This is the odd one on the shelf — a slim book of letters a poet wrote to his wife about standing in front of Cézanne's paintings. There is not a guitar in it. We keep it because half of building well is simply learning to see what is actually in front of you, and no one writes about seeing like Rilke.
He describes looking at a canvas until the looking itself changes — until he stops naming what he expects and starts receiving what is there. That is exactly the discipline a top demands when you are deciding where to take wood away. The eye that wants the guitar to be finished is not the eye that finishes it well.
“The eye that wants the guitar to be finished is not the eye that finishes it well.”
Chapter I
What it does to a maker
It slows you down in the right place. Craft is mostly patience aimed correctly, and Rilke aims it at the moment before the cut — the long, unhurried look that decides everything the cut will only carry out. We read a single letter on the mornings when the hands are running ahead of the eyes. It usually fixes it.