Learning to See

“Portrait of Girl with Small Hand in Front of Chest,” Paula Modersohn Becker, 1905

I taught Rilke this week. He was friends with Paula Modersohn Becker whose painting is above (and whose work I deeply love). Rilke met Becker at an artists’ colony, Worpswede, in 1900 and married her friend, the sculptor, Clara Westhoff, in 1901. He was electrified by the …