Читать книгу Recently Discovered Letters of George Santayana. Cartas recién descubiertas de George Santayana онлайн

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The question of whether, or to what extent, this paragraph is redolent of antisemitism has been discussed at length by John McCormick in his biography of Santayana⁷, and I propose to leave it aside⁸, in order to concentrate on «the keynote» of the Santayana and Loeser connexion: «pictures and books». Indeed, Loeser immediately became for Santayana a mentor in the field of art appreciation, and later showed him Italy, in particular Rome and Venice, and «initiated [him] into Italian ways, present and past», making Santayana’s life in the country where he chose to reside from the 1920s onwards «richer than it would have been otherwise»⁹. Even in his early college years, Loeser was, in a small way, what he later became on an international scale: a refined and shrewd art collector. Santayana readily admits that «Loeser had a tremendous advance on [him] in these matters, which he maintained through life: he seemed to have seen everything, to have read everything, and to speak every language»¹⁰ A comparison with the eminent art critic Bernard Berenson (who was also Jewish but converted twice), whom Santayana later frequented, immediately springs to Santayana’s mind: Berenson enjoyed the same cultural advantages, and soon gained a public reputation through his writings, which Loeser never did. But the comparison is not at all favorable to Berenson: Loeser, says Santayana, had a sincere love for his favorite subject (the Italian Renaissance) while Berenson was content to merely display it.