frenchman or Russian prince incognito.  So I copied out his question in French and incorporated it into this collage. I also used a map from Paris and French short stories for kids. -- Lola


 Lola Baltzell
from page 373-374, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 904-905

Collage 558

"'Je suis russe,' he said quickly. . .'Vous m'avez suave la vie. Vous estes francais.'" (Translation: "'I am Russian. You have saved my life. You are French"'). -p. 903 in Pevear/Volokhonsky

Emma Rhodes

from page 371-372, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 903-904

Collage 557

Forgetting his intention not to reveal his knowledge of French, Pierre, tearing the pistol away and dropping it, ran to the officer and began speaking to him in French.

"Vous n'etes pas blessé?" he said. p. 902 in P/V

Lynn Waskelis
from page 369-370, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 901-902

Collage 556

Pierre has decided that he needs to assassinate Napoleon. Everyone has abandoned Moscow. The French are in the Kremlin! I copied out a few words from this passage:

... he suddenly felt that wealth, and power, and life -- all that people arrange and preserve with such care -- all this, if it is worth anything, is so only because of the pleasure with which one can abandon it all.

Pierre is in a state! -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 367-368, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink, oil crayon
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 899-901

Collage 555

"After the past two days, spent solitarily and unusually, Pierre was in a state close to madness. His whole being was possessed by one importunate thought. He did not know how or when himself, but this thought had now taken such possession of him that he remembered nothing of the past, understood nothing of the the present; and everything he saw and heard went on before him as in a dream.

Pierre had left his house only so as to be rid of the complicated tangle of life's demands which had taken hold of him, and which he, in the state he was in then, had been unable to disentangle. He had gone to Iosif Alexeevich's house under the pretext of sorting the books and papers of the deceased, only because he was seeking rest from life's anxieties . . . "

p. 898 in Pevear/Volokhonsky

Emma Rhodes
from page 365-366 of original text, volume 2
collage, cardboard, ink
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 898-900

Collage 554

There was an abundance of riches and no end of them in sight; everywhere around the area occupied by the French, there were other areas, unknown and unoccupied, in which, as it seemed to the French, there were still greater riches. And Moscow absorbed them into itself more and more. Just as when water is poured onto dry ground, the result is that both water and dry ground disappear, so when the famished army entered the abundant, empty city the result was that the army was annihilated and the abundant city was annihilated; there was mud, there were fires and looting. p. 897 in P/V

Lynn Waskelis
from page 363-364, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 896-898

Collage 553

Another gruesome scene. The French army is inside the Kremlin walls, and a few Russian soldiers defending it are fired upon. A French officer is reporting to his superior what happened. He says in French (which I hand wrote on this piece)

These wretches [the Russian soldiers in kaftans] had invaded the sacred citadel, had taken guns from the arsenal, and had fired (the wretches) on the French. Some were put to the sword and the Kremlin was purged of their presence.

You can see how Tolstoy's politics were affected by the years he spent in the Caucuses in the army and how he eventually became a pacifist. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 361-362, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/10/10
Pevear/Vookhonsky translation page 894-896

Collage 552

Emma Rhodes
from page 359-360, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 892-893

Collage 551

 Moscow is in chaos. The policemen, firemen, no one knows what to do. They all await orders. Count Rastopchin is the highest level of authority. His ego has been bruised as he was not included in high level talks with General Kutuzov. There has just been a murder. Rastopchin has decided that Vereshchagin is guilty of arson and must be punished. The Count escapes the crowd who mean him harm, and has a conversation with himself, telling himself that he did the best he could.


'But I didn't do it for myself, I had to act that way. Le plebe, le traitre... le bien publique,' he thought.

What strikes me here is that here is that his internal dialogue is entirely in French. How ironic, with Napoleon's troops looting and burning Moscow. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 357-358, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 891-893

Collage 550

War is savagery. We all become savages in war.-- Chris

Christiane Carney Johnson
from page355-356, volume 2 of original textcollage, chalk
made 7/23/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 890-891

Collage 549

This is a dark episode of the book. It makes you question “the heroic efforts” and “the strategic cunning” of the Russian army officers. Yeah, they won the war, but at what cost to innocent victims?

I can feel Tolstoy shuddering as he writes this piece. Maybe he is even crying. -- Chris

Christiane Carney Johnson
from page 353-354, volume 2 of original text
collage, wax crayon, watercolor
made7/23/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 888-889

Collage 548

The next 3 collages represent the sickening baseness of war. It is the mayor of Moscow vs. the mob. The mob wants a victim. The mayor gives in. An innocent man is butchered.

At the same time the mayor vents his own anger at himself—at his own cowardliness. Does this cowardliness live in each of us, buried somewhere? I recall The Scarlet Letter and Joan of Arc. Is mob mentality part of our human nature? Does it have to be? -- Christiane

Christiane Carney Johnson
from page 351-352, volume 2 of original text
made 7/23/11
collage
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 886-888

Collage 547

"He suddenly felt himself alone, weak, and ridiculous, with no ground under his feet." -p. 885 in Pevear/Volokhonsky

Emma Rhodes
from page 349-350, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 6/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 885-886

Collage 546

One of my favorite things about the pages of War and Peace are the small details in the writing. Rather than referencing an entire page or passage from the text, I often choose just a word or two . . .

"Nevertheless, this news, conveyed in the form of a simple note . . ." -p. 883-884 in Pevear/Volokhonsky

Emma Rhodes
from page 347-348, volume 2 of original text
collage, plastic sheeting
made 6/3/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 883-885

Collage 545

"A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is." p. 263 in "All Quiet on the Western Front," Erich Maria Remarque, Fawcett Books, 1982

War, war, war....

Lynn Waskelis
from page 345-346, volume 2 of original text
collage, masking tape
made 6/3/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 881-883

Collage 544

We are in Volume III, Part Three, Chapter XXIII. It is another gruesome scene.

"In an unfinished house on Varkarka Street, with a post-house on the ground floor, drunken shouting and singing was heard. Some ten factory workers were sitting on benches by the tables in a small, dirty room. Drunk, sweaty, bleary-eyed, straining and opening their mouths wide, they were all singing the same song."

There is a fight between the landlord and a blacksmith. Someone shouts that a man has been killed. They are discussing whether to call the police, but knowing there has been a total social breakdown, that no one was in control. Scary.

I am not a regular reader of The New York Times, but an article in today's edition by Ann Louise Bardach caught my eye because I have been practicing yoga for decades. It is entitled "How Yoga Won the West", about the first yogi to visit the United States, Vivekananda. Lo and behold, there is a reference to Leo Tolstoy!

"Among those who never doubted the messenger during his lifetime was Leo Tolstoy. The restless Russian was especially keen for writings on Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s own guru. Two years before his death, Tolstoy wrote, “Since 6 in the morning I have been thinking of Vivekananda,” and later, “It is doubtful if in this age man has ever risen above this selfless, spiritual meditation.” That is very cool! --  Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 343-344, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/3/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 880-881

Collage 543

When doing our blurbs for the blog, most of the team is seeing their collage several months after it's been made. Sometimes I just don't recognize a piece, and often want to critique it instead of embrace it, like this one. It seems like two pieces instead of one: the top has all these happy elements, and the bottom is dark, and is not connected in any way. I went through a period when I couldn't pull myself or the work forward, and had difficulty relating the collage to the book, and I believe this is representative of that period. - Adrienne

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 341-342, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 6/3/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 878-879