Piet Hein

PIET HEIN –
a Danish loner in the 20th century
THE ETERNAL TWINS
Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thoroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest.
Versatility – creativity - productivity
- A Renaissance Man
poet
artist
essayist
mathematician
inventor
designer
Impatiens – Busy Lizzie
Jarl Borgen’s impression of
Piet Hein
Astrid Lindgren’s comment
Piet Hein
1905 – 1996
His mother, Estrid
Hein, ophthalmologist
His father, Hjalmar
Hein, civil engineer
Piet Hein (1577-1629
- admiral and director of the Dutch West India Company
Many studies – a certain rootlessness:
• philosophy
(University of Copenhagen)
• painting in Stockholm
•(Albert Engstrøm – his teacher)
• theoretical physics
•(Niels Bohr – his teacher)
Albert Engstrøm (1869-1940)
The tramp
Kolingen
His enthusiasm for technique
The dynamo was Piet Hein’s best friend
“ (...) when somebody pressed one of the buttons, the engine
woke up, made a sinking movement and thought for a while:
what was it, oh yes! And then it started with a wonderfully
spinning noise (...).
When starting up and stopping, the engine emitted blue
and green fireworks and smelled electric, and sitting in the pitch
dark room with my bag against the wall, I saw the many sloping
walls wonderfully lit around this dark yarn ball creature.
You never forget that you have been friend with a dynamo as a
child. Everything might change, but long time ago there is a
creature you have shared your life with.”
Fascination of the
helicopter
1947 - a small book
The Helicopter
Saw the helicopter as the
perfect means of
transportation in future
cities
Divided the airspace in
‘roads’ – lots of space
The first helicopter, a Bell 47 B 3, in the air over Copenhagen
Airport, photo from the ground.
Piet Hein and science
Niels Bohr was a guest in Piet Hein’s childhood home –
became his teacher at the university.
Piet Hein was very active at the Niels Bohr Institute.
Wrote a booklet on
Niels Bohr’s atomic theory (1932)
Contact with Albert Einstein –
became friends later on.
Niels Bohr
Piet Hein
Verner Heisenberg
The Soma cube (1933)
Piet Hein
around 1940
1930’es – a period of cultural radicalism
”a mindset based on respect for the individuel
seen in an international perspective and with a
social conscience.
With an intellectual heresy revealing conventional
thinking, hypocricy, phrases and clichés, with an
openness that not only looks at the labels, but
critically considers the reality behind them.
Leading figure: Poul Henningsen
Young artists’
association
with
Piet Hein
Tove Ditlevsen
Halfdan Rasmussen
Esther Nagel
Morten Nielsen
Sonja Hauberg
The relationship with Tove Ditlevsen
From “Poison” – autobiography from1971
Piet Hein was the man of the world and he
encourages Tove Ditlevsen to divorce
Viggo F. Møller.
Piet Hein is not portrayed with entirely
positive words. He is a womanizer and
very self- conscious
“...he is a dangerous man who will make
many women unhappy”
- said by a former mistress.
From April 1940
Piet Hein wrote Grooks in “At tænke sig”
in Politiken.
Anti-nazi grooks with the meaning
between the lines
1943 forced to leave Denmark
Lives in Argentina till 1945
Great Bear
Piet Hein’s private life
4 marriages – 5 sons
1937 –
1942 –
1947 –
1955 –
Gunvor Holck
Gerda Ruth Conheim – Juan Alvaro og Andrés
Anne Cathrina Krøyer Pedersen – Lars
Gerd Ericsson († 1968) – Jotun og Hugo
Piet Hein – a citizen of the world
Lived in Argentina and England
Many travels – especially in North and South America and
Europe
International organizations:
•1935 to 1955 - a board member of the Danish branch of
The Open Door International
•One World association
•The League for Tolerance
•The international P.E.N. Club
Many international friends.
Notorius Jubelco:
Word
Now all super powers have super fortresses to
claim their super interests, which of course is
super peace.
So now it is important that none of the super
clever commits a super stupidity.
A film about Denmark – for the Federation
of Danish Industries and the Foreign Ministry
Piet Hein - a master of repartee
• Sadruddin Aga Khan and the little mermaid
• with the lady outside the antique shop
• with Charles Chaplin
Many awards:
Alexander Graham Bell Silver Bell (1968)
Emil Aarestrup Medal (1969)
Honorary member of the Students’ Organization(1970)
Industrial Design-prize (1971)
Die gute Industrieform (1971)
Honorary doctor at Yale University(1972)
Huitième Salon Internationale du Lumiaire (1973)
Honorary craftsman of the year (1975)
Storm P. award(1978)
Nobel Lecturer (1983)
Medal Ingenio et Arti (1985)
Annual Award from the Danish Design Association (1989)
Tietgen Medal(1990)
Honorary Doctor at University of Odense (1991)
Piet Hein’s
versatile activities
The philosopher and the essayist
To combine the technical world with the artistic.
From natural science
• technology enthusiasm
• inventiveness
From arts
• the right and responsibility of the individual
• common sense
• questioning existing norms
“The Stream and the Jar” – fables and essays
(1963)
Citation - Leonardo da Vinci:
“He, who can walk to the stream, does not go to the jar”
Piet Hein calls for:
A culture that is not another layer on an old culture. But
has its own roots in nature.
” The Tree of Knowledge”
An essay on
• specializing opposed to creating coherence
A fact for Piet Hein: the world is coherent
About school and education: separation in subjects instead
of interdisciplinary studies
About the big inventions: to think differently and across the
disciplines
“Tecnotism and Cultism”
Summarized: To bridge the gap between technique and culture.
Cultism: “the attitude of people who are working with humanities
as culture founded on earlier culture.”
Tecnotism: “the attitude of people, working with science and
technique. They have no sense of culture – but have roots deep in
nature.
Or
‘cultists ‘ are people, who know the goal, but not the methods of
getting there.
‘Tecnotists’ are people who know the methods, but has lost track
of the goal.
Generating ideas in science and art.
”First you have to work very hard, walking along
paths in all directions in your field, but then
everything has to be lowered into subconsciousness.
And up from the subconscious emerge ( if you have
the right spiral tunnel leading into eternity) complete,
well- balanced overall views of unity.”
When science and art is combined
Con-tac tix
Soma cube
The relationship with Albert Einstein
Artist: Robert Berks 1978
“A Human Being”
Met Einstein at the Bohr Institute
Piet Hein allowed himself to be critical of the theory of
relativity – in the 1930’s
Visited Einstein’s home several times. Admires
Einstein’s being in equilibrium, his openness and
tolerance.
Some Einstein quotations:
“Schools, universities and the church form the human
being instead of developing them.”
“I like the young people who do not believe in old
men....like me.”
“It is absolutely necessary to defend the individual against
society. To break the growing power over human beings
performed by the authorities.”
Piet Hein – the poet
Poems in various magazines during the 1930s
Poems in the Universe, (1941)
The Tenth Muse (1941)
4 poems under the Southerns Cross (1945)
Poems of this World (1948);
You must plant a Tree (1960);
Remember to Love (Love poems and grooks, 1962 )
The Lyre of the Heart (love poems and grooks, 1985);
Kumbel
ATS – at tænke sig - April 14th 1940
Spring melancholy
The days are
getting longer
longer
longer
What are they longing for?
The days
getting longer
longer
longer
longing for Saint Hans!
Kumbel Kumbell
Politiken after the first poem by Kumbel Kumbell:
“After the first grook by Kumbel Kumbell a few days ago,
our telephones have been blocked from morning till
evening.
Especially our female readers demand that Kumbel
Kumbell becomes a permanent writer in “At tænke sig”.
He is so prudential, according to many people. He owns
the modern rhythm, the finest quivering string which can
lure the purest tones out of the grey light of the present
days.”
Piet
Dutch for Peter – meaning ,stone’
Hein
Dutch for ‘hen’ – Old Danish for whetstone
Kumbl
meaning ‘a stone with a inscription’ –
a memorial stone
His name is translated into
Kumbel Kumbell
short form: Kumbel
Kumbel as rune roaster
The genre term: GRUK
GRin og sUK
Grooks
small aphoristic verses revealing in a minimum of
words and with a minimum of lines some basic
truth about the human condition.
Characterized by:
• irony
• paradox
• brevity
• precise use of language
• sophisticated rhythms and rhymes
For reading Piet Hein’s grooks , please go to the following links:
www.leptonica.com
www.archimedes-lab.org/grooks.html
www.sophilos.net/GrooksofPietHein.htm
Or simply google grooks
Also
www.piethein.dk – also in English
Life Magazine 1966
http://books.google.dk/books?id=lFYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA64&re
dir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=true
From Gyldendal’s history of literature (1974)
About Piet Hein’s grooks
”Many grooks are expressing what everybody
is just about to think, while others bring a
new perspective on everyday issues and
present experiences and observations of use
to others and, more or less direct instructions
in the art of living.
The friendship with Charles Chaplin
A letter from Chaplin about the Kumbel poet and his own tramp
The individual human being in a
world of bigger forces.
Sources of inspiration
•Fritz Jürgensen
•Halfdan Rasmussen
•Storm P.
•Christian Morgenstern
•Erich Kästner
•Ogden Nash
.
Storm P.’s flies
One can learn a lot from the old sayings,
but one doesn’t
As a case can be seen from several sides, I will ask the
audience to sit in a circle.
Honesty is required if you sell elastic by the meter.
Notorius Jubelco
Notorius Jubelco is a very clever man who splashes wise words
about in Politiken’s column "At Tænke Sig". First time June 6, 1947.
According to
Notorius Jubelco
“One must not underestimate
the total agreement among the
super powers, which is that they after all share
exactly the same opinion of each other.”
•••
“Of course, you can survive without rowan jelly,
but what a life!”
The Designer
Sergels Torg, Stockholm
A superellipse, also known as a Lamé curve after Gabriel Lamé is
a geometric figure defined in the Cartesian coordinate system as
the set of all points (x, y) with
where n, a and b are positive numbers.
Science and design combined
Life Magazine
1966
Superegg - anti-stress device
The super egg - Skjern
Present to Queen Margrethe from Jørgen Roed
Helix Helios
Helix Helios - The Sun dial
The maze at Egeskov
“The Cube ” in Augustenborg
The lyre of space (1999)
The Kumbel park in Farum
The globe of Denmark
Piet Hein on Norwegian’s plane – a series with Nordic heroes