Avant-Garde and Criticism. (Avant-Garde Critical Studies)

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Table of Contents Klaus Beekman and Jan de Vries Introduction. Criticism and Avant-Garde

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Jean-Roch Bouiller Art Criticism and Avant-Garde: André Lhote’s Written Works

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Ben Rebel Architectural Criticism in de 8 en OPBOUW

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Ansje van Beusekom Theo van Doesburg and Writings on Film in De Stijl

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Peter G.F. Eversmann The International Theatre Exhibition of 1922 and the Critics

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Nico Laan The Making of a Reputation: the Case of Cobra

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Hugo Verdaasdonk Avant-Garde Reviewing of New Book Releases. A Case Study from The Netherlands

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Willem G. Weststeijn Mayakovsky as Literary Critic

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Gregor Langfeld German Art in The Netherlands before and after World War II

157

Arie Hartog Banality in Art Criticism. Comments on the Reception of Art in the German Daily Press of the 1920s

177

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Table of Contents

Hubert F. van den Berg A Victorious Campaign for Dadaism? On the Press Coverage of the Dutch Dada Tour of 1923

195

Klaus Beekman The Inevitability of Argumentative Criticism. Theo van Doesburg and the Constructive Review

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Ralf Grüttemeier On Intentionality and Avant-Garde Criticism

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Wiljan van den Akker and Gillis Dorleijn Resistance to the Avant-Garde. Criticism of the Avant-Garde in Dutch Literary Periodicals

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Sabine van Wesemael Dutch Contemporaries on Proust and the Historic Avant-Garde

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Hestia Bavelaar The Writing Artists of the Magazine Kroniek van Kunst en Kultuur (Chronicle of Art and Culture) in the Period 1935-1941

337

Criticism and Avant-Garde Klaus Beekman and Jan de Vries In the past, monographs have been written about avant-garde artists, avant-garde movements and various separate forms of avant-garde art, such as literature and the art of painting. Many avant-garde works have been analyzed and the avant-gardes of various countries have been put on display shown. However, in newspapers and journals, considerably less attention has been given to reviews of avant-garde literature, art, music and film. Of course, studies in this field do exist. In fact, several very interesting researches have been dedicated to the avant-garde criticism of art. Look, for example, at those by Lynn Gamwell on Cubist Critism (1980) and Prenez garde à la peinture! Kunstkritik in Frankreich 1900-1945 (1999). In these studies, many sound comments on the role of criticism have been made. This goes for, among other writings, the preface to Cubist Criticism. Here, Donald B. Kuspit, (who was also the editor of the series on art criticism, in which the book of Gamwell was also published), writes that the reaction of an art critic is “the condition for all future interpretation. His attention is the work’s ticket to history” (cit. Gamwell 1980: XVII). Furthermore, he argues that for a work of art to be admitted into the canon of masterpieces, it must first be given attention by formal criticism. But art criticism is even more powerful than this. The reviewer also has influence through ‘his naming of art’. The labels critics apply to forms of art and to art movements provide “an identity for future generations” and are frequently borrowed later by art historians. Look, for example, at art critic Louis Vauxcelles, who used classifications such as “Fauvism” and “Cubism” at a very early stage. However, that art critics actually operate in a strategic way is not a topic that was systematically analyzed in Cubist Criticism, which is why this volume of Avant-Garde Critical Studies is being made. What was the situation with criticism at the end of the 19th century? Dario Gamboni (1994) has given an answer to this question, with regards to art criticism in France. There, art criticism developed in three different directions. Firstly, there was a scientific direction, in

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which critics tried to pass objective, valid and universal judgements. In the end, these critics revealed themselves as art historians. Secondly, there was a literary direction, in which a review in itself was considered to be a piece of art. Here, the ideas of Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde that had been defended at an earlier stage were elaborated upon. Although this literary direction was marginalized at the end of the 19th century, as will be illustrated below, it had a revival among avant-garde critics at the beginning of the 20th century. Finally, there was a journalistic direction, which became the dominant direction for most critics, including the avantgardes. Avant-garde artists from the inter-bellum period kept their distance from the phenomenon of journalistic criticism. This was because they believed that art criticism had become an accomplice of commercialism. At least this was the vision of art critics, gallery managers, artists and art historians who were interviewed about this by Paris-Midi in 1927 (Gaehtgens 1999: 9). An avant-garde artist like André Breton did not like the genre of criticism, because it was too commercial in character (Junod in Fleckner / Gaehtgens 1999: 255). This phenomenon was also seen in film criticism. In Germany between 1922 and 1923, the association of film journalists criticized the effect film journalists had on the film industry. The film industry wanted to make less space available to reviewers that were considered displeasing. After World War I, it succeeded in doing this by establishing its own press agencies, which advertised via dailies. The film industry also used a gigantic number of film journals (around eighty). Film journalism was fully determined by the conjecture of the twenties (Heller 1990: 35 f.) Although avant-garde artists kept their distance from journalistic criticism, they also made use of reviews. This was because they were aware that reviews, which were widely spread in the public domain, increased the chances of success for new avant-garde forms of art. So, journalistic reviews should not be considered merely as texts in which one passes judgements on art that are grounded in argument. In their reviews, critics also attempt to manipulate the cultural climate in their favour. This goes for avant-garde as well as for traditionally-orientated critics. Quite often critics also work as artists. For instance, this was the case with Guillaume Apollinaire. In these situations it is not

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uncommon for “the critic” to help out “the artist”. In his contribution to this volume, Jean-Roch Bouiller outlines this particular situation, when he shows how André Lhote, one of the most important contributors to La Nouvelle Revue Française, used his position as an art critic for reasons of self promotion. By writing reviews and publishing them abroad, this visual artist succeeded in increasing the market for his own paintings. The profession of reviewer attracted avant-garde poets, novelists, playwrights, visual artists, architects, composers and filmmakers. Many avant-garde artists could not live from art alone, so the decision to be active as both an artist and an art critic was often based on financial arguments. However, there were also other reasons that artists chose to work simultaneously as reviewers. For example, strategic considerations quite often formed another basis for the decision. In working as critics, artists gained a voice against people who kept old-fashioned ideas on art, while legitimizing avant-garde concepts. Those artists who also worked as critics were given the opportunity to pave the way for their own art and/or for the art of other members of the group. The artist/critic had the potential to conquer a place in the cultural field. Ben Rebel outlines this exact phenomenon in his article on architecture criticism in De 8 en opbouw [The 8 and Construction]. This journal for architecture was considered an important weapon in the propaganda battle for a rational architecture that was rooted in the modern world. Marinetti, Breton, Walden and other leading figures connected to the avant-garde behaved as modern impresario. They drew attention to avant-garde art forms by using well-known strategies, such as marketing (distribution of manifests via dailies and pamphlets), networks, and a combination of professions (artist, gallery holder and critic) (De Vries 2001). To conquer a place in the cultural field it was not enough to attack old-fashioned points of view. An avant-garde artist/critic also had to create a distinct profile for himself in the midst of other avantgarde artists/critics. This goes for the reviews Theo van Doesburg wrote about films by Viking Eggeling en Hans Richter. They helped to formulate Van Doesburg’s ‘own dynamic idea of New Plasticism’, writes Ansje van Beusekom in her contribution to this volume. She argues that Van Doesburg brought his ideas into action against Piet Mondrian’s conception of New Plasticism.

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Not only is it a fallacy to think that a review only has a judging function – we already pointed out the strategic function - it is also incorrect to suppose that reviewers are only guided by the work of art they review. Critics show consideration for numerous factors that are outside the reviewed work of art. They are often guided, for example, by the organizers of exhibitions. Peter Eversmann shows this in the context of the international theatre exhibition, which was organized by H. Th. Wijdeveld in 1922 in the Stedelijk Museum [Municipal Museum] of Amsterdam. Here, Wijdeveld succeeded in having the critics review the exhibition in a way that his own ideas about the theatre of the future were expressed. Nico Laan shows that critics tune their opinions to coincide with those of other dominant figures in the cultural field, such as leading critics, the editorial staff of newspapers and directors of museums. His contribution to the volume is dedicated to COBRA, a post-war avant-garde movement, to which Karel Appel, Constant and Corneille belonged. Laan questions why critics, who in the beginning reacted negatively to these experimental artists, mostly because they were merely repeating the experiments of the avant-garde artists from the inter-bellum period, suddenly became more enthusiastic about their works and ideas. Laan answers this question with the help of a theory formulated by Pierre Bourdieu about orchestration in the cultural field. He concludes that critics feed off of the opinions of other critics. Hugo Verdaasdonk also directs his investigations to the postwar avant-garde, but he looks specifically at those involved with literary endeavours. In his contribution, he states that the position taken by individual critics largely depends on the positions of their fellow-critics. To reach this conclusion, Verdaasdonk uses a research model developed by John W. Mohr. Mohr elaborates on the institutional-sociological theory of Bourdieu, but he also has his reserves, because the connections Bourdieu sees between, for example, various literary institutions, are mainly linear. Mohr states that in order to describe such relationships, a more complex research model would be needed. Following Mohr, Verdaasdonk argues that structural qualities of social and cultural phenomena can only be determined by methodically measuring their similarities and differences.

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Furthermore reviews tend to be highly colour biased and vary according to the cultural context of the critic. Willem G. Weststeijn shows this from Mayakowski’s position in the literary field: Mayakowski hated bourgeois society and was an ardent supporter of the revolution; he took up a position towards symbolists as well as towards fellow futurists. Gregor Langfeld makes this clear by comparing reactions on exhibitions of German Expressionists in Dutch museums before and after the Second World War. In the interbellum period, Dutch reviews of these exhibitions were prejudiced and chauvinistic. It was not until the fifties that this began to change, at which point Dutch critics came to have a growing understanding of the connections between German, French and Dutch expressionism, and their judgements became more subtle. It is also noticeable that critics tend to comply with the character of the periodical that they are writing for. That is emphasized in Arie Hartog’s account of the reception of Maillol in reviews of the sculptor’s work in democratic and nationalistic papers from 1928. Hartog’s research shows to what degree reviews and papers represent values which are specific to certain groups. It is especially clear in a country like The Netherlands - which in the interbellum knew a strong compartmentalization in a protestant, catholic, socialist and liberal block - to what extent this social constellation affected the judgment of critics. What has been said before about avant-garde critics is no less true for the traditional-minded opponents of avant-garde. They did not restrict themselves merely to more or less founded value judgements. Rather, they operated strategically, working to defend their positions in the cultural field. They also took into account the factors outside the works of art that had to be evaluated. The Dutch writer and critic Carel Scharten, for instance, defended the so called “sensitivism” of the aestheticists in the 1980s by emphasizing that they had invented the “art of the moment” far earlier than the Italian futurists, who were consequently depicted as “backward”. There are numerous presuppositions and prejudices about the manifestations of the historical avant-garde. Take, for example, the idea that the “Dada-tour”, performed by Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters and others in the Netherlands of 1923, was a success. Another assumption is that avant-garde poetics, condensed in numerous manifests, have not only had consequences for the creative

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output of avant-gardists, but also for their style of reviewing. Still more speculations are that the historical avant-gardists broke off from venerable poetics when the intentions of the author were crucial and that avant-garde critics primarily championed the more complex, radical forms of avant-garde, like dadaism and surrealism, which were most in need of the support. All these presuppositions have proven to be questionable. Hubert van den Bergh’s contribution to this volume makes clear that the widespread observation that the Dada-tour of 1923 was a success is primarily based on the convictions of Van Doesburg and Schwitters themselves. However, a survey of the papers and reviews delivers a significantly different picture. That the avant-gardists broke off from the past, as is often emphasized, is contradicted by the rather traditional form of Theo van Doesburg’s reviews, as they appears in Klaus Beekman’s analysis. Furthermore, Ralf Grüttemeier has concluded that, to a certain extent, the avant-gardists have remained true to the past when they maintain conviction that the meaning in a text results from the author’s intentions. In several contributions, it is questioned in what way critics that looked from a more conservative or avant-garde perspective, have reacted to phenomena such as Dada or a modernist author like Marcel Proust. In their contributions Wiljan van den Akker and Gillis Dorleijn, as well as Sabine van Wesemael, come to the conclusion that the reviewers, regardless of which camp they came from, were not charmed at all by these phenomena. As these authors show, forms of avant-gardism, which tended towards some sort of Classicism, were preferred in the Netherlands. Besides this, there was only a moderate form of avant-gardism, namely expressionism, that was approved by the critics. Hestia Bavelaar shows this in her account of the criticism of De Kroniek van Kunst en Cultuur.

Bibliography Fleckner, Uwe und Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Hrsg.), 1999 Prenez garde à la peinture! Kunstkritik in Frankreich 1900-1945. Berlin Akademie Verlag.

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Gamboni, Dario 1994 “The relative autonomy of autonomy of art criticism”. In: Art Criticism and its institutions in nineteenth-century France. Ed. By Michael R. Orwicz. Manchester U.P.: 182-194. Gamwell, Lynn 1980 Cubist Criticism. Michigan, UMI Research Press. Heller, Heinz B. 1990 “Massenkultur und ästhetische Urteilskraft zur Geschichte und Funktion der deutsche Filmkritik vor 1933”. In: Norbert Grob und Karl Prümm (Hg.), Die Macht der Filmkritik. Positionen und Kontroversen, München, Text und Kritik: 25-45. Vries, J. de 2001 “Impresario’s van de avant-garde”. In: Kunstschrift 45, nr. 2: 18-31.

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Art Criticism and Avant-Garde: André Lhote’s Written Works Jean-Roch Bouiller André Lhote (1885-1962) was an important figure in the art world of the 20th century. He contributed to cubism and the “rappel à l’ordre” movement. During his whole career, he was known for his work as a painter, as a writer and as a teacher. This triple identity led him to mingle classical artistic references with modern revival style. Above all, he occupied a central place in the debate on art literature. Indeed, he was one of the most important contributors to La Nouvelle Revue Française (La NRF) between 1919 and 1942. The problem of the “avant-garde” in his work is interesting for an art historian. This is perceptible between 1910 and 1962 in his strategy as an artist and writer, in his critical comments on the artistic field and in the question of his position within or outside the avant-garde movement.

Lhote’s Strategy The period from the end of the 19th through the beginning of the 20th century is a privileged period to observe the transformation of the artistic field. The development of avant-garde, the establishment of the “dealers-critics” system (Harrison and White: 1993), and the revival of art criticism result in many innovations and confrontations between different representations of art (Gamboni 1992: 49-54). One of these transformations results in the opposition between “strategies of the order” and “strategies of the rupture” throughout the first half of the 20th century (Bouillon 1996: 19-37). Another main transformation is the development of artists’ written works, after several years of conflict between artists and critics at the end of the 19th century (Gamboni 1989a : 208 and Gamboni 1989b: 11; 231-236). André Lhote participates in the last struggle between academism and avant-garde and between detractors and defenders of the artists’ practice of writing. He is also involved in the debates on the statute and the role of the writing. André Lhote thus personifies the 20th century figure of artist-author, as a creator and theoretician in a context where this double status was more and more prevalent but, at the same time, more and more criticized in the artistic field.

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One can find in his career a strategy in his recourse to writing and choice of reviews. Between 1912 and 1962, André Lhote published texts in more than sixty reviews and a score of books with approximately ten publishers. He always defends the practice of writing as a tool at the service of the painter rather than as an element participating in the process of creation. He also defends cubism with obstinacy and tenacity. However, his writings often vary in their form. Malcolm Gee showed that a printed text is the result of a collaboration in which factors other than the ideas or the will of the author play a major share (Gee 1993: 4 ff). It is thus necessary for a writer to learn how to use the various literary genres. In the case of André Lhote, his relationship to his texts can never be regarded as free and independent from his career as a painter. In the 1910s, understanding the importance of writing for the establishment of a painter’s reputation, Lhote relies on the support of his friends’ literary networks in order to overcome his double handicap: his lack of renown and his distance from Paris. Gabriel Frizeau (1870-1939), Jacques Rivière (1886-1925) and Alain-Fournier (18861914) are then his principal relays. Frizeau connects him, from Bordeaux, with contacts like Paul Claudel (1868-1965), André Gide (1869-1951) or Ary Leblond (1877-1953). Rivière and Alain-Fournier help him with many small services and refer him to publishers and gallery owners (Lhote, Fournier, Rivière: 1986). The fact that he lives in Bordeaux indeed obliges him to have constant recourse to these intermediaries to defend his interests in Paris, the only place where he believes he can be understood. It is thus natural that he delegates to his writer friends the work of mediating on behalf of his painting. In 1909 and 1910 Jacques Rivière writes two articles on his friend Lhote in La NRF before publishing two more general articles on modern painting in 1912 (Rivière 1909; 1910; 1912a; 1912b). But in 1912 Andre Lhote also discovers the disadvantages of this delegation. Indeed, while praising Lhote as the most promising painter of his generation in his article of March 1, 1912, “Sur les tendances actuelles de la peinture”, Jacques Rivière criticizes the other cubists at the same time. Other painters and critics’ hostility towards Lhote can be interpreted as consequences of Rivière’s unfortunate benevolence (Moueix 1969: 254-255). Lhote is isolated from the cubists’ small

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circle and his name appears neither in Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger’s book Du cubisme, in 1912, nor in Guillaume Apollinaire’s Les peintres cubistes, in 1913. Thus Lhote is obliged to respond and to take charge of the promotion of his career as a painter. His first writings date back from this year and he begins to look for reviews and editors to publish his texts. The first text published by André Lhote is modest in its length, in the provincial nature of the Revue de France et des pays français which publishes it, as well as in presentation: without a title, at the end of an article devoted by the critic Carlos Larronde to his painting (“L’Imagerie” in Larronde 1912: 162). Lhote, however, is already rather well known. His painting has been the subject of exhibitions and publications in circles close to the Parisian avant-garde. But it is not natural for him to be publicly presented as an author. Indeed, André Lhote does not write a new article until “Totalisme” in 1916 in Amédée Ozenfant’s review L’élan. This small review, with its limited circulation, is clearly intended for a restricted audience of specialists. In addition, the advent of the war also hinders wider circulation. The contrast between these two texts is striking and shows that in the meantime the author changed his opinion. Whereas in 1912 Lhote is in a defensive position in a review not intended to answer to the avant-garde, his 1916 article places him at the forefront of the artistic scene. Indeed, the title and brevity of this text are reminiscent of a proclamation (Blumenkranz-Onimus 1971: 351). L’élan is an example of an avant-garde review written by key actors of this circle, as testified by the fact that many artists like Derain, La Fresnaye, Laboureur, Matisse, Picasso, Dunoyer de Segonzac, and Ozenfant take part in it.1 Founded in 1915, early in the First World War, with a patriotic and optimistic title, it seeks to show that the effects of war can be surmounted by maintaining artistic activity (Silver 1977: 56-57; Chevrefils-Desbiolles 1993: 62). Lhote’s unique participation in this review as an author is a testimony to his hope to be at the same time a painter and a writer. It also indicates his reconciliation with the small circle of avant-gardists and the desire to find a place among them. Feelings of failure? Mitigated reception of his text? It is difficult to know precisely why Lhote does not persevere more in this way of diffusing his ideas to his peers. His letters in 1916 show a certain dis-

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appointment due to the reactions caused by his text.2 In 1918, the “Totalisme” of Andre Lhote still causes some smiles and the author feels the need to declare publicly that through this text he never meant to become an intellectual guide for the artists (Salmon 1918a: 1062; 1918b: 1203-1204; 1918c: 1253). His difficulty to be integrated in the circle of the Parisian avant-garde is reported by Lhote in autobiographical texts at the end of his life (Lhote 1953). At the end of the 1910s, he readjusts once again his position as an artist-author. His relationship with the Swedish painter Georg Pauli after 1913 have enabled him to be involved with pedagogy. The successes he meets in this exercise encourage him to develop this activity and to conceive writing with an explanatory and concrete approach (Gouin 1996: 98 ff). His subsequent texts are published in reviews like Flamman and La Gazette de Hollande out of the field of the Parisian avantgarde. André Lhote does not want to write any more for his artist colleagues but for the general public. His article “La composition classique” illustrates well this inversion of approach (Lhote 1919a) This change is all the more important as this text can be regarded as a predecessor of his articles in La NRF. Both the content and form of the writings, as well as their publication in traditional reviews, are similar. With the passing years, Lhote became a specialist in explaining pictorial problems to nonspecialists, in particular through seminars and conferences which he gives regularly. Thus his recourse to writing should not be understood as a simple way to gain a position in the Parisian artistic field. It is also an illustration of his belief in a pedagogy for the masses. His goal is the reconciliation of the public and modern art. This attitude is contrary to the process for unveiling works usually practiced for the ideas or achievements of the avant-garde. Their innovative character explains why they are intended, at least initially, for restricted circles of amateurs. The conversion of the public constitutes for avant-garde artists a mythical goal more than a reality. The support of a large public to an avant-garde work can even contribute to its devaluation within these small groups that are attached to the “distinction,” the intimacy and the privileged contact with works (Gamboni 1989b: 158-159). This situation can encourage artists to resort to a certain hermetism.

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André Lhote calls this process into question. He ignores the small groups of amateurs in order to directly reach a large audience. One understands then why he increases his public profile and his publications in various reviews after 1917, and why he undertakes to collaborate with La NRF beginning in 1919. The fact of appealing to a large audience is not incompatible, in his opinion, with holding a position in the more restricted field of the avant-garde. At least until 1939 Lhote considers his stature as an author in one of the most prestigious reviews of the time as gratifying, even from the point of view of his career as a painter. One can thus understand why Lhote writes in other reviews devoted to the artistic question which appeal to a large audience, reviews like L’Amour de l’art (1920-1939), edited by Waldemar George3, L’Art vivant (1925-1939), edited by Jacques Guenne and Florent Fels4, Les cahiers d’art (1925-1930), edited by Christian Zervos5. But this participation remains unimportant in spite of Lhote’s proximity to the aesthetics of these reviews. L’Amour de l’art and L’Art vivant, in particular, defend “l’art vivant”, in opposition to academic art and to avant-garde radical art. They emphasize the need for maintaining a relationship with the pictorial tradition (Green 1987: 66; 146;174; 206). One can also find articles by Lhote in traditional literary reviews such as La vie des lettres6, Les cahiers de la République, des lettres des sciences et des arts7, or Les nouvelles littéraires8, where he again adopts the subjects and tone of his articles in La NRF. At the same time, André Lhote is absent from another great type of periodical widespread after the First World War: reviews related to galleries or artistic movements (Chevrefils-Desbiolles 1988 : 88-90). Indeed, his four contributions to Le Bulletin de la vie artistique, a publication related to the Bernheim Jeune gallery, are three answers to interviews and a very short text.9 Lhote appears neither in Les arts à Paris (1918-1935), edited by Paul Guillaume, nor in Le Bulletin de l’Effort moderne (1924-1927), edited by Léonce Rosenberg, nor in reviews related to the surrealist or abstract movements like La révolution surréaliste (1924-1929), Le surréalisme au service de la révolution (1930-1933), Minotaure (1933-1938), Cercle et carré (1930), Art concret (1930), Abstraction-Création (19321936). This absence is due to his marginal position among the Parisian avant-garde.

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Thus Lhote’s collaboration with several daily newspapers varies. It takes place only from 1931 and particularly in the years 1937-1938, with a total of 37 articles published in Ce Soir, an evening daily newspaper related to the French Communist Party, created on March 2, 1937 (Livois 1965: 524-525). Lhote’s collaboration with Ce Soir shows his wish to directly address a readership even larger than that of the traditional reviews. We have to emphasize the important place in these newspapers given to an artistic literature written by authors who acquired their reputation in more prestigious and more specialized periodicals. André Lhote’s weekly chronicle constitutes a bond between the journalistic world and the artistic circle. Lastly, Lhote’s collaboration with Ce Soir shows that his ideas are close to those of the communist press at the end of the 1930s. In addition, André Lhote also collaborates with many foreign reviews. Several of these reviews, like Das Kunstblatt, Der Cicerone, and Magazine of Art, only reproduce texts already published in France. However, several others like Flamman, Sélection, Le disque vert, Cahiers de Belgique, and Revue du Caire are used by André Lhote as instruments to promote himself abroad. The foreign reviews enable him to adopt a new strategy in order to find geographically an even wider readership. The interest in diffusing ideas to foreign countries represents a true case of “artistic geography” (Gamboni 1989b: 151 ff.). The foreign reviews seem attracted by the collaboration of an author like Lhote, undoubtedly because of the reputation of Paris which is still regarded as the artistic capital of the world. Lhote also finds a benefit: the widening of his readership undoubtedly means an increase in the number of potential collectors, in a setting where competition is less strong than in the Parisian market (Bouiller 1999: 338). There is a mutual benefit for the artist and the review: each one seeks a form of legitimacy within its own artistic field and takes support from the foreign artistic scene (Gamboni 1989b: 152-153). When Lhote takes part in foreign reviews, especially in the 1910s and 1920s, he is preoccupied with the construction of a career in the long term. It is not a substitute for his search of recognition in France. The feeling to be well understood in certain foreign artistic circles, in particular in Spain, Sweden, Belgium, and even in Germany, could consolidate his strategy. However, Lhote also thinks that an artist must necessarily experience a phase of contempt in his own

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country. Then he can triumph after having been celebrated in foreign regions: “Les artistes actuellement en honneur en France depuis l’impressionnisme, ont-ils été découvert par des amateurs français, ou par des mécènes étrangers? Je penche pour cette deuxième hypothèse” (Lhote 1929). Finally, the presence of Andre Lhote in the non-French reviews can be explained by the success of his modern classical aesthetics abroad. The image as a reasonable and wise artist could harm Lhote within the Parisian avant-garde, but it was undoubtedly useful to him among foreign amateurs. Andre Lhote’s faith in writing and in a kind of universal pedagogy decreases however with the passing years, as is testified by a seminar in 1938: “A-t-on jamais vu des paroles changer quoi que ce soit à l’idée presque toujours fausse que le public se fait de la peinture ?” (Lhote 1942). By then an increasing share of his texts is intended neither to directly occupy a position in a restricted artistic field, nor to contribute to the education of the public, but to convince the readership that the author is not really a writer. The author is an artist and Lhote becomes aware that his career as a writer could harm his glory as a painter (Bouiller 2004a): “Il est bien entendu que je n’écris plus. Le peintre que je suis a été trop humilié en l’honneur de l’écrivain que je me repens d’avoir été”.10 He once again modifies his style of writing. He no longer seeks to legitimate the recourse to writing for a painter, nor to write for his peers or to convert a larger audience. He now relates the imaginary end of his career as an author, in order to promote his career as a painter. In a letter with Franz Hellens of January 15, 1946, he explains that he nailed a warning on his door: “Ne demandez ni préface, ni article, ni conférence” (Descargues 1950: 1; 5). This narration about the end of his writing career however is more a rhetorical figure than a true decision. Indeed he writes in different reviews until the end of the 1950s.

André Lhote, Observer of the Avant-Garde André Lhote is also an observer of art at a time when it changes profoundly and the opposition between academism and avant-garde gives way to a multiplicity of artistic tendencies and individual experiences.

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He is one of the most virulent denouncers of academic art, but he also sometimes criticizes the avant-garde. In 1919, in one of his first articles in La NRF, he condemns “les polémiques et manifestes d’avantgarde” (Lhote 1919b). He explains on the one hand that works of art are more important than texts about art and on the other hand that artists can nevertheless resort to theories only if it is with the aim of improving their painting. In 1933 in a general article about the artistic scene he defends the avant-garde against academism by stating that the avant-garde artist works on what is essential, the painting itself, whereas academic artists focus especially on resemblance (Lhote 1933). At this time the avant-garde corresponds for him to the workshops of Montparnasse. However, in 1934 he criticises again the Parisian artistic circles. In his eyes avant-garde is the cause of snobbery and speculation in art and he regrets that the public do not understand the artists any more (Lhote 1935). He condemns the galerists’ power as if the need to earn money could depreciate the quality of an artist. Avant-garde often corresponds for him to the art market. In an obituary notice on the painter Emmanuel Gondouin he even uses the word downfall : “Je revois ces merveilleuses salles où éclataient de tous côtés d’allègres fanfares picturales [...] et je ressens plus aigrement la déchéance actuelle de la peinture dite d’avant-garde” (Lhote 1934). In 1938, in his comments on Picasso’s painting he suggests that every avant-garde work looks like every other avant-garde work : “On est un peu gêné, lorsqu’on regarde la belle femme assise de Picasso : on a rencontré ces combinaisons de lignes et de couleurs dans trop d’endroits où s’expose la peinture d’avant-garde” (Lhote 1938). Nevertheless, in his comments about the 1937 Universal Exhibition in Paris, André Lhote considers it necessary to establish a hierarchy between academism and avant-garde (Lhote 1937). His main enemy remains academism at least until the Second World War. As an art critic André Lhote is neither in favour of the avantgarde nor against it. For example, he writes many articles about surrealism and seeks to define what could be a good surrealist picture. He obviously wants to look like a good critic without prejudice. But he is above all interested in André Breton’s surrealist’s theory. He never describes the surrealist movement as an avant-garde group and, as

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well as other authors of La NRF, he refers to surrealist works as individual paintings (Mourier-Casile 1987: 920-925).

André Lhote and Avant-Garde The fact that André Lhote can be seen at the same time as a partner and as an enemy of the avant-garde raises the question of his position as an insider or outsider. One could answer: neither one nor the other. In 1912, Lhote is invited by the art critic Roger Fry (18661934) to form part of an avant-garde group in Grafton Gallery in London, and he also participates in the avant-garde exhibition La Section d’Or, in the gallery de la Boétie, in Paris. He is not yet thirty. It is a promising beginning. At the time his bonds with the artistic Parisian circles and in particular the “Groupe de Puteaux” and with the review L’élan in 1910s remain for him important. In 1924 Robert Rey remarks: “parmi les peintres d’avant-garde, André Lhote est un de ceux dont la foule connaît le mieux le nom”. But he adds: “André Lhote semble avoir renié les derniers survivants du cubisme, qui le lui rendent” (Rey 1924: 92). At the end of his life, Lhote can still be seen as an avant-garde artist. In 1958 Jean Cocteau and Pierre Courthion refer to his “fureur combative pour défendre l’avant-garde” (Cocteau, Courthion 1958: 4). Indeed his ideas were close to those of a lot of avant-garde artists. Firstly Lhote denounces impressionism like them: it’s a commonplace opinion in the artistic field in the first half of the 20th century (Silver 1981 and Silver 1991: 181-182). Secondly he uses words and concepts that he borrows from the avant-garde vocabulary. For example he often speaks of music and musicality in paintings. We know that this parallelism between music and painting constitutes, along with the question of the autonomy of visual art, one of the main ideas defended by avant-garde artists. Wassily Kandinsky, Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine, abstract painters and French “musicalistes” all had recourse to it (Kandinsky 1989: 62, 79, 84; Catalogue Max Jacob et Picasso 1994: 166, note 13). When Lhote states that the artist must not try to please the public, he also can be seen as an avant-garde artist: “Ainsi dans le domaine de la technique comme dans celui de l’esprit, il faut se résigner à déplaire d’abord” (Lhote 1932b ; see Lhote 1932a. “[...] L’Art

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véritable ne peut être atteint de nos jours que contre le gré du public et au risque d’y laisser sa vie” (Lhote 1933: 330). In other words it signifies that concerning art the small circle of artists is right when the public is wrong. He often tries to show that artists are right in the long term. Like Kandinsky, he thinks that the artist can be a precursor and a guide (cf Kandinsky 1989: 61-68). In 1922, he writes “les peintres [...], peu à peu, forment l’opinion” (Lhote 1922: 115) and ten years later: “Il faut des générations pour que le langage singulier des novateurs soit compris par la foule. (Il est perçu d’abord par des gens du métier qui le vulgarisent [...])” (Lhote 1932a). But André Lhote also takes positions against avant-garde ideas. One of his most important convictions is his admiration for art from the past. According to him Fouquet, Ingres, Renoir and especially Cézanne should be models for young artists. It is not exactly the avantgarde view. Lhote also defends monumental heritage and contributes to the restoration of many small French villages (Mirmande, Gordes, La Cadière d’Azur) between the 1920s and the 1950s. This causes a lot of debate at the time. Avant-garde artists, like futurists, surrealists or modern architects publicly demonstrate that they have to destroy heritage in order to build something new (Ferri 2003: 146). On the contrary, Lhote proposes a synthesis between tradition and modernity. The fact that he pleads in favour of heritage causes many controversies especially with Louis Aragon and Le Corbusier.11 Lhote’s arguments in favour of heritage and tradition is a central element in his writings and does not entitle him to really be counted among avant-garde artists. In other respects, there are in his way of thinking a lot of similarities of ideas, of vocabulary, or of strategy with avant-garde positions. It is difficult to find other artists or other writers who can be compared with André Lhote. Like him, Albert Gleizes (1881-1953) or Maurice Denis (1870-1943) were painters, authors and teachers. Among the critics, René Huyghe (1906-1997), Claude Roger-Marx (1888-1977), Maurice Raynal (1884-1954) or André Salmon (1881-1969) can also be seen as independent authors neither partners nor enemies of the avant-garde (cf Green 1987: 46; 64-66; 104; 126; 146; 158-162; 187; 210). The analysis of Lhote’s written works in their diversity -- art

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criticism, art theory, pedagogy, museology, defence of cultural heritage in the artistic and literary context of his time -- confirm the existence of a third way (cf Green 1987) between avant-garde and academism. “Art vivant”, “Réalismes” (cf Clair 1981) or simply modern art? For this third way reference to tradition, reference to reality and autonomy of art are not only compatible but simply essential.12

Notes 1

Cf. Ozenfant 1968: 84-86 : “je voulais que mon journal soit un lien entre artistes et écrivains mobilisés et ceux restés chez eux”. 2

Letter with Joseph Granié, May 24, 1916, cf Gouin 1996: 152; Letter with Georg Pauli, April 24, 1917, ibid. : 152. 3

Three articles in 1923, 1925 and 1933.

4

Three articles in 1928 and 1929.

5

One article in 1933.

6

Two articles in 1923.

7

Two articles in 1926 and 1931.

8

For articles in 1934 and 1935.

9

Lhote 1923a: 472-473; 1923b: 542-543; 1924a: 12-13; 1924b: 552-554.

10

IMEC, Fonds Jean Paulhan, Letter of André Lhote with Jean Paulhan, November 21, 1945. 11

Cf. for example Lhote 1935b: 941; Lhote 1943: 38. Some letters of André Lhote also testify to these controversies. Cf Bouiller 2004b: 306-308. 12 I thank Yuka Amano and Ravi Montenegro, Estelle Minassian, Monique Nonne and Caroline Stanchina, and Isabelle Reiher.

Jean-Roch Bouiller

26

Bibliography Blumenkranz-Onimus, Noëmi 1971 « Quand les artistes manifestent ». In: Liliane Brion-Guerry (dir.), L’année 1913. Les formes esthétiques de l’œuvre d’art à la veille de la première Guerre Mondiale, Paris, Klincksieck. Bouiller, Jean-Roch 1999 “De la lune aux nuages. André Lhote vu et lu par Paul Westheim et les rédacteurs de la revue Das Kunstblatt, 1917-1933”. In: Uwe Fleckner and Thomas W. Gaehtgens (dir.), Prenez garde à la peinture! Kunstkritik in Frankreich 1900-1945, Berlin, Akademie Verlag. 2004a “Articles, conférences et anthologies: les ricochets des écrits d’André Lhote après 1940”. In: Yves Chevrefils-Desbiolles, Philippe Dagen, Thierry Dufrêne, Françoise Levaillant (dir.), Les écrits d’artistes depuis 1940, Paris / Caen, Institut Mémoire de l’Edition Contemporaine. 2004b Définir et juger l’art moderne. Les écrits d’André Lhote (18851962), Thèse, Paris I Bouillon, Jean-Paul 1996“1900-1914 Naissance de l’art contemporain”. In: Jean-Paul Bouillon, Paul-Louis Rinuy, Antoine Baudin, L’art du XXe siècle, 1900-1939, Paris, Citadelles. Catalogue 1994

Max Jacob et Picasso, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux..

Chevrefils-Desbiolles, Yves 1988 “Les revues d’art (première partie : histoire et variantes, des origines à 1970)”. In : La revue des revues, n° 5. 1993 Les revues d’art à Paris 1905-1940, Paris, Ent’revues. Clair, Jean 1981

“Données d’un problème”. In: Catalogue Les réalismes 1919-1939. Entre révolution et réaction, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou : 814.

Cocteau, Jean et Courthion, Pierre 1958 André Lhote, Paris, Presses artistiques Weber, “Les cahiers de la peinture”, n°5. Descargues, Pierre 1950 “André Lhote: je reste au bord des contrées interdites”. In: Arts, n° 250, February 17.

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“Les intellectuels s’intéressent-ils au patrimoine monumental et architectural ? Un siècle de pétitions en France”. In: Livraisons d’histoire de l’architecture, n° 5.

Gamboni, Dario 1989a “Après le régime du Sabre, le régime de l’homme de lettre» : la critique d’art comme pouvoir et enjeu”. In: Jean-Paul Bouillon (dir.), La critique d’art en France 1850-1900, Saint-Etienne, CIEREC Université de Saint-Etienne, “Travaux LXIII”. 1989b La plume et le pinceau. Odilon Redon et la littératur, Paris 1992

Gee, Malcom 1993

“L’impératif de nouveauté, le rejet de la convention et la recherche d’un langage universel dans les arts des années 1880 et 1890”. In: Sociologie de l’art, n° 5.

“The nature of twentieth-century art criticism”. In: Malcolm Gee (dir.), Art Criticism since 1900, Manchester et New York, Manchester University Press: 3-21.

Gouin, Yvonne 1996 André Lhote, un individuel du cubisme (1910-1920), thèse, université Paris IV. Green, Christopher 1987 Cubism and its Enemies. Modern movements and Reaction in French Art, 1916-1928, New Haven, London, Yale University Press. Harrison C. and Cynthia A. White 1993 (1965) Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World, University of Chicago Press.

Kandinsky, Wassily 1989 (1910) Du spirituel dans l’art, Paris, Denoël (Folio essais). Larronde, Carlos 1912 “Courrier des marches du Sud-Ouest: le peintre André Lhote”. In: La revue de France et des pays français, n° 4, May. Lhote, André 1919a “La composition classique”. In: Gazette de Hollande, April 16. 1919b “De la nécessité des théories”. In: NRF, n° 75, December 1: 10021013.

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1922 “Les dernières rétrospectives”. In: NRF, n° 106, July 1. 1923a “Arts mineurs” (réponse à une enquête). In: Le bulletin de la vie artistique, November 15 : 472-473. 1923b “La nature devant l’art” (réponse à une enquête). In: Le bulletin de la vie artistique, December 1, 1923: 542-543. 1924a “La querelle des Indépendants”. In: Le bulletin de la vie artistique, n° 1, January 1, 1924: 12-13. 1924b “Chez les cubistes” (réponse à une enquête). In : Bulletin de la vie artistique, n° 24, December 15: 552-554. 1929 “Exposition Raoul Dufy (Le Portique); Raoul Dufy, par Pierre Courthion; Raoul Dufy, par Christian Zervos”. In: NRF, n° 186, 1er mars: 418-419. 1932 a “Sauve-qui-peut”. In: NRF, n° 220, January 1: 130. 1932 b “Kisling (galerie Girard)”. In : NRF, n° 220, January 1: 156. 1933 « A Bâtons rompus ». In : NRF nr. 233, 1er février: 329-334. 1934 “Emmanuel Gondouin”. In : NRF, n° 246, March 1: 560-561. 1935a [“Propos”], in L’art et la réalité. L’art et l’Etat. Entretiens, Paris, Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, Société des Nations. Talks in Venice from the 25 to July 28 1934 printed in March 1935: 37-47. 1935b “De l’art utile”. In : NRF, n° 261, 1er juin 1935: 941 1937 “Première promenade à l’exposition”. In: NRF, n° 288, September 1: 491-492. 1938 “Art mural”. In: NRF, n° 299, August 1: 341. 1942 “La peinture « inspirée » et le public français”. In: Peinture d’abord; essais, Paris, Denoël. 1943 Petits itinéraires à l’usage des artistes, Paris, Denoël, 1943: 38. 1953 “Préface” in catalogue André Lhote, Paris, galerie Art vivant, May. Lhote, André, Fournier, Alain, Rivière, Jacques 1986 La peinture, le cœur et l’esprit, correspondance inédite (19071924), Bordeaux, William Blake and co. and musée des Beaux-Arts. Livois, René de 1965 Histoire de la presse française (de 1881 à nos jours), Paris, CFA. Moueix, Jean-François 1969 Un amateur d’art éclairé à Bordeaux: Gabriel Frizeau 1870-1939, thèse, Université de Bordeaux. Mourier-Casile, Pascaline 1987 “La NRF et le surréalisme (1924-1940) ou la neutralisation d’une avant-garde”. In: Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France: Les avantgardes et la critique: le rôle de Jacques Rivière 1900-1925, September - October 1987: 920-925.

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Ozenfant, Amédée 1968 Mémoires 1886-1962, Paris, Seghers. Rey, Robert 1924 Rivière, Jacques 1909 1910 1912a 1912b

“André Lhote”. In: Beaux-Arts, March 15, 92

“André Lhote”. In: NRF, n° 5, May 1: 393-394. “André Lhote”. In: NRF, n° 12, December 1: 806-808. “Le Salon des Indépendants”. In: NRF, n° 41, May 1: 890-893. “Sur les tendances actuelles de la peinture”. In: Revue d’Europe et d’Amérique, Paris, March 1: 384-406.

Salmon, André 1918a “Le totalisme”. In: L’Europe nouvelle, n° 22, June 8: 1062. 1918b “La jeune peinture française (suite): De dame nature à dame peinture, ou l’angoisse d’un classicisme”. In: L’Europe nouvelle, n° 25, June 29: 1203-1204 . 1918c “La jeune peinture française – Toute la vérité sur le totalisme”. In: L’Europe nouvelle, n° 26, July 6: 1253. Silver, Kenneth E. 1977 “Purism: straightening up after the great war”. In: Artforum - 15, n° 7, March: 56-57 1981 Esprit de corps: The Great War and French Art, 1914-1925, Ph.D., Yale University. 1991 Vers le retour à l’ordre. L’avant-garde parisienne et la Première Guerre mondiale 1914-1925, Paris, Flamarion.

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Architectural Criticism in de 8 en OPBOUW Ben Rebel It is a well-known fact that the Dutch architectural avant-garde magazine de 8 en OPBOUW, founded in 1932 by a number of functionalist architects from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, was very critical towards opposite architectural streams like the expressionist Amsterdam School. By analysing a selection of representative and critical articles from the initial period of that magazine about both functionalist and non functionalist buildings in the Netherlands, an answer was sought to the question if de 8 en OPBOUW in fact contained actual and regular architectural criticism, what was the object of that criticism and which were the criteria used. A real objective and impartial criticism in the magazine however was not probable because the main aim of the two founding associations of the magazine (“de 8” from Amsterdam and “OPBOUW” from Rotterdam) was the enhancement of Functionalism and the opposition against non functionalist architecture. An analysis of comparable projects by architects of the Amsterdam School and by prominent functionalist architects like Duiker and Rietveld made it very clear that, in judging their own functionalist architecture the critics (all architects) were inclined to neglect evident technical shortcomings, so fiercely criticised in the case of the houses and schools of the expressionist Amsterdam School. Mostly they pointed in a general way at the intended qualities of their own buildings in the field of efficiency, hygiene, sunlight et cetera. And always they emphasised in particular the modern character of these buildings, reflecting the modern world.

Introduction The first proposition in the aggressive manifest of the architectural avant-garde association “de 8” from Amsterdam, founded in 1927, runs as follows: “DE 8 IS de kritische reactie op de architectonische vormgeving van dezen dag” [DE 8 IS the critical reaction to the architectural forms of today] (“de 8” 1927: 126). There are two striking aspects. In the first place this proposition suggests being the herald of fierce architectural criticism in the field of contemporary architecture and in the second place it looks like criticism was considered to be a matter of discussing forms. Other propositions from the manifest demonstrate, however, that the architects of “de 8” were especially interested in rationality, functionality and social reform. They admitted it was already possible to design beautiful buildings, but for the time being they preferred ugly architecture to non-functional architec-

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ture. One wonders if this attitude was of any consequence for the architectural criticism in their own architectural avant-garde magazine de 8 en OPBOUW. The architects of “de 8” founded that magazine in 1932 in co-operation with their colleagues from the Rotterdam association “OPBOUW”.1 By analysing a small selection of representative and critical articles in that magazine about architectural objects in the Netherlands, I will investigate if de 8 en OPBOUW in fact contained actual and regular architectural criticism, what was the object of that criticism and which were the criteria used, like for example in the field of design (form), construction and function. I will do this against the background of the ideas and theories on architecture and town planning as formulated by the architects of “de 8” and “OPBOUW”. I will restrict myself to the first three years of the magazine (1932 to 1934), because that was the time the trend was set, but also because after that period a process started that asks for special investigation of the period 1934-1938. In 1934 Jan Duiker died. Until the end of 1933 he was the chairman of “de 8” and one of the most outspoken architects of the first generation of Dutch Functionalism.2 After him Ben Merkelbach became the chairman. Still more important was the fusion that took place in 1934 with the so-called “Groep ’32” (Rebel 1983: 122-126 en 147-162 / Bock 1983). This group was formed by a number of young and modern Amsterdam architects, all members of the Society “Architectura et Amicitia”, that was dominated by architects of the expressionist Amsterdam School. Without any exception these young architects of the “Groep ’32” had a limitless admiration for the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. After in vain attempts, from 1931 on, to gain influence in “Architectura et Amicitia” and to propagate the cause of Functionalism, they left that society in 1932 and in 1934 they joint “de 8”. But that evoked a lot of problems because the young architects refused to support a number of propositions of the “de 8” from 1927 such as “DE 8 IS A-AESTHETISCH” [DE 8 IS AAESTHETICAL]. On the contrary, they said it was time to stop concentrating on rationality and functionality alone and that it was now urgent to give form to the modern world by means of architecture. The founders of “de 8”, however, said that not all problems were already analysed and that the question of aesthetics had to wait for the time being. Eventually in 1936 the architects of the “Groep ‘32” took over the lead in the editorial staff of de 8 en OPBOUW. And after a very critical article of their foreman Arthur Staal (1937: 82-84) about a

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very pragmatic and functional office by Willem van Tijen, one of the Rotterdam leaders of the old generation, a violent discussion arose about the role of aesthetics within the design process. The reason was, that Staal openly demanded more and more attention for notions like monumentalism. And - being an aspect of feudal times from the past that was an absolute taboo for the architects of the old generation. Eventually it came to a break in 1938 and most of the young architects, together with some older ones, left “de 8”. After that crisis de 8 en OPBOUW returned back to normal until the liquidation of the magazine in 1943.

Vitruvius and the Complexity of Architectural Criticism It is useful to realise that architectural criticism is a complex business as compared to criticism in the field of the visual arts. This is directly connected with the complex character of architecture itself, having a relationship with art and engineering. The roman architectural theorist and architect Vitruvius referred already in the first century BC in his publication De Architectura Libri Decem [Ten books on architecture] to that aspect.3 Until today Vitruvius influenced in a direct and indirect way many architectural theories and architectural education systems. In the first book about architectural theory and town planning, he mentioned three branches of architecture: Buildings (public and private), clocks and machines. As far as the building process was concerned, he remarked that the architect always had to pay attention to three important aspects: “Firmitas” [durability], “Utilitas” [suitability] and “Venustas” [aesthetics]. In connection with durability he stressed the importance of sufficient foundations (the base of construction) and a correct use of building materials. In connection with suitability he mentioned the importance of a well sought-out situation of the building and a functional lay out of rooms within the building. As far as aesthetics were concerned, he stated that a building should be attractive and elegant for the eye and that the graduation of the different parts of the building should be the result of a correct calculation of well-balanced proportions. In addition thereto building in the right way was - according to Vitruvius - a question of “Ordinatio” [ordination], “Dispositio” [arrangement], “Eurythmia” [harmony], “Sym-

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metria” [well-balanced proportions], “Decorum” [appropriation] and “Distributio” [economy, by which he meant a rightful distribution of building materials and building land and a rational control over the building costs]. As we understand that the architect, according to Vitruvius, not only had to be an expert in handicraft and architectural theory, but that he also had to obtain more overall knowledge of other disciplines like draughtsmanship, history, philosophy, music, medicine, law and astronomy, the big difference with for instance the visual arts becomes obvious. Architecture obviously is - even when one leaves aside clocks, machines, music and astronomy - a versatile discipline. And that should force the architectural critic to be as versatile as the architect. His judgement will after all be based on a conscientious analysis of important aspects like construction, function and form. Despite provoking statements in the founding manifest of 1927 about the limited importance of the problem of form in the design process, these were exactly the three main aspects of architecture the architects of the avant-garde in the Netherlands wanted to deal with in actual practice. This design attitude stemmed from the character of their architectural training in the beginning of the twenties in their school Haarlem (Rebel 1983: 47-48). Most succinct this was visible in one of the concluding statements of the manifest of “de 8”: “DE 8 IS RESULTANTE” [DE 8 IS THE RESULTANT]. This statement, that was indirectly based on the inheritance of Vitruvius, but directly borrowed from dynamics, is the key to the understanding of the design attitude of the first generation of architects from the Dutch avantgarde. This attitude implied that the architects saw the different problems they had to solve during the design process - including the problems in the field of aesthetics - as forces. And these equivalent forces although very different in character - were comparable with the vectors within a parallelogram of forces. The resultant of these forces was the eventual architectural form in which all conflicting problems were solved in harmony with each other (Rebel 1998: 273).4

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Some Defining Remarks about Architectural Criticism Before discussing the content and the nature of architectural criticism in de 8 en OPBOUW en before analysing some articles about architecture in that magazine, I first want to refer to a publication by A.W. Reinink from 1975 about the Amsterdam Exchange building by H.P. Berlage. The reason therefore is that the author does not emphasise so much the Exchange itself as well as the critical reactions to that controversial building. Besides that he also wrote about architectural criticism in general. In chapter two about the nature of criticism Reinink distinguished different kinds of criticism. Because de 8 en OPBOUW was an outspoken specialist journal, written by and for architects, in this connection only the so-called serious criticism is relevant.5 Referring to J. Stolnitz (1960: 442), who quoted T.M. Greene, Reinink stated that all serious criticism regardless of mutual differences in character6, always had to contain an analysing and an evaluating aspect (“What is it” and “What is it worth?”). Further Reinink said, referring to R. Wellek (1963: 30-32), that it was advisable to reserve the expression architectural criticism for written, critical discussions about material architectural objects, although almost every discussion about architecture including architectural criticism contained a mix of components of architectural theory, history and criticism. Finally Reinink discerned in the field of serious architectural criticism, dealing with real architectural objects, three main components: Style, suitability and construction. And there we have Vitruvius again, although he spoke about beautiful forms and not about Style. But Vitruvius was an architect and an architectural theorist, whereas Reinink is an architectural historian.

The Trend Set by the Avant-Garde Magazine ABC Taking into consideration the obvious militant character of the architectural avant-garde during the inter-bellum period in the Netherlands and the above-mentioned first statement of the founding manifest of “de 8”, one could expect a substantial contribution to Dutch architectural criticism from the architectural magazine de 8 en OPBOUW. Six

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years before the start of that periodical in 1932, however, the Swiss avant-garde magazine ABC published a remarkable critical article written by both editors, the Swiss architect Hans Schmidt and the Dutch architect Mart Stam, who later became a member of “OPBOUW” (Schmidt and Stam 1926, nr. 1: 1). Under the headline KRITIK [Criticism] and referring to Adolf Behne’s Der moderne Zweckbau [Modern utilitarian architecture] (1923: 18)7, they put forward four requirements, modern buildings should comply with. In the first place the architect had to fulfill even the smallest functional wishes of the client. In the second place he should be very careful in choosing building materials with a view to treatment, durability and economy. And in the third place the construction had to be uncomplicated and financially wise. Only after these demands were satisfied, form could arise as if by itself. As a consequence a black cross was drawn upon some photographs of recent projects of traditionalist designs such as the Town hall in Stockholm by Ragnar Ostberg from 1909-23 and the central station in Stuttgart by Paul Bonatz from 1914-17. The first design was characterized as an ethical and sentimental piece of architecture made by an unsocial architect and the second as an example of pathetic monumentality. Surprisingly, however, Stam and Schmidt also attacked in the same article two modern Dutch designs. The first one was a model of a private house [“Maison Particulière”] from 1923 by Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg and the second one a model of the prize-winning design for an academy of art in Amsterdam from 1919 by Jan Duiker. Although Van Eesteren and Duiker would dominate the scene of modern architecture in the Netherlands and abroad a short time after that, Stam and Schmidt did criticise also these architects who were related to them, because they wanted to warn them about the dangers of wrong tracks such as escape routes to modern forms without the foundation of clarity of structure, construction and building process. In their opinion both designs were by far too much preconceived compositions of cubes, colours and materials and this they considered a sign of weakness. And they continued: “Wichtig sind die Funktionen, und diese werden die Form bestimmen”.8 Moreover, the design by Duiker was an outspoken symmetrical composition referring to monumental buildings of the past.9 It is strange that ABC didn’t pay any attention to the fact that both designs were only models and by no means elaborated plans. In the case of

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Van Eesteren and Van Doesburg it only was an experimental sketch with space, form and colour without any indication of plans. In the case of Duiker, Schmidt and Stam neglected the plans that were actually available. Probably the evident symmetrical composition was reason enough for them to give a negative judgement. And that is remarkable because this was a contradictory attitude. On the one hand they stated that modern architects didn’t put forms first and foremost, but on the other hand they rejected Duiker’s design only on the basis of an analysis of the forms. We are not informed about the functional and constructional qualities of the design. In other words: This article is, although of a very serious character, not an example of real architectural criticism, but an over-simplified provoking manifest.

The Negative Effect of the “BNA” on Architectural Criticism in The Netherlands Anyway, the critical attack by an architect on colleagues was by Dutch standards remarkable. To understand this, one has to realise that by far the greatest number of architectural criticism was produced by architects themselves. The then most important magazine was the Bouwkundig Weekblad [Architectural Weekly] of the “Maatschappij ter bevordering van de Bouwkunst” [Society for the Advancement of Architecture] and the employer’s association, the “Bond van Nederlandse Architecten” (“BNA”) [Federation of Dutch Architects].10 Most of the Dutch architects were members of the “BNA”, that, being an employer’s association, had to look after the interests of its members. Of course, this task could come into conflict with the task of the Society that had to advance the quality of architecture. This ambivalence was strengthened by the fusion with the honourable Amsterdam society “Architectura et Amicitia” [Architecture and Friendship] in 1927. After all this society had as main task the improvement of “de bloei der bouwkunst en aanverwante vakken te bevorderen” [to promote the flowering of architecture and related disciplines]. Therefore the members of the “BNA” initially rejected a former fusion plan in 1924, referring to the disloyal behaviour of architects in the magazine Architectura11. In this connection it is important to know the “BNA” had a code of honour that prohibited members to speak and write in an offensive way about colleagues and their work. And indeed, architec-

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tural criticism of a certain fierceness was as good as absent in the Bouwkundig Weekblad. In most cases the articles about recent architecture had a strongly describing character with a positive judgement. Many articles were even written by the architects of the reviewed building. And even when an authoritative critic like J.P. Mieras, who as an exception to the rule was not an architect, was very negative about the enlargement by the architect W.A. Lensvelt (“BNA”) of the old museum ‘de Lakenhal’ in Leiden, which he described as a mutilation, a storm of protests arose. In a general meeting of the “BNA” on the 28th of October 1922, Mieras was urged to restrain himself in the future, in order that the public would not get the impression that the architects were in a permanent state of war with each other.12 At that time the only thirty-one years old architect Albert Boeken was a member of the editorial staff of the Bouwkundig Weekblad. Being an outspoken supporter of Functionalism, he was not really at home there. In vain he tried to propagate the cause of modern architecture, the first promising examples of which just appeared in the Netherlands that time, in the Bouwkundig Weekblad.13 Given the aim of the magazine to look after the interests of all of its members and not of those of a specific movement, that was not surprising. This was for Boeken a reason to withdraw from the editorial staff in 1924. In 1928, together with J. Duiker he became a member of “de 8”. From 1932 on he was a frequent writer in de 8 en OPBOUW. And there he could contribute to the enhancement of Functionalism, because that was the main aim of that magazine. Strangely enough this was not explicitly mentioned at all in the magazine itself, but in the draft Articles of Association of “de 8” from 1928 on this association is formulated as main object: “The enhancement of the flowering of rational architecture in the Netherlands and the opposition against not rational architecture and town-planning” (Rebel 1983: 132-138 and 126).14 In practice this meant that the articles were mostly about outspoken examples of Functionalist architecture in the Netherlands and other countries, about the ideas as formulated during the different CIAMcongresses in the field of social housing, town-planning, new technical developments, functionalist theories about design in general. Only now and then special articles were published about architectural movements conflicting with Functionalism. Within the scope of this article especially the first and the last categories are interesting, although also the development of the own design attitude deserves at-

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tention, because most likely this influenced the character of not only the architectural production itself but also the nature of architectural criticism in de 8 en OPBOUW.

The Standard of Architectural Criticism in some Representative Articles in the Initial Phase of de 8 en OPBOUW Housing, the Amsterdam School versus Gerrit Rietveld Already in the first issue of de 8 en OPBOUW the trend was set, although, as has been said before, there was no trace of a standpoint by the editorial staff. The first article entitled WONEN [housing] was written by Ben Merkelbach (fig. 1). He made a vicious attack on the much-praised housing projects designed by architects of the Amsterdam School (1932: 1-5). His most important objection was the fact that the architects in his opinion only were interested in the external care of the facades and that they had left the elaboration of the floor plans and the rear elevations to the building contractors. Despite the fact that he argued that it was impossible to live in these houses in an appropriate way, he didn’t discuss any actual building let alone the floor plans. This implied that the reader was not able to gain a real insight into the quality of the housing conditions of actual projects on the basis of this article. With the help of close-ups on the other hand Merkelbach did mention a number of general objections such as the dominance of the streets in the townscape by using closed building blocks and the absence of room for drying the wash and the storage of bicycles and baby buggies. As a counterexample Merkelbach discussed subsequently a small row of houses in Utrecht by Gerrit Rietveld from 1931 (fig. 2). And he was very positive about them. With the help of photos of the exteriors and the interiors and of floor plans and a cross section, he analysed the houses and drew the conclusion that the quality of housing, realised by Rietveld was much higher than in the so-called “Mekka van de woningbouw” [Mekka of housing] in Amsterdam. In the basement there was enough room for the storage of bicycles and for washing and drying. The ground-floor had a kitchen with a special window for the deliverance of purchases and with a locker with one

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door opening to the kitchen and one to the exterior for the storage and collecting of garbage. Further there was a spacious living-room which

fig. 1. Cover of the first issue of de 8 en OPBOUW, 1932 nr.1 with the article by Ben Merkelbach about Wonen [Housing].

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according to one’s needs could be subdivided into different smaller compartments by means of sliding walls. The second and the third floor had six bedrooms, a bathroom, a shower cabinet, a balcony and two terraces. Big windows provided the houses with plenty of light and air. Of course the comparison with the big Amsterdam building blocks fell short, because - and Merkelbach himself admitted it - the houses by Rietveld were by no means low-cost houses as was the case in the social housing projects in Amsterdam. On the contrary, Rietveld’s project contained only four luxurious and spacious terrace houses. Merkelbach’s article was therefore only partially an example of architectural criticism. In the case of the Amsterdam housing

fig. 2. Gerrit Rietveld, 1932. Four terrace houses in the Erasmuslaan in Utrecht.

blocks it had the character of an impressionist manifest without any analysis of actual buildings and therefore also without a careful judgement on the basis of clear criteria. That was not the case with the houses by Rietveld, but there on the other hand a critical distance was completely absent. The article was an example of propaganda in accordance with the already mentioned objectives of “de 8”, namely the “the enhancement of the flowering of rational architecture in the

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Netherlands and the opposition against not rational architecture and town-planning”. Merkelbach discussed the houses by Rietveld also in the newspaper De Groene Amsterdammer and it is striking that there he did put forward some critical remarks. So, although he stated that Rietveld clearly did express his feelings for the needs of modern man for light, air, sun and comfort, he also criticised the unpractical big windows in the bathrooms [Merkelbach 1931: 17-10-1931). Only much later he admitted in de 8 en OPBOUW, that the designs by Rietveld - as is well known - more often than not had practical and technical weaknesses (1940: 137). But: “One can differ in opinion about the chosen solution, one can prefer some other details on technical grounds, but always one will come under the spell of the lively, ingenious spirit, appearing in the works designed by him”.15 This attitude was characteristic for the opinion of many members of “de 8” about Rietveld, who indeed sometimes violated one of the dogma’s of “de 8”, namely that the form never should dominate the practical demands of the assignment. But they backed him up because Rietveld preeminently was able to give a real impression of the environment of modern man. And that aspect was considered to be of great importance in the functionalist propaganda battle. In other words: The article by Merkelbach was also especially a weapon in the battle against non-rational architecture with the characteristics of a functionalist manifest and not so much an example of serious architectural criticism. Schools, an Analysis of a Design by Jan Duiker In the fourth issue of de 8 en OPBOUW again one of the buildings by an important architect of Functionalism, Jan Duiker, was analysed (fig. 3). At that time Duiker was the chairman of “de 8”. The article was written by Ben Merkelbach, at that time the secretary of the same association (1934: 33-39). In fact the article had the same character as the one about housing in the first issue. For Merkelbach started with a general dissertation on the supposed poor qualities of the 156 schools that were built in Amsterdam during the period between 1920 and 1928. It is useful to realise that in this connection the Department of Public Services was the responsible authority and that the architects in service of that department were almost all related to the Amsterdam School. At that time one could rightfully say that almost all schools in Amsterdam were Amsterdam School schools. In fact Merkelbach re-

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produced his method as used in his article about housing. But in this case he did not only criticise the schools in a general way, but he

fig. 3. Jan Duiker and Bernard Bijvoet, 1930. Third Technical school in the Zwaardstraat in Scheveningen

didn’t even publish any explaining photograph, let alone a floor plan. And also in this case the message was that the architects had paid more attention to their monumental facades than to the real problems they had to solve, namely the fulfilment of the needs of the schools and the children for space, light, hygiene, rationality et cetera. After all, according to Merkelbach, a school was not a monument but an item of everyday use. But by not discussing any floor plan, his argument was reduced to impressionist criticism and therefore the question if the criticised schools were actually inefficient, remained unanswered. Looking at floor plans of these schools, one sees immediately that the architects of the Department of Public Services in general paid much attention to the position of the classrooms, the corridors, the toilets and the playgrounds in relation to each other and also to the sun and the street. Of course the architects not always succeeded in finding the ideal solution on the given location with the classrooms on the sunny side (south) of the building, overlooking the playground within

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the building block (detached schools were hardly ever possible) and with the corridors and the toilets on the north side of the building along the street. But they always tried to find a well-considered solution on the basis of security, tranquillity and sunlight. In fact the question arises if the functionalist architects themselves always succeeded in finding perfect solutions. Duiker for instance situated his renowned open-air school in Amsterdam from 1930 as a detached unit in the northern corner of a closed housing block, thus providing the school and the playground in front of it with sufficient sunlight, but at the expense of the houses directly behind the school that remained in the shadow. Merkelbach confronted the criticised Amsterdam School schools with the third technical school in Scheveningen of Jan Duiker en Bernard Bijvoet from 1930, which he considered a typical example of an explicit clear-cut building method. What he meant by that was that the architect, uninhibited and not hindered by preconceived ideas about form, had carefully analysed all problems in the field of use, hygiene, internal traffic, toilets, wardrobe, supervision and storage and had solved them with an open mind. Noticeable were his remarks on the strong relationship between the demands in the field of use and construction such as the coherence between the dimensions of the classrooms and those of the standardised and for that reason cheap skeleton construction of reinforced concrete and the steel framed windows. (Bak 1982: 168-180). Merkelbach’s conclusion was that in this case the building was not so much a monument in honour of the architect himself as well a humane building meant for the users: the children and the teachers. The article was as far as the school by Duiker is concerned richly illustrated with photographs, floor plans and an axonometrical drawing of the reinforced concrete skeleton. Together they gave in the Vitruvian sense an impression of form, function and construction. But actually Merkelbach didn’t analyse these depicted floor plans at all. Otherwise he would have noticed that the plans of the first and the second floor were exchanged and that a great number of classrooms were located at the unfavourable north side of the building, regarding the sunlight. And notwithstanding the beautiful photographs, Merkelbach didn’t discuss the form of the school either, that betrayed outspoken preconceived intentions. The elegant play of geometrical volumes, shifted in relation to each other, was not the direct result of

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functional considerations. In fact it still showed Duiker’s fascination for the form experiments by Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg in 1923. And, as said before: In 1926 Mart Stam drew a black cross on that De Stijl design. Similar remarks can be made about the small tower on top of the building. There were no functional reasons for this tower with its elegant steel stair and railings, except that it could function as a basis for a flagstaff. In fact Duiker’s forms referred to the atmosphere of the architecture of ships, a much-used metaphor in modern architecture, because, according to modern architects, especially modern ships were able to give an impression of modernity. In particular the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, who was very much admired by the Dutch functionalist architects, had set th.e example in his buildings and in his theories (Le Corbusier 1923). And in 1934 Duiker wrote that Le Corbusier gradually had developed a theory, based on the living conditions of today, a theory spread over the whole world by hundreds of young architects. And he quoted him with approval: “We must create the present day [...]. First creating. Then constructing”,16 with, according to Duiker, as ultimate purpose to produce architecture, pure like an organism and with new functions, related to the Machine-Age (Duiker 1934: 133-140). Duiker’s school was just like the criticised but beautiful schools of the Amsterdam school a monument, but in his case a monument for the modern men of the Machine Age. Therefore Merkelbach concluded his article with the words: “[...] but it is the clarity of spirit, that with the help of modern means succeeded in realising a building, that for the people of today seems to represent richness”17. Merkelbach didn’t say it explicitly, but implicitly he admitted that the school demonstrated in a perfect way the meaning of one of the statements of the founding manifest of “de 8” from 1927: “de 8 IS RESULTANTE” [de 8 IS THE RESULTANT]. For Duiker tried to find a solution for all demands in the field of function, construction and form, which he treated as equivalent components. Here was no question of the often misused slogan that was attributed to the American architect Louis Sullivan: “Form follows Function” (Rebel 1983: 57 en 114-116). The conclusion again can be no other than that Merkelbach saw the school in the first place as a monument of modernity and also as an illustration to the founding manifest of “de 8” en therefore as an argument in the propaganda battle against the non-rational architecture mentioned in

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the objectives of “de 8”. Again: This article therefore was no example of real architectural criticism. Questioning Rietveld On the 11th of December 1933 a remarkable article was published in de 8 en OPBOUW, written by the Rotterdam architect J.H. van den Broek entitled Vragen aan Rietveld [Rietveld Questioned] (Van den Broek 1933: 221-224) (fig. 4). Because of its extreme critical tone

fig. 4. Gerrit Rietveld, 1933. Design of a country house for H. Buys in Laren. Not realized [Küper 1992: 152].

towards the work of Rietveld, anyway one of most prominent representatives of Functionalism in the Netherlands, it’s an exceptional phenomenon in the magazine. Van den Broek wrote his article as a result of an editorial article, entitled: GOOISCHE SCHOONHEIDSCOMMISSIE MISÈRE [Misery of the Planning Authority in het Gooi] (Editors of de 8 en OPBOUW 1933: 191). In this article a letter to the editor was published by the architectural critic and kindred spirit H. Buys about the problems Gerrit Rietveld met from the side of the

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Planning Board in connection with two small country houses he wanted to build in het Gooi. By the way, Buys himself was the client of one of them. (Buys 1933: 191-195).18 On the basis of a negative advice of the Planning Board, the municipality of Laren refused to give a building permit because the houses were considered as not appropriate in relation to the rustic scenery of het Gooi. In this district the municipality preferred traditional, rural building types and by no means modernist experiments. The editors also published, with approval, the report of a meeting on October the 11th 1933 of the local section of the “BNA”. In this report a member of the “BNA”, F. Hausbrand, expressed his concern about the fact that the members of the Planning Board (mostly also members of the “BNA”) had adopted too critical an attitude towards functionalist architecture and that as a result a conflict of interests threatened between the aesthetical judgement and the objective of the “BNA”, to look after the interests of all architects, including the young ones, who were more and more inclined to leave the “BNA”. Therefore he advocated accepting Rietveld’s houses. Without further comment the editors of de 8 en OPBOUW also published floor plans, cross sections and photographs of the models of both country houses. Obviously this uncritical attitude was unacceptable to Van den Broek, because in his article he asked if it was justifiable to bring up the heavy artillery to defend Rietveld’s designs as part of the battle for the cause of Functionalism: “Because we cannot continue for ever to use the argument, that although the project is not perfect and the actual building has shortcomings, the demonstration of these ideas is of such an extreme importance [...] that realisation has to be considered as of great value [...]”.19 Thereupon Van den Broek advocated a critical attitude as well towards functional architecture, because white walls, flat roofs and horizontal slabs did not automatically produce functional architecture, just as brick walls were not not-functional by definition. To illustrate this he formulated 18 very critical questions about the country houses by Rietveld. And doing so he implicitly, but in vain, gave the green light for a more serious architectural criticism in de 8 en Opbouw also in the case of the architecture of kindred spirits. Examples of his critical attitude towards Rietveld’s houses were the extreme minimal dimensions of the sleeping rooms, which were in addition located on the unfavourable west side of the building, while according to functionalist ideas and for known reasons sleeping rooms

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always should be located on the eastern side. Further he wrote, that the construction of the sliding windows was such that it was impossible to open the window of one room without letting the air in, in the adjacent room. Moreover the bathrooms obstructed - when used - the entrance to the toilet in one house and in the other house not only the entrance to the toilet but also the entrances to both sleeping rooms. To make it even worse Van Broek remarked that the casement doors in the living rooms obstructed the entrance to the kitchens and that the floor plans didn’t match with the models. And again he alerted his readers to the danger of an uncritical attitude towards the products of kindred spirits. Rietveld replied immediately in the same issue (1933: 224) and in a way that was typical for him. He wrote that, when people were so much in love with each other that they wanted to live in the same house, he was inclined to give the house the character of a personal feast and that he didn’t want to pay too much attention to rationally calculated regulations.20 Also the editors of de 8 en OPBOUW replied in the same issue with an article written by Duiker (1933: 226). Duiker trivialised Van den Broek’s objections and emphasised the prejudiced attitude of the Planning Authority towards Functionalism. And he concluded with the words: “Therefore, Dear Van den Broek […] We must all be very diligent indeed and do our best not to let it leak or crack [...], but you can be sure that, even if it would have been possible to use the toilets [...], the judges - because of their education - still would have been limited by the spatial perception of a frog”.21 Buys concluded the discussion (1933: 227-229) by complaining that the Planning Authorities always made their decisions referring to beauty and that - in his opinion - it was impossible to judge beauty. What Buys meant was that the concept of beauty - in contrast with function and construction - could not be judged on the basis of objective criteria. And by stating that, he denied - just like all functionalist architects did - the significance of the Planning Authorities. Therefore he started his article with a revealing quote from Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture from 1923: “Les yeux qui ne voient pas” [Eyes that do not see]. Le Corbusier meant that traditionalist architects did not understand that the nucleus of modern architecture was present in the products of the Machine Age, like ships, cars and aeroplanes, because - contrary to houses - they were produced as a result of a rational analysis of the problems that had to be solved and not as a result of

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prejudice with regard to form. This statement of course had nothing to do with the ramshackle houses of Rietveld and thus it became in an unintentional way a self-critical impact.

Conclusion It was evident that, in judging functionalist architecture, a rational, coherent and critical analysis of Form, Function and Construction had no priority during the first years of de 8 en OPBOUW. On the contrary, one was inclined to neglect the own technical shortcomings, that were fiercely but only generally criticised in the case of a discussion about the products of non-rational architecture such as the houses and schools of the expressionist Amsterdam School. And only in general words the authors of de 8 en OPBOUW pointed at the intended qualities of their own buildings in the field of efficiency, hygiene, sunlight et cetera. But always they emphasised in particular the modern character of these buildings, reflecting the modern world. And by doing so they reduced these buildings to their forms, loaded with symbolical values in relation to the modern world. This confirmed Reyner Banham’s characterisation of the designs in the so-called First Machine Age (Banham 1960). The architectural magazine de 8 en OPBOUW was - at least in its first years and in conformity with the objective of “de 8” - seen as an important weapon in the propaganda battle for a rational architecture, that was rooted in the modern world. In that battle there was no need for objective and critical discussions about the technical and functional qualities of modern architecture. At the very best, one praised a modern architect in a general way for having solved all the problems in harmony with each other. Therefore there was no room for serious architectural criticism in de 8 en OPBOUW. Van den Broek was the exception and by Duiker, the chairman of “de 8”, he was called to order by the editors.

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Notes 1

“OPBOUW” was a Rotterdam association of artists and architects, founded in 1920. It also rejected the dominant role of aesthetics in the discussions about architecture. In 1927 its members published five statements about town planning in i 10. They stated that traffic and not beauty should be the starting point for all town planning designs. From 1932 on “OPBOUW” cooperated with the Amsterdam architectural association “de 8" in publishing the avant-garde magazine about architecture de 8 en OPBOUW (1932-1943). In addition thereto, the members of both associations worked together at an international level within the CIAM-congresses [Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne], founded in 1928.

2

In this article I will use the common international word “Functionalism”. In the Netherlands, however, most architects of that movement used the phrase “Nieuwe Bouwen” (In German “Neues Bauen”), because they considered “Functionalism” or “Nieuwe Zakelijkheid” [New Objectivity (In German Neue Sachlichkeit)] as too much restricted to only one of the many aspects of the design-process: function.

3

I refer as regards quotations of text fragments to a Dutch translation: Peters, T, ‘Vitruvius, Handboek bouwkunde [Handbook Civil Engineering]’, Athenaeum - Polak & Van Gennep, Amsterdam 1998. The translation of the title ignores the complexity of architecture as mentioned above.

4

See also: Th.W., Adorno, “Funktionalismus heute”. In: Ohne Leitbild, Frankfurt am Main 1967 (originally in Neue Rundschau, 1966, heft 4: 585).

5

Reinink also mentions “non written criticism”, “vulgar, humorous criticism”, “blunt criticism” and “criticism as an instrument of popular education”. As a matter of fact also serious criticism can be blunt or educating.

6

In this connection he mentions criticism with fixed rules and further contextual, impressionistic, intentional (which was the objective) and intrinsic criticism (an analysis of the object). In practice, however, many examples of criticism contain a mix of some of these aspects.

7

The text of Der Moderne Zweckbau by Adolf Behne was finished in 1923, but only published in 1926. 8

9

Important are the functions and they will produce form.

One didn’t say so explicitly, but by placing Duiker’s design within the context of monumental, historical palaces one certainly suggested it.

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10 In 1919 forty members of the “BNA” joined the “Maatschappij tot bevordering van de Bouwkunst, vakvereniging van Architecten” [Society for the Advancement of Architecture, trade union of architects]. The last addition was the result of an amendment of the Articles of Association in 1915. From that moment on the name was “Maatschappij tot bevordering der Bouwkunst, Bond van Nederlandse architecten” [Society for the Advancement of Architecture, Federation of Dutch architects]. In 1927 another fusion took place with the society “Architectura et Amicitia” [Architecture and Friendship] that was dominated by architects of the “Amsterdam School”. Its magazine was Architectura and after the fusion the common magazine was called: Bouwkundig Weekblad Architectura [Architectural Weekly Architectura]. 11

Report of the general meeting of the “BNA” on September the 26th 1924, published in the Bouwkundig Weekblad 1924: 395.

12 Report of the general meeting of the “BNA” on the 28th of October 1922. Published in the Bouwkundig Weekblad 1922: 436. Anyway it was decided not to hand over the critical remarks because of the important role Mieras played in the magazine. 13

The first important building in the Netherlands was the combination of the senior secondary technical school and the technical school in Groningen by J.G. Wiebenga and L.C. van der Vlugt from 1922. 14

“De bevordering van den bloei der rationeele architectuur in Nederland’ en het ‘ageeren tegen niet rationeele architectuur en stedebouw.” The reason for the unclear position in the magazine could have been the fact that it was formally integrated in the existing but insolvent magazine Bouw en Techniek [Construction and Technique] and that its editor wanted to keep up the appearance of continuation of this rather innocent magazine in front of the original subscribers. Therefore the official name of the new magazine was (not very attractive): 14-DAAGSCH TIJDSCHRIFT VAN DE VER. ARCHITECTENKERN “DE 8" AMSTERDAM EN “OPBOUW” ROTTERDAM, OPGENOMEN IN “BOUW EN TECHNIEK [BIWEEKLY MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY ARCHITECTURAL GROUP “DE 8" AMSTERDAM AND “OPBOUW” ROTTERDAM, INCLUDED IN BOUW EN TECHNIEK]. To illustrate this, the first volume was indicated as third volume. Only in 1934 the mentioning of Bouw en Techniek disappeared. The name of the magazine changed several times after that, but the phrase de 8 en OPBOUW was the permanent factor and is - for practical reasons - consequently used in this article. Only in 1936 “de 8" established its Articles of Association. Documents in this regard are kept in the archives of the NAi [Dutch Architectural Institute] in Rotterdam. 15

“Men kan over de gekozen oplossing van mening verschillen, men kan bouwkundig een ander detail prefereeren, maar steeds zal men onder de bekoring komen van de levendige, vindingrijke geestkracht die uit het werk van zijn hand spreekt”.

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16

“Wij moeten heden scheppen [...] Eerst scheppen. Dan construeren”.

17

“[...] maar het zit in de klaarheid van geest, die met de middelen van dezen tijd een gebouw wist te zetten dat voor menschen van dezen tijd een rijkdom lijkt”. 18

“Schoonheidscommissies” [Planning authorities] were official committees established after the housing act of 1902. Their task was to advise local authorities about the aesthetical qualities of new projects with the purpose to prevent undesired developments. Not only officials were members of these committees but especially a lot of architects. At this moment they still exist under the name “Welstandscommissies” [Committees regarding the external appearance of buildings]. 19

“Want wij zullen niet eeuwig kunnen doorgaan met het gebruik van het argument, dat het project weliswaar geen gaaf geheel is en dat de verwerkelijking tekortkomingen vertoont, maar dat de demonstratie van deze inzichten van zoo intens belang is [...], dat de totstandkoming daarvan van de grootste waarde moet worden geacht [...]” 20

An analysis of the Schröderhuis in Utrecht from 1924 learns that this certainly was the case with this house, that was shaped according to the special wishes of Mrs Schröder who apparently had not much need for privacy. 21

“Dus, waarde Van den Broek [...]. We moeten inderdaad allemaal erg vlijtig zijn en erg ons best doen om het niet te laten lekken of barsten [...], maar wees er van overtuigd, dat òòk als de W.C. nu eens werkelijk te gebruiken was geweest [...], dan nòg zouden de beoordeelaars uit de aard hunner opleiding niet verder zijn gekomen dan de optische ruimtebeleving van de kikker”.

Bibliography Adorno, Th.W. 1967 “Funktionalismus heute”. In: Ohne Leitbild. Frankfurt am Main Bak, P. et al. (ed.) 1982 J. Duiker bouwkundig ingenieur. Rotterdam: Stichting Bouw: 168180. Banham, R. 1960

Behne, A. 1926

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. London: Architectural Press.

Der moderne Zweckbau, München: Drei Masken Verlag A.G.

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Bock, M., et al. 1983 Van het Nieuwe Bouwen naar een Nieuwe Architectuur, Groep ‘32: Ontwerpen, gebouwen, stedebouwkundige plannen 1925-1945. Den Haag: Staatsuitgeverij. BNA 1922

“Verslag van de ledenvergadering van de BNA op 28 oktober 1922.” In: Bouwkundig Weekblad: 436.

1924

“Verslag van de ledenvergadering van de BNA op 26 september 1924.” In: Bouwkundig Weekblad: 395.

1933

“Aesthetische criteria en geestelijke vrijheid”. In: de 8 en Opbouw, nr. 22: 191-192.

1933

“Laren argumenteert”. In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 25: 227-229.

BNA

Buys, H.

Buys, H.

Broek, J.H. van den 1933 “Vragen aan Rietveld”. In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 25: 221-224. “de 8” 1927

“WAT IS DE 8?”. In: INTERNATIONALE REVUE i 10: 126.

1933

“Wat de redactie ervan denkt”. In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 25: 226.

1934

“L’ARCHITECTURE DÁUJOUR D’HUI, LE CORBUSIER”. In: de 8 en Opbouw, nr. 16: 133-140.

Duiker, J.

Duiker, J.

Editors of ‘de 8 en OPBOUW 1933 “GOOISCHE SCHOONHEIDS-COMMISSIE MISÈRE”. In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 22: 191. Küper, M. and Zijl, I. van 1992 GERRIT Th. RIETVELD 1881-1964, het volledige werk. Utrecht: Centraal Museum. Le Corbusier, 1923

VERS UNE ARCHITECTURE. Paris: Éditions Crès et Cie.

Merkelbach, B. 1931 “Nieuwe woonhuizen te Utrecht”. In: De Groene Amsterdammer, Oktober the 17th.

Ben Rebel

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Merkelbach, B. 1932 “Wonen”. In: de 8 en Opbouw, nr. 1: 1-5. Merkelbach, B. 1932 “Scholen”: In: de 8 Opbouw, nr. 4: 33-39. Merkelbach, B. 1940 “Bij het werk van Rietveld”. In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 15/16: 137. Peters, T. (translation) 1998 Vitruvius, Handboek bouwkunde. Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep. Rebel, B. 1983

het nieuwe bouwen, het functionalisme in nederland 1918-1945. Assen: Van Gorcum.

1998

“Das Manifest und die moderne Architektur in den Niederlanden”. In: Avant Garde Critical Studies 11, Manifeste: Intentionalität. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi: 259-287.

Rebel, B.

Reinink, A.W. 1975

Rietveld, G. 1933

Amsterdam en de Beurs van Berlage, reacties van tijdgenoten. Den Haag: Staatsuitgeverij .

“Antwoord van Rietveld”. In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 25: 224.

Schmidt, H. and Stam, M. 1926 “KRITIK”. In: ABC, Beiträge zum Bauen Serie 2, nr. 1: 1-2. Staal, A. 1937

“Une maison, un palais?” In: de 8 en OPBOUW, nr. 9: 82-84.

Stolnitz, J. 1960

Aesthetics and philosophy of art criticism. Cambridge Mass.

Wellek, R. 1963

Concepts of criticism. New Haven/London.

Theo van Doesburg and Writings on Film in De Stijl Ansje van Beusekom Theo van Doesburg never became a filmmaker and his involvement with film was of a purely theoretical and critical nature. Between 1921 and 1923 he imported the ideas on film of Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter as a universal language of abstract images in De Stijl in order to develop his own dynamic idea of a New Plasticism. His dynamic idea, that he further developed in architecture, turned out to be fundamentally different from the static New Plasticism of Piet Mondriaan and eventually caused their break up in De Stijl.

Although Theo van Doesburg never became a filmmaker himself, making his involvement with film of a purely theoretical and critical nature, he used film between 1921 and 1923 to develop his own dynamic idea of a New Plasticism that was fundamentally different from the static one of Piet Mondriaan. The raison d’etre of the classical avant-garde, no matter what –ism, was based on overthrowing the existing arts by opposing old concepts with new ones. New art theories replaced existing ones and sometimes even a new art history was developed to replace the traditional one. Being a modern artist thus meant being an art critic who criticizes art, artists and works of art in the broadest sense of the word. This tendency was never stronger than in the 1910s and 1920s when groups of artists organized themselves to change the world, or at least the art world, in countless formations and supporting magazines. De Stijl, founded in 1917 in The Netherlands was one of those magazines, a “little review” as Malcolm Gee termed it in his classification of twentieth–century art criticism (1993:6). Art criticism in those “little reviews” was not evaluative or interpretative but rather a promotion of the vision on art within the group. De Stijl was such an international forum for modern artists from various disciplines who had dedicated themselves to the ideology of De Nieuwe Beelding or NeoPlasticism. The most important axioms of the Stijl expressed in its first Manifest in 1918 were that the new art had to replace the old art

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because it was regarded as representational and reproduced illusions of the natural and the individual. The first lines of the manifesto were: There is an old and a new consciousness of time. The old is connected with the individual. The new is connected with the universal. The struggle of the individual against the universal is revealing itself in the world war as well as in the art of the present day. 1

Instead of representations of an individual reality the new art had to present a universal reality in abstract, geometrical forms and therefore had to destroy all older natural and representational forms. That meant abandoning all visual references to the world as we know it. The New Plasticism, was mainly theorized by Piet Mondriaan who published his ideas on the new art for a world yet to come, in a series of articles “De Nieuwe Beelding in de schilderkunst” [New Plasticism in Painting] in the first year, continuing in “Dialoog over de nieuwe beelding” [Dialogue on New Plasticism] and “Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit” [Natural and Abstract Reality] in the second and third year in almost every single issue of De Stijl until 1921. Although Mondriaan included all arts in his new system, he considered painting as the most progressed and therefore most suitable art form to theorize on. His articles can be considered as the piece the resistance of De Stijl until 1921. Most articles and manifesto’s published next to the series of Mondriaan were the responsibility of Theo van Doesburg, either as author or as editor. In theoretical articles, he proved himself a dedicated mediator of Mondriaan’s ideas, trying to explain them in larger art historical frame-work, even outside the inner circle of De Stijl.2 In tone De Stijl was quite aggressive: its manifesto’s based on the destruction of all existing art forms, making room for new ones. With these criteria for criticism it shall be clear that not many existing works of arts and artists stood the test of approval. In an alternative art history of De Stijl only abstract works of art produced by converted artists would play a role, all other artists and works of art had to be lucky to be counted in as a fore grounder of the new art. Moreover, in the future, that means in the ideal modern world, the idea of art would be abandoned all together: art would no longer exist as a separate category but would be fully integrated in modern life and would not longer need representations of the visible world. However, in the 1920s the world had not reached this enlightened state of being yet, and the idealists of De Stijl wisely never specified a date for their

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expectations about the future. Artists, ideas on art and works of art thus were still needed to lead the way into a truly modernist utopia.3 The question remains how a new truly modern technique like the film technique was treated within the concept of the Nieuwe Beelding [New Plasticism] and how existing films were classified in De Stijl and why. In the following I wish to analyze the main articles on film of Theo van Doesburg in 1921 and 1923. I will try to put his criticism of films in perspective of his own project of a new art in De Stijl. Therefore, I will emphasize Van Doesburgs change of direction after 1920, meaning a departure from Mondriaan’s theory of art. His detachment had a lot to do with his interest and involvement in the new film experiments and theory as it was shown and explained to him in person by Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling and later on by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Before zooming in on Van Doesburg as writer on film in De Stijl, a few words on Theo van Doesburg as film spectator in 1918. We are lucky to have access to a letter of Van Doesburg wherein he not only mentions his experience of watching a movie in a cinema but also reflects on this experience in relation to a time in space continuum. In June 1918 Van Doesburg wrote in a letter to architect J.J.P. Oud about a Keystone-Comedy he had seen the night before in a movie-theater in Leiden. He described the slap-stick containing a burlesque dance of crooks in black suits that ended in a real pandemonium, as follows: In a maximum of motion and light you saw people falling apart in ever diminishing fields, that reconstructed themselves again in bodies at the same moment. A continuous dying and reviving in the same instant. The end of time and space! The destruction of gravity! The secret of 4 dimensional motion. (Van Straaten 1983: 85)

Van Doesburg evidently saw through the figures a projection of fields of light and darkness and perceived it as a permanent movement of construction and destruction. He called this dynamic “le mouvement perpetuel”. About the same time Van Doesburg collaborated with Oud building a villa at the seaside, De Vonk. Van Doesburg designed the colour scheme of the entrance hall, including the windows and the tile floor. He described this tile floor in November 1918 in De Stijl:

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Ansje van Beusekom The floor as the most closed surface of the building needed “... a force working against gravity trough the use of flat colors and a open-space relation. [...] The development and effect of this composition: constructive / destructive, can only be experienced on the spot. (Van Doesburg 1918: 10-12)

Carel Blotkamp argues that this rather cryptic description contains a clue in the last segment. Experiencing on the spot means perceiving the effect of construction and destruction is only possible if one walks (motion) through the room (space) (1982: 134). Thus, instead of sitting still in front of a screen and watch motion in time, the spectator moves through the actual space of the entrance hall and perceives a turning and twisting pattern of the floor. Compared to the description of the slapstick Van Doesburg describes this process quite similar, but the process of perceiving motion in time was reversed to that of the film. Van Doesburgs remarks on the slapstick are a typical example of a process that film historian Yuri Tsivian has defined “cultural reception”: an active, creative interventionist or even aggressive response to what was perceived on screen (1994:1). Moreover, Van Doesburg shows himself as a exemplary artist in the audience as described by Greg Taylor who defines the project of the avant-garde as a way of life instead of a style of art or a historical movement: The avant-garde is, more properly, a mode and tradition of art making steeped in modernist precepts yet seeking a more interventionist role for the modern artist as visionary guru who helps others to see the world through a liberating modernist perspective. The avant-garde’s goals are selfconsciously political to the extent that the democratizing of artistic production is considered a radical act of emancipation from the chains of mass culture, a seizing of everyday spectatorship in the interests of a more aesthetically fulfilling life praxis (1999: 8).

In other words it is not the works but the attitude that counts in being an avant-garde artist who has an avant-garde way of seeing. If there was one Dutch artist who embodied this attitude, it was Theo van Doesburg.4 Totally different from Mondriaan, Van Doesburg was an outgoing and extravert character, who made friends and enemies wherever he went. While Mondriaan returned to his atelier in Paris after World War I had ended, Van Doesburg traveled as much as he could through Europe to be there where the action was. As a Dutch artist from a neutral country he was welcomed in both Germany and

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France and he lived and worked there for shorter or longer periods. He joined the Dada groups and Constructivists and lectured for a short while at the Bauhaus. Until late 1920 he showed no signs of any interest in film beyond that of an active spectator whose observations served his own artistic ideas in other techniques. In 1920 his interest in film grew stronger. Van Doesburgs three weeks visit to the family estate in KleinKölzig of Hans Richter in December 1920 and January 1921 spurred this interest in film more than anything. His experiences as a witness of Richter and Viking Eggeling working on their projects, resulted in his first theoretical text in De Stijl, “Abstracte filmbeelding”, published in May 1921. Moreover, Van Doesburg based his ideas on film largely on those of Richter and Eggeling as formulated in their pamphlet “Universelle Sprache”.5 Also according to Richter’s article “Prinzipielles zur Bewegungskunst”, published in the summer of 1921 in De Stijl and illustrated with fragments of Eggeling’s HorizontalVertikalorchester, they envisioned a new system of communication based on visual perception. Richter described the films of Eggeling as a step forwards in modern painting: after Cézanne and Derain who introduced rhythm in forms on canvas and Picasso who added factor “time”, Eggeling had introduced rhythm in time, that is movement, in the plane. A universal language of movements based on contrasting lines and forms could develop. Speaking of a new language, film needed to rely on a set of unambiguous elements. Furthermore, Richter would add a year later, this language would not come from the visible world around us but from the spiritual world within us: “Es sind Gestaltungen des Geistigen. Die Bewegungskunst geht nicht von der Bewegung, der ausseren mechanischen Welt, sondern von dem Innern einer Erkenntnis aus” (Richter 1922: 92). In 1965 Richter phrased the intentions of the pamphlet once more: This pamphlet elaborated our thesis that abstract form offers the possibility of a language above and beyond all national language frontiers. The basis for such language would lie in the identical form perception in all human beings and would offer the promise of a universal art as it has never existed before. With careful analysis of the elements, one should be able to rebuild men’s vision into a spiritual language in which the simplest as well as the most complicated, emotions as well as thoughts, objects as well as ideas, would find a form (Hoffman 1998:76).

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Projected light was seen as an autonomous medium to create forms in lines and planes, producing “moving pictures” that were not representations of the visible world but presentations of a modern abstract universality. They were offered the opportunity to realize their ideas on film in the UFA trick film studios and soon realized that transforming abstract drawings into visible motion through film, proved to be much more complicated. In order to achieve movement they manufactured rolls of abstract drawings that had to be transferred to film. They were disappointed by the results on film and in the end would consider their painted rolls, or Orchestrations as they called it, as works of art in themselves. A spectator was supposed to read the single moments on the roll, moving his eyes from one spot to another and constructing a theme in his head. Again, the pictures don’t move, but the act of constructing a theme by moving one’s eyes from spot to spot or follow a line suggests motion in time (Hoffman 1998: 76). Richter and Eggeling’s work had the enthusiastic response of Van Doesburg and he published Richter’s “Prinzipielles zur Bewegungskunst” a few months after his own article in De Stijl, followed a year later by Richter’s “Film”. It is not hard to see why Van Doesburg was so enthusiastic: a universal language system of abstract forms, the active spectator who perceives movement in color and light presenting time and space are very similar to his own ideas of movement (time) through a room (space) while constructing and reconstructing the colored planes of the interior walls and floor. In other words: Richter and Eggeling’s first film experiments and painted rolls fitted very well in Van Doesburgs idea of an abstract dynamic he was about to develop in De Stijl and that was different from Mondriaan’s idea of universal harmony as immutable and timeless. In “Abstracte Filmbeelding” Van Doesburg, relied mostly on Richter and Eggeling’s theory. He saw film first of all as a new Gesamtkunst that offered the artist possibilities to work entirely conceptually. Instead of struggling with the materials an artist of the future could write his compositions for film: codes for color and forms would be processed mechanically through the film apparatus and result in a perfect product. This observation cannot be based on Richters and Eggelings experiments in the film studio. Their results on film were among the most handy crafted and labour-intensive ones of the period. Van Doesburg rather described a computer artist than a film-

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maker and the text reveals that he knew very little about actual film techniques. I want to argue that he based his ideas on the painted rolls and conversations with Richter and Eggeling because he refers nowhere to actual film techniques and mentions the use of color often. Especially Richter came to the conclusion that the first experiments with the painted rolls lead to a dead end because the film was still representing something pro-filmic albeit an abstract depiction. Instead, film had to be treated as film and its elementary components as media: the screen became a form in its own right and no longer a canvas or a window. Richter divided the screen by rectangular forms that in their contrasts of black and white were expanding and disappearing. The basic elements for this new film art consisted of movement and light. His new ideas resulted in Film ist Rhythmus, later titled Rhythm 21, a film of one-and-a-half minute, made in the months after Van Doesburg’s visit. Van Doesburg returned to Germany with Nelly van Moorsel in the spring of 1921 and became a gobetween, by taking Richters film Rhythm 21 to Paris and showed it to friends on a lecture tour. Although the reception in Paris of the film was rather cold, despite the fact that Van Doesburg presented Richter as a Dane, other critics wrote encouraging of the experiment as the first true motion picture. Art historian Adolf Behne wrote in the Sozialistische Monatshefte: This film, a logical development of abstract forms of geometric precision, is a true motion picture for the first time, an independent art work not requiring any addition. The law of artistic movement sequences appears in complete clarity and tectonic discipline, which an artistically sensitive person cannot help perceiving (Foster 1998: 257).

Since “Abstracte Filmbeelding” more articles including film entered De Stijl but all fitted in the framework of Van Doesburgs premisses: actual films were rarely discussed because they all belonged to the rejected naturalistic and narrative representations. Expressionistic films like Das Kabinet des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene 1919), outside De Stijl regarded as utterly artistic and modern were dismissed along with American and French films. The only exception concerning films in the naturalistic mode of representation was made by Dadaists for Charlie Chaplin, or rather his film personage Charlot or the Tramp. Raoul Hausmann called him a physionist labeling every expression of

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Chaplin physical instead of psychological. Therefore Charlot was a true modernist and Leon Blumberg even honored him with the word Chaplinism. In 1923 Van Doesburg revised his assumptions on film. In “Licht- en tijdbeelding (film)” [Plasticism of light and time (film)] he described three forms of film that could eventually free film from its relation to the subjective. Firstly, there was the abstract-graphic and he described the paper roll method of Eggeling and Richter of 1921 once more. Secondly, there was a montage of naturalistic contrasts with no aesthetic composition in mind that he observed in the films of the American Charles Sheeler. Thirdly, there were deliberately deformations by placing deforming devices in front of the lens in order to distract attention from the filmed subject that he found in the films of Man Ray. Van Doesburg noted that no style in itself was completely satisfying, but that they were complementary. This did not mean that all efforts to solve the “film problem” were meaningless. He reminded how long it had taken to abstract form from the natural to a form element and with film one had to ask oneself what the primary, elementary means of film formation were in the first place. Were these means so far in almost all applications reproductive, a phase all arts had been through, for modern artists one had to know what film’s elementary productive media were. By all means, it was not the plane (screen) and the projection was not 2-dimensional. Light, x-dimensional and chaotic, was the film’s latent medium of expression. He rejected the graphic film and stated that motion and light were the elementary media of film form. Through time and space film could make a new dimension visible, but this could only be possible if a film was constructed from its primary elements. Like architecture, film was unthinkable in two dimensions. Van Doesburg concluded his article with a sharp critique on his brother in art Piet Mondriaan, however, without mentioning his name: “Our modern consciousness does not allow to deny the time element as elementary means of expression on theosophical or other imaginary grounds” (1923: 61). Film had not been the only thing on Van Doesburgs mind during his hectic travels that Sjarel Ex called his “Blitz” (1996:71). Van Doesburgs encounter and collaboration with the young architect Chris van Eesteren in 1922 was an important new impulse. Van Eesteren was able to put Van Doesburgs wild dreams about space and

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time dynamics in workable structures. Together they worked out a new physical sensibility of a dynamic perception of architectural space in colors, a realization of color in three dimensions. “Le mouvement perpétuel” would become its leading principle. They showed their work, drawings and models, in 1923 in Paris (Van Straaten 1996: 21-35). Due to the preparation of the exhibition Van Doesburg spend a long time in Paris where he regularly encountered Mondriaan and even started painting again in 1924. Their personal encounters inevitably brought their different theoretical views on presenting time to light and caused the split-up between them (Blotkamp 1994:190192). Van Doesburg presented movement in space as a crucial action of the perception of the universal as a perpetual movement, a process of construction and destruction in time. Mondriaan sees as the main purpose of the new art a process of abstraction from the natural to the universal. He explains his system and the role of the artist: the artist is bound to present the immutable equilibrium of the universal laws underlying the turbulent natural reality wherein everything is always moving and changing. In other words, presenting movement itself did not belong to duties of the modern artist, because movement did not belong to the realm of the neo-plastic aesthetics or the abstract reality (Blotkamp 1994:164). The balance of contrasts that Mondriaan tried to achieve in his theories and art was immobile, not dynamic. Mondriaan wrote his last article in the same issue of De Stijl that contained mostly articles of Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren on architecture (Mondriaan 1924: 86-88). Architecture surpassed film, but film served Van Doesburgs purpose to embed the factor time in his dynamic ideas on modern art. Theoretically he had found soul mates among the filmmakers Richter and Eggeling who convinced him of the need to go beyond easel painting and see adding time to a work of art as a truly step forward towards a modern art. Practically, Van Doesburg never was involved in making a film and he never would. He lacked the skills, patience, money and drive needed to put his heart into understanding the new film techniques. He wrote about film because it belonged to the realm of modern art and served his own agenda of the dynamic. Indeed as Malcolm Gee stated: Rather than serving an evaluative or even interpretative function, the principal goals of writing in this framework were to reflect and order the self-

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Ansje van Beusekom conceptions of a small group of artists, and through this, to project a public identity both for them and the writers who supported them (Gee 1993: 6).

Van Doesburgs writings on film show that in this context it also can be said that artists within the same group used their criticism to distinct themselves from one another and order a new self-conception. To support this new direction, Van Doesburg brought in other artist writing in his line of thinking. Critical interventions like disturbing a lecture on film as art by Henrik Scholte in The Hague during the early days of the Filmliga in the fall of 1927, show that Van Doesburg kept himself more or less up to date and had not lost interest in film entirely, but he never wrote again about film.

Notes 1

“Manifest I van ‘De Stijl’”, 1918, signed by Theo van Doesburg, Robt. van ’t Hoff, Vilmos Huszar, Anthony Kok, Piet Mondriaan, G. Vantongerloo, Jan Wils. Ín: De Stijl 2, 1 (1918): 2-5.

2

See for instance: Theo van Doesburg, Grondbegrippen der nieuwe beeldende kunst , which first had been published in two volumes in 1919 in the magazine Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte and in 1925 was published in a German translation as “Bauhausbuch”: Grundbegriffe der neuen gestaltenden Kunst.

3

See for the history of De Stijl: Carel Blotkamp et. al., De beginjaren van de Stijl. 1917-1922. (Utrecht: Reflex 1982) and idem, De vervolgjaren van De Stijl, 19221931. (Amsterdam / Antwerpen: Uitgeverij L.J.Veen, 1996).

4

For more information on Van Doesburg as an avant-gardist pur sang: Ansje van Beusekom, “Cinema Militans. Spectators and Authors in the Writings on Film of Theo van Doesburg and Menno ter Braak”. In: Anja Franceschetti and Leonardo Quaresima (eds.), Prima dell’autore/Before the author. Udine: 1997: 233-242.

5

Although the printed pamphlet is lost, a draft still exists and is reprinted as the appendix, Hans Richter, “Demonstration of the ‘Universal Language’”. In: Stephen C. Foster (ed.), Hans Richter: Activism, Modernism, and the Avant-garde. Cambridge: MIT Press: 1998: 184-239.

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Bibliography Beusekom, Ansje van 1997 “Cinema Militans. Spectators and Authors in the Writings on Film of Theo van Doesburg and Menno ter Braak”. In: Prima dell’autore / Before the author. Edited by Anja Franceschetti and Leonardo Quaresima, Udine: Edizioni Forum: 233-242. 2001 Kunst en Amusement. Reacties op film als een nieuw medium in Nederland, 1895-1940. Haarlem: Arcadia. Blotkamp, Carel 1994 Mondriaan. Destructie als kunst. Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers. Blotkamp, Carel (ed.) 1982 De beginjaren van de Stijl. 1917-1922. Utrecht: Reflex. 1996 De vervolgjaren van De Stijl. 1922-1931. Amsterdam / Antwerpen: Uitgeverij L.J.Veen. Doesburg, Theo van 1918 “Aantekeningen over monumentale kunst. Naar aanleiding van twee bouwfragmenten”. In: De Stijl 2, 1: 10-12. 1921 “Absolute filmbeelding”. In: De Stijl 4/5: 71-75. “Licht en tijdsbeelding (Film)”. In: De Stijl 5/ 6: 58-62. Ex, Sjarel 1996 “De blik naar het oosten: De Stijl in Duitsland en Oost-Europa”. In: De vervolgjaren van De Stijl 1922-1932. Edited by Carel Blotkamp. Amsterdam/Antwerpen: Uitgeverij L.J.Veen: 67-112. Foster, Stephen C. (ed.) 1997 Hans Richter: Activism, Modernism, and the Avant-garde. Cambridge: MIT Press. Hoffman, Justin 1998 “Hans Richter: Constructivist Filmmaker”. In: Hans Richter: Activism, Modernism, and the Avant-garde. Edited by Stephen C. Foster. Cambridge: MIT Press: 72-91 Gee, Malcolm (ed.) 1993 Art criticism since 1900. Manchester / New York: Manchester University Press. Mondriaan, P. 1924 “De huif naar den wind”. In: De Stijl 6, 6/7: 86-88.

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Richter, Hans 1921 “Prinzipielles zur Bewegungskunst”. In: De Stijl 4, 7: 109-112. 1922 “Film”. In: De Stijl 5, 6: 91-92. Straaten, Evert van 1983 Theo van Doesburg 1883-1931. Een documentaire op basis van materiaal uit de schenking Van Moorsel. The Hague, Staatsuitgeverij. 1996 “Theo van Doesburg”. In: De vervolgjaren van De Stijl 1922-1932. Edited by Carel Blotkamp, Amsterdam / Antwerpen: Uitgeverij L.J.Veen: 15-66. Taylor, Greg 1999

Tsivian, Yuri 1994

Artists in the audience. Cults, Camp and American film criticism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception. London / New York: Routledge.

The International Theatre Exhibition of 1922 and the Critics Peter G.F. Eversmann This article traces the relationship of the contemporary critics to the International Theatre Exhibition in Amsterdam, 1922. The origins (that lay with a playwright and critic!) and organisational set up of the exhibition are described. The role of Wijdeveld as key figure is emphasized and his ideas on the renewal of theatre are identified as the leading thought behind the exhibition and the events surrounding it. The exhibition then can be seen as a theoretical lecture proclaiming a visionary ideal of a new theatre that is mainly defined in opposition to the realistic and naturalistic tendencies of the nineteenth century bourgeois tradition. As such it provided a platform where professionals could meet and discuss this illusive theatre of the future. Next the reception of the exhibition and the role of its critics are assessed. It emerges that on the whole the press is following the lead of the organisers – reporting rather than criticizing and often quoting more or less verbatim from lectures and writings by the organisers and contributors. It is surmised that this is largely due to the fact that the critics belonged to the same cultural elitist group of artists and organisers that were responsible for the exhibition: together they created the self fulfilling image of an avant-garde reaching out for a new theatre.1

On January 21, 1922, a week later than expected, the International Theatre Exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum (Municipal Museum) in Amsterdam opened its doors to the public. Although somewhat similar exhibitions had been organized in Germany (Berlin 1910, Mannheim 1913) and in Switzerland (Zürich 1914) these had been much smaller in size and scope, so the Amsterdam exhibition can be said to be the first major showing of set, costume and theatre designs of the international, avant-garde movement in the theatre. After Amsterdam the show travelled to England (London, Manchester and Bradford) and to the United States (New York). It had a huge impact on staging practices in the Netherlands and abroad and inspired English, American and German publications as well as a national follow up exhibition in The Hague, 1923. The catalogue lists over ninety-five designers and architects from twelve countries and reads like a compendium of the now famous renewers of scenography and/or architecture in the first decades of the twentieth century with names like Adolphe Appia, Léon Bakst, Hendrick Berlage, Lovat Fraser, Firmin Gémier, Nathalie

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Gontcharova, Edward Gordon Craig, Robert Edmond Jones, Louis Jouvet, Oskar Kauffmann, Frits Lensvelt, Emil Orlik, Emil Pirchan, Hans Poelzig, Alfred Roller, Lee Simonson, Ernst Stern, Oskar Strnad, Bruno Taut, Henri van de Velde, H. Th. Wijdeveld and others – not to mention the great names in theatre (directors, theoreticians) that were indirectly presented through these artists (such as Cheney, Copeau, Diaghilev, Jessner, Reinhardt, Royaards, Verkade and others) and who in many cases came to visit the exhibition themselves. Besides the designs and models within the exhibition there was an additional study collection with books on modern stage design from all over the world where one could read “the theories which form a basis for modern drama, and which shape it”.2 Finally there was a series of lectures by Gordon Craig, Jacques Copeau, Oskar Strnad, Frits Lensvelt and H. Th. Wijdeveld where the ideas behind the designs were explained and discussed.

fig. 1. Exhibition Room for England. From Wendingen

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When one wants to assess the complex relationship between the exhibition and contemporary art criticism it is important to look at the genesis of the project, the ideas it represented as well as the self image it propagated and the reception it received.

Organizing the Exhibition The initiative for the exhibition was taken by the playwright and critic Frans Mijnssen3 who presented a plan for a modest exhibition to the society Kunst aan het Volk (Art to the People). Mijnssen’s idea was “to bring together those who were struggling for the renewal of the theatre, they who could gather round a fresh ideal”.4 As a theatre critic Mijnssen had been aware of the anti-realistic developments in the theatre abroad and had discussed these with the leading directors of the Dutch stage – Roelvinck, Royaards, Verkade – who all wanted a renewal of the old fashioned theatre that they considered to be superficial, not sincere, slavishly copying life and populistic. Mijnssen’s idea was to mount a small, educational exhibit so that “the Dutch audience could get an idea of what was done and can be done with stage building, set and costume design”5 in order that the spectators would be more prone to the contemporary experiments in scenography. So, in a sense the exhibition itself originated in a critical attitude that wanted to elevate the masses and took a stand against theatre geared not towards deeper aesthetic pleasure but rather towards entertainment – a theatre that another critic characterized as “sick concoctions of eighth-rate authors” and likened to the “overstimulating sensations of film-scenarios that appeal to the lower instincts”.6 Frits Lensvelt –illustrator, painter, set designer and one of the more prominent members of Kunst aan het Volk– heard of the plan and proposed to change it considerably.7 For Lensvelt it was the theatre building itself and not so much the designs for individual productions that should be the central concern of the exhibition. He wanted to show pictures, ground plans and scale models of modern theatres such as had been realized already in Germany, in order to contribute to the ongoing discussion about plans for new theatres in the Netherlands. In addition the exhibition should then give an impression of what would be possible in such a new theatre with regard to sets,

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lighting, costume and mise-en-scene by showing some work of the most important artists from home and abroad. Although this plan was considerably more expensive then Mijnssen’s, meaning also that it would be the only activity of Kunst aan het Volk during 1922, it was nevertheless accepted. The society set up a sponsorship drive, invited a committee of recommendation and appointed an organizing committee under the direction of its chair at the time - professor Bonger. The daily supervision of the exhibition then came into the hands of both Lensvelt and, most importantly, the secretary of the organizing committee: architect and set designer Hendricus Theodoor Wijdeveld.8 As stated in a newsletter from Kunst aan het Volk in January 1922: The management, the direction of the Exhibition rests in the best hands because for this task the Board has been fortunate enough to acquire the services of the painter Frits Lensvelt [...] and the architect H. Th. Wijdeveld [...] both gentlemen having also especially studied the theatre building itself. During the last months they have devoted themselves tirelessly - their talents and their time - to the realisation of the plan. In addition Mr. Wijdeveld accepted the secretaryship of the organising committee for the Exhibition.9

In the time that followed the content of the exhibition would shift back somewhat to the first plan so that in the end the scenographic designs took precedence over theatre architecture, but the latter was certainly not forgotten and the scope of the event was much bigger and internationally oriented than Mijnssen had originally envisioned. It can be said that this was largely due to the work of one man – the already mentioned Wijdeveld who quickly became the key figure in the organisation and more or less monopolized the endeavour as his own. To understand the exhibition and the reactions to it, it is therefore necessary to focus on his role in the organisation and on his ideas about the new theatre movement.

Wijdeveld’s Place in the Organisation Most likely Wijdeveld had been asked to fill the post of secretary because of his many connections at home and abroad. As an architect he had been trained by Cuypers and had worked in London and Paris. He also had a keen interest in the theatre and had produced several set

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designs for Eduard Verkade. The position of secretary put Wijdeveld very much in control with regard to the final content of the Exhibition. Through it he became the central figure for the artists whose work was shown, especially for the participants from foreign countries. He was already known to them as one of the prominent figures in the internationally esteemed group of architects called the “Amsterdamse School”, and as the editor of Wendingen (Turnings), an influential monthly periodical about art and architecture that has become famous for its innovations in typography and lay-out.10 It was this periodical that had already devoted issues to dance, masks, and modern theatre (Sept-Oct 1919, with illustrations of set designs by, among others, Hume, Rosse, Roller, Lensvelt, and Wijdeveld himself), constructing the foundation for many aspects of the Exhibition and establishing Wijdeveld's name in foreign cultural circles. It is therefore not such a surprise that the cooperation for this new project was great and that, generally speaking, one reacted with enthusiasm to the invitation to contribute to the Exhibition. For example Craig’s son wrote: Towards the end of 1921 a letter came from H.T. Wijdeveld, the celebrated Dutch architect and stage designer, inviting Craig to exhibit at the International Theatre Exhibition that the “Kunst an [sic] het Volk” were organizing on a really large scale at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; it was to be opened in the first month of 1922 and would present the first opportunity since the outbreak of the war for artists of the theatre to get together. Craig entered into the scheme whole-heartedly and nothing else was thought of at the Villa Raggio until models had been made and crated, mounts cut, pictures mounted and lists made.11

And how much credit and influence Wijdeveld had in international theatre circles can also be glimpsed from a letter that Appia sent the architect after he had visited him to discuss the transfer of the Amsterdam Exhibition to London. The letter is dated April 23, 1922: After your visit Mr. Lensvelt sent me a very cordial letter, and I'm pleased that our worries about the Exhibition in London all have been taken care of. Your generous gesture toward me marks a new phase in my life. Indeed, as you would have remarked, I did not understand the importance of my work, and, above all I could not understand it. It was necessary for you to come and tell me yourself! You have performed an absolutely necessary task: you have made me feel my responsibility, and you have clearly showed me that if I wanted to attract others to the advanced place where I find myself today, it would be essential to make them travel the

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Peter G. F. Eversmann same road that I myself have followed. This is evident, and I won't forget it. Rest assured of that.12

But Wijdeveld’s role in the realisation of the Exhibition entailed much more than his international contacts. Besides being responsible with Lensvelt for the selection of artists and having the very central position as secretary of the organising committee - running the office from his home - Wijdeveld also designed the Exhibition.13 He alone gets the credits for the interior decoration of the rooms in the Stedelijk Museum, creating the environment in which the designs, models, and masks were put on display. That work received much praise from many critics. To give one example: There was a lot to see at this Exhibition. But above all there was the design by Wijdeveld, about which Holst so justly wrote that it was a work of art in itself [...] In every respect Wijdeveld has succeeded in masking and enclosing the ugly rooms of the Stedelijk Museum so that an elegant whole has resulted.14

And not only the interior but also most other visual elements of the Exhibition - invitations, catalogues, posters - were designed by him. On top of all this there is a third aspect that should be considered when looking at Wijdeveld and the Exhibition. I refer here to the fact that he not only organised and designed the show but also had a big hand in the way it was received and documented. As will be seen some critics when evaluating the Exhibition relied heavily on his ideas. Also, one of the key documents that gives us an idea as to what the whole looked like is a special issue of Wendingen - completely devoted to the Exhibition and edited by Wijdeveld.15 He seems to have had an extraordinary talent for propaganda, seeing to it that his views (and his name!) would stand out when people remembered the Exhibition. Typical in this respect was the fact that in the series of lectures held during the Exhibition Wijdeveld had the last word, the night before closing day. This presentation gave him the opportunity to vent his ideas on theatre once more, but it also put the spotlight on him as the most important organiser of the Exhibition. Notice how, in the account of the evening by the newspaper Het nieuws van den dag Lensvelt (who had his lecture earlier on) was more or less demoted to a co-worker:

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The president of the commission “Kunst aan het Volk” thanked Mr. Wijdeveld, who after having shown his ideas for the arrangement of the Exhibition had now also expressed them in words. He thanked also his coworker Lensvelt and the playwright Frans Mijnssen, with whom the plan originated.16

All this evidence suggests that Wijdeveld should be considered as the key figure of the Exhibition: mounting and designing it, documenting it, and propagating the ideas behind it. What were these ideas? What did he think of theatre in general, on set design and on theatre building? How did he see exhibitions? With some answers to these questions we can begin to perceive just how these ideas were expressed in the actual appearance of the Exhibition. And then we can assess some of the effects it had on critics and visitors. Was Wijdeveld understood, and did his ideas come across?

Wijdeveld’s Ideas What emerges most strongly when reading Wijdeveld’s statements and articles is his conviction that a new age was dawning. The title Wendingen already alludes to his belief that humanity stood at a turning point. The old norms and values were no longer adequate to meet the needs of modern society and would be replaced irrevocably by something new - something better in which the human race would fulfill its destiny. This looking ahead to a coming Utopia is clearly related to socialist ideals.17 The betterment of society and the human environment was a necessary condition for such a Utopia, but where fellow architects such as De Bazel, Lauweriks, and Berlage proposed practical solutions that could actually be built, the designs of Wijdeveld were often more visionary in nature, not so much concentrating on practical improvement as fantasizing about the future. What exactly this new, ideal society looked like was however not clear. One lived in a state of transition, as Wijdeveld himself wrote, “in anticipation of a something which had no name yet” and at best could only be glimpsed.18 A newspaper account of his lecture at the Exhibition reported the following:

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Peter G. F. Eversmann Then Wijdeveld began to talk about the present and its social and spiritual needs: how even though we cannot accomplish something, we still have to keep a few sparks burning. How we really do not know at all what will come, but how truly great artists - the visionary dreamers - do at times make voyages of discovery to that unknown land of the future, a land where the new drama will also be born.19

This idea of the arts leading the way is a central theme in Wijdeveld’s philosophy. In 1919 he wrote, for example: Thus too flows the flourishing new dance into the great sea of modern art, where the waters continually rise and rise, until they will overflow their banks and inundate all people in a purifying bath of spiritual pleasure. Thus the dance will once again take its place among the arts, together heralding a new era, and with the word, and with music, and with architecture and all plastic arts, it will contribute to the great people's stage, the theatre, where celebrations of joy, where ceremonies of sadness, where the consecration of humanity in an offering to art will take place, and where finally, instead of the fading glow of the churches, will flourish once again a sublime ritual.20

From this quote it also becomes apparent that he placed the theatre, a synthesis of all other art forms, highest in the hierarchy of arts. And indeed he reinforced this idea time and time again. The theatre is the place where all the other arts - and the people! - come together and therefore “the most beautiful task of the modern architect [is] the construction of the theatre”.21 In his lecture he emphasized again the idea of synthesis: In the drama of the future the word will not be dominant, but word, gesture, rhythm, dance - all equal, all together forming one great unity.22

However, if theatre is a fusion of the other arts, it is no surprise that the theatre lags somewhat behind on the road to the ideal. Wijdeveld wrote: [...] and although many arts have opened new paths with rapid strides, the theatre still stands quite consciously in the realm of realism. It still imitates the time of the past with more power than that it endeavours to prophesy the future.23 But a new beginning, however vague, can also be discerned:

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Even if the struggle is still alarmingly far from victory, the first shouts of joy have already been heard in this field [of the theatre] and the stylised theatre already sees [...] a distant dawn of new possibilities.24

For Wijdeveld there were three kinds of theatre. First, the official, commercial theatre, realistic or naturalistic in nature and essentially of the past. This theatre was deplorable according to Wijdeveld. It “popularised ugliness,” had “forgotten the laws of art”25 and took place in a theatre building that was outdated - a “mockery of the Theatre born from the Will of the People”.26 Then there were the few attempts to break away from this realism, the few ‘sparks’ that although compromised by working in existing theatres - tried to generate a living space within a dead, formless space.27 These stylised set designs were not satisfying solutions within the given theatre buildings, but at least they showed some “truly new longing, new power, and new hope”.28 However, “the greatest task of modern theatre today still lies outside of the official theatre [...] the true leader of the modern theatre will not get mixed up with these official buildings”.29 Here Wijdeveld speaks of the third kind of theatre: the visionary theatre of the future for which he designed his Great Peoples Theatre, the theatre where the audience becomes part of the atmosphere and “where the popular festivities of our cities will be celebrated, where the New Theatre, stronger than the power of the Churches, will fulfill its cultural mission”.30 Indeed, for Wijdeveld this theatre rather literally takes the place of the church. He sometimes called it a “Temple” or “Cathedral”, where the actors become priests. Here, by the way, we see another important characteristic of Wijdeveld's writings: his use of religious idiom. When stating his beliefs in the coming society, he falls back upon terminology used in another belief system: Roman Catholicism. And thus theatre for him becomes religion: “Is the Drama not part of humanity in its attempt to solve the one great riddle, is it not part of their understanding, of their longing, of their doubt, of their [...] Religion?”.31 This third type of theatre was the most important one for Wijdeveld, but at the same time the most elusive. It remained a visionary's dream of harmony and beauty that existed only in Wijdeveld's mind. That dream can be glimpsed in his sketches and models, but it never took solid form in reality.

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Not much is known about Wijdeveld’s ideas for creating an exhibition. Certainly he had had a good deal of experience as a professional architect in showing his sketches, plans, and models. In a short essay that dates from 1927 he emphasized the temporary and festive character of an artistic exhibition.32 He stressed “festive” because these kinds of exhibitions do not use stable materials such as concrete, glass, and bronze but rather linen, cardboard, and paint. In addition this “world of camouflage” provides an opportunity to rise above the material world. Here for a moment one can give form to an ideal, one can sparkle without being hampered by the “real world of brick and iron”. In this vein he compared working on an exhibition to his other visionary projects: So too our ideal projects come into being; those castles in the air that grow spontaneously within us, that are born in a spiritual and celebrative mood.33

Is he refering here also to the Great Peoples Theatre? Since the environment of an artistic exhibition - “surroundings, mood and impressive background at the same time” - should match the content of that exposition, we can only conclude that Wijdeveld wished to make the exhibition of 1922 a particularly appropriate vehicle for the visionary designs that hung there. Where could these glimpses of the future be better showed than in another vision - in his own fantasy environment of cardboard and linen in the Stedelijk Museum?

Wijdeveld’s Exhibition What where the consequences for the exhibition of Wijdeveld’s above-mentioned ideas? The answer is probably rather straightforward and simple: the whole of the exhibition could be read as a theoretical lecture. It is apparent from the pictures and the plan of the exhibition published in Wendingen34 that the most prominent places were given to the visionary designs (for example: Craig and Appia in the first room; Wijdeveld’s own model of the Great Peoples Theatre in the middle of the Dutch room). Most of the other designs in the exhibition were made for the real, “commercial” theatre. They are of stunning variety but all have one thing in common: they are definitely not real-

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istic or naturalistic in nature. And indeed this seems to have been the leading thought of the exhibition. One did not show old-fashioned work in the vein of the realistic, nineteenth-century bourgeois stagings. Also, the exhibition really was not about “good” or “bad”; it rather was about being different and having a vision. Hence the big differences in quality among the designs that some critics remark upon. The most tangible and “material” works of art at the exhibition were the models of various sets. They gave concrete form to the theatrical dreams of their designers and were, therefore, almost by definition compromises meant for the “dead space” of existing theatres. The last room of the exhibition was reserved for them, as if these three-dimensional, paper-and-wood realisations could only be interpreted in the right way after one had dealt with the spiritual visions in the preceding rooms. But what about all the masks so lavishly distributed throughout the rooms? What role did they play in the concept of the exhibition? Again Wijdeveld himself gave the answer, an answer that, in the light of his aforementioned theories, does not surprise us anymore and perfectly explains their prominence in the exhibition. A local newspaper reported: [Wijdeveld] saw in them a turning away from realism - i.e. the expression of the particular, the facial mimic - and a pointing towards a synthesis. The mask does not express the sadness of this or that woman, but The Sadness, not the joy of one human being but The Joy.35

In a sense, therefore, these masks were just as symbolic and faced just as firmly toward a possible future as did their counterparts, the visionary set designs.36

The Reception of the Exhibition Was the theoretical lecture of the exhibition understood? Did the visitors grasp the meaning of the international theatre exhibition as a visualisation of Wijdeveld’s ideas? In answering this question one should first of all realise that the exhibition and the discussions surrounding it were really the endeavour of a relative small, elitist group of intellectuals and artists. The aim of Kunst aan het Volk that the exhibition should educate the masses was never realized, mainly

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because the masses didn’t come. Despite quite extensive exposure of the opening of the exhibition in the daily newspapers it is reported that on January 28 there were about fifteen visitors and the day before only ten.37 But if the general public was not ready for the experiments on display, this was clearly different for the theatre professionals who were heartened by the exhibition and found in it an occasion to meet and discuss the theatre of the future. Copeau worded this as follows: It was a moving experience to see the same artists respond to the first invitation they get for reinstating their professional ties after a horrible and long seperation caused by the war. To see the results of the work that lies behind them and to discuss the enormous expectations that we can have for the future.38

And Horace Shipp expresses the same feeling when he writes: […] one feels as an engineer who, tunneling the mountains, meets these working from the other direction. Holland, France, Germany, Austria, America, Russia, everywhere the same problems to overcome, the same labour in overcoming them; decorators, expressionists, symbolists – every method to achieve the end we all have in view; primitive art, old art, modern art, future art, all times bringing their contributions; architect, costumier, scene-designer, mask maker, theorist, every worker offering his service; and from it all comes a clearer conception of the art of the theatre.39

However, not all the reactions were positive. Some critics lamented the big differences in artistic quality of the various contributions and the amateurism of some of the models, while others remarked that there also should have been more traditional work so that one would have been able to compare. A more fundamental criticism targeted the whole idea behind the exhibition itself – stating that the living actor was conspicuously absent from the displays and attacking the emphasis that the modern movement put on the visual, scenographic elements of performance. The German playwright Wilhelm von Scholz wrote for example that the theatre is essentially an art of words and gestures and that sets are just distractions: “It is erroneous to conceive of the theatre as a union of all the arts [...] the theatre is the place of the word in its form as sound and human expression”.40 Even more pronounced were the critical writings of A.M. de Jong who started a polemic with Mijnssen in the socialist newspaper Het Volk. Although he applauds the idealism and refined taste of some of the

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contributors, he also points to the danger that the actor will be overpowered by the costly designs: The exhibition is a vey educational example of the tyranny of the servants who sent their masters to the attic and now show the audience how comfortably they settle down in the drawing room. It is a kind of revolution, but not one that will bring a new theatre.41

De Jong presents the renewal movement and the exhibition also as essentially elitist and bourgeois intellectual individualism, absolutely unfit for the workers and not worthy of a society that according to its name wants to bring art to the people. One should not force renewal from the top, but true renewal of the art can only come about through reform of the society. That De Jong stood not alone in his criticism can be glimpsed from a cartoon in De Amsterdammer were the socialist idiom of the contrast between the rich capitalist and the exploited poor is metaphorically applied to a visitor of the theatre exhibition (in bowler hat and fur coat) ignoring the begging gesture of The Art of Acting – personified by a poor woman in rags.42 (fig. 1). Still, the overwhelming majority of the press reactions were on the whole favourable to the exhibition – with sometimes a critical note towards the occasional individual artist. During the time of the exhibition the papers not only ran elaborate accounts of the opening and the lectures but they also reported on the reactions of the foreign correspondents who came to visit and gave extensive descriptions of what was on show. From these it becomes clear that the theoretical lecture of the exhibition was indeed understood and its premises largely supported. The review Keuls wrote for Het Handelsblad is a good example: First of all this is a theoretical exhibition [...] it reveals a general reaction against the bourgeois and naturalistic theatre, a reaction that has come to the fore especially in the last twenty or thirty years [...] Thus, excepting the room of honour for Gordon Craig and Appia, the exhibition makes a multifaceted chaotic impression. One finds strange expressions of personal talent next to trivial contributions with no content, and cheap romanticism next to curious modernisms.

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fig. 2. Histoire sans paroles (drawing for De Amsterdammer by Jordaan; January 28, 1922)

He then went on to discuss rather comprehensively the particular works of Craig and Appia and their ideas. After this he continued: One cannot write extensively about the other rooms. The reader is not served by an endless enumeration. The principal meaning of this exhibition lies in the importance of the subject as a whole, not in the specific value of the various and colorful experiments on display.43

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Nevertheless Keuls finished by mentioning each of the rooms and by picking out the individual works that he deems worth mentioning - in either a positive or negative way. It is further telling that most of the other critics followed a similar general structure. First they delivered rather philosophical discussions of the theatre - its nature, its history, and its place in present society concluding with some thoughts about the possibilities for the future. Only after such preliminary and often rather lengthy discourses they then came to their subject proper: the theatre exhibition and what could actually be seen there. In their philosophical introductions it is often only too clear that the critics were influenced heavily by Wijdeveld. This holds true especially for those who wrote with hindsight, after the exhibition had closed; time and again one reads echoes from Wendingen. In addition, when comparing the accounts of Wijdeveld's lecture with the retrospectives on the exhibition, one cannot fail to notice the obvious parallels - in the overall structure as well as in word choice and phraseology. For example, Wijdeveld began his lecture by sketching the development of the theatre from “early humankind, the later Egyptians, Assyrians, the early Greeks [...]” thereby adumbrating a view of drama as “the expression of human attitudes towards nature and the divine”. Compare this thought with that of Werumeus Buning, who at the beginning of an extensive retrospective article explicitly mentions the Egyptians and, still on the first page, writes: “but without this understanding of the relation between gods and human beings dramatic art is not possible.”44 Maybe not very surprising for someone who himself had contributed to the exhibition by comprising the book collection, but in the critical writings around the exhibition there are many more of such “coincidences”. In view of all these responses we can therefore conclude that the exhibition, certainly in combination with the lectures, succeeded to a large extent in communicating its theoretical content. And here it is important to notice once again that the aftermath of the exhibition was orchestrated to a large extent by Wijdeveld and a close circle around him. The special issue of Wendingen devoted to the exhibition was already mentioned, but telling in this respect is also the collection of reactions to the exhibition that made up a whole bulletin of Architectura (dated 28 January 1922). Although a notice from the

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editorial board states explicitly that “this issue did not appear on the initiative of the editor H. Th. Wijdeveld” it is hard to believe that he had nothing to do with it - especially since each of the contributors were directly involved in the exhibition or in its subsequent touring abroad.

Conclusion The international theatre exhibition was a complex endeavour that functioned as a meeting ground for scenographers and critics who found themselves united in their aversion of realism and the old fashioned nineteenth century bourgeois theatre. However, what the New Theatre must look like remained vague: a range of tastes was represented and differences of opinion abounded. Yet, organisers, artists and (most) critics alike proclaimed the exhibition as the expression of a new theatre movement and in doing so created the image of an avant-garde charting the unknown territory of an unescapable future. It is that self-image, brought with so much zeal and conviction, that can be held responsible for the huge impact of the event, both at home and abroad. Probably Wijdeveld himself realised more than anyone the multifaceted nature of the undertaking when taken in its entirety, knowing full well that the exhibition did not show one style, leading to one type of theatrical future. When one reads what he said at the end of his exhibition lecture, one suspects all the more that Wijdeveld did have some sense of relativity. As an illustration to his lecture he let three youngsters put on a few of the masks from the exhibition. They only wore them for a moment and “made some sober gestures and movements”. Right before this demonstration Wijdeveld remarked: [...] one should not prize mask-plays too highly in our time. It very well may be that the future will demand something totally different. But today we can show what possibilities lie in store here.45

In the years after the exhibition many styles and many attitudes toward theatre did develop along a variety of lines, some of them quite

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fig. 3. Kunst en kritiek bij de opening van de theater-tentoonstelling (Art and Critique at the opening of the theatre-exhibition; drawings for De Amsterdammer by B. van Vlijmen; January 23?, 1922). In the middle Edward Gordon Craig (with as caption the rhetorical question from his opening speech – “Do you want it?”- referring to the new theatre). Around him clockwise from top left: ‘Barbarossa’(pseudonym of the well known theatre critic J.C. Schröder), Cornelis Veth, Jacqueline Royaards, Dr. J.F.M. Sterck, Top Naeff, H. Wijdeveld, Nel Lensvelt-Bronger, Frits Lensvelt, Jan de Meyer, Frans Mynsen, Ed Verkade and unknown

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unpredictable for the exhibition makers. The New Theatre that Wijdeveld and the other organisers of the exhibition dreamt of never came about, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the renewers at the exhibition prepared the ground for a theatre were visual and spatial elements were treated completely different than before. In that sense the exhibition sure showed many a possibility. As to the critics and their assessment of the exhibition it should be remarked that they were really not very critical at all. They generally followed suit to the main theoretical ideas that were propagated by the organisers – sometimes even to the point of more or less copying verbatim what they said and wrote. So, it is fair to say that the “critics” were largely only reporting the exhibition instead of critically engaging with it – and this holds true not only for the time the exhibition was on but also for the retrospective writings. The only exception to this comes from a very small minority of authors that point to the danger of the scenographic elements overpowering what to them is the essence of the art of the theatre – i.e. the living actor and the declamation of words. For the rest criticsm that was vented was directed towards individual contributions and predominantly worded in terms of “good versus bad” or “like versus dislike” without much further motivation. This state of affairs is not surprising. After all the very idea of the exhibition originated within the circle of theatre critics that rejected the old fashioned bourgeois productions and embraced the idea of renewal. As such these authors can be said to belong to the elitist avant-garde that they wrote about – an idea that is reinforced by a cartoon of people present at the opening of the exhibition were visitors, critics, artists and organisers are depicted side by side (figure 3). And it is of course this ‘inbred’ quality that accounts for both the relative lack of interest with the general public and the high praise that the exhibition was awarded by theatre professionals.

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Notes 1

Parts of this article were published in Eversmann, P. “H. Th. Wijdeveld and the International Exhibition of 1922” In: Ogden, 1992: 27-40.

2

Architectura 5 (28 January 1922). Cf. also Catalogus der boekerij, 1922. The book collection was comprised by J.W.F. Werumeus Buning, poet and critic, assisted by the actor Paul Huf. Subjects of the collection were dance, mime, plastic arts, scenery, machinery, architecture, costume, Shakespeare-on-stage and the-theatre-of-the-future. 3

Frans Mijnssen, 1872-1954, writer, playwright and critic. Translated the plays of A. Schnitzler.

4

Van Tussenbroek, 1922: 385.

5

Kunst aan het Volk 39 [Newsletter] (January 1922), 2.

6

Van Tussenbroek, 1922: 386.

7

Frits Lensvelt (1886-1945), painter, set designer and illustrator. He and his wife – Nel Lensvelt-Brongers (1879-1935) – were at the time the set and costume designers of Royaards.

8

Born 1886. Pupil of the well-known Dutch architect Cuypers. Died in 1987. He is commonly refered to as “H. Th. Wijdeveld.” This use of initials (instead of either his first name - that never appears in the documentation of the Exhibition - or the prefix “Dhr.” or “Mr.” that only rarely occurs) was obviously sanctioned (or propagated?) by Wijdeveld himself and was already standard practice in 1922. For example, the paper Het nieuws van den dag wrote on 26 February 1922: “[...] the architect H. Th. Wijdeveld, who organised the Exhibition together with Frits Lensvelt”. This use of Wijdeveld's initials in conjunction with other people who are referred to in full is by no means an exception. Moreover, it is also done in this way by Wijdeveld himself. He wrote in Jaarboek Vank, 1922: “these lectures by Gordon Craig, Jacques Copeau, Oskar Strnad, Frits Lensvelt and H. Th. Wijdeveld” (p. 56). The reason for this is not clear but perhaps we catch a glimpse here of the architect's familiar vanity. Is it not possible that he preferred “H. Th. Wijdeveld” because the use of the double initials lent some extra distinction to the name, almost an official title of some sort?

9

Kunst aan het Volk 39 [Newsletter] (January 1922), 2. Translation by the author in cooperation with Prof. D.H. Ogden.

10 Wendingen, maandblad voor bouwen en sieren. This was a publication by a society called “Architectura et Amicitia.” The literal translation of the title reads “Turnings, monthly periodical for building and decorating.” The first issue is dated January 1918. Each issue was centered around a theme but this theme was not necessarily an architectural one. There were for example issues on such widely differing subjects as dance and masks. Contributions to the issues were often in a foreign language

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(German, French, English), and this no doubt accounts also for the international response the periodical had. Although Wendingen was meant to appear monthly, it did not, and quite a number of double issues appeared. Cf. note 15. 11

Edward A. Craig, Gordon Craig, The Story of His Life, (London, 1968), 314-315.

12

The letter is in French and is kept in the “Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst” (Archive for Architectural Documents). It was kindly brought to my attention by Ben Albach. The quotation reads: “Monsieur Lensvelt m'a adressé une fort aimable lettre en suite de votre visite, et je suis heureux de la bonne issue de nos soucis au sujet de l'exposition de Londres. Votre démarche généreuse auprès de moi marque dans ma vie une étape définitive. En effet, comme vous l'aurez remarqué je ne comprenais pas l'importance de mon travail, et, surtout, je ne pouvais pas le comprendre. Il a fallu que vous veniez me le dire vous-même! Vous avez accompli là une acte absolument nécessaire; vous m'avez fait sentir ma responsabilité, et vous m'avez clairement démontré que si je voulais attirer les autres à la place avancée où je me trouve actuellement, il était indispensable de les faire passer par le même chemin que j'ai suivi moi-même. Cela est évident, et je ne l'oublierai pas. Soyez en assuré” . 13

Part of Wijdeveld's role becomes apparent from the second circular letter, where the Exhibition was announced and an invitation issued to contribute books to the “special section for literature on modern theatre.” This brochure, which dates from before December 15, 1921 (it mentions this date as the deadline for the reception of the books), stated that information was to be obtained from “the Secretariat H. Th. Wijdeveld, Vossiusstraat 50, Amsterdam” - his home address at the time. 14

Van Tussenbroek, 1922: 386.

15

Reference here is to issue 9-10, volume 4. This issue is dated September-October 1921 but actually was put together and printed much later. It was distributed to the subscribers in late August or early September 1922. From the minutes of “Architectura et Amicitia” (access thanks to Drs. J. Schildt), the reasons for this become clear: a conflict between the publishing company and Wijdeveld, each reproaching the other for being late and not living up to their promises. 16

Het nieuws van den dag (26 febuari 1922).

17

It is for example no coincidence that in the issue of Wendingen on theatre (September - October 1919) Wijdeveld published the designs for his “Great Peoples Theatre” next to an article by Henriëtte Roland Holst-van der Schalk entitled “Communism and Theatre”. 18 This quote is from a letter by Wijdeveld to Craig on the occasion of his 94th birthday in 1966. The letter is kept in the “Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst” (Archive for Architectural Documents) where it is to be found under the heading: “Uit de memoires van architect ٌ - Toneel, dans, muziek.” At the end of this letter it once

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again becomes clear that Wijdeveld's Utopia was undefined. Notice how Wijdeveld, writing in English, deliberately avoids specifying the new “something” and trails off in dots: “Convinced that the human race lives in a state of transition and out of my love for the theatre, I designed for the future the Great Peoples Theatre, in which the tragediens and actors will sublime [sic] the tragical events and searchings on the way of mankind to surrender to its fate and pass into a wonderfull NEW…. “ 19

Het nieuws van den dag (26 February 1922).

20

Wendingen 2, 3 (March 1919), 3.

21

Wendingen 1, 1 (January 1918), 3.

22

Het nieuws van den dag (26 February 1922).

23

Wendingen 2, 9-10 (September - October 1919), 9.

24

Wendingen 1, 1 (January 1918), 3.

25

Wendingen 2, 9-10 (September - October 1919), 9.

26

Jaarboek Vank (1922), 56.

27 Werumeus Buning gave a rather elaborate explanation of this compromise - “new” sets within inadequate theatre buildings, resulting in overemphasis on set design. The ultimate goal, according to Buning, was a theatre space that met the demands of the time; 1922, 229-244. 28

Jaarboek Vank (1922), 57.

29

Wendingen 2, 9-10 (September - October 1919), 9.

30

Ibidem.

31

Jaarboek Vank (1922), 56. Sometimes he went rather far in conflating theatre and religion. For example, in a critical essay on a production of Goethe's Faust, that he considered a failure, Wijdeveld spoke of the “Devil” as the main force responsible for the failure. Wendingen 1, 4 (April 1918), 3-6. Moreover, the idea of art being a religion and the artists being priests, was not just a whim of Wijdeveld but was expressed by many groups during that time. The theosophists saw the artist as the unifying element between earth and cosmos; by expressing the divine he uplifts the people. Fellow architects such as De Bazel and Lauweriks - both of whom published in Wendingen - were theosophists. And the socialist Roland Holst also described the

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artist as a kind of priest, not leading towards a spiritual ideal, but rather leading to a new society of the future. Let us not forget that Craig often likened the visual theatre he propagated to the Mass in the Catholic church: on stage, just as in the Mass, the essentials would be expressed by symbols. Thus Wijdeveld used the religious idiom not for want of something better but as part of a vocabulary rather common in his circle. 32

Wijdeveld, 1929, 128-131: “Over het tentoonstellen”.

33

Ibid, 130.

34

Wendingen 4, 9-10 (1921 [= August - September 1922]).

35

From the account of Wijdeveld's lecture at the exhibition in Het nieuws van den dag (26 February 1922).

36

The mask is dealt with in much the same vein by Werumeus Buning who compares two masks at the exhibition (a modern one by Dulac for a dance performance of Yeats and one from an island in the Pacific) in order to make a plea for a visionary theatre that should express the spititual longing of a society towards the gods and eternity. 37

Het Vaderland (29 January 1922).

38

De Telegraaf (16 February 1922).

39

Architectura 5 (28 January 1922).

40 Quoted by Albach, 1982, 155 (Es ist ein Irrtum dass das Theater eine Vereinigung aller Künste sei (…) Das Theater ist die Stätte des Wortes in seiner höchsten Ausprägung als Laut und menschliche Gebärde.) 41

Het Volk (3 February 1922).

42

De Amsterdammer (28 January 1922).

43

Algemeen Handelsblad (6 February 1922).

44

Werumeus Buning, 1922: 229.

45

De Telegraaf (27 February 1922).

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Bibliography Albach, B. 1982

Architectura 1922

Anonymus 1922

Anonymous 1922

Boer, S. de 1992

“De Internationale Theatertentoonstelling van 1922 in Amsterdam en de Duitse ensceneringskunst”. In: K. Dittrich (ed.) BerlijnAmsterdam 1920-1940: Wisselwerkingen. Amsterdam, 1982: 153159.

Architectura, weekblad van het genootschap Architectura et Amicitia 5 (28 January 1922).

Catalogus der boekerij. Amsterdam, Theatertentoonstelling, January-February 1922.

Internationale

Catalogus der tentoonstelling. Amsterdam, Theatertentoonstelling, January-February 1922.

Internationale

“Wijdeveld en het theater”. In: Jong Holland 3, 1992: 25-35.

Craig, Edward A. 1968 Gordon Craig, The Story of His Life. London. Lapidoth, F. 1922

“De internationale theater-tentoonstelling te Amsterdam”. In: Het tooneel, geïllustreerd maandblad 7, 10 (Den Haag, March 1922): 146-153.

Ogden, D. H. (ed.) 1992 The International Theatre Exhibition: Amsterdam 1922. Special issue of Tijdschrift voor Theaterwetenschap 8. Pelt, J.M. van 1996

“Januari en Februari 1922. De Internationale Theatertentoonstelling in het Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam”. In: R.L. Erenstein e.a. (red.) Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden. Amsterdam, 1996: 592-599.

Tussenbroek, O. van 1922 “De theatertentoonstelling te Amsterdam, een nabetrachting”. In: Elsevier's geïllustreerd maandschrift 31, 4, Amsterdam: 385-388.

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Wendingen, maandblad voor bouwen en sieren 1, 1 (January 1918); 1, 4 (April 1918); 2, 3 (March 1919); 2, 9-10 (September - October 1919); 4, 9-10 (1921 [= August - September 1922]). Werumeus Buning, J.W.F., 1922 “Het tooneel en de theater-tentoonstelling”. In: geïllustreerd maandschrift 31, 3, Amsterdam: 229-244.

Elsevier's

Wijdeveld, H. Th. 1929 Cultuur en kunst. Amsterdam. Wijdeveld, H. Th. 1985 Mijn eerste eeuw. Amsterdam.

Clippings, photos, and letters from the Nederlands Theater Instituut in Amsterdam. Clippings and letters from the Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst [Especially Wijdeveld: “Uit de memoires van architect Ĭ - Toneel, dans, muziek.”]

The Making of a Reputation: the Case of Cobra Nico Laan Like many avant-garde artists also Dutch Cobra members initially met with fierce resistance. But the clamour soon died down and a process of acceptance emerged. The question that this article focuses on is: how can this turn-about be explained? To answer this question recent studies on the making of a reputation have been consulted. These studies view criticism as a social phenomenon and they depart from the assumption that consensus about the quality of a work of art is reached on the basis of non-intrinsic factors. Each of these factors will be dealt with in this article. The conclusion is that even if the kind of knowledge that we have at the moment does not allow for any satisfactory or comprehensive answer to this question, it is still possible to give an idea of the direction in which the answer could be found.

Outside the Netherlands little is known about the Dutch contribution to the avant-garde. Exceptions are to be found in the areas of architecture and painting. Leaving Van Gogh aside for a moment – many see him as a precursor of various innovations in the twentieth century – these exceptions specifically concern De Stijl and Cobra. The group around De Stijl is the most famous, particularly because of Mondrian, who after his death became one of the icons of the avant-garde. Also those who are unable to read Dutch can access a wide variety of literature about him and other contributors to this magazine. This is much less true for Cobra, especially if we limit ourselves to the Dutch members of the group. Within the framework of this book this might be a good reason to focus our attention on these artists. We are then talking about seven painters: Karel Appel, Eugène Brands, Constant, Corneille, Jan Nieuwenhuys, Anton Rooskens and Theo Wolvecamp. Together they founded the Experimentele Groep (“Experimental Group”) on 16 July 1948. Shortly after that three writers joined their ranks: Jan G. Elburg, Gerrit Kouwenaar and Lucebert. The group published a magazine - Reflex - that only saw two issues. As a result the group did not go entirely unnoticed but it still led a rather obscure existence until its members joined Cobra.1 Cobra was founded in Paris on 8 September 1948. Members were artists from Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. Cobra too published a magazine, also called Cobra. The group burst upon the

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public in 1949 in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam with an exhibition called “Exposition Internationale d’Art Expérimental”. The exhibition had hardly been opened when quarrels arose and the Dutch writers left the organization. However, they stayed in touch with the painters and kept on collaborating with them. In 1951 a second group exhibition was organized and shortly after that Cobra disbanded itself. So the group lasted only a very short time and this may be the reason why it took so long for the name of Cobra to be firmly established in the Netherlands. Critics rather preferred the terms “experimentelen” (“experimenters”) or “experimentalisten” (“experimentalists”). They did not use those terms to refer exclusively to the writers and painters that we just mentioned, but also for artists who were supposed to be related to them.2 At the end of the forties and in the early fifties the majority of critics rejected the work of the “experimentelen”. However, soon after that they were accepted and a short time later again they were seen as the most important representatives of their generation. How can this turnabout be explained? The traditional answer to such a question is that every new style or movement takes some time getting used to, especially so when it concerns art that aims at being innovative. But – so the argument runs – after a certain period of time the qualities of the new art will become apparent. This is hardly a satisfactory answer. It does not need a great deal of knowledge of the history of art to be able to see that works of art have no intrinsic or fixed value. Qualities are not recognized or discovered: they are ascribed to works of art. Therefore it is not correct to present the change of appreciation for the “experimentelen” as an inevitable thing. The critics might just as well have stuck to their former rejection. About the “experimental” writers a study has been written which tries to explain why the critics changed their mind about them, but hardly anything is known about the way they reacted to the painters. Still the turnabout there was equally dramatic. Moreover, it is often claimed that their breakthrough led to a great divide in the Dutch art world with the “conservative” or “figurative” side increasingly losing territory to the “progressive” or “abstract” side.3 So the question how it came about that the Cobra painters were so quickly accepted and respected after having been initially rejected is also important in a broader context. Since the eighties a number of books and articles have appeared on the making of a reputation

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and these have helped answer this question. Most of them are concerned with literature but there are also studies on film, the visual arts and music, which have been extremely useful. What they have in common is that they consider criticism as a social phenomenon and depart from the assumption that consensus about the quality of works of art is reached on the basis of outside factors. The nature of these factors will be discussed below.4

1. Art Criticism around 1950 Hardly anything is known about art criticism in the Netherlands at the time that Cobra existed. The only summary article on this subject runs to only four pages.5 Elsewhere additional information can be found about individual critics or certain subjects that were highly profiled at the time but it does not add up to much. Moreover, the literature that we do have shows a number of shortcomings. For instance, it is usually not very clear on what data these writings are based: did the author systematically peruse daily or weekly papers? Were public collections consulted or did the author have access to collections of cuttings of critics and artists? It seems that the perusal of newspapers was never very popular, which is not surprising as it is extremely timeconsuming. Sometimes public collections or collections of cuttings are mentioned but there is never any information about what number of art reviews the writer has considered, about possible gaps, or about the range of newspapers and magazines that were studied.6 Furthermore, these authors seem to be focused on judging the critics. In this connection the influence of the avant-garde is striking: critics are categorized as “conservative” or “progressive” depending on their attitude towards certain innovations. Not too much time and effort is spent on subtlety. Categorization often takes place on the basis of a single stance taken towards an event that was only later called “historical”.7 In these studies the question looms large if the critic belonged to the good or the bad guys and all other questions are ignored. For instance, we hardly get any answers to elementary questions such as: how much space did newspapers allow for art criticism? How many critics were active? What was their background etc., etc.? A first cursory look shows us that every daily and weekly newspaper, of some

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sort of stature - also the regional press - employed a critic. This critic did not always exclusively concern himself with the visual arts. Even in the national press we come across critics who had both literature and the visual arts in their portfolio.8 Coverage of the visual arts varied greatly. While some papers (such as Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant and Elsevier’s Weekblad) had an extensive article at least every week, there were others (such as Trouw), which allowed much less space and sometimes paid no attention to the arts for weeks. The articles almost exclusively covered events such as exhibitions, auctions, anniversaries that took place in the Netherlands. The western part of the country, and more particularly Amsterdam, received the most attention. Trips to foreign countries were only made by critics who on average had already shown a greater interest in the visual arts. Most critics were artists themselves.9 The most obvious assumption is that one of the reasons for them to start writing critical reviews was the need to have extra earnings. Some were editors on the papers they wrote for but - like today - most of them worked on a freelance basis. So it is not surprising that some critics wrote for more than one newspaper and that turnover among critics was high. From 1949 to 1956 there were over thirty critics in the Netherlands who wrote about the visual arts, but very few of them were active as such throughout that whole period of time. There are hardly any compilations of critical reviews in this period, so most of them are going yellow in newspaper archives. Only one paper - De Groene Amsterdammer - has digitized its archives, but these are useless for our purposes as digitization stops at 1945. Fortunately, there are public collections of art reviews. For Cobra two of these are relevant: that of the Rijksdienst voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD) and the one of the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. The material has been filed in different ways. Only the RKD has files on individual critics but, unfortunately, the contents are very meagre. So we have to make do with the files on Cobra, its individual members and exhibitions of both. Comparing the contents of both files, we notice that none of these collections is complete. Would they be if we added them up? That is hard to say, but searches elsewhere yield few extra reviews.10 So it seems justified to start from the data in these two collections. Of course, existing literature on Cobra has been

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taken into account too. Whenever the study of this literature gave rise to any questions or assumptions, these have been checked by systematically going through a number of newspapers and the critical reviews that were found in this way have been added to the files. The data that have thus been collected do not make it possible to compare the Dutch Cobra members with their foreign counterparts. Almost without exception critics were only interested in their fellowcountrymen. In fact, even within the group they made a selection. Their attention was almost exclusively focused on three of the seven painters: Appel, Constant and Corneille.

2. Rejected Almost Everywhere When Cobra presented itself in Amsterdam in 1949, the Dutch painters were not completely unknown, as there had been exhibitions before. The biography of Appel gives the impression that he met with resistance right from the start of his career.11 Qualifications that are cited are “childish”, “barbarian” and “horror of aesthetes”. Those quotes are from art reviews which were collected by Appel himself, but the biographer does not use them very systematically, so it is possible that we get a slightly distorted picture, the more so because she also mentions that critics considered Appel a talented painter and admire his courage. When going through the cuttings in the Stedelijk Museum and the RKD about exhibitions of Appel and other Dutch Cobra painters of before 1949, one is struck by the sympathetic attitude of most critics. They are critical, yes, especially when it concerns imitation of examples abroad, but they also often write kind and encouraging words and more than once find them promising. For instance, it is said that Rooskens may well become “quite special” in a particular genre (Trouw 1.4.1947) and Brands is called an “unmistakable talent” (De Telegraaf 30.1.1941). Whatever is the case: as soon as Cobra presents itself as a movement in 1949, the general mood is one of rejection. In literature about Cobra hardly any attention is paid to art reviews, but newspaper headlines are cited and these need no further comment: “Inarticulate Art. Heydays of Nihilism in the Stedelijk Museum”, “Unnecessary and Unwanted”, “Scratching, Blathering, and Daubing in the Stedelijk

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Museum”, “Madness Elevated to Art”.12 What complicates matters is that those headlines do not always refer to the art that was exhibited. A number of those articles concern the commotion that arose during an evening that was organized by the writers of the Experimentele Groep. As a matter of fact, Cobra drew attention from more quarters than art critics alone: also reporters of various newspapers paid attention to the exhibition and it is not always very clear whether we are reading a report, a review or something that wants to combine both. The literature that we have on Cobra claims that there were only two critics who showed some appreciation for the movement: Jan Engelman (the art critic of De Tijd) and Kasper Niehaus (the critic of De Telegraaf).13 A slightly less dramatic presentation of things seems to be in order. In our file of fourteen art reviews we find two other articles that deviate from the general mood. True, the critic of Het Vrije Volk, Bob Buys, is fairly non-committal but he does not think it “unsympathetic” that the management of the museum allows space to the group of artists. And in De Tijd we find, apart from Engelman”s review, also an article signed with “M” – probably written by the sculptor Marius van Beek- in which he literally says: “At times their talent is truly remarkable [...], at times they have a fantastic sense of colour (De Tijd 4.11.1949)”.14 When in 1951, in Luik a second group exhibition was held, the newspapers generally adopted a more moderate and appreciative attitude but it would not be correct to assume that the critics had adjusted their judgment. The few articles that appeared in Dutch papers - altogether five - were all written by correspondents or critics for the occasion. For the regular art critics Luik may have been too far away or not important enough. That the general judgment about Cobra - or to be more precise: about the Dutch members thereof - did not really change very quickly, appears from many reviews from the early fifties. A few quotes: There is no sign of a love of art, nothing of the struggle to penetrate into the spirit of things with oh, so unmanageable material, nothing of the honesty of the real artist who tries to develop the talent that he has been endowed with in the best possible manner (Algemeen Handelsblad 15.9.1951) Eyes are always the same black dots, legs are stripes, hands empty gloves picked up from the street. All this is surrounded by garish daubs of colour that faintly hint at some sort of form (Haagsche Courant 20.10.1953)

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The daubs of ripolin that are to suggest an explosion of the brilliance of a genius, but only serve to fill us with disgust may well be a feature of a world replete with culture, but they lack the disciplined dynamics to turn even this kind of nihilism into a tragic accusation (De Tijd 3.7.1954).

The most negative reaction we find in Algemeen Handelsblad, Elsevier”s Weekblad, Het Parool and De Waarheid. Critics in these papers say this cannot be called “real art” and they were not afraid to use words as “messy”, “childish” and “food for psychiatrists”. One repeatedly comes across the same points of criticism, not only in the papers just mentioned but also elsewhere. First, the objection that what Cobra did, was nothing new and that they simply repeated the experiments of the inter-bellum period. That particular objection has become famous through a headline above an article in which an issue of Reflex was reviewed: “Schon dada gewesen”. Artists who present themselves as avant-garde could not be more deeply offended. Still, in the early fifties the Cobra painters never gave any reaction. The writers with whom they were associated, however, did. They did not deny the influence of the historical avantgarde, but at the same time emphasized that their work was the expression of their personal way of dealing with this form of art.15 The second objection that was formulated against Cobra was that the group started from a wrong conception of art. The critics especially disapproved of the importance that the artists attached to spontaneity. In their eyes the making of art required a certain measure of control and command and that is what they missed in the work of the “experimental” painters. This objection shows that the critics were familiar with the contents of various articles in Cobra and Reflex in which the painters tried to develop an aesthetic program of their own. A substantial part of the newspaper criticism at the end of the forties and in the early fifties consists of attempts to refute that program. Various critics fought the “experimental” painters with their own weapons. This is particularly true for their primitivism. If the artists argued that they found their models in the art of children, “primitive artists” and psychiatric patients, the critics compared their art and concluded that the painters were the losing party when compared to the examples they had set themselves:

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Nico Laan They keep running around in circles and this results in the following kind of drawings: little dolls, faces, figurines, moons, air balloons, towers, ships that we – really! - have seen before, made by children but then much better and much more spontaneously and unconsciously drawn. For children can express themselves like children and adults will never be able to enter that paradise again (Het Parool 4.10.1951).

The third and last objection that the critics formulated against Cobra actually concerned those who sympathized with them. The argument ran that the artists received protection from a small “clique” of Amsterdam socialites. The Director of the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam, Sandberg, was their primary target. Many art reviews attack his person and his policy and they accuse him of dictatorial management and unconditionally choosing the side of the avant-garde.16 Indeed Sandberg has been very important for Cobra. He supported the group in every possible way. First, he did so by facilitating and organizing exhibitions. The exhibition of 1949 was not the last. In the years that followed, the work of many Dutch Cobra members was regularly exhibited in the museum. So regular that even one of the few critics who was kindly disposed towards Sandberg once ironically remarked that there were “three Constant Painters in the House of the Director”, Appel, Constant and Corneille (De Telegraaf 6.12.1952). Sandberg also gave support by buying their work.17 As the museum had a very modest budget, this kind of support could only be limited. But Sandberg also acted as a consultant to De Bijenkorf and with money of this company he also bought Cobra art, which he then gave to the Stedelijk Museum to use. Furthermore, he commissioned Appel to paint the coffee room and networked for the artists. Other members of the “clique” around Cobra are not mentioned by name by the critics but they must have had in mind various collectors, such as Mr. and Mrs. Visser and Mr. and Mrs. Sanders. It is more difficult to say whether this supposed “clique” also included art dealers. Most exhibitions of the Cobra painters were one time only. Only Martinet & Michels and Le Canard were particularly interested in “modern art” but not exclusively in Cobra.18 Sandberg regularly visited both art galleries and in 1954 he asked Van Loenen Martinet if he was prepared to become Keeper of the Prints. Piet Sanders was legal counselor to Sandberg. Martin Visser worked for De Bijenkorf. It is not difficult to see that the existence of such contacts and relations gave art critics cause to speak of a

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“clique” around Cobra and that they objected to developments in the world of art that they considered dangerous. As they were almost unanimous in their rejection, they were in a very strong position and in the early fifties there seemed to be little future for the Dutch Cobra painters.

3. Change of Judgment of Leading Critics? In 1955 Appel got an exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam followed by Corneille. Moreover, in 1956 the works of both were on show in the Stedelijk Museum of Schiedam. This museum used to be a historical cabinet but had become interested in “modern art”, in Cobra in particular. A study of the reviews of these exhibitions show that the attitude towards the Dutch Cobra painters is changing. There is still a lot of disapproval, yes. There are still critics who have little sympathy for them or even claim that their work does not deserve the name of art, but their numbers are dwindling. That change becomes particularly clear when we see that of the four papers who used to lead the attack, three now show themselves to be kindly disposed towards Appel and/or Corneille.19 This is rather a surprising development considering the almost general rejection of a few years earlier. When we compare the “experimental” painters with their writer colleagues we notice that the mood can change even more quickly as the writers had already become generally accepted. Appel c.s. needed to be slightly more patient but what we see is that various art critics already provide for the future by describing Cobra as an historic movement and qualifying some of its members as artists who have demonstrated their talents. When Appel and Corneile are criticized at all, the critique often concerns their current work: their earlier work, particularly that of the start of Cobra is more often praised.20 How can this change in appreciation be explained? According to the so-called institutional approach in the study of arts and literature, critics are avid readers of other critics” reviews and take good note of statements made by their colleagues. These serve to test their own judgments that cannot be checked in any other way. Also by taking into account what other critics say, it is possible

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for a critic to diminish his feelings of uncertainty – and there is a great deal of uncertainty when it concerns “modern art”.21 It is this kind of conduct that explains that judgments of critics gradually converge over time. This process is called “orchestration”, a term which is derived from the sociologist Bourdieu, who is the founding father of the institutional approach. Though the fine-tuning among critics does not result from any specific rules, it still seems to be imposed upon them. For as more and more art critics agree on the importance of a certain artist or group of artists, there is a growing tendency among those who originally thought differently to conform to this growing consensus. This does not mean there are no exceptions. Art critics are always competing for respect for their opinions and want to impose their own judgments of taste. They will look for opportunities to distinguish themselves. The most appropriate way to do so is “to discover” artists, i.e.: to be the first to identify the special qualities of a writer or a painter. This is the way to become a leading critic - someone other people look for to help them formulate their own judgments. So consensus may originate in the judgment of a single critic. It certainly helps when such a critic already is considered an authority and writes for an important paper, for then he will the more readily be listened to. But it might also be possible for a young critic with a modest position to get his colleagues to agree with him and thus bring about a change of appreciation. In order to determine whether the turnabout in the case of Cobra can be explained by means of the idea of “orchestration” it seems sensible to first discuss the older critics and then the new generation. To the group of older critics belong Jan Engelman, W. Jos de Gruyter, Kasper Niehaus and Cornelis Veth. The moment that Cobra was founded they had been active for many decades and in the course of the years had established a reputation. In the interbellum period they had more than once used their reputation and position to promote certain artists. Was the breakthrough of the Dutch Cobra painters also the result of such an action? In other words: did they - or did any of them - succeed in convincing their younger colleagues of the qualities of Cobra, aided by the authority they possessed? In one case this is highly unlikely. About Veth it is said that already before the Second World War he was very conservative in his judgments and that his frame of reference had been formed “by the art

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of half a century before”.22 Moreover our collection contains only one review of his hand. Engelman too seems not a likely candidate. One often comes across remarks to the effect that he had some difficulty connecting up with post-war innovations particularly with “experimental” writers and painters.23 Still, it was said earlier that he was one of the few who wrote a sympathetic review about the Cobra exhibition of 1949. Was this review an exception? No. In 1951 he wrote an article in which he called Appel “a talented man”, “a born painter”, “a promise”: This becomes clear from almost indefinable things in surface divisions, colour combinations, the stroke of the brush and that what one hesitates to call the “touch” (but still is). Of the savages that started a few years ago, he is the most remarkable, the most important. I am curious to know what he will develop into when this Sturm und Drang period is over (De Tijd 26.9.1951).

So Engelman is not just a straightforward conservative. However, there is no evidence that he ever made an effort to actively promote Cobra. In as far as he ever did his best to promote any artist, these were the same as he used to protect before.24 W. Jos de Gruyter seems to be the person we are looking for. He is well-known for being one of the strongest advocates of the avant-garde and one of the first in the Netherlands who wrote a book which chronicled the innovations in twentieth century art. He also shared with Cobra an interest in primitive art. From the thirties onwards he regularly wrote about this kind of art and compared it with that of the European avant-garde. Still, he did not do much to promote Cobra: he was more interested in Ouborg, a painter who had been invited to join the Experimentele Groep but had declined the invitation. On various occasions he expressed his preference for this painter and he also did so in his rewritten version of his book on European art of 1954. The final chapter of this book deals with “abstract and experimental art”. It is true that he starts his discussion on this kind of art with Appel c.s but he leaves the highest praise for Ouborg, who according to him, is partly related to the Amsterdam painters and is described by him as “the most surprising of all Dutchmen who work from similar artistic assumptions”.25 We then come to the last of the generation of older critics: Kasper Niehaus. We know him already as one of the few who in 1949 wrote sympathetically about Cobra. It is said that in the thirties he be-

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came more and more categorical in his disapproval of the innovations in art but after the war he “showed more sympathy” especially “towards younger artists”.26 We also know that he maintained very good relations with Sandberg, who considered him - together with De Gruyter- as the only critic who knew his job.27 We also come across his name in Cobra 4, which served as a covering booklet for the exhibition in 1949. Besides reproductions of the work of Cobra painters, this issue contains reproductions of two “peintres du dimanche hollandaise”, which are said to be from the collection of Niehaus. This makes one curious to know more. The files of the RKD and the Stedelijk Museum together contain four reviews written by Niehaus. As there was reason to assume that he played a role in the breakthrough of the Dutch Cobra painters, it seemed worthwhile to check existing file collections to see if he wrote anything else about Cobra until his retirement from the paper he worked for (in 1956). A systematic check of the newspaper ledgers yielded eleven more articles. However, none of these are reviews of exhibitions of (members) of Cobra - that is probably the reason why they have not been included. Partly they are articles about other subjects or other artists with side remarks about Cobra. For instance, about the art collection of the Director of the Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Hannema he writes: This man who thirsts for beauty even owns an Appel (Karel)! So he does not lack the insight that beauty – or truth – of the past is not essentially different from that of the present (De Telegraaf 11.9.1952).

In a later article dealing with an exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam he defends Appel against the accusation that he would be a “coarse” painter and he calls the use of colours in one his paintings “French-refined” (De Telegraaf 7.5.1955). But even more important than these articles, there are others in which Niehaus defines his position with respect to “modern art”. In one of these articles he praises Sandberg, in two he discusses post-war Dutch art and in five others he reacts to statements of other critics.28 Especially the last five articles are interesting, as they show that Niehaus regularly feels called upon to defend “modern art”. He did so just as passionately as De Gruyter but had to admit that his current convictions were slightly different from those before the war. He explained this as follows:

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A truly modern art did not really exist at the time in our country and it exists now. For me: I am very pleased and am proud of that (De Telegraaf 1.11.1952).

Headings such as “New wave of vitality since the war” and “Dutch art is certainly alive and kicking” show that Niehaus sincerely welcomed the latest developments with pleasure. The foundation of the Experimentele Groep and later Cobra were part of these developments. Niehaus often wrote about the painters of both groups and always with appreciation. His admiration was perhaps most explicitly worded in the next passage: Averse to the refined paintings with the subtle nuances of the impressionists and “fauves” they returned to the basic principles, they rediscovered the pure means of art and gave us the beautiful blues, reds and yellows: for them too barbarism is rejuvenation. It may be true that for many people their modernism is “negro new”, their paintings may remind some of the frescoes of the snake charmers of Tanganyika rather than of expressions of the European mind. Still it would be foolish to deny that they are talented and have vitality (De Telegraaf 12.9.1953)

That Niehaus defended the Dutch Cobra painters will not have gone unnoticed among his colleagues. He was not alone. That becomes clear when we shift our attention from the older generation critics to the newcomers, i.e. to those who just before the war or - in most cases - in the years that followed started as art critics. This group consists of about thirty people. They were not all active at the same time. Some stopped their activities very soon, others stayed on for a longer period of time but only few of them can be compared to De Gruyter and Niehaus in the sense that they wrote for one or more papers for decades on end. It would be impossible to deal with all thirty of them in the same way as we did with the older generation. It is also unnecessary. If we want to determine who of these newcomers wanted to build a reputation by making a striking and innovative choice, only a few of them are really important. First we will discuss Bob Buys and Marius van Beek. Of the former we said earlier that he did not think it “unsympathetic” that the Stedelijk Museum offered Cobra exhibition space. The files of the RKD and the Stedelijk Museum altogether include five reviews of

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Buys. They are from 1949, 1954, 1955 and 1956. Although most of these appeared at a rather late date they do not show unreserved appreciation. For instance in 1956 he states that Corneille repeats himself too much. Buys also keeps his distance from Cobra so he can hardly have been the one who persuaded his colleagues to change their judgment. Neither is Marius van Beek the man we are looking for. We know him from three art reviews: one from 1949, one from 1955 and one from 1956. Two of these are favourable. But Van Beek”s very modest position makes it unlikely that his judgment was taken much note of. That is not true for Cees Doelman, who wrote both for Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant en De Groene Amsterdammer. Both papers paid a lot of attention to the visual arts. Doelman also had other channels through which he could express his points of view. For years he was a member of the Advisory Board of Contour: a yearly exhibition, organized by museum Het Prinsenhof, which aimed at giving a survey of “frontline artists” i.e. artists whose “work is prominent at the moment and which shows the greatest potential for the near future”.29 Doelman is said to have been an admirer of Cobra.30 So it is worth investigating if he was the one who – together with Niehaus – managed to convince his colleagues of the merits of the Dutch Cobra painters. In order to find out a systematic study was made of the back volumes of two of the papers to which he contributed up to 1956. The first thing we find is that Doelman was not always an admirer of Cobra. In 1949 he was just as unfavourably disposed as the majority of his colleagues and he called the exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum a “torture of beauty” (De Groene Amsterdammer 12.11.1949). From 1952 onwards Doelman started thinking differently. In that year he wrote three articles about Cobra, one of which was on the occasion of the Contour of that year, which showed Appel and Corneille for the first time. Though still not quite won over, his attitude had clearly changed. For instance, he praised Appel for his “colour wizardry” and was pleased with the development he saw in the work of Constant.31 In later articles his reservations have completely disappeared as is shown by the passage below which is devoted to Appel: His art is the immediate reflection of intensely felt emotions and experiences and when expressing these in his art by means of his materials and

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colours, this strong painter”s temperament is carried into a state of rapture. Moreover, he surprises us again and again with his pure instinct for visual expression with his dynamic, uncommonly forceful language of colours and the expressive value of structure (Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant 23.4.1955).

Doelman”s colleagues will certainly have taken note of these judgments, the more so as he played a rather important role in the world of “modern art” and, among other things, was a member of the committee that decided on the Dutch contribution to the Biënnale in Venice in 1954. Among the group of those who were selected were Appel and Corneille.

4. Other Factors Is there a complete and satisfactory answer to the question how and why the appreciation of Cobra changed? No, it is not as simple as that. First, it is difficult to assess the influence that Doelman and Niehaus possibly exercised. Critics prefer not to refer to each other. Neither do we come across critics who explicitly revoke earlier judgments and explain why they changed their mind. After some time we hardly ever hear that Appel c.s. copy the innovations of the pre-war artists or that children and psychiatric patients are better painters but none of the reviewers feels the need to explicitly dissociate themselves from these objections. It is not difficult to see why critics behave as they do because they would put their authority at risk if they changed their mind too often and too radically and when they do, it is in their own interest to do so as quietly as possible. It is usually their opponents or artists that suffered at the hands of the critics who draw attention to changes of judgment. For instance, the “experimental” writers made fun of critics who first rejected them and later praised them.32 Their painter colleagues had no comments. Only two art historians made – years later – ironical remarks about critics whose “caterpillars of venom gradually metamorphosed into butterflies of admiration”.33 In the absence of explanations and references we have to make do with less explicit, more subtle signals when trying to establish the influence of Doelman and Niehaus. In the analyses of the studies that were consulted for this article a reasonable case is made for the possibility to show up the workings of influence by identifying

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the adoption of certain ideas and associated vocabulary. This is not an easy task in our case. For what strikes us is that repeated attempts of Doelman to give the Cobra painters a historical place by calling them “expressionists” - quite the usual thing nowadays - were ignored by his colleagues. But they do often use the word “expression”. Furthermore, many critics - like Doelman - seem to take it for granted that the work of Appel c.s. is the “immediate reflection of intensely felt emotions and experiences”. But does this idea originate with Doelman? They may just as well have derived the idea from the artists themselves. Similarly there is uncertainty about other elements in the critical reviews of those days. For instance, from 1952 onwards Niehaus regularly refers to Appel as “the Appelles of the experimentelen”. Has this repeated reference resulted in the judgment that Appel was the most important painter? And can the distinction that is generally made between Appel and Corneille be traced back to an early review in which Niehaus writes about the “bold, strong Appel” and “the quiet Corneille” (De Telegraaf 12.9.1953)? Even if these questions could be answered affirmatively, we still have no explanation for the change in appreciation. Doelman and Niehaus may have initiated that change but they did not direct it. Frequent changes of critics played an important role in the acceptance of Cobra. From 1953 on various papers engaged new critics and every new critic was almost invariably more kindly disposed towards Cobra than his predecessor.34 Unfortunately, hardly anything is known about the reasons for these changes. It would be especially interesting to know if this was the result of any policy and if the editors or the management deliberately aimed at embarking on a new course. We know of an example in the area of literary criticism, where one of the fiercest opponents of the “experimental” writers Hendrik de Vries - was told by the editors of the paper he worked for, to leave reviews of the work of younger writers to a colleague who was especially appointed for the task. The readers of the paper were informed that someone had been chosen who was not of the same generation but “close enough to these young writers and their work, to be able to look at and judge their work from their point of view” (Vrij Nederland 4.41953). The new critic was editor of a literary magazine that had chosen the side of the “experimental” writers. Shortly after

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that one of those writers - Gerrit Kouwenaar - came to work for that same paper. This example makes clear that consensus does not only arise when critics adjust their judgment to each other: it may also be partly created by editorial boards. To be able to determine if this is not only true for “experimental” literature but also for “experimental” art, we would need to have access to editorial archives. At the moment we know of only one paper that they deliberately looked for a critic with “progressive views” on the visual arts.35 The emergence of consensus can further be influenced by artists, directors of museums, collectors or owners of art galleries. Especially artists are often very influential. From various studies it appears that art critics, essay writers and academic researchers alike consider artists as authorities - first in the area of their own work but also in a broader sense - and therefore tend to be guided by them.36 In the case of Cobra we know that various members were intensively involved in the creation of an image around the group but then we are talking about a time that comes after the period we are concerned with in this article.37 Little is known about contacts between Cobra and critics in the fifties. Much more is known about the role that directors of museums played in the breakthrough of Cobra. We already discussed the activities of Sandberg. Opposition against the course he adopted gradually diminished in the middle of the fifties. The fact that at that time not only the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam but also that of Schiedam and the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven had chosen the side of Cobra will have played a role.38 Besides it will not have escaped the critics” notice that attempts were made in the world of the museums to give Cobra a firm place in the history of art. In 1955 two surveys of Dutch art appeared. One of these was written by the Director of the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Hammacher. In the last chapter, devoted to the post-war period, he pays attention to Appel, Constant and Corneille. He was not enamoured by any of them, but he did think that they were interesting from a historical perspective. The second survey, to which a great many people contributed, went back to the sixteenth century. For our purposes only the chapter on “Painting in the Twentieth Century” is of interest. It is written by Knuttel, former Director of the Gemeentemuseum of The Hague. In his discussion of Cobra he too limited himself to Appel,

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Constant and Corneille. But compared to his colleague of the Kröller Müller he was much more appreciative.39 Just as in the case of Doelman and Niehaus it is difficult to formulate firm statements on the influence of these kinds of actions. What is certain is that they contributed to improving the climate around “experimental” and other “modern” artists. In this connection it is relevant to point out that there were close contacts between critics and museums. Some – like De Gruyter – became directors of museums and others – like Doelman – collaborated with them.40 As the Dutch Cobra painters were never exclusively tied up with any one particular art gallery, the influence of the art dealers can never have been great and the possible influence of collectors has never been researched. Finally, we need to say something about quite a different kind of influence, namely from abroad. In the course of the twentieth century art criticism has increasingly become an international affair and that has an effect on the way consensus arises, if only because the national discussion is often strongly dominated by judgments which originated elsewhere. In the case of the Dutch Cobra painters foreign countries started to play a role when Appel, Constant and Corneille left for Paris in 1950. From that moment on they made an important part of their career abroad. The Dutch newspapers informed their readers of the triumphs of these painters. In the files of the RKD we regularly come across cuttings with news about exhibitions abroad and awards that were won. Appel”s career in particular was very successful. He soon had exhibitions in Paris and Brussels, Martha Graham bought his work and in 1954 he received an award at the Biënnale in Venice. Naturally Dutch sympathizers made the most of these successes. Niehaus, for instance, devotes an article to the Biënnale award in which he subtly pointed out that “this prophet of experimentalism” was honoured abroad and that foreign critics thought much more highly of him than critics used to do in his own country (De Telegraaf 3.8.1954). At first opponents of Appel shrugged their shoulders and made sneering remarks but in the long run it was hard to keep up that attitude and foreign praise inevitably started to influence the judgments of Dutch critics. So all in all it is rather a complicated business to try to explain the growing consensus about the qualities of the Dutch Cobra painters.

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We can only indicate the general direction in which the answer to this intriguing question can be found. Furthermore, our investigation has taught us three lessons. First, clear criteria are needed for the analysis and assessment of reviews. At the moment this is done rather intuitively, as it is often difficult enough to establish whether a given judgment is positive, negative or neutral. It would also help if we had clear criteria to establish the influence of leading critics. And finally, there should be more clarity about the interaction of factors that determine reputations for only this would enable us to offer more than the kind of inventories such as are given above.

5. The Fate of the Loner The conclusion stands but the story is not finished yet. There is one loose end to be tied up which may teach us something about the way criticism works. We stopped in the middle of the fifties. In the years that followed the opponents of the Dutch Cobra painters were not quite defeated. Particularly the critic of Het Parool - Prange - put up a stubborn resistance against these and other forms of “modern art”. Sometimes he sounded tired. He then wrote that he “had already put forward his objections so many times” and had demonstrated that “all this could not really be taken for art” (Het Parool 27.7.1957). But he never lost courage because he considered it “the duty of a critic who loves art” to speak out when he is a witness to a further degeneration” (Het Parool 13.11.1957). A few years earlier this was quite a respectable opinion, shared by almost all his colleagues. But some were no longer active and in the meantime others had partly or completely changed their mind. As a result Prange lost his authority. It is the critic”s fate that he can only prove himself through his colleagues. If they agree with him, he is right. If for any longer period of time his judgment differs from that of others - or the majority - doubt will arise as to his powers of discretion and people will start wondering if he is the right man for the job. Eventually Prange had only one ally. He was Niehaus” successor: Hans Engelman, a nephew of Jan. His appointment shows that the remarks we made about the improved climate around the Dutch

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Cobra painters need some modification. Whereas all the newly hired critics had more appreciation for them than their predecessors and that in one case we are certain that the editors approved of this, it was of all papers the very newspaper that Niehaus had worked for which took on someone who did not want to have anything to do with Cobra. We do not know if this was a matter of policy but it is clear that with Engelman we are back to where we started. Not only his judgments and his arguments are echoes of the kind of criticism of the late forties and early fifties, even the very tone is of that time. For instance he accuses Appel of “forced lawlessness”, he criticized “the hollowness and poverty of his forms” and was irritated by “the nihilistic refusal to take anything whatsoever seriously” (De Telegraaf 3.12.55 and 6.2.58). Engelman”s support was not enough to save Prange. In the second half of the fifties he was increasingly considered “a case”. Colleagues avoided him; at meetings and varnishing parties he stood alone. He also suffered as an artist: according to his biographer no museum bought his work anymore, because the critic had written the artist out of existence.41 In 1957 Prange published a small book in which he summarized his objections against innovations in the visual arts. He discussed the Cobra painters only indirectly but that did not mean that he was kind. He derided their love of the art of “children and mental defectives” and illustrated his point by putting pictures of works of art next to pictures of children, remarking that the similarities were striking and the child outpainted the artist.42 His book caused some stir in editorial rooms of Het Parool. Various members of the Stichtingsbestuur (“Board of Foundation”) had more than once expressed their displeasure about Prange. When the book was scathingly criticized - a review written by Doelman - one of them informed the Board that they wanted to reconsider position of the critic. “You know that we have been warning for years”, he wrote to the General Manager, “that our newspaper adheres to a policy that is the opposite of progressive”.43 The writer of that letter was Piet Sanders. We know him already as a Cobra collector and legal counselor to Sandberg. In the small world that was interested in “modern art” in the fifties, he was a man of substance. As legal advisor he was a member of the purchase committee of the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. Besides that he

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was on committees and boards of the Museum Boymans -Van Beuningen, Rijksmuseum Kröller- Müller and the Stedelijk Museum of Schiedam. Also as a result of his influence the latter museum had started to buy work of the Dutch Cobra painters.44 The chief editor of Het Parool supported their critic so Prange kept his job. However, the paper started looking for someone who could take over some of Prange”s responsibilities – a construction which, we saw, was used before in connection with “experimental” literature. Various names circulated among which was the name of Jaffé, the Deputy Director of the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam and those of two “experimental” writers. But it all came to nothing. A number of years later it was the readers who protested. They thought it was absolutely outrageous that anyone with such conservative ideas wrote for a progressive newspaper. But nothing changed because the chief editor ignored this criticism. Eventually Prange left of his own accord, in 1962. That was the year in which Sandberg organized his last summer exhibition titled: “The Dutch Contribution to International Developments since 1945”. And it is this very exhibition that is generally supposed to have propelled Cobra up the ladder of international art and to have given the movement canonical status.45

Notes 1

See for an extensive description of the history of both the Experimentele Groep and Cobra Stokvis 2001.

2

This applies among others to Gerrit Benner and Piet Ouborg.

3

See for a description of the emergence of the division in Dutch sculpture Teeuwisse 2004. See for critical reactions to the “experimental” writers De Jager 1992.

4

See among others DeNora 1995, Janssen 1994, Kapsis 1992, Mulkay/Chaplin 1982, Van Rees 1987 and Schwartz 1988.

5

6

Wintgens 1987.

For instance this applies to the use that Van Houts 2000 makes of Appel’s collection of cuttings.

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7

This even applies to an extremely thorough study such as that of Van Adrichem 2001.

8

Examples are Harry Prenen (Elsevier’s Weekblad, de Volkskrant), Gabriël Smit (de Volkskrant) and Jan Engelman (De Tijd). 9

This applies to among others Bob Buys, Johan Dijkstra, Jan Engelman, Otto B. de Kat, Wim Kersten, George Lampe, Kasper Niehaus, Gabriël Smit and Charles Wentinck.

10

For instance, of the Cobra exhibition of 1949 only one review was found which is missing in both collections, namely that of Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant. 11

Van Houts 2000 (chapter 4, 5, 6).

12

Stokvis 2001: 251ff.

13

Stokvis 2001: 287n 190.

14

According to Schrama (1966: 448) Van Beek was responsible for the layout and editor for the visual arts of De Tijd from 1945 to 1959 and after that contributed articles till 1974. 15

Laan 2005.

16

Wintgens 1984.

17

See Roodenburg-Schadd 1999, 2002.

18

See Gubbels 1999 (chapter 2) for the art trade at the end of the forties and the early fifties. Information about collectors can be found in Steenbergen 2002. The term “modern art” is put between quotes because it has ideological connotations. See Laan 1994. 19

See Algemeen Handelsblad 20.12.1955 and 19.6.1956, Elsevier’s Weekblad 10.12.1955 and De Waarheid 18.6.1956. 20

See for instance Algemeen Handelsblad 19.6.1956, Haagsch Dagblad 31.12.1955 and Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant 22.12.1955 21 Janssen 1994, Van Rees 1987. For the uncertainty in judging “modern art” see Oosterbaan Martinus 1990 (chapter 1). 22

Van Adrichem 2001: 251.

23

Feikema/Koot/Lucas 2000, Fens 2000.

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113

Examples are Pyke Koch and Hendrik Wiegersma.

25

De Gruyter 1954: 273. See for De Gruyter and the avant-garde Van Adrichem 2001: 223. See for his primitivism Laan 2000: 103f. 26

Roodenburg-Schadd 1999: 70.

27

Leeuw-Marcar 1981: 153f.

28

See De Telegraaf 3.5.1952, 1.11.1952, 11.11.1952, 22.11.1952, 12.9.1953, 17.4.1954, 24.4.1954 and 7.8.1954.

29

Cat. exhibition Contour onzer beeldende kunsten 1951. Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft.

30

Van Adrichem 2001: 376f. For Doelman’s taste see also Jansen 1986.

31

See Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant 9.2.1952, 25.2.1952 and 15.11.1952.

32

Laan 2005.

33

Emmens/De Jongh 1981: 121.

34

This applies for instance to Hans Redeker (who joined Algemeen Handelsblad in 1953), George Lampe (who in the same year joined Vrij Nederland) and Lambert Tegenbosch (who since 1955 worked for de Volkskrant).

35

This applies to De Linie which in 1955 chose Ko Sarneel as a successor to Geurt Brinkgreve (Boersema 1978: 329f). 36 See for the influence of the artist apart from the studies mentioned in note 4 also Greenfeld 1989, Laan 2005 and Tempel 1999. 37

Birtwistle 1998.

38

For Cobra purchases of Museum Van Abbe see Pingen 2002: 29.

39

Hammacher 1955: 168ff, Knuttel 1955: 51ff.

40

From 1955 Doelman had been on the Advisory Committee of Museum Van Abbe (Pingen 2002: 26). 41

Rothuizen 1983.

42

Prange 1957.

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43

Mulder/Koedijk 1996: 382ff.

44 Both the managerial positions of Sanders and his collection are discussed in Steenbergen 2002. 45

Roodenburg-Schadd 2002: 19.

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De God Hai-Hai en rabarber. Met het kapmes door de jungle der moderne kunst. Zaandijk.

Rees, C.J. van 1983 “How a Literary Work Becomes a Masterpiece. On the Threefold Selection Practised by Literary Criticism”. In: Poetics 12, 397-417. 1987 “How Reviewers Reach Concensus on the Value of Literary Work”. In: Poetics 16: 275-294. Roodenburg-Schadd, C. 1999 “Bijko, buyko, buykoop. Willem Sandberg, het Stedelijk Museum en de Bijenkorf-collectie”. In: Jong Holland 15, 2: 62-78. Roodenburg-Schadd, C. 2002 “Expressie en ordening. Het verzamelbeleid van Sandberg en Jaffé in het Stedelijk Museum, 1945-1963”. In: Jong Holland 18, 2: 1219. Rothuizen, W. 1983 “J.M. Prange in de jungle der moderne kunst”, in: M. van Amerongen / R. O. van Gennep (red.), Het orgasme van Lorre. Nieuwe verhalen, gedichten en artikelen. Amsterdam: 199-210. Schrama, N. 1996

Dagblad De Tijd, 1845-1974. Nijmegen.

Schwartz, L.H. 1988 Creating Faulkner”s Reputation. The Politics of Modern Literary Criticism. Knoxville. Steenbergen, R. 2002 Iets dat zo veel kost, is alles waard. Verzamelaars van moderne kunst in Nederland. Amsterdam.

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“Reacties in de kranten op het beleid van het Stedelijk Museum”. In: W. Stokvis (red.), De doorbraak van de moderne kunst in Nederland, de jaren 1945-1951. Amsterdam: 93-106. “Achterhoede-gevecht tegen een artistieke voorhoede. Kunstkritiek tussen 1945 en 1955”. In: Metropolis M 7, 5/6: 34-37.

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Avant-Garde Reviewing of New Book Releases A Case Study from The Netherlands Hugo Verdaasdonk The stands taken by an avant-gardist reviewer on contemporary literary production are perceived as differing strongly from the views expressed by other critics. In this study, network analysis was used as a means of formally characterizing and weighting this difference. Reviewing is a collective practice: positions taken by individual critics depend on those taken by their fellow critics. The aim of a review is to highlight the idiosyncrasy of the text under discussion. This aim is achieved by identifying relations of complemental difference.

1. Introduction I analyzed the way in which three Dutch literary critics, Aad Nuis (b. 1933), Tom van Deel (b. 1945), and Jacq Firmin Vogelaar (b. 1944) reviewed new book releases by Gerrit Krol (b. 1934) and by Louis Paul Boon (1912-1979) in the early 1970s. At that time, Vogelaar was regarded as a major Dutch avantgarde author. In his reviews and essays, he defended the cause of a form of literature that used new techniques and showed a sharp awareness of the social and economic conditions under which literary texts were produced, judged, and read. Nuis and Van Deel expressed views which were much more comprehensive: they wrote favourably about authors whose work was rejected by Vogelaar; moreover, they were critical of the literary work and the “theoretical” stands of the latter. After the publication of Het gemillimeterde hoofd (1967), a novel, the Dutch author Gerrit Krol had acquired a reputation for producing highly original work, which was fragmentary in nature, and exhibited a variety of text types. His fiction was held to combine refined literary craftsmanship with expertise in computers and mathematics. With his two novels De Kapellekensbaan (1953) and Zomer te Ter-Muren (1956), the Flemish author Louis Paul Boon had firmly established himself as an avant-gardist with a deep concern for socio-

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political developments, in particular those occurring in Flanders at the end of the 19th century. Boon’s blend of narration and chronicle was considered to be the hallmark of his innovative powers as an artist. He was the Belgian candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature. The question of how Vogelaar regarded his two fellow reviewers cannot be answered without specifying some traits reviews have in common. I hypothesized that the aim of a literary review is to highlight in brief what is seen as the idiosyncrasy of the text under discussion. As I will argue, this aim is achieved by characterizing literary works in terms of relations of complemental difference which are supposed to hold between elements of the text under review (Section 2). A review of a new book release contributes to its author’s image among other reviewers and the reading public. An individual review is part of a collective endeavor. Therefore, the stand a reviewer takes on a new release by an author who has produced a more or less substantial body of work is often also shaped by what other reviewers had to say about this author’s previous publications or about the newly published title, or both. In the course of time, the joint efforts of reviewers, critics and scholars yield consensus about works that are regarded as exhibiting superior quality (cf. Verdaasdonk 1983). The community of literary critics oversees a repertoire of works (and authors) that constitute a nation’s literary heritage. Over time, this repertoire undergoes changes: new titles are added to it; titles included in the repertoire are maintained or removed. Such decisions require consensus about the characteristics and value of particular literary works. It is important, then, to characterize the view a critic expresses on a new release relative to what others have said about the title in question or about the author’s previous works. The collective aspect of reviewing will be discussed in Section 3. After presenting the data on the reviews in my sample (Section 4), I will argue that network analysis is an appropriate instrument for assessing the opinions expressed by reviewers and for characterizing these views relative to one another (Section 5). My approach was relational in nature. Like Bourdieu (1984) and Mohr (1998), I believe that structural properties of social and cultural phenomena can best be assessed using methods to measure the similarities and differences between individual phenomena. Social and cultural phenomena are

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multidimensional in nature, in that they are perceived on various dimensions at the same time. The results are given in Section 6. Section 7 contains some concluding remarks.

2. Relations of Complemental Difference as Mirrors of the Idiosyncrasy of Literary Works As argued elsewhere (Verdaasdonk 1979), literary criticism and literary scholarship are tightly bound up with conceptions of literature, i.e., normative ideas about the characteristics a text should have in order to be considered a form of literature. Consequently, discourses on literature have strong normative overtones. In spite of these common traits, there are substantial differences in the content of individual conceptions of literature. Literary criticism lacks an explicit meta-language specifying the conditions under which literary terminology applies to texts (cf. Verdaasdonk 2000). In consequence, there are no procedures for operationalizing terms or for testing statements about literary texts. Everyday language is considered a reliable tool for presenting insights into the composition, meaning, and value of literary works. The reading process is seen as a legitimate manner of gaining such insights (cf. Verdaasdonk 1981). It seems strange that very few efforts have been made to overcome this lack of explicit procedures and to endow the study of literature with problems and methods that are akin to those current in the social sciences. In my view, this is because literary criticism continues to adhere to an age-old ideal according to which the assessment of a text’s idiosyncrasy - its “uniqueness” is a central aim in dealing with literature. When making general statements or giving causal or statistical explanations are no objectives of research, the need for an explicit meta-language does not seem urgent. It is held here that literary critics capitalize on the absence of an explicit meta-language to suggest that they successfully capture the idiosyncrasy or “uniqueness” of a literary text. An explicit meta-language gives insight into the conditions under which terms apply to the object of research. In this way, a meta-

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language contributes to the clarity of the characterizations that are given of literary texts. A basic requirement for making descriptive statements is that it should be clear on what grounds elements identified in literary texts are placed in the same category or in different categories. A meta-language helps to satisfy this requirement. It also offers the opportunity to distinguish between the types of statements that are made, i.e., it enables the critic to determine whether statements are descriptive, interpretive or evaluative in nature. Since literary criticism lacks a meta-language, these opportunities are lost. Consequently, the distinction between descriptive and normative statements is often blurred; the categorization of elements deemed to be constitutive of literary texts strongly depends on forms of analogical reasoning (cf. Verdaasdonk 1979, 1994). From this, it follows that no clear line can be drawn between two basic operations performed by critics: those of assessing similarities and differences between elements identified in literary texts. These operations are interdependent. Since no two elements are perfectly identical, the nature of each must first be identified; subsequently, it must be decided whether or not they have a sufficient number of traits in common to be placed in the same category. In analogical reasoning, these two operations are blurred: the critic is free to use his or her discretion in determining whether or not differences between items allow them to be considered similar. Literary critics and reviewers follow a procedure in assessing what in their view constitutes the idiosyncrasy of a text. They characterize a text by observing that it contains several sharp oppositions which, in spite of the distinctness of the two terms, are judged to be amenable to neutralization. However, they never specify how this neutralization is achieved. It is taken to be the accomplishment of the author and it is seen as the hallmark of his or her literary craftsmanship. Such oppositions will be referred to below as relations of complemental difference. Their terms are held to differ strongly from each other; nevertheless, they are also believed to be similar in that both are supposed to be subsumable under a more inclusive category. In Section 5 I shall present a number of relations of complemental difference identified by reviewers in new releases by Krol and Boon.

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Relations of complemental difference can be said to highlight a literary text’s idiosyncrasy on a number of grounds. The individual items between which such relations are posited are always specific to the text under discussion. Presenting them as strongly different from each other supposes that they can be easily identified. However, when it is not clarified how the terms exemplifying a relation of complemental difference can be subsumed under a more inclusive category, each such relation is bound to remain irreducibly singular in nature. Literary critics may be said to assess a text’s idiosyncrasy by capitalizing on the absence of an explicit meta-language. A metalanguage would allow them to lay down criteria for placing items in one category and to determine its level of inclusiveness. The procedure by which critics assess the idiosyncrasy of a text presupposes the absence of an explicit meta-language. Its absence is a condition for the acceptability of the suggestion that items which are presented as strongly dissimilar may nevertheless be subsumed under one and the same category. The absence of a meta-language makes the rejection of this suggestion inconceivable. In my view, Kant’s reflections on what constitutes a “beautiful object” form a clear case of making the assessment of such an object’s unique nature conditional on the absence of an explicit metalanguage, and even on the absence of everyday language. In his Critique of judgment (1968 [1790]), Kant says that a “beautiful object” triggers an “aesthetic judgment”. Neither can be captured by concepts. This makes any “beautiful object” and any “aesthetic judgment” irreducibly singular in nature. Even the use of everyday language may seem to involve too general a view on a work of art, thus misrepresenting its uniqueness, i.e., what makes it different from all other works of art. Implicitly, then, a ban is imposed on the development of an explicit meta-language. Detecting relations of complemental difference is a way not of bridging, but of dissimulating the gap between the use of categorical terms - implying generality - and the focus on a text’s individual nature - implying a concern for differences. Identifying relations of complemental difference in various texts suggests that the texts all exhibit a similar pattern. In spite of this, the idea that the particular oppositions which are found are specific to the text under review (or to the oeuvre of an individual author) supports the belief that high-

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lighting the idiosyncrasy of a text is a major aim of literary criticism. It also lends support to the conviction that, in characterizing texts, identifying differences has priority over identifying similarities. Finally, note that when the reduction of complemental differences is thought to be an achievement of the artistic craftsmanship of an author, the assessment of such differences is strongly conducive to a positive appraisal of the text in question.

3. Reviewing as a Collective Practice That Vogelaar’s position, as an author and as a reviewer, was perceived as that of an avant-gardist implies that the conception of literature he advocated was held to be sharply different from, or even opposed to, the conceptions of literature adopted by his fellow authors and fellow reviewers. The basic tenets of Vogelaar’s conception of literature were (i) everyday language is saturated with fixed meanings expressing social beliefs and prejudices, and (ii) literary works only succeed in breaking away from these beliefs if specific techniques are used which change the way in which readers deal with texts. These issues were phrased in Marxian language. In the 1970s, “progressive” intellectuals had great sympathy for Marxist thought. Moreover, the authors whom Vogelaar considered as his examples, particularly Brecht and Beckett, enjoyed a reputation for being highly sophisticated literary innovators. Very few reviewers endorsed the views propounded by Vogelaar. It should be pointed out, however, that all factors which shape literary opinions and reputations are context- and time-dependent. There are no “intrinsic” factors, i.e., specific ideas about the nature of literature, particular characteristics of literary texts or judgements about the literary production, which, by themselves, mark a critic’s position as being avant-gardist, “traditional” or mainstream in nature. Bourdieu (1984) has rightly argued that the position held in a given social field, and the views induced by this position, depend on the positions of others in the same field during a given period of time. An avant-gardist position is on the periphery of the literary field. Consequently, it requires substantial effort to justify this posi-

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tion, since it lacks the self-evidence of positions between which no strong incompatibilities are believed to exist. A wide variety of arguments can be adduced to defend a peripheral position. In my view, however, holders of such a position are strongly committed to the idea that their stands on the nature of literature are better founded and have greater truth-value than views endorsed by holders of majority positions. However, this claim cannot be upheld. Since conceptions of literature are normative in nature, no solid arguments can be given to prefer a particular conception to another. It follows from this that reviews of new releases from an avant-gardist point of view contribute little, if anything, to the establishment of consensus about the nature and value of literary texts. As suggested above, this consensus is a necessary condition for making decisions about the composition of the repertoire of works which, in a given period, are regarded as manifesting superior quality. An avantgardist stand on contemporary literary production must be short-lived, since it has little chance of shaping the opinion of holders of other positions in the literary field. A lack of impact discourages reviewers from developing views that are too radically different from those of their counterparts. I propounded that identifying relations of complemental difference is a common aim of reviewers, and that the assessment of such relations is instrumental in enabling a positive appraisal of the texts under discussion. From the peripheral nature of an avant-gardist position, it follows that the major part of contemporary literary production does not meet the standards which holders of this position wish to apply. For them, there is little reason to identify in current new releases relations of complemental difference that constitute alternatives to those detected by other reviewers. On the other hand, when avant-gardist reviewers intend to give a negative appraisal of a new release, they often face strong limitations on the arguments they may wish to put forward. Since reviewers may be supposed to be well aware of the positions taken by their colleagues on individual texts – in particular when the authors in question have produced a substantial body of work – a negative appraisal often involves a flat denial of the presence of the relations of complemental difference which other reviewers have detected. Such denials are always perfunctory: by its normative nature, a conception of litera-

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ture does not allow it to be argued why a particular relation of complemental difference was erroneously identified. Overseeing a cultural repertoire requires a continuous and long-term formation of consensus. Avant-gardist reviewers seem to be placed at a decided disadvantage here. Their views on contemporary literary production are unlikely to be widely agreed upon by the community of reviewers. Moreover, in so far as their dissenting opinions encompass denials of relations of complemental difference identified by other reviewers, they will not issue these denials repeatedly at each subsequent publication by a given author. Engaging in a long sequence of denials and negative appraisals is harmful to a critic’s status as a member of a community that strives to reach consensus. Therefore, as far as such denials concern works by one individual author, they tend to occur just once.

4. Data on the Reviews of the New Releases by Krol and Boon As stated above, Vogelaar (1974c) represents the position of avantgarde criticism. I selected Aad Nuis (1978c) and Tom van Deel (1980c) as his counterparts. Vogelaar published his reviews in De Groene Amsterdammer, at that time a leftist weekly. Van Deel contributed to Trouw, a Protestant daily with nation-wide circulation. Nuis collaborated with the Haagse Post, a weekly that hovered between leftist and conservative views. My data set was based on Vogelaar’s (1974a) and Van Deel’s (1980b) reviews of De chauffeur verveelt zich, a novel by Gerrit Krol (1973). Nuis’ (1978b) characterizations of Krol’s work stem from his review of Halte opgeheven (1976), a collection of short stories. There is a thin line between reviewers’ assessments of the idiosyncrasy of an individual title by a given author, and their assessments of the idiosyncrasy of the body of work published by this author. Nuis and Van Deel are very positive about Krol’s work. In Nuis’ view, the author is an competent teller of stories in which other types of text, e.g., mathematical formulas, are integrated. These formulas suggest rational thinking and an inclination to logical analysis. However, Nuis sees a tension between these formulas and the emo-

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tions expressed by the narrator. He also points out that, as an artist, Krol proceeds intuitively. Although his stories are fragmented, each part is linked to the story’s central theme. Krol combines making concrete observations with abstract thinking. Van Deel wrote extensively about Krol’s work. His observations are similar to those proposed by Nuis. In Van Deel’s view also, Krol’s fragmentary way of story-telling does not harm the coherence of his texts. He has a high opinion of Krol as an original thinker. Van Deel’s conclusion is that the novel under review shows convincingly how the protagonist, by reflecting on and solving mathematical puzzles, arrives at viable insights into himself as a person, and succeeds in bridging the gap between himself and the world around him. Vogelaar rejects Krol’s novel. Including non-narrative texts in a novel is no achievement and montage is a very common literary technique. Furthermore, Vogelaar judges the puzzles solved by Krol’s main character to be childish in nature. In addition, Krol’s solutions are not the product of c