Catalogue entry
* This painting was donated to Rev. Theodore Pitcairn by Mrs. Letteneur [sic] but can only be taken possession of after death of Mrs. Smit (See deed in office).
À quoi pense la Nuit, quand l'âme des marais
Monte dans les airs blancs sur tant de voix étranges,
Et qu'avec des sanglots qui font pleurer les anges
These first three verses of the poem À quoi pense la nuit, of the volume Paysages et Paysans by Maurice Rollinat,1 appear on the left page of the open book in front of the angel.
On the right-hand page are the following verses freely inspired by Mallarmé's poem Sainte:
Une harpe frôlée par l’ange
D’un mélodieux goutte à goutte de larmes
Tombant une à une dans l’admiration du silence
Le plus mélancolique des lamentos.
Exhibited at Laren (1923 Sparren), Kasper Niehaus, perceiving the literary and symbolic significance of Rollinat’s influence in Philippe Smit’s work, noted in his review (Niehaus 1923) that Le Manoir du songe was inspired by “Le Manoir tragique”, a chapter from Rollinat’s En errant — proses d’un solitaire (1887).
In that prose text, the poet-musician admired by Smit unfolds a gothic and hallucinatory vision of a manor haunted by memory and death.
Smit transposes this poetic prose into a large-scale composition of remarkable visual intensity, where light, figures, and space evoke the spiritual resonance of the text.
Whereas Rollinat’s tears belong to remorse and penitence, Le Manoir du songe moves to a different realm: here, the tears become musical, almost angelic, echoing the sound of the harp.
1. Maurice Rollinat, Paysages et Paysans, Paris: E. Fasquelle, 1899, p. 12.