$18.95
THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF IITS TEe H N 0 LOG I CAL RE If> ROD U C I B IL I TY
walter benjamin THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF ITS
AND OTHER WRITINGS ON MEDIA
TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCIBILITY AND OTHER WRITINGS ON MEDIA Edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin Translated by Edmund Jephcott, Rodney Livingstone, Howard Eiland, and Others
Benjamin's famous "Work of Art" essay sets out his boldest thoughts-on media and on culture in gen eral-in their most highly developed form, while retaining an edge that gets under the skin of every one who reads it. In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory, and then back again to images, gestures, and thought. This essay, however, is only the beginning of a vast collection of writings that the editors have assembled to demonstrate what was revolutionary about Benjamin's explorations on media. Long before Marshall McLuhan, Benjamin saw that the way a bullet rips into its victim is exactly the way a movie or pop song lodges in the soul. This book contains the second, and most dar ing, of the four versions of the "Work of Art" essay the one that addresses the utopian developments of the modern media. The collection tracks Ben jamin'S observations on the media as they are revealed in essays on the production and recep tion of art; on film, radio, and photography; and on the modern
transformations of literature and
painting. The volume contains some of Benjamin's best-known work
alongside fascinating, little
known essays-some appearing for the first time in English. In the context of his passionate engage ment with questions of aesthetics, the scope of
walter benjamin
Benjamin's media theory can be fully appreciated.
-rhe Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media
-,he Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media
WALTER B ENJAMIN
EDITED Michael W. Jennings,
BY
Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin
TRANSLATED Edmund
]ephcott,
BY
R odne y Livingstone, Howard Eiland, and
Others
THE BELKNAP PRESS OF
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England 2008
Copyright © 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All right s rese rved Printed in t he United States of America Additional copyright notices appear on pages 425-426, whic h
constitute an extension of the copyright page. Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940. [Kuostwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischeo Reproduzierbarkeit. English] The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility,
and other writings on media / Walter Benjamin; edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid
Doherty
,
and Thomas Y. Levin;
translated by Edmund Jephcott ... [et al.].-lst ed.
p.
cm.
Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-674-02445-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Art and s ocie ty.
2. Photography of art.
knowledge-Mass media.
6.
Benja mi n
I. Jennings, Michael William.
,
II.
3. Mass media -P hilosophy.
5. Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940-
4. Arts, M odern-20th century-Philosophy.
Walter, 1892-1940-Translations i nt o English.
Doherty
,
IV. Jephcott, Edmund.
Brigid.
III. Levin, Thomas Y.
V. Title.
N72.S6B413 2008 302.23-de22
2008004494
CONTENTS
A
Note on the Texts
IX
1
Editors'Introduction
I. The Production, R eproduction] and R eception of the Work of Art 1. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version
19
2. T heory of Distraction
56
3. To the Planetarium
58
4. Garlanded Entrance
60
5. The Rigorous Study of Art
67
6. Imperial Panorama
75
7. The Telephone
77
8.
79
The Author as Producer
9. Paris, the Cap ital of the Nineteenth Century
96
10. Eduard Fuchs, Collector and Historian
116
11. Review of Sternberger's Panorama
158
II. Script, Image, Script-Image 12. Attested Auditor of Books
171
13. These Surfaces for Rent 14. The Antinomies of Allegorical Exegesis
175
173
15. The Ruin
180
16. Dismemberment of Language
187
17. Graphology Old and New
192
III. Painting and Graphics 18. P a inting and the Graphic Arts
219
19. On Painting, or Sign and Mark
221
20. A Glimpse into the World of Children's Books
226
21. Dream Kitsch
236
v
vi
CONTENTS
22. Moonlit Nights on the Rue La Bo etie
240
23. Chambermaids' Rom ances of the Past Cen tur y
243
24. Antoine Wiertz: Thou ghts and Visions of a Severed Hea d
249
25. Some Remarks on Folk Art
254
26. Chinese Paintings at the Bibliotheque Na tio n a le
257
IV. Photography 27. News about Flowers
271
28. Little History of Photography
274
29. Letter from Paris (2): Painting and Photography
299
30. Review of Freund's Photographie en France au dix-neuvieme 312
s�de
V. Film 31. On the Present Situ ation of Russian Film
323
32. Reply to Oscar A. H. Schmitz
328
33. Chaplin
333
34. Chaplin in Retrospect
335
35. M icke y Mouse
338
36. The Formula in Which the Dial ectical Structure of Film Finds
Expression
340
VI. The Publishing Industry and Radio 37. Journa lism
353
38. A Critique of the Pu blishing Industry
355
39. The Newspaper
359
40. Karl Kraus
361
41. Reflections on Radio
391
42. Theater and Radio
393
43. Conversa tion with Ernst Schoen
397
44. Two Types of Popularity: Fundamental Reflections on a Radio
Play
403
45. On the Minute
407
Index
411
ILLUSTRATIONS
Paul Klee, Abstract Watercolor Max Ernst, fro ntispiec e to Paul Eluard, Repetitions
196 199
Walter Benj ami n , "A Glimpse in to the World of Chi l d re n's Books," page from Die literarische Welt
203
Walter Benjamin, "Chambermaids' Romances o f t he Pas t
Century," page from Das illustrierte Blatt
207
Ant o ine J oseph Wiertz, Thoughts and Visions of a Severed
l-Iead
210
Wang Yuanqi, Landscape in the Styles of Ni Zan and Huang
Gongwang Illustration from Aesop's Fables� second e dition Moral sa yi ngs from the book by Jesus Sirach
212 228 229
I ll ustrat i on fr o m Jo hann Peter Lyser, The Book of Tales for
Daughters and Sons of the Educated Classes Cover of The Magical Red Umbrella
Illustration fro m Adelmar von Perlstein
230 232 244
Frontispiece to Lady Lucie Guilford, the Princess of Vengeance,
Known as the Hyena of Paris Illustration from O. G. Derwicz, Antonetta Czerna Ill us trat ion de p i cti n g the notorious B lack Knight David Octavius Hill, Newhaven Fishwife (p hoto ) Karl Dauthendey, Karl Dauthendey with His Fiancee (photo) Anonymo us, The Philosopher Schelling (photo) David Octavius Hill, Robert Bryson (photo) August Sander, Pastry Cook ( ph oto) Augus t Sander, Parliamentary Representative (photo) Ge rmain e K ru l l , Display Window (photo) Germaine Kr ull , Storefront (photo)
245 246 247 2 77 278 280 284 288 289 291 29 2
A NOTE ON THE TEXTS
The following editions of works by Walter Benjamin are referred to throughout this volume: Gesammelte Schriften, 7 vols., with supplements, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Hermann Schweppenhiiuser, et a1. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972-1989). Selected Writings, 4 vols., ed. Michael W. Jennings et a1. (Cam bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996-2003).
The Arcades
Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999).
The texts included in t hi s volume are for the most part drawn from the four volumes of Benjamin's Selected Writings; we have modified a few of the translations published t here in the course of our work on the section introductions.
The editors of the present volume are grateful not just to Benjamin's accomplished translators, but in particular to Howard Eiland for the ed iting work that went into the
Selected
Writings. OUf research assistants
Annie BOllrnellf and Ingrid Christian have made invaluable contributions to the textual apparatus, and Charles Butcosk and Lisa Lee provided ex pert help with the acquisition of materials for the illustrations.
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media
EDITORS'
INTRODUCTION
Although Wal ter Benjamin had written short texts on painting and the graphic arts d u r i ng his student years, it was not until the 1920s that he became intensely engaged with a broad range of modern media . These in� eluded new technologies that produced changes i n, and
as virtual
or actual prostheses for, human perception; instruments of m ass commu nication s uch as the newspaper a nd the radio; new techniques of display related to urban commodity capitalism; and artistic media such as paint ing, photograp hy, and film. Born in Berlin in 1892, Benjamin had grown up in a city deeply marked by the rampant growth of German industry in the l ast quarter
of the nineteenth c entury. Modern technologies were pervasive in the German capital-arguably more so there than in any other European metrop olis of the era. Germany had been united as a nation only in 1871 , and the period that immediately followed (known in German as
the
Grunderjahre,
o r foundational years) was characterized by a remark
able economic boom that reshaped the face of Berlin . The early years of Benjamin's career a s a writer) which began while he was s till in high school, were given over not to an exploration of the experience of the modern city, but to a reevaluation of the philosophy and l iterature of German Romanticism and to the development of a theory of criticism rooted in that very Romanticism . In s tudies of Friedrich Schlegel's criti cism, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's prose) and Baroque mourning plays, Benjamin developed a highly original theory of l itera ture based on concepts and practices derived from the works themselves. The rhyt lllTIs of Benja min's practice and theory of criticism in the years 1912-1924 interweave two movements. On the one hand, his criticism calls for the demolition or demystification of the unified, auton Dlnous work of art. In a typically striking formulation, Be njamin calls this process of demolition or demystification the "mortification of the work";' scholars today, using a term from a seminal 1 918 speech by the German sociologist Max Weber) might sp e ak of its "disenchantment. "2
1
2
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
Benjaminian criticism a ttempts to reduce the seemingly coherent, inte gral l y meaningful work to the status of "ruin," "torso)" or "mask)" to name but a few key figures of his criticism. On the o ther hand, his theory also s trives for a productive mom ent: the isola tion and redemption of shards of an "immanent state of perfection" that had been shattered and denatured-made meaningless-in the cours e of history.3 In an impor tant essay o n Goethe's novel Elective Affinities, Benjamin defines the o b ject of c riticism as the discovery of the "truth content" of the worle of art. The dense intertwining of brilliant immanent criticism a nd broa d-gauged cultural theory in these works has e ns ured the m a special status in the history of literary theo ry. In the course of the 1920s, Benjamin turned his gaze from the German literary and philoso phical tradition to a series of problems in contem porary cu lwre. A key stage in this process wa s his involvement with art ists of the European and Soviet avant-gardes who had ga thered in Berli n i n the early part o f the decade. Crucially, this involveme nt with avant garde artists) architects, and filmmakers overlap ped with Benjamin)s brief affiliation with the university in Frankfurt
as
he unsuccessfully at
tempted to have his study of the Baroque mourning play accepted as a I-Iabilitationsschrift th at would qualify him for a teaching position in a
German university. Also during this period, in 1923 he was forming friend ships with the architect, c ul tural critic, and film theorist Siegfr i e d Kracauer (1889-1966), t h e philosopher Theodor Ad orno ( 1903-1969), and the chemist Gretel Karplus (1902-1993, l ater Gretel Adorno); and in 1924 he began a l ong relationship with the Latvian j ournalist and theater director Asja Lacis (1891-1979), who encouraged Benjamin to und ertake a serious study of Marxism a n d to whom his epochal 1928 book One- Way Street was d edicated. In la te 1922 and early 1923 a new gro up of i nternational avant-garde artists came together in Berlin and launched the publicati on of a journal called G� an ab breviation of the German word Gestaltung� m eaning "forma tion" or "constructi o n . )' The artists of the " G-group" inc l uded a number of figures who would go o n to shape important aspects of twentieth-century culture: the archi tect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), the painter and photogra pher Laszl o Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), the intern ationa l constructivi st El Lissitzky ( 1890-1941), and the former Dadaists Raoul Hausmann
(1886-1971) and Hans Richter (1888-1976), the latter the group's dom i nant personality and the driving force behind the journ al. Benjamin, along with his wife, the journalist Dora Sophie Pollak (1890-1964)) a nd his friend Ernst Schoen (1894-1960), a composer and m usic theorist
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
3
who would go on to direct o ne o f Germany's na tional radio stations , all began to move at the
of this community. The group a s a whole
focus ed on the possibilities tha t new technologies and industrial prac tices were o p en i ng up for cul tural production, and B enjamin took p art in the debates that were regularly held in a rtists' ateliers across Berlin. For Benjamin, Moholy-Nagy's theorization of the variously reciprocal relationships among technological change, the production of new med i a forms, a nd the development of the human sensori u m wa s p a rticularl y im p ortant. Many o f the writings included in this volume, foremost among them Ben j a min's magisterial essay "The
Work of Art in the Age of Its
Technological Reproduci bllity," constitu te often radical explorations and theoretical extensions
of the reconsiderations of relationship s among
technology, media , and the huma n sensory apparatus -e xplora tions that emerged
central to the contributions o f the G-group and indeed to
Germ a n culture a t large, especially in the con text of the economic s tu bili zation tha t brought a n end to the period of inflation and hyperinflation of the earlier 1920s. By now, it sho uld be clear that we are using the terms "med i a" and " medium" in a bro ad ly inclusive manner. A central aspect of Benj amin's work is the a ttempt to ret hink the complex processes thro ugh which our sensory and cognitive appara tuses engage the world around us. In his writings on Romanticism, Benj amin had a lready offered a highly o rigi nal reconceptualization of relationships among p ersons, works of art, and the l arger world. Benjamin's early theoretical emphasis, developed largely in relation to the history of German litera ture and philosophy, broadened and intensified as he turned to the consideration of works of a rt produced by means of new technologies, a nd indeed to the devices and app urtenances of those technologies themselves . Virtua lly every
es
say in this vol um e examines some aspect of the manner in which individ uaJ works, genres, media, or technological apparatuses mediate the com plex p rocesses by which we perceive, a ct upon, and function within that world. This volume, then, goes beyond consideration s of modern media such as the newspaper and radio, artistic media s uch as painti ng, photog raphy, and film, a nd the techniques of display and a dvertisement that have had such a profound effect on h u m a n consciousness and the n a ture of human embodiment under the conditions of modernity. The texts as sembled here also explore individual devices and entities such as the still camera a nd movie camera , the vari ous forms of the panora ma, engineer ing d iagrams, the teleph o ne, a nd such architectural forms as the train sta ti on, u nderground sewer systems, and, crucia lly, the arc a de.
4
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
Benjamin's work in this field in the 19205 is as tonishing for its range and depth . We should remember that there was n o general theory of me dia on which Benjamin could build-only theoretical meditations on older individual forms such as painting and photography, or local re flections on new forms such as radio, film, and the illustrated press. Partly as a professional strategy (he sought in this period to establish himself as a j ournalist and indeed as a leading critic of culture) , partly a s a practical matter ( he saw in radio a potentially l ucrative outlet for his writings), but ma i n ly driven by new a esthetic and political commit ments, Benjamin aimed to establish himself as a principal commentator on new literary directions and new media forms then emerging in Ger many, France, and the Soviet Union. In the course of the 1920s, then, Benjamin increasingly combined criticism of specific media forms with an effort to construct a more com prehensive theory of media-much as he had done in the case of litera ture and philosophy up until 1924. Yet if 1924 represents a watershed year in Benj amin's intellectual life, the year 1933 marks a traumatic rupture in his personal life. Although the signs of Hitler's accession to power in Germany had been impossible to i gnore since 1932, the burning of the Reichstag on February 27, 1933, made it clear to even the most stubbornly hopeful German intell ectuals o n the political left that their native l and would no longer tolerate them or their ideas. Benjamin, as a German Jew, was under no illusions regarding the implications not just for his work, but for his very l ife. A number of his closest friends and colleagues, including Bertolt Brecht (1 898-1956) , Erns t Bloch (18851977), and Siegfried Kraca uer opted immediately to go into self-imposed exile; Benjamin himself left B erlin for Paris in lnid-March. He would spend the remainder of the decade, and indeed the rest of his life, moving between Paris and a series of temporary refuges that i ncluded Brecht's house in Skovsbostrand, Denmark, his former wife's pensione in San Remo, Italy, and, a favored place, the Spanish island of lbiza. The impact of exile on Benjamin's thought in general-and o n his writings on med i a in particular-was pervasive a n d fundamen tal. The famous remarks o n the relationship between aesthetics a n d politics with which "The Work o f Art i n the Age o f Its Technological Reproducibility" concludes make plain the political urgency of Benj amin's attempt to develop something l i ke a " media theory" in the 1930s. If fascism could aestheticize politics and even Wat; communism, Benjamin asserted, was bound to respond by politicizing art. Tellingly, however, the politicized theory of media Benjamin devel-
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
5
op ed in the c o urs e of the 1930s did not de velo p exc lus ively o ut of a n eng agem ent wi th c onteln porary media forms. W ith increasing i ntensity B enjamin' s thoughts tu rned instead to hi s tor y: to the p e r i o d of the em er gence of urban, and specifi cally m etrop o l i t an , commod ity c ap italism. For B enj amin, th e con s tr ll ctio n of
a
mass ive sociocul tu ral h istory of P aris i n
the year s after 1 850 w as n oth i ng less than a stu dy of the emergence of modernity a s su ch . This project bore th e w ork ing title" Arcades P roj ect"
and, had Benjam in been a bl e to com pl e te it, might fi nally hav e been " P a ri s , C ap i tal of the Nineteenth Ce ntury." The p roj ec t took i ts work ing title from the proliferation of mercantile gallerie s, or arc ades (in Ge r ma n, Passagen) in mid-nineteent h-centu ry P a ris. "Th es e arca des, a n e w i nvent io n of indus t rial luxury, are gl a ss -ro o fed, ma rble-p aneled c or r id ors extendi ng t h r o ugh whole bl ock s of b u ildi n gs, whose owners h av e c al le d
j oined together for such en terpr ises. L in i ng both si de s o f th ese corrido rs , which get the ir lig ht from above, ar e the most elegant shop s, so tha t the passage is a c ity, a w orld in mi niatur e . "4 Benj amin focll s es o n these s truc tures as the organ iz in g m etap hor for his s tudy for a n u mber of reasons: th ey a r e a h istoric ally sp ecifi c ar tifact of the p er io d in q uestion , a pa rticu la rly concen trated figure for the public pr esence and p artic ul ar v isual c ha ract er of nineteenth-ce ntury commo dity c ap it a l is m ; and t he arcades were themselv es a preeminent site of, a nd app a rat u s for, the o rganiza tio n
o f vast realms o f p ercept io n f o r th e den izen s o f the modern me trop o li s. Th e organ iz ation a nd reconfi guration of h uman p er cept ion would i n d ee d ha ve emer ged as a cent ral th eme of the great wor k tha t B enj am in never fi ni s he d. The materials fr o m t he Ar cades Pro je ct that did fi nd their way into fi nished works, mos t prominently a series of es says on the Fr ench poet Charl es B a udelai re
(1821-1 867),
incl uded innovative rec onsider
a ti ons of k ey m odernis t problems: the r ol e of the urban crowd as a n
optical devic e f or the s tr ol l ing flcmeur; th e signifi cance of actual op t ic a l devices suc h as p a nor ama s , p eep show s, and magic l anterns i n the habit u a ti on of c i ty d we llers to t h e n ew conditions of m etr op ol i tan exp eri ence; and esp eciall y the mod ern practice s of d i s pl ay and a dverti si ng that emerged in P a ris and would come to shape the percep tion o f the wo rld in su ch
a
p e rv asi ve ma nne r.
Benj a mi n' s interest i n this er a, then, is a nything b ut antiquari an. He wa s convinced of a pr of ound synchronicity between the dramatic changes tha t took p l ace i n E u rope arou nd 1850 a n d the co n vu l s iv e p ol i tic a l up h eava ls marking t he Europ e in and a boll t which he was w riting during
th e 19305. A t t he center of the theor y of h i story B enj ami n d ev elop ed as p ar t of th e Arcade s Project stands the notion that cer tain his torical mo-
6
EDIT O R S' I N T R O D U C TI O N
ments and forms become legible only at
a
l ater moment-one that corre
sponds to them and o nly to them. Certain fo rm s analy ze d in the Arcades Project ( for example , t he panoramas, and the " panoramic" l iterature that a rose in the i r wake) are moment s in the p rehistory of a later form such as film. "} ha ve fou nd," Benja m in wrote to Gretel Karpl us in 1935, "tha t
a
spe ct of the art of the nineteenth century whic h only 'n ow' be
comes r ecogniz able-i t had not been so before and it will never be s o again. "5 It seems, then, tha t Benj amin hoped that readers of his essay on the work of art would become aware not only of the political and epis te m o logical p otentia litie s o f forms of art made possible by me an s
of n ew technologies of product ion and reproduct i o n, but als o of their co r resp onde n ce to the artifacts and modes o f perception inha biti ng other historical moments, and thus of the par tic u lar-a nd particularly endan gered-character of o ur own embeddedness in hi s tory. The essays in cluded in this volume are thus not merely indispensa ble cont r i b ut i ons to tile theo ry of v arious forms of media that emerged in Benjamin's lifetime; they are also invested with Benjamin's sense that those forms bore within them a recognition of the "fate of art in the n ineteenth century because it is contained i n the ti ck i ng of
a
c lockwo rk whose hourly chiming has first
penetr a ted into our ears ."6 In what foHows, we have eschewed the chronological organization of
Be nja mi n 's
Selected Writings a s well as the gener i c o rder ing
of the Ger
man edi ti on of his collected works, opting instead to group the ess ays un der what we hop e are suggestive co nceptu al ru brics. The first s ection, "The Production, Reproduction, and Reception of the Work of Art,
n
in
c l u des s ome of Benj amin's best-known essays on the nat ur e and status of the work of art. These texts po s e provocative q ue s ti ons r ega rd i ng the place of art in mod er n society, the perceptu a l and more broadly cognitive co nd itio ns under which art is prod uced, and the i mpl ications of the re cep tion of art for human age ncy, i ndeed fo r the experiences of the human subject as such. The se cti o n that follows , " S cript , Image, Scrip t�I mag e," explores relationships between the graphic element of all wri ting and modern te c hno l o gies of re presentation as they i n teract with human sen sory and cognitiv e capacities. These ess ays are united in th e i r documenta
tion of B enjamin 's conviction tha t mea ning takes shape and re si des in the world of urban commodity c a p i tal is m not o n ly in dis c n rsi v e , systematic form, b u t per h ap s even more sign ificantl y in fl ashes that leap out from the graphic forms of writin g's "new ecce nt ri c figurativeness"7 as that wri t ing was bodied forth in props on
a
stag e , an engineeri n g d iagr a m, or
an a d v er ti seme nt . These first two sections are intended to serve as the in
troduction to broad issues that cut a c ros s medi a, genres, and indi vid u al
EDITORS'INTRODUCTI ON
7
works. T he sections that follow-on painting and gr a p hics , p hotogr a phy, film, and the publishing industry and radio-offer concentrated in troductions to Benj a mi n 's most i mportant essays o n these forms. A word is certainly in order reg arding the principle of inclusion that
informed this selection of Benjamin's essays on modern media. In an
importan t sense, Benjamin's work does not lend itself to anthologization,
seg men tat i on, or conceptual ordering. In a marvelous 1 925 essay on N aple s that he coauthored wi th Asja Lacis, Benjamin emphasized the po rosity of the city's architecture as a figure for a more gen e ral porosity in the conduct of life: "Building and action interpenetrate in the court yards, arcades, and s ta i rw a ys . In e very thi ng is preserved the p o tential of play [Spielraum] that would make it possible to become a site [Schauplatzl of new, unforeseen constellations. The de fini tiv e, the char acteristic are avoided. No situation appears just as it is, intended as such forever; no form asserts its own 'just so, and not otherwise.",g The generic and conceptual "walls" between the various aspects of Ben jamin's p rod u c tion are, if a ny thi ng , even more porous than those of the Naples courtyard. The m ed itation s o n perce p t i on included in this volume threate n to bleed into a number of essays on the concept of experience written in the ea rl y 1930s, essays such as "Experience and Poverty";9 re flections on graphicness and display are imbricated in the great series of essays o n the theory of lang uage ; the theorization of a politics of media suggests relays to many essays on pol i t i cs and culture; and, as we have suggested above, nearly everything Benjamin wrote after 1934 is gener ated by or related to the great torso of the Arcades Project. Had we pur sued each of these filiations and constellations, we would soon have had a multivolume edition rather than a si ng le volume intended for the general reader and use. The mos t vexing questions surrounding any principle of selection spring from the status of the Arcades Project. Debates on the textual status of th i s body of m aterial, which remained unfinished and unpub lished d u r i ng Benjamin's lifetime] continue to rage. To what extent is the volume that wa s pu blished as Das Passagen- Werk in Germany and The Arcades Project in the United States a finished text? According to some of Benjamin's editors, this material is simply a compilation of re se arch notes, citations, and more or less polished reflections on t hose notes and citations: a vast, endlessly fascinating quarry. According to others, extensive sections of the volu me are conceptually ordered, rhetor ically finished arguments on specific aspects of nineteenth-century Pari sian life and the modernity it epitomized. W ith a very few exceptions, we have selected o n ly finished essays for tllis volume, and have reluctantly
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION
8
refra ined from including a ny of the fascinating series of fragments that m ake u p the Arcade s P roject. We urge the re ade r, though, to foll o w the v arious comp lexes o f i deas sk etche d he re i nto th e l a byr inth o f th e ar
c ades, a nd to pur sue Be njam i n's thoughts on film, photograph y, r adio, ne wsp aper s , the grap hic art s, paint ing, and a rchitecture in that less or d ered but pe rhaps even mor e s uggesti ve text.
Notes See Walter Benjamin, "The Ruin," Chapter 15 in this volume. Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation," in From Max We b er: Essays in Sociol ogy, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 155. 3. Walter Benjamin, "The Life of Students," in Se lected Writings, Volume 1: 1913-1926 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 37. Benjamin's understanding of these scattered shards may be derived from the Jewish mystical concept 0f "Tikkun," or the shattering of th e vessels. On Benjamin's relat ionsh i p to Jewish messianism, see especially Anson Rabinbach, "Between Enlightenment and Apocalypse: Benjamin, Bloch and Modern German Jewish .Messianism�" New German Cr itiqu e, 34 (Win ter 1985); and Irving Wohlfarth, "On the Messianic Structure of Walter Benjamin's Last Reflections,'� Glyph, 3 (1978). On the conception of Tikkun itself, see Gcrshom Scholem, Major Trends in Je w ish Mysticism (New York: Schockel1, 1954L pp. 245-248. Much of what Benjamin knew of Jewish messianism was derived from conversations with his close friend Scholem, who rediscovered the Kabbalah for modern scholarship. 4. \X'alter Benjamin, The A r cad es Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 3"1. Benjamin quotes here, in the first fragment of The Arcades Project, from the Guide illustre de Paris (1852) and uses the French term passage. The quota tion also appears on the first page of the 1935 expose of the project, "Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (Arcades Project, p. 3). 5. Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Briefe, vol. 5 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999), p. 1 7l . 6 . The Correspondence o f Wa l te r Benjamin, trans. Manfred R . Jacobson and Evelyn M. Jacobson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 509 (translation modified). 7. Walter Benjamin, "One-Way Street," in Selected Writings. vol. 1, p. 456. 8. Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, "Naples," in Selected Writings, vol. 1, p. 416 (translation modified). 9. See Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 2: 1927-1934 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 731-736. 1.
2.
I THE PRODUCTION
I
REPRODUCTIONJ AND
RECEPTION OF THE WORK OF ART
"J ust as the ent i re m ode of ex istence of human collecti v e s c hanges over long l11st orical peri od s, so too d oes th eir m ode o f p ercep tion." [n th i s t ine from sect ion IV of t he f am ou s essay "T he W ork of Art in the Age of I ts Technologic al R eproduc ibility," written in e xi le in Pa ris in t he mid-1930s, B e n j am in defin es progr am matica lly the fi el d in w hich his work on m o d e r n media move s.1 W it hin t hat fi eld-of historical change i n the h um an s ensorium-B en j amin concentra tes on two q uestions: the capacity of t he artw ork t o en code i n form ati on a bou t its historical per iod ( and, in so doing, po ten ti ally to rev eal to reader s and viewers oth erw is e inapprehen sible aspects of the nature of their own era},2 and the way in w hich mod ern media-as g enres and as individual work s-affect t he c h anging hu questions thr ou gh
man s en sor y
a
brief introduction to two writers, A lo is Ri egl a nd Lasz lo M. o holy-Nagy, w hose w ork w a s in consta n t d ia log ue wi th B enj amin' s . Al oi s Ri egl was perhaps t he most import an t theoretician o f a r t h is tory in Eu rope in the period ar ou nd 1900; his work exer ted
a
deci s i v e i n
fl uence on su b s equ ent generations of ar t histori ans, n o ta bl y Wilh elm W o rr inger, Er win P anofsk y, the sch ol ars associ ated with t he W ar burg In s titut e, and t he " second V iennese scho ol" whi ch Be nj aln in discuss e s in his essay "T he R igo rous S tudy of A r t" (Chapter 5 in th is volume). Al thou gh Rie gl' s rethi nk ing of the historiography of ar t pr o vi de d i mp ortant impet uses t o B enj am in,3 his theory of the lJroduction and recel)tion of ar t under ch anging historical conditi ons w a s equal ly important- and it is
9
10
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D UCT I O N , A N D R E C E PT I O N
this aspect of Riegl's work t h a t has the m o s t im portant implications for a theory of medi a . Riegl strove, o ver the course o f h i s career, to dev e lop a model of his torical causality that could h elp e x pla in changes in style. At the heart of a complex answer to this question is his theory of the KUl1stwollen-the manner in which a specific c u l t u re seeks to g i ve form, color, and line to its art. With the concept o f "artistic volition," Riegl so u ght to show how art tracked maj or s hifts in the s tructure and attitudes of collectives: societies, races, ethnic groups, and so
011.
Kunstwollen is the artistic projection of a
collective intentio n. "All human vol ition," Riegl wrote in his most influ e nti a l work, Late Roman Art
"
i s directed towa rd the satisfac
r ela t io nsh i p to the world... . The formative Kunstwollen regulates the rela tion of ma n to things as they appear to the
tory s haping of [man's]
s enses: the manner in which man wishes to see eac h thing shaped or col o red thereby comes to expression . . . . Man is, however, not solely
a
being
who takes in imp ressions thro u gh the senses-he is not only passi ve-but a desiring-that is, an active-being, who will i nterpret the world as it reveals itsel f to his desire (which changes according to race, place, an d time). n4 Works of art-or rat he r details within the work of a rt-are thus the clearest source of a very p a r t i c ul ar kind of historical information.
They encode not just the character of the artisti c prod u ctio n of the age , but the character of parallel features of the society: its religio n , philoso phy, ethical s tructure, and institutions. When, in an essay such as "Th e Author as Producer,
l)
Benj amin a ddresses t h e question o f the political
uses of art , he does so not so much from a founda tion in Marxist theory as from his reading of Riegl. He can thus claim that the "po litical ten dency " of a work of art d epends not so much on its political tendentious ness as u pon its literary quality-that is , upon i ts form. Because only its literary quality can reveal it s position in
"
the relations of p rod uction of
its time." In many of the essays included in this volume, we see Benjamin d evelo ping historical a nd p o li tic a l interpretation on the ba sis of aesthetic commentary. We witness how Benjamin teases out the structure and s ig nificance of a historical era on the bas is of the relationship esta blished between the s tylistic d etail and the Kunstwollen. It is j ust this capacity to ex trapol a te from the ind ivid ual, concrete d etail to the culture at large that is the mark of the researcher able "to trace the curve of the heart beat [of a historical era] as the line of its form s . The only such ma ster lIas been Ri egl, . . . in whom the d e ep i n sight into the material wil l
[Wollen] o f an
era expresses i tse lf conceptua lly as t h e analysis of i ts for
mal canon." 5 Focused less on the direct p olitical efficacy of a work, and
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R ODU C T I O N , A N D R E C E P TI O N
11
not a t all on its agita tional p oten t ial , Benj amin's inte rest in all wo rk s of art remains r ooted in what they can reveal to us a b out the r e lationshi p between the historical e ra under study a nd o u r own historical position. Just as works of art e xp re ss collective p o s itio ns (o ften in h i ghly medi ated form ) , t hey a l so , for Benj amin, p l ay an i m p o r t a n t role in s ha p i n g the
human sensory cap a c it y. U n der ly i ng a l l o f Benj am in' s thought is the con viction that t he see m i ngl y most obvious things-who we are, the c harac ter of the phys i c a l environment in which we mo ve , a nd the cha ra c ter of the h i s t o r ic al mome nt i n which we live -are in fact denied to u s . The
wo rld in which we live in fact h a s , for us, t h e character of a n opt ica l me d ia d evice: his most frequent description of our world is in terms of "ph antasmagoria." O ri g i na l l y an
illus ionistic o p t i c a l
pp a ra t u s, in vo l v i ng shadows of moving figures p r o j ecte d past an audi
a
ence and onto a wall or screen, p hant asm a g o r i a a s re define d by Benjamin
becomes a figur a l image of the world of urban commo d i ty ca p ital ism : an envi ro nm ent so sug ge st ively " real " that we move th r o u gh it as if it we re
given a nd natural, when in fact it is a soci o ec onomic construct. For Benjamin, the te r m "pha n ta sma go ria" ca p t u re s both the p owe r ful a nd the deep l y i llusory q u al i ty of this e nvironment, a chara cter i s t i c that has a
d e bil i t atin g effect u p on the human a b ility to come to rational d ecisi o n s and in fact to pe rce i ve a nd un de r st an d i ts own world. In 1922, in the essay " Production-Reproducti on , " Moholy-Nagy had p roposed a n ec e ssar y re la tionsh i p between technology, media , and the
devel o p men t of the hum an sensorium. He assigned the l ea d i ng role in this process to art p r oduced by means of new technolog ie s , wh ic h is " i n
strumenta l in this d e v e l o pm e nt . . . for art attempts t o c r ea te ne w r el a tio ns h i p s between familiar and as yet unfamiliar d a t a , optical, acoustic, or whatever, and forces us to take it all in through our sens ory e q uip
ment. "6 This essa y 's pr i n c i p le contribution to our u n de r s ta ndi n g of the r o le of new media lies in its distincti on between w h a t Moholy cal l s " re pr od u cti o n " and "production." Reproduction is t h e mimetic r ep l i c a tion
of an extant exte r n a l re a li ty : this "reiteration of r e la t i on s h i ps th a t al re a d y exist" can h ave little effect on the develop ment of ne w p e r c e p tual capacities, since such practice mere ly re pr od u ce s r e l a ti o n sh ip s already acce ss ib le to th e senses. "Productio n ," howe ve r, names those types of art pra ct i c e s th a t e m p l o y te c h no l ogy to active ly create new rela tionships. For
Moholy, the automatism of the camera le ns is a cru ci a l p r osthe s i s , an ex tensio n of t h e ra nge a nd powe r of the h um an visual ap paratus tha t al one can re vea l to human cognition new relat i o n s h i p s between e le men ts of the p e rce p tual w orl d. Benjamin would later call these e lements ne w " ima ge -
PRODUCTION, REPRODUCTION, AND RECEPTION
12
worlds." W hat !vloholy is interested in here is n o t so m u c h the r epre s e n tat ion of things as they are, n o t th e "true nature" of the modern world,
but instead a h a rne s s i n g of n ew media's p otentia l for c ognitiv e and per
ceptual tra n s fo rmati on. Mo h o l y 's t heories on photogr ap hy as
a
te c hn o
logica l p r os th e s is are insepa r a bl e fro m h i s an thr o p o lo gy; th ey remain
rooted in
a
caU fo r
a
c o nti n u o us recas tin g of the hum an cognitive appa
rat us and the val ues and behaviors that are based upon it. Many of the e s says in this v olume thus examine modern tec h n ological
apparatuses in terms
of the i r effects-both real and po t e n tia l-upo n the
human se n so ry c a pa c i ties . The earliest such analysis, in the s ectio n "T o the pJanetarium" from One- Way Street, makes th e pl anetari um a virtual
theatrum mundi: in the mod ern planetarillll1, with i ts " o ptica l connection to th e un i verse, " an cien t form s of commun ion with the cosmos ( d o m i nated, in Benjamin's view, by Rausch or the ecsta tic trance) give way to n ew forms of hum an r elation to the universe. "In tec h n o lo g y a p hy sis is being o r g ani ze d th r o u gh which man kind's contact with the cosmos takes a
n ew and different for m . " From the planetarium, t hen-that c o nsum
ma te fi gu r e of the t e chn o l o g i c al org a niza tion of perceptio n -t wo possi
ble paths lead forward. One is the path of violence that leads, for the c o l l e cti ve , to <'the nights o f annihilation" of World War 1. A n d the violence
wreaked b y tech n olo gy is n o t merely m ar ti al and c o l l ect i ve ; it inheres in every in d ivid u al en coun ter as well. B enj a min n ever lets t he r eader f o rge t
t h e o ve rw h elm ing, in d ee d a nni h i lat i n g
of new appa ratus es up o n
t h e h um a n b o d y and its sense s. As he pu ts it in "Th e T el ephon e" s ec tion of Berlin Childhood around 1900,
"
I to r e o ff the two receivers . . . thrust
my head bet we e n them, and wa s i n e x or ab l y delivered o v er to the voice
that now sounded. T here was n o t h i ng to allay the vi olenc e that n ow pierced me. Po werless, I s uffe r e d , seeing that it obli ter ated my consci o us n ess of time, my firm r esolv e, m y sense of duty."7
Yet it is precis e ly fro m such violence that B e nj a m i n imagin e s th e em er g e nce of a new modern su bj ect and a new modern collective. The seco nd path l e ad s , then, to a new collective b o d y, which Benjamin u n d e r stan d s as the prolet ar i a t that took shap e in th e re volts f ollowing the a b d ic a ti o n of the kaiser in No v em b e r 1918. Ind eed, it i s o n l y the par o xysm p r o d u ce d b y the n e w, tec hn ologi z ed "conditions of life" that can allow " m ankin d to bring the new b o dy un der i ts con trol." W hil e in M o holy Nagy's work the p o t e n ti a l of p oli ti c al agency is imp li ed b ut n ev e r n ame d ,
Benjaulin's understanding of the n e w for ms of
p er ception t ha t
In 111-
teraction with modern techno l o gy never l oses s ig ht of Marx's maxim t hat
our task is n o t to und e rstan d t he worl d but to change it.
13
P R OD U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
Benj amin has in fact o ften been accused of
a
technological utopian
ism: the broa d conviction tha t certain p roperties of technological med ia as s uch hold wi thin them the poten tial for social change. It is clear enough today that while the impact o f a med ium such as film has been massive, i t has not been entirely o f the sort tha t Benjamin envisioned . Yet t h a t charge is too simple. First of all, Benj a m in very c learly recognized tha t the qualities he detected in the new media are necessary but in no way s u fficient conditions, always requiring an actualization through spe cific works (the focu s of some of the o ther
o n cinema in this vol
ume ) a nd always threatened by app ropriation through the interests of b ig capitaL Seco nd, any generalized valorizati o n o f the forms o f modern media such as p hotogr ap hy, film, t he newspap er, a nd radio, to say n o th ing of p ainting and writing, must be understood as a heuristic h orizon against which the s ocial uses of art ca n be measured. Th e social poten tials of art certainly s eemed one of the few p ositive aspects of a Europe on the verge of war and threatened by
a
seemingly triumphant fascism.
This intensive recip rocity between technology and the human sen sory capacities provides the artwork ess a y with its conceptual s pin e . N e w technologies provide " polytechnic training" in t h e " organ i zing and regulating" of response s to the lived environment.8 Benj a min's emphasis on " training" h ere is a nything but an isolated instance. As detailed in the i ntrod uction to Part III of this volume, many of Benjamin's texts from the 1 920s made reference to an app roach to pedagogy ca lled
A nschauungsunterricht, which might be rather awkward l y translated as " i nstructi on in p erception and intuition . " In
an
August 1 92 9 rad io
broadcast entitled " C hildren's Literature, " Benj am in e mphasizes the con temporary relevance of Anschauungsunterricht as pedagogy rooted in the llse of concrete things and visual medi a with important consequences fo r a new p erceptual literacy. " C hildren 's Literature lJ ann ounces: The extraordin ary rel evance to th e current si tu a t i o n tha t all expe r i ments in
A l1schauungsunterricht
da rdized,
and
posses s ste ms from the fact that a new� sta n
wordless sign-sys tem seems to be emerging in the m o s t
ied fields of present- d a y life-in transporta tion,
this poi n t , a pedagogic a l problem touches on
a
a rt,
v ar
st a tis tic s . At precisel y
com prehensive cultural one
that can be s u mmed up in the s l og a n : " Up wi th the sign and d own with the
word ! " Perhaps we sha ll soon see pic tu r e books that introduce chi l dren to the new sign language of tra nspo rt or even s tatistics.9
And the important essa y " Little H is tory of Photograph y " emphasizes the role of photogr aphy as a " tr a ining manual " for modern life.
14
P R OD U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
Film, on this reading, trains its viewers through the use of a technolog ical apparatus (camera, editing, proj ection) to deal wit h the " vast appa ratus" in which we l ive, the apparatus of p h antasmagoria . Some part o f this capacity is in herent i n the particular ma nner in which forms of m o d ern med ia e ngage with the world. Yet Benjamin's central concern i n the artwork essay is less with the specific qualities of mo dern media tha n with a pa rticular " a b i lity " common t o all art under modern conditions : its reproduci bility. The simple fact
work of art from wha tever
period i s today s uscepti b le t o technological reprod uc i b i l i ty has enormo us consequences not just for its mass reception b ut for its inmost qualities as wel l . Perhaps the most famous
concern Benj amin's at
tack on those v ery qualities that have defined the privileged s tatus of the i nd ividua l work of art in the Western tradition: its uniqueness, au thentic ity, and authori ty. Ben j am in 's idea is of course a scanda l and
a
provocation: he offers
a
frontal a ttack on the very n otion of the iconic work of culture, the prod uct of a grea t genius tha t by its very nature shifts our understa nding o f huma n nature a n d huma n history. Yet this attack is the precondition fo r a ny l iberation of art from the c u ltura l tradition-and its rootedness in cult a n d ritu a l . For Benjam in, the "present crisis and renewal of human ity " -and one must recall that this text was written under the very real threat of fascism-can come to be only o n the ground produced by " s hattering of trad ition. " 1 0
a
The k e y move i n Benj amin's essay, the m ove that a lo ne names this shattering of tra d i tion, is the distinction between auratic a n d nona uratic art fo rms. The term "aura, " which fi rst appears in the 1 92 9 essay " Little History of Photograp hy, " is t h en fully developed in the artwork ess a y : " Wh a t , the n , is the a ura? A strange tissue of space a nd time: the unique
apparition of
a
d ista nc e, however near it may be. To fol low with the
eye-wl1i le resting on a summer afternoon-a mountain range on the
horizon or a branch that casts is shadow on the beholder i s to breathe the a ura of those mountains, of that branch . )' 1 1 A work of art may be said to h ave an a ura if it cl aims a unique status based less on quality, use val ue, or worth per se than on its figur a ti ve distance fro m the be hold er. Figurative, since, as the defi nition intimates, this distance is not prim a rily a space between p a i ntin g and spectator or between text and reader but the cre atio n of a psychological inapproacha bility-an author ity-clai med for the work on the basis of its position
w
ithin a tradition.
The distance that intrudes between work and viewer i s most often , then, a temporal distance : auratic texts are sanctioned by their inclusion in
a
P RO D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C T IO N , A N D R E C E P T I ON
15
time- tested canon. F o r Benj amin , i ntegration into the Western tradition i s c o terminous with a n i ntegration into cuI tic p ractices : " O riginally, the embeddedness of an artwork in the context of trad ition fo u n d expression i n a cul t. As we know, the ea rliest artworks origi nated i n the service o f
the unique value o f the 'authentic' work o f art in ritual. " 1 2
rituals . . . . In other wo rds:
always has its
Thi s is in effect a description of the inevita ble fetishization of the work of art, less through the process of its creati o n th an through the p ro cess of its tra nsmission. If the worIc of art rema ins a fetish, a d istance d and distancing o bj ect that exerts an irration a l and incontroverti ble power, it attains a cultural position that lends it a sacrosanct invi o l a b ility. It als o remains i n the hands of a privileged few. The auratic work exerts c laims to power that parallel and reinforce the larger claims to political p ower of the class for whom snch o bjects are most meani ngful : the ruling class. The theoretical defense of auratic art was and is central to the m a inte nance of their power. It i s not jus t that a uratic art, with its ritually certified representational strategies, poses no threat to the dominant class, b u t that the sense of authenticity, authority, and p ermanence p roj ected by the aura tic work of art represents a n i mp ortant cultural substan tiation of the claims to power of the dominant class . Rep rod uci bility is thus finally a
political
capacity o f the work o f art;
its very reprod uci bili ty shatters its aura a nd ena b l es a reception o f a very d i fferent kind in
a
very different s pecta to rial space: it is p recisely the
shattering of the aura tha t en ables t h e construction, in the cinema} of
a
p olitical b ody through " simultaneous collective reception " of its o bj ect. As we have noted i n the general introduction to this vol ume, Benj amin was convinced of a p rofound
synchronicity
b etween the period of the
emergence of ur b an industrial capitalism around the mid dle of the nine teenth century and the Europe o f the 1 93 0 s so m arked by convulsive p o litical upheavals, and thus o f a synchronicity be tween the techno logi cal and artistic
that they produced. Benj amin expressly hoped
that readers o f the artwork essay woul d become aware not jus t of the po litical and ep istemological potentialities o f new media forms, but also of the way that these potenti a l i ties are derived from thei r pa rticular his torical situati on-tha t relationship
Benj amin was convinced ob
tained between every p resent day and a per i o d o r periods that preceded i t. For Benjam in, the kind of knowledge of history that coul d produce so cial change became availa b l e
only
in the recogniti o n of aspects of this
synchronicity. As the remarkable fragments contained i n Convolute N o f
The Arcades Project suggest, the i m ages
produced i n particular historical
16
P R O D U CTI O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , AND
R E C E PT I O N
p r i o r epochs through a " h i s t o r ical in
moments are related to
dex. " " For the his torical index of the i m a ges not o nly says that they b e l ong to
a
p articular ti me; it s a ys, above all, tha t they attai n to legibility
only a t
a
particular time . . . . Every present day is d etermined by the im
ages that a re synchronic with it; each ' n o w ' is the now o f a particular
recognizability. " 13 The great study o f the P a risian arcades a nd i ndeed the entirety of the reflection on med ia that grew out of it a re thus d riven by a h istorical interest that is a nything other than a nti qua ria n: it seeks to pro duce a " dangerous critical moment" tha t a lone can reveal the cond itions o btaining all
a
ro u nd
US , I 4
The essay " Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Centllry " is a concis e, i f
h i g h l y elliptical catalog of t h e m otifs a nd pro blems Benjam in hoped t o address in his study o f th e a rcade s . The essay ( actua l l y the Arca d es Project a s Benjamin conceived it i n
a
full expose o f
1 93 5 ) offers a
series o f
remark a bly suggestive i ns i g hts not merely into a series of artistic, techno l ogical, a nd architectural forms-into the a rcades themselves and i nto the new possibilities of iron co nstruction, i nto the pa noramas a nd world exhibitions, into lyric po etry a nd p hotography, and i nto the bourgeois i n terior a nd the pr oleta r i a n barricade-but also into the transformative and genera tive relations that o b tained am ong t h e s e forms themselves and
between t he m a nd the c h a r acteris tic forms of Benjamin's own e r a , Al tho ugh , i n "Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century, " these relations are more often suggested than articulated, m a ny fra g me n ts
cades Project d r aw explicit connectio ns : The
film
fact
understood
as
from The Ar
today a rticu la tes a l l .... .·r. h l "" "' ''' of modern form-gi ving-
que sti o n s
of its own tech nical existence-and does so
most concrete, most critical
in the
is i m portant for the
comparison o f panora mas with this medium. "The vogue of
p a n o rarnas, among which the panorama of Boulogne w a s especially remarkable, corresponds to the v ogu e for cinematographs t od ay. The cov ered a rca des , o f the type of the Passage d es Pa n o ra m a s, were a l so begin ning
their
Parlsj a n
fortu nes t he n . "
Marce l Poete,
Ulle vie de cite
Paris
(Paris, 1 9 2 5 ) , p. 326. I S
Be nj a mi n 's verb here, quoted from Poete, is cr l1cial : the ci n emato grap h
corresponds to th e Parisian panorama-meaning tha t it d o e s not develop
from it. Benjamin in fact descri bed his proj ect as the attemp t to " root o ut eve r y trace of ·development' fro m the ima g e of h istory. " I f. The resolutely historical n a ture of Benj amin's project is driven thus no t by a ny antiqua r ian interest in the cultural forms of past e pochs, but by the conviction
17
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
that any meaningful ap p r e hensi o n of the present d ay i s radically contin constellations that a rise fr om elements of a past that is synchronous with O Uf own time and its representative cultural forms .
g en t llPon our ability to read
M I C H A E L W. J E N N I N G S
Notes 1.
have re p rod u ce d here the second vers i on of Benjamin's es s ay the version that Benj amin himself consid ered the " m a s te r v e rs i o n or Urtext. For a full d i scu s s i on of t h e status of t h is version in relation to the o th e r s a n d fo r a brilliant p resent a tio n of the p r o blem of c i nem a in the a r tw ork see Miriam B ratu Hansen, " Room fo r Play: Benja min's Gamble w i t h Cinem a , " October, 1 09 ( Summer 2004): 3-45 . 2 . "What i s a t stake i s n o t t o p o rt ra y literary works i n the context of their age, but to represent the age that perceives them-our age-in the age d u ring which they arose . It i s this that ma kes I ite rature into an orga non of history. " Benjamin, Li t er a ry History and the S tudy of Literature" in Selected Writ ings, Vo lume 2: 1 92 7-1 934 ( Cambridge, Mas s . : Ha rvard University Press, ,
We
,"
,
"
1 9 99), p. 464.
3 . On
Riegl's historiography, see
M ichael Jenn i n g s , Dialectical Images: Walter
Benjamin '5 Theory of Literary Criticism
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1 9 8 7 ) , p p. 15 1- 1 6 3.
4. Alois Riegl, La te R oman Art Industry, trans . Rol f Winkes ( Rome: Giorgio B re tschneid er, 1 9 8 5 ) , p . 2 1 5 . 5 . Ben jamin, Review o f Oska r Walzel, Das in Gesammelte Schriftel1J vo l . 3 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1 9 72), p. 50. 6 . Llszl 6
ed.,
Moholy-Nagy,
" P rod uctio n-Reproduction, " i n Christopher
Phillips,
Photography in th e Modern Era: European D o cuments and Critical
Writings, 1 9 1 3-1 940
(New York: Metropolitan
.Museum of
Art,
1 989),
p p . 79-82. a m o re general d iscussion o f technology and the senses in Benjamin 's a u tobiographical writings, see Gerhard Richter, Walter Benjamin and th e Cor pus of Autobiography (Detro i t : Wayne State University Press, 2000), espe cially chs. 3 and 4. 8. See Chapter 1, secti ons XIII and XV, in this vol ume. 9 . Be n j a m i n " Children's Litera t ure, " i n Selected U/1" I t"" G C vol . 2, p. 25 1 (transl ation slightly mod i fied ) . 1 0. Chapter 1 , sec tio n III. 1 1. See Chapter 28 in t h i s volume for Benj amin's early use of the term "a ura. " For the l ater definition, see Ch a pt e r 1 , section IV. 1 2 . See C h a p te r 1 , section V.
7. For
,
'1 8
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C TI O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
1 3 . Benj a min,
The
Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin Mass . : H a r va r d University Press, 1 999), pp. 4 6 2-
McLa ugh lin ( Ca m b ridge, 4 6 3 , Convo lute N3 , 1 .
Ibid., p . 4 6 3 . 1 5 . Ib i d p. 530, Convolute Q l a, 8 . 1 6 . Ibid., p . 8 4 5 , C onv o l ut e Ho, 1 6 . 'J 4 .
.,
The true is w h a t he ca n; the fa lse is wha t he wants. -M A D A M E
DE
D U H- A S
1
1 'The Work o f Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility
SEC O N D VERSION
When Marx u ndertook hi s a na lysis o f the c ap ital i st mode o f pr o d uc tion , that mode was in its infancy. ! Marx adopted an
a
p p ro a ch which gave his
i nvestigations prognostic va l ue. Going back to the basic cond i tions of capi t a l is t production, he presented them in a way which showed wh a t could be expected of capitalism in the future. Wh a t could be expected, it emerged, w a s not only an increasingly h arsh exploita tion of the pro l et a r iat b ut, u l ti m a tely, the cre a tion of conditions which wou ld ma ke it possi
b le for capita lism to a bolish i tself. S ince the transfo rmation of the su perstructu re proceeds fa r more slowly t han tha t of the ba s e, it has taken more than ha lf a century for the c hange in the cond itions of p roduction to be mani fested in all a reas of cu lture. How this process h as affected culture can only now b e assessed, a nd these assessments mllst meet certa i n prognos tic requirements . The y
do not, however, call for theses on the art of the proletariat zure
of power, a n d still less for a ny
on
its sei
the art of the classless s ociety. They
call fo r theses defining the ten dencies of the development of a r t undcr the present conditions of prod uction. The dialectic of these conditions of production is evident in the s uperstr ucture� no less than in the economy. Theses defining the developmental tendencies of art can therefore con tri bute to the p olit i ca l struggle in ways that it would be a mis ta ke to u n-
19
20
PRODUCTION,
R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R E C E PT I O N
deresti mate . They neutra l ize a nu mber of traditiona l concep ts-such as creati vity and genius, eternal value and mystery-which, used in a n u n contro Lled way ( and contro Lling them i s difficult today) , allow factua l material t o b e manipu la ted i n the interests of fascism. [n what follows, the concepts which are introduced into the theory of art
differ from those current in that they are completely useless for th e l)urposes of fas cism. On the other hand, they are useful for the formulation of re vo lu tionary demands in the p o litics of art [Kunstpoliti/� 1 . now
II I n principle, the work o f art has always been reproducible. O bj ec ts made by humans could a lways be copied by h umans. Replicas were made by pupils in practicing for their craft, by masters in dissemina ting their works, and, finally, by th ird parties in pursui t of profit. But the techno logical reproduction of artworks is something new. Having appeared in termittently in history, at widely spaced i ntervals, it is now being a dopted with ever-increasing intensity. Graphic art was first made technol ogicall y reproduc i b le by the woodcllt, long before written language became re producib le by movable type . The enormo us changes brought about i n literature b y mova ble type, the technological reproduction o f wri ting, are well known. But they are only a special case, though an imp ortant one, of the phenomenon considered here from the perspective of world history. In the co urse of the Middle Ages the woodcut was supplemented by engraving and etching, and at the beginning of the n ineteenth century by l ithography. Li thography marked a fundamentally new stage in the technology of reproduction. This much more direct process-distinguished by the fact that the drawing is traced on a s tone, rather than incised on a b lock of wood or etched on a copper plate-first made it possible for graphic art to market its products not only in large numbers, as previously, but in daily changing variations . Li thography enabled graphic art to provide a n ill ustrated accompaniment t o everyday life . I t began t o keep pace with movable-type prin ting. B ut only a few decades after the invention of li thography, graphic art was surpassed by p hotograp hy. For the first time, photography freed the hand from the most important artistic tasks in the process of pictorial reproduction-tasks that now devolved upon the eye alone. And since the eye perceives more swiftly than the hand can d raw, the process of pictorial reproduction was enormously accelerated , so that
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
21
it could now keep pace with speech. J us t as t h e illustrated newspaper vir t u ally lay hidden within li tho gr a phy, so the s o u n d film was latent in pho tography. The technological reproduction of sound was tackled at the end of the last century. A round 1 900, technological reproduction not only had reached a standard that permitted it to l'eproduce all k no wn worl?s of artj profoundly modifying their effectj but it also had captured place of its own among the artistic processes. In gauging this standardj we would do well to study the impact which its two different manifes ta
a
tions-the reproduction of artworks and the art of film-are having on art in its traditional form.
III In even the most perfect rep roduction, o n e thing i s lacking: the here and now of th e wo rk of art-its unique existence in a p articu lar pla ce . It is th is unique existence-and nothing else-that bears the mark of the h is
to ry to which the work has been s u bj e ct . This histo ry includes changes to the physical structure of the work ove r time, together with a ny c ha n g e s in ownership. Traces of the former can be detected only by chemical or ph y s ical a na l yses (which cannot be performed on a reprod uction ) , while chan g e s of ownership are p art of a tradition which can be traced only from the standpoin t o f the original in its present lo c ation . The here and now of the ori g ina l underlies the concept of its authen ticity, and on the l atter in t urn is fo und e d the idea of a trad i tion which has p assed the o b j e c t down as the same, identical thing to the p r e s ent d a y. The who le sphere of authenticity eludes technological-and of course not only technological-rel)roduction. Bur whereas the a uthentic work retains its ful l authority in the fa ce o f a r e pr o d uctio n made by hand, which it genera l ly brands a fo rge ry, this is not the with techno logical reproduction . The reason is t w ofold . First, technological repro duction is more independent of the original th an is m anu::l l reproduction. For exa mple, in photography it can bring out aspects of the origina l tha t a r e accessible t o the le ns (which i s adj usta ble an d c a n e a sily change viewpoint) but not to the human eye; or it can use ce rtain processes, s uch as enlargement or slow motion, to record images which escape natura l optics altoge ther. This is the first reason . S e con d , technological r e p r o d u c tion can p lace the copy o f the original in situations which the original it self can n o t attain. Above all , it enables the original to meet th e recipient halfway, whether in tbe form of a p ho togr a p h or in that of a gr a mo p h o ne
22
PRO D U CT IO N , REPRODUCTIO N , A N D R E C E PTION
record . The ca thedral leaves its site to be received in the stu d io of an art lover; the chora l work performed in an aud itorium or in the open a i r is enj oyed in a private roo m . These changed circumstances m a y leave the artwor k's o ther properties untouched, but they certa inly devalue the here a nd now of the artwork . And although this can apply not only to art but (say) to a landscape m oving past the spectator in a film., in the work of art this process touc hes on a highly sensitive core, more vulnerable than that of any n atu raj o bj ect. That core is its authenticity. The authenticity of a thing is the quintessence of a11 that is transmissi b le in it from its origin on, rang ing from its physical duration to the historical testi mony relating to it. Since the historical testimony is fou nded on the physicaJ duration, the former, too, is j eopardized by reproduction, i n which the physical dura tion plays no part. And what is really j eopard ized when t he h istorical tes timony is affected is the authority of the o bj ect, the weight it derives from tradition . O ne might focus these aspects of the artwork in the concept of the aura, and go on to say: what withers in the age of the technological reproducibility of the work of art is the latter's aura . T his process is symptomatic; its significance extends far beyond the realm of art. It
might be stated as a general formula that the technology of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the sphere of tradition. By replicat ing the work many times over, it substitutes a mass existence for a unique existence. And in lJermitting the reproduction to reach the recipient in his or her own situation, it actualizes that which is reproduced. These two processes lead to a m assive upheaval in the domain of o b j ects handed down from the past-a shattering of trad ition w hich is the reverse side of the present crisis and renewa l of hum a ni ty. Both processes are intimately related to the mass movements of our d ay. Their most powerful agent is fi lm. The social significance of film, even-and especially-in its most positive form, is i nconceivable without its des tructive, cathartic side: the liquidation of the value of tra dition in the cultural heritage. This phe nomenon is most appare nt in the great historical films. It is assimilating ever m ore adva nced positions in i ts spread. When Abel Gance fervently procl aimed in 1 927, " Shakespe a re, Rembra ndt, Beethoven will m ake fi lms . . . . All legends, a ll mythologies, and all myths, all the founders of religions, indeed, all religions, . . . await their cel luloid resurrection, and the heroes are pres s ing at the gate s , ') he was inviting the reader, no doubt unawares, to witness a comprehensive liquidation.3
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O ND V E R S I O N
23
IV Just as the entire mode of existence of human collectives changes over long historical periods, so too does their mode of perception. The way in
which human perception is organized-the medium in whi ch it occurs is conditioned not only by nature but by history. The era of the migra tion of peoples, a n era which saw the rise of the late-Roman art industry and the Vienna Genesis, developed not only an aft different from tha t of antiquity but also a different perception. The scholars of the Viennese school Riegl and Wickhoff, resisting the weight of the classical tradition beneath which this art had been buried, were the first to think of using such art to draw conclusions a bout the organization of perception at the time the art was produced.4 However far-reaching their insight, it was limited by the fact that these scholars were content to highlight the for mal signature which characterized perception in late-Roman times. They did not attempt to show the social upheavals manifested in these changes in perception-and perhaps could not have hoped to do so at that time. Today, the conditions for an ana logous i nsight are more favora ble. And if changes in the medium of present-day perception can be understood as a decay o f the a ura , it is possible to demonstrate the soci a l determinants of that decay. Wha t, then, is the a ura? A strange tissue of space and time: the unique app ari tion of a distance, however near it may be.s To follow with the eye-while resting on a summer afternoon-a mountain range on the ho rizon or a branch that casts its sha dow on the beholder is to brea the the a ura of those mountains, of that branch . In the light of this description, we can readily grasp the social basis o f the aura's present decay. It rests on two circumstances , both linked to the increasing emergence of the masses and the growing intensity of their movements . Namely: the desire of the present-day masses to "get closer " to things, and their equally pas sionate concern for overcoming each thing's uniqueness [ O berwindung des Einmaligen jeder Gegebenheit] by assimilating it as a reproduction.
Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an o b j ect at close range in an image [Bild] , or, b etter, in a facsimile [Abbildl , a reproduction. And the reproduction lReprodul?tion ] , as o ffered by illustrated magazines and newsreels, differs unmistaka bly from the i mage. Uniqueness and perma nence are a s closely e ntwined in the latter as are transitoriness and re peatabil i ty in the former. The stripping of the veil from t he object, the de struction of the aura, is the signature o f a perception whose " sense for a l l
24
PROD UCTION , R E P R O D U CTI O N , AND RECEPTION
that is the same i n the world )) 6 has so increased that, by mea ns of repro d uction, it extracts sameness even from wha t i s uni que. Thus is mani fe ste d i n th e field of p er ce p ti o n w h a t i n t he th e o r e tic a l sphere is notice able in th e i ncreas ing si g ni fic a nce of s ta tis tics . The a l i gn m e nt of reality with the masses and of the masses w i th re a l i ty is a process of imm e as u r able i mp o r t a nc e for both thin ki n g a n d percep t io n .
v The uniqueness of the work of art is i d enti c a l to its e mbeddedness in
the context of tradition. Of cou rse , this tradition itse lf is t h oro ugh ly a l iv e and e x trem e ly cha n ge a ble . An ancient statue of Venus, for i nstance, ex is te d in a t r a d iti onal context for the Greeks ( who m a de it an object o f worship) that was different from the c on te xt in which i t exi s te d for medieval clerics ( who viewed it as a s i ni ster i do l ) . But w hat was equa l ly e vident to b o th was its uniqueness-that i s , i ts a ura . O r igi n a l l y, the embeddedness of a n artwo rk in t he context of trad ition fou n d expression in a cu lt . As we k now, the earliest artworks ori g i nat e d in the service o f rituals-first m a gi c a l , th en re li gio u s . A n d i t is highl y si gnifi c a n t that the artwork's a urati c mode of e xi ste n ce is never en ti r e l y seve red from its rit ual fu n c t ion . In o ther words: the uniqu e value of the "authentic " work of art a lways has its basis in ritual. This r i t u a l i s t i c basis, h owever m ed i a te d it m a y be, is still recogn iz a ble as secul arized r i tu a l i n even the m o st pro fa ne forms of the cult of beauty. The s ecular worship o f beau ty, which de
velo ped d ur ing the Renaissance and p r e v ai l e d for th ree centuries, c l e a rly d i sp l ay e d that ritual istic basis in its s u b se q u e n t decline and in the first se vere cr i s i s which b efell i t . For wh en , with the advent of th e fi rs t t r u l y rev
o l u t i o na r y means of reproduction ( n amely photography, w h ich emerged at the same time as soci a l is m ) , art felt the a pp roach of t hat cris is w h ic h a
century late r has become unmistaka ble, it reacted with the doctrine of I'art pour rart-that is, with a theology of art'? Th is in turn gave rise to a negarive theology, in t he form of an idea o f "pure " art, w hich rejects not o n l y any soci al func tion b ut a ny d e fin i t i o n in terms of a representational content . ( In p oetry, M al l arme was the first to ad o p t this
sta n dpoint. ) 8
N o investigation o f the wor k o f art i n the age o f its technological repro d ucibi l i t y can overlook t h es e connections . T h e y lead t o a crucial in si gh t : for the fi rs t time in world h istory, technological re p roduc i b i l i ty emancip a tes the work o f art from j ts p a rasi t ic s u bservience t o ritual. To an ever-i ncreas ing degree, the work re prod u c e d becomes the reprod uc tion of a work des i gn e d for reproducibil.ity.9 From a p hotographic p late,
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
25
for example, one ca n m a ke any n um b e r of p r i n t s ; to a s k for the " a u t h e n
makes no se n s e . But as soon as the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applied to artistic pro du ctio n , the wh ole social function of art is revolutionized. Instead of being founded 01'l ri tua l, it is based on a different practice: p o li tics . ti c " print
VI Art histo ry might b e seen as t he w o rk i n g out of a tension b etw e en two
within the artwork i tself, its being determined by S ll ifts in the balance b etwe en the two . These two are the artwork's c ul t value a nd its exhib ition v a lu e . I II Artistic production begins with figu res in the service of magi c . What is important for fig u r es is that they are present, n ot that they a r e seen. The elk d e picted b y Stone Age man on the walls of h is c a v e is an instrumen t of m a gi c� and is exhibited t o o th e rs o n l y coinci dentally; w h a t matters is th a t the spirits see i t . C u lt value a s sta tues o f gods s uch even tends to k e e p th e a rtwork o ut of are acce s s i b l e only to the priest in the cel l a ; certain images of the Ma d o n na remain covered nearly a l l y ear ro und; certain sculptures on medi eval cathedrals are not v i s i b l e to the viewer at g ro un d level. With the p o l a ri t i es
emancilJation of specific artistic practices from the service of ritual, the opportunities for exhibiting their /Jroducts increase. It is e as ie r to exhibit a portrait bust tha t can be sent here and there than to e xh ib i t the s tatue of a d i v in i ty tha t has a fixed place in the i nt e r i o r of a temple. A panel pai nting can be exhibited more e as i ly than the m o s a i c or fresco which preceded it. And a lthough a mass may have been no less s u i t ed to public presentation than a s ym p ho n y, the sym p h ony came i n to b ei ng at a t i m e when the possibility of s uch presen ta ti o n p ro mised to be greater.
The scope for exhibi t i n g the wo r k of a rt has increased so e normously wi th the various methods of technologically reprod ucing i t that, a s ha p pen ed in p r e histo r ic times, a quantitative sh ift between th e tw o p oles of the a rtwork ha s led to a q ual i t a ti v e transfo rmatio n in its nature. Just as the work of a r t in pre h i s to ri c times, through the exclus i ve e mph as i s pl a c e d on i ts c ult val ue, became first and foremos t an i n s t r u ment o f magic w h i ch only later came to be r e c o gn ize d as a work of art, so today, through the exc l u s ive emph a s is placed on its exhibition value, the work of a rt b e c o m es a co n s tr uc t l GebildeJ w ith q u i t e n e w fu n c ti on s . Amo ng these, the o n e we are conscio u s of-the artistic fun c tio n-m a y s u bse qu e n t ly be seen as i n c i de n ta l . This much is certain: tod ay, film is the mos t se r vice a b le vehicle of this new understanding. Cenain, as well, is the fact
26
P R O D u eTI O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N , A N D R EC E PTI O N
that the h i s to ri c a l moment of th is change in the fu nctio n of a r t-a c ha n g e which is most ful l y ev id ent in the case of fi l m-al lows a direct c o mp a r i son with the primeval era of art not only from a method ologic a l but a lso fro m
a m a te r i a l point o f view. Prehistoric a rt m a d e use of c ert a in fixed notati ons in the service of magical p r a cti c e . In s o me cases, these n o ta t i o ns probably com p rised th e actual pe r forming of ma gi c a l acts (the carving of an a nc estr a l figure is it self such an act ) ; in o thers, th ey gave instructions for s uch p ro ce d u res ( the ancest r a l fi gure d emonstrates a ritual posture) ; and in still o thers, they prov i d e d o bj ects for m a gi c a l c ont em pl a tion ( c o n te m p l a t i o n of an ancestra l figure s t r e n gthe n s the occult powers of the beho l de r ) . The s u b jects for th es e no tations were h um a n s a n d their e nvironment, which were depicted a cco rdi ng to the r e q u ire m e nts of a s o c iety whose tech nology ex i sted onl y in fus i o n with ritual . Compared to t h a t of the m a ch in e age, o f course, this techno logy wa s un d e ve lo ped . B u t fro m a d i a l e ctic a l stand p oin t , the disparity is unimportant. What matters is the way the orienta
tion and a im s of that techno logy differ from those of o urs . Wh erea s the former ma d e the m axi m u m p os s i b l e use of hum a n b e ing s , the latter re du c e s their LJ se to t h e minimum. The a c h i e v em e n t s of the first technology
might be said to cu l m ina te in h u m a n s acrifice; those of the second, in the remote-controlled aircraft which needs no human crew. The r e sults o f th e first techn o l ogy
are
valid o nce and for a l l ( i t d eals with irrep arable
lapse
or sacrificial d ea th , which h ol ds good for eternity) . The r e s ults of the sec ond are wh o l ly p r ovi s i on a l ( it o p e r a tes by mea n s of experiments a nd en d l ess l y v a ried test procedures ) , The o r i gi n of the secon d techno logy lies
at the point where, by an uncons c i o us ruse, h u ma n b e ings first b egan to di st a nce themsel ves fro m nature. It lies, in o t h er words, in play. Seriousness and p l a y, rigor and license, are m i n g l e d in eve ry work of a rt, t ho u g h in v e ry differen t p roportions . Th is imp l ies tbat art is linked to
both the second and t h e firs t t e chn o l o g i es . It should be note d , however, t h a t to des c r i b e the goal of the second tech no lo g y as " ma s te ry over na ture"
is highly
qu estiona ble, s i n c e this implies view ing th e secon d tech
n ol og y fr0111 the stand p o i n t o f the first. The fi rst tec hnology really s o u gh t
to m aster natu re , whereas the second aims rathe r at an i nte r p l a y between nat ure and humanity. The primary social functi o n of art toda y is to re hearse tha t interplay. This a p p lies especi ally to fi l m . The fun ction of film
is to tfain human beings in the a{Jperce{J tions and reactions needed to deal with a vast apparatus whose role in their lives is expanding almost daily. Dealing with thi s a ppara tus also teaches them that technology will
releas e them from their e ns l a v e m e n t to the powers of the apparatus only
T H E W O R K O F A R T : S EC O N D V E RSI O N
2'1
whe n h u manity's whole consti tution has adapted itself to the new p ro ductive forces which the second technology has set free . l l
VI I In p h otography> exhibition value begins to drive bacl� cult value on all
(fOn ts . But cult value does not give way without resistance. It falls back
to a last entrenchment: the human countenance . It is no accident tha t the portrait is central to early photography. In the cult of remembrance of d ea d o r a bsent loved ones� the cult value of the image finds its last refuge. In the fleeting expression of a human face� the aura beckons from early photo graphs for the l ast time. This is what gives the m the i r melancholy and incomparable beauty. But as the h uman being withdraws from the photograp h ic image, exhibition value for the first time shows its superi ority to cult value. To have
this d evelopme nt its local ha bitati on
co nstitutes the unique significance of A tget, who, around 1 900, took 12
photographs o f
I t has j ustly b een said that h e
photo gra phed them l ike scenes of crimes . A crime scene, too, i s deserted; i t is photographed for the purpose of esta b lishing evidence . With Atget, p h o tographic record s begin t o be evidence in the historical trial [ProzessJ . This constitutes their hidden political significance. They demand a spe cific kind of reception . Free-flo ating contemplation is no l onger appropri ate to them. They unsettle the v iewer; he feels chal lenged to find a partic u l a r way to approach them. At the same time, illustrated m a ga zines begin to put up signposts for him-whether these arc right o r wrong is irrele vant. For the fi rst time , captions become o b ligatory. And it is clear tha t they have
a
character a l toge ther different fro m the ti tles of paintings . The
directives given by captions to those l o oking at images in i l l ustrated mag azi nes s o on become even more precise and comman d i ng in films, where the way each s ingle image is understo o d seems prescribed by the se quence of all the preceding images .
VI I I The Greeks had only two ways o f techno logical l y re prod ucing works o f art: casting and stamping. Bro nzes , terra cottas, and coins were the only a r tworks they could prod uce i n l arge numbers. A ll o thers were uniq ue and could not be technologica lly reprod uced . That is why they had to be made for all eternity. The state of their techno logy compelled the Greeks to produce eternal values in their art. To this they o we their p reeminent
28
P R O D U C T ION , R E P R O D U C T ION , A N D R E C E P T I O N
POSItlOll in art his tor y
-
the standard for s u bsequent generations. Un
doubtedly, our positioll lies at the opposi te pole from that of the Greeks . Never before h a v e artworks been tec hnologically reprod ucible to such
a
degree and in sllch q u antities as today. Fi lm is the first art fo rm whose ar tistic ch aracter is entirely determined b y i ts reproducibility. It would be i dle to compare this fo r m in detail wi th
p oint such
Greek a r t . But on one precise
comparison would be reve ali n g. For film has given cru c i a l
a
i m p o r ta n c e to a quality of the artwork w hich woul d have been the last to find approval alllo ng the Greeks, or which they would have dismissed as m a r g i n a l This q ua l i ty i s its capacity for impro vement. The finished .
film is the exact anti thesis of a work created a t a s i n gl e stroke . It is assem bled from
a
very l a rge num ber of i mages and image sequences tha t offer
an array of choices to the editor; these images, moreover, can be i m proved in any desired way in the process le a d i ng from the in i tial take to the final Cll t. To produce A Woman of Paris, which is 3,000 me te rs long, C h a pl in shot 1 25 , 0 0 0 meters of film. 1 3 The film is therefore the artwork most capa b le of i11t!J1'ovement. And this capability is
linked
to its radical
renunciation of eternal value. Th is is c o rr o b o r ate d by the fact that for the
Greeks, whose a rt depended on the produc t ion of e ternal va l ues, the p in nacle of all the arts was the form least c a p a bl e of improvement-na mely
s c u l pt u re whose p ro ducts a re litera lly all of a piece. In the age of the ,
as
sembled r.montierbarJ artw o rk , the decline of scul pture is inevitabl e .
IX The nineteenth c ent u ry d i spute over the relative artistic merits of pai nt -
ing and photography seems misguid ed and confused to day. 1 4 But this
does not d iminish its importance, and may ev e n underscore i t. The d is p u te was in fact a n e xp r e s s i o n of a world -historical upheaval whose true na ture was concealed from both p arties . Insofar as the age of t ec h n o l og i c a l r e pr o d uci b ili ty separa ted art from its basis in c u l t, all sem blance of art's a ut o n o m y d isappeared forever. But the resulting change in the func
tion o f art lay beyond the horizon of the nineteenth c e ntury. And even the twentieth , which sa w the d eve l o pm e n t of film, was slow to pe rc e ive it.
Th ough commenta tors had earlier expended much fruitless ingenu ity on th e question of whether ph o to graphy was an art-with out asking the more fu nda menta l question of whether th e inv enti o n of p h otography had n o t t ransfo rm e d the entire character of art film theorists quicldy adopted the s a me ill-considered stan dp o in t. B ut the di fficulti es which -
photography caused for traditional a es thetics were child's play compared
T H E W O R K O F A RT: S EC O N D V E R S I O N
29
to those pre s e nted by film. Hence til e o btLlse and h y p erbo li c cha racter of e a rl y film theory. Abe l Gance, for insta nce, compares film to hieroglyph s : "By
a
remarkable regression, we are transported b a c k t o the exp ressive
level of the Egyp tians
Pictorial language h as n ot matured, because our eyes a re not yet a da p te d to it. There is not yet enough respect, not enough cult, for what it expresses . " IS Or, in the words of Severin-Mars: "What other art h as been g r a n te d a dream . . . at once more poetic and mo re real ? S e en in this li ght film might rep r e s e n t an i ncompara ble means of expression, and only the noblest m inds s h o uld move with i n i ts atmo sphere , in the most perfect a n d m y s t e r iou s moments of t h eir l ives . " J 6 It is instructive to see how the desire to a n nex film to " art" im p e l s these theoreticians to a ttri b u te el ements of c ult to film-with a striking l a ck of discretion. Yet when these speculations were pu bli s he d, works like A Woman of Paris and The Gold R ush had alrea d y appea red . This did not deter Abel Gance from making the comparison w i t h hieroglyphs, wh ile S e v eri n M ars speaks of film a s one m i g h t spe a k o f pa intings by Fra A nge l i co. 17 It is r e v e alin g that even toda y especially reaction ary a uthors l oo k in the same direction for the s i g n ifi c a n ce of film-finding, if not a c tually a sacred s ig n i fi ca n c e , then a t least a s uperna tural one. In co n n ec tion with Max Rei nh a r d t s film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wedel co mm e n ts that it was undoubtedly the s te rile c o py i ng of the exter n a l w orl d with its streets, interi ors , railway stations, resta urants, a uto mobiles, and beaches�that had p revented film up to now from ascend ing to the re a lm o f art . " Film has not yet r e a lize d its tru e purpose, i ts real poss ibi lities . . . . These consist in its unique abil ity to use natural me a n s to give incomparably convincing e xpr es s i o n to the fairylike, the marvel ous, the supernatural. " I H .
.
.
.
,
-
'
-
x
To photograph a painting is one kin d of reproduction, b u t to photograph an action performed in a film studio is a nother. In the first case, wha t is r e p r o d u ce d is a w o rk of a rt, while the act o f p r o d u c i n g it is not. The cam e ra m a n 's performa nce with the l e ns no more creates an a rtwork tha n a conductor's with t he baton; a t most, it creates a n artistic performance. This is u n l ike the process in a film s tudio . Here, what is reproduced is n o t a n a rt w ork and the act of reproducing it is no more su c h a work than in the first case. The work of art is p r o d uce d only by mea ns of montage . A n d each individual compon ent o f this montage is a reproduction of a process w h i ch neither is a n artwork in n or gives rise to one throu gh ,
30
P R O DUCTIO N , R E PROD UCTI O N , A N D RECEPT I O N
p horography. What, th en, are these processes r e p roduc e d in film, since
th ey are cert a i n l y not works o f art? To answer this, we must s t a r t from the pec uliar natu re of the artistic performance of the film actor. He is di s t i ngu is h e d from the stage actor in that his pe rfo rm a nce i n i ts original form, from which the reprod uction is m a d e , is not carried ou t i n front o f a ra n do m l y composed audience but b efore a group of specialists-execu tive producer, di r ec t o r, cinematogra p h e r, sOllnd record ist, lighting designer, and so on-who are in a p os i ti on to intervene in h is performance at any time . Th is a s pect of filmma k i ng is h i g h l y s i gni fic a n t in so ci a l te rms . For the intervention in a perfor m a nce by a body of experts is also ch aracteris tic of sporting performances and, i n a w ider sense, of all test performances . Th e e n t i r e process of film pro duction is determined, in fa ct, by such intervention. As we know, many shots a re fi lmed i n a number of takes. A single cry fo r h elp, for example, can be recorded in several d i fferent version s . The editor then makes a se lection from these ; i n a s ens e , he esta blishes o ne of them as the record. An action p erformed in the film studio therefore differs from the correspond ing real action the way the com peti ti v e throwing of a discus in a s ports arena would differ from the throwing of the s a me discus fr0111 th e same spot i n the same direction in order t o k ill someon e . The first is a test per formance, while t h e second is not. The test performance of the film actor is, however, ent i rel y unique in ki n d . In what does this p erform an c e consist ? It co n sists in cr o s s i n g a certa in barrier which confines th e social va lue of test p e rfo rm a nc es with in n arrow l imits. I a m referr i ng now not to a performance in the world of sp o rts , but to a p erform a n ce p r od u c ed in a mech anized te st . In a se nse , the a th le t e is confronted only by natural tests . I-Ie me a s u r e s h imself against tasks s et by nature, n o t by eq uipment-apart from exceptional c a s es like Nur m i , who was s aid to r un against the c1ock . L9 Meanwhile the work process, especia l ly since it has been stand ardized b y the assem bl y li n e , d a i l y genera tes countless mechanized tests . These tests are p e rfo r m ed un awares, and who faiJ are excluded from the work p r oce s s . But th ey are also conducted open l y, in agencies for testing pro fessional a p ti tude. In both cases, t h e test s ubject fa c es the barrier men tioned above. These tests, unlike those in the world of sports, are i nc a p a b l e of being publ icly ex h i b i te d to the degree one W O ll ld d esire. And this is precisely where film comes into p l ay. Film makes test performances capable of be ing exhibited, by turning that ability itself into a test. The film acto r per forms not in fron t of an audience b l1 t in front of an a pp a ra t u s . The film
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
31
d i re c t or o cc upi e s e x a c t l y the s a me p o s i t i on as the exa miner in an apti tude test. To pe rfo r m in th e glare of arc l a mps whi l e s i m u l ta n e o u s l y
meeting th e demands of t h e microphone is a test perfo rmance o f the high est o rd er. To a c co m p l i s h it is to p r ese r v e one's h u man ity in the face of th e a p p a r a tu s . Interest i n this p erformance is wi d e sp re a d . For the maj ority of city dwellers) through o ut t h e w o r k d a y in o ffic es a n d facto ries, h ave to re linq uish their h umanity i n the face of an apparatus. In the even ing these same masses fill the ci n em a s , to witness the film a c to r t a k i ng revenge on t h e ir beh a lf n o t only by asserting his h um an i ty (or wha t a ppea rs to the m as such) ag a in s t the a p p a r a t us , but b y p l aci ng tha t apparatus in the ser vice of his triumph.
XI In the c ase of film) the fac t that the actor repres ents someone else before
t h e a udience ma tters much less t han the fact that he r ep r e s e n t s himself before the apparatus. On e of the fi rs t to sense this transformation of the actor by t h e te s t p erfo rm a nce w a s Pirand e l l o . 20 Th a t his remarks on the s u bje ct in his n o ve l Sigil'a [Shootll are confined to the negative aspects of this ch a n g e , and to silent fil m only, does l ittle to dim i ni sh their rele v a n c e . For in this respect, the sound film c h a n ge d n o t hi n g essential . Wh a t matters is tha t the actor is p e rfo rm in g for a p i e c e of e q uipment-or, in the case of s o u nd fi l m, for two p ie c e s of equipment. " The film a ctor, " Pirand ello writes, as if e x i l e d . Exiled not o n l y from the s tage but from his own person. With a vague unease, he s e ns e s an i ne x plic a ble void, stemming from t h e fact t h at his body has lost its substance, th at he h a s been volatilized, str ipp ed of h i s reali ty, his li fe , his voice, the noises h e makes wh e n mov ing a b o ut , and has been turned into a m ute image that flickers for a m om e nt on the screen, t h e n vanishes into silence . . . . The little apparatus will p l a y with his shadow before the a udience, and he h imself m ust be content to play before th e apparatus . " 2 1 The situation can also be characterized as fo ll o w s : for t h e first time-and this is the ef fe ct of fi l m- th e human being is pl a c e d in a p o s i tio n where he must oper ate w i th h i s wh o l e li v i ng person, while forgoing its a ura . For the a u r a is b ound to his p r e se n c e in the here a nd now. There is no fa cs i m ile of t h e aura. The aura s ur r oundi ng Mac beth on the stage cannot b e d ivorced from the au ra which, for t h e l i v i n g spectators, s urrounds the actor who plays him. What di s t i n g u i s hes the s h o t in the film studio, however, is t h at the camera is s ub stit u te d for the audience. As a result, t h e aura surround i ng the actor is dispelled-and, witb it, the a u r a o f the figure h e p or tra ys .
32
P R O D U C T I O N . R E P ROD U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P T IO N
It is not surprising that it shoul d be
a
d ramatist such as Pirand e l l o
who , i n reflecting o n t h e special character of film acting, i n adverte n tly
touches on the crisis now affecting the theate r. Indeed , nothing contrasts more starkly with a work of art comp letely s u b j e c t to ( or, like film, founded in) tech n ological reprod uction th an a s tage play. Any thorough considera t ion will confirm this . Expert o bservers have l o n g recognized tha t, in film, " the best effects a re almost a l w ays a chieved b y ' a cti n g ' as
little as p oss i b l e . . . . The development, " a c co r d i ng to Rudolf Arnheim,
writing in 1 932, h as been toward " u si ng the actor as one of the ' props,' chosen for his typ icalness and . . . introduced i n the proper co n text . " 22 C l o s e l y bound up with t h is d evelopment is something else . The stage ac tor identifies himself with a role. The film actor very often is denied this opportunity. His perfo rmance is by n o me a n s a u nified whole, but is as
se mbled from many ind ividu a l perfo rmances . Apart fro m in c i d e n t a l con cern s a bo u t s tud i o renta l, a vaila bility of other actors, scenery, and so on,
t h e re are el e menta ry necessi ties of the machi nery that s p l i t the a ctor's p erformance into a se ries of episodes capable of being assembled. In p ar ticula r, l ighti n g a nd its instal lation req u i re th e re p resentation of an a c t i o n-w hi ch o n the screen appears as a s w i ft , unified sequence-to be fil med in a s eri es of s e pa ra te takes, w hich may be spread o ver ho urs in the stud io . Not to mention the more obvious effects of montage . A l e a p from
a
window, for example, can be shot in the stud io as a leap fro m
a
scaffold, w hile the cnsuing fall may be fil med weeks later a t an outd o or
l oca t i o n . And fa r mo re p a r a doxi c a l c ases can easily be imagin e d . Let aSSllme that an actor is supposed to be startled by
a
us
knock at the doo r.
If his reaction is n o t s a tisfactory, the d irector can resort to an exped ient: he could h a v e
a
sho t fired without warning behind the actor's back on
some o ther occa sion when he ha p pe n s to b e in t h e s tudio . The actor's fri ghtene d
e
r ac
ti on at that moment could be recorded a nd then edited
i n to the film. Nothin g s h o ws
m
or e gr a p h i ca l l y tha t a rt has escaped the
realm of " beau tiful semblance, " whic h for so l ong was rega rd ed as the o n ly sphere i n which i t could thrive.:!.]
XI I The rejJresentation
of human
beings by means
of an
apparatus has made
possibLe a highly p roductive use of the h uman being 's self-alie11ation. The natu re of this use can be grasped through the fact that the film acto r's es trangement in the face of t h e ap p ar a t u s , r
as
Pi r a n de l l o d escri b es this expe
i e n ce , is b a sically o f the same k ind as the estrangement felt before one's
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
appearance
lErscheinung]
33
in a mirror-a favorite theme of the Roman
tics. But now the mi rro r image
rBi/d]
h a s b ecome deta chable from the
person mirrored, a nd is transportable. And where is it transport ed ? To a s ite in front of the masses .24
Natura lly,
the screen actor never for a mo
ment ceases to be aware of th i s . Whi l e he sta nds b efore the appa ratus, he knows that i n the end he is confronting the m asses . It is they who will control him. Those who are not visible, not present while he executes his per formance, are p recisely the o nes who w i l l control it. This invisib ili ty heightens the auth o ri ty of their control. It should not be forgotten, of co u rse, that there can be no political advantage deri ved from this con trol u n ti l film has libera ted itse l f fro m the fetters o f ca p i talist exploita tion. Film c apital llses the revoluti onary opportu nities implied by this control for counterrev o lutionary p urposes. Not only does the c u lt of the movie s tar which i t fos ters preserve that magic of t he pers o nality which has long been no more than the putrid magic of its own commod ity char acter, but its counterpart, the cult of the audience, reinforces the corr up tion b y which fascism is seeking to s u pplant the c lass consciousness of the ma sses .1S
XIII It is inherent in t h e technology of film, a s of sports, tha t everyo ne w h o
witnesses these performances does so as a quasi-expert. An yone who has listened to
a
group of newspaper boys l eaning on their b icycles and dis
cussing the outcome of a b i cycle race will h ave an inkling of this. In the case of film, the newsreel demonstrates unequivocally that any i nd i � vid ual c a n be i n
a
position t o be filmed . But that possi bility i s n o t enough .
A ny person today can lay claim to being filmed. This claim c a n best be clarified by considering the historical situation of literature tod a y. For centuries it was in t he nature of litera ture that a sma ll number o f writers con fronted many thousands of r eaders . This b e g a n t o change t o w a r d t h e e n d o f the p a s t century. With the growth a n d extension of the press, which con s ta n tl y made new political, religious, s cien tific, profes si o nal, and local j ournals available to readers, an increasing num b er of read ers-in isolated cases , at fi rst-turned into wr iters. It bega n with the space set aside for " lette rs to the ed i to r " in the da i l y press, and has now re
a ch ed a point where there is h ardly a European e ngaged in the w o rk
process who could n o t, in principle, find an opportunity to pub lish some where or other an account of a w o rk experience, a complaint, a report, o r something o f the kind. Th us, the d istinction between a utho r and pub-
34
P R O D U CTI O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R EC E PTI O N
lic is a bout to lose i ts axiomatic dlaracter. Th e difference becomes func tional ; i t may v a ry from c a se to case. At any momen t, the rea d e r is r e a dy to b ecome a w ri ter. As an expert-which he has had to become in an y case
in
a
h i ghly sp e ci a lized work process, even if onl y in some minor
ca pacity-the reader gains access to au t horshi p . Wo rk itself is given a voice. A nd the a bility to d es c ri b e a j o b in word s now forms p art of the
expertise needed to ca r r y it out. Literary competence is no lo ng e r founded on specialized hi gher ed uca tion but on polytechnic training, a n d thus i s common p ro perty.
A l l this
ca n
readi ly be
a pp l ied
to fi lm , where shifts th at in litera
ture took place over cen tu ries have occurred in a dec a de . In
c i ne mat ic
practice-above a ll , in Russia-this s hift h a s a lr e a d y be e n p artl y real ized. Some of the actors taking p a r t i n Russia n films are not actors i n our sense but people who po rtra y themselves-a nd p rim a ril y in their own work process. In western Europe today, the capitalist expl oitation of
fi l m obstructs the h u ma n b eing's legitimate claim to b e i n g rep roduc e d . The claim is a lso o bs tructed , incidentally, by une mp l o ymen t, w h i c h ex cl u des la rge masses from produc tion-the p r oce s s in which their pri mar y entitlement to be reprod u ce d woul d lie. Under th ese ci rcumstances, the fil m ind ust ry has an over ri d ing interest in stimu la ting the i nvolv e men t of the ma s ses thr o u gh i l l usi o n a ry disp lays and
a mb i guo us
specula
tions . To this end i t has set i n motion an immense pu b licit y machine , in the service of which it has placed the careers and love lives of the stars; it has organize d polls; it has held beauty c o n tests . All this in o rd e r to d is tort and corr upt the original a n d j u stified interest o f th e masses i n fi lm an in ter est in unde r st a nd i ng themselves and the r efore their class. Thus, the same is true of film a
c apit al
in p artic u l ar as of fascism in gen e r a l :
compe lling urge tow a rd new social opp ortu n ities is bei ng cl a ndesti n e ly
e xp l o i ted in the interests of a property- owning min or i ty. For this r ea
son al one, the expropr iation of film c apital is an u rg en t demand for the prol etariat.
XIV The s h o oti n g o f a film, e speci a l ly
inable spectacl e . It pre s ents
a
a
so und film, o ffers a h i t herto uni mag
process in wh ich i t is i mpo s s i b le to
a ss ig n
to the specta tor a s ingl e vi e w p oi n t which would exc l u d e from his or her field of vi sio n the eq u i pment not di rec t l y involved in the
ac t ion
be
i ng filmed-the c a mer a , the U ght ing units, the technica l c rew, and so forth ( unl ess the a lign m ent of the spectator 's pup il coi ncided with that of
35
T H E WOR K O F A R T: SE C O N D V E R SION
the c amera ) . This circumstance, more than any other, m akes any resem blance between a scene in a fil m studio a n d one onstage superfici a l a n d ir relevant. In pri nciple, the theater i nclu des a position from which the ac tion o n the stage cannot easily be detecte d a s
an
illusion. There is n o su ch
position where a film is being shot. The illu s ory nature of film i s of the second d egree; i t is the result of e diting . That is to say: I11 the film studio the apparatus has p enetrated so deelJI)' into reality that a pure view of that reality, free of the foreign body of equipment) is the result of a spe cial procedure-namely, th e s h o o ting by the specially adjusted photo gratJhic device and the assembly o f that shot with others of the sal'ne kind. The eq uipment-free aspect of reality has here become the height of
artifice, and the vis ion of imme d i ate reality the Blue Flower in the l and o f technology.2 6 This state of a ffa i rs , which c ontrasts so sharply with that
ob-
tains in the theater, can be compa red even more instructively to the situa tion in p a inting. Here we have to pose the q uest ion: How does the cam era operator com p a re with the pa inte r ? In a nswer to this, it will be helpfu l to conside r the concept of the operator as it i s familiar to us from s urgery. The s urgeon represents the polar opposite of the m agician. T he attitude of the magicia n , who heals a sick person by a l a y i ng o n o f hands, -
differs from d lat o f the surgeo n, who m akes an intervention in the p a
tietH. The magici a n maintains the n a tural distance between himself a n d the person treated� m ore precisely� he reduces i t slightly b y layin g on his h a n ds but increases it greatly by h i s authority. The surgeon does exactly ,
the reverse: he grea tly diminishes the distance fro m the patient b y pene� tra ting the p a tie nt s bod y, a n d increases it only sl i ghtly by the c a ution '
with which his hand moves a mong the o rgans. In short: unlike the magi cian ( traces of whom are s till found in the medical p r actitioner ) , the s ur g e o n a bstai ns a t the decisive moment fro m confronting h i s p atien t person
to person; inste a d , he pene trates the p atient by op erating.-Ma gician is to surgeon as painte r is to c inematographer. The painter ma intains in his work a natu r a l d i stance from real i ty whereas the c inematographer p ene ,
tra tes d ee ply into its tissue . The images o btai ned by each differ enor mo us l y. The painter's is a total image, whereas tha t of the cinematogra p her i s piecemea l , its manifold p a rts being assembled according to a new law. Hence, th e presentation of reality in film is incomlJarably the more significant fo r people of today, since it provides the equipment-free astJect of reality th ey are entitled to demand from
a
work of art, a11d does so
precisely o n the basis of the m ost intensive interpenetration of reality with equipment.
36
P R O D UCTI O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N , AND R EC E P T I O N
xv The techno logical reJ)roducib ility of the artwork changes th e relation of the masses to art. The extreme!)! backward attitude to ward a Picasso pa in ting changes into a highly progressive reaction to a Chaplin film. The progressive a ttitude is characterized by an immedi ate , i ntimate fusion of pleasure-pleas ure in seeing and experiencing-with an attitude of ex pert appraisal . Such a fusion i s an importa nt social index. As is clearly seen in tbe case of painting, the more red uced the social imp act of an art form, the more wi dely criticism a nd enj oyment of it d iverge in the pu blic. The con ventiona l is uncriticall y enjoyed, while the truly llew is criticized with a version. Not so in the cinema . The decisive reason for this is that nowhere more than in the ci nema are the reactions of ind ivid uals, which together make up the massive reaction of the audience, determined by tbe imminent concentration of re actions into a mass. No sooner are these re a ctions manifes t than they regul ate one a nother. Again, the comp arison with painting is frui tful. A p ainting has always exerted a cl aim to be viewed primari ly by a singJe person or by
a
few. The simultaneous view
ing of paintings by a large audience, as hap pens in the nineteenth century, is an early symptom of the crisis i n painting, a crisis triggered not only by photography but, in a rel atively independent way, by the artwork's cla im to the attention of the masses . Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous col lective receptioll, as architecture has always been a ble to do, as the epic poem could do at one time, and
as
film is a ble to do tod ay. An d altho ugh
direct conclusions a bout the social role of pain ting cannot be drawn from this fact alone, it does have a strongly adve rse effect whenever painting is led by speci al circu mstan ces, as i f against its nature, to confront the masses directly. In the churches a nd monasteries of the Middle Age s, and at the princely courts up to about the end of the eighteenth century, the collective reception of pai ntings took place not simultaneo usly but in
a
manifoldly grad u a ted and hierarchically mediated way. If that has
c h anged, th e ch ange testifies to the speci al confl i ct in which painting has become enmeshed by the technol ogical repro duci bility of the image . And while efforts have been made to present paintings to tlle m asses in ga ller ies a nd sa lons, this mode of recepti on gives the masses no means of o rga nizi ng and regulating the ir response. Th us, the same public which re acts p rogress ively to a s la psti ck comedy inevita bly displays tude toward Surrealism .
a
backward a tti
37
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
XVI The most important social function of film is to establish equilibrium be tween human beings and the apparatus. Film achieves this g o al not o n l y
t o the cam er a but a l s o in terms
i n terms of man's p resentation o f
of his representati o n of h is env i ronment by means of this appa ratus. On the o ne han d film furthers insight into the necessities govern i ng our lives ,
by i ts use of c lose-ups, by its acc entuation of h i d d e n details i n fa m iliar objects, and by its
exploration
of common p lace milieux throu gh the inge
nious guidance o f the camera; on the other h a n d , i t ma nages to assure us o f a vast and u nsuspected field of action rSpielraumJ . O ur bars a n d city streets, our offices and furnis hed rooms, our rail road stations and o ur factories seemed to close relentlessly
a
rou n d us.
Then cam e film and exploded this prison-wo rl d with the dynamite of the split second, so that now we can set off ca lmly o n j o urneys of a d ven
ture among its fa r fl u ng de bris. Wi th th e close-up, space expands; with -
slow motion, movement is extended. An d j us t as enlargement not me rely cla rifies what we see i n d istinctly " i n a ny ca se," but brings to l ight entirely new structures of ma tter, slow motion not only reveals famili a r a sp ects of movements , but discloses q u ite unk nown aspects with i n the m-a s pects " which do not a ppear as the retard ing of na t u ra l movelnen ts but have a
it
curious glidi ng, flo a ti n g ch aracter of the i r own. " 2 7 Clearly,
is another
na ture which speaks to the camera as compa red to the eye. " O ther" a bove all in the sense that a space informed by human consci o usness gi ves way to a space i n formed by the unconsci o us. Wherea s it is
a
com
the hap
monplace tha t, for example, we have some id ea w ha t is invo l ve d in act of w alking ( i f only in ge ner al terms ) , we have no i de a pens d uri ng the spl i t second when
a
at
all what
person actually takes a step . We are
familiar with the movement of picking up a cigarette lighter or a spoon, but know a lmost nothing of what really goes on between h an d and meta l , and stil l less how th is vari es wi th d i ffe rent moods. This is where the camera c omes into play, wi th a l l i ts resources fo r swooping and ris i ng, d isr upti n g and isolating, stretching or comp ressing a seque n ce, enlarging or reducing an o bj ect.
It
is thro u gh the camera that
we
first dis
cove r the optical u n conscious, just as we discover t h e i nstinctual uncon sci ous through psychoanalysis. Moreover, these two types of unconscious a re inti mately linked . For i n m o s t cases t h e diverse aspects of reality captured b y t he film cam era lie o u tside only the normal spectrum of s ense i mpressions. Many of the de-
P R O D u e TI O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P TI O N
38
formations a nd s tereotypes, tra nsfo rmati ons a nd c a ta s trophes which
can
assail the optical worl d i n films afflict the a ctual world in p sychoses, h al lucinationsl and dreams. Thanks to the camera, therefo re, the individ ual perceptions of the psychotic or the dreamer can be appropriate d by col lecti ve perception. The a ncien t truth expressed by Heraclitus, that those who a re awake have a world in common w h ile each slee per has a wo rld of his own, has been inva lidate d by film-and less b y depic ting the dream world itself than by crea ting figures of c o l lective dream, such as the glo be-encircling Mickey Mous e . 211
If one considers the danger ous tensions which technology and its con sequences have engendered in the masses at large-tendencies which at critical stages take on a psych otic character-one also has to recognize that this same technologization [ Technisierung] has created the possibil ity of psychic im mun iza ti o n against such mass psych oses. It does so by means of cel'tain films in which the forced development of sadistic fan tasies or masochistic delusions can prevent their natural and da nger ous maturation in the ma ss es . Collective laughter is one such preemptive
and hea ling o utbreak of m ass psychosis . The coun tless grotesq u e even ts consumed in films a re a grap hic ind ication
of
the d angers threaten i ng
mankind from the rep ressions imp licit in civilization. A merican slapstick comedies a nd D isney films trigger
a
therapeu tic release of unconscious
e nergies .29 Their forerunner was the figure of the eccentric. He was the first to inha bit the new fields of action opened up by film-the first occu pant of the new ly b u i l t house . This is the context in which Chaplin takes on historica l significance.
XV I I I t has al ways been one o f the primary tas ks o f art to create a dema nd whose hour of full satisfaction has not yet come .JO The h istory of e very art form has critica l peri ods i n which the particular form strains a fter ef fects w hich can be e asily achieved only with a changed technical stan dard-that is to say, in a new art form. The excesses and crud ities of art which thus result, particularly in periods of so-called decadence, actu a l ly e merge from the core of its ridlest h istorical e nergies . In recent years, D a d a i s m has amused itself with such b arbarisms. O n l y now is its imp u lse
Dadaism a ttemp ted to produce with the means of painting (or lite l a tu 1 e) the effects which the public today seeks in film .
recognizable: "
'
Every fundamentally new, pioneering creation of demand w i ll over shoot its target. D ad aism d i d so to the extent that it sacrifice d the m arket
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
v alues s o characteristic o f fi lm in favor o f more significant aspirations of which, to be s ure, it was u nawa re in the form d escribed here . The Da daists a ttached m uch less importance to tlle commercial usefulness of their artworks than to uselessness of those works as o bjects of con templative immersion. They sought to achieve this uselessness not least by thorough degra dation of their material. Their poems are "word salad" containing obscene expressions and every imagina ble kind of lin guistic refuse. The same is true of their paintings) on which they mounted b uttons or train tickets. What they achieved by s uch means was a ruthannihilation of the aura in every object they produced, whicll they branded as a reproduction through th e very means of its production. Be fore a painting by Arp o r a poem by August Stramm, it is impossible to take time for concentration and evaluation, as one can before a painting by Derain or a poem by Rilke .31 Contemplative immersion-which, as the bourgeoisie degenerated, became a breeding gro und for asocial be havior-is here opposed by distraction rAblen r�ung] as a variant of social behavior. Dadaist manifestations actually guaranteed a q uite vehement distraction by making artworks the center o f scandal. One req uirement was paramount: to outrage the public. From an alluring visual composition or an enchanting fabric of sound, the Dad aists turned the artwork into a missile. It j olted the viewer, tak ing on a tactile [taktisch] quality. It thereby fostered the demand for film, since the distra cting element in film is a lso primarily tactile, being based on s uccessive changes of scene and focus which have a percussive e ffect on the spectator.32 Film has fteed the physical shock effect-which Dada ism had kept wratJped, as it were, inside the moral shock effect-from this wrapping. XVI I I
The masses a re a matrix from which a l l customary behavio r toward works of art is today emerging newborn. Quantity has b een transformed into quality: the greatly increased mass of participants has produced a different bnd of participation. The fact that this new m o de of participa tion first appeared in a d isreputable form should not mislead the ob server. The masses are criticized for seeking distraction [Zerstreuung] in the work of art) whereas the art lover supposedly approaches it with con centra tion. In the case of the masses, the artwork is seen as a means o f en tertainment; in the case of the art lover, it is considered a n o bj ect of devo ti on.-This calls for closer examinationJ� Distraction and concentration
40
P RODUCT I O N , REPRO DUCTI O N , A N D RECEPTION
fo rm a n an tithesis, which may be formulated as foll o ws . A p er s o n who concentrates before a w o r k o f art is absorbed by it; he enters i nt o the work, j ust as, according to legend, a Chinese p ainter ente red his c o m pleted painting while behold ing it.,H By contrast, t h e distracted masses a bsorb the work of art into themse lves. Their waves lap around it; they encomp ass it with their tide. This is m o st o bvious with r ega rd to bui l d ings. Architecture has a lways o ffered the p rototype of an artwork that is received in a s ta te of d i st r a c tio n and through the collective . The laws o f
architecture's reception a re h ighl y instructiv e . Buildings have accomp anied human existence s ince primeva l times. Many art forms have come into being and passed away. Tragedy begins with the Greeks, is extingu ished a long with them, and is revived centu
r ies later. The epic, which originates in the early days of p e opl es , dies out i n Europe at the end of the R enaiss ance . Panel p a intin g i s a cre ation of the M i ddle Ages, and nothing guarantees its uninterr u pted exis tence. But the h uman need for shelter i s permanent. Architecture has
never had fa l low periods. Its his to ry is longer than tha t of a ny other art, a nd its effect o ught to be recognized in any attempt to account for the
re
lati o n s hi p of t h e masses to the work of art. B uildings ar e received in a twofol d manner: by use and by percepti o n . Or, b etter: tacti lely and opti ca l ly. Such recep tion cannot be un de rstoo d in terms of the concentrated attent ion of a traveler before a fa m ous building. On the tactile side , there is no counterpart to wh a t contemplation is on the optical si d e . Tacti le re ception comes a b o ut not so m u ch b y way of a ttention as by way of habit. The latter large l y determ ines even the optica l recep tion o f a rchitecture, which s p o ntan e o u sly takes the form o f casual n o tici n g , rather than atten tive observation. Under certain c ircumstances, this form of reception shaped by architecture acquires cano n ica l v alue . For the tasl<.s whi ch
face
the human apparatus of perception at historical turning points cannot be performed solely by optical means-that is, by way of contemplatio n. They are mastered gradually-taking their cue from tactile reception th ro ugh habit. Even the d istr a cted person can fo r m hab its . What is more, the a bi l ity to master certain tasks in a s ta te of distrac ti o n first p roves tha t their per fo rma nce has become habitua l . The sort of distraction that is pr o vided b y a rt represents a covert me a s u r e o f the extent to which it has become possible to p edor m new tasks of apperception. S ince, moreover, individ u a ls are tempted to eva d e such tasks, art will tackle the most difficul t and
m o s t i mp ortant tasks wherever it is able to m obilize the masses . It does so curr e n tl y in fil m . RecelJtion in distraction-the sort of reception which
41
T H E WO R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
is increasingly noticeable in all areas of art and is a symt)tom of p rofound ch a ng es in apperception-finds in film its true training ground. Film, b y virtue of its shock e ffects, is predisposed to this form of reception. In this respect, too, it proves to be the most importa n t subject ma tter, at present, for the theory of pe r ce ption which the Greeks c a l l ed a esthetics.3s
XIX
The i nc r e asi n g pro letarian ization of modern m a n a nd the increasing for mation of masses are two s ides of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newl y proletaria nized masses while leaving intact the prop e r ty relations w h ich they strive to a bolish. It s ees its salvation in granting expression to the masses-but on no account granting them rights.36 The masses have a right to changed property r ela tions; fascism seeks to give them expression in keeping these relations unchanged. The logical out come of fascism is an aestheticizing of p o litica l life. With D ' Annunzio, decadence mad e its entry into political 1ife; wi th Marinetti, Futurism; and with Hitler, the Bohemian tradition of Schwa bing.37 All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate i n one point. That one point is war. War, and only war, makes i t possible to set a goa l for mass movements on the grandest scale while preserving traditional property relations. That is how the situ a tion p resents itself in political terms . In technological terms it can be formulated as fol lows: only war makes it possible to mobilize a l l of today's techno logical re s o urce s whil e main taining property re lations. It goes without saying that the fascist glorifica tion of war does not make use of these arguments. Nevertheless, a glance at such glorificatio n is instructive. In Marinetti 's manifesto for the colonia I war in Et h io pi a , we r ead : For twen ty-seven years, we w a r i s a n ti -aest he tic .
. . .
Futurists
have re b e l l e d
We the refo re state:
.
.
.
agai nst the idea tha t
Wa r i s
Dt: a u t i fu l bec a u se
tha n ks to i ts gas masks, i ts t e r r i fy i n g m ega phones, i ts flame t h ro w ers , a nd
ligh t
tanks-it e� ta b lishes m a n 's dominio n
War is human
beautifu l becau
e
over the subj ugated
ma
ch i n e .
it i n a ll g u ra tes the d rea med- o f meta l liza tion of the
body. WJ r i s b e a uti fu l becau se it en r i c h es a flowering mea d ow w i th
the fiery orchids of
mach i ne-guns .
gunfi re, ba rrages , cease-fires, scents,
Wa r
is bea u c i fu l b cause
it
combi nes
and the fragra nce of putrefaction i n to
symphony. \'{!a r is b e a u ti fu l because i t cre a tes new arcb i tectu res, l i k e those o f armored ta n k s , geometric squ a d ro n s o f a i rc raft, spirals of smoke fro m burning vil lages, and m u ch m o re . . . . Poets and a rtists of Futurism,
a
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P TI 0 N
42
. . . rem e m b e r t h es e nate
. . .
princi ples o f an aes thetic of war,
you r struggles for a new
poetry a nd a
tha t they may i l lumi
new scu l p ture !J8
This manifesto has the m erit of clarity. The q u estion it poses deserves to be taken up by the dialectician . To him , the a esthetic of modern war fare a p pears as follows: i f the natu ra l use of prod uctive forces is impeded by the property system, then the increase in techno logical means, in speed, i n sources of ene rgy will p ress toward an unnatural use . This is found i n war, a nd the destruction caused by war furnishes p roof that so ciety was not matu re enough to ma ke techno logy its orga n , that technol ogy was not sufficiently d eveloped to master the elementa l forces of soc i ety. The m o s t horri f)ring features o f imperialist w a r a r e d etermined by the d iscrep ancy between the enormo u s means o f production and their inad e quate use in the p rocess of production (in other words, by unemployment and the lack of markets ) . Imperialist war is an ujJrising on the part o{
demands repayment in "human material" for th e nat
technologYJ
ural material society has denied it. Instead of d eploying power stations a cross the lan d , society dep loys manpowe r in the form of armies . Instead of promoting air traffic, i t p romotes tra ffi c i n shell s . And in gas warfare it has found
a
new means of abolishing the aura.
" Fiat ars-pereat m u ndus , " ]9 s a y s fascism, expecting from war, a s Marinetti ad mits, the artistic gratification o f a sense perception a ltered b y tech nology. This is evidentl y the consummation o f rart pour l'art. Hu mankind, which once, in Homer, was an o bj ect of contemplation for the Olympia n gods, has now become one for itself. Its self-alienation has rea ched the point where it can experience i ts own annihil a tion a s
a
su
preme aesthetic pleasure . Such is the aestheticizing o{ p olitics, as prac
tice d by {ascism. Communism, replies by p o liticizing art. Writtt'n l a te Decem ber 1 9 3 5-beg i n tl i ng of Fe bru a ry 1 93 6 ; unp u b l ished in this
Ben jamin's lifetime.
Gesammefte
Schriftell,
form in
VII, 350-384. Translated by Ed m u nd Jephcott
and Harry Zohn.
N otes This
essay " Da s K unstwerk i m Zeita lte r seiner tech n i schen Re pro published i n Vo l u me 7 of Benj ami n's Ges(lmmelte Schriften, in 1 9 8 9 ) is a rev ision and expansion ( by seven m a n uscript pages) of the first ver sion of the essay, which was com posed i n Paris i n t he a u tu mn of 1 93 5 . The sec ond version represents t he form in which Benj a m i n originally wished to see the work p nblis hedi it served, in fact, as the basis for the first publication of t h e esversion of the
d uzierbarkeit" ( first
43
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N 0 V E R S I O N i nto French-in the Ze itsch r ift
s a y-a somewhat shortened form .\ n c"uJ i'tn,>cri'HUIO'
in May 1 93 6 . The thi rd
{hI'
( 1 93 6-1 9 3 9 ) can be
of the
fou nd in Ben j amin, Selected Writings, Volume 4: 1 93 8-.1 940 (Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press, 2003 ), p p . 25 1 -2 8 3 . 1 . Madame C l a i re de D u ras, nee Kersaint ( 1 778-'1 82 8 ) , the wife of D uc Amedee de D u ras, field m a rshal u nder Lou is XVIII, w a s the a u t h or of two novels, OUl'ika ( 1 8 2 3 ) a nd Edouard ( 1 8 2 5 ) . She p re sid e d over
a
bri l l i a n t sa
lon in Paris. Benj ami n c i tes Madame d e D ura s in the o ri gi n a l Fre nch. 2 . Karl Ma rx ( 1 8 1 8-1 8 8 3 ) a n a l y z ed the capita l ist mode o f p rod uction in Das
Kap i tal (3 vols., J 8 67, 1 8 8 5 , 1 8 9 5 ) , which was ca rried
to
c om p let io n by his
col labora tor Fried ric h Enge ls ( 1 820-1 8 9 5 ) .
3 . AbeJ G a nce, « Le Temp s de I'image e s t venu ! " ( I t I s Time for the lmage ! ) , i n Leon Pi er re - Qui nt, Germaine D u lac, Lionel Landry, a nd Ab e l G a nce,
L'Al't chu3matographique,
vol . 2 (Pa ris , 1 9 2 7) , pp. 9 4-9 6 . I Be n j a m i n 's n o te .
Ga nce ( 1 8 8 9 -1 9 8 1 ) was a French film direc tor whose e p ic films
]'accuse
( 1 9 1 9), La R oue ( 1 922), and Napoleon ( 1 927) made i nnova tive use of sllch d evice s as superim p o s ition, rapid in te r c u tting, 4. Alois
( 1 85 8- 1 9 0 5 ) was an Aus tri a n
and
split screen.-Trans . .1 d i f-
an
ferent fo rma l ord e ri ngs of a rt emerge as expr e s s ions of d i ffe r e nt histori c a l epo c h s . He is t h e author o f Stilfragen: Gnmdlegungen
zu
ei11.e r Geschichte
der Ornamel1tih ( Qu estions of Style: Toward a H i s t o ry of O rnament; 1 8 93 )
and
Die
spatromische Kunst- Il1dustrie l1ach
den
Fun den i n Osterreich
Ungal'11 ( 1 9 0 1 ) . The l a tter h a s been trans l a te d by Rolf Wink es
as Late
Ro
m a n Art Industry ( R ome: G i o r gi o Bretsc hne i det; L 9 85 ) . Franz Wickh off
( 1 8 5 3- 1 909 ) , also an Austrian a r t his tori a n , is the a uthor of Die Wiener Genesis (The Vie n n a Genes is; 1 8 95), a s tu d y of the s u m p t u o u s ly i l l u m i n a te d , ea r l y sixth-century
A. D .
copy of the bib l ica l book o f Genesis pre
served in the Aus tri a n N a t i onal Li brary i n Vienna. 5 . " Ei nIl1alige Ersche i nung e ine r Ferne, so nah sic sei n mag. " At sta k e i n Benja min's fo rmu l a ti o n
is a n
interweaving n o t j us t of time and space
einmalige Ersch einung, l i ter a l l y " one-time appearance "-but of fa r and ncar, eine Ferne s ugges ti ng both "a d i stance" i n space or time
and
mote , )) h owever nca r i t ( the d i s ta nce, or distant th i ng , rha t
"somethi ng remay
be.
Novel/en, trans. Julia
6. Benjamin is quo t ing Johannes V.
Koppel (Berlin: S . Fischer, '1 9 " 9 ) , pp. 4 1 -42. Jensen ( 1 8 73-l 9 5 0 ) was a D a nish nove l isr, poet, and essayist who won the Nobel P r ize for L i tera t u r e
in 1 944. See " Has hish in Ma rseilles" ( 1 9 3 2 ) , in Benjamin, Selected Writings, Vo lume 2: 1 92 7-1 93 4 ( Ca m bri d ge , Mass.: Ha rva rd Un iversity Pres s, '1 9 9 9 ) , p . 6 77 .
7. App l y i n g Kanes idea o f the pure a n d disinterested e x istence of t h e w ork of a rc, the French phi losopher Vic[O r Cousi n made
use
of
the
p hrase l 'art p o u r
l 'a rt ( " art fo r a rt's sake " ) i n h i s J 8 1 8 lecture " D u Vra i , du bea u , et du bi e n "
( O n t h e True, the Beautiful, a n d the Good ) . T h e i de a was later give n cur-
44
P R O D U eTI O N ) R E P R O 0 U CT I O N ) AN D R EC E P T I O N
rency by w r i t e rs
such
as Th6 0 p hi le G a u t i e r, Edga r A l l a n Poe, and Charles
Baudela ire. 8. The French poet
S te p h a ne
Nia l l a rme ( 1 842-1 8 9 8 ) was a central figure in the
Sy m bolist moveme n t , w h ich so ught an inca n ta tory language d i v o r c e d
from
a ll referen tia l function. 9 . In film, the techno logi c a l re prod u ci b ili ty
of the p r o duct
is
not a n ex te rn a l ly
i m p o s ed condition of it s mass dissemination, as it is, say, in l ite r at ur e o r pain ti n g . The techno logical reproducibility
of films is based directly 011 the of their production. This 11 0 t only 111a/ws possible the mass dis semination of films in the most direct way, but actually enfo rces it. It d oes so b e ca u se the p r oces s of p ro d uc i ng a film is so cost l y that a n i nd i vidual who c o u l d afford to buy a p a i n ti n g , for ex am p l e, could not a ffo rd to buy a I mas techno logy
ter p rint of a] fi l m . It was calcula ted in 1 927 tha t, in o r d er to m a ke a profit, a
maj or film needed to r e ach an a ud i e n ce of nine mil l ion . Of course , t h e ad ve n t o f sound film [in that year] initi a l l y c a used a moveme n t in the op p o s i te d irecti o n : i ts a udience was res tricted by langu age b oundaries. And that c o i n � cided with the emph a si s p laced on natio n a l inte rests by fa scism . But it is l e ss importa n t to note t his setback ( whi ch in any case was miti ga ted by du bbi ng ) than to ob s er ve its connec tion with fascism. The s i m u l t a n e it y of tlle tw o p henomena resu l ts from the e co n o m ic crisis. The s a me d i s o r de r s w hich led, i n the worl d a t l a rge, to a n attempt to m a i n ta in existing prope rty re l a t io ns
by
brute force i n duc ed film c a pi ta l , u n d e r the thre a t
of cris i s , to
speed up the
developme n t of sound fi lm . Its introd uc tion bro ught tempora ry re lief, n o t o n ly b eca u se sound fi l m a t tr a cted the masses b a c k into
the ci n em a b u t a lso new ca p i t a l from the e l e c tri c i ty i ndus try with that of Thus, c o n s i d e red from t he o Lltside, sou nd fi l m p r o mo t e d na tional in ter
because it cons o li d a te d film.
ests; but seen fro111 t he inside, i t h elped inte rn a tional ize film p r od u ct i on e ven
m ore
than
be fo re . [Benj a mi n 's n o te. By " th e eco n o m ic c r is is, " Benj amin re
in the U n i ted 1 9 2 9 .-Trans.]
fers to t he devas tating co nsequences,
stock
ma rket crash
of O cto b e r
Sta tes
a nd Europe, of th e
1 0 . This polariry ca nnot come into i ts own i n t he a esth etics o f Idealism, wh ich
conceives of bea uty as
something fundamentally
u nd ivided (and th us ex
c l u des anything pola rized ) . Nonetheless, in Hegel this pola rity s e l f as clearl y as p o s s i bl e within the l imits of I d e a li s m . Vorlesungen
zur
Philosophie
del' Geschichte
We
a nnounces
i t
quote from his
[ Lectu res on the Philosophy
of
History ] : " I m a ge s were known of old. In t hose ea rly d a y s p i e ry required
beautiful ima ges . Such i ma g es bea u tiful i ma e, there is a lso s ometh i ng i m a g e is bea uti fu l , i ts s p i r i t sti ll speaks to
them for w orshi p, but it co uld do wirhout might even be disturbing. 1n every extern a l-a lthough, i n sofar as the
th e h u m a n bein g. But r e l igio u s w ors h i p � bei ng no more t h an por o f the soul, is d ir ect e d a t a thing. . though art
has
.
. Fine a rt a rose
. . .
a
s p i r i tl ess tor
in the c h u r c h . . . ,
now gone bey ond the ecclesiastica l principle . " Likewise, the
following passage from the Vorlesullgell Uber die Asthetik [ Le c tu res on Aes-
45
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
theticsl indicates that Hegel sensed a pro blem here: "We
are b e y o n d
the
stage of venera t i ng works of art as divine a nd as o b j e c ts dese rv i n g o u r wor
ship. Today the impression t hey p r oduc e is o f a more reflective k ind, and the emotions they a ro u se req u i re a m ore stringent tes t. " ( Be nj a mi n 's note. The Ger m a n Idealist p hi l os o p h e r Georg Wi lhelm Fr iedrich H egel ( 1 770-1 8 3 1 ) a c c e p te d the chaif in phi l o sophy a t the Uni v e rs i ty of Berlin in 1 8 1 8 . His lec tures on a esthetics and the p h i l o s o p hy o f hi s to ry (delivered 1 8 2 0-1 8 29 ) were later pu bl i s h e d b y h i s edi tors, w i th the text ba s e d m a i n l y o n notes ta ken by h is studen ts.-Trmzs.] '1 1 . The aim o f revolutions is to acce l erate this a d a p ta ti on . Revo l u tions are i nn e rv a ti ons of the collective-or, m or e prec ise l y, efforts a t in ne rva t i on on the part of the n e w, h is t or ical l y uniq ue collective which has it s organs in the new tech no log y. This s ec on d te c h nol ogy is a sy s te m in w hich th e mastering of el em en ta ry socia l forces is a precondition for p l ay i n g [das Spiel] w ith nat u ra l force s . Just as a child who out its hand for
the moon as i t w o ul d fOf a b a J J, so huma n ity, in its efforts at innervation, sets its si g h ts as much on c urrently u to pian goals as on g oa ls within reach.
For in revo l u ti ons, it i s n o t on l y the second te chn o l ogy which asserts i ts c laims v is-a.-vis s o c iet y. Beca use this te c h n o l ogy
aims
at l iberating hum a n be
ings from dru d g e ry, th e i n d ivi d u a l sudde n l y sees his scope for play, h is of a ction rSpielraumj , i mme a s u ra bl y ex panded.
He
field
does not yet kno w h i s
w ay arou nd t h is space. B u t a l re a dy he registers h i s demands on it. Fo r the more the co l l ec t iv e m a kes t h e second technology its own, the more k e enl y i n d i v i d u a l s be l on gi ng to the c o ll ect ive feel how l ittle they h a ve receiv e d of what was due the m u n de r the dominion of the first te ch no l ogy. In o ther words, i t is the individual l iberated by the l i q u i d a t i on of the first tech n o l o gy
who stakes h is claim, No s o oner has th e second techn ol o gy sec ured i ts initial rev o l u tio na ry gains than vita l questions a ffecting t h e individual-questions of love and dea th wh ic h had been buried by the first techno logy-once a g a i n p ress for s o l u ti on s . Fou rier's work is the first historical evidence of this
demand. [Ben j a m i n 's note. Cha rles Fourier ( 1 772-1 8 3 7 ) , French soci a l the orist a nd r e form e r, urged that s oc i ety be reorganized i nt o self-contained agra ria n coopera tives whi c h he ca l led " ph a l a nsteries. " Among
his works
are
Theorie des quatre m ouvements (The o ry o f Four Movements; 1 8 0 8 ) a nd Le Nouveau Monde
(The New Industrial Wo r ld; 1 8 29-1 8 3 0 ) . He is
an impo r ta n t figure in B e nj a m in 's A rcades
Project. The term Spielraum, in means " pJ a ys pace , " " space
this note, in note 2 3 , a n d in the text, l i te r a l ly
pIay. " -Trans. j
12.
i n o bscu rity m a ki ng pictures of Pa ris and its environs. He is w i d e ly rec ogn i ze d as o ne of t he leading p hotographers of t h e twentieth century. See Benj amin's " Little
Eugene Atget ( 1 8 5 7- 1 92 7 ), French pho tographer, spent his career
H is to ry of Photogra phy" ( 1 93 1 ), in this vol u me . 1 3 . A Woman o f Pm'is ( 1 9 23 ) -w h ic h Benj amin refers to b y its Fre nch title,
46
P R ODueT I O N ,
L' Opil1ion
R E P R O D U C T I O N , A [\1 D R E C E P T I O N
publique-was w r i t ten and d i re cte d by the Lo ndon- born acto r Chap
and director Charl ie Cha p l i n ( Ch a r les S pencer Chaplin; 1 8 8 9- 1 9 77) . l i n c a m e to the United S ta tes w i t h
a
v a udevi lle act in 1 9 1 0 and m a de his m o
tion pic ture de b u t there i n 1 9 1 4 , even t u a l l y a c h i e ving worldwide renown a s
in a n d d i rected s u c h fi l ms as The Kid ( 1 92 1 ) , The Circus ( 1 92 8 ) , City Lights ( 1 9 3 1 ) , Modem Times ( 1 9 3 6 ) , a nd The Great Dictator ( 1 9 4 0 ) . See Benj amin's s hort pieces " C h a pl i n " ( 1 92 9 ) a n d " Chap
a comed ian. H e sta rred
lin i n Retrospect" ( 1 92 9 ) , i n this vol u me .
1 4 . O n the n i n etee nth-ce n t u ry q u a rre l b e tw e e n pai nting a n d p h o to gr ap hy, see Benj a m i n 's " Little H i s t ory
of P h o t o gra p h y " ( t 93 1 ) , in this vo l u me, and Ben j a m i n, The Arcades Project, tr a n s . How a rd Ei l and a n d Kevin McLaughlin ( Ca m b ridge , Ma ss.: Harvard U nivers i ty Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , pp. 6846 9 2.
1 5 . Abel Ga nce, " Le Te m p s d e [ ' imag e est venu ! " in
L'Art cinematographique. a b o v e . � y,'ans.',
voL 2, p. 1 0 1 . rBenj a mi n's note . O n Ga nce, see no te 3 1 6 . Severin-Ma rs,
cited
i b i d . , p . 1 0 0 . [ Benj amin's n o te . Severin-Ma rs ( 1 8 7 3-
1 92 1 ) was a p l a y wrig ht a nd film actor who s ta r red in three of G ance's films:
La Dixieme Symphonie, j'accuse, a n d La Roue.-Trans. ] directed The Gold R u s h in 1 925 . On Cha plin a n d A Woman of Paris, see note 13 a b o v e . Gi ovanni da F i e so l e ( 1 3 8 7- 1 45 5 ) , known a s Fra Ange lico, was a n Italian D o m i n ica n fri a r, cele b rated for h i s " a nge l ic �l vir tlles, a nd a pai n ter i n t h e early R e n a i ss a nce Floren tine sty l e . Among his m o s t fa m o us wo rks a re his frescoes a t O rvieto, w h i c h re fl ec t a characte ristica lly serene re l igi o u s attitude.
1 7 . Ch a r l i e Chaplin wro te a nd
1 8 . Franz We r fe l , " E i n So mmernach tstra u m : Ein Film von Shakespeare li n d
Wiener Journal, c ite d i n Lu, N o ve m b e r 1 5, 1 9 3 5 . note. Werfe l ( 1 8 9 0-1 945 ) w a s a Czech-born poet) n ove lis t , and playwright as s o c ia t ed with Express io n i s m . He e m i grate d to the Uni ted S ta tes in 1 94 0 . Among his works are Del' A bituriententag (The Class Re u n ion; 1 92 8 ) a nd Das Lied uon Bernadette ( The Song o f Bernadette; 1 94 1 ) . Max R ei n h a rdt (Maxi m i lian Goldm an; 1 8 73-1 943 ) wa s Germany's m o s t Reinhard t, " Neues [Benj a min 's
important stage producer a n d d irector d u r i ng t h e first third of t h e twentieth century and the single
m
os t
sign i ficant i nfluence on the c la ssic G e rman si
lent cinema, m a n y of whose directors and actors tra i n Deutsc hes The a ter in Berl i n . His direct film
a c tivi ty wa
d
Ll n d e
r him
a t the
l i m ite d to sev e ra l
ea rly Ge rm;} n s i l en ts a n d t o the American m o v i e A Midsummer Night's Dream ( 1 9 3 5 ) , which he codirected w i th \Villiam Dieterle.-Tral1s.J 1 9 . Paavo Nurm i ( 1 8 9 7-1 9 73 ) , a Fin n ish long-d ista nce mnner, was a winner at the O lympic Games in An twerp ( 1 92 0 ) , Pa ris ( 1 924 ) , a nd Amsterdam ( 1 928 ) .
20 . Beginn i ng i n 1 9 1 7, the Italian playwright and n o v e l i s t Lu igi Pira n d el l o
( 1 8 6 7-1 9 3 6 ) achieved a series of s ucc e sses on the stage that m a d e h i m world famoll s in t he "1 920s. He is best
known
for his p lays Sei /Jersol1aggi in
cerea
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
47
d'autore ( S ix Characters in Search of an A ut h o r; 1 92 1 ) a nd Enrico I V
(He nry IV; 1 922 ) . 2 1 . Luigi ion
P i r a n d e l lo , II tumo (The Tu rn ), cited b y Leon P iene-Q u int, " S ignifica t du c i n e m a , " in L'Art cil1ematogratJh ique, vol . 2, p p . 1 4-:1. 5. [Be n j a m i n 's
n o te l 22. Rudo l f Arnhci m, Film als Kunst ( Berl in, 1 9 3 2 ) , p p . J 76-"1 77. I n thi s c o ntext, certa i n apparently inc i d enta l details o f film d i re cti ng which d i ve rge from prac tices on the s tage t a k e on a dded i nte rest. For e xa m pl e , the a ttem p t to let the actor perform without makeup, a s i n D reyer's Jeanne d'Arc. D reyer s pe n t months see king t he fo rty actors who consti tute the Inquisitors' tri bu n a l . Searching
for these
actors was l i ke h u nt ing for rare prop s . D reyer made
every effort to avoid resemblances of age, b u i ld, a n d ph ysi o gn o my in th e a c tors. ( See 1vla u rice S c h u ltz, " Le Maq u i l l a g e " [Mak e up ] ' in CA rt cinema tographique, vol. 6 I Paris, 1 92 9 1 , p p . 65-6 6 . ) I f the a ctor th us becomes a prop, the prop , in its turn, not i n freq u e n t l y func tions as actor. At a ny rate, i t
is not
unu s u al
fo r fi l m s t o a ll ocate a r o l e t o a prop. Rather tha n selecting ex
a m p les at random from tile i n fi n i t e n u m ber avai l a ble, l et
us
take j ust one es
pec i a l ly r e v e a l i n g ca sco A c l o c k tha t is r u n n i ng will a l wa ys be a d istu rba nce on the s tage, where it cannot be perm itted its role o f me a su r i ng ti m e . Even i n a natura l istic p l a y, rea l - l i fe t i m e w o u l d c o n fl i c t with thea trical t i m e . In view o f th i s , i t is most re v ea l i n g tha t film-where a ppropriate-can rea d il y m a ke
use of time as
m e as u r e d
by a c l ock. This fea ture, more than many o thers ,
makes it clear tha t-c ircumstances permi tting-ea c h a nd every prop in a fi lm may perform d ecis ive func tions. Fro m here it is but a step to Pudovkin's
p r i n c i p l e, wh ich s ta tes t ha t " to connect the performance of an actor with a n o bj ec t, and t o b u i ld that performa nce around th e obj ect, . . . i s a lw a ys one of the most powerful met h o d s
of c i n e m a t i c c onstructi o n "
(V. L
P u d ovk i n ,
Film
Regie und Filmmanuskript [Film D i rection and the Film Scriptl ( Berli n ,
1 92 8 ) , p . 1 2 6 ) . Fi l m i s thus t h e first artistic me d i u m wh ich i s a bJ e to show how matter p l a ys havoc wi th human be ings [wie die Materie dem Menschen mitstJieltj . It fo llows th a t fi l m s c a n be an excellent means o f materi a l ist ex p o s i tion. I Benj a min's note. See, i n E n g l ish , Rudolf Arnheim, Film as A rt ( Be rkeley: U n i v ersi t y of
Ca l i fo rni a
P ress, 1 95 7 ) , p. 1 3 8 . Arnheim ( 1 9 0 4-
2 0 0 7 ) , German- born Gestalt psychologist a nd cri tic, wrote on film, litera ture, a nd a r t for various Berlin newspapers a nd magazi nes from t h e mid-
1 9 2 0 s until J 93 3 . He came to the U n i ted States in 1 9 40 a n d ta ugbt a t Sarah La wrence, the New School for Soc i a l Rese a rch, Harvard, and the U n i ver sity of M ich iga n . Besides his work on fi l m theory, h i s p u b l ications i n c l ud e A rt and Visual Perception ( 1 954), Picasso 's Guemica ( 1 962 ), and Visual Thinking
( 1 96 9 ) . La Passion de Jeanne d 'A rc, d i rected by Carl Theodor Dreyer, was released in 1 92 8 . Dr eye r ( 1 8 8 9-1 9 6 8 ) , Danish wri ter-director and film c ritic, is known for the exa c t i n g, e x pre s s i ve design o f his fi l m s , his subtle ca m e ra movement, a nd his concentra tion o n t he physiognom y and inner
48
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N , A N D R E C E PTI O N psy c h o l o gy
of h is charac ters. Among his best-known works a re Vampyr Wrath; 1 943 ) , a n d Ordet ( 1 95 5 ) . Vs ev o l od Illa rio llovich Pu dovkin ( 1 8 93-'1 9 5 3 ) , one o f the m a ste r s of Soviet silent cin e m a , wrote and directed films-such a s Mother ( 1 926), Th e End of St, Pe tershurg ( 1 927), a n d Storm O t i C' /" Asia ( l 92 8 )-th a t showed the ev o l u t i o n o f i n d i vid u a l ized y e t typica l clla n l ters i n a so ci a l environment. H e also p u b ( 1 93 1 ) , Vredens D ag (Day of
l ish ed
bo oks o n fi l m technique and film acting.-Trans. J
23 . The sign i ficance of b e a u tifu l semb l a nce [sch6ner Schein1 is roo ted in t he age
of aura tic perce ption tha t is now coming to a n end. The a esthetic theory of tha t era was 1110 st fu lly articu lated by Hege l , for wh o m beauty is " the ap pearance l Ers ch einullgl o f spiri t i n i ts immed iate . . . sens u ous form, crea ted by the spirit as the form adequate to i tse l f" ( Hegel, Werke, vo l . 10, part 2 [Berlin, 1 8 3 7] , p. 1 2 1 ) . Altho ugh th is fo r m u l a ti o n has s o m e derivat i ve q u a l i ties, Hegel 's statement that a r t stri ps away t he " semblance and deception of this false, transient w o rl d " from the " true con ten t o f p h e n o m e n a " ( Werke, vol . '1 0, p a rt 1, p. 1 3 ) a l re a d y d iverges from the traditional experi enti a l b a s i s lErfahrullgsgrund] of this doctrine. This gro u n d of e x p e ri e nc e is the a u ra . B y contrast, Goethe's work i s s t i l l eLUire ly imbued with beautiful sem b la nce as an aura tic reality. M ignon, O ttilie, a n d H e l en a partake of that real i ty. "The bea uti ful is neither th e v e i l nor th e veiled o b j ect but rather the o bj ect in i ts ve i l " ; th i s is the q uintessence of Goethe's view of art, a nd that of a ntiq u ity. The decl ine o f this view makes i t d ou b l y urgent tha t we look b ack a t its o r igin. This lies i n mimesis as t h e p r i m a l phenomenon of a l l a rti stic ac ti v it y. The m i me p resent.s wha t he mi mes merely as s e m b l a nc e [Del' Nachma chende macht, was er macht, nul' scheinba r J . And the oldest form of i m i tation had o n l y a s i n gl e ma teri a l to work with : tile body of the mime hi mse lf. Dance a nd langu age, gestures of body and l i ps , are the ea rliest m a n i fe s t a t i on s of m i mesis.-The mime presents h i s su b j e c t as a s e m b l a nc e [Der Nachmachel1de macht seine Sache scheinbarJ , One cou ld also s a y th at h e p l ay s h i s su b j ect. Thus we enc o u nte r t h e pol a r ity informing mimesis. I n mi mesis, ti g ht l y interfolded like cotyledons, s l umber the two aspects of art: sembla nce and p l a y. O f course, this polari ty c a n interest the dialectician o n l y if i t h il S a h ist o ri cal role. And th a t is) in fact, the case. T his role is determin e d by the wo rl d-his tori cal co n flict between the first and second tec h nol o gies . Se mbla n ce is the most a bstract-bu t there fore th most u h i quito us-schema of all tbe magic p rocedu res o f the fi rst te chn o l o g y, whereas p l ay is the inex h a us tible reservoir of all t h e expe ri men tin g p rocedures of the second. Nei t he r th e concept of semb l a nce n o r that o f pJay i s fo re ign to tra d i tiona l aes thetics; a nd to t he exte nt tha t the two co nce p ts of c u l t value and exhibition value a re l atent i n the o th er pa ir o f c onc e pts a t isslle here, they say no t hi n g new. But this a b r u p t l y changes as so o n as these l a tter concepts l ose t h e i r i n difference towa rd hi s to ry. T he y t hen lead to a practical i nsight-namely, that what is lost i n the w i th e r i n g of sem bla nce and the d ecay of the a u ra i n
49
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
wo rks of a r t is matclled by a h u ge ga i n
in
for p l ay I Sp iel-RattmJ . of s e m b l a n c e has pos i ti o n s which ph otog
the s co p e
This s p a ce for play is w i dest in fi l m . In fi l m, t h e element b een e n t i rely d isplaced by th e e lemem o f play. The
raphy had oc c u pie d at the expe nse of cult v a lue have thus been massively fortified . In fi l m , the e l e men t of sembla nce has y i e lde d ment o f play, wh ich is a llied to t h e
s econ d
i ts
p l a c e to the ele
tec h n o l o gy. Ra l11 u z
summed up th is a l l i a nce in a formulation which, in the g u i se of gets to the h e a r t of t he
ma ttel� He s a ys : "We
a
re c en t l y
m e t a p hor,
a re c u rr entl y wi tnessing a fasci
n a ti ng p rocess. Th e v arious scien ces, which up to
now
h ave
each
o pe ra te d
a l one in t he i r speci a l fi e l d s , a re begi n n i n g to con verge in the i r o bj e c t
and
to b e combined into a s i ng l e sc ience: c he m i stry, p hy si c s , a n d mec hanics a re
beco m i ng i n te d inked. It is as i f we were eyewitnesses to the e n o r m o u s l y a ccelerated com pletion of
a
jigsaw puzzle whose first pieces took several
mille n n i a to put i n p lace, w he re a s the la st, because of the i r conto urs, a nd to the il s tonishment of the s pectators,
a re m o v i ng
Mesu re, 4 1 0ctober 1 9 3 5] ) . These
to g e t her of thei r own
[Peasant, Na ture], words g i ve ul tima te e xp r ess i o n to the di
a ccord" ( Ch a rles Ferd in a nd Ramuz, " Pa y
an,
na tu re "
m ens io n of p l ay in the second tec hno logy, w h i c h reinfo rces th a t in art. [Benjamin's n o te. It should b e kept in m i nd an d " a pp
a ra nce
,"
that Schein
can mean " l uster"
as well a s " sembla nce " o r "illusio n . "
On
Hegel, see
n ote :1 0 a b o v e . The poe r Joha nn Wo l fg ang von Goethe ( 1 749-1 8 3 2 ) v i s ite d
Italy in 1 786-1 78 8 and i n 1 790, ga ining n e w ins p i ra ti on from his e ncou n te r wi th Greco-Roman
a n t i q u i ty;
a cla s si c a ll y pure and r es t r a i ne d co ncep
tion o f be a u ty i n forms his cre a t i o n of such female figures
Wilhelm Meisters
Lehrjahre ( Wil h el m
as
M i g n o n in
Me iste r's Appren tices h i p; 1 796),
O tti l ie i n D ie Wahlvenuandtschaften ( El e c t i ve A ffinities; ( 8 09), and He len a i n Paust. Pa r t I I ( 1 8 3 2 ) . Benj a min's definition o f t h e be a ut i fu l
as
" the ob
j ect in its ve i l " is qu ot e d (with the i talics a d d e d ) from h is essay " G o e t h e 's Elective Affinities " ( 1 924-1925), in Be nj a m i n , Selected Writings, Volum e 1 : 1 9 1 3 - .1 926 ( Ca mbri dge, Mass . :
Harvard
Univers ity Press, 1 9 9 6 ) , p . 35 1 .
C h a r l es Ferdinand Ra m uz ( 1 8 78-1947) was a S wi s s wrirer resident in Pa ris
( 1 9 02-1 9 1 4 ), where he collaborated with the composer rgo r Strav insky, for wh o m he w r o te the rext of Histoire
du solda t
( The So l d i er's Tale; 1 9 1 8 ). He
a lso pu b l i s h e d no vels on r ura l life tha t combine real ism w i th aUegory. Trans . J
here in the m ode of e xh ibi tio n-a change b ro u ght a bo u r reprod uction technology-is a l s o noticeable in po l i t i cs. The crisis o f de mocracies can be understood as a crisis il1 th e conditions governing the /Jublic tJresentation of politicians. D e mocrac ies exh i b i t the poli t i c i a n di
2 4 . The change n o te d
by
re c tl y, in perSOll, before e l e ct e d re p resenta tives. The p a rli am en t is his pu b
l ic . But
innov:lriol1s
h eard by
ena bl t he speaker to be nu mber of people w h i l e he i pC<1king, a n d to b e unl i m i ted n u m ber sh or t ly afterward. This means that p r i o r ity is
an
seen by an
i n recording e q u i pme n t n ow
u n l i m i ted
50
P RO D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R EC E PTI O N
gi ve n ro presenting the pol itician before the recording e q u i p m e nt . Parlia ments a re becomin g d epopulated at the same rime a s the aters. Radio and c h an g i n g
film are
not o n ly the function of the profess ional actor b ut,
equ a l ly, the function of those who, l ike the p o lit i cian , p resen t t h emselves before these media. The direction of this change i s the s a m e fo r the fi l m actor and the pol i ti c i a n , regard less of their d iffe ren t tas ks . It tends toward the exhi b iti o n of contro lla b le, transfera bl e s k i l l s u nder ce rtain soci a l conditions,
j ust
a s sports first called fo r s u c h
tions .
This
exhibition
under certain na tura l condi
res u lts in a new form of se lecti on-selection before an a p pa ra
tus-from wh i ch the c h a m p i o n , the sta r, and the d i cta tor e m e rge a s victo rs.
rBenj a m i n 's note] 25 . It shou l d be n o ted in passi ng tha t p ro l e t a r i a n c lass conscio usness, wh ich is
the m ost enlightened form of cl ass c o n s c io u s n e s s , fu n d a me nta l ly transforms
the
structure of the p ro leta r i a n m asses.
The
class -conscious p roletaria t forms
a compact m ass only from the o uts i d e , in the m i nds of i ts oppressors . At the moment when it tak e s up i ts s t ru ggle fo r l i bera t I on, this a p p a ren tly compact to
m a ss has a ctuall y already
loosen. I t ceases to be go ver n ed by m ere
reactions; it m a kes the tra nsiti o n to action. m asses
is
The
lo os en i n g o f the proletarian
the work o f so lid a rity. In the so l i d a ri ty of the p roleta r i a n class
s truggle, the dead, u n d i a lectical o pp os itio n between indivi d u a l a n d mass i s a b o l is hed; fo r the co mra d e , i t d oes not e xi s t . Decisive as the m a s s e s are for
the
re vo l u ti o n a ry lead er, the refore, his gre a t achieveme n t l ies not in
d rawing the ma sses after h im,
but
in
c o n s t a ntl y
incorporating
h i m s elf into
the masses, i n ord e r to be, for them, a l ways one a m o n g h u n dreds of tholl s a nd s . B u t the s a me class struggle w hi c h
l oosens the
compact mass of the
p r ol e tar i a t compresses that of the petty b o urge o i s ie . The m ass as a n i mpene tra b le, comp act entity, which Le Bon and othe rs h a ve made the subject of the i r " m ass psych ology, " is tha t of the p e tty b o u rgeois i e . The petty b o u r-
geoisie is not a cl ass; i t is in fa ct only
a
the gr e a ter the pressure
th e b o u rge o i s i e and the
act i ng on it b e tween the two
pro l e ta r i a t, the
more compact it
this
ma s s
the e m o tiona l ele-
ment described in mass psychol ogy is i n d e ed a determining fa c t o r. But for
th at
r eas o n this comp act mass forms the antit hesis of th e proletarian
cad re\ which o b ey s
a
col lective ratio. I n the petty-bo urgeois mass, the reac
t i ve moment described in mass psychology is i n deed a dete rm i n ing fa ctor. But p rec ise ly for that reason th is compact m ass with i ts unmedia ted re ac tions fo rms the anti thesis of the prolet a r i a n cadre, whose actions
are med i
a ted b y a task, h owever momenta ry. Demons t r a t i o ns by t he compact mass thus a lwa ys h a ve a panicked q u a l i ty-whether they give ven t t o war fever, h atred of Jews, or the
instinct
for self-preserva tion. O nce the distinction be
tween the compact ( th a t is, petty- bollfge o is ) m a s s a nd the class-conscioLls,
proletari a n mass has been de a r ly made, i ts op e ra ti o n a l sign i fic a nce is also c l ea r. This d is tinction is nowhere marc gr aph i c a l l y i l l u s t ra ted th a n in the not
51
T H E W O R K O F ART: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
uncommon cases when some outrage orig i n a l l y performed by the compact mass b ec o m e s , a s a re su l t
of a
revol uti onary situa tion and p e r hap s within
the space of seco n ds, the revoluti onary a ction of a class. The s p e c i a l feature
of such truly internal
h i sto r i c
u ph e av a l
aware o f itse lf
as
events is tha t a re a cti o n by
a
compact m a s s
sets
off an
which loosens its composition, e n a b l ing it to become an
associ a tion of class-conscious cadres. S uch concrete
events contain in very abbreviated form what c om mu n i s t
tacticians call "winning over the petty bou rgeoi s ie . " These ta cticians have a further inter e s t i n clarifying this process. The am b igu o us concept of the m asses, and the indiscrimina te references to their mood w h i ch a re commonplace in the Ger m a n re volutionary press, have u nd o u b tedly fostered illusions which have had disastro us consequences for the German p ro l e ta riat. Fascism, by con trast, has m a de excellent use of these laws-whether it understood them o r n o t . It reali zes t h a t t h e more compact t h e masses it mobil izes, the better the chance that the counterrevol uti onary ins tincts o f
the
petty bo ur ge oisi e
will
determine their reactions. The proletariat, on th e other han d , is preparing a
o bj ectiv e nor the subjective conditions masses will exist a ny longer. [Benj amin's no te. Gustave Le Bon ( 1 8 4 1-1 93 1 ) , Fr en ch phys ician and sociologist, was the a u tho r o f Psychologie des fattles (Psychology o f the C ro wd ; 1 8 9 5 ) and other works. Trans.,! 26. Benj amin a l l udes here to Heinrich von 0fterdingen, an unfinished novel by the German Romantic poet Nov a l is (Friedrich von Hardenberg; 1 772- 1 8 0 1 ) , first published in 1 8 02 . Vo n O fterdingen is a medieval p oet in search of the mysteri ous Blue Flower, which bears the face o f his unknown beloved. See fo r
soc iety in which neither the
fo r the formation of
Benj a min's " Dream Kitsc h " ( 1 92 7 ) , i n this volume. 27.
Rudolf Arnheim, Film als Kunst, p . 1 3 8 . [B enj a m i n 's note . I n En glis h in Arnheim, Film a s Art, pp. 1 1 6-1 1 7. On Arnheim, s e e note 2 2 a bove.
28.
B enj a m i n
Trans,"1 refers to Frag ment 89
in
the standard Diels-Kra nz edition of the
fragmen ts of Heracli tus of Ephes us , tbe Pre-Socratic phil osopher o f the sixth-fifth cent u ri es
D . C.
O n M icke y Mouse, see the follo w i ng note.
2 9 . O f cours e, a comprehensive a n a l ysis of these fil m s should not overlook their
d ouble meaning. It should s tart from the a mbigu ity of situations wh ich h a ve b o th a comic a n d a horrifying effect. edy and
h o r r or
are
closely
As the reactions of child ren s h ow, com related. In the face of certain situat i ons, why
sh oul d n't we be allowed to ask which reactio n is t he more human? Some re cent Mickey Mouse films offer situations i n which such
a q ues tio n seems j us and sini ster fire-magic, made technically possible by color film, highlights a feature whic h up to now has been present only co vertly, and shows how easily fascism takes over " revolutiona ry " innovations
tified. (Their
g loo m y
in this field too . ) What is revealed in recent D isney fi lms was late n t in some of the e arl ier
o nes:
the cozy accep tance of be s tia lity
and
violence a s inevita-
52
P RO D U CT I O N . R E P RO D U CT I D N . AND R E C E PTI D N
ble conc o m i ta nts of e x i ste n c e . This renews a n old tra d i t i o n wh icb is fa r from reassuring-the tra dition ina ugurated by the da n c i n g
h oo l iga n s
to be fou n d
i n depictions of medieva l pogroms, o f w h o m t h e " riff-ra ff" i n Grimm's fa i ry tale of that title ar e a pale, ind istinct rear-gua rd . [Benj a m i n 's n ote. The inter n a tiona lly su ccess fu l Mickey Mouse cartoon seri es d evelop e d our of the character o f Mo r t i me r MOLlse, in trodllced
in
1 92 7 by the commercial artist
and cartoon p ro d u cer Wa lt Disney ( 1 9 0 1 -1 9 6 6 ) , who made outstanding tech n ic a l and a esthetic co n tri b utio n s to the devel opment of a nimation be tween 1 9 2 7 and 1 937, and whose short a ni m a t ed films of the thirtie s won pra ise from critics for their visu a l come d y and their r hyth mic and unconven tional techn ica l
effects. See
Benj a m i n 's " Mickey Mou s e " ( 1 93 1 ) , in th is vol
ume . " Ri ff-raW' tra nsla tes " Lumpengesind el, " the t itl e o f a story in Jacob and Wil hel m Gri mm's col lection o f tales,
Kil1der- und Hausmarchel1 (Nurs
ery and Household Ta les; 1 8 1 2 , 1 8 1 5 ) .-Trans.] 30. "The a rtwo rk, " writes Andre Breton, " has value o n ly i nsofar as it is alive to reverberations of the future . " And indeed every highly dev e lop e d art form stan ds a t the i ntersection of th ree lines of d eve l opmem. First, tech n o l ogy is worki n g toward a pa rtic u la r form of a rt. Before film a pp eared , there were l i tt l e books of p h otos t h a t could be made to fl i t past the vi ewe r under the pressure o f the thum b , presen t ing
a
b o x i n g match or a te nn i s match; the n
there were coin-o pera ted peep b oxes in bazaars, wi t h image seq uences kept in motion by the tur n ing o f
a
han d l e . Second , tradition a l art for ms , at cer
stages in their development, strain laborio u s ly for effects wh ich later are effortlessly achieved b y new a rt form s . Before fil m b ec a me established , Da daist p erfor m anc e s sought to stir in t he i r a u d iences reacti o ns which C h a plin then eli cited more n a t u ra l ly. Third, apparently insignificant soc i a l ch a n ges often foster a ch ange in rec eption w hich benefits only the new art for m. Be fo re film had started to c reate i ts p u bl i c, images (which were no longe r mo tion less ) were recei ved by an a ssem b l e d aud ienc e in the Kaiserpa norama . ta i n
Here the aud ience faced a screen into which ste reoscopes were fitted, one fo r each spectator. In front of these stereosco p es single i m ages automatic a l l y ap p e a r ed , rema i ned briefly in v iew, and then g a ve way to others . Edison sti l l h ad t o work w ith s imil a r m e a n s w h e n h e p r e s en ted t h e first fi l m stri p-be fore the mov ie screen a nd projection were known; a small a udience g a z ed i nto an a p p a r a tus i n wh ich a
s e q u e n ce
of images was shown. Incidental ly,
the inst i t u tion of the Kaiserpa norama very cl e a r l y m an i fests
a
d i a lectic o f
dev e lop m e nt. Shortly before fi l m turned t h e viewi n g of images i n to a col l ec tive a ctivi ty, image viewing by the ind ividual, through the ste reoscopes o f these soon outm oded establishments, was briefly intens i fied, a s i t h a d bee n once before i n t h e isolated contemplation of t he d ivine i ma ge by t he pri est in the poet, and
[Benj a m i n 's n ote. Andre Breton ( 1 896-1 9 6 6 ) , French critic, e di tor,
was the chief p ro moter a n d one of the fo u n d e rs of t h e Sur
realist movement, p u bli shi ng the first
Manifeste du surrealisme
in 1 924. In
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
Zurich in 1 9 1 6,
an
53
i n te rn a tional group of exi les d isguste d by World War I ,
a n d b y t h e bourgeo is ideologies that had brought i t a bout, lau nched D a d a , both the wor k
an avant-ga rde movement that attempted to radically
o f a r t a n d society. Dad a is t groups were active i n Berl in, New York, Paris, a nd elsewhere during the war and into the 1 920s, recr u iting many nota of shocking thei r aud iences at
ble a rtists, writers, and performers
p u blic gatherings. On Cha plin, see note 1 3 above. Thomas Alva Edison ( 1 847- 1 9 3 1 ) pa tented more tha n a thousand inventions over a sixty-ye a r period, includ ing t h e microphone, t h e phonogra ph, t h e i nca ndescent e lect ric lamp, and th e a l kaline s torage battery. He su pervised the invention o f the
indivi duals
Kinetosco pe in 1 8 9 1 ; this boxl ike peep-show machi ne a llowed to view moving p ictutes on tric
l amp
a
film loop fu nning o n spools between a n el ec
and a shutte(. He b uilt the first film stlld i o,
the
Bl a ck Ma ria, in
1 8 9 3 , and l a ter founded his own com pany fo r the p rod u c tion of p rojected films. The Ka iserpanora m a (Imperia l Panor a m a ) , located in a B er lin ar cade, consis ted of a dome- like apparatus presenting stereoscopic views to customers seated around
it. See
Benj amin's " Imperi a l Pa nora ma " (Chap
ter 6 in this vol ume), excerpted from h is Berlin Childhood around :J 900 ( 1 93 8 ) .-Trans. 1 3 1 . Hans Arp ( 1 8 8 7-1 9 6 6 ) , Alsatian p a inter, scu lptorj and poet, was
a
fo under of
tbe Zu rich Dada gro u p i n 1 9 1 6 and a collab orator with the Surreal ists for a time after 1 925 . August St ramm ( 1 8 74-1 9 1 5 ) was an early Expressionist p oet and dramatist, a member of the c i rcle o f artists ga thered a ro un d the j o urna l
D er Sturm
in Berlin. The French p a i n ter Andre Derain ( 1 8 8 0-1 954)
became well known when he, Henri Matisse, and Ma urice de Vlaminck were dubbed the " Fa uves, " or
"wild
"
a t t h e 1 9 05 Salon d 'Automne.
Rainer Ma ria R i l ke ( 1 8 75- 1 9 26 ) , Austro-German lyric poet and writer, p u b lished his
Duineser Elegien
(Duino Elegies) and
Sonette
an O rpheus
( S o nnets to Orp heus) in 1 923 . 3 2 . Let us compare the s creen [ Leinwand] on which
a
film unfo lds w ith the Gl n
vas [Leinwandl of a painting. The im age o n the film screen cha nges, whereas the image on the canvas d oes n o t. The p ainting i nvites the viewer to contem pla tion; befo r e i t, h e can give himself up to his train o f a ssocia tion s . Before a fi l m i ma ge, he ca n no t
do
so. No soo ner has he seen it than it ha s already
cha nged . It cannot be fixed on. The tra in of associa tions in the person contemplating it is immediately interr u pted by new images . This c onsti tutes the shock effect of film, which, d uce h eightened a ttention. Film is
all s hock effects, seeks to in
the art form co rresponding to the pro
nounced threat to life in which people live today. It corresponds to pro found cha nges in the a pparatus of a pperception-ch anges tha t are
experienced
on the scale
priv ate existence by each passerby in b ig-city tra ffic, and o n
of
worl d history by e a ch fighter agai nst the present social order.
t b e scale
[ Ben j a m i n 's n ote. A more l iteral translation of the l ast phrase before the sen-
54
P R O D U CT l0 N I R EP R O D UC T l 0 N
tence in italics is: " seeks to
be
I
AND RECEPTI ON
bu ffered by
intensified prese nce o f mind
rCeistesgeganwartj . " -Trans. ]
3 3 . S ectio ns
XVII and XVIII
introduce the
i dea of
a
p r o d uctive
" reception in
d is
tra ction " (R ezeption in der Zerstreuung), an idea inde bted to the writings of
Siegfried K ra c au e r a nd Lo u is Aragon . T hi s
positive idea o f distraction " en tertainment"-con trasts with the negative i dea of d istraction th a t B e nj a m i n deve l o pe d in such essays a s " Thea t er and Ra dio " ( 1 932) a nd "The A u tho r as Producer" ( 1 934), bo t h in this v o lu me ; the la tter i dea is associated with the theo r y and p r a c t ic e of B e no It Brecht's e pic theater. See " T h e o ry o f D is tr acti o n " ( 1 935-1 93 6), in t his volume. 34. Benjamin rela tes the legend o f this Chine e pa i nt er i n the 1 9 3 4 version of h i s Berlin Childhood around 1 9 00, i n B e nj ami n , Selected Writings, Volume 3 : 1 935-1 93 8 ( Ca m b ridg e , Ma s s . : Harva r d Un i v e r s ity Press, 2002), p . 393. 35. The term "aesthetics " is a de ri v a tiv e o f Greek aisthetikos, " o f sense percep tion," from aisthanesthai, " to perceive. " 3 6 . A technological fac to r i s importa nt here, espec ially with regard t o t he news reel, whose significance for propaga nda purposes can h a rd ly be overstated. Mass reproductio 11 is especially favored by the reproduction of th e masses. In great ceremonial processi ons, gia nt rall ies and mass sporting events, a nd in war, a l l of wh i c h are n o w fed into the came ra, the m asses come face to face with themselves . T h is process, whose signi fican ce need not be em pha s ized , is clo se l y bOll nd up with t h e d ev e lo p m ent of reprod uction and record ing technologies. I II ge n e r a l , mass move men ts are more cle a rly a p p r e h en ded by the ca mera tha n by the eye. A b ird 's-eye vi e w best captu res ass emblies o f hundreds of thousands . And even when this perspective is no l ess a cce s si ble t o t h e huma n e ye than to t h e camera, t h e i m a ge formed by the eye ca n not be enlarged in the same way as a pho to gra p h . This is to say th a t mass m ove ments, and a bove a ll war, are a fo rm of human behavior e s p eci a l l y suited to t h e C
T H E W O R K O F A R T: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
55
sion of Futurism. Schwa bingj a di s tric t of Munich, w a s muc h frequemed by aro u n d the turn of the twentieth century; I-Eder and orher Nazi agita tors m er in certa i n of its restaurants and beer ce ll ars and pl otted the unsuc ce s sfu l revolt aga inst govern mental authority k now n as rhe Beer Hall P u tsch
artists
( 1 923 ) .
i n L a Stampa Torino. [Benjamin's n ote. The Germ a n editors of Gesam melte Schriften argue th a r this p a ss a ge is more l i k ely to have been excerpted from a French newspaper th a n from the Ita lian newspa per cited he r e Trans.J " Let art flourish-and the wo rl d pass away. " This is a play on the motto o f
3 8 . C i te d
Benj a mi n 's
.-
39.
the sixteen th -century Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand I : "Fiat i ustitia et
per-ear m undus" ( " Let justice be
done and
the wo rl d
pass away H ) .
2 Theory of Distraction
Theory of d istraction I Atte mp t to determine the effect of the work of ar t o nce i ts power of con secra tion has b een e liminated Parasitic existence of ar t as b ased o n the s acred In its concern with e d ucational value [Lehl'wertl, "The Author as Pro d u ce r disregards cons umer va l u e [KonsumwertJ 2 It is in film that the work of art is most susceptible to becom ing worn out Fas hion is a n indispensa b le factor i n the accele r ation o f the process of be coming worn out The va l ues o f distraction should be defined with regard to film, j ust as the values of ca tha rsi s are defined with regard to tragedy D istraction, l i ke catharsis, should be conceived as a p hysiological phe nomenon Distraction and des truction [word conjectured] as the subjective and ob j ective sides ) respectively, o f o n e a n d t he same process The relation of distraction to a bsorption m u s t be examined·3 The s urvival of artworks should be re presented fr o m the standpoint o f their struggle for existence Their t ru e h u ma n i ty consists in their unlimited ad aptability The crite ri on for j ud g in g the frui tfulness of their effect is th e communica bility of this effect The ed ucational a n d the consumer v a l ue of a rt m a y converge in certain optimal c a s e s ( a s in Brecht ) , b u t they d on't ge n e ra lly coincide The Gree ks had o nly o ne form of ( mechanical ) reproduction: minting coms ')
56
57
T H E O RY O F D I S T R ACTI O N
They could not reproduce their a rtworks, so these had to be lasting. Hence: eterna l art Just as the art of the Greeks was geared towa rd lasting, so the art of the present is geared toward becoming worn ou t This may happen in two different ways : through consignment of the art work to fashion or through the work 's refunctioning in politics4 Reproducibility-distraction-politiciza tion Educational val ue and consumer val ue converge, thus making possible a new kind of learning Art comes into contact with the commodity; the commodity comes into contact wi th art Fragmen t wri tten most likely in 1 935- 1 93 6; unpu b l ished
melte Schriftel1, VII, 678-679 . Translated
in Benjamin's li fe time . Gesam
by How a rd Eil and.
N otes Th is fr a gme n t is
as s o c
i a t ed
with the composition of the s e con d
Work of Art i n the Age of Its
Te c hn o l o g ic a l
version
of
"
The
Reproducibi li ty " ( 1 9 3 5-1 9 3 6 ) , in
this vol ume .
1. See S ect i on XVIII of the s e co nd version of " The Wo r k of Art in the Age of I ts Technological Reproducibility " ( 1 9 3 5-1 9 3 6 ) , in this volume. See a lso Sec
the th i rd version of the essay ( 1 9 3 9 ) , in Benjamin, Selected Writ 4, 1 93 8-1 940 (Cambridge, Mass . : H a r v a rd U ni ver s i ty P re ss, 2 0 0 3 ) , pp. 2 5 1-2 8 3 . B en j a m i n s term fo r d i s tra c t i o n is gener a lly ZerstreuungJ which in this cont ext can a Iso mean en ter ta i nm e n t . I n a re l a ted fra g men t ( Gesammelte Sch riftell, VII, 678 ) , Benjamin writes: "The work of ar t underta kes to p rod u c e entertainm e nt in a respo ns i b l e manner. " 2 . See "The Author a s Pr o d uc er " ( 1 93 4 ) , Cha p te r 8 i n this v ol ume 3 . " Absorptio n " he re translates Einverleibung, meaning m o r e specifica l ly " in gestion. " Compare Benj amin's com ments o n re a d ing as Einverleibung in his rad io talk " Children's Litera ture," i n Benj amin, Selected Writings: Volume 2, 1 927-1 934 ( Cambridge, M a ss . : H arva r d University Press, 1 99 9 ) , tion XV of
ings: Volume
'
"
"
"
"
,
pp. 2 55-256 .
4 . " Re f uncti onin g "
"
T h e Author as
transl a tes Umfunktionierung, a t erm taken from B recht. See Pro d u ce r " ( 1 9 3 4 ) , Cllapter 8 in this volume.
3 To the Planetarium
If one had to expound the teachings o f antiquity with utmost brevity
while standing on one leg, as did Hillel that of the Jews, it could only be
in this sentence: "They alone s h a ll possess
earth who live from the
powers of the cosmos. " Nothing distinguishes the ancient from the mod ern man so much as the former's a bsorption i n a
c
o sm i c experience
scarcely known to later periods . Its waning is marked by the flowering o f astronomy at t h e beginning o f the modern age . Kep l er, Copernicus, a n d Tycho Brahe were certa inly not driven by scientific i mpulses alone. All t he s a me, dIe exclusive emp hasis on an optical connection to the uni verse, to wh ich a stronomy very quickly l ed, contained a portent o f what was to come. The a ncients' intercourse with the cosmos had been differ ent: the ecstatic trance [Rausch] . For it is i n this experience a lone that we g a i n certain knowledge of what is nearest to us and wha t is remotest from us, and never of one without the o ther. Th is means, however, that man can be in ecstatic contact with the cosmos only c o m mu n a l l y. It is the d angerous error of modern men to regard this experience as unimportant a nd avoidable, and to consign it to the i ndi v id u a l as the poetic ra p ture o f starry n i g h ts . It is not; i ts hour strikes a ga i n and again, and then neither nations nor generations can escape it, as was made terr ib l y clear b y the last war, which was an a t te m p t at new and unprecedented commingling with the cosmic powers. Human multitudes, gases, electrical forces were hurled into the open country, high-frequency currents coursed through the l andscape, new constellations rose in the sky, aerial space and ocean depths thundered w i th propellers, and everywhere sacri ficial shafts were
dug in Mother Ea r th . This immense wooing of the cosmos wa s en a cted
58
59
T O T H E P L A N E TA R I U M
fo r the firs t t i m e on a p l an eta r y sca le-that is, in the sp i rit o f te ch n olo gy. But because the lust for p r ofi t of the ruling class s o ug ht satisfaction through it, te ch n o lo gy b etr a y ed man and turned the brid al be d into a blo od ba th . The ma ste ry of nature ( so the imper i a lis ts teach) is the p ur pose o f all tec h n olo gy. But who wo u ld t r u s t a c a n e wielder w ho pro claimed the mastery o f chi l d r e n by a d ul ts to be the p u rpose of education?
Is not education, above all, the i n di s p e n s a b le ordering of the r elati o n s hi p between generations a n d tllerefore ma s te ry ( if we are to use t h i s term ) of that r el a tio n s hip and not of children? And likewise tec hno l o gy is the mastery of not nature but of the r e l ati o n between na ture and man. Men as a species completed their d ev el o p me nt thousands of y e a rs ago ; but mank ind as a species is j ust begin ning h i s . In technology, a physis i s being orga nized thro ug h which mankind's contact with the cosmos takes a new and different form from tha t wh i c h it had i n n a t i o n s and families. One need recall o n l y the exp erience of velocities by v irtue of wh ic h mankind is now preparing to embark on incalculable journeys i n to the interio r of time, to en co u n te r th er e rhy th ms from which the sick shall d r a w s treng th as t h ey did earlier on high mo un t a i ns or on the shores of s o ut he r n seas. The " Lu n ap a rk s " a re a prefiguration of sanato ria. The paroxysm of gen ui ne cosmic experience i s not tied to that ti ny fra g me n t of n a tur e that we a re a c cu s to med to call " Nature . " In the nig h ts of annihila tion of th e last wa r, the frame of m an k in d was s h aken by a feeling t h a t resembled the b liss of t he e pil e ptic . And the revolts that fol lowed it were the fir s t a t tempt of mankind to bring the new b od y under its control . Tne power of the p r o l e ta r i at is the m e as u re of its c o nv a l e s ce n ce . If it is not gripped to the very marrow by the d is ci p lin e of t hi s powe r, no p acifist polemics wi ll s a ve it. Living s u bstance c o nqu e r s t he fr enzy of destruction o n l y in the ecstasy o f procreation. Written 1 923- 1 926; published in 1 92 8 . Excerpted from Schriften, IV, 1 46-148. Tra nsl ated by Ed mund Jephcott.
One- Way
Street.
Gesammelte
4 Garlanded Entrance
O N T H E " S O U N D N E RV E S " EX H I B I T I O N AT T H E G E S U N D H E I T S H A U
KREUZ8ERG 1
This exhibition is a stroke of luck. It is tied to the memory of a remark able
man.
Ernst Joel, the chief doctor for the Kreuzberg s chool district
[Stadtoberschularzt] ,
came up with the plan for the show and for a good
while too k the lead i n i ts design. He was one of those rare people who could bring to bear, in a strictly rational and perfectly ca librated way, an unusual influence on others,
a
leader's energy cou pled with match
less charm (which in Germany we see wasted far too o ften o n vain, o bsti
nate, cllitish noti ons ), i n the service of a cause: tho roughgoing and logical enlightenment of the p u blic
[ Volksaufklarungl .2
If this man left behind in all the spheres
not merely traces
he compassed i n his short life, this is because he was such a salutary exceptio n to the German situati on. The fact that i t i s precisely the stron gest a n d m o s t suggestive characters who fail t o fi n d a n available a n d appropriate place i n which to exert their powers, that they s e a l thenl selves off i n nonsecta rian religious colonies and volkisch s hock troops in Mazda znan communities and dance gro ups, that they take comfort in fa naticism and squander their best qua lities : this is the chronic catastroph e of postwar Germany. 3 Ernst Joel h a d all t h e makings o f a fana tic-the convi ction, the restlessness, the effectiveness. Only one thing was miss ing: arrogance. As a res ult1 his s uperior powers could be enti rely directed toward an inconspicuous b ut fruitful field, which remains for the most
60
GAR LAN D E D ENTRAN C E
61
part the uncontested d o m a in of the b i gwigs : p u blic health educa tion [Medizinischel' Vo lksaufklarungJ . The results of such a stroke of luck are a pp a re nt in th is exhibition. We see no t only the mastery o f the n otorio usly p a ins ta ki n g wo rk, not only the organi za ti o n a l side of t h e undertaking; we also detect in every nook and cranny a deli beration, a basic clarity-the p r od u ct n ot of hours a t the office, but o f months of the most i mp as s i one d activity. Neither Joel nor any of his colleagues have been to Russia . All the more interes ting, then, that a first gl a n c e into the exhibition rooms can give anyone who enters th em an idea of w hat the Moscow "Peasants' House " or the " Red Soldiers' Club " in the Kremlin looks like : cheerful , j oyfu l , and fu ll of moveme nt, as
if just to d ay, the d ay you've
come, some thi n g r ea lly special
is h a pp e ni ng . 4 Displays a nd ban ners are a rr anged as if awa i ting the b ir th day boy; facts and fig ur e s are lllmg like g arla n d s from wall to wall; you can't
looking for a slot in some of the mockups-you feel the urge
to d rop i n a
c
oi n to set them i n motion, so incredible does it seem that
everything here is free. S oon we catch on to one p ar tic ula r d evice: the show's artistic director, Wigmann, is a drawing teacher who asked some schoolchildren to " set d own in painf' c e r t a i n themes for the exhibi tion. O ut of themes like " Da y of the S uperstitious H or " O ur P arents' Childre a ring Mistake s " came whimsic a l , boldly colored series of p ic
tures; o nly the hurdy-g u rdy texts and the Moritat-singer's pointer stic k a re missing.s Moreover, the prospect of see ing their e ffo r ts p ut to s uc h a sens ible use heightens t h e child ren 's ple a s u r e in t h ei r work. Child re n can impart knowledge s o well here because they are the true laymen. The show's visitors are also laymen, a n d ought to r e ma in so. S o runs the maxim of the new e d ucation for the masses [ VolksbildungJ, in con trast to the older kind, w h i ch took erudition as its starting p o int and be lieved that, with the help o f some cha rts and specimens, it could and sh ould make this schol arly knowledge the property of the
Qu al
ity, educators used to tell themselves, would turn into qu a ntity. The new ed ucation for the m a s ses�
co
nv ersely, proceeds from the fact that the
masses a ttend schooL The s logan now is to t u r n quantity into quality� a
r ev e r sal that for them is identical to the conve rs i on of theo ry into prac tice. The visitors, as s tate d, should remain laymen . Th ey should [eave the e xh i bit i o n not m ore learned but more savvy. The task of real, effective p re s e nt a tio n [Darstellung] is just this: to li berate knowledge from the b o u n d s of the compartmentalized disci pline [Fach ] and make it practical. But wha t is " real p r ese n ta ti o n " ? In other w o rds, wha t is exhibition tech n i q ue ? Whoever wants to know should turn to the old est experts in
62
PRODUCTI O N , R E P RODUCTI O N , A N D REC EPTI O N
this field. We are all acquainted with them. We learned our early lessons fro m them. We learned from them, in the saddl e, how to handle fish, mammals, and birds; we got to know all vocations and p rofessions thro ugh the way they reacted when we took a shot at the target; we even learned to measure our own strength against "Towering Jules " -the frightening vision which, at the blow of
a
hammer, reared its head out o f
a hollow cylinder.6 Itinerant pedd lers make t heir living through exhibi tion, and their tra de is old enough to have brought them a solid store of experience . From first to l ast, however, it centers o n this bit of wisdom: you must at all costs prevent people from waxing co ntemplative, from engaging in detached o bservation-which is anathem a . So there is no show without carousels, shooting galleries, and test-your-strength ma chines, wi thout love thermometers, fortune-tellers, and l otteries. Those who come to gawk end up j oining in-this is the c ategorical i mperative of the fairgro und. What lends this exh i b ition its particular character is not so much its dioramas , banners , a nd dissolving views7 ( crea ted, inci dentally, with the mos t primitive means) but rather this technique of making the visitor participate actively.-You see the rubric "Vo cationa l Counseling . " A head is positioned in fro nt of a l arge disk, which presents a montage of emblems and scenes from a wid e variety of vocations. Set the disk turning, and it s eems ( though this is an optica l illusion ) that the head begins to move too, and its resigned swinging shows that it is i n a quandary. Right next door is
a
row of testing apparatuses on
which anyone who feels like it can assay his dexterity, his sense of color, his " trainabil ity, " h is combinatory powers. The Delph ic " Know thyself" b eckons from every automatic scale. You encoun ter this at fa irs , in the Devil's Cha m ber-the black-lined stall i n which the devi l 's distorted face seems to move under his plumed hat. When you bend down to see who's there, you come face to face with
a
mirror out of which you yourself peer.
Wigmann was clever; he took this, too , from the fa i rgro und . There is a room devoted to countering superstition: "Who believes tha t ? " reads a mova ble panel on which p amphlets are d isplayed. You lift it up and see yourself revealed in the mirror behind it. Wha t does all this mea n ? It means that rea l presentation banishes contemplation. In order to i ncorp orate the visitor into the show's mon tage, a s occurs here, the optical must be c arefully control l e d . Any view ing
[AnschauungJ
that lacks the element of su rprise would result in a
dumbing-down of the visi tor. What there is to see must never be the same as, or even approximate, what the i nscription says it is . It must bring with it somethin g new, a twist of the o bvious which fundamenta lly can-
63
G A R LA N D E D E N T R A N C E
not be achieved with words. O ne particular exhibit concerns the quar terly consumption o f a heavy drinker. Now, it would h ave been easy to j ust present a siza ble heap of empty wine or liquor bottles . Instead, next to the p a nel of text, Joel has
the
traces of many folds-the qu arterly bill from the wine merchant. And while the wine bottles do indeed i lluminate the text even as they them selves are c hanged very little by t his juxta position, the d ocUlTlent, the bill , is suddenly seen in a new l ight. Because it w orks s o perfectly in the mon tage , it gives the viewer
a
j olt.
Admitte dly, y ou never see montage at fairs. But this show embraces today's canonical approach to viewing: the will to the authentic. Mon tage is not a s tylistic pri nciple found in hand icra fts . It emerged around the e n d o f the war, when it became cle ar to the avant-garde that reality cou l d n o longe r be mastered . The only means we have left, for gaini ng time and keepi ng a cool head, is, a b ove all, to let real i ty have its say-in its own right, disordered and anarchic if necess ary. In those clays, t he D a daists were the avant-garde . s They created montages from bits of fa b ric, tram tickets, shards of glass, buttons, matches-and by this means they said : You cannot cope with reality a nymore . You cannot deal with these odds and ends of rubbish any better than you can with troop trans por ts, influenza, or Reichs bank notes.9 When the New Obj ectivity ven tured timidly to elisa vow reality and esta blish o r der, this d evelop ment sho uld have gained the firmest footho ld in film , which was producing s uch incalculably great d ocumentary ma terial. J O But the titillation indus try [Amusiel'i1tdustrie] , which develops new technical possibilities only to h o b b l e them, blocked th is as wel l . After all, it trained the gaze fo r the au thentic. What, then, isn't authentic, so long as we, p assing by, actually take account of i t ? For one who ruthlessly makes the case against exploi tati on, misery, and stupidity, what doesn't become a corpus delicti? For the orga nizers of th is exhibition , nothing was m o re important th an this rea l ization and the small shock that leaps o ut of things a l ong with it. In the "Hall of S upersti ti on" a fortune-teller is on d isplay; a lmost every thing in the scene is real, from the money and p laying cards on the table to her yellowish-gray chigno n . The viewer who stands before her doesn't feel instructed-he simply feels found out. Even if he has never gone to
a
fortune-teller before, he will " never go again . " Clever traps, which lure the attention a n d h ol d i t fast. The texts that remain are slogans . "The ' breakthrough' o f the e ight-hour day ro bs the worker of the chan ce to participate in the achieve ments of culture. This i s the death o f a ll menta l hygiene. " l l-Another example: Beneath a scene
64
P R O D U CTIO N , REPROD UCTI O N , AND R EC E PTION
showing the interior of a n e mp loyment o ffice, t nere's a large sheet on which the word " Wait" is printed over and over, in ten columns, from
top edge to bottom. It looks like the stock q u otes in the d a i ly p a per. Above, at an a ngle and in bold letters : " The poor man '5 stock listings . " If an ything is missing, it is a t the entrance to the show, whe re the cura tors sh ould have found
a
place for this sentence, borne out so bril
liantly b y their work: " Bore d o m [LangeweileJ breeds stupidity; diversion
[KurzweilJ
enlightens. "
Pub lis hed in Die literarische Welt, January 10, 1 930, Translated b y A n n i e Bomoellf.
Gesammelte
Schriften,
IV, 557-5 6 L
N otes " a speci a l exhibition on the psychological stresses that
1. " Gesunde
socia l conditions infl ict on urban workers and how these co n d it i o n s might be altered, opened a t the Gesundheitsha us Kreuzberg (Kreu zbe rg Heal th Building) in October 1 929. Tw o contemporary reviews of the exhibition Ztl iirztlicher Umkreis von Benjamin,
are rep ri n ted in M a r g a re te ExleL; Von der Jugendbewegung IrnUlff l'ln II TP'
Landauer
Das Leben Ernst Joels (1 893-1 929)
im
und B u ber ( Berlin: Trafo, 2005), pp. 25 8-263 . The municipa l
government o f Kreuzberg,
;]
working-class district of B e r l i n , o p e n ed the
Gesundhe itshaus in 1925 to educate Kreuzberg residents a bout disease pre
vention and treatment. See Martin Kahle, cd., Das G esundheitshaus:
Einfiihrung in das Aufgabengebiet der sozialen Hygiene tmter besonderer Beri�cksichtigllng del' Gesul1dheitsfursorge im Verwaltungsbezir/(. Kreuzberg der Stadt Berlin (Berlin : Gesundheitshaus Kreuzberg, 1925), especi a lly pp. 109-114; and Ernst "Ein Gesundheitshaus, " Hygienischer Wegweiser: Zentralblatt fur Teclmik ultd Methodik del" hygienischen Volksbelehrung, 89 ( 1 92 8 ) : 204-2 1 l . 2 . The
p hysi ci a n Ernst Joel ( 1 8 93-1929) supervised exhibitions a t the
Gesundheitshaus and worked on the effects of drug use and the treatment of a ddiction; he died suddenly two months before the exhibition opened . He a n d Benj amin were staunch opponents w b e n b o t h were active in the
Freie Stud entenschaft ( Free S t ud e n ts Union) at tbe Un iversity of Berlin j ust '
before World War I, but became friends in the l ate 19205, when Benj a min
served as
a
t es t subject for J o e l 's hashis h experiments. See Exler,
Jugelldbewegung
arztlic he l'
Drogenhilfe,
pp.
Von der
3 4�4 1 and 13 8-142.
Benj a m i n cites one of his own p o le m ics against Joel in "Th e Life of Stu dents," S e le cted Writings, Volume 1 : 1 9.1 3-1 926 ( Cambridge, M a ss.: Har vard Un iversity Press, 1996), pp. 39-41 ( trans . Rodney Livingstone) . He speaks of their en mity and l a ter
friendship i n
"A Berlin Ch ronicle, " Selected
65
G A R LA N D E D E N T RA N C E
Writings, Vo lume 2: 1 92 7-1 93 4 (Cambri dge, Mass . : Ha rva rd U niv e rsity P ress,
1 9 9 9 ) , pp. 6 03-604
( trans. Ed m u nd Jep hcott),
and
in
a
J an u ar y 3 0 ,
1 92 8 , letter t o Gershom Scholem . O n the has h experi ments, see Be nj ami n ,
On Hashish, trans. Howa rd Ei l a nd and O the rs (Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press, 2006 ) . on 3 . M a zd a zn a n, also known as Mazdaism, Zoroastrianism. I t was pop u l a r i n Centra l Europe i n the early twentieth cen tury, w he n interest i n Eas tern religions was widespre a d . 4 . Se e Ben j amin's descri ption of the Red Army Club in "Moscow, " Selected Writings, vo l . 2, pp. 3 6-3 7 ( trans. E d m u n d J ephcott) . 5. A Moritat was a popul a r e ntertainment at Germ a n fairs and markets fro m the sixteenth through the ninetee n th cen turies. The Moritat-singer s a n g the story of a mu rder o r some other gruesome event, a nd his performance was usually accompanied by a ba rre l - o rgan as well a s a s eries of rel a te d illustra tions, which h e pointed to wi t h a l ong stick a s he went a long. 6. Th i s ra ther obscure sen tence p lays on carnival metaphors: c a ro u s e l rides on the b acks of ma m m a l s , birds, a nd fish; target-shooting booths; a nd " ring the bell with the hammer" games. 7. The " d i s s o l vi ng view" (Verwandlungsbild) c o nsi s ted of a number of n ine teenth-cen tury opti ca l techno logies ( m agic-la n tern slides, m ult i p le lenses, a nd so o n ) that prod u ced na rra tive effects through the usc of " d issolves" be tween images. 8. In Zurich i n 1 9 1 6, artis ts, wri ters, and others disgusted by Wor l d War I) as wel l as by the bourg eois ideologies that had brought it about, l a u n ched Dada, an avant-garde movement tha t a ttemp ted to radically change both s o ciety a nd the work of a lt. Dada ist gro u ps were active i n Berl i n , New Yor k, P aris, and e lsewhere during the w ar a n d into the 1 920s; the p r acti ce o f mon tage was c rucial for m a n y D a da i s ts . See Benjamin� "The Wo r k of Art in the Age o f Its Technologica l Reprod ucibility: Second Vers i o n ) " section XVII, in C h a p te r 1 in this volume; a n d "The Work of Art in the Age o f Its Tedmo l og ical Reprod ucibility: Third Ve rs i on, " Selected WritingsJ Volume 4: 1 93 81 940 (Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard Un iversity Press, 2 0 0 3 ) , pp. 266- 2 6 7 ( trans. Harry Zohn and Edmund Jephcott) . 9. R eichsbmlkno ten, banknotes issued by the cen tra l bank of German y, to lose value d u r i n g World War 1. The trend, callsed first by gove rnment bor rowing to finance th e war a n d then by the repa rations demanded by the Treaty o f Versail les, accelera ted in the early years of the We ima r Repub lic and culminated in the cata strop h ic hyperinflation of la te 1 92 2 and 1 923 . 1 0 . "The New Objectiv i ty [Die Neue SachlichkeitJ : German Painting since Ex pres sionis m " was the ti tle o f a 1 925 exhibition in Mannheim of the work of a rtists such as George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Max Beckma nn� whose coolly figurative painti ngs revived t e c h n i q u e s o f the O ld Masters and t r a d it i on a l painting genres. This mode of p a in t i ng was a self-conscious d e p a rt u r e from
66
PROD UCTI O N ,
REPR O D U CTI O N , AN D R EC EPTI ON
both Exp ressi o nism and Dada; some of
lea ding
e xp o ne nts
were former
D a d a ists. 1 1 . In N ovember 1 9 1 8, Germ a ny 's p ro vis iona l government insti tuted the eight hour daY1 one of the labor movement's o l dest h ow ever, the gu ing that
m in
this
i s te r
of labor
allowed
was necessary to in crea�e
omy. In 1 927, 5ti11 more loopholes left
saw
of 1 9 1 8 .
this as
a
hollowing-out
demands.
prod uction
w ere w r i tte n
of one
As early as 1 92 3 ,
nu merous exceptions t o
of the
the
rule, ar
and st a b i l ize the ec o n
i nto th e l a w ; many on
most
the
important achievemen ts
5 The Rigorous Study of Art
O N T H E F I RST VO L U M E O F
T H E K U N S TWJS S ENS C H A FTL I C H E FORS C H U N G EN
In the for e w o r d to his 1 898 s tud y D ie klassische Kunst [Classic Art] , Heinrich Wo l fflin ma de a gesture that cast aside the history of art as i t w a s then un der stood b y R i ch ar d Muther. 1 " Contemporary p u b lic inter
est" he declared, " seems n ow a d a ys to want to turn toward more spe c ific ally a rtistic questions. One no l on ger expects an art-historical book to give mere b iographical anecdotes or a d es cript ion of the c i rcumsta nces of the time; rather, one w a n ts to learn something a bout those things w h i c h constitute the value and the essence of a work of art.
. . .
The natu
ral thing would be for every ar t-historical mon o gr a ph to contain some aesthetics as w el l . " A bit further on, one r ea d s : " I n order to be more cer tain of atta ining this g oal , the first, historical, section has been f urnishe d
w ith a second, sy s te m a tic , section as a co u n terp ar t . " 2 This a rrangement is a ll the more indica tive because it reve al s not only the aims but a l so the limits of an e n de a v or which w as so epoch-making in i ts time . And, in fact, \Vb l fRin did not s u cc ee d in h is a ttem pt to LIse formal a nalysis (w hich he placed at the center of his method) to remed y the b l ea k con d i tion in which h is discipline found itself a t the end of the ni n e teenth century. He identified a dualism-a flat, universalizing histo ry of the art of " all cul tures and times," on the one h a nd , and a n aca de m ic aesthetic, on the other-w ith o u t , howevel� being
a ble
to overcome it en ti r e l y .
Only from the perspecti ve of the current si tua tio n does it become evi-
67
68
P R O D U CT I O N ,
R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R EC E PT I O N
de nt to what exten t the understa nding of a rt history as uni v e rs a l his
t or y-un d er whose aegis eclecti cism ha d free play-fettered au thentic research . And t h is is true not only fo r the s t udy of art. In a p rogram matic exp l a n atio n , the lite r a ry historian Walter Muschg writes: "It is fair to say t h a t the most essentia l work being done a t present is almost excl us i vel y oriented toward the m o n ogr a ph . To a great exten t, today's generation no lo nge r bel ieves in the significance of an all-encompassing
it is grappling with fig u re s and p robl em s which it sees marked primari l y by gaps d u rjn g that era of universa l histories . " 3 In presentation . Instead
deed, the " turn aw ay from an uncritical real ism in th e contem pl a tion of his tory and the s hriveling up o f macroscopic constructions " 4 are th e most important h a l l m a rks of the new research. Sed lmayr's p rogr a m m a t ic arti
cle " Towa r d a Rigorous S tu dy of Art, " the o pe ning piece in the recently
KUllstwissenschaftliche Forschungen [Research s ays in the Study of Art] , is entirel y in accord with this position: pu blished yearboo k
The cu rr entl y ev olv i n g p hase i n the in
a
s tu d y
of a rt w i l l
have
Es
to e mphasize,
heretofore unknown manner, the investlgation of individual works.
an i mproved knowl e of the individual artwo rk, and it is in j u st this task, a bove all , tha t the exta nt study of a rt m a n i fests i ts incompetence . . . . Once the ind i v idual art wo rk is p e r c e ive d as a sti ll unma stered task specific to tlle study of a r t, it
Nothing is more importa nt at the present s tage than e dg
a ppears powerfu l l y new a nd close . Formerly
a
mere means to knowledge ,
disclosed thro ugh i t, the artwork small world of its own, particular sort.5
a trace of something else which was to he
now appears
as a
self-contained
In accordance with these introd uctory rema rks , the three essays which follow a re thus rigorously monographic studies . G.
A.
A n d re ad e s pres
e nts the Hagi a Sophi a a s a synthesis between Orient and Occident;
Otto
Pacht d ev elops the histori cal task posed by Michael Pacher; and Cad Linfert explores the foundations of the architectu ral d r a win g . 6 What these s tudies share is a convincing love for-an d
a
no less convincing
ma s te ry of-their subject. The three authors h ave nothing i n common with the type of art historia n "who , rea l ly convinced that artwo rks we re meant not to be studied ( b ut only 'experienced ' ) , s t ud ie d them neverthe less-only b ad ly. " 7 Furth ermore, these au thors know that h e a d w ay can
be made onl y if one considers contemplation o f one's own activity-a new awareness-n o t as a constra int b u t a s at'} impetus to rigorous study. Thi s is p a rt icul a r ly so beca use such study is not concerned with o bjects of p le a s ure , with formal problems, with giving form to experience, o r any
other cl iches inherited from a belletristic consideration of art. Rather, this
69
TH E R I G O R O U S STU D Y O F ART
sort of studious work considers the forma l incorporation o f the given world by the artist not a s a selection but ra ther a lw a y s as a n a d vance into a field o f knowledge
whi ch
d i d n o t yet " exis t "
p rior to the moment
This approach becomes possi b l e only t h ro ugh
o f this fo rmal conqu est . . . . a
frame
of mind that L'ecog
nizes tha t the rea l m o f perception i t s e l f cha nges over ti me
dance frame
wi th s hifts i n cultural and intellectual of mind, however, in
no
[geistigl
and i n
accor
direction. S uch
way presumes o bje c ts tha t are
a l w ays
a
pres
ent i n an unvarying manner s uch that their for ma l makeup is merely deter mined b y
a
cha nging "stylistic d rive" within percept u a l surro undings that
remain constant.
For "we should never be interested in p r o blems of form' as such, as if a form ever a rose out of formal problems alone or, to put it in other words� as if a form ever came i nto existence for the sake of the stimulus it would produce. " Also characteristic of this ma n ner of a pproaching art is the " esteem for tlle insignificanf' (which the Brothers Grimm practiced in the ir in comparable expression of the spirit of true philology ) . R But what ani mates this esteem, if not the wilJingness to push research forward to the point where even the " insignificant"-no, precisely the insignificant becomes significa nt? The bedrock tha t these researchers come up against is the concrete bed rock of past historical existence rgeschichtliches G ewesenseins] . The insign ificance with w h i ch they are conce rned is neither the nuance of new stimuli nor the characte ristic trait, which was formerly employed to identify column forms much the way Linne taxonomized plan ts.9 Instead it is the i nconspicuous aspect-or this and the offensive aspect ( the two together are not a contradiction)-which survives in true works and which constitutes the point where the content reaches the breaking point for an authentic researcher. One need only read a st u dy such as the o ne on the Sistine Madonna published years ago by Hu bert Grimme ( who does not belong to this grou p ) in order to ob serve how much s uch an inquiry, based o n the most inconspicuous data of an object, can wrest from even the most worn-out things . And thus, because of the focus on ma teriality in such work, the precursor of this new type of art scholar is not Wolfflin but RiegJ. Pacht's investigation of Pacher "is a new attempt at t h a t grand form of p resentatio n exe mplified in Riegl's masterly command of the transi tion from the individual o bj ect to its cultural and inteJ lectual [geisti,�l funct io n , as can be seen especially in his study 'Das holliind ische Gruppenportrat. J {) One could just as weB '
"
"
'"
PRODU C TI O N , R E P R O D U C TI O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
70
refer to RiegPs book Die spatl'omische Kunst-lndustrie [The Late Roman Art Ind ustry ] , particularl y since this work de monstrates in exemplary fashion the fact tha t sober a n d simultaneously undaunted rese a rch never misses the vital concerns of its time. 1 1 The read er who reads Riegl's maj o r work toda y, recalling t h a t it was written a t almost t h e s a me time as the work by Wolffl in cited in the opening paragrap h , will recognize retro spectively how forces that are already s tirring subter raneously in Die
spatromische Kunst-Il1dustrie will surface a decade l ater in expression ism. Th us, one can assume that sooner or later contempora neity will catch up w i th the s tudies by Pacht and Linfert as well. There are some methodological reserva tions, however, rega rding the a dvisability of the move that Sedlmayr a tte mpts in his introd uctory essay) j uxtaposing the rigorous stu d y of art as a " second ar y " fiel d of study ,;t 1T
a pri m a ry ( that is, p ositivis t) study o f art. The kind of resea rch
undertaken in this volume is so d ependent upon a uxili ary fields of study-painting techniq ue and painting media, the his tory of m o ti fs, iconography-that it can be confusing to constitute these as a some how separate " primary stu d y of a rt. " Sedlmayr's essay also demonstr ates h o w d ifficu l t it is for a particu lar course of research (such as the one rep resented here ) to esta blish purely methodological definitions without reference to any concrete examples whatsoever. This is difficult; but i s it necessary ? Is it appro p ri ate to place this new aspi ration [ Wollen] so as s i d u o usly under the pa tronage of phenomenology and Gestalt theory ? It could ea sily be that, in the process, one loses nearly as much as one ga i ns . Admi ttedly, the references t o " levels o f meaning" i n t h e works, t o their " physiognomic characte1; " to their " s ense o f orientation", ca n be useful in the polemic against positivist art chatter and even in the polemic against form alist analysis . But they are of little help to the self-definition of the new type o f research. This type o f study stands to gain from the in sight that the more crucial the w orks are, the more inconspicuously and intima te ly their meaning-content [B edeutungsgehalt] is bound up with their material content [SachgehaltJ . It is concerned with the correlation tha t gives rise to reciprocal illu mination between, on the one hand, the historical process and radical c hange and, on the other h and, the acciden tal , external, and even strange aspects o f the artwork . For if the most meaningful wo rks prove to be p recisel y t hose whose life is most deeply embedded in their material contents-one thinks of Giehlow's interpreta tion of Durer's Melancolia l 2-then over the course of thei r historical du ration these material contents present themselves to the researcher a l l the more cl early the more they have disappea red from the wo rld .
T H E R I GO R O U S ST U D Y O F A RT
71
It would be di fficult to find a better clarification of the implications of this train of thought than Linfert's study located at the end of the volume. As the text expla i ns , its very su bj ect matter, the a rchitectu ral drawing, '·is a marginal case . " 13 But it is precisely in th e investigation of the m arginal case tha t material contents reveal their key position most decisively. If one examines the a bundant plates accompanying Linfert's study, one dis covers names in the captions that are unfamiliar to the J ayman anci, to some extent, to the professional as well. As re g a r d s the i mages them selves, one cannot say that they re-produce architecture. The y produce it in the first p l ace , a p r o du cti on which less o ften benefits the reality of architectural planning than it does drea ms . One sees, to take a few exam ples, Babel 's heraldic, ostentatious portals, the fairy-tale castles w hich Delaj oue has conj u red i nto a she l l, Meissonier's knickknack a rchitec ture, Boullee's conception of a l i brary that looks like a train s ta tion, and Juvara 's ideal views [ " Prospetti va ideale " J that look like glances into the warehouse o f a buil ding dealer: a completely new and untouched world of images, which Baudelaire woul d have ranked higher than all paint ing.14 In Linfert's work, however, the images are su bmitted to a descrip tive te chn i qu e that succeeds in esta blishing the most revealing facts in this u nexplore d marginal realm. There is, as is commonly known, a manner of representing buildings using purel y painterly means. The architectural drawing is sharp ly distinguished from images of this sort and is found to have the closest a ffinity to nonrepresentational [ unbildmiissige] work that is, the supposedly a uthentically architectonic presentations of build ings in topogra p hic designs, prospects, and vedutas. Since in these, too, certain "errors " have survived up through the late eighteenth century de spite all the progress in natu ralism, Linfert takes this to be a pec u li a r i maginary world [ VorstellungsweltJ of architecture, which is markedly different from that of the painters. There are various indications that confirm the existence of this world, the most important one being that sll ch architecture is not p rimarily " seen,)' bu t rather is imagined as a n ob j ective entity [BestandJ and is sensed by those who approach or even eo ter it as a surrounding space [ Uml'aumJ sui genel'is-that is, wi thout the dist a n cing effect of the edge of the image spa ce rBildraum] . Thus, what is crucial in the consideration of architecture is not seeing but the ap p re hension (durchspuren] of structures . The o bj ective effect of the build ings on the imaginative being [vorstellungsmassige Sein] of the viewer is mor e important than their '·being seen. " In short, the most essential char acteristic of the architectural drawing is that " i t does not ta ke a pictorial detour. "
72
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R E C E PT I O N
S o much for the formal aspects. In Linfert's analyses, how ever, formal q uestions a re very closely tied to historica l circumstances. His investig a t i o n deals w ith " a period d uring which t h e architectural d rawing bega n to lose i ts principal a n d d ecisive expression. " 15 But how transparent this " process of dec a y " becomes here ! How the arch itectura l pr ospects open up in o rder to take into thei r core al legories, stage designs, and monu
ments! And each of these forms i n turn points to u nrecognized aspects which appear to the researcher Linfer t in their full concreteness : Renais s ance hierogl yphics; Piranesi 's visionary fa ntasies of ru ins; the temp les of th e IlLuminati, s uch as we know them from
Die ZauberflDte. 16 Here it be
comes evident that the hall mark of the new type of researcher is not the eye for the " all-encompa ssing whole " or the eye for the "com prehens i v e context" ( which mediocrity h as cla imed for itself) , b ut rather the capac ity to be at home in ma rginal domains . The men w hose work is conta i n e d in t h i s yearbook represent t h e most rigorous o f thi s n e w type of r e s earche r. They a re the hope of their field of study. Written July-December 1932; abridged version p u blished in the
furter Zeitzmg,
July 1 933 ( Ll nder r h c pseu donym Detlef
Holz).
Literat1.lrblatt der Frank Schriften, III,
Gesammelte
3 63-3 69. Translated by Th omas Y. Levi n .
Notes 1 . W61fflin ( 1 8 64-1 945 ) ,
a
student of Jacob Burckh a rd t,
was
the most i mpor
tant art historian of his period writing in German. Richard Muther ( 1 8 601 9 0 9 ) was an a rt historian and critic who is often cited as para d igmatic o f the " old school" o f nineteenth-century art h istory. His work was a mixture of religiosity, sentimentality, and ero ticism. 2. Heinrich W61fflin, D ie klassische Kunst; Eine E infiihrung in die italienisch e Renaissance (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1 8 9 9 ) , p p . vii-vi i i ; transla ted by Linda
Murray and Peter Murray a s Classic A rt:
An
Introduction to the Italian Re
naissance (London: Phaidon, 1 9 52), pp. xi-xii.
3. Wal ter Muschg, "Das Dichterp ortra t in d er Literaturgeschichte" [The Writer's Po rtrait in Literary History 1, in Emil Ermatinger, e d . Philosop h ie
der Litera
turwissenschaft ( Berlin: Ju nker u n d Diinnhaupt, 1 930), p. 3 1 1 . C ompa re
also Benjam in 's citation of the same paSSage in h is essay " Literary His tory a n d the Study of Literature " ( 1 93 1 ) , in Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 2 : 1 92 7- 1 934 ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University P ress, 1 9 9 9 ) ,
pp. 4 5 9-46 5 . Walter M.u schg ( 1 8 9 8- 1 9 6 5 )
was
a Swiss literary historian,
poet, and dramatist. 4 . Muschg, "Das D ichterportrat, " p . 3 1 4 . 5 . Hans Sedlmayr,
"Zu einer strengen Kunstwissensch a ft" (Toward a Rigorous
73
TH E R I G O R O U S STU D Y O F A R T
Study of Art), in O tto Pacht, ed., KWlstwissenschaftliche Fo rs ch ungen , vol. 1 ( Berlin: Frankfurter Verlags-Ansta l t, 1 9 3 1 ) , pp . 1 9-20; trans l a ted by Mia
Fineman
in The
Vienna School
Reader: Politics
and Art His to rica l
Method
in the 1 93 0s, e d . Christopher S. Wood (New York: Zone Boo ks, 2000 ) , p. 1 55 . Hans Sed tmayr ( 1 8 96-1 9 84 ) w a s a G erman a r t h i storian. O tto Pacht ( 1 902-1 9 8 8 ) , Austria n art h i stori an, was
a
leading figure in the " sec
ond Vi ennese school " of a rt history ( the first school having formed aro u nd Alois Riegl at the turn of the ce ntury ) .
6 . G . A. Andread es, " D ie Sophienkathed rale v o n Konstan ti nope l " (The Hag i a Sophia in Constantinople), in Pacht, e d . , Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen, pp. 3 3 -9 4 ; O tto Pacht, "Die historische Aufgabe Michael Pachers " (The Historical Ta sk o f Michael Pacher ) , i bid., pp. 95-1 32; C arl Linfert, " D i e Grund l agen d e r Architektur-zeichnung" ( Fund amenta l s of Archi tectural Drawing ) , i b id ., pp . 1 3 3-24 6 .
7. Pacht, eel., Kttns twissenschaftliche Forschungen, p . 3 1 . 8 . The phrase comes not fro m the Brothers Grimm b u t from S u i piz Boisseree, who used i t, in
a
lette r to Goethe, to descri be Aug u st Wi l h el m Schlegel's re
view of the Grimms' book A ltdeuts che Walder ( O l d-German Woo ds ) . 9 . Carl von Linne, also known a s Carolus Linnaeus ( 1 70 7- 1 778 ), wa s a Swe d ish n atur a l ist cred ited with t h e fo unding of modern systema tic botany.
He
b ased his c lass i fication o f each genus and its species o n the system of bino mial scientific nomenclatu re, which
he
d evel oped.
1 0 . Al o is Riegl ( 1 8 5 8- 1 9 0 5 ) was an Austria n art h istorian. His b ook Die spatromische Kunst-Tndllstrie ( The Late Roman Art Ind u stry; 1 9 0 1 ) effected a
rev olution in the study of a rtistic epochs prev i o usly h eld to be degener
ate . B enj amin counte d th i s text as one of the fo ur most i mportan t books o f the y o u n g century. Alois Riegl , " D as h olHind ische Gru ppenportra t " [The Dutch Group P o rtra i t ] , Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen SammlHngc1'f des A llerho chs ten KaiserhatlSes, vol. 2 3 , parts 3-4 ( Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1 9 0 2 ) ,
p p . 7 1-278; transl a ted b y Evely n M. K ain a n d David B r i t t a s The Group Portraiture of Holland ( Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1 9 9 9 ) .
1 1. . A lois
Riegl ,
Die
spatromische
Kunst-lndustrie
nach
den
Fu n den
in
Oesterreich- Ullgam, Part 1 ( Vienna: K.K. Hof- und Staats druckerei, 1 9 0 1 );
tra nslated by Rolf W inkes as Late Roman A rt Industry ( Rome : G iorgio Bretschneider Edirore, 1 9 8 5 ) .
1 2 . Karl Giehlow, " D iirers S tich Me lanca lia 1 u n d d e r maximi l i anische Humani sten krei s " [D iirer's Engraving Melancholy I and the Humanist Circle under Maximilian], i n Mitteilungen
del'
G esells ch aft fur vervielfaltigende Kunst:
B eilage del' " G rap hischen KUllste " (Vienna, 1 9 0 3 ) . Gieh low ( 1 8 63-1. 9 l 3 ) was
a German a rt h istorian a n d a lea d i ng Dilrer sc holar.
1 3 . Linfert, " Architektur-ze ichnung," p. l 5 3 .
14. Paul Emile Babel ( 1 720-1 770), French designer a n d engraver, worked i n a r o coco s tyl e . Jacques Del a j oue ( 1 6 86-1 76 1 ; a l s o spelled " de Laj o ue " ) d i d e1e-
74
P R O D U CT I O N . R E P R O D U CT I O N . A N D R E C E P T I O N
gant drawings and pai ntings of rococo a rchitec ture) often in fanciful pasto ral settings. Juste-Aure le Meissonnier ( 1 675-1 75 0 ) was a Frenc h painter, sculptor, a nd architect whose work was characterized by fantasy and ara besque. Etienne- Louis Bo ullee ( 1 728-1 799 ) w a s a French visionary archi tect, theorist, and teacher. Fil i ppo Juvara ( 1 678-1 73 6 ) was an Ital ian archiand stage designe r. 1 5 . Linfert, "Architektu r-zeichnung," p. 23 1 . 1 6 . Benjamin i s pro bably referring to the epoch-making stage sets for Mozart's opera Die Zauberflote (The Magic Fl ute), produced in 1 8 1 6 by the eminent a rchitect Karl Friedrich Schinkel ( 1 78 1- L 8 4 1 ) , whose neoclassical exoticism Benjamin might even have became a model for many seen a performance of D ie these Schinkel sets, since rhey were sti ll being used by the Berlin Sta te Opera as late as 1 937.
6 lin perial Panorama
One of the grea t attractions of the tra v e l scenes fou n d in the Imp erial Panorama was that it did not ma tter where you b ega n the cycle. Because the viewing screen, with p l aces to sit before it, was circular, each picture would pass th r ou gh all th e stations; fr om these you looked, each time, through a d ou ble window i nto the fa i n t l y tinte d d e pths of t he image. There was always a seat available . And especially toward the end of my c h i l d hoo d , when fa s hio n was a lready turn i ng its back on the Imperia l P a no ram a , one go t use d to tak i ng the tour in a half-emp ty room. There was no music in the Impe rial Panorama-in contr a s t to fi l ms, where music makes tra veling so soporific. But there was a small, genu i ne l y d is t urbi ng effect th a t seemed to me sup e rior. This was the ringing of a li t t l e bell that sou nd ed a few seconds before e a ch picture moved off with a jolt, in or d er to make way first for a n empty space and then for the next i mage . And every time it rang, t he mountains with the i r humble footh i lls, the c i t ie s with their m ir ro r- b right windows , the railroad sta tions with their clouds of d ir t y yellow smoke, the vi ne yards d own to the smallest leaf, were suffused with the ac h e of d epa rture . I formed the con victi o n that i t was impossibl e to exhaust the s p le nd ors of the scene at just one sitting. Hence my intention ( which I never realized ) of coming by again the following d a y. Before I couJ d make up my mind, however, the entire apparatus, from which I was separated by a wo o den railing, wo uld begin to tremble; the picture would sway wi thin its little frame and then imme d iate ly trundle off to the left, as I looked on. The art forms that survived here all died out with the coming of the twentieth century. At its inception, they fo u n d their last aud ience in chi l-
75
P R O D U CTI O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , AND RECEPTION
dren . Distant worlds were not a lways strange to these arts . And i t so hap pened tha t the longin g such worlds aroused spoke more to the home than to anyth i n g unknown. Thus it was t hat, one afternoon, while sea ted be fore
a
trans parency of the l ittle town of Aix, I tried to p ers u a d e mysel f
that, o nce u pon a time, I must have played on the patch o f pavement that is guarded by the o l d plane trees of the Co u r s Mirabeau. out front to s urvey the l ist of
When it rained , there was no
fifty pictures. I went inside and found in fjords and under coconut p a l ms the same light that illuminated my d esk in the evening when I did my schoolwork. It may have been a defect in the lighting system tha t sud denly caused the l andscape to l ose its color. But there it lay, quite silent under its as hen sky. It was as though I co u l d have heard even win d and church bells if only I had been more a ttentive . Written for the 1 93 8 version of Berliner Kindheit Benj a min's lifetime. Gesammelte
WII
netmzehnhul1dert; u n p u b l ished i n
Schri(ten, VB, 3 8 8-3 8 9 . Tra nsla ted
by Howa rd Eiland.
Notes Panora ma (Ka iserpanorama) was l ocated in a n arcade, the Kaiser Ga lerie� built in 1 869-1 8 73 , tha t connected the Friedrichstrasse and the Behrenstrasse. The panora ma c o n sist ed of a dome-like apparatus pre'serlth:lR, reo sc o pic views to cust o mers seated around it. For more on nlIletleerlrn·centtlry panoramas, see The Arcades Project, trans . Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Ca m brjdge, Mass . : Harvard University P ress 1 999), pp. 527-536,
The Imperial
,
992-993 .
7 The Telephone
Whether beca use of the structure of the apparatus or because of the s tructure of memory, it i s certain that the noises o f the first telephone conversations echo differently in my ear from those of tod ay. T hey were nocturnal n oises . No muse announces them. The night fro m which they came was the one that precedes every true birth. And the voice that slum bered in those instruments was
a
newborn voice. Each d ay and every
hour, the telephone was my twin brother. I was an i ntimate o bserver of the way it rose a bove the humil iations of i ts early years. For once the chandelier, fire screen, potted palm, console table, gueridon, and a lcove balustrade-all formerly on display i n the front rooms-ha d finally faded and d i e d a natural death, the apparatus, like a l egendary hero once ex posed to d i e in a mountain gorge, left the d ark hallway in the back of the house to make its regal entry into the cleaner a nd b righter rooms that now were inhabite d by a younger generation. For the latter, it became a consolation for their loneliness. To the despondent who w anted to leave this wicke d world, it shone with the l ight of a last hop e . With the for saken, it shared its bed. Now, when everything depended on its call, the strident voice it had acquired in exile was grown softer. Not many of those who use the apparatus know what devastation it once wreaked in family circles. The sound with which it rang between two and fou r in the afternoon, when a schoolfriend wished to speak to me, w as an a larm signal tha t menaced not only my parents' midday nap but the historical era that underwrote and envel oped this siesta. Dis agreements with switch board operators were the rule, to say nothing of the threats and curses uttered by my father when he had the complaints
77
78
PRODUCTI O N . R E PR O DU CTI ON . A N D R ECEPTI O N
d epa r tme n t o n the l ine. But his real orgies were reserved for cra n k ing the handle, to which he gave h imself
up
for m i n ute s at a time, near l y forget
ting himself in the process. His hand, on these occasions, was a dervish overcome b y fr e n zy My heart would pound ; I was certa i n tha t the em .
ployee on the other end was in danger of a stro ke, as punishment for her
ne g l ig enc e
.
At that time , the telephon e still hung-an outcast s e ttl e d carelessly be
tween the d ir t y li ne n hamper an d the ga someter-in a corner of the back -
hallway, where its ringing served to m ul ti p l y the terrors of the Berlin household . When, ha ving mastered my senses with great effort, I arrived to q uell the upr oar after pro longed
fum bling through the
gloomy corri
do r, I tore off the two receivers, which were h eavy as dumbbells, thrust
my hea d between them, and w as inexorably delivered over to the voice th a t now s ounde d . Th e r e was nothing to allay the violence with which i t
pierced me. Powerless, I suffered, seeing t h a t it o b lite rated m y conscious ness o f t im e m y firm resolve, my sense o f d ut y. A n d just a s the mediu m ,
o beys the voice that t akes possessi on of h i m from beyond th e grave, I s u bmitted to the first proposal that c ame my way t hrough the telephone .
Written for the 1 9 3 8 version of Berliner Kindheit 11111 l1eulIzehllhlmdert; unpublished i n Benj amin's lifetime. Gesammelte Schriften, VII, 3 90-3 9 1 . Transl ated by Howard Eiland.
The task is to win ove r the intel l ec tua ls to the working class by m a king the m awa re of the identity o f t heir s piritual e nter p rises and of their conditi ons as producers.
-R A M O N F E R N A N
D l: Z
I
8 The Author
ADDR ESS
as
Producer
AT T H E I N S T I T U T E F O R T H E S T U D Y
O F FA S C I S M , PA R I S , A P R I L
27, 1 9342
Yo u will remember how Plato d eals with poets i n his ideal s tate: h e ban ishes them from it in the p u blic interest. He had a high conception o f the power of poetry, b Llt he be lieved it harm fu l, superfluous-in a
perfect
community, o f c o u rse . The question of the poet's right to exist has not of ten, since then, been posed wi th the same emphasis; but to da y it poses i t self. Pro bably it is o n ly seldom posed in this
form,
but it is more or less
famili ar to you a ll as the question of the autonomy o f the poet, of his freed o m to write wh atever he p leases . You a re not d isposed to grant him this autonomy. Yo u bel ieve that the present social situation compels h im to decide in whose service he is to p l ace his activity. The bourgeois writer of entertainment literatu re does not acknow l e dge this ch oice. You m ust prove to him that, without a dmitting it, he is work ing in the service of certa in class i n te rests A more a dvanced type of writer does recognize this .
choice. His d ecisio n , made on the basis of class s truggle, is to s i de with the proletari at. This puts an e n d to his autonomy. His activity is now de cided by wh a t is u sefu l to the proletariat i n the class struggle . Such writ ing is commonly called
tendentious.
Here you have the ca tchword a rou n d which has lo n g circled a deba te familiar to Y O ll . Its familiarity tells you how unfruitful it has been, for i t h a s not advanced beyond the monotonous reitera tion o f a rgLtments for a n d against: on the one hand} the correct poli tical line is demanded of the
79
80
P R O D u eT I O N , R E P R O D U CTI 0 N , A N D R E C E PT I O N
poet; on the other, one i s j ustified in e xpecti n g his work to have q u a lity. Such a formu lation is of course unsatisfactory as long as the connection between the two factors, political line a nd quality, has not been per ceived. O f course, the connection ca n be asserted d ogmatically. You can d e cla r e: a work that shows the correct politic a l tendency need show no other quality. You can also decl are : a work that exhi bits the co r r ect ten d e n cy must of necessity have every other quality. This second formula tion is not uninteresti ng, and, moreover, it is cor rect. I adopt it a s my own. But in doing so I a b s t a in fro m asserting it dog m atically. It m ust be proved. And i t is in order to attempt to prove it that I now claim you r attention. This is, yo u will p e r h a ps o bject , a very spe cialized , o ut-of-the-way theme. And do I i nten d to promote t he study of fascism with such a proof? This is indeed my intention . For I hope to be a ble to show you that the concept of politi cal ten d e ncy, in the su m m a ry is a per form i n which it usually o c c u rs in the d eb a te fectly useless instrument of political li tera r y criticism. I wo uld like to S llOW you tllat the ten dency of a lj terary work can be p ol itic a l ly co rrect only if it is also li ter a rily correct. Tha t is to s ay, the politically correct ten dency i ncludes a literary t e ndency. And I wo u l d a d d straightaway: this literary tendency, which is impl icitly or ex pl i citly contained in eve ry cor rect political ten dency of a work, a lone constitutes the qu a l ity of tha t work. The correct political tendency of a work thus includes its lite rary qual ity because it incl udes its l iterary tendency. Th is asser tion-I h op e I ca n promise yo u-w i l l soon become clearer. For the moment, I like to interject that I m i gh t have chosen a d if ferent starting point for my reflections. I s ta r ted from the unfruitful de bate on the rel ationship between ten dency a n d q u ali ty in literature . I could have s ta r te d fro m an even older a nd no less unfruitful debate: What is the relation sh ip between form and con tent, p articularly in politi cal poetry ? This kind of ques tion has a bad name ; rightly so. It is the textbook example of the attempt to explain liter a ry connections un d i a lectically, with cliches. Very well. But what, then , is the dialectical ap proach to tlle same q u es tio n ? The dial ectical app roa ch to this que stion-a n d here I come to the hear t of the ma tter-has absolutely n o use for s uch ri g i d , isolated things as work, novel, book . It has to i nsert them into the liv i n g social contexts. You rightly d eclare that this has been d one time a nd again a mo n g our friends. Certainly. Only they h ave often done i t by la unching at once into large, and therefore necessar i ly often vague, questions. Soci a l conditions are, as we know, determined by cond itions of producti o n . And when a
81
THE AUT H O R AS PRODUCER
work was s ubj ected to a m a terialist critique, it was c ustomary to ask how this work stood vis-a.-vis the social relations of production of its time. This is a n important q uesti on, but a lso a very difficult one . Its answer is
not always u nambiguous. And
I would li k e now to
propose to you a
more immed i a te question, a question that is somewhat more modest, somewhat less far-reaching, but tha t has, it seems to me, more chance of receiving an answer. Instead of ask i ng, " What is the attitude o f a work to the relati ons of production of its ti me ? D oes it accept them , is it reaction ary ? Or do es it aim a t overthrowing them, is i t revolu tion ary ? "-ins tead of this q u estion, or at any rate before it, I would like to propose another. Ra ther than asking, �'Wha t is the attitude o f a work to the relations of producti o n of its time ? " I would like to ask, " Wh a t is its p ositi o n in them ? " This q u estion directly conce rns the function the work has within the l iterary relations o f production of its time. It is concerned , in other words, directly with the literary
technique of work s .
I n b ri n gi ng up technique, I have n amed t h e concept that makes liter a ry products accessi ble to an i mmediately social, and therefore m a terial ist, ana lysis. At the s a me time, t h e concept o f technique provi des the dia lectical s tarting po i n t fro m which the unfrui tful a ntithesis o f form and conten t can be s urpassed . And furthermore, thi s concept of technique contains an ind ication o f the correct determination of the relat i o n be tween tendency and q ua l i ty, the questi o n raised a t the outset. If, there fore, we s tated earlier
the correct political tendency of a work in
clu des its literary quality, because it includes its l i terary tendency, we can now form u l a te this more precisely by saying that this literary tend ency can con s is t either in progress or in regression of literary techniq ue. You will certainly approve i f I now pass, with only an appearance of arbitrariness, t o very concrete l iterary conditions. Russian conditio ns . I would like to di rect your attention to Sergei Tretia kov, and to t lle type (which he defines a n d embodies) of the " operating" writer.3 This o pera t ing writer provides the most tangi ble examp l e o f the function a l i n te r de pendence that a lways, and under all conditions, exists between the C O f rect political tend e n cy and progressive literary tec hnique. I ad mit, he is only one examp le; I hold others in reserve. Tretiakov distinguis hes the operating writer fro111 the i n forming writer. His mission i s not to report but to struggle; not to p la y the spectator but to intervene actively. He de fines this mission in the a cco u n t he gives of his own activity. W he n , in
1 92 8 , at the time of the total collectivization o f a gricul ture, the slogan " Writers to the k olkh oz! " was proclaimed, Tretiakov went to the " Com munist Lighthouse" commune and there, d uri ng two lengthy s tays, set
P R O DUCTI 0N , R E PROD U CT I O N , A N D RECE PTI O N
82
a bout the following tasks : calling mass meetings ; collecting funds to p a y for tractors; persuading independent peasants to enter the kolkhoz [col lective farm] ; inspecting the reading roo msi creating wall newspapers a n d ed iting t h e kolkhoz newspap er ; reporting for Moscow newspapers; intro d ucing radio and mobile movie houses; and so on. It is not surprising that the book
Commanders of the Field,
which Tretiakov wrote following
these stays, is s a i d to h a v e had considera ble influence on the further de velopment of collective agriculture. You may have a h igh regard for Tretiakov, yet still be of the o pinion that his example d oes n o t prove a great deal in this context. The tasks he performed , you wil l per hap s o bj ect, are those o f
a
j ourna lis t or a propa
gandist; all this has li ttle to do with literature . But I c i te d the example of Tretiakov deliberately,
in order to point out to you how comprehens ive
the horizon is within which we have to re think our concep tions of l i ter ary forms or ge nres , in view of the tec hn ic a l factors affecting our present situation, if we a re to identify the forms of expression that channel the literary energies of the present. There were not always novels in the past, and there will not always h a ve to be; there have not always been trage dies or great epics. Not always were the forms of commentary, transla tion, ind e e d even so-called plagiarism p lay t h i ngs in the margins of litera turej they had
a
place not o nly in the philosophical but also in the l i terary
writi ngs of Arabia and China. Rhetoric has not a lw a ys been a mino r form: in antiqu ity, it p u t i ts stamp on large provinces of li tera ture. All this is to accustom you to the thought tha t we a re in the midst of a mighty re casting of literary forms, a melting down in which many of the opposites in which we have been used to thinking may lose their force. Let me g ive an example of the unfruitfu lness of such opposites, and of the process of their dialectical transcendence. A n d we shall remain w ith Tretiakov. For is the newspaper.
this
O n e left-wing autho r h a s declared:4
In
our
wr i t ing,
oppos ites that
in
happier ages fertilized o n e another h ave
become insoluble a ntinomies. Thus, scie nce and belles
Jettres,
cr i ticism
a nd li terary prod uctio n , education and politics, fa ll apart i n dis o rder a nd
with one another. The scene of this l itera ry co nfusion is the newspaper; its content, " subj ect matter " t h a t den ies itself any other fo rm o f orga nization than that i m p o s ed on it b y rea ders' i mp a tien ce . And th i s impatience is not j ust th a t of the p o li t ic i a n expecting i n fo rm ation, or of t he speculator looki ng for a s tock tip; behind it smold ers the i m p a ti en c e of pe op le who are t:xduded a nd who t hink they have the rig ht to see their lose al l connection
83
T H E A U TH O R AS P R O D U C E R
own in terests exp ressed . The fact th a t no thing binds the rea der more ti gh tly to
his p a p er than this all-consuming impatience, hi s longing fo r daily nourishment has l ong been exp loited by pu blishers, who are co n stantly ina ugura ting new co lumns to address the reader's questions, opin ions, and protests. Hand i n h a n d , therefo re, w i th the indiscriminate assim ilation of facts goes the equally ind iscriminate assimilation of readers, who a r e i n s tantly eleva ted to colla borators. Here, however, a d i alectical mo ment lies conce a l ed : the
d e cl i n e
of writing in the
bourgeois
p ress proves to
be the formula fo r its revival i n th e press of Soviet R ussia . For a s writing gains i n b re adth wh a t it loses in dep th, the convention a l d is tinction be
tween a u thor and p u blic, which i s upheld
by
the bourgeois p ress, begins i n
the Soviet press t o d i sappear. F o r there t h e re ader i s a t a l l times rea dy to become not
a
writer-tha t
per h a p s in
is, a
d escriber, or even a prescriber. As an e xper t
a discipl ine but perh aps in
holds-he ga i ns speak. And its representa that i s needed fo r i ts exerc ise.
a
post t h a t he
access to a u thorship. Work itself has i ts turn to tion in words beco mes a p a r t of the ability
Literary competence is no longer fo unded on specia lize d training but is n ow based on poly technical education, a n d thus becomes pu blic pro p e r ty.
It is, in a word , the lite ra rization
of
the cond itions of
l iving
that masters
the otherwise insoluble anti n o m i es . A nd it is at the scene of dle limitless d e basement of the word-the n ewspaper, in short-t h a t its s a lv a tion is
be
ing prepa red .
I hope I have s h o wn , by means of this quota tion, that the d esc ri p
tion of the a u th o r as p r o d u c er must extend as as the press. For t hrough the press, at any rate th r ou gh the S ov iet Russian press, one real izes that th e mighty process of r e c a sti ng that I spoke of earlier not o nly affects the conventional distinction between genres, b etw e en writer and poet, between scholar and popularizer� but also rev is es even the distinc tion b e twee n a uthor and reader. Of t hi s p rocess the press is the d ecisive example, a nd therefore any consideration of the a u t h o r as p rod ucer m ust inc lude it. It cannot, howe ver, s t o p at this point. For in \Vestern Europe the newspaper does not constitute a se r vi c e a b l e instrument o f production in the hands of the writer. It sti l l bel ongs to capital . Since, o n the one hand,
the newspaper, technically speaking, represents th e most im p o rta n t liter ary position, but, on the other, this p o s iti on is controlled by the opposi tion, it is no w o nder that th e writer's understanding of h is d ep en d en t social position, his technic al possi bili ties , and his poli tica l task h a s to grapple with the most en ormous difficulties . It h a s been one of the deci-
84
P R O D U C T I O N . R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
sive p rocesses of the last ten years in Ge rm any th a t a considerable pro porti on of its pro d u ctiv e minds, under t he pressure of economic condi tions,
have
passed thro u gh
a
revolutionary
deve lopment
in their
attitu des, wi thou t bein g a b l e s i multa neously to re th in k their own work ,
their relation to the means of p roduction� or their tec hn i q u e in a rea l l y r ev o l u ti onary way. I am s peak i n g , as y o u s e e , o f so-called l eft- w ing i ntel lect ua l s, a nd wil l limit mysel f to the bou r geois Left. In Germany the lea d i n g p olitico - l iterary movements o f the last decade h a ve e ma n a ted from this lef t- wing i ntelligentsi a . I sha11 mention two of th em. Activism and New O bj ectivity rNeue Sachlichkeit] , using thes e e xample s to s h ow th at a politi ca l tend e ncy, how e ver revol u tio n ary it lTIay seem, has a counter revo lu tiona r y function so long as the writer feels hi s so l i d arity with the prole t ari at o nly i n his a ttitudes, not as a p r oduc e r. s The catc hword in wh i c h the d e ma n ds of Activism are summed up is " logocracy " ; i n p la i n l ang u age, " rule o f t he min d . " This is a p t to be trans l ated as " rule of the intel l ectual s . " In fact , the concept of the intel lect ua l , with i ts a t tendant spiri tu a l va l u es , has esta blished itself in the camp of the J eft-wing i ntelligentsi a , and domi n a tes its political manifes tos from Heinrich Mann to D o blin.6 It can r e a d i l y be seen th a t this concept has been coined without a ny re g a rd for the position of intellectu a l s in t h e process of p r od uctio n. Hiller, the theoretician of Activis m, means i ntellectu a l s to be understood not as " me mbers of certa in profes sions " but as " representa tives of a certa in characteroJ og i c a l typ e . " 7 T his chara cterological type n atu rally stands as such between the cla s s es . It en compasses any n u m ber o f p r i vate i ndivi d u a ls wit h o ut offe r i n g the s l ight
est basis for organizing them. When Hiller formulates his d enunci a tion of
p a rty leaders , he concedes them a good deal . They may be " b etter in formed i n impo rt ant matters . . . , have more pop u la r app e a l . . . , fi gh t more courageously" than he, bu t of o ne thi ng he is s u r e : th e y " thin k m ore defec tively. " Pro ba b ly. But where does this lead him, since poli ti call y it is not private th i n king but, a s Brecht once expressed it, the art of thin ki ng in other people's heads t h at is decisive? Activism att e m pted to r epl a ce materia listic d i a l ec ti c s by the noti o n common sens e-a noti o n tha t i n cl ass terms i s unq u anti fia b le . 8 Activism's inte llectu a ls rep resen t at b e s t a social group. In other wo rd s , t h e very pri nc iple o n which t h i s col lec ti ve is formed is r eacti o na ry. No won der i ts effect cou l d never be revo l uti ona ry. Yet the p ernic i ous pr in c i pl e of s uch collectivization conti nues to oper ate. This could be seen three yea rs ago, when Do blin's Wissen und Verandern came o ut.9 As is known, this pamp hle t was written in reply to
85
TH E A U T H O R AS P R O D U C E R
a young m an-Dob lin c alls him Herr Hoeke-who h a d put to the fa mous author the q u estion, " \XT ha t is to be d o ne ? " D o b lin invites him to
join the cause
according to rejection of all coercion, h umanity, tole rance, a
of socialism, but with reservations. Socia lism,
D o b lin, is
union of p eo ple, the
compulsion, indignation at inj ustice a n d peacefu l disposition. " However that
be, on the b asis of this socia l
ism he sets his face against the theory and practice o f the radica l workers ' movement. " Noth i ng, " Do blin declares, " ca n come out of anything that was not a lrea d y in it-and from
a
murderously exacerbated class war,
j ustice c a n come b u t not socialism . " Do blin formu l a te s the recommenda tion that, for these and other reasons, he gives Herr Hocke: " Yo u , my dear sir, cannot put into effect your agreement in principle with the strug gle [of the proletariat] b y j oining the proletarian fro nt. You must b e con tent wi th an agitated and b itter approval o f th i s struggle . But you also know that if you d o more,
an
immensely i mp ortant post wi l l rema in un
manned . . . : the o ri ginal commu nistic position o f human indivi dual free dom, of the sponta neoll s solida rity and union of men . . . . It i s this p osi tion, my dear sir, that a l one falls to you . " Here it is quite palpable where the conception o f the " intel lec tua l " -as a type of person d efined by his opinions, a ttitudes, o r d is positions, b ut not by his p osition in the process of producti on-leads. H e must,
as
Doblin p uts i t, fin d his place beside
the proleta ri at. But what kind of place is this? That of a benefactor, of a n ideological patron-an i mp os s i b le p l ace. A n d so w e return to the thesis sta te d a t the outset� the place of the intellectu a l in the c lass struggl e can be identified-of, b etter, c hosen-only on the basis of his position in the process o f produ ction. To signify the tra nsformation of the forms and instruments of p ro du c tion in the way desired by a progressive intelligentsia-that is, one i nter ested in freeing the means of p r oduct i o n and serving the class s truggle Brecht coined the term
Umfunktionierung
[functiona l transformation] .
He was the first to make of i ntellectu als the far-reaching demand not to s upply
the
apparatus of production witho ut, to
ble, changing i t
Versuche, "
in
the
utmost extent
possi
accordance with socialism. "The publication of the
t he author writes i n h is intro d uction to the series of writings
bearing this title, " occurred at
a
time when certain wor ks o ught no
longer to be indivi d ual experiences (have the c h ar acter o f wo rks) but sho uld, rather, concern the use ( transformation) o f certa in institutes a nd ins titutions . " to It is not spiritual renewal,
as
fascists p r oclaim, tha t Is de
sirable: technical innovations are suggested. I sha l l come back to these in n ovations. Here I would like to content myself with a reference to the de-
86
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N . A N D R E C E P TI O N
cisive d i fference between the mere suppl ying o f
a
productive appa ratus
and its tra nsfo rmatio n . And I would like to preface my d iscuss i o n o f the " New O bj ec ti vity" with the proposition that to s upply a p rod uctive ap p aratus without-to the utmost extent p ossi ble-changing it would sti l l be a h ighly censurable course, e v e n if t h e material with which it i s sup plied s eemed to be of a revo l utionary nature . For we are faced with the fact-of which the past dec a d e in Germany has furnished a n a b undance of examples-that the bourgeois app a ra tus o f production and pub lica tion can assimi late
quantities of revolutio nary themes-in
deed, can propagate them w ithout c a l l ing its own existence, and the exis tence o f the class that owns it, seriously i nto question . This rem a ins tru e at l east as l o n g as it is supplied by hack writers , even if t h e y a r e revolu tionary h a c ks. I
" hack writer" as a writer who a bs tains in princi
ple from alienating the productive app a ratus from the ru ling class by improv ing i t in ways serving the i nte rests of socialism. And I further maintain that a considerable proportion of so-called left-wing l iterature possessed no other social function than to wring from the political situa tion a continuous strea m of novel effects for the enterta i nment of the p u blic. This brings me to the New Objectivity. Its s tock in tra de was re portage . Let us ask ourselves to whom this technique was usefu l . Fo r t h e sake o f clarity I will place i t s p hotographic form in t h e fore ground , but what is true of this can a lso be applied t o its literary form. Both owe the e xtraordinary i ncrease in their popularity to the technology of p u b licati o n : ra dio and the illustrated pres s . Let us think back to Dada ism. 1 1 The revolutionary strength of D adaism c onsisted in testing art for its authenticity. A still life might have been put together from tickets, spools of c otton, and cigarette butts, all o f which were combined with pa inted eleme nts . The whole thing was p u t in a fra me. And thereby the pub lic was shown: Look , your picture frame ruptures time ; the tiniest au thentic fragment of daily life s ays more than painting. J ust as the b loody fingerpri n t of a murderer on the p age of a book s ays more than the text. Much o f this revolutionary c ontent has gone in to photomontage. You need only think of the work of John Heartfield, whose technique made the book cover i llto a political instrument. l1 But now fo l low the path o f photography further. W h a t do y o u see ? It becomes ever more nuance, ever more modern; and the resu l t is that it ca n no longer record a tene ment b lock or a refuse heap without transfiguring i t. Needl ess to say, photography is unable to convey a nything about a power station or a ca ble factory other th an, "Wha t a beautiful world ! " The World Is Beauti fu l-thi s is the titl e of the wel l -known picture a nthology by Renger-
T H E AUTH O R AS
PRODUCER
87
Patzsch, in which we see New O bj ective photography at its peak. L3 For it has succeeded in transfo rming even a b j ect poverty-by a pprehending it in a fashiona bly perfected manner-into an o b j ect of enj oyment. For if it is an economic function of photography to restore to m ass c onsumption, by fashionable adaptation, subjects that h a d earlier withdr awn them selves from it (springtime, famous people, foreign countries ) , it is one of i ts political fu nctions to renew from within-th at is, fashionably-the world a s it is. Here we have a flagrant example o f
it means to supply a produc-
tive apparatus without changing it. To change it would have meant over throwing another of the barriers , transcending a nother of the antitheses, tha t fetter the production of intellectuals-in this cas e , the barrier be tween writing and image . What we require of the photographer is the ability to give his picture a caption that wrenches it from modish com merce and give s it
a
revolutionary use value . B u t we will make this de
mand most emphatica lly when we-the writers-take up p h o tography. Here, too, therefore, technical progress is for the author as producer the foundation of h is political progress. In other words, only by tra nscending the specialization in the process of intellectual production-a specializa tion that, in the bourgeois view, constitutes its order---c a n one make this production po litically useful; and the ba rriers imposed by specia lization must be breached j ointly by the productive forces that they were set up to divide. The author as producer discovers-even as he discovers his soli da rity with the prol etariat-his solidarity with certain o ther producers who e arlier seemed scarcely to conce rn him . I have sp oken of the photog� rapher; here I w ill very briefly insert a word of Eisler's on the musician: 14
In
of music, too, both in p r o d u ction a nd in reproduction, recognize an ever-increasing process of rational ization .
the devel opment
we must learn to
. . . The phonograph record, the sound fil m , juke boxes can pu rvey top qual i ty music . . . ca n ned as a commodity. The consequence of this process of ra tiona lizati o n is tha t musical reproduction is cons igned to ever-d imin ishing but a lso ever m ore h i g hly q u a l ified groups of s pecia lists.
The crisis
of the commercial concert is the crisis of an an t iquated form of prod uction made obsolete by new technical inventio n s .
The task, therefore, consisted of a n
Umfunktionierung o f the
form o f the
concert tha t h a d to fu lfill two conditions: it had to eliminate the a ntithe sis , first, between perfor mers a nd liste ners and, second, between tech nique and con tent. O n this, Eisler makes the fol lowing i lluminating o b servation: " One must beware of overestimating o rchestral music a nd
88
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D
consi dering i t the
o
R E C EPTI O N
n l y high a rt. Music without wo rds attained its great
importance and its full exten t only under capitalism . ') This means that the task of changing the concert is i m possi ble without the c o ll aboration of the word . It alone can effect the transformation, as Eisler formulates it, of a concert into a p olitical meeting. But that such a trans formation does i nd e e d represent a peak of musical and lite rary tech n i q u e , Brecht and Eisler p ro ve with their didactic p lay D ie Massnahme [The Measu res Ta ken] . If you look b ack from this v antage point on the recasting o f l ite ra ry
forms tha t I s poke of earlier, you can see how ph o t o grap h y and music, and wha tever else occurs to you, a re enteri ng th e growing, molten mass from which the new forms are cast. You will find this confirme d : only the
literarization of all the conditions of life p rovides an accurate conception of the range of th is melting-down p r ocess, just C' r
.. n "-,n- . .,,,
the state of the class
determines th e temperature at which-more or less p erfe ctl y-i t
a cco m
p l ish ed .
I spoke of the process of a certain mo dish p h o to gr aphy whereby pov e
r t y is made an o bject o f consum p tion. In turni ng to New O bj ec t i v i ty as
a li ter a r y movement, I must take a step further and say that it has
ma d
e
the struggle against poverty an object of co n s u m p ti o n . The political im
p ortance of th e movement was indeed exha uste d in many cas es by the conv e rs io n of revoluti onary i m p ulses , i nsofar a s they occ u rre d a mong bourgeoisi e, i nto obj ects of distracti on, of amusement, which fo und their way witho ut diffic u l t y i nto the big-city cabaret business . The transfo rma tion of the po l itica l struggle from
a
call-to-decision into an o b j ect of con
te mpl a ti v e enjo yment, from a means o f production into
a
consu mer ar ti
cle , is the defining characteristic of this l i terature. A p e r ce p ti ve c ritic has explained this, using the example of Erich Kastn er, as follows: [ S With the w orkers' move ment, this left-wing radical inte l lige n t s i a has noth ing in common. It is, rather, a counterpart
of the
a
phen omc rlon of bo urgeois decompositi o n ,
feu d a listic mimicry that t h e Seco n d Empire admi red
i n the reserve o fficer. The ra dical-left publicists of the stamp of Kastner, Mehring, or Tuc h o l sky are the proletarian mimicry of decayed b o urgeois stra ta . 1 6 Their function is to pro d uce, from the political s ta nd point, n o t pa rties but c l i q u e s ; from t h e litera ry sta ndpoint, n o t schools b u t fas hions; from the economic stand point, not producers b u t agen ts-agents or hacks who
make
a great dis p l ay of their poverty, a nd a banquet out o f yawn
i ng emptiness. One could not situation.
be
m o re cozily acco mmo dated i n a n u ncozy
TH E A U T H O R
89
AS P R O D U C E R
This school, I said, made a great display of its poverty. It thereby shirked the most urgent task of the present-d a y writer: to recognize how poor he is and how poor he has to be in order to begin again from the be ginning. For this is what is involved. The Soviet s tate will not, i t is true, banish the poet, as Plato did; b ut it will-a n d this is w hy I evoked Plato's republic at the outset-assign him tasks th a t do not permit him to d isplay in new masterpieces the lo ng-since-counterfeit wealth o f creative person al ity. To expect a renewal in terms of s uch persona l ities and such works is a privilege of fascism, which gives rise to such asinine formulations as that with which Gunther Grandel, in his
tion, ro unds off the section on literature:
Mission of the
Young G enera
" We cann o t better concl ude this
. . . survey and prognosis than with the o bservation tha t the \-Vilhelm Meister and the Green Henry of our generation have not yet been writ ten. " 1 7 Nothing will be further from the author who has reflected deeply on the conditions of present-da y production than to expect, or desire, s uch works . His work will never be merely work on pro ducts b ut always, at the same time, work on the means o f p roduction. In other words, h i s products must ha ve, over and a bove their cha racter as works, a n organiz i ng function, and in no way must their organizational u sefulness be con fined to their value a s propagand a . Their political tendency alone is not enough. The excellent Lichtenberg has said, " What ma tters is not a ma n's opinions, bu t the kind of man these opinions make of him. "
18
Now, it is
true that opinions matter greatly, but the best are o f no use if they make nothing useful o ut of those who hold them. The best political tendency is wrong if it d oes n o t demonstrate the attitude with which it is to be followed . And this attitude the writer can
only in his partic
ular activity-that is, in wri ting. A political tendency is a necessary but never sufficient condition for the organizi ng function of a work. This fur ther requires a directing, instructing stance on the part of the writer. And today this must be d emanded more tha n ever before. An a u th o r wh o teaches writers nothing teaches no one. Wha t matters, therefore, is the exemplary character o f production, which is able, first , to induce other producers to produce, and, second, to put an im proved a pparatus at their disp o s a l . And this apparatus is better, the more consumers it is able to turn into producers-that i s , readers or specta tors into c olla b orators. We alre a dy possess such a n example� to which, however, I can only allude here . It is Brecht's Epic The ater. Tragedies and operas are constantly being written tha t apparently have
a
well-tried theatrical apparatus at their disposal, b ut in reality do
nothing but supply a derelict one. "The lack of cl arity about their situa -
90
P R O D UCTI O N , R E PR O DU CTI O N , AND R ECE PT I DN
tion that prevails a m o n g m usicians, writers , a n d critics," says Brecht, " h as immense conseq uences that are far to o little considere d . For, t h i n k
ing th at they are in possessio n of an a p p a r a tus that in r e al it y p o sses se s
th e m , th e y d efen d an a p p a r a t u s over which they no longer h av e any tr ol and that is no l o n g e r, as they still believe,
a
C 0 11 -
means fo r the producers,
b u t h as become a m e a n s against the produ ce r s . " 1 9 This thea ter, with i ts complicated m a c h i n ery, its gigantic s u p p or t i n g staff, i ts sop his ti cated ef fects, has beco me a " means against the p r o d u c e rs " not l east in see king to e nl i s t them in the hopeless competitive s tru ggle i n w hi c h fi l m a nd radio
have e nmeshed it. This the at e r ( whether in its ed ucatin g or its e n te rtai n
ing ro le ; the two a re comple mentary ) 20 is tha t of a sated class fo r which
everything it t ouch es b e co mes a sti m u la nt . Its p os iti o n is lo s t . Not so that of a thea ter t h a t, i ns te a. d of c ompeting w i th newer instruments of p u b li c ati o n , see ks to u se and learn from them-in short, to enter in to debate
with them . This debate [he Epic Theater has made its own affair. It is, measured by the present s tat e of development o f film and radio, the con
temporary fo rm . In the i nteres t o f this debate, Br e c ht fe ll b a c k on t he most pri mi tiv e el ements of the thea ter. He contented hims elf, by a nd large, wi th
a
podium.
He dispensed with wide-ranging plots . He thu s s ucceeded i n cha n g in g the f unc t i on al connection between stage and p u b l i c , text and p e r forma n ce, d irector and a ctor. Epic Theatel; he d ec l a r e d , h a d to p ort ray situations, ra ther than d evelop p l o ts . It o bta ins sll c h situ a tions, a s we s h a ll see pres
en tly, by inte rrupti n g the p l o t . I remind yo u here o f the songs, which have their c hief functio n in interrupting the acti o n . Here-a ccordin g to the p rinc i p l e of interru ption-Epic Th e ate r, as you see, t a k e s up a p roc e dure
tha t has b e co me familiar to you in recent years from film and radio, liter
a ture and p h o to gr a p hy. I a m spea k i ng of the procedure of m o n tage : the s uperi mp ose d e l e ment d isr u p t s the c ontext in which it is inserted . But
here this pro ced u re has a s p e c i a l right, perhaps even a p e r fec t right, as I will b riefly s how. The i n te r r up t i o n of action, on account of whi c h Brecht de s cribe d his th ea ter as " epic , " co nst a n t l y counteracts i llusion o n th e part of the aud ience . For s uc h i l l usion is a h in d ranc e to a theater tha t proposes to m a ke use o f ele me nts o f r e a li ty i n e xp eri m e n ta l rearrange ments . But it i, at the e n d , not the beginning, of the ex pe ri m e n t that t h e s itua tion appea rs-a situ a tion that, in t h is or that form, is
al
way s o urs. It
is not b rou gh t home to the spectator but d istanced fr0111 him . He recog
nizes it as the real situ ation-not with satisfaction, a s in the theater o f N a tu ra l i s m , b ut with astonishment. Epic Theater, therefore, does n o t re
pro d uce si tuations; r a t h er, it d iscovers th e m . This discovery is accom-
T H E A UT H O R
AS
P RODUC E R
91
pUshed by means o f the i nt e rru p tio n of sequences. Yet i nt e r r u ptio n here h as the c h a r a c te r not of a st i m u l a n t but o f an or ga n i z ing function. It ar rests the action i n its c o u rse , a n d th e re by c o mp e l s the l i st e n e r t o ad o pt an attitude v i s- a.- vi s the pr o c ess, tbe actor vis-a.-vis his role. I would like to show you, thr o ugh an exa mp l e , ho w Br e ch t 's d i s c o v e ry and use of t he gestus i s no thi ng but the restoration of t h e method of m o n t age decisive i n ra dio and film, from an o ft en mer e ly m o d is h p roc e du r e to a bu m a n event. Imagine a fa m ily scene: the wife is j ust a bout to grab a bronze s cu l p tu re and t h r o w it at her d a ughte r ; the fa ther is o p e n i n g the win d o w to call fo r help. At this mo me nt a s t r a nge r enters . The p rocess is inter ru p te d . What appears in its place is the situation on which the strange r's eyes n o w fa ll : agitated fa c e s , open window, disordered furniture. There ar e eyes , h o we v er, before which the more usual sce n es of presen t-day e x is t enc e do not look very different: the eyes o f the epic dr a ma t i s t . To t h e total d ramatic ar t wo r k he o p p o s e s the dramatic l ab orato ry. He ma k e s use in a new way o f the grea t) a n c i e nt o pp o rtu n i t y o f the theater: to e x p o s e what is p resent. At the center o f h is experiment stands the hu man being. Present-day man; a reduced man, the r e for e , chilled in a c h i lly environment. But since this is the o n ly one we have , it is in o ur interest to know him. He is s u b j ec te d to tests, examination s . What emerges is thi s : events are alterable not at their climaxes, not by v i r t u e and res o l u tio n, but o nl y in th eir st r i ctl y h ab i tu a l c o u r se , by reason and pr a ct i ce . To construct from th e smallest elements of be h a vi or what in Aristotelia n dr a m a t u r gy is called " action}' is t h e p u rp o s e o f Epic Theate r. Its means a re therefore more modest than t hose of traditional theater; li kewise its aims. It is concerned with fi ll i ng the public with feelings, e v en sedi tious o ne s, th an w ith a li e n ati ng it i n an enduring way, thr o u gh th i n k i n g, from the conditions in which it l ive s . It may be n o t e d, incid ental ly, that there is no better tr i gg e r fo r thin k in g th a n l a u gh t e r. In p a rti cu l a r, co nvul sion of the d i ap h ra gm us u al 1 y p r o vides better op portunities for th o u g h t th an convulsion of the s o u l . Epic Theater is la v i s h only in o cc a s ions for l a u ghte r. It has pe r h a ps struck you that the train of tho ught w h i ch is about to be conc luded p re se n ts th e d ema n d to think, t o reflect on his position in the process of production. We m a y de pe n d on it: this r e flecti on leads, sooner o r la te t; for the writers who mat� ter (that is, for th e best technic i a ns in their fie l d ) , to o bservations tha t p ro v i d e t h e most fact u a l fo undation for s olid a r ity wi t h t h e p ro l e ta ri a t . T hu s , I w o ul d like to conclude by add ucing a t o pic al illustra tion in the form o f a sma ll extract fr o m a j ou rn a l pub l i s h e d h e re , Commune. C()m�
92
PRODUCTION,
REPRODUCTION, A N D RECEPTI O N
mune circulated a questionnaire asking, " For who m do you write ? " I quote fro m the reply of Rene Maublanc and from the comment added by Aragon .2 l "Unquestionably, " says ,M a ublanc, "I write a l most exclusively for a bourgeois pu blic . First, because I am obliged to" (here Mau blanc is alluding to his professional duties as a grammar-school teacher), "sec ond, because I have bourgeo i s origins and a bourgeois educa tion and come from a bourgeois milieu, and so a m naturally inclined to add ress myself to the class to wh i ch I belong, which I know and understand best. This not mean, however, that I write in order to pl ease or support it. I am convinced, on the one hand, that the proletarian revolution is neces sary a n d desirable and, on the other, that it will be the more rapid, easy, a n d su ccessful, and t he less bloody, the weaker the opposition of the b o urgeoisie . . . . The proletariat today needs allies from the camp of the bourgeoisie, e x actly as in the eighteenth century the b o urgeoisie needed allies from the feudal camp. I wish to be a mong those a llies. " O n this Aragon com ments: a of affairs tha t a ffec ts a l arge numher present-day writers. N ot all have the courage to look it in the face . . . . Those who see their own si tua ti o n as clearly as Rene M a u b la n c a re few. But from them more must be required . . . . It is not enough to weaken th e bourgeoisie from within; i t is n e c es s a ry to fight th em with the
OUf com ra de here to uches on
of
Rene Maublanc, a nd many o f o m friends among the wri t hesi ta t i ng, are faced with the exa m p l e of t h e Soviet Rus who came from the Russian bourgeoisie and nevertheless be
prole tariat . . . . e rs
who a re still
sian
wr i te r s
came pione ers in the building of socialism.
Thus Ara gon. But how did they become pion e ers ? Certainly not with out very bitter struggles� extre m e ly difficul t debates. The considera tions I have put before you are an attempt to draw some conclusions from these struggles. They are based on the concept to which the debate on the a tti tude of Russian intellectuals owes its decisive clarification: the concept of the specialist. The solidarity of th e specialist with the proletaria t herein lies the begi n ning of this clarification-can only be a mediated one. Proponents of Activism and of the New O bj ecti vity could gestic u late as they pleased, but they co uld n o t do away with t h e fact tha t even the proleta rianization of an i ntellectua l h ardly ever makes a proletarian. Why? Because the bourgeois class gave him, in the form of education, a means of production that, owing to ed ucationa l privilege, makes him feel solidarity with it, and still more it with him. Aragon was t ll ereby e ntirely correct when, in a n other connection , he declared, " The revolutio na ry in tellectual appears first a nd foremost as the betr ayer of his class of ori-
TH E AUTH O R AS PRODU C E R
93
gin . " In the case of the writer, this betr ayal consists in conduct that trans forms him from a supplier of the p roductive apparatlls into a n engineer who sees it as his task to adapt this appa ratus to the p u rposes of the pro letarian revolution. This is a mediating activity, yet it frees the intellectual from that purely destructive task to which Maublanc a nd many of his comra des believe it necessary to confine hi111 . Does he succeed in promot ing the socialization of the intellectual mea ns of prod uction? Does he see how he himse lf can organize intellectua l workers in the production pro cess? Does he have proposals for the Umfunktionierung of the novel, the d rama, the poe m ? The more completely he can orient his activity toward this task, the more correct the political tendency of his work will be, a nd necessarily also the higher its technical quality. And at the same time, the more exactly he is thus i n formed a b out his position i n the process of pro duction, the less it will occur to him to lay claim to " spiritual \) qual i ties. The spirit that holds forth in the name of fascism must d isappear. The spirit that, i n opposing it, trusts in i ts o wn miraculous powers will disap pear. For the revolutiona ry struggle is not between cap italism and spirit; it is between capitalism and the proletariat. Wri tten s p ring "1 9.34; unpu hlished
in Bcnj
lifetime.
Gesam111elte Schriften, 11,
683-
70t . Translated h y Edmund Jep hcott.
N otes L
T he
Mexi can - born French lite rary critic Ra mon Ferna ndez ( 1 8 94-1 944)
wrote for the Nouvelle
Revue
Prangaise in the 1 9 20s a nd 1 9 305. In the mid-
1 930s, he was involved with the Comm unist-backed Associ ation des Ecr iv a i ns et Artistes Revo lutionnaires.
2. That the da te giv e n in the su btitle is erroneous can be g a t h e re d from
a
let
ter th a t Benj am i n wro te to Adorno the fo l l o wi n g day (Apr i l 2 8 , 1 934), in
which he
mentions
that t h e a ddress has not yet been presented ( Gesamm ell'e
Schriften, II, 1 460-1 4 6 1 ) . Ge rsh om Scholcm cla ims that the twenty-seventh
was the date of Benj amin's completio1l of the text.. w h ich sented; see The Correspondence of Walter 1 9.32-1 940 (New York :
was
never pre
Benjamin and GeI'shom Sch o lem.
S c ho c k e n, 1 9 8 9 ) ,
p . l U n . The Institute for th e
Study of Fascism (lnstitut Pour l'Etude du Fa sc i s me ) was
a
Co m m u n is t ffOnt
orga nization. 3 . Sergei Treti akov ( 1 8 9 2-1 9 3 9 ) was a Ru ss i a n writer whose work, based o n "
a
l it e r a t u re of fac ts , " was agita tiona l and pro pagan distic. His book Com
rnanders of the Pield ( 1 93 1 ) comprised two volumes of diaries and sketch
books. 4. Th e
"
l eft -w i ng
author"
is B e n j amin hi mse lf. See
Chapter 3 9 i n t h i s v o l ume.
"The
Newspa per " ( 1 934),
94
5.
P ROD
U CTION
,
REPROD
U CTI O N
, A N D R E C E PTION
Centered a round the yearbook Das Ziel ( The Goal) , " Activism 'l
was
a
pol iti
cal sta nce that fused N ietz sch e a n ideals w ith a paci fis t s o ci al ism . Prominent figures associated wi th the movement incl uded the German author a nd edi tor Kurt rIi ller ( 1 8 8 5- 1 9 7 2 ) , who edi ted the yearbook; the theater critic Al fred Kerr; and the novelist Heinrich Mann. The young Benj amin had been
a
vocal opponent of Hi ller's ideas. "New Obj ectivi ty " ( Neue S ach lichkeit) was the term coined by the museum curator G . F. Hartl au b for
a
ne w ten
dency toward figura ti o n in postwa r German painting. It grad u a l l y came to designate the Weimar " period style" in a rt, a rc hitecture, des ign, lite rature, and film: cool, objective, ana lytical. 6. Hei nrich Ma n n ( 1 8 7 1- 1 9 5 0 ) , Germ a n novelist and essayist, was the b rother of Thomas Mann . Many of the disputes between the brothers over the years stemmed from Heinrich's left-liberal activism. Alfred Da blin ( 1 8 7 8-1 9 5 7 ) , German novelist, i s best kn own for t h e novel Berlin A lexanderplatz ( 1 9 2 9 ) . H e , to o, w as a prominent left-liberal voice i n Weimar. 7. K urt Hiller,
Del' Sprung ins Helle (Leipzig:
Lindner, 1 9 32 ) , p. 3 1 4 .
8 . In place of this sentence, the origin a l manuscript conta ined
which was del eted :
a
different one,
" O r, in Trotsky's words, 'If enlightened pacifists attempt
to a bolish war by mea ns of r ati onal a rgument, the y s imply make fools of t hemselves, but i f the armed masses begin to use the a rguments of reason against war, this means the e n d o f w a r. ' "
9 . Wissen rmd Verandem (Know an d Ch ange ; 1 9 3 1 ) w a s D a b l i n 's a po logy for his h u m an e , p arty-in depe ndent, and frankly mystical socia lism. 10. Be rtolt
B re ch t,
Versuche 1-3 ( B e din : Kiepenhe uer, 1 93 0 ) .
1 1 . I n Zurich i n 1 9 1 6 , artists , w riters, and others disgusted b y Wo rld War I , and
by the bo urge ois ideol ogies that bad brought it abo ut, l a u nched D a d a , a n avant-garde m ovement tha t attempted to radically cha nge both the work of art a nd society. D adaist gro ups were active in Berl i n ,
New York, Paris, and
e lsewhere d uri ng the war and i n to the 1 920s. 12. John Heartfield (Helm u t He rzfelde ; 1 8 9 1 - 1 9 6 8 ) , German graphic artis t, p h o tographer, a n d
was
o n e o f t h e founders of
went o n to reinvent photom ontage a s
a
Bedin
Dada. H e
politi cal wea pon.
1 3 . Al bert Renger-Pa tzsch, Die Welt ist schon: E inh,.tndert photographische Aufnahmen (Ml1 n ich: K . Wolff, 1 92 8 ) . In this book, the German photo
gra phe r Renger-Pa tzsch ( 1 8 9 7-1 9 6 6 ) arranged his photographs of p lants , a n imals, b uild ings , ma nu factured goods, and industrial la ndscapes-often c l ose-ups of isola ted deta i ls-around fo rma l rhymes. 1 4. Hanns Eisler ( 1 8 9 8-1 9 62) was a German composer best known for his col
in anthem.
labora tions with Brecht. He became the leading com poser Democra tic Repu bl ic, for wh ich he wrote the national 15.
The
the German
"perceptive critic" i s Benjamin himself; see h is essay " Left-Wing Melan
c h o l y " ( 1 93 ] ) , in Selected Writings, Vo lume 2 : 1 92 7- 1 93 4 (Cam bridge, M a ss . : Harv a rd University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , pp. 423-427. Eri c h Kastner ( 1 8 9 9-
TH E AUTH O R AS
PRODUCER
95
1 9 74) was a German satirist, poet, and novelist who is e sp eci a l l y known
fo r his children's
books. He
was
th e most du rable practi ti o ner of the sty l e
of wi tty, l a co nic writing a sso ci ate d w i th the high b r o w caba ret,
weekly D ie Weltbuhne
1 7.
B e rl i n
O bj ectivity) movement of the mi d 1 92 0 s Franz M e hr i ng ( 1 84 6- J 9 1 9 ) , German s oc i a l is t historian and journalist, is b e s t known for his biography of Karl Marx. Kurt Tu ch o l s ky ( 1 8 9 0-1 9 3 5 ) w a s a German sati rist a nd j ou rn a l ist whose work is emblema tic of the w i t a n d savage irony o f the Ber l i n cabaret. E. G U n the r Grlindel, Die Sendung der jungen Generation: Versuch einer u mfassenden revolutioniirel1 Simtdeutl4ng del' Krise (Munich: Beck, 1 932) , p. 1 1 6 . Gri.indel is referring to novels by Goethe and Gottfried Keller, respec -
1 6.
the
(The World Stage ) , and the Neue Sachlichkeit (New .
t i ve ly
.
1 8 . Benj amin
refers
to the German scientist, satirist, a nd a ph ori s t Georg
C h ris top h Lic htenbe rg ( 1 742-1 79 9 ) . 1 9. Brecht, Versuche 4-7 ( B erli n : Kiepenheuer, 1 93 0 ) , p . 1 07 . 20. See " The ater a n d Radio " ( 1 9 3 2 ), in this volume . 2 1 . Rene Man blanc ( 1 89 1 - 1 9 6 0 ) was a French Ma rx i st historian whose b ooks
and Le Marxisme et la Liberti ( 1 94 5 ) . Lou i s Aragon (Lonis An drie n x; 1 8 9 7-1 9 8 2 ) was a Fren c h poet, novelist, and essayist who, as a p ro m i n en t Surrealist, wa s a poli tical activist and spokesman for com include Fourier ( 1 937)
mun ism. Benj amin's earliest work on the Arca des Project was inspired by Aragon's boo ks Vague de reves ( Wa ve of Dreams; 1 924 ) and Paysan ( Par i s Peasant; 1 92 6 ) .
de Paris
The One
waters
goes
are blue, the plants pink; the evening is
for a wa lk; t he grandes dames
behind them stroll
go
for
a
s w e e t to look
all;
walk;
dames.
-N G U Y E N TR 0 N G H I E
P,
Paris, capitate de la France: Reel,teil
de vel'S (Hanoi, 1 8 97), poem 2 5 1
9 Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century
I . Fourier, or the Arcades
The magic columns of these palaces Show
to the amate ur on a ll sides, objects their porticos industry is the r i va l o f the arts.
In the Th a t
-NO U VEAUX
TAB LEAUX de
Paris
(Paris,
1 8 2 8 ) , vol. 1,
p.
27
Most of the Paris arcades come i n to bei ng in the decade and a haJJ after 1 822. The first condition for their emergence is the boom in the textile
trade . Magasins de nouveautesJ the first establishments to keep large stocks of merchandise on the pr emise s , make their app earance .2 They are the forerunners of department stores. This was the p e ri od o f which
Ba lzac wrote: " Th e great poem of dis pla y c h an t s its stanzas of color from the Church o f the Madeleine to the Porte Saint-Denis . " J The ar cades are a center of c o m m e rce in l u x ur y items. In fitting them out, art en ters the service of th e merchant . Contem p oraries never tire of ad
miring them, and fo r a long time t h e y remain a drawing point for fo r eigners . An Illustrated Guide to Paris sa y s : "Th ese arc a d es, a recen t invention of ind ustrial luxur y, are glass-roofed, marble-paneled corri dors extending th r o u gh whole blocks of b ui ldi n g s , w h ose owners h a ve
j o i ned together for such enterprises . Lining both si d e s of these corridors,
96
P A R IS I T H E C A P I TA L 0 F T H E N I N E T E E N T H e E N T U R Y
97
which get the i r l i g ht fro111 a bove, a re the most e lega nt shops, so that the city, a world in miniatur e . " The arca des are the scene o f the
passage is a
first gas lighting.
The second condition for t h e emergence of the a rcades is the begin ning of iron construction. The Empire saw in this technoJ ogy a co n tr ibu tion to the revival of architectu re in the classical Greek sense. The archi tectural theorist Boetticher expresses the g en eral view of the matter wh en he s a ys that, "with regard t o the art forms of the new system, the formal princ iple of the Hellenic mode " must come to prevai1.4 Empire is the style of revolutionary terrorism, for wh i c h the state is an end in its elf. Just as Napoleon failed to understand the fu nctional nature o f the state as an i n strument o f domination by the bourgeois cl ass, so the arc hitects of his time faile d to understa nd the functional nature of iron, with w h i ch the constructive p ri nci p le begi ns its do mi n a t i o n o f architecture . These archi tects design sup p or t s r es e mbl ing Pompeian columns, and fa ctori es that i m i tat e residentia l houses, j ust a s later the first railroa d stations will be mo d eJ e d on cha l e t s . " C o ns tructi o n pla ys the role of the sllbconscious. "5 Nevertheless, the concept of engineer, which dates fr om t h e revolutionary wars, starts to make head w ay, and the rivalr y b eg i ns between b u i lder and decorator, Ecole Poly technique and Ecole des Beaux-Arts. For the first ti me in the his to r y of architecture, an a r tificia l build ing materi a l a ppears: iron. It serves as the basis for a development whose tempo a cce l e rates in t he course of the century. This devel opment enters a d e c is i ve new p hase when it becomes apparent that the locomotive-on wh ic h experiments had been conduc ted si nce the end of the I 820s-is compati ble only with i ro n tracks. The ra i l becomes the fi r s t pr efa br i ca te d iron component, the precurso r of the girder. Iron is avoided in home con s tru ction but used in arc ades , exhibition h a lls , train sta ti o ns- bu il di n gs that ser v e transitory purposes . At the same time, the ra nge of architec tural applications for g la s s ex p a nd s , al th ough the social prerequisites for its widened a p p li cat i o n as b uil d i ng materi al will come to the fore only a hundred Schccrba rt's Glasarchitektur ( 1 914), it still ap pears in the context of utopia.1i
Each epoch dreams rhe
one t o
follow.
-M I C H E LET, "Avenir! Avenir ! " 7
Co rres ponding t o the form of the new means of production, whi ch i n the beginning is s till ruled by the form of the old (Marx), are im a ge s i n the
98
PROD U CT
ION.
REPROD U CT
IONJ AN0
R E C EPT
ION
coll ective conscio usness i n which the new i s permeated with the old. These images a re wish i mages; in them the collective seeks both to over come and to transfigure the immaturity of the social prod uct and the i n adequacies in the socia l organ ization of production. At the same time, wha t emerges in these wis h images is the resolute effort to d istance one self from all tha t is a ntiquated-which includes, however, the recent past. These tendencies deflect the imagination (which is given i mpetus by the
new) back upon the primal pa st. In the dream in which each epoch enter tains images of its successor, the latter appears wed ded to elements of pri mal h is to ry [ Urgesch ichte]-tha t is, to elements of
a
classless society.
And the experi ences of s uch a society-as stored in the unconscious o f the collective-engender) through interpenetration with what i s new, the utopia th a t has left i ts trace in
a
thousand co nfigurations of life, from en
during edifices to passing fas hions . These relations arc d is cernible in the utopia conceived by Fourier. 8 Its secre t cue is the advent of m achines . But this fact is n ot d irectly expressed in the Fourierist literature, which takes as i ts point of departure the amo rality of the business world and the false morality enl iste d in its service . The phalanstery is designed to restore h u man beings to rela tionships in w hich mora lity becomes superfluous . The high l y complicated organiza tion of the phalanstery appe a rs as machinery. The meshing of the pas s ions, the intricate collabora ti on of passions mecanistes w i th the passion cabalistej is a primitive contrivance formed-on analogy w i th the m a chine-from m aterials o f psychology. This machinery made of m e n pro d uces the land of milk and honey, the primeval wish symbol that Fou rier's u topi a h a s filled with new life . Fourier saw, in the arcades, t h e architectural canon o f t h e pha lanstery. Their reactionary metamorphosis with him is characteristic: whereas they originally serve commercia l ends, they become, for h im, places of ha bitation. The phalanste ry becomes a city of arcades. Fourier es ta b Empi re 's austere world of forms, the colorful idyll of Bie
lishes, i n
dermeier.9 Its brilliance pe rsists, however faded, up t hrough Zola) who takes IIp Fourier's ideas i n his book Travail, j ust as the a rcades
in
he
bids farewell to
his Therese R aquin. ' O-Marx came to the defense of Fou
rier i n his critique of C a rl Gru n , emphasizing the former's " colos s a l conception of In fact,
Jean
ma n .
"
I I
He a l s o directed attention to Fourier's humor.
Paul, in his Levana, is as closely a l lied to Fourier the ped
agogue as Scheerb a rt, in his Glass A rchitecture, is to Fourier the uto pian . 12
PA R I S . T H E C A P I TA L O F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY
99
I I . Daguerre, or the Panoramas
Suo, look out for yourse l f! -A. ] . WIERTZ, Oeuvres litt'eraires
(Paris, 1 8 70), p. 3 74
Just as arch itecture, with the fi rst appearance of i ron cons tructi on, begins to outgrow art, so does pajnting, in its turn, with the first appea rance o f t h e p ano ramas. 13 T h e h i g h point i n t h e diffusion of pa nor a mas co incides w i th the introduction of arcades. One so ught tirelessly, thro ugh technical d evices, to ma ke pa no ramas the scenes of a perfect imi tation of n a ture. An attempt was made
to
reproduce the ch anging daylight in the l and
sca pe, the rising of the moon, the rush of wa terfalls. David couns els his p upils to draw fro m nature as it i s shown in panora mas . 14 In their at tempt to produce deceptively lifelike changes in represented nature, the panoramas prepare the way not only for photogra phy but for [silent] film and sound film. Contempo rary with the panora mas is a panoramic literature. Le Livre
[The Book of a Hundre d-and-One 1, Les Fran �ais peints par eux-111emes [T he French Pa inte d by Themselves] , te Diable a Paris
des cellt-et-un
[The Devil in ParisL a nd La Grande Ville [Th e Big City] belong to this. These books prepare the belletristic col l abora tio n fo r which Girardin, in the 1 8 3 0s, will crea te a home in the fe u i lleton. L S They consist of individ u a l sketc hes, whose anecd o tal form corresponds to the panoramas' plas tically arranged foregro und , and w hose informational base corresponds to their painted ba ckground. This litera ture is also socially pano ramic. For the last time, the worker appears , isolated fro111 his dass, a s part of the setting in an idy l l . Announcing an uphea val In the re lation of a rt t o technology, panora mas are at the same time an expression of a new attitude toward l ife. The city dweller, whose p o litical sup rema cy over the provinces is attested many times in the co urse of the cen tury, a ttempts to bring the countryside into town . In the panoramas, the city opens out, becoming la ndscape-as it will do later, in subtler fashion, for the flaneurs. Daguerre is a student of the p anora ma painter Prevost, whose establishm ent is located in the Passage des Panoramas. l6 Description of the panoramas of Prevost and
Daguerre . In 1 8 3 9 Daguerre's panorama bu rns down . In the same year, he an nounces the inven tion of the d aguerreotype .
1 00
P RODUCTION, REPRODUCT I O N , AND RECEPTION
Arago presents photograp hy i n
a
speec h to the Natio nal Assembly. 17
He assigns it a place in the history of tec hno logy and prophesies its sci en tific applications. On the o ther side, artists begin to debate its artistic value. Photography leads to the extinction of the great profession of por tra it min i at urist. This happens not j us t for eco nomic reasons . The e a rly photograph was artistically superior to the miniature portra it. The tech nical grounds for th i s advantage lie in the long exposure time, which re quires of a s u bj ect t l1 e highest concentration; the social grounds for it l ie in the fact tha t the first photographers bel onged to the avant-garde, from which most of their c l ien tele came . Nada r's superiority to his colleagues is shown by his attemp t to take ph otographs in the Paris sewer sys tem: for t he first time, the lens was deemed capable of ma king disco veries. 1B Its importance beco mes sti ll greater as, in view of the new techno logical a nd social rea l ity, the s ubjective strain in pictori a l and graphic information is called i nto ques tion . The worl d exhi b iti on of 1 8 55 offers for the first time a special display called " Photography. " In the same year, Wiertz publishes his gre at article on pho tography, in which he defines i ts task as the phi losophical enlight enment of pa inting. l9 This "enlightenment" is un derstood, as his own pa intings show, in a political sense. Wiertz can be characterized as the first to demand, if not actually foresee, the use of photog raphic montage for political agitation. With the increasing scope of co mmunications and trans port, the info rmational value of painting dimin ishes. In reaction to photography, painting begins to stress the elements of co lor in the pic ture . By the time Impressionism yields to Cu bism, p ainting has crea ted for i tself a broader d o m a in i nto which, fo r the time being, photography cannot foll ow. For its part, photography greatly extends the sphere of commod i ty exchange, from m i d-ce ntury onward, by flooding the market wi th coun tless i mages of figures, landscapes, and events which had previ ou sly been avai lable ei ther not at all or only as pic tures for ind ivi dual customers. To increase turnov er, jt renewed its s ubject ma tter thro ugh mod ish variations in camera techn iq ue-in novations that wjll determine the su bseque nt history of pho togra phy.
I I I. Grandvi lle, or the World Exhibitions
Yes, when a l [ the world from Paris to China Pays heed
to
your doctrine, 0 divine Sa int-Simon,
The glorious G o l den Age wil l be reborn.
PA R I S . T H E C A P I TA L
0 F T H E N I N ET E E N
TH CENTU RY
1 01
Rivers wil l flow with chocolate and tea, Shee p roasted whole will frisk on the plain,
And sa uteed p ike will swim in the Seine. Fricasseed s p i n a ch will grow on the gr o und,
Garnished with crushed
fried
croutons;
The trees will bring forth apple compotes, And farmers will h arvest boots and coats. It will snow wine, it will rain chickens,
And ducks cooked
w i t h turnips wil l fall from
the sky.
-LA N G LE AND VAN D E R B U Il C H , Louis-Bronze et Ie Saint-Sim oniel1
(Theatre
du Pal ais-Roya l , February
27, 1 8 3 2 )2 0
World exh ibitions are places of pilgrimage to the commodity fetish. "Eu rope is off to view the merchandise, " says [HippolyteJ Taine in 1 8 5 5 . 2 1 Th e world exhibitions are preceded by national exhibitions of industry, the first of which takes place on the Champ de Mars in 1 79 8 . It arises from the w i sh "to entertain tll e working classes, and it becomes for them a festival of emancipation . " 22 The worker occupies the foreground, as customer. The framework of the entertainment industry h as not yet taken shape; the popular festival provides this. Chaptal's speech on industry opens the 1 79 8 exhi bition.13-The Saint-Simonians, who envision the in dustrialization of the earth, take up the idea of world exhibitions. Cheva lier, the first authority in the new field, is a student of Enfantin and edito r of the Saint-Simonian newspaper Le Globe.21 The S aint-Simonians a ntic ipated the devel op men t of th e global economy, b ut not the class struggle. Next to their active p articipation in industrial and commercial en ter prises around the m i d dle of the century stands their h e lplessness on all q uestions concerning the proletariat. World exhibitions gl o ri fy the exchange val ue of the commodity. They create a framework in which its use value recedes into the background. They open a p hantasmagoria which a person enters i n order to be dis tracted . The entertainment industry makes this easier by eleva ting the person to the level of the commodity. He surrenders to its manipulations wh ile enjoying h is alienation from h imself and others .-The e nthrone ment of the commodity, with its luster of d istraction , is the secret theme of Grandville's a rt.2S This is consistent with th e split between utopian and cynical elements i n his work. Its i ngenuity i n representing inanim ate ob j ects correspo nds to w h a t Marx calls the " theological niceties" of the commod ity,26 They are manifest clearly in the specialite-a ca tegory of goods which appears at this time in the luxuries industry. Under
1 02
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N , AN D R EC E P T I O N
Grandville's pencil, the whole o f nature is transformed i nto specialties . He presents them in the same s pirit in which the advertisement ( the term riclame also originates at thi s point) begins to present its articles. He ends in madness.
Fashion: " Madam Death ! Madam Dearh ! " -L E O PARD I , " D ialogue becween Fashion and Death " 27
World exhib itions propagate the unive rse of commodities. Gra ndville's fantasies confer a commodity character on the universe. They modernize it. Saturn's ring becOlnes a cast-iron b a lcony on which the inhabitants of Saturn take the evening air.28 The literary counterpart of this graphic uto pia is found i n the books of the Fourierist naturalist Toussenel.19-Fash ion prescribes the ritual according to which the commo dity fetish de mands to be worshipped. Gra ndvill e extends the authority of fashion to objects of everyday use, as wel l as to the cosmos. In taking i t to an ex treme, he reveals i ts n ature. Fashion stands in opposi tion to the organic. It couples the living body to the inorga nic world. To the liv in g, it defends the r ights o f the corpse. The fetishism that succumbs to the sex a ppeal of the inorganic is i ts vital nerve. The c u lt of the commodity presses such fe tishism into its service. For the Paris world exhibition of 1 8 67, Victor Hugo issues a mani festo: " To the Peoples of Europe. " Earlier, and more unequivoc ally, their interests had been championed by delegations of French workers, of which the first had been sent to the London world exhibition of 1 8 5 1 and the second, num ber ing 75 0 delegates, to that of 1 8 62. The l atter delega tion was of indirec t importance for Marx's fo un ding of the International Worki ngmen's Association.30-The phantasmagoria of capitalist culture attains its most radiant unfoldin g in the world exhibition of 1 8 67. The Second Em pi re is at the height of its power. Paris is acknowledged as the capita l of luxury and fashion . Offenbach sets the rhythm of Parisian life.3 1 The operetta is the ironic utopia of an e n d llring rei gn of capital.
IV. Louis Philippe, or the I nterior
The head . . .
On the night ta ble, like a ranuncul us, Rests. -BAU D ELAIRE, " Une Martyr e " 32
P A R I S , T H E C A P I TA L O F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
1 03
Under Louis Philippe,3J the private ind ivid ual makes his entrance on the s tage of history. The expansion of the democratic apparatus through a new electoral law coincides wi th the parliamentary corruption organized by G uizor.J4 Under cover of this corruption, the rulin g class m a kes his tory; that is, it pursues its a ffairs. It furthers railway construction in order to i mprove its stock holdings . It promotes the reign o f Louis Philippe as t hat of the private ind ividual managing his affairs . With the July Revolu tion, the bourgeoisie realized the goals of
1 789
( Marx ) .
F o r t h e private individual, t he place o f dwe lling is f o r the first time op posed to the place of work. The former constitutes i tself as the i n terior. Its complement is the office. The private individua l, who in the office has to deal with reality, needs the domestic interior to sustain him i n his illu sions. This necessity i s all the more pressing s ince he has no intention of allowing his commercial considerations to impinge on social ones. In the formation of his private environment, both a re kept out. From this arise the phantasmagorias of the interior-which, fo r the private man, repre sents the universe. In the interior, he brings together the far awa y and the long ago. His living room is a box in the theater of the world. Excursus on J ugendstil.J.s The sha ttering of the interior occurs via
] ugendstil around the turn of the century. Of course, according to its own i de ology, the Jugendstil movement seems to bring with it the consumma tion of the interior. The transfiguration of the solitary soul appears to be its go a l . Individualism is i ts theory. With van d e Velde, the house becomes an expression of the personality. 36 Ornament is to this house what the signature is to a painting. But the real mea ning of J ugendstil is not ex pressed in this i deology. It represents the last attempted sortie of an art besieged in its i vory t ower by technology. This attempt mo bilizes all the reserves of inwardness. They find their expression in the mediumistic lan guage of the line, in the flower as symbol of a naked vegetal nature con fronted by the techn ologically a rmed world. The new elements of iron construction-girder forms-preoccupy
] ugendstil.
In ornament, it en
dea vors to win back t hese forms for art. Concrete presents it with new possi bilities for p lastic cre ation in architecture. Around this time, the real gravitational center of Ii ving space shifts to the office. The irreal center makes its place in the home. The consequences o f Jugendstil a re depicted
in Ibsen's Master B uilder: the attempt by the individ ual, on the s trength of h is inward ness, to vie with technology leads to his downfall. 37
I
believe
.
.
. in my soul: the Thing.
-LE O N D E U B E L, Oeu vres
(Paris, 1929 ) ,
p.
193
1 04
P R O D U C TI O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
The i nteri or is the asylum o f art. The collector is the true resident o f the i nterior. He makes his concern the transfigurati o n o f things . To him fal ls the S isyphean task of divesting things of their commodi ty character by taking possession of them. But he bestows on them o n ly connoisseur value, rather than use va lue. The collector drea ms his way not only into
a
d istant or bygone world but also into a better one-one in which, to be s ure, human b eings are no better provided with what they need than in the everyd ay world , but in which things are freed from the drudgery of being usefu l . The interior i s not just tlle universe b u t also the etui o f the p rivate in dividual. To dwell mea ns to leave traces. In the i n terior, these are accen tuated . Coverlets and antimacassars, cases and containers are d evised in a b undance; in these, the traces of the most ordinary objects of use are i m printe d . In j ust the same way, the traces of the inhabitant are imprinted i n the interior. Enter the detective story, which p u rs ues these traces. Poe , i n h is " Philosophy o f Furniture" a s well a s i n h i s detective fiction, shows himsel f to be the first physiognomist of the domestic interior. The crimi nals in early detective novels are neither gentlemen nor apaches, b ut pri vate citizens of the midd le class.3!!
V. Baudelaire, or the Streets of Paris
Every thing becomes -BAU D E L A I H E ,
an
allegory
for me.
"Le Cygne " 39
Baudel aire 's genius, which is nourished on melancholy, is an allegorical For the first time, with Baud elaire, Paris b ecomes the subject of lyric poetry. This poetry is no hymn to the homeland; rather, the gaze of the allegorist, as it fal l s on the city, is the gaze of the alienated man. It is the gaze of the £la neur, whose way of life still conceals behind a mitigating nim bus the coming deso lation of the big-city dwe ller. The flalleur still stands on the threshold-of the metropolis as of the middle class. Neither has him in its power yet. In neither is he at home.
He seeks refuge in the crowd.
Early contributions to a physi ognomics of the crowd
are
found i n Engels
and Poe . 40 The crowd is the veil through which the familiar city beckons to the ftineur as phantasmagoria-now a landscape, now a room. Both be come elements of the department store, which m akes use of Hanerie itself to sell goods. The department store is the last promenade for the £laneur. In the flaneur, the in telligentsia sets foot in the marketplace-ostensi-
P A R I S , T H E C A P I TA L 0 F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
1 05
bly to look around, b u t in truth to find a buyer. In this i ntermed i a te s tage, in which it s till has pa trons but is a l r e ad y begi n n ing to familiarize i tself with the m arket, it appears as the boheme. To the uncertainty of its eco nOlllic position corres ponds the uncertainty of its political function. The la tter is ma nifest most clearly in the professi onal conspi rators, who all belon g to the boheme. Their initial field of activity is the army; l a ter it be comes the petty bourgeoisie, occasionally the pro l e t aria t . Nevertheless, this group vie ws the true leaders o f the proletariat as its adversary. The Communist Manifesto brings their p o l i t i c a l existence to an end. Bau delaire's poetry draws its strength from the rebellious pathos of this group . He sides with the asocia l . He realizes his only sexual cOlnmunion with a whore.
Easy the way th a t lea d s into Avernus.
-VIRGI L , The Aeneid41
It is the unique provision of Baudelaire's poetry tha t the image of woman
and the image of death i ntermingle in a third: that of Paris . The Paris of his poems is a sunken city, and more submarine tha n s u b terra nean . The chthonic elements of the city-its topographic formations, the old aban doned bed of the Seine-h ave evidently found in him a m old . Decisive for Baudelaire in the " death-fraught idyll " of the city, however, is a social, a modern s u bstrate. The modern is a principal accent of his poetry. As spleen, it fractures the ideal ( " Spleen et idea l " ) .42 But precisely modernity is always citing prima l his tory Here, this occurs through the ambiguity peculiar to the social relations and products of this epoch. Ambiguity is the appearance of dialectic in images, the law of d ialectics at a s tandstil l. T bis standstill is utopia and the d ialectical image, therefore, dream im age . Such an image is afforded by the commod i ty per se: as fetis h . Such an i mage is presented by the arcades, which are house no less than street. S uch an image is the prostitute-seller and sold in one. .
I travel in order to get to know my geography. -Note of
a
madman, in Marcel Reja, L'Aft chez les
taus
( Paris, 1 9 07), p. 13 1
Fleurs du Mal: " Le Voyage . " " Death, old a dmiral, up anchor now. " The last j o u rney of the flaneur: death. Its destination: the new. " D eep in the Unkno wn to find the n ewt'43 N ew ness i s a q u ality independent of the use value of the commod i ty. It is the origin of the sem-
The last p oe m of Les
1 06
P R O D U CTI O N ,
blance tha t
R E P R O D U CTI O N , A N D
R E C E PT I O N
inalien a b l y to images p ro duced by t h e collective un
conscious. It is the quintessence o f tha t false consciollsness who se inde
fatiga ble agent is fa s h i o n . This semblance o f the new is reflected, l ike one m irror in another, in the semblance of th e ever recurrent. The p r o d u ct o f this r e fl e c t i o n i s the phantasmagoria o f " c u ltural history, " i n which the bourgeoisie enjoys its false consciousness to the fu ll. Tne art that be g i ns to doubt its task and ceases to be "in sep ar a ble from . . . u tility" (Baudelaire )
mus t make
no ve
lt y i n to its highest valu e.il4 The arbiter novarum
rerum
fo r such an art b e c o me s the sno b . He is to art what the d a n dy is to fash ion.-Just as in the seventeenth century it is allegory tha t becomes the
ca n on of d ialectical i m ages, in the n ineteenth century it is novelty. News p apers flourish, a lo ng wi th magasins de nouveautes. The press o rganizes
the market in s piri tual values, in w h i c h at first t her e is a b oom . Non c o n formi s t s rebel against consigning art to the marketp lace. Th e y rall y ro u nd the b a nner of co
['art
l'art.4-1
p our
From this watchword derives the
n cep t i o n of the " total work of a r t " - th e Gesamtkunstwerl?.-which
would sea l art o ff from the develop ments of tec h n ology. The solemn rite
w i th which it is celebrated is the pend ant to the distraction tha t t r an s fig ures the co m m o d i ty. Both a bstract from the social exis tence of human be ings. Bau dela ire succumbs to the rage for Wagner.46
VI . H aussmann, or the Barricades
I v e n e ra t e
the Beautiful , the
Good\ a nd all th ings great;
Bea u ti fu l nature, on which great a rt rests-
How it enchants I
love s p ring in
the
ear and charms the eyel
b losso m : women
-BARON HAU S S MANN,
and
roses.
COll fession d'zm lioll devenu l/ieux47
The flowery rea lm of deco rations ,
The charm of
landscape,
o f a rchitecture,
And all the effect of scenery rest Solely on the law of perspective. -F R A N Z B O H LE, Theatel'- Catechismu5
( Munich ), p.
74
Hau ssmann 's idea l in city planning consisted of l o ng perspectives down broad
t ai gh t thoroughfares . S uc h an ideal c o r re sp o n ds to the teo -
s r
P A R I S , T H E C A P I TA L 0 F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U A Y
1 07
dcncy-co mmon in the nineteenth century-to enno ble techno logica l necessities t hrough artistic ends. T h e institutions of t h e bourgeoisie's wor l d ly and spiritu a l dominance were to find their apotheosis within the framework o f the bouleva rds. Before their completion, boulevards were draped across with canvas and u nveiled like m o n uments.-Ha ussmann 's activity is l inked to N a p o le o n i c i m p eri a l is m . Louis Napoleon pro mo tes investment cap ital, and Paris expe riences
a
rash o f speculati on .48
Trading on the stock exchange d isplaces the fo rms of gam b l ing handed down fro m feudal society. The phantasmagorias of space to which the flaneur devotes h imself find a cou nterpart in the p h anta smagorias of time to which the gambler is addicted. Gambling converts time into a
narco tic . [Paul] Lafargue exp lains g am b l i ng as an imitation in min
i a ture of the mysteries of economic fluctuation.49 The expropriations carried o u t under Haussmann call forth a wave of fraudu lent specu l ati o n . The rul ings of the Court of Cassation, which are insp i red by the bourgeois a n d Orleanist opposition, increase the financial risks of Haussmannization.50 Haussmann tries to sh ore u p his dictatorshi p b y p l a ci ng Paris under an e mergency regime. In 1 8 64, in a speecH before the Nati o n a l Assem bly, he vents his hatred of the rootless urban populatio n , which keeps increa s ing as a res u lt of his projects. R ising ren ts drive the p roletariat into the s u burbs. The quartiers of P aris in this way lose their distinctive ph ys iog nomy. The " red belt" forms . 5 1 Haussmann gave himself the title of " d e molition artist, " artiste demolisseur. He viewed his work as a ca ll ing, a n d emphasizes this i n h i s memoirs. Meanwhile h e estranges the Parisians from their city. They no longer feel a t home the re, a nd start to become conscious of the in h u m an cha racter of the metropolis . Maxime Du Camp's monu mental work Paris owes its inception to this co nscious ness .52 The Jeremiades d " u n Haussmannise give it the form o f a bi b l ical lament. 53 The true goa l of Haussma nn's p roj ects was to secure the city a gainst civil w a r. He wanted to make the erection of barrica des in Paris impossi b le fo r all time . With the same end in mind, Louis Ph ilippe had a l ready i n trod uced wooden paving. Nonetheless, barricades p l a ye d
a
role in the
February Revolution.s4 Engels studies the tactics of barricade fighting ,S5 H aussmann seeks to neutralize these tactics o n two fronts . Wi dening the streets is designed to make the erection of barricades i mpossible, and new streets are to furn ish the s hortest ro ute b etween the b arracks and the worke rs ' d istricts . Con temporaries christen the operation "stra tegic em bellishment. "
P ROD
1 08 Revea l
to
U CT I O N ,
REP
ROD
U CTI O N , A N D R E
CEPTI0N
th ese depraved,
o Republic, by foiling the ir plots , You r great Medusa face Ringed by re d lightning. -Worke rs' song from about 1 8 5 0, in Adol f Stah r, Zwei Monate in Paris
(Oldenburg, 1 8 5 '1 ) , vol. 2, p. 1 9 956
The barric a de is resurrected d ur in g the Co m mu ne . 57 It is stronger and
better secured than ever. It s tretc hes across the grea t boul evards, o ften r ea chi n g a height of two s tories, and shields the trench es b ehind it. Just a s
t he Communist Manifesto ends the age of p ro fe s si o n al conspi rators , s o t h e Commune puts an en d t o t h e pha ntasmagoria ho lding swa y over the
e a rl y years of the p roletariat . It dis p el s the illusion that the task of the p r o le tar i a n revolution is to complete the w o rk of 1 78 9 h a n d in hand
with the bo u rg eo isie . This Hlusion domina tes the
1. 83 1-1 8 7 1 ,
fro m the Lyons up rising to the Commune. The bourgeoisie n ever shared in th is error. Its battle ag ai n st th e so ci al rig h ts of the prol et ariat dates back to the g rea t Revolution, and converges with the philanthropic m ovement t h a t gives i t cover and that is in its heyday under Napoleon III. Under his reign, t h i s movemenes monumental work appears: Le Play's Ouvriers europeens. 58 S i de by s ide with the concealed p os i t i o n o f ph i la n thr opy, the bourgeoisie a lw a ys main tained o p en l y the p ositi o n of cl a s s warfare.59 A s early as 1 8 3 1 , in the Journal des Debats, it acknow l i n his fa cto ry l i k e a p l a nta t i o n owner a mong his sla ves . " If it is the misfortune of the workers' re bell i o ns of old that no th e o ry of revol ution d i r e cts their course, it i s also this absence of t heo r y that, from a nothe r p er spective , makes p o ss i b le their s p o n t a n e o us energy a nd the enthusiasm with which they set about es ta b li sh i ng a new so ciety, This enthusiasm, which reaches its pe a k in the Commune, wins over to the working cl ass at times the best elements of the b o u rge oisie , but leads i t in the end to succ um b t o their worst elements, Rimbaud and COUl'bet their sup p ort for the Co mm un e . 60 The burning of Paris is the worth y conclusion to Haussmann's work o f destruction.6 1
My good fa ther h a d been in Pari s . -KA R L G UTZ K OW, B riere a u s Paris (Leipzig, 1 8 42), v o l . 1 , p . 5 8
B a l za c was the first to s p e a k of the ruins of the bourge oisie . 62 But it was Surrealis m that first op e n e d our eyes to them. Th e devel opment of the
P A R I S , T H E C A P I TA L 0 F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
1 09
the wish symbols of the previous century, forces of production even before the monuments representing them had collapsed. In the nine teenth century this development worked to emancipate the forms of con struction fro m art, just as in the sixteenth century the sciences freed themselves from philosophy. A start is made with a rchitecture as engi neered construction . Then comes the reproduction of nature as pho togra p hy. Th e creation of fant a s y p rep ares to become p r a ct i ca l as commerci a l art. Literature submits t o montage in t h e feuilleton. A l l these products are on the point of entering the market as commodities. But they linger on the threshold. From this epoch derive the arcades a nd interieurs, the exhibition halls and panoramas. They a re residues of a dream world. The realization of dream elements, in t he course of waking up, is t he para d igm of d ialectical thinking. T h u s , dialectical thi nkin g is the organ of his torical a wa ke ni n g . Every epoch, in fact, not o nly dreams the one to fol its awakening. It bears its end within low but, in dreaming, itself and unfo lds i t-as Hegel already noticed-by cunning. With the destabilizing of the market economy, we begin to recognize the monu men ts of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumble d . Written May 1 935; unpubl ished i n Benj ami n's lifetime. Gesammelte
Schriftell,
V, 45-59.
Translated by Howa rd Eiland.
N otes Benjamin wrote this essay at the sugges tion of Friedrich Pollock, codirector of the Institute for Social Rese a rch in New York, as
Project. Hen ce i ts
A rcades
an
expose, or synopsis, of the
h ighly concen tra ted, almost stenogra p h i c style. See
Benja m i n 's letter to Theodor W. Adorno da ted May 3 1 , 1 9 35, in lected Writings, Vo lume 3: 1 935-1 93 8 ( Cambridge,
Mass. :
Benja min,
Se
Harvard U n i v e rs ity
Press, 2 002 ) , pp. 50-5 3 . 1 . Nguyen Trong H i c p ( 1 8 3 4-1 9 0 2 ) w a s
the French
through 1 8 9 7.
book
a
m e m b e r of the Regency Council o f
Annam (part o f present-da y Vietnam) from 1 8 8 9 He visited Paris o n a dip lomatic mission and pu blished a
protecto rate of
of thirty-six quatr<1 ins about his impressions of the city. Jules Claretie
wrote
an
a rticle a bout the book w h ich cites the lines Ben j a m i n ta kes a s his
epigraph; see C l a retie, "Une Temps
( Paris), January
description
de Paris par un annam ite," Le
13, 1 898.
2 . The magasin d e l10tlveaules offered a comp lete s e le c ti o n
or
a
ries,
nothe r
specialized
line of business;
of goo d s
in one
it had many rooms and several sto
with a large staff of employees . The first such store, Pygm a li on, op en e d
me a n s « newness" or " novelty " ; in the plural, i t means " fancy g oo d s . " O n the magasins d e 110 U veautes, see i n Paris in 1 793 . The w o r d nouveaute
Benj amin, The A rcades Project,
tra ns .
Howard Eil a nd
a nd
Kevin
1 10
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R EC E P T I O N
McLaughlin ( Ca m bri d ge , M as s . : Ha r v a rd University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , p p . 3 1 6 1 ( Convo lute A) . 3 . Ho n ore de Balzac, "Histoire et ph ysio logi e des
Georg e Sa n d , Honore de Ba lzac, Eugene Sue, e t D evil i n Paris) , vol. 2 ( Pa ri s , 1 8 4 6 ) , p . 9 1 .
4. Karl B oe t t i ch e r, " D as Prinzip der He l len i s ch e n llnd Germanischen Ba uweise h insichtlich der Dbertragung in d ie Bauw eise unserer Tage " (The Principle of Hel1cnic a nd Germanic B u i l d ing Iv1e thod s in
of Their Incorporation
into the Building Methods of Today; a dd ress o f M ar ch 1 3 , 1 8 4 6 ) , in Zum hundertjah rigen Geburtstag Karl B6ttichers (Berl in, 1 9 0 6 ) , p . 46. pa ss a ge
from Boettich er's ( Co n vo l ut e F l , I ) .
A
longer
a d d ress is cited i n The Arcades Project, p. 1 5 0
5 . Sigfried Giedio n, Batten in Franhreich [Architecture i n F rance] ( Leipzig, 1928), p. 3.
J a mes Pa lmes (New York: German writer Pa ul Scheerba rt ( 1 8 6 3-
6 . See P a u l Sche erbart, G lass Arch itecture, trans . P r ae g er, 1 9 72 ) . In this work, the 1915)
a n no u nce s
the advent of a " new gla ss-culture. " See Benj amin's dis
cussion o f Scheerba r t in his essays
" Experi e nc e a n d
Po v erty " ( 1 9 3 3 ) , i n
Benj a min, Selected Writings, Volume 2.' 1 92 7-1 93 4 ( Cam bridge, 1;1ass . : H a rva r d U nive rs i ty Press, 1 99 9 ) , p p . 7 3 3-7 3 4, a n d " O n Scheerbart" (l ate 1 9 3 05 or 1 9 40 ) , i n Benj a min, Selected Writings, Vo lume
4: .1 93 8-1 940
(Cambri dge, Mass . : Harva r d U niversity Press, 2003 ) , pp. 3 8 6-3 8 8 . 7. Jules Mic he l et , OLAvenir! Avenir ! " (Future! Fu ture ! ) , Europe, 1 9 , no . 73 (Jan uary 1 5 , 1 92 9 ) : 6. 8. Charles Fo urier ( 1 772- 1 8 3 7 ) , French soc i al theo ris t and r e forme r, urged
that s ociety b e re orga ni ze d into self-contained agrari an
cooperatives
w hich
he ca !led " pha lansteries. " Among his works are Theorie des quatre mouve1"l1ents ( 1 8 0 8 )
a nd
cades Project.
pp. 620-6 5 0 ( Convolute
Le Nouveau Monde industriel ( 1 8 2 9-1 8 3 0 ) .
9 . The pe ri o d style known tod ay a s B i e derme ier
ern
Eu rope
See
The
Ar
\X1, "Fourier " ) . popular i n most o f n orth -
between 1 8 1 5 and 1 8 4 8 . In furnit u re and interior de si g n , p a int
ing a nd l i te rature,
it
was characterized by a simplification of neo c l a ssi ca l
forms and by moti fs drawn fro m na t u re . Home furnishi ngs in this style often displa yed bol d color combina tions a n d li vel y p a t te rns . 1 0. Emile Zola published Tra vail ( La b o r) in 1 9 0 1 a nd Therese Raquin in 1 8 67. See Th e Arcades Project, pp. 203-204, 627-6 2 8 . 1 1.
The passage in
question, from D ie deutsche Ideo logie (The G e r m a n Id eol
ogy; 1 8 45-1 8 4 6 ) , m a y be fou nd in M arx a n d Enge ls, Co llected Works,
York: Internati onal ( 1 8 1 7-1 8 8 7 ) was a Germ a n
5 ( New
vol.
Publi s h e rs , 1 9 7 6 ) , pp. 5 1 3-5 1 4 . Carl Griin
writer, a member of the Prussian
Diet,
and
a
fol lower of Feuerbach. 12. LevmzaJ odeI' Erziehungs lehre ( 1 8 07 )
is
a c l a ssic
Paul, Levana, or Doctrine of Education,
work on pedagogy. See
trans. Erika
C as e y,
in Jean
Jean
Paul: A
PAR IS,
111
T H E C A P I TA L O F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
Reader ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 9 9 2 ) , pp. 26 9-274. Jean Paul is the pen name of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter ( 1 763- 1 8 2 5 ) , writer a n d humorist, w h ose o t h er
G erm a n
( 1 8 00-1 8 03 ) and Vorschu le der Asthetik
works
include Titan
C o urs e in Aesth eti c s ;
1 8 04 ) . 1 3 . Pan o ra ma s were large circu lar t a b l e aux, usua l l y displa ying scenes of ba ttles
originally designed to be vi ewed fro111 They we re i ntroduced in Fra nce in 1 79 9 by t he Robert Fulton. S u b s e q u e nt forms inc l u d e d the Diorama.
a n d cities, pa inted in trompe l 'oeij a nd the center
of a
ro tu n d a .
American engineer
( opened by LOll is D aguerre and Ch a rles Bouton in 1 8 2 2 in Paris) , in wh ich pictures were painted on cloth transparencies i l l um i n a t e d w i t h various l ight ing e f fe cts ; i t was this in sta l l ation that burned down i n 1 83 9 .
1 4 . Tha t is, Ja c qu es - Lo u is David ( 1 748- 1 8 2 5 ) , t h e neocl assical Fre nch painter. 1 5 . Emil e
de
Girardin ( 1 8 0 6-1 8 8 1 ) , a member of the Chamber of D e puties , i n a u
gura ted the l o w-priced , mass-circul ation newspaper with his edi to rs hip o f
La
( 1 8 3 6-1 8 5 6 , 1 8 6 2- 1 8 6 6 ) , at an a nn ua l sut1ISCfl ptlon
fr ancs .
1 6 . Louis J ac q u e s Mande Daguerre ( 1 7 87-1 8 5 1. ) , French p a inter and in v en to r, hel ped to deve lop the D io ra m a in Paris ( 1 8 2 2 ) , and co ll a b o rated with
Jo
seph Nicephore Ni epce ( 1 829-1 8 3 3 ) o n wo rk l e a d i n g to the discovery of the
d agu erreo t y pe process, communicated to the Aca de my of Sciences i n 1 8 3 9 , Pierre Pr e vost ( 1 76 4-:1 8 2 3 ) was
Fre n ch painter.
a
1 7 , The French physicist and p o l itici a n Dominique Fran\ois Jean Arago ( 1 7 8 61 8 5 3 ) presented h i s expert report i n favor of Daguerre's i nvention i n 1 8 3 9 . 1 8 . Nad ar i s t h e pseudonym o f G a s pa rd-Feli x To urnachon ( 1 8 20-1 9 1 0 ) , French pho togra pher, j ourn alist, and caricaturis t.
In 1 8 64-1 8 65 ,
he used his p a t
ented new process of ph otogra phy by elec t r i c light to take pho tographs of the P a ris sewers .
1 9 . A. J. Wiertz, "La Photogra p h i e ,
"
in Oeuvres litteraires (Paris ,
1 8 70),
p p . 309ft. Antoine Joseph Wiertz ( 1 8 0 6-1 8 6 5 ) was a Belgia n pa inter o f c o historical scenes, lampooned b y B a udelaire. S e e Benj ami n 's
"
A n to i ne
Wiertz " ( 1 92 9 ) and " Let ter fr om Pa r is (2 ) " ( 1 9 3 6 ) , in this v o lume.
20. Ferd ina nd
Langle
and
Emile
Vanderburch,
Louis-Bronze et Ie
Saint
Simonien: Parodie de Louis XI (Thea tre du Pa lais-Royal, February 27, 1 8 32), ci ted in Theodore Muret, L'Histoire par Ie theatre, 1 78 9-1 8S1 (Paris, 1 8 65 ) , vol. 3 , p . 1 9 1 .
2 J , Act u al ly, i t was the French philolog ist and historian Ernest Renan ( 1 8 231 8 9 2 ) , a uthor of La Vie de
jesus
(The Ufe of Jesus; 1 8 6 3 )
and
ma ny other
works, who made this s tatement . S ee The Arcades ProjectJ pp. 1 8 0 (Convo lute G4 , 5 ) and 197 ( Convolute G 1 3a,3 ) ,
22 . Sigmund En g l a nd er, G eschichte del'
(ranzosischen
A rbeiter-Associationen
( Histo ry of Fre nch Workers' A sso ci a ti o ns ; 1 8 64 ) , vol . 4, p. 5 2 .
2 3 . The French chemist a n d industrialist Jean-An toine Chapta l ( 1 75 6-1 8 3 2 )
112
PRODUCTION, R EPRODUCTION, AND RECEPTION
served a s Minister o f the In te r ior ( 1 8 0 1-1 8 0 9 ) . He was the founder o f the fi rst Eco l e des Arts et !v1t�tiers. 24.
The
Saint-Si monians were fol l owers of the p h i losopher and social reforme r
Henri de Sai nt-S imon ( 1 760- 1 8 25 ) , considered the founder of French s o cialis m . H i s works include D u Systeme industriel ( 1 8 2 0-1 8 2 3 ) a n d
Le
Nouveau Christimzisme ( 1 825 ) . After helping to organize the constitutiona l
monarchy of Louis Philippe ( 1 8 3 0-1 8 4 8 ) , Saint-S i m o n ians c ame to oc cupy importa nt posi tions in nine teenth-century French ind ustry and finance . Michel Che v a l ier ( 1 8 06-1 8 79 ) , an economist a nd advocate of free tra de, was coeditor of Le Globe ( 1 8 3 0-1 8 3 2) and l a te r, under N apoleon III, a council or o f
Ba rthelemy P ro s
per Enfantin ( 1 79 6- 1 864),
a S a int-Simoni a n leader
kn own
" Perc
as
Enfa n ti n , " established in 1 832, on his estate at Meni l mo n ta n t, a model com munity characterized by fa ntastic s acerdota lism a nd freedom between the sexes. He l a ter b ecame the first director o f the Lyons Rai lroad Company
( 1 8 45 ) . See The Arcades Project, pp. 5 71-602 ( Convo l u te U, " S a i nt-Simon, Ra ilroads " ) .
1 5 . Gra ndville i s the pseudo nym o f Jea n -Ig nace-Isidore Gerard ( 1 8 03-1 8 4 7 ) , a ca rica turist a n d ill ustrator whose work a ppea red in the peri o d icals L e Charivari a n d L a Caricature. See The
volute
G,
A r cades
Project, p p . 1 7 1- 2 0 2
( Con
"Exh i bi tions, Advertis i ng, Grandvi l le " ) .
2 6 . K arl M a rx, Capita l vol. 1 , tra ns. S amuel Moore and Ed ward Ave l ing (New ,
York: In terna tional Pu bl ishers, 1 967), p . 76 .
27. Giacomo Leopa rd i, " D ia l ogo della m oda
e
dell a mone " ( 1 82 7 ) . See, in En
gl ish, Leo pardi, Essays and D ialogues, trans. Giovanni Cecchetti (Berkeley: Universi ty of Cali fornia Press, 1 9 81), p. 67.
18. Benjamin refers to a n illus tra tion i n Gra ndville's Un Autre Monde, repro d uced in The Arcades Project, p. 6 5 . S ee also
Grandville
Fantastic
Illustrations
of
( New York: D ove r, 1 974) , p. 49; this vol ume conta ins illustra
tions from Un A utre
Monde
and
Les Animaux.
29. The French writer Alphonse To ussenel ( 1 8 03-1 8 85 ) was editor of La Faix and a uthor of !...;' Esprit des biltes (Spirit of the Beasts; 1 8 5 6 ) . 3 0 . The Intern a tional Wo rkingmen's Associ a tion ( the First Internati o n a l ) , whose
General Council had i ts seat i n London, was founded i n Septe m b e r 1 864. 3 1. Jacques Offenbach ( 1 8 1 9-1 8 8 0 ) , Germ an-born m usician and composer, pro d u cec1 many s uccessfu l operettas and
operas
bouffes in Paris, where he m a n
a ged the Gaite-Lyri q l1 e ( 1 8 72-1 876 ) .
3 2 . Baudelaire, L es Fleu)'s du Mal (Fl owers of Ev il; 1 85 7 ) . 3 3 . Louis Philippe ( 1 773-1 8 5 0 ) ,
a
descend a nt o f the Bourbon-Orleans royal line
o f France, was declared " Ci tizen King" in the J u ly Revol ution of 1 8 30; his reign was marked by the bourgeo is ie's rise to p ower. He was over thrown by the February Revo l ution of 1 8 48 .
3 4 . The histo r i a n a nd statesman Fran�ois Gu izat ( 1 78 7- 1 874) became pre mier of Fra nce in 1 847. He was forced out of office by the 1 84 8 revo l ution.
1 13
P A R I S , T H E C A P I TA L O F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
is th e Ger m a n and Austr i a n va ri a n t of the Art Nouveau style of the 1 8 9 0 s. The movement took i ts na me fro m the Munich j o urna l D ie jugend
3 5 . J ugendstil ( You t h ) .
3 6 . The Bel g i a n a rc h i te ct a uthor o f
and
V0111 neuen
inte r io r d e s i g n e r Henry v a n de Vel d e ( l 863-1 957), 1 907), was one of the le a d i n g
Stil (The M o de r n Style;
exponents of J u g e n ds ti l .
37.
I-Ienrik Ibsen's play The Master Builder was pr o d u c ed in 1 8 92 . See The A t cades Project, pp. 22 1 ( C o n v ol u t e 14,4) a n d 5 5 1 ( Co n vol u te S4, 6 ) .
3 8 . O n t h e figure o f th e Parisian a pache, w h o " a bj ures v irt u e a n d laws" a nd " te r minates the contrat social fo re v e r, " and on the " p o e tr y of apachedom," see " Th e Paris of the Second Em p ire i n Baudela ire " ( 1 9 3 8 ) , in Be nj a mi n , Se lected Writings, voL 4, p p . 3 -9 2 . 3 9 . Baudelaire, Les Fleurs
du
Mal (F lowers of Evil; J 8 5 7 ) ,
4 0 . See the pa ssages from E n gels' Die Lage der arbeitel1den Klasse in En.gland (The C o n di t i o n of the \Vo rking Cl a ss in Engl a n d ) and from Poe's sto ry "The
Man
of the Crowd " c it d in Th e A rcades Project, pp. 4 2 7-42 8 ( C o n vo lu te
M5 a , 'I ) and 445 ( Convolute M 1 5 a , 2 ) , respectively. 4 1 . The Aeneid of Virgil,
p.
1. 3 7
( bo ok
6,
trans.
Allen Ma n de l b a u m (New Yo rk: Ba nta m,
1 97 1 ) ,
l i n e 1 2 6 ) . Benj amin q uotes t he La ti n .
42 . " S p lee n et ideal" (Spleen and I de a l ) is t h e t i tle of the
fi rs t
secti o n of
Baude l a i re's Flew's du Mal (Fl owers o f Ev i l ; 1 8 5 7 ) . 43 , Baudelaire, " Le Voyage , " in Les Fleurs du Ma l ( Fl o we r s o f Ev i l ; 1 85 7 ) . 4 4 . Ba udelaire, " Pi erre Dupont," i n
Baudelaire a s a
Literary Critic, trans. Lois B ,
H ys l op and F r a n c i s E. Hys l op, Jr. (University P a r k : P en nsy l v a n i a S tate U n i versi ty Press,
1 9 64 ) ,
p, 5 3 .
45 . Appl y i n g Kant's idea
o f the pu re a n d disinterested e x i s tenc e of the w o r k of a rt, the French p h i l os o p her Victo r C o usi n made u s e o f t h e p h ra s e l'art tJOur
['art ( " a r t fo r art's sake " ) in his 1 8 1 8 lect u re " Du Vra i, du be a n , et du bien " ( O n the True, the Bea u tifu l, and the Good ) . The id e a was l ater g ive n cur re ncy by writers such as The o p hi le G au t ie r, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles Baudelaire. 46. Baudelaire's enthus iasm for \Vagner's music, w h i c h he d escribes a s a " rev e l a tio n " a nd as s pec i fi call y " modern," is exp ressed in his F e b ru a r y 1 7, 1 8 6 0 , letter to Wagner, after the composer had c o m e t o Paris to d i rect three COI1 ce r ts of h i s m usic, and in h i s 1 8 6 1 essay, " Richard Wagner et Ta n n h a u s e r a Pa r i s " ( Richard Wa g ner and Ta nnhauser in Pari s ) . See The Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire, t r a n s . Rosemary Lloyd ( Chicago: U ni v er s i ty of C h i cago Pres s ,
1 9 8 6 ),
pp. J 4 5-1 4 6 ; and Ba ude l a ire, The Pai1zter of Modern Life
and Other Essays, trans. Jonathan M a y n e (New York: Da Cap o , 1 9 8 6 ) , pp. 1 1 1 - 1 4 6 . 47. Confession d 'un lion de ven u vieux ( C onfession o f
a
Lion
Grown Old; 1 8 8 8 )
was p ub li sh ed ano nymo usly b y Baron Georges Eugene Ha u s s ma n n ( 1 8 091 8 9 1 ) . A Prefect o f the Sein e ( 1 8 53-J 870 ) ca rried o u t
a
u n d e r Napol eon nI, Haussmann
l a rge-scale renova tion of Paris, which incl uded the cons truc-
1 14
P R OD U CTI O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N , A N D R E C EPTI O N rion o f w id e bou leva rds through the city a nd the d emol i tio n o f many o l d ris i an neigh borhoods and ar c a d e s b u i l t i n the firs t
Pa
half of the century.
4 8 . Charles Lo u i s Na poleon Bonaparte ( L 8 0 8- 1 8 73 ) , known as Louis Napo leon, wa s a ne p hew o f N a p o leon 1 . A fte r bei n g electe d p r e s i d en t of the Re p u b l i c at
t h e e nd of 1 8 4 8 ) he m ade himself
di c t a t or
by a coup d 'etat on December 2,
1 8 5 .1 ; a year l a t er) he pro c la ime d h i mself empe ror a s Napo leon III. His re i gn , the Second Empire, was ma rked b y
economic
expa nsion ,
a gg re s si ve
fo reign in te rv entio n, and a w avering au t h o r i ta ri a n tone. He was depose d by
his captur e at t h e Ba ttle of S e da n during t h e Franco-Pru s s i a n Wa r ( 1 8 70- 1 8 7 1 ) . 4 9 . Paul Lafargue ( 1 8 42- 1 9 1 1 ) was a F ren c h r ad ica l s o c i a l i s t a n d w rit e r c l o s el y associa ted with Marx and Enge l s . F o r his co mparison between the market and the ga m b li n g h o use , see The Arcades Project. p. 497 ( Convolute 04, 1 }. 5 0 . Th e Court of Cassa tion was established in 1 7 9 0 as th e highest c o u rt of a p peals in the French l e ga l system. D uring the Second Empire, it tended to serve the of th e bou rgeoisie, which ha d come to p owe r under Lo u is P hi l i ppe. It thus represented a c heck on the power of Na po le on III a nd the Nariona l Assembly in 1 8 7 1 , foll o wi n g
Baron H auss mann. 5 1. The " r e d belt" was
a
n ame for the s u b urbs i m m e d i a te l y s u r ro u nding Paris
proper in th e l a te r n i netee nth century. These d ist r icts were pop u l a te d b y
the
many of
working cl a s s w h o had been dis p l aced b y Ha nssmann 's u rban
r ene w a l . 5 2 . The French j ourna li st Maxime Ou Camp ( 1 822-1 894) wrote Paris: Ses organes,
ses fonctions et sa vie dans fa seconde m o itie du XIXe siecle ( 1 8 6 9-1 8 75 ) , a six-vol u me account of n i neteen th-cent u r y Par is . See The Arcades Project, pp. 90-9 1 ( Co nvol u te C,4), on Du Camp's conception of this work. A n o n ymo u s , Paris desert: Lamentations d'Ull jeremie h aussma nnise ( Deserted Paris: Jerem iads of a Man Ha ussma n nized; 1 8 6 8 ) . 5 4 . T h e " Fe brua ry Revolution " refers to t h e ove rthrow o f Louis Ph i I i pp e 's co n 53 .
s titutiona l mona rc hy in Febr u a ry 1 55 . Engels' cri tiq u e
of
barricade tactics is exc e rp ted in The Arcades Project,
p. 1 23 (Convolute E 1 a,5). 5 6 . The verse derives from the p op u l ar l y r ic poet a nd so n gw r i t er Pierre D u ponr
p. 7 1 0 (Convolute a7, 3 ) . revolutiona r y government es ta blished i n Pa ris on March 1 8 , 1 8 7 1 , i n the aftermath of t h e Fra nco-Prussi an War. I t was s u p p res s ed i n b l o o d y street-fighti ng t h a t ended M a y 2 8 , 1 8 7 1 , leaving ( 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 70 ) . S e e The Arcades Project,
5 7 . T h e Com m u n e o f Paris w a s th e
20,000 Communards d ea d . 58.
Frederic
Le Play) L es Ouvriers europeetzs: Etudes sur Les travaux, La vie
domestique et la condition morale des populations ouvrieres de [ 'Europe, p recedees d'un expose de fa m ethode d'observation ( E u ro p ea n \X1o rkers: Studies of the
Populations
Work,
D omes t ic Life) and Moral Cond ition of the L a b or in g
of Europe, Prefaced by
a
Method;
P A R I S , T H E C A P I TA L O F T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
115
1 8 5 5 ) . Le Pla y ( 1 8 0 6-1 8 8 2 ) was a n e ng ine er and e c on o m ist w h o , as sen a to r ( 1 8 6 7- 1 8 70 ) , re presented 5 9 . In his
sec o nd e xpose
a
paternal istic " s o ci a l Ca tholici s m . "
r o th e Arcades
B enj a m in appa r en t l y corrects this
si tion of phi lanthropy, th e si tion of 60.
At the
age of
struggl e "
Project,
a s s e rtion :
written in French in 1 9 3 9 ,
" S id e b y s i de with the
always
(The
maintained
holds me
back w he n
where so many workers
mad
a re
po-
p. 14).
eighteen, t h e French
p o e t Ri mbaud w r o te from his h ome
in northern France, in a le tter of May 1 3 , 1 8 71 : "I will be idea
overt
th e covert po-
a nger
drives me to w a rd
a
worker. This
the battle of Pa r is
d ying as I wr i te . . . . Work now ?-Never, n evet
I a m on s tr i ke . " Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works: Selected
LettersJ t r a n s ,
Wa llace Fowlie ( C h ic a g o : Uni versity of Chicag o Pres s , 1 9 6 6 ) , p. 3 0 3 . Gu s tave C o Ll t' be t ( 1 8 1 9- 1 8 7 7 ) , l e a d i ng French Rea l i st pain ter, p res ide d over the Committee of F i n e Arts during the Comm une. He w a s imprisoned six m o n t hs for helping to d es troy the col umn i n the
Pl ace
Vendo m e du ring the
upri sing of 1 8 7 1 , and in 1 8 75 was o rd ered to p ay for the r esto r a ti o n of the colum n . 6 1 . In the cou rse o f " Bl o ody Week " (May 2 1 -2 8 , 1 8 7 1 ) , t h e d e sper a te Com muna rds set fi re to m any pub lic buildings, i ncluding th e Tu ileries Palace and the Hotel d e Ville ( Ci ty Hal l ) , 6 2 . Ba lzac's co mme n t, fro m 1 8 45, l u te C2a, 8 ) .
is
cite d in The Arcades
Project,
p. 8 7 ( C onvo
10 Eduard Fuchs, Collector and Historian
The lifework o f Edua rd Fuchs b elon gs to the re cen t past . · A l oo k back
at this work encounters all the difficulties involved in any a ttempt to t a k e a cco unt o f the re ce n t pa st . Mo r e o v e r, it is the recent past of the Marxist t he o ry o f a rt which is at issue here, and th i s fact does not sim pl ify matters. For unl ike M a rxis t economics, this th eo ry still ha s no h i sto ry. Its o ri gi n a t o r s , Ma rx a nd Engels, did little more than indicate to ma terialist d i a le cti c s the wide range of p ossibili t i es in this ar e a . And the first to set a bo u t explori ng it-a Plekhanov, a Nlehring-a bsorbed the lessons of these m asters o nly indirectly, or at least b e l a te dl y. 2 The trad ition tha t l e a ds from Marx thro ugh Wilhelm Lie bknecht to Be bel h as b en efite d the pol itical side of M arxism far mo r e than the scientific or scholarly side. l Mehring traveled the p a th o f n a tio na lis m befo re pass ing through the school of Lassalle;
a
nd at the time of his e n tr a nc e into the
Social Democra tic Party, acco rd i ng
to
Ka Lltsky, " a more or less v ul g a r
Lassalleanism held sway. A s ide from the th o u ght of a few isolated indi vi d u a ls, there was no coherent Marxist t h e o ry. " 4 It was on ly later, to w ard the end of
life , that Me hring carne into contact w i th Marx
[sm. For his pa rt, Fuchs go t to know Mehring e arly o n . In the context of their r e la tio n shi p , for the fi rst time
[geistesgeschichtlichen]
a
tra d iti o n arose with i n the cultural
res e a r c h of historical materialism. But, as both
men recognized, Mehring's ch os en field-the h i story of l i terat u r e- ha d little in com mon with Fuchs's field of speci a lization. Even more telling was the di fference in tempe r am ent . Mehring was by na ture a scho l a r; Fuchs,
a
co lle cto r.
116
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O LLECTO R AN D H ISTO R I AN
117
There a re many kinds of c o l le c to rs , and in ea ch of them a mul ti tu de of i m puls e s is a t work. As a collector, Fuchs is p r i m a r i l y a pi o n e er. H e
fo u nded the o n l y existing a rchive for t h e h i s to r y of caricature, of ero tic art, and of the g e n r e p a i n ti n g
lSittenbild] .
More important, h o w e ver, is
a n o t h er, comple mentary c ircumstance : because he w a s
a
pionee r, Fuchs
b e ca m e a collector. Fuchs is the p i o n e e r of a m a te ri a l i st considera ti on of art . Yet w hat made this ma terialist a collector was his more or less clear feeling for his p er c e i ve d h istorical situation. It wa s the s i t ua t i on of histor ical materialism i ts elf. This sit u a ti o n is ex p r ess e d in a l ette r which Friedrich Enge l s s e n t to Me h rin g at a time when Fuchs, wo rk in g in
a
So ci a lis t editor ial office,
won his first victories as a political w r i te r. The l etter, date d Ju l y 1 4, 1. 893, among o t h e r th i n gs ela borates on the fol lowing:
It
is a bove all this sem bla nce o f a n i ndependen t h i s t o ry o f s tate constitu
each speci a l p e o p l e . I f L u t h e r a n d Ca lvin " ov e r come " th e o ffici a l Catholic rel i gi o n , if Hegel " overcomes '\ F ic b t e a n d Kant, and i f Rousseau i n d irectly " overcomes " the constitutional work o f Mo ntesquieu wi th his Contrat social, th is is a proc e ss which remains wi thin theo logy, philosophy, and p o l i tical s c i e nc e . Th is p rocess re p resents a stage i n the h i sto ry of the se d i sci p l i nes, a nd in no way goes outs i d e t he disciplin es themselves . And ever since the b ou rge o i s ill usion of t h e eternity and fin a li t y of capi ta l i s t p r od uction entered t he pic ture , even th e overcom ing of the mercantilists by the p hysiocrats and Adam Smith is s e e n as a mere victory of tho u g h t-n ot as th e reflection in t ho ug h t of changed ec o nomic facts, bu t as the fi n a l l y achieved correct i nsig h t i nto actual relations exi s ti n g a lway s a nd everywhere.s ti ons, o f legal systems, and o f i d eo lo g i c a l concepti o n s in ized
field
o f study which deceives m o s t
Engels' a rgume n t is di re c te d against two elements . First of a ll , he criticizes the convention in the history of i d e a s w hi ch r e p r ese n ts a new d o gma as a " devel opment " of an e a r l i e r o n e, a new poetic school a s a " re a cti on " to one p re c e d i ng , a new s t y l e as the "overcoming" of an ear l ie r one . At the same tinle, h o weve r, it is clear that he i mp lici tly criticizes the p r a c ti ce of represen ting such new co n s tru c ti o n s [ Gebilde] as com plete l y detached from their e ffect on human beings and thei r s p ir i t u a l as well as economic processes of production . Such an a rgument d es tr o y s the humanities' c l a im to being a histo ry of state c o nst i t uti o n s or of the natu ral sciences, o f r e li g ion or of art. Yet the e xpl o s i v e force of this t h o u g h t , w h i c h Engel s carried with h i m for half a c e n tur y, goes dee per.6 It places the c l o s e d unity of the d isc i pl ine s and their p r o d uct s in q u e s ti o n . So far as
118
P R O D U CTI O N , R E P R O D U C TI O N , AND R E C E PT I O N
art is concerned, th is tho ugh t challenges the u nity of art itself, as well as that o f those works which p ur p orte d ly come under the r u b r i c of art. For the dialectical histo r i a n concerned with works of a rt, these works inte grate their for e -histo ry as well as their a fter-h isto ry ; and i t is by v irtue o f their
a fte
r-h is tor y th a t th e i r fore-histor y i s recogn i za b le as involved in a
co n tinuo us process of chan ge . Works of a rt teach him how t h ei r function
o utlives the ir c r eator and how the artist's i ntentions are left b eh i n d . They d emonstrate how the
of a wo rk by its con te m p ora ri es is p a rt of
the effect that the work of art has on us tod a y. The y further show tha t this effect de pends on a n encounter not j us t with th e work of a r t a lone
but with the hi s tory which has a llowed the work to come down to our own age . Goethe
this point in a characteris tical ly veiled ma nner
when, in a conversation a b out Shakespeare, he said to Chancellor von
M Ull er: " N o th i ng t ha t
h ad
a
grea t effect can really be j udge d any
10nger. " 7 No s tatement bet ter evokes that state of u nease which marks the beginning of any consideration of history wo r thy of b e ing called
dialectica1 . Unease over the p rovocation to the rese archer, who must a bandon the ca lm , co n te mp l ative a ttitude toward his o bject in order to become conscious o f the crit i c a l constellation in which p rec i s e ly this fr a g ment of the past finds itself with p r ecise ly this present. "The truth w i ll not run aw ay fro m us "-this stateme n t by Gottfrie d Keller i ndicates ex actl y tha t point in histor i c i s m's i mage of h i sto ry where the image i s pierced b y historical materialism .s For it is a n irretrieva b le i mage o f the past which threatens to dis a p p e ar in any present that does not reco gn i ze itself as i n timated in that i mage . The more one considers Engels' se n tences, the more one ap p reci a tes his ins igh t that every dialectical prese nt a tio n of h isto ry is pai d for by
a
re
nuncia tion o f the con templativeness which char a cteri zes historicism. The historical materialist must a b andon the epic element in h istor y. For him, his to ry becomes the o bject of a constr uct w hose l ocus is n ot empty time but rather the specific epoc h, the specific l ife, the
work . The his
toric a l materialist blasts the epoch out of its reified " historical conti nu ity, " a nd the r e by the life out of the e poch, and the work out of the lifework . Yet this construct resu lt s i n the s imultaneous p re s er v a t i o n and s u b l at i on
[Aufhebung]
o f the lifework in the work, of the epoch in the
lifework, and of the course of h istory in the epoch.9 Historicism p resents the eternal image o f the past, whereas histo r ical materi alism presents a given e xper i enc e with the past-an experience that is unique . The rep l acement of the epic e l e m ent by the constructive e l ement proves to be the cond ition for this experienc e . The immense forces b ound up in h istoric i sm 's " O nce upon
a
time " are li berated in this expe-
E DUAR D F U C H S , COLLECTO R AN D H I STO RIAN
1 19
rience. To put to work an experience with history-a hi s to ry tha t is
o r igi na ry for ev ery presen t-is th e task of h i s t o r i cal materialism . The lat ter is dire cted toward a c o ns ci ou s ne ss of the present which explodes the con t i n u um of his tory. H istorical materia lism conce ives historical understand i ng as an a fter life of that wh ich has been unde rstood and whose pulse c an be felt in the p r e s ent . Th i s u n d e r st a n d in g has i t s p l a c e i n Fuchs's thi nking, but not an undisputed one. In his thi n ki ng , an old do gma tic and n a ive idea of recep t io n e xi sts al o ngsi d e the new a n d critical o ne . The first could be summaas fo ll ow s : what d etermines our re c e pt i o n of a w o rk mus t have been its reception by its contemporaries . This is prec i s e ly a nalogous to Ranke's " how it really wa s , " which is wha t " so l e ly an d u ni q u e l y " mat ters . I O Next to this, however, we i m m e d iately find the d i a l ecti c a l i ns i g ht which opens the widest h ori z o n s in t h e meaning of a history of reception. Fuc hs criticizes the fact tha t, in the h i story of a rt , the q u e st i o n of the suc cess of a wor k of art rema ins u nexa mined. " T h i s n eg l ec t . . . mars our whole considera tion of a rt. Ye t it stri kes me tha t uncovering the real rea sons for th e greater or lesser s uccess of an artist-the r e a so n s for the d u ration of his success or i ts opposite-is one of th e mo st i m portan t p ro b lems . . . connected to a r t . " l 1 Me h ring understood the m a tter in the s a me w ork b y Heine, way. In his Lessing-Legende, the reception o f Gervinus, Stah r, D a nzel , and finall y Erich Schmitt becomes the s ta rtin g poin t for his a n aly s es):? And i t is not without good rea s o n that Juli an H i rs ch 's i nve s t igat i o n int o the " g e n esis of fa me" a pp eare d o n ly s hor t l y t h e r eafte r, th o u g h Hirsch 's w o rk is notable less for its m eth o d o l ogy than for its content. l3 Hi rsch d e a l s with the same problem that F u c h s does. Its solution pr o vid e s criteria for the standards of h istorical ma te ri a lis m . Th i s fa ct , how e ve r, d o es n ot justify suppression of another-namely, that such a s olution does not yet exist . Rather, o n e mu st ad mit without r e s erv a tion th at only in isolated i n s tances has it b een p o ssi b le to grasp th e his torical content of a work of art in s uch a way that it becom es more tr ansparen t to lLS as a work of art. All more intimate engagement with a wo rk of art must remain a vain e nd eav o r, so long as the work's sober histo rical content is u n touch e d by dia lecti c a l k n owle d ge. This, however, is o nly t he first of the tr u ths by wh ich the work of the collector Eduard Fuchs is or ie n t e d . His c o llect i o n s are the pra ctic a l man's answer to th e a po ri a s of th e ory. 11 F u c hs was born i n 1 8 70 . F r o m the outset, h e was not meant to b e a
scholar. Nor did h e ever become a s c h o l arly
"
ty p e , " d espite the great
1 20
PRODUCT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R E C E PTI O N
learning that in forms his la ter work. His efforts constantly extended be yond the h orizon o f the researche r. This is true for his accomplishments as a collector as well a s for his activities as a politician. Fuchs entered the working world in the rnid-1 8 80s, d u ring the period of the anti-Socialist laws . ' 4 His app re ntic es h ip b r o u ght him together with politica lly con cerned proletarians, who soon drew him into the struggle of those bra n de d illegal at that time-a s truggle which appears to us today in a rather idyllic light. of apprenticesh ip ended in 1 8 8 7 . A few years later, th e Miinch ener Post, orga n of the Bavarian Social Demo cra ts, s um moned the young bookkeeper Fuchs from a printing shop i n Stuttgart. Fuchs, they thought, wou ld b e able to clear up the administra tive difficulties of the p aper. He went to Munich, and worked closely with Richard Calver. The publishers of the lvWnchener Post also put out the Suddeutsche Postillion, a Socialist magazine of p olitical h umor. It so h a p p e n e d that Fuchs was called to assist temporarily with the page proofs of one issue, and h a d to fi l l i n gaps with some of his own contri butions. The sllccess o f this isslle was extraordinary. That year, Fuchs also e dited the j ournal's May issue, which was brightly illustrated (color printing was then in i ts infancy) . This issue sold 60,000 copies-when the average annua l distri bution was a mere 2,500 c op ie s In this way, Fuchs became editor o f a m agazine devoted to political satire . In a d dition to his d aily responsibili ties, Fuchs a t once turned his attention to the hi s t o ry of his field. These efforts resulted in two illustrated s tudies-on the year 1 84 8 as reflected in caricatures, and o n the political affair of Lo la M ontez. 1 5 In c ontrast to the history books illustra ted by living artists ( such as Wilhelm BIos's pop ular books on the revolution, with pictu res by Jentzsc h ) , t h e se were the first histo rical works i l lustrated with d ocumenta ry pictures . 1 6 Encour aged by Harden, Fuchs even a dvertised his work on Lola Montez in Die Zukun(t, and did not forget to say that it was merely part of a larger work he was planning to devote to the caricature of the European peo ples . 1 7 The s tudies for this work pro fited fro m a ten-month p rison sen tence he se rved, after being convicted of lese majeste for his p u blica ti o n s The i dea seemed clearly a uspicious. A certain Hans K raemer, who h a d some experience in t h e production o f ill u s tra t e d housekeeping-books, introduced h imself to Fuchs saying that he was a lready working on a history of caricature, and suggested tha t they combine their s tudies and colla borate on the work. Kraemer's contributions, however, n e ve r ma te r i a l i ze d Soon i t became evident that the entire s u bs tantial workload rested on Fuchs. The name of the presu mpti v e colla borator was elimi .
.
.
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O LLECTOR A N D H I STO R I A N
1 21
nated from the tide page of the se c on d e d i t i on , t h ou g h it had appeared on the first. But Fuchs had given the first conv in cin g proof of his stamina and his control of his mate rial. The long series of his m aj or w o rks h ad begun. Fuchs's career began at a time when, as the
Neue Zeit once
put it, the
" trunk of the Social Democratic Party was prod uc i n g ring after ring o f org a n ic gr ow t h. " I S With this gr ow th, new tasks in the ed u c a ti on al work
of the p arty ca me to light. The greater the masses of workers that joi n e d the party, the less the pa rty cou l d a fford to be content with their merely political a nd sci enti fic e n l ightenm e nt-th a t is, with
a
v ulgarization of th e
theory of surplus value and the theory of evolution. The party h a d to di rect its attention to the inclusion of historical material both in it s lecture
programs and in the feui lleton section of the party pres s . Thus, the prob lem of the " popularization of sci en c e " arose in its full comp lexity. N o one found a solutio n . Nor could a solution e ven b e env is i on e d , so long a s those to be educated were consi dered a " p u b l i c " rather than a cla ss . l 9 If the e d u ca tio na l effort of the party had be e n d irected toward the " class, ') it would not have lost its close touch with the scientific tasks of his torical materia lism. The h i s tor ical material, turned by the p low of Marxist dia
lect i cs, would have become a soil c a p a bl e o f giving l ife to the seed wh i ch the present planted in it. But that did n ot occu r. The Social Democrats opposed their own slogan, " K now l ed ge Is Power, " to the slogan "Work and Education, " w hich Schu ltz-Delitzsch 's p i ously l oy a l unions made th e banner for their workers' e ducation.20 But the Social Democrats did not perceive the double meaning of their own s logan. They believed that the same knowledge which secured the domination of the proletariat by the bourgeoisi e would ena b le the pr oleta r i at to fr e e itself from this dom i na tion. In r e al i ty, a form of know le d ge which had no a cce ss to practice, and which could teach the proletariat noth i ng a bout its sit u at i on as a class, posed no danger to its oppressors . This was especially the case with the h u m anities . The h u m anities represented a kind of knowledge quite unre lated to economics, a nd consequently untouched by t he revolution in economic theory. humanities were content " to stimulate, " " to offer diversion, " and "to be interesting . " History was loosened u p to y i e l d " cultural history. " Here Fuchs's work has its place. Its greatness l i e s in its reaction to this state of a ffa i rs ; its p r obl e ms lie in the fact that it contrib utes to th is state. From the ve r y begin ni ng, Fuchs m a d e i t a principle to aim for a mass r e a d ersh i p . 2 1 At that time, only a few peopJe rea lized how m u ch truly depended on th e materialist ed u ca ti o n a l e ffort. The hopes and ( more i mpor t a nt ) the
1 22
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R E C E PT I O N
fears of those few were expressed i n a d e bate that left traces i n the Neue Zeit. The most important of these is an essay by Korn e ntitled " Proletar iat und Klassik " [Proletaria t and Classicism] . This essay deals with the concept of heritage lErbeJ , which has again become important today. Ac cording to Korn, Lassalle saw German i dealism as a heri tage bequeathed to the working class. Marx and Engels understood the matter differently, however. T h ey d i d not consider the social priority of the work i ng class as
. . . a
heri
tage ; rather, they derived it from the p ivotal position of the work i ng class in the p ro d uc tio n p rocess . How can one s pe a k o f po s sess i on , even spiritual posse ssion, with respec t to a p arvenu class such as t h e modern proletari a t ? Every hour, every day, this proletariat d emo nstra tes i ts " r ight " b y mea n s o f its labor, which continuo usly reproduces the whole cul tural a pparatus. Th u s , for Marx a nd Engels the showpiece o f Lassalle's educationa l ideal n ame ly, speculative phil osop h y-w a s n o tabernacle, . . . and both fe lt
more and more drawn toward natural science. Indeed, for a cl a ss w h ich i s essentially d e fi n e d by t h e functions it performs, natural science m a y b e calle d science per se, just a s f o r t h e ruling a nd possessing class everything that i s histor ical com prises the given for m o f the i r i d eology. In fact, hi s t ory
rep resents, fo r conscio usness, the category of possession in the s a me way that c apital represents, for economics, the d omination over past labor.22
T h is critique of historicism has a certain weigh t. But the reference to natural science-as "science per s e " -for the first time affords a clear view of the d angerous problematic informing the educationa l question. Since the tim e of Bebel, the prestige of natural science had d o minated the d ebate. Bebel's main work, Die Frau und der Sozialismus [Woman and Socialisml , sold 200,000 copies in the thirty years that p a ssed between its first pub lication and the appearance of Korn's essay. Be bel's high regard for natural science rests not only on the c alcul able accuracy of its re su lts, but above a.l l on its practical Llsefulness.L1 Somewhat later, the natu ral sciences assume a similar p osition in Engels' thinking when he be lieves he has refuted Kant's phenomenalism by p ointing to techno logy, which through its achievements shows that we d o recognize " things in themselves . " It is above a ll i n its capacity as the foundation o f technology that natural science, which for Korn appears as science per se, makes this possible. Technology, however, is obviously not a purely scientific d evel opment. It is a t the same time a historical one. As s uch, i t forces an exam ination of the attempted positivistic and undialectical separation between the natural sciences and the humanities. The questions that h umanity brings to nature are in part cond i tioned by the level of production. This is
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O L L E CTO R A N D H I S T O R I A N
1 23
the point at which positivism fails. In the development of technology, it was a ble to see only the progress of natural science, not the concomitant retro gression of soci ety. Positivism overlooked the fact tha t this development was decisively conditioned by ca p italism. By the same token, the positivists among the Social Democratic theorists failed to understand that the in creasingly urgent act which would bring the proletariat into possession of this technology was rendered more and more precarious because of this d evelopment. They misunderstood the d estructive side of this develop ment because they were alienated from the destructive side o f dialectics. A prognosis was d ue, but failed to materialize. That failure sealed a process characteristic of the past century: the bungled reception of tech nology. The process has consisted of a series of energetic, constantly re newed efforts, a l l attempting to overcome this society only by producing commodities. At the beginning, there were the Saint-Simonians with their ind.ustrial poetry.24 Then came the real ism of Du Camp, who saw the locomoti ve as t he saint of the future.2s Finally there was Ludwig Pfau: "It is qui te unnecessary to become an an gel," he wrote, "since a locomotive is worth more than the nicest pair of wings. " 26 This view of technology is straight ou t of the Gartenlaube.27 It may ca use one to ask whether the complacency l Gemutlichkeit] of the nineteenth-century bo urgeoisie d i d not stem from the hollow comfort of never ha ving to experi ence how the productive forces had to develop under their hands. This experience was really reserved for the follow ing century, which has discovered that the speed of traffic and the abil ity of machines to duplicate words and writing outstrip hu man need s . The energies t h a t technology develops beyond this threshold a re d estruc tive. First of a ll, they advance the technology of war and its propagandis tic preparation. One m ight say that this development ( which was thor oughly class c onditioned ) occurred behind the ba ck of the l ast centu ry, which was not yet aware of the destructive energies of tec hnology. This was especially true of the Social Democrats a t the turn of the century. Though they occasionally took a stand against the illusions of positiv ism, they remained largely in thrall to them. They saw the past as hav ing been gathered up and stored forever i n the granaries of the present. Although the fu ture held the prospect of work, it also held the certainty of a rich h arvest. III
This was t h e period i n which Eduard Fuchs came o f age, a n d which en gendered d ecisive aspects of his work. To put it simply, his work partici-
1 24
P R O D u eT I O N I R EP R O D u eT I O N
pates
III
I
A N D R E C E PT I O N
a pro b lematic tha t is inseparable from cu ltural h istory. This
problematic leads quotation to be the
to the q uotation fro m
locus classicus which
One might take this
defines historical ma terial ism as
the history of culture. Isn 't this the real meaning of the passage ? D oesn 't the study of individu a l disciplines ( once the semblance o f their unity h as been rem oved ) i nevita bly coalesce in the s tudy of cu ltural history as in ventory which h umanity has preserved to the present day ?
In
truth, to
pose t he ques ti on in this way is to replace the varied and pro blema tic uni ties which intellectua l history embraces (as history of literature and art, of law and religion ) merely by a new and even m ore problematic unity. Cultural history pres ents i ts contents by throwi ng them i n to re lief, setting them off. Yet fo r the historical mate rialist, this relief is ill usory a nd is conj ured up by false conscio usness.2i1 He thus co nfronts it with reserva tions . Such reservations would be j u s tified by a mere perusal of that which has existed: wha tever the h i storical materialist surveys in a rt o r science h a s , withou t exception, a lineage h e can n o t observe without hor ror. The products of art and science owe their exis tence not merely to the effort of the great geniuses who created them, but also, in one degree or another, to the anonymous toil o f their contemporaries. There is no docu ment of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism . No cultura l history h a s yet done j ustice to this fun d am ental state o f af fairs, and it can hardly hope to do s o . Nevertheless , t h e crucial el ement d oes not lie here. If t h e conc ept of culture is pro blematic fo r historical material ism, it cannot conceive of the disintegratio n of culture into goods which become o bj ects of p osses sion for mankind. Historical materi alism sees the work of the past as still u ncompleted . It perce ives n o epoch i n whi ch that work could, even i n part, drop conveniently, thing-like, into mankind 's lap . The concep t o f cul ture-as t h e em bodiment of crea tions considered independent, if not o f the producti on process in which they origina te, then of
a
prod uction
process in whic h they con tinue to s urvive-has a fetishistic q uality. Cul t ure appears reified . The h istory o f cul ture would be nothing but the sedi ment formed jn the consciO llsness of human beings by memorable events, events s tirred up in the memory by no genuine-that is to say, poli tical experience. Apart fro111 this, o ne canno t ignore the fact that thus far n o work of histo ry undertaken on a cultural-historical basis has escaped this prob l ematic. It is obvious in Lamprecht's massive Deutsche Geschichte man History J,
a
[Ger
book which for understandable reasons has more tha n
once been criticized by the Neue
Zeit.
" As we k now, " Mehring writes,
" La mprecht is the one bo urgeois his torian who came closest to historical
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O L L E C T O R A N D H I ST O R I A N
1 25
materialism . [But] Lamprecht stopped h alfway. . . . Any notion of a h i s torical method disappears when Lamprecht treats cultural and economic developments a cco r din g to a specific method and then proceeds to com p i le a history of simultaneolls p olitical developments from other histori ans. " 29 To be Sllre, it m akes no sense to present cultura l h istory on the ba s is of pragmatic historiography. Yet a dialectical history of culture i n itself is even more devoid of sense, since the continuum of history-on ce blasted apart by dialectic-is never dissipated so widely as it is in the rea lm known as culture. In short, c ultural history only seems to represent an advance in in sight; actually, i t does not entail even the semblance of an advance in the realm of dialec tics. For c ultural history la c k s the destructive element which a uthenticates both di alectical thought and the experience of the di alectical thinker. It may a ugment the weight of tbe treasure accumul a ting on the back of. humanity, b u t it does not provide the strength to sha ke off this burden so as to take control of it. The sa m e is true for the socialist educationa l efforts a t the turn o f the century, which were guided by the star of cultural history.
IV Against this background, the historical contours of Fuchs's work become a pparent. Those aspects of his work which are likely to endure were wrested from an intellectu al constellation that could hardly h ave ap p eared less propitious . This is the point where Fuchs the collector tau ght Fuchs the theoretician to comp rehend much that the times denied him. He was a collector who strayed into areas-such as caricature a n d pornogra phic imagery-which sooner or la ter meant the r uin of a whole series of cliches in traditional art history. First, it should be noted that Fuchs had broken comp letely with tl1e cl assicist conception of art, whose traces can still be seen in Marx. The concepts through which the bourgeoisie developed this notion o f art no longer play a role in Fuchs's work; neither bea utiful semblance [det' schone Schein] , nor harmony, nor the unity of the manifo ld is to be found there. And the collector's robust self-assertion (which a liena ted F uchs from classicist theories) sometimes to classical antiquity makes itself felt-deva statingly blunt-with itself. In 1 9 08, drawing on the work of Slevogt a n d Rodin, Fuchs p ro p h e sied a new beauty " which, in the end, will be infinitely greater than that of antiquity. Whereas the latter was only the highest animalistic form, the new beauty will be filled with a lofty spirituaJ and emotional content. " 30 In short, the order of va lues which d etermined the considera tion of
1 26
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D R E C E PTI O N
art for Goethe a nd Winckel mann has lost all influence i n the work o f FuchsJI O f course, i t would b e a mistake t o assume that the idealist view of a rt was
entirely unhinged . Tha t cannot happ e n u n til the
disjecta membra which idealism contains-as " historical representa tion n on the one hand and " a pprec i a tion " on the other-are merged and there by surpassed . This effort, however, is left to a mode of historica l science which fas h ions its o bj ect not out of a tangle of mere facticities but out of the num bered group o f thre ads representing the woof o f a past fed into the warp o f the p resent . (It would be a mistake to e quate this woo f with mere c ausal connection. Ra ther, it is thoroughly d ialectical. For centuries, threads can b ecome lost, o nly to be picked up again by the present course o f history i n a disj ointe d a nd i nconspicuous way. ) The histo rical o bject removed from pure facticity does not need a ny " appreci a tion. )' It does not offer va gue a n a l ogies to actu a l ity, but constitutes itself in the precise dialectical pro blem [Aufgabe] which actuality is o bliged to resolve. Tha t is i ndeed what Fuchs i n tends . If nowhere else, his intention may be felt in the p a thos which often makes the text rea d l i k e a lecture. This fact, how ever, also indica tes that much o f w hat he intended did not get beyond i ts mere b eginnings. Wha t is fundame ntally new in his intention finds direct expression primarily where the material meets it halfway. This occ urs in his interpreta tion of iconography, in his contemp latio n of mass art, in his examination o f the tech ni q ues of reproduction. These are ' the pioneering aspects o f Fuchs's work, and are elements of any future materialist con sideration of art. The three a b ovementioned motifs have one thing in common: they re fer to forms of k nowledge w h ich could only p rove destructive to tradi tiona l conceptions of a rt. The concern with techniques of r e production
,
more than a ny o ther l ine of research, b rings out the crucia l importa nce o f reception; it thus, within certain limi ts, ena bles u s t o correct the p rocess of reification which takes place in a work of art. The con s ideration o f mass art l eads t o a revisi on o f the concept of geni us; i t reminds
LlS
to
a void giving p riority to inspir a tion, which contributes to the genesis of the work of art, over and against its material character [Faktur] , which is what allows inspiration to come to fruition. Finally, iconographic inter preta tion not on l y proves indispensa ble for the study of reception and mass art; it prevents the excesses to which any formalism soon lea d s . J1 Fuchs had to com e to grips with formalism. WOlfflin's doctrine was gaining acceptance at the same time tha t Fuchs was layin g
the founda
tions of h is own work . In Das individuelle Problem [The Pro b lem o f the Individu a l] , Fuchs el a b o rates on a thesis from W6lfflin's Die klassische
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O LL ECTO R A N D H I STO R IA N
Kunst
1 27
[Classic Art] . The t hesis runs as follows : " Qu a ttrocento and
Cinq uecento as stylistic concepts cannot be characterized simply in terms
o f subject m a tter. The phenomenon .
.
.
indicates a development of artis
tic vision which is esse ntial ly independent of any particu lar attitude of mind or any pa rticular idea o f b e a u ty
.
" .1.1
Certainly, such a formulation
can be an affront to histo rical materialism. Yet it also contains useful elements . For it is precisely historical materialism tha t is interested in tracing the c h anges in ar ti s t ic vision not so much to a changed ideal of be au ty as to more e le m en ta ry processes-processes set in motion by eco nomic a nd technologic a l transformations in production . In the above case, one would ha rdl y fail to benefit from a s king what economical ly conditioned changes the Renaissance brought about in housing construc tion . Nor would it be unp rofita ble to ex a m i ne the role played by Renais sa nce p a i n ti ng in prefig u ring the new architecture and in illustra ting its e mergence, which Renaissance p ainting made possible . H W6 lfflin, of course, touches o n the q uestion only in p assing. But w llen Fuchs retorts that " i t is precisely these fo rmal e lements that cannot be explained in any o th er way tha n b y a cha nge in the mood of the times, " 3 5 he points di rectly to the dubious status of cultu ral-his torica l categories, as discussed a bove. In more than one passage, it becomes clear that polemic a nd even dis cussion are not characteristic of Fuchs as
a
wri ter. As pugnacious as he
may appear, his arsenal does not seem to include the eristic d i a lectic-the dialectic which,
accord
ing to Hegel, " unites with the strength o f the op
ponent in orde r to des troy him from within . " Among the scho lars who followed Marx and Engels, the destructive force of th o u ght had weak ene d and no longer d ared to cha l le nge the centu ry The multitude of .
st r u ggles bad a lready slackened the te ns i on in Mehring's work, though his Lessing-Legende r e m a i n s a considerable achievement. In this book, he sh ow e d what enormous political, scientific, and theoretical energies were enlisted in the creat ion o f t he works of the classic period. He of h is belletristic contempothus affirmed his d i s taste fo r the lazy raries. M ehring came to the bold
tha t art could expect its rebirth
on l y th r o u gh the econo mic and p o li tical victory of the proletariat.
He also arrived at the unassailable conclusion th at " [art] cannot significantly intervene in the pr o l e t a ri a t s struggle for emancipa tion. " J 6 The su bs e quent development of art proved him right. Such insights led Me h ri n g with redoubled u rgency to the stud y of sc i en c e Here h e acquired the so li d ity and rigor which m a de him im m u n e to revisionism. He thus de vel oped traits in hi s character which could be called b ourgeois in the best '
.
1 28
PRO D u eTI O N ,
REP
RODU CTI O N
•
A N 0 RECE PT I ON
sense o f the term, th o u gh th ey were by n o means enough t o earn him the title of dialectical thinker. The same traits can be found in F uchs. In him the y m ay be even more prominent, i n s o fa r a s they h a ve b e en i nc orp o rated into a more expansive a n d sensu alist t a l en t . Be that as i t may, o n e c a n easily imagine his portrait in a gallery of b o u r ge o is scho l ars. One m ight ha ng his picture next to that of Georg Brandes, wi t h whom he shares a rationalistic furor, a passion fo r t hrowing l i gh t onto vast h istori cal e xp a n s e s b y means of the torch o f the Ideal (whether of pro gr es s , sci ence, or r ea s on ) . On the o th e r s i de, one c ould i m a gi n e the portrai t of eth nologist Ado l f Bas ti a n . ] 7 Fuchs resemb les the latter p art i c u l a r ly in his i n s a ti a bl e hunger fo r m ateriaL Bastian was l e g en d ar y for h is readiness to pack a s u itc a s e and set off on e xp e d i t i ons in order to resolve an iss u e, even if it kept h im a way from home for months . S i m i l ar l y, Fuchs ob eyed his i m p ul s e s w h e n e ver th e y drove him to search for new e v i d e n c e . The works of both these men wi l l re main inexhaustibl e lodes for rese arc h .
v The fol l owin g is bou n d to be a n i mp o r t an t qu e s t i o n fo r ps y ch olog i s ts :
How can an e n th us i as t , a person who by natu re embraces the positive, have such a pas si o n for caricature ? Psychologists may a n s w e r as they l i k e-bu t there can be no doubt in Fuchs's case . From the h is interest in a r t has di ffered from what one m i g ht call " ta k i n g p le a s u r e in the b ea u ti fuL " From the b e g in nin g , he has mixed truth w it h pl a y . Fuchs never ti r e s of stressing the value of carica ture a s a source, as a u tho r i ty. "Truth lies in the extreme � " he occ a s i o n a l ly remarks. But he goes further. To him, caricature is " in a certain sense the form . . . from which a ll ob jecti ve art arises . A s i n gl e glance into ethnogr ap h ic museums furnishes proof of this s t a te me n t . " .� S When Fuchs adduces pre h i s tori c peoples or chil dren's d rawings, the concept o f caricature is per haps br o u g h t into a proble matic context; yet his ve h em en t interest in an artwork's more dras tic aspects, whether of form o r content,J9 manifests i ts el f all the more originally. T h is interest runs t h r o u gho u t the entire expanse of his work. In the J ate work Tang-Plastik [Ta ng Sculptur e ] , we can still read the following: The grotesque
is th e intense
heightening of
what is sensually imagin able.
In this sense, grotesque figures are an exp ression of dIe robust health of an age . . . .
Yet one cannot
dispu te the
fact that the motivating forces of the and sick brains a lso
grotesque have a crass cou n terpoint. Deca dent times
1 29
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O L L ECTO R A N D H ISTO R I AN
incline toward g rotesque representa tions. In such cases t he grotesque is a
individuals in ques a nd of existence appe ar insol uble. One can
s hocking reflection of the fact tha t for the t i mes and tion, the problems of the world see
at
a gla nce which of these two tendencies
behind
a
grotesque fantasy.40
This passage is instructive. It makes especia lly clear what the broad appeal and popularity of Fuchs's work rests on-namely, his gift for tak ing the basic concepts informing his presentation and connecting these directly with valuation. This often occurs on a massive scale.4 l Moreover, these valuations are always extreme. They a re bipolar in natu re, and thus polarize the concept with which they are fused. This can be seen in his depictions of the grotesq ue and of erotic caricature. In period s of d e cline, erotic caricature becomes " titilla tion " or " smut, " whereas in better times it " expresses su p era bundant pleasure and exuberant strength. " 42 Sometimes Fuchs ba ses his notions of val ue on the poles of "flourishing" and " deca dence " ; sometimes, on those o f " sickness " and " he alth. " He steers c lear of borderline cases in which the pro blematic character of such notions might b ecome apparent. He prefers to stick to the " truly great/' for it has the preroga tive of sometimes "overwhelming us through ut most s i mplicity. "43 He has little appreciation fo r disjointed peri ods of art such as the Baroque. For him, too, the great age is sti l l t he Renaissance . Here, his cult of creativity mai ntains the upper hand over his dislike of classicism. Fuchs's notion o f creativity has a strongly biological slant. Artists from whom the author distances himself are portrayed as lacking in viril ity, while genius appears with attri butes that occasionally bord er on the priapic. The mark of such biologistic thinking can be found in Fuchs's judgments of El Greco, Murillo, and Ribera . "All three became clas sic representatives of the Baroque spirit because each in his way was a ' th warted ' eroticist. "44 One mllst not lose sight of the fact that Fuchs de veloped his categories at a time when " pathography" represented the ul timate standard in the psychology of art and M,6bius a nd Lom broso were considered authorities.45 Moreover, B u rckhardt had greatly enriched the concept of genius with illustrative material in his i nfluential Kultur der Renaissance. 46 From different sources, this concept of genius fed the same widespread con viction that creativity was above all a manifesta tion of s upera b undant s trength. Similar tendencies later led Fuchs to concep tions akin to psychoanalysis. He was the first to make them fruitful for a esthetics.
1 30
PRODUCTION, R EPRODUCTION , AND RECEPTION
The erupti ve, the i mm e d i a t e , which in t his view is c h a r a c te r is t ic of ar tistic creation, also dominates F uc h s 's und e rs ta nd i ng of the wo rk of art. Thus, fo r him, i t is often no more than a quick leap fr o m apperception to ju d g m e nt. Indeed, he t hi n k s that the " impression " is n o t only the self-evi d e n t imp e t us tha t a v i ewe r receives from an a rtwo rk, but the category of c o ntempla ti o n itself. This is s umma r i ze d in his remarks a b o u t the Ming p e riod , whose artistic formalism he tre a ts with critical reserve . These w o rks " ulti m atel y . . . no l o n ge r achieve, and sometimes do not even a p pr o a ch , . . . t he impression that wa s produced . . . by the s upe r b lines o f Tang a rt . " 47 This i s how Fuchs th e w r iter a c qui res h is par ti cula r and ap o dictic (not to say rustic) sty l e . I t is a s ty l e whose cha racteristic q u a l i ty he formulates masterfully in Die Geschichte der erotischen Kunst [The Hi s tory of Erotic Art] . Here he declares: " From the correct emotion to the c o r re ct and co mp lete d e cip her ing of the e ne rg ies o pe r a t in g in a wor k of art, there is a lways b u t a s i n g l e step . "48 Not everyone can ac hi ev e s u c h a s t y le ; Fuchs had to pay a p r i ce for i t . In a w o rd : he lacked the gift of e xc i t ing wonder. There is n o doubt tha t he felt this lac k . He tried t o compen s ate for it in a variety of ways. Thus, he liked nothing better th a n t o sp e ak of the secrets he s trives to uncover in the psychology of creation, or of th e ri d dl es o f h i sto ry that find th e ir s olution in materialism. Yet the im pulse toward immediate m astery of th e facts, an i mp uls e wh ich had al r e a d y determined his notion of creativity as well as his und e rst an d in g of receptio n, ultimate l y comes to d o m inate his a n a l ys i s . The co u rse of the h isto r y of a r t a ppe a r s " n ecess a r y, " the ch a r a cte r i s ti c s of st y l e appear " or gan ic , >' and e v en the most pe c u l i a r art forms app e a r " l o gi ca l . " One gets the imp re ss i on that in th e course of his analysis these te rm s occur less fre que ntl y than at first. In hi s work on the Tang period, he still s a y s tha t the fairy creat u res in the p ainting of th a t time seem " a b s o l u tel y l o gical " and " o rganic, " with their h orns and their fi e r y wings. " Even the huge ears of the elephant have a l o gi ca l effect; and th e w a y t h e y stand there is likewise a l w a ys log i c a l . It is never a matter of mer e l y contri ved concepts, but al w a y s of an i d e a which has ass ume d a li vin g, b r ea th i n g fo r m. "49 Imp l i ci t here is a series of conceptualizations which a re i n ti m atel y con nected with the S o c i a l Democratic doctrines of the peri o d . T h e pro fou nd effect of Darwinism on the d e v e l o pm e n t of the socialist un der st and i n g of histo ry is well known . D u ring the time of Bismarck's p ersecu ti o n of t he Soci alists, the D arwinian i n fl uen ce served to maintain the party's faith a nd determinat i on in its struggle . Later, in the p e r i o d of revi sionism, the e v o lu t io n a ry view of h ist o r y burdened the concept of " devel opment" m ore and more as th e party beca me less wi l l i n g to risk what
E D UA R D F U C H S , C O L L E CTO R A N D H I ST O R I A N
1 31
it had gained in the s truggle a g a i ns t capitalism.50 H i st o r y assumed d eter
m i nistic tra i ts: the victory of the party was " i nevitable . " Fuchs always r emained aloof from r ev isi onis m ; his p ol i ti ca l instincts a nd h is militant nature inclined hi m to the left. As a theoretician, however, he could not remain free from those influences . One can feel them a t work every where. At th a t time, a man l ike Ferri traced the pri nciples and even the ta ct ics of Social Democracy b a c k to natural laws .s l Ferri held t ha t de ficiencies i n the knowledge of geo lo g y and b iology were responsi ble fo r anarchistic d evi a t i ons . Of course, l eaders like Kautsky fought a g ai ns t
such d evia tions .s2 Nevertheless, many were s atisfied with theses which divided histo rical processes i nto
"p
hys i o l og ica l " and " pathological"
ones, or affirmed that the m a terialism o f n a t u r a l science " a u tomatically "
turned into historical materia lism once i t came i n to th e hands of the pro l etariat.53 Sim i l a rly, Fuchs sees the p rogress of human society a s
a
process
that "can no more be held back than the continuous forward mo tion of a g l a ci e r can be arre ste d . " .'14 D e t er min i s tic understanding is thus paired a stalwart optimism. Yet wi thout confid ence no class could, in the l on g r u n, hope to enter t h e p ol itic a l s phere with any success. But it ma kes a d ifferen ce whether this optim is m centers on the ac t i v e strength o f the class or on the conditi o ns under which the class opera tes . Social Democ r a cy leaned towa rd the latter-questionable-kind of o p t i m i s m . The vi sion of incipient barbarism, which flashed on the consciousness of a n En g els i n Die Lage der Arbeitenden Klassen in England [The Con d i tion o f the Wo rk i ng Class in E n gl an d ] , of a Marx in his progn o sis of c a p i t a l ist development, a nd which is to d ay fa miliar even to th e most medi ocre
with
sta tesman, was denied their epigones at the turn of the century. At the time Condorcet p ublicized the doctrine of p rogress, the bo urgeoi s ie had
stood on the brink of power.55 A century later, the proletariat found itself i n a d i ffere n t position: for the p roletariat, this doctrine could awaken i l l us i o ns . Indeed, these illusions still form the background occasionally re vealed i n Fuchs's h istory of art. "Tod ay's art, " he declan:s, " has bro u ght us a h undred fulfillments which in the m ost diverse qu arters exceed the a chievements of Rena issance art, and the art of th e future must certainly mean so m et hi ng stiJ I higher. " 56
VI The pathos r unning through Fuchs's co ncepti o n of h istory is the demo
cratic p ath os of 1 8 3 0 . Its echo was the orator Victor Hugo . The e c ho of that echo consists of the books in which the o ra tor Hugo addr esses
1 32
P R O D U C T I O N I R E P R O D u eT I O N
I
A N D R E C E PT I O N
himself to po s terity. Fuchs's conception of hi st ory is the same as that w h ic h H u go celebrates in William Shakespeare: " P rogre ss is th e stride o f
G o d himself. " A nd universal s uffrage appears as t he world chronometer which measures the spe e d o f these strides . Wi th the statement " Qui vote regne " [He who votes a lso rul es] , Hu go had e re c te d the ta b l e ts of d em o
cr a ti c o p ti m i s m . Even much later this optimism prod uc e d s trange fancies . One of these was t he i llusion that " all in tellectual workers, in c l ud i n g per so n s with gre a t m a t eri a l
a nd
s oc ial a d v a nta ges , h a d to be cons idered
proletarians . " For it is "an unden i a bl e fact that a l l persons who hire Ollt t h ei r services for money are hel pless v ict im s of c apit a l ism -fr om
a
pr i v y c ouncilor s trutting in his gold-trimmed unifo r m , to the most d own
tro dd e n l a b o rer. "57 T h e tablets set up by H u go still cast their s ha dow over Fu chs's wo r k. Moreover, Fuchs rem ai n s within the democ ratic tradi t ion when he a ttaches hi mself to France with p ar tic ul ar l ove. He a d mires F ra nc e
as the ground of thr ee great revolutions, a s the home of ex i les, as the s o urc e o f u t o pia n s o c i a l is m, as the fatherland of haters of tyr a n ny such as M ich el et and Q u in e t , and finally as the soil in whic h the Communards are b u r ied . 5 1! Thus lived the image of Franc e in Marx and En g e l s , and thus it was b equ e a th e d to Mehri n g . Even to Fu c hs , i t still ap p eare d as the l a n d of " the a vant -ga r d e of c u l tu r e a nd freedom. 1' H e compares the s pirited moc k er y of th e French with the low hu mor of the Germans. He c om p a re s Heine with those who remained a t h o m e . He c o mpa r es German naturalism with th e satirical n o vels of F ranc e . I n this way he has been le d , like Mehring, to sOllnd prognoses, e sp ec i a l l y i n the case of Ge r har t Hauptmann.59 France is a h om e for Fuchs the collector as well. The fig ur e of the c o l l e c tor-m o r e a ttractive the l o nger one observes it-has u p to now sel dom rec eive d its d ue . One can imagine no figure t h a t could be m o r e
tempting to Ro m a n tic storytellers . Yet o n e searches in vain among the characters of a Hoffmann, a De Q uincey, or
a
Nerval for this type, who is
motivated by d a n g eroll s though dom e sti c a ted passi ons . Roman tic figures inclu d e the t r a ve l e r,
the tzdneur,
the gambl er, a n d the virtuoso; the c ol l ec
tor is n o t among them. One lo oks in v ai n for him in the " physiologies, " which o th e rwise do not miss
a
s i n gle figu re of the P ar i s waxworks unde r
Lou is Philippe, fr o m t h e news v en d o r t o the li terary lion. A l l t h e more
im p o r ta nt there fore is th e role of the co ll ec to r in the works of Balzac. a monument to the figur e of the c o l lec tor, yet he treated i t qu ite u n r o m anti c al ly. Balzac was nev e r a n a dh e rent o f Romanticism, anyway. There a re few pl a c e s in his work where his a n ti - Ro ma nti c sta nce so surp risingly claims i ts righ ts as in the portrait of Cousin P o ns. One e le Balzac raised
EDUARD FUCHS ,
COLLECTOR A N D H I STORIAN
1 33
ment is p a r ticu l a rly cha racteristic. Though we are given a precise inven tory of t b e col lection to which Pons dedicates his life, we learn next to nothing a bo u t the h isto ry of the ac q u i s it io n of t h is collection. There is no passage in Cousin Pons that can compare with the brea thtaking SLlspense of the Goncourt brothers ' description of uncovering a rare find-a de scrip tion which appears i n their diaries. Balzac d o es not portray the col
lecto r as hun ter, wand ering t hrough the game p ark of his inventory. Ev ery fiber of h i s Pons and of his Eli e Magus trembles with exultation. This exulta tion is the prid e they feel in the incomparable treasures they pro tect with unflagging care . Balzac stresses excl usi vely his portrait of the " pos sessor," and the term " millionaire " seems to him a synonym fo r the word "collector. )' He says of Paris: "There, one can often meet a very sha bbil y dressed Pons or Eli e Magus. They seem to care for n othing, to respect nothing. They notice neither wome n nor window d isplays. They walk a l o ng as i f in a dream, their pockets empty, their gaze blank; and one wo n ders what sort of Parisian they really are. These people are mi llion aire s . They are c o l lectors , the mos t passiona te people in the world . " 60 The i mage of the collector sketched by B a l za c comes closer to the fig ure of F uchs, in all its a c ti vi ty and a bundance, than one wo uld have ex pected from a R oma n ti c . Indeed, considering the man's vi tal energy, o ne migh t say that as a collector Fuchs is truly Balzacian-a B a l zacian figure that ou tgrew the novelist's own conception. What could be more in ac cord with this conception t han a col lector whose pride and expansiveness lead him to bring repr o d u ct io ns of his prized objects onto tbe market solely in order to appear i n p u blic with his treas ures ? The fact tha t in do i n g so he becomes a ric h man is a gain a Balzacian turn. Fuchs displays not only the conscienti ousness of a man who knows h imself to be a con servator of treasures, but a lso the ex hibitionis m of the great collecto r, and this is what has led b i m to repro d u ce almost exclusively u np ubl ished illu strations in each of his works . Nearly all of these illustrations have been taken from h is own collections. For the first volume of his Karikatur der europaischen Vol/?.er [Caricature of the European Peoples] a l one, he col lated 6 8 ,000 pages of il l ustrations a nd then chose a bout 500. He did not permit a single pa ge to be reproduced in more than one p l ace. The fullness of his documentation a nd its wide-ra nging effect go hand in hand . Both attest to h i s descent from the race of bour geois g i a nts o f around 1 8 3 0, a s Drumont characterizes then}_ "Almost a l l the leaders of t h e s c h o o l o f 1 8 3 0, " writes Drumont, " had t h e s a m e extraordinary con stitution, the same fecundity, a nd the same tendency toward the grandi ose. D elacroix pa ints e p i c s o n canvas; Balzac depicts <1 whole society;
1 34
P R O D U CT I O N ,
REP ROD U CTI O N . AND RE CE PTION
and D um a s covers a 4,000-year expanse of human h istory i n his nov els . They all have backs strong e n o u gh for a ny burden. " 6 1 When the revo lution came in 1 8 4 8 , D umas p ublished an appea l to the workers of Paris in which he introduced himself as one of them. In twenty years, he said, he had wri tten 400 novels and thirty-five plays. He had created jobs for 8 , 1 6 0 people-proofreaders, typesetters, machinists, wardrobe mis tresses. Nor did he forget the claque. The feeling with which the universal historian Fuchs Laid the economic basis for his magnificent collections is
probably not wholly unlike D uma s amour-propre. La ter, this economic base made it p ossible for F uchs to wheel and deal on the Paris market with a lmost as much soverei gnty as in his own private demesne. Around the turn of the century, the dean of Paris art dealers used to say of Fuchs: " C'est Ie monsieur qui mange tout Paris " [Tha fs the gentleman who's consuming all of Paris] . Fuchs exemplifi e s the type of the ramasseur lpackratJ ; he takes a Rabelaisian d elight in h uge q ua ntities-a delight manifested in the luxurious redundancy of his texts. '
VII
Fuchs's family tre e on the Fre nc h side, is that of a collector; on the Germa n side, that of a historian. The moral rigor characteristic of Fuchs the historian marks him as a Germa n . This rigor already characterized Gervinus, whose Geschichte der poetischen Nationalliteratur [History of Poetic National Litera ture] could be called one of the first a ttempts at a German h istory of ideas.62 It is typical for Gervinus, j ust as it is later for Fuchs, to represent the great creators as quasi-martial figures. Tbis resu lts in the dominance of their active, m anly, and spontaneous traits over their contemplative, feminine, and receptive characteristics. Certainly, s u c h a representation was easier for Gervin us. When he wrote his b oo k, the bourgeoisie was in the ascendant; bourgeois art was full of political ener gies. Fuchs writes in the age of imperiali s m ; he presents the political ener gies of art po lemica l ly to an epoch whose works display less of these en ergies with every p a s s in g day. But Fuchs's standards are still those of Gervinus. In fa c t, th ey can be traced back even furthe l; to the eighteenth century. This can be done with reference to Gervinus himself, whose me morial speech for F. C . Schlosser gave magnificent expression to the mili tant moralism of the bourgeoisie in its revolutionary period . Schlosser had been criticized for a "peevish moral rigor. " Gervinus, however, de fends him by saying that " Schlosser could and would have a nswered t hese criticisms as follows. Contra ry to one's experience with novels and ,
EDUARD F U C H S , C O L L ECTO R AN D H I STORIAN
1 35
stories, one does not learn a superficial j oie de vivre by looking a t life on a large scale, as history, even w hen one possesses grea t serenity of spirit and of the senses. Through the contemplation of history, one develops not a misanthropic scorn but a stern outlook on the world and serious principles concerning life. The greatest j udges of the world and of hu manity knew how to measure external life according to their own inter nal life . Thus, for Shakespeare, D ante, and MachiaveLli, the nature of th e world mad e an i mpression that always led them to serio usness and sever ity. " 63 Here lies the origin of Fuchs ' moralism. It is a German Jacobinism whose monu ment is Schlosser's world history-a work that Fuchs came to know in his YOllth . 64 Not s urprisingly, this bourgeois moralism contains elements which collide with Fuchs's materialism. If Fuchs had recognized this, he might have been a ble to tone down this opposition. He was convinced, how ever, tha t his moralistic consideration of history and his historical materi alism were in complete accord. This was an illusion, buttressed by a widespread opinion badly in need of revision: that the bourgeois revolu tions , as celebrated by the bourgeoisie its e l f, are the immed iate source of a proletarian revolution.65 As a corrective to this view, it is enough to look at the spiritualism woven into these revolutions. The golden threads of this spiritualism were spun by morality. Bourgeois morals function un der the banner of inwardness; the first signs of this were already apparent during the Reign of Terror. The keystone of this morality is conscience, be it the conscience of Robespierre's citoyen. or that of the Kantian cos mopolitan. The bourgeoisie's a ttitude was to proclaim the moral a uthor ity of conscience; this attitude proved favorable to bourgeois interests, b ut depended on a complementary attitude i n the proletariat-one unfa vorable to the interests of the latter. Conscience stands u nder the sign of altruism. Conscience a dvises the property owner to act according to con cepts which are indirectly beneficial to his fellow proprietors . And con science readi ly advises the same for those who possess nothing . If the lat ter take this advice, the adva ntages of their behavior for the proprietors become more obvious as this advice becomes more doubtful for those who foHow it, as well as for their class . Thus it is tha t the price of virtue rests on this attitude.-Thus a class morality becomes dominan t. But the process occurs on an unconscious level . The bourgeoisie did not need consciousness to establish this class morality as much as the proletariat needs consciousness to overthrow tha t morality. Fuchs does not do j us tice to this s tate of a ffairs, because he believes that his attack must be di rected against the conscience of the bourgeoisie. He considers bourgeois
1 36
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N , A N D A E C E PT I O N
ideology to be d u plicitous. " In view of the most shame less cl ass j udg
me nts , " he s ays, " the fulsome b a b ble
about
the s ubject i ve h o nesty of
the j u dges in question merely prove s the lack of character of those who wr i te or s p ea k in th i s way. At best, one might ascribe i t to their narrow mi ndedness . " 66 Fuchs, however, d o es not th i nk of j u dgi n g the c oncept of
bona fides (good conscience ) itself.
Yet this wi l l occur to historical mate
rialists, not only b ec a u se they realize tha t the concept is the bearer o f bourgeois class moral ity, b u t a l s o because they will not fail to s e e that this concept fu rthers the s o l ida rity of moral d is o r d e r with economic a n
arch y. Younger M.arxists at l e a s t hinted at this situation. Thus, the fol lowing was said about Lamartine 's pol itics, which made excessive use of
bona fides: " Bourgeoi s . . . d e m ocracy . , . is d e pe n d e n t on this value, A demo cra t is h one s t by trade . Thus, a d e mo cr a t feels no need to exa mine the true state of a ffa i rs . " 67
Consi derations that focus more on the c o n s c i o u s interests o f ind ividu als t h a n on the behavior which is i mp o sed on their class-imp osed often u nco nscio u s l y and
as
a result of that class's p os it i on in the production
process-lead to an ov er e s ti ma t i o n of conscious elements i n the forma tion of ideology, This is e v ide n t in Fuch s 's work when h e d e cl ares : " In al l its essentials, art is the i deal ized disguise of
a
given soc i a l situ a tion. For
it is a n eternal law , . . that every domin ant p o l i tic a l o r s o c i a l situa tion is fo r ce d to i dea lize itself in order to j us tify i ts exi ste n ce ethi ca l ly. ' 6 A l
Here w e approach the crux of t h e misunders tanding, It rests on the no tion that exp l o ita t i o n conditions fals e consci ousness, a t least on the part of the exp loiter, because true consciousness woul d prove to be
a
moral
burden. This se n t e n ce may have l i mit ed va l id i ty for the pres e n t, inso far as the c lass s truggle has so decisively involved all of bourgeois life .
B u t the H b ad conscience" o f the p r iv i l e g e d i s by n o means self-evident for earlier fo r m s o f ex p l o itati o n . Not only does rei fication c l o u d rela ti ons
a mong human beings, but the real subjec ts of these relati ons a l s o rema in clouded . An apparatus of j u d ic i a l and admi nistrative bureaucracies inter
v en es between the rulers of economic life and the e xp l o it e d . The mem bers of these bureaucracies no l onger function as fu U y responsible m oral s u bjects, and the i r " sense of duty" is n o thing bu t the u n c o n s ci o us expres sion of thi s d e form a t i on.
VI I I Fuchs's m o r al i sm , which h a s left traces i n h i s historical m a terialism, was
not shaken by psychoanalysis either. C on ce rn i n g sexuality, he s ays: "All
1 37
EDUARD FUCHS, COLLECTOR A N D H ISTO R I A N
forms of sensual behavior in which the creative element of this law ot life becomes visible a re j ustified. Certain forms, however, a re evil-namely, those in which this highest of drives becomes d egraded to a mere means of refined craving for p le asu re. " 69 It is cle ar that this mo ralism bears the s ignature of the bourgeoisie. Fuchs never acqu ired a p ro per distrust of the bourgeois scorn for pure sexual pleasure and the more or l ess fantas tic means of crea ting it. In principle, to be sure, he declares tha t o ne can spea k o f " morality and immorality only in relative terms.
n
Yet in the
same passage he goes on to make an exception for " absolute immoral ity, " which " entails transgressions against the social instincts of society a nd thus, so to speak, against nature . " According to Fuchs, this view is characterized by the h i s torically inevita b l e victory of " the masses over a degenerate i ndividuality, for the masses are a lways capable of develop ment . " 70 In short, it can be said of Fuchs that he " does not question the j ustification for condemning a l l egedly corrupt drives, but rather casts doubt on beliefs a bout the history and extent of these drives. " 7 1 For this reason, i t i s difficult t o c l a rify the sexual-psychological p ro b
lem. But ever since the bourgeoisie came to power, this c larification has become pa rtic u l arly important. This is where taboos agains t m o re o r less b road areas of sexual pleasure have their place. The repressions which a re thereby produced i n the masses e ngender m asochistic and sadistic c o mp lexes. Those in power then fu rther these co mplexes by deliverin g up to the masses those o bj ects which prove most favorable to their own poli t i cs. Wed ekind, a contemporary o f Fuc hs, explored these connections . 72
Fuchs fai led to produce a soc i a l critique in this regard . Thus, a passage w here he compensates for this lack by means of
a
detour through natural
history becomes a ll the more i mporta nt. The p assage in q ues tion is his brill iant defense of orgies. According to Fuc hs, " the pleasure of o rgi astic rites is a mong the most va luable a spects of c ult ure . It is important to rec ognize that orgies a re one of the things that distinguish us from an imals. In contrast to huma ns, animals do not practice orgies. When their hunger
a n d thi rst are sa tisfied , animals will tu rn away fro m the j uiciest food and the clearest spring. Furthe rmore, the sexual d ri ve of an imals is gener all y restricted to specific and brief periods o f the yea r. Things are qu i te different with h um a n beings, a nd in particula r with creative human be ings. The latter simply have no knowledge of the concept of ' enough."'73 Fuchs 's sexual-psychological o bservatio ns draw their strength from thought p rocesses in which he deals critically with traditional norms. This enables him to dispel certain petit-bourgeois illusions, such as nud ism, which he rightly sees as a " revolution in na rrow-minded ness. �'
PR O DUCTI O N, R E P R O DU C T I O N, A ND R E C E P TI O N
"H a ppily, human be ings a r e n o t w il d a nimaJ s a ny longer, and w e ... l i k e t o have fantasy, even erotic fantasy, p l a y its part in clothing. What w e d o n o t want, however, i s t h e k i n d of soci a l organization of humanity which degra des all this. "74 Fuchs's psychological a nd his torica l understanding h a s been fruitful for the history of clo t h ing in many ways. In fact, there is hardly a s ubject a part from fashion which better suits the author's threefo ld concern namel y, his historical, soci al, a n d erotic concern. This becomes evident i n h i s very definit ion o f fashion, w hi c h , in its phrasi ng, reminds o n e o f Karl Krans. Fashion, h e s ays i n his Sittengt!schichte [History of Manners]' "i n dicates how people i ntend to manage the b u siness of public morality. "75 F uc h s , by the way, d i d not m ake the common mistake of exa mining fa sh ion only from the aesthetic and erotic viewpoints, as did, for example, M ax von Boehn.76 He d i d not fai l to recognize the role of f a shio n as a means of domination.
Just
as fashion brings out the s u btler distinctions
of social standi n g, it keeps a particularly c lose watch over the coarse distinctions of class . Fuchs d evoted a long essay to fashion in the thir d vol ume of his Sittengeschichte. T h e supplementary volume sums u p the essay's train o f thou g ht by en umerating the pr incipal elements o f fash ion. T he first element is determined by " the interests of class separ a tion." The second is pr ovi ded by " the mo de of production of private cap i tal ism," which tries to i ncrease its sales vo l ume by manifold fas h ion cha nges . Fin ally, we must not forget the " erotically sti mula ting p u rposes of fashion. "77 The cult of creati vity which runs thro ugh all of Fuchs's wor k drew fresh nourishme nt fro m his psychoanal ytic s tudies . T hese enriched hi s i nitialJ biologicall y based conception of c rea ti vity, thoug h they di d not of course correct i t. Fuc hs en thusia s tically espoused the theory that the cre a tive imp ulse is erotic in origin. His noti on of ero ticism, h o wever, re mained tied to an u nq ualified, biologica lly determined sens u a lity. Fuchs avoi ded, a s far a s possible, the theory of rep ression and o f complexes, wllicb might have modified his moralistic understan ding of soci a l and sexual relationships. Just as his his toricaJ materialis m derives things more from the conscious economic i nterest of the ind ividual than from the class interest u n consciously at work within the indi vidual, s o his f ocus on art brings the cre at ive impulse closer to conscious sens u al i ntention
than to the image-creating unconscious.7S The world of e r o tic im ages w hich Fre u d made accessible as a symbolic world in his Traumdeutung [Interpreta tion of Dreams] appear s in F uchs's work only where his own inner involvement is most pron ounced.79 In such cases, this world fills
E D UAR D FUC H S , C O LLECT O R AN D
H I ST O R I A N
139
his writing even where explicit mention of it is avo id ed. This i s evident in the m a st e rfu l characterization of t h e gr aphic art of the revolutio nary era. "Everything is stiff, taut, mi l itar y. Men d o not lie down, s i nce the
drill square does not t ol erate any 'at ease.' Even when pe o ple are sitting down, they l ook as if th ey want to j ump up. Theil' bodi es are ful l of ten sion, like an arrow on a bowstring.
. . .
What is true of the lines is l ike
w i s e true of the colors. The pictures give a cold and t inny impression ... w h en c ompa re d to p aintings of the Rococo . .
. .
The colori ng .. . had to
be hard ... and Inetallic if it wa s to go w it h the c o nt ent of the pic t ures. "80
An info r m a ti ve remark on the historical eq uiva l e n ts of fe ti s hi s m is m o re explicit . Fuchs says that "the i n creas e of shoe and leg fet is h is m indicates that the p riapic cult is b e ing superseded by th e vulva cult." The increase in b reas t fetishism, by contrast, is ev i d e n c e of a regressive dev el o pment .
" The c u l t of the covered foot or leg reflects the dominance of woman over man, whereas the cult of breasts indicates the role of woman as an
o bj ect of man's p l eas u r e . 'J81 Fuchs g a i n e d his deepest i nsi gh ts into the
symbolic realm t h r ough study o f Daumi e r. What he s ays ab ou t DallmierJs trees is one of the happies t discove ries of his e n ti re career. In th o se trees he p er ceives "a t o ta lly un i qu e s y m bo l i c form, . . . which expresses Daumier's sense of socia l responsibility a s well a s his conviction that it is societyJs du ty to protect the i nd iv id ual. ... His typical manner of dep ict ing trees . . . a lways s how s t he m with b ro ad l y o u tspread b ranches, p artic
ularly if
a
per so n is standing or resti n g u nderneath . In such trees, the
branches extend like the a rms of a giant, and a ct u a lly l ook as t hou gh th ey wo u ld s t r etch to infinit y. Th u s , the branches form
an
impenetrable
roo f w h i ch keeps danger away from all th o se who seek refuge under them. "82 This beautiful reflection lea ds Fuchs to an insight into the domi n a nce of the materna l in Daumier's worlc
IX For Fuchs, no fig ure came as vividly to l i fe as D a u mi e r. The figure o f D a u mie r accompanie d hl111 throughout his career, and o n e might a lm o st
say that this made Fuchs in t o
a
d ialecti cal thinker. Certainly, he con
ce iv e d of Daumier in al l the latter's fullness an d living contradiction. If he appreciates the maternal in Dau mier 's art and describes it wi th 1 mp r e s
s ive s k i ll , he was no less conve rs a nt with the ot he r pole-the virile a n d
aggressive side o f the figure. He was
to p o int out the a b sence o f
idyLlic ele me nt s i n D aumier's work-n ot o n l y l a n dsca p es ) an1mals, and
still
but also erotic motifs and s elf-p o rtr aits . W hat i mp resse d Fuchs
140
PRO Due T I ON
I
REPRO D UCT I ON, AND R E
C
E P T tO N
most was the element of str ife-t he agonistic dimension-in D aumi ees art. Would it be to o daring to s eek th e origin of Daumier's g rea t carica tures in a question? D aumier seems to a s k himself: "What wo u l d bour
geoi s people of my t i m e look l ike if one were to i ma gi ne their struggle for existence as t a k ing p l ace in a palaestra, an arena?" Daumier trans lated the p u b lic and p rivate l i fe of P a ris ians into the l a n guag e of the
a gon. The athleti c tension of the whole bod y-i ts muscu l ar movements arouse Da umier's greatest enthusiasm. This is not contra dicted by the fact that probab ly no one has d epi cted bod i l y enerva tion and debility as fascinatingly as Daumier. As Fuchs r e ma r ks , Daumi er 's co n c epti o n re
l a te s clos e ly to scul p ture. Thus , he hears away the types w hi c h his age h a s to o ffer-those d istorted O l y mpic champions-in ord er to exhibit them on p e d e sta l s . His studies of
and l a w ye rs prove p articularly amena
ble to th is ki nd of a n a l ysis. The elegiac humor with which D a umier likes to surround the Greek Pantheon reveals this i ns p i r a ti o n more directly. Perh ap s this is the s olutio n to the riddle which the master p osed for Baud elaire: how Daumier's caricatures , with a l l their trenchant, penetrat
ing power, could rem ain so free of ranc or. 83 Whenever Fuchs speaks of Daumier, all his energies come to life. No other subject d r a ws such di vin a to ry flashes from his connoisseurship. Here, the slightest imp ul se b ec om es i mp o rtan t . A s ingle d r a win g, so ca sual that it wo uld be a eup hem i sm to call it unfinished, suffices for Fuchs
to o ffer d eep insig h t into D a u m icr's productive mania. The d rawin g in question represents mere ly the u pper part of a he a d in which the only ex pressive parts a re the nose and e y es . Insofar
as
the sketch limits itsel f to
these features-i nsofar as it represents o n ly tile o bser ver-i t indicates to Fuchs that here th e painter's central interest is at play. For, he assu mes, every painter begins t he execution of his p ain tings a t pr ecis ely the p o i nt
in which he is most compulsively interested.84 In his wo r k on the painter, F uchs says: "A great many of Daumier's figu r es are engaged in the mos t concentrated looking, be it a ga zin g into t he distan ce, a contemplating o f
specific thin g s , o r even
a
hard look into thei r o w n inner se l v es . Daumier's
people look . .. almost with the tip s of th ei r noses."85
x Daumier turn ed out to be th e most auspicious su bj ec t matter for the
scho la r. He was a lso the collector's l uck i e s t find. With j u st ifia ble prid e , Fuchs mentions that i t was his own i niti a tive and not that of th e govern ment which led to the establishment of th e first col l ections of D aumier
EDUARD FUCHS, C OLLECTOR AND HISTORIAN
141
(and Gavarni) in Germany.86 He is not the only great collector to feel an aversion to museums. The brothers Goncourt preceded him in their dis like, which was even more virulent than his. Public collections may be Jess problema tic from a social point of view, and can be scientifically more useful th a n private ones, yet they lack the gre a t advantages of the latter. The collector's passion is a divining rod that turns him into a dis cover of new sources. This holds true for Fuchs, and it explains why he felt compeJJed to oppose the spirit which prevailed in the museums u nder Wilhelm II. These museums were intent on possessing so-called show pieces. "Certainly,�' says Fuchs, "today's museums ten d toward such a mode of collecting simply for reasons of space. But this ... does not change the fact that, owing to this tendency, we are left with quite frag mentary . . . notions of the culture of the past. We see the past ... in splendid holiday array, and only rarely in its mostly sha bby working clothes. "1)7 The great collectors distinguish t he mselves largely through the origi nali ty of their choice of subject matter. There are exceptions. The Goncourts started less with objects than with the whole that had to ensure the integ rity of these obj ects. They undertook to transfigure the interior j ust as it was ceasing to be viable. As a rule, however) collectors have been guided by the objects themselves. The humanists at the threshold of modern his tory are a prime example of this. Their Greek acql1isitions and journeys testify to the purposefulness with which they collected. Guided by La Bruyere, the figure of the collector was introduced into literature (albeit unflatteringly) with Marolles, who served as a model for Damocede. Marolles was the first to recognize the importance of graphic art; his collection of 125,000 prints forms the nl1cleus of Cabinet des Estampes. The seven-vol ume catalogue of his coll ections, published by Count Caylus in the following century, is the firs t great achievemen t of archaeology. Stosch's coll ection of gems was catalogued by Winckelmann Even where the scientific notion on supposedly bu ttressing the collection did not manage to last, the collec tion itself sometimes did. This is true of the collection of Wa ll raff and Boisseree.Arising out of the Romantic Nazarene theory, which viewed the art of Cologne the heir of ancient Roman art, the of the collection formed the basis of Col ognes museum wi th their German paintings from the Middle Ages.8il Fuchs belongs in this Jine of great and systema tic collectors who were resolute l y intent on a single subject mat ter. It h as his goal to restore to the work of art its existence within society, from which it had been so decisively cut off that the collector
142
P R O D U C T I O N, R E P R O D U C T I O N, A N D R E C E P T I O N
c o ul d find it only in the art market; there-reduced to a commodity, far removed both from its c rea tors a nd fro m those who were able to under stand it-the work of art endured. Th e f e tish of the ar t
is the m as
ter's n ame. Fr om a historical point of view, Fuchs's greatest achievem ent ma y be th a t he c leared the way for art history to be freed from the fetish of the master's signature. "Tha t is why," says Fuchs in his essay on the Tang period, "the comp lete a nonymity of these b urial gifts m eans th at on e c annot, e ven in a single case, know the name of the i ndi v i dual cre ator. This is an important proof of the fact that here it is n ever a question of individual artistic production, but rather a matter of the way in which the world and things are grasp ed
a
whole. "89 F uchs was one of the first
to exp ound the specific character of m ass art a nd thus to develop the im pulses he had received from historical m aterialism. An y study of mass art leads riec essarily to the question of the techno l ogical repr oduction of the work of a rt. "Every age has very specific tech niques of reproduction c orresponding to it. These represent the prevail ing standard of technologica l developmen t and arc . . . the result of a specific need of that age. F o r this r eason, i t is n o t surp rising that any his torical upheaval which brings to p ower . . . c la sses other than those c ur rently ruli ng ... regular ly goes hand in h and with ch anges in tech n iques of pictorial reproduc tion. This fact c a lls for c areful elucidation. "90 In sights like this proved F uchs a pionee r. In sllch remarks, he p oi nted t o ob j ec ts which would represent an educa tion al gain for historical material ism if it studied them. The technologica l standard of the a rts is o ne of the most important of his insights. If one k eeps this sta ndar d in nlind, one can c ompensate for m a ny a lax constructi o n stemming from the vague way culture is conceived in the traditional history of ideas (and oc casion ally even in F uchs's own work). The fact that "thousa nds of simple pot ters w ere capable o n the spur of the m oment . . . of creati n g prod uct s that were both technically and ar tist ically daring "91 rightly appears to Fuchs as a concrete authent ic ati o n of old Chinese art. Occasionally his techno logica l reflections lead him to illumina ting aperfus that are ahead of his time. There is no other way t o view his explanation of the fact that cari cature was unknown in antiquity. An ideal istic understanding o f history woul d no doubt see this as evidence for the classicist image of the Greeks and their " no ble simplicity a nd q uiet grandeur." H o w does Fuchs explain the m atter ? Caricature, he says, is a mass art. Tllcre c ann ot be any c a rica ture without mass distribution of its products. Mass dis tr ibution means cheap distribution. But "except for the minting of coins, antiquity has no cheap means of repr oduction. "92 The surface a rea of a c oi n is too smal l t o all ow for caricature. This is why carica ture was unknown in antiquity.
EDUARD F U C H S, COLLECTOR AND HISTORIAN
143
Caricature was mass art, l i k e the genre painting. In the eyes of con ven tional art h i s to rians , t h i s was enough to d i s g r ace these already question able forms. Fuchs sees the ma tt e r diffe rentl y. His interest in the scorned and a po cry ph a l constitutes his real strength. And as a c ollecto r, he has cleared the way to these things all by hi msel f, for Marxism s h owed him me rely how to start. What was needed was a pas s i on borderi n g on ma nia; such pass i on has left its mark on Fuchs's fea tur e s . Whoever goes th r o u gh the who le series of art lovers and d ealers , of admirers of pain t ings a nd experts in s c ulpture , as re pres e n ted in Daumier's lith o gr a p h s , will b e able to s e e how true this is. All of these characters resemble Fuchs, right down to the details of his p hys ique. They are tal l , thin figures whose e ye s s hoo t fi e r y gla nces . It has been s a id -n ot without reason-that in thes e characters Daumier conceived descendants of those gold - digge rs, the old mas necromancers, and misers ters.93 As a colle ct or, Fuchs belongs to their race. The alchemist, in h is desire t o make gold, carries ou t research o n the chem ica l s in wh i ch planets and elements come to gethe r in images of spir itua l man; by the s a me token, in sa tis fyin g the "base" desire for possess ion , this collec tor carries out research on an art in whose creations the pr od uc t ive forces and the masses co m e together in images of historical man. Even his late works s tiH t e s tify to the passionate interest with which Fuchs t urn e d to ward these i m a ges . He writes: "It is not the least of the g lo r ies of Chinese turrets th a t they are th e p ro duct of an anonymous p opu l a r art. There is no heroic lay to comme mora t e their creators. "94 \Vhet her devot in g s uch attention to anonymous ar t ists and to the objects that have preserved the traces of thei r hands would not contribute more to the humanization of manki nd than th e cllit of the l ead er- a cult which, it seems, is to be in flicted on hum an i ty on ce a gai n -i s some th i ng that, like so m u ch else that the p ast has vain l y s tri ve n to teach us, must be d e cided , over and ove r, by the fllture. Published in the
Zeitschn/t fiir Sozialforschung,
1937. GesammeIte Schriften, II, 465W, Jennings. A previous translation by
fa ll
505. Translated by Howard Eiland and Michael Knut Tarnowski (New York, 1975) was consulted.
Notes
1 . The German writer, collector, and cultural critic Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940)
j o ine d the Social Democratic Party in 1886 and was imprisoned in 18881889 for political activity. He lived in Berlin fr o m 1900 to 1933, before emi grating to Paris. He was friends with Franz Me hr i n g (see note 2 below) and was Mehring's literary executor a fter his death. He is be st known for his
144
PRODU C TIO N , REPRODU C T I ON,
Illustrierte Sittengeschichte /Jom Mitte/alter
trated Hi st o r y of Manners from
1909-1912; 1926)
and Die
the
AND
his
RECEPTION
zur Gegenwart (An Illus
Middle Ages to the Present; 3 vols.,
Geschichte del' erotischell Kunst (The H i s tory of
Erotic Art; 3 vols., 1908; 1922-1926). B enj amin's essay on Fuchs was com miss ioned for the Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschul1g in 1933 or 1934 by Max Horkheimer, wh o had testified at one of the trials in which Fuchs was prose cuted for his studies of erotic art. Benj a min, who was also pers o nall y ac quainted with Fuchs, interrupted his p re p ara tor y studies for the eral times be tween the summer of 1934 and the beginni ng of 1937; wa s fina ll y written in January and Fe bruar y 1937. Al th ough Benjamin had r e p e a tedly com pl a ined about his difficulties wit h the Fuc hs project in his le t with ters of the two years preceding, he confessed himself re l atively
the finished product, which con tains tion
of a
k ey
aspect of
reading by which
a
ncar
the begi n ning a concise formula
his theor y of "h is torical materialism"; the process of
historical object is loosed from tlle
"continuum of histor y " (see
notes
traditional
historicist
10 and L9 b el ow) to become part of the
reader's o wn present-day experience, s uc h experience constitLlting an "after life" of the o bject. Before publishing the ess a y, the editorial board of the Zeitschrift fUr Sozjalforschung insisted on cutting its
first pa ra gra p h, which It was rest ored for
was fe lt to be too exclusively ori e n ted toward Marxism. th e
ess a y 's rep ubl ica ti on
in B enj a min's Gesammelte Schriften in 1977. For
th is translation of "Eduard Fuchs, def Sammler und del' Historiker," the edi
tors consulted the
t ra ns la t i on by Kingsley Shorter (1979).
2. The w o rk of Georgi Va len t i n ov ich Plckhanov (1856-1918), the R uss ian po
l itical
theorist and
Menshevik
revol utionary, was
a ma j or
influe nce on the
developmen t of Marxi s t aesthetics. Franz Meh ring (1846-1919), German h istori a n and journalist, wrote about lite rary history from a socialist per spective; see his Zur Literaturgeschichte: Von Hebbel
his
Gorki (Berlin:
Soziologische Verlagsanstalt, 1929) and Aufsatze zur deutschen U(J11
Hebbel
bis
Schweichel (Berlin:
3. Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826-1900) and August
o thers , founded th e Social
Bebel (1840-1913),
among
De mocra ti c Workers' Party of Germ an y in 1869.
4. Karl K a ll ts ky, "Franz tvlehring," Die Neue Zeit,
22, n o.
1 (Stuttgart, 1904):
103-104. [Benj amin's note. Marx viewed Ferdinand Lassal le (1825-1864), a
founder
of the move me nt for social
d emocracy
in Germany, as unaccept
a bly reformist and opportllnistic.-Trans.] .5. Cited in Gu stav Mayer, Friedrich Engels: Elite Riogl'aphie, vo!' 2: Friedrich Engels tmd del' Aufstieg del' Arbeiterbewegung
in Europa [Fri edric h Engels (Berlin, "1933), pp. 450-
and the Rise of the Labor Movement in Europe]
451. I Benjamin's note] 6. This thought appears in
the earl i est studies on Feuerbach and is expressed hy of p ol itics, of law, of science, . . . of on." Marx-Engels Archiv, vol. 1, ed. David Riazanov
Marx as follows: "There is no history
art, of religion,
a nd
so
145
E D U A R D F U C H S, C O L L E C T O R A N D H I STOR I A N
(Frankfurt am M a i n, 1928), p. 301. I Benjamin's note. See W. Lough's trans lation of The German
lected Works,
Ideology
in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
Col
vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 92.
Trans.]
7. See J ohann Wolfgang von Goeth e, Gede11kausgabe del' Werke, Briefe und Gesprache, voL 23 (Zurich, 1950), p. 198 (letter ofJ n ne ] ], 1822, to Evon
Muller) . Friedrich von Muller CI779-1849} was the state
chancellor of
the
G rand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and a clo se friend of Goethe. 8. Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) was one of the great German-language pro se stylists of the nineteenth century, best known for his stories and the novel Del' griine Hein ric h (Green Henry ; 4 v ol s . , 1854-1.855, revised version
"1879-1880). See Benjamin's ess a y Selected
Writings, Vo/tl1ne 2:
"Gottfried Keller" (l927),
in B e nj a m in ,
1927-1934 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni
versity Press, :I 999), pp. 51-61.
9. It is the dialectical construction which distinguishes that which conce rn s
LlS
as ori gin ary in historical experience from the pieced-together findings of the factual. "What is original [ursprilnglich-that is, of the origin] never allows
itself to be recogni zed in the naked, obvious existence of the factieal; its rhythm is a ccessible only to
a
dua l insight.
This insight
... concerns the fore
history and after-history of t he originaL" Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen
Trauersp i el s
Benj am in, The Origin
(Berlin , 1928), p. 32. [Benjamin'... nore. See of German Tragic Drama, trans. John 0 borne (Lon
don: Verso, 1977), pp. 45-46.-Trans.] 10. Erotische Kunst (Er otic Art), vol. "1, p. 70 [Benjamin's note. Benjamin cites
Leopold von Ranke, Geschichte der romal1ischen und germal1ischen uon
Volker
1494 bis 15'14 ( Hist ory of the Germanic and Romance-Language Peo
ples from 1494 to 15"14), 2nd ed. (Lei p zig, 1874), p. vii. Ranke (1795-1886) was
a
p rofes s or of history at Berli n (l825-1871) and a founder of the
modern school of h istoriograph y, which strove for
a
scientific obj e ctivity
source material ra ther than legend and tradition. The ambition to describe "how it re a lly was" in t he past, a p art from the consciousness of the historian in his prese nt day, is a defining characteristic of nine[centh century hi s tori cism .- Trans.] 11. Eduard Fuchs, ed., Gauami: Lithographien (Munich: L a ngen, 1925), p. 13. grounded in
[Benjamin'5 note 1
12. See Mehring's Die Lessing-Legende: Eine Rettung IThe Lessing Legend: A Rescue}
(Stuttgart, 1893).
M ehring directed his polemic against the misuse
made of the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) by
patr iotic German literary historians. These historians viewed the flourislling of literatur e in ei ghte enth -ce n tury Germany-exemplified by Lessing-as
tied to the rise of Prussia u n der Frederick II. Th e
book's
aim was to rescue
Lessing from the bourgeois critics ' misinterpretation of him. Mehring quotes approvi n gly from Ge org Gottfried Gervinus (1805-1871), a German histo-
146
P R O D U C Tl 0 N, R E P R O D U C Tl 0 N , A N D R E C E P Tl 0 N
r i an , li terary histori a n,
and
p oliticia n , who h eld profes sorshi p s at Heidel
berg and Gottingen and was a delegate to the German National Asse m bly in
Frankfurt in
1848.Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805-1876) wrote a pop
ular Lessing biography, LessirIg: Sem Leben UJld seine Werke (Berlin, "1859). Thcodor \Vilhelm Danzel (1818-1850) wrote Gotthold Ephraim Lessing:
Sein
Leben tmd seine Wake (Berlin, 1880);
Erich
Sc h midt wrote Lessing:
Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Sc h l'iften (Berlin, 1884). 13. See
J ulia n Hirsch, Die Genesis des Ruhmes: Ein Beitrag ZUf Methodenlehre
del' Geschichte JThe Genes i s of Fame: A Contribution to His toric a l
Met h od
o logyJ ( L e ipzig, 1914). 14.
The conserva tive government of ChancellOl' Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) l aunched an anti-Socialist c a mpaign in 1878. A repressive ant i -Social is t bill, as a weapon against the Social Democrats, was pass ed and re mained in effect t h roug h the 18805.
15. See Eduard Fuchs,
1848 in
1O
del'
der
3,
no.
l05-126; also, Ein vormarzlich es Tanzidyll: Lola Montez in der Karikatur [A Prerevolutionary Da n ce Idyll: Lol a !vlontez in Caricature] (Berlin, 1902).
Lola Montez was the stage name of Marie Gilbert (1818?-1861), an Irish
dancer and ad venturess who, as mistress of Louis I
of Ba v aria, controlled the
Bavarian government in 1847-1848. 16. See Wilhelm Bios, Die franzasische Revolution: Volksthiimliche Darstellung
der Ereignisse ulld Zustdnde in Frankreich uon 1789
bis
1804 (St u ttgar t ,
1 888). 1.7. The German j o urna l is t
Maximilian Harden (1861-1927) founded the weekl y
Die Zu k u llft in 1892. 18. A. Max, "Zur Fr<1ge del' O rgan i sa t i on des Pr oleta ria ts clel' Intelligenz" (On the Question of the Organizat ion of the Pro l e t<1 r i at of In te llec tuals) ,
Neue Z ei t,
Die
13, no. 1 (Stuttgart, 1895): 645. [Benjamin's note]
19.Nietzs c he wrote as early as 1874: "As an end .. . result, we
have the generally
acclaimed 'popularization' ... of science-that is, the infamous rec ll tt in g of the garment of science to fit the body of:1
'mixed
p u blic '-if we may here
use t a i lor 's German to describe a tailor- like activity." Friedrich Nietzsche,
Unzeitge111(isse
Betrachtungel1 (Untimely Observations), vol. 1 (Leipzig,
] 893), p. 168 ["Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der H istori e fur das Leb en " ] . [Benjamin's note. See, in En glis h , On the
History fot
and Disaduantage of
trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis: Hacke tt, 1980), p. 42
(section 7), Benjamin is quoting a key work from the ea r l y peri od of the ph i losopher Nietzsche (1844-1900), one decisive for his own theory of reading. At a c limac tic point in section 6, Nietzsche writes, in express op position to the historicist dogma
of o bj ectivity,
that "Only f1'Om the sta ndpoint of the
highest strength of the IJresent may you interpret t h e past" (p. 37).-Trans.]
20.
Hermann
Schultz-Delitzsch (1808-"1883) was a German lawyer, economist,
E D UAR D FUC H S, COLLECTOR AND
21. 22. 23.
24.
H ISTOR I A N
147
and sociologist who worked to pro mo te the organization of co oper at i ve so c iet ies and people's banks, He is rega rded as the foun der of workingmen's coopera tive associations in Germany. "A cultural historian who takes his task se riously must always write for the m asses. " Erotische Kunst, vol. 2, part 1, preface . [Benjamin's note] C. Korn, "Proletariat und Klassik" (Proletariat and C l assic i sm) , in Die Neue Zeit, 26, no. 2 (Stuttgart, 1908): 414-415. rBenjamin's note] See August Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus: D ie Prau in det Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft, 10th ed. (Stuttgart, 1 891), pp. 177-179, 333-336, on the revolution in housekeeping b rought about by te chnology ; pp. 200-201, on woman as inventor. [Benjamin's notel The Saint-Simonians were followers of the philosopher and social reformer Henri de Sain t-Si m on (1760-1825), cons i de red the fou nder of French so cia li sm . His work s include Du Systeme industriel 0820-1823) and Le Nou
The Arcades Project, trans. Howa rd Eiland and Kevin McLau ghlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni vers ity Press, 1999), pp. 571-602 (Convolute U, "Saint-Simon, Railroads"). 25. B en j amin refers to the French journ a l i st Maxime Du Camp (1822-1894). 26. Cited in David Bach, " Jo hn Ruskin," Die Neue Zeit, 18, no. 1 (Stuttgart, 1900): 728. [Benjamin's note. Ludwig Pfau (1821-1894), G e rman poet, critic, and translator, published an eyewitness account ot tbe fi rst publ ic ex vemt Christianisme (1825). See Benjamin,
hibition of ph otogra phy, which took
place in Paris in 1839. He w as active in
the Revolution of 1 8 4 8, and f o un ded the first illustrated jou rna l of politica l
Germ any , Eulenspiegel. His writings on aesthetics were col lected in Kunst und Kritik (Art and Criticism ; 6 vols., 1888).-Trans.] 27. Die Gartenlaube (The Arbor) was a p opular i llustr ated fami l y ma gazine , in c irculatio n between 1 8 53 and 1937. It has lent its name to a type of senti mental no vel known as the Gartenlaubenroman. 28. The i llusory [scheinhafte] im p u lse found characteristic expression in Alfre d We ber 's welco ming address to a sociological convention of 191.2: "Culture comes into existence only ... when life has ris en above the level of util i ty and of bare necessity to form a struct ur e ." This concept of culture contains seeds of b a r b aris m , which have, in the mea n time, germinated. Cu l tur e ap pears as som ethi ng " wh ich i s sup er fluous for the continued existence of life, but is felt to be precisely ... that from which life derives its purpose." In short, culture exists after the fashion of an artwork " which p erhaps con founds e n t ire modes of life an d princi ples of living with its potentially shat tering, destructive effect, but whose existence we feel to be higher th a n e veryth i ng he alt hy and vital which it destroys." Alfred Weber, "Der s o ziologische Klllturbegriff" [The Sociological Concept of Culture] , in caricature in
Verhandhmgell des Zweiten Deutschen Soziologentages. Schriften der
2 ( T ii bingen , 1913), pp. 11-12. Twenty-five years a fter this statement was made, culture-states
Deutschen Gesellschaft fUr Sozio logie, series 1, vol.
1 48
P R O D U C T I O N, R E P R O DUC T I O N , A N 0 R E C E P T I O N [Kulturstaaten] h ave staked their bonor on resembling, o n b ec o ming, s uc h
a rtw o r k s .
[ Benj a min 's note. The Ger m an liberal eco no mist and s o c i ologis t
Alfred Weber (1868-1958) taught at B erlin, Prague, and Heidelberg.-Trans.] 29. Franz Mehring, "Akademisches,"
Die Neue Zeit,
16, no. 1 (Stuttgart, 1898):
195-196. [Benjamin's no te. S e e Ka rl L am prech t, Deutsche Geschichte, 1 2
vols. (Berlin, 1891-1909). In fluen ced by his reading o f Jac o b Burckhardt (see n ote 46 below), Lamprecht (1856-1915) upheld the the o ry that the sci ence of histo ry is social-psychological rather than
e xc lus i vely
po li tical. His
c on t r o versial book Die kulturhistorische Methode (1900) helped prompt a reexa minatio n of hi sto ric a l methods and the even tua l acceptance of social and cultural history as a legiti m a te sp her e of s ch o la r l y research,-Trans.] 30. Erotische Kunst, vol. 1, p.
1 2 5 . A basic i m puls e of Fuchs
the c o llec tor is his
continual allusion to contemporary art-which likewise comes to him par tly through the gre at creations of the past. Hi s inc o m p a rable k no wl e d ge of older caricature made po ssib l e his e a rly recognition of th e To ulo use-Lautrec , a Hea rtfiel d, and a Geo rge
Gwsz, His
worIes of
a
pas<;ion for
D aumi er led him to the work of S levo gt, w hose conception of Don Quixote seemed to him
the
only o ne compara b le to Daumiec's. His s tudies of ceram
ics gave him the authority to sponsor an Emil P o ttner, Th ro ughout his life, Fuchs had friendly rela tio n s with creative artists. Thus, it is n o t s urp rising that his a pp r o a ch to works of art is often more that of the artist than that of the h i s torian. rBenjamin's note. J o hn Heartfield (Helmut Herzfe1de; 18911968), German graphi c a rti st, ph o to gr aph e r, 4l n d designer, w as one of the
founders of B erlin Dada. He
went on
to reinvent photomontage as
a
p o liti
cal weapon. The German painter G e o rge Grosz (1893-1959) was associated first with Berlin Da d a and then with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectiv ity) . His scabrous p a intings
co mme n ted on
the consequences of militarism,
capitalism , and p o stwar conditions in Germany_ The German painter Max
Slevo g t
(1868-1932) was a pro minent member of the Berlin
Secession. Emil
Po ttner (1872-1942) was an A u s trian graph ic artist.-Trans.] 31. It
is
the values of " n o b le simpli ci ty" and " qu iet gra nd eu r " that are at is s ue
here. Such values in for m the conceptio n of classical Greek art propagated by
th e German
archaeo l ogist and art historian Johann J oachim Winckelmann
(1717-1768), whose Geschichte del' Kunst des Altertums (History of the
Art
of the A ncient s; 1764) gave the stud y of art history its foundations and
sci
a
entific me t h o d o l ogy. Goethe said that one learns nothing new when reading \X!inckelmann, but one "becomes a new man." 32.
The master of ic onograph ic
interpretation is a rgu a bly Emile Male. His re
search is limited to French cath ed ral sc u lp t ur e from the twelfth to the fi f teen th centuries and therefore does not overlap with Fuchs's s tu d ie s. [Benjamin's note. Emile Male (1862-1954), a French art histo rian and spe
cialist in
med i eval French iconography, held a c hair in art h isto ry at t he
Sorbonne. He is t he
author of
VArt
religieux du XIIle
siecle en
France
1 49
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O L L E C T O R A N D H I ST O R I A N
( 1 89 8 ;
tra nsla ted as The G o thic Image: Religious Art in Fra n c e of the Thir
teenth Centul')! ) .-Tram . ]
33.
H e i n r i ch \V6 I fflin, Die klassische Kunst: Eine Einfiih nmg in die ita lienische Renaissance [Class i c Art: An I n t roduction to the Italia n Rena i s s a n ce I ( M u n ich, 1 8 9 9 ) , p . 275 . I Benj a m i n 's n ote . Jaco b B urckh a r d t (see note
46
Wolfflin ( 1 8 64-1 945 ) ,
a
s tu d e n t o f
b e low), w a s t he 1110st i m p orta nt a rt h i s to r i a n
of h i s p e r i o d writing in Germa n . H e
d eve lo pe d
his a n a lysis of form , b a s e d
on a psychological i n ter preta tion o f t h e creative process, i n b ooks on t h e Re
n aissance and Baroq lle periods and on A lb r e c h t D iirer, a n d synt he si z e d h is id eas i n t o
a
comp lete a esth e ti c sys tem in h i s
chief
K Ul1stgeschichtliche
Grundbegriffe ( Prin ci ples of Art H istory ; 1 9 1 5 } .-Trans . ]
3 4 . Older panel painting showed no more tha n th e o utline of a hou s e enclos i ng h uma n figu res . The p a inte rs of the e a rly Rena issance were the first to de
pi c t
an
inte rio r space in which the re p res en t e d
[SIJielraum j .
This
figures
h a ve room to m o ve
is wha t m a d e Ucce llo's invention of perspective so over
power ing b o th fo r his contemporaries
a nd
for himse lf. From thcn o n , the
creations of p a i n tin g were i ncreasingly dev oted to people d well in g s ( rather than peo ple
as
as
inha bitants of
worshipers ) . Pai ntings p re se n t e d thcm w i th
models o f dwel l i ng, and never tired of set t i ng u p before them perspectives of th e villa. The High Re naissance, th ough m uch more spar ing in its rep rese n
ta tion of real interiors, n e ve rt h eless continued to bu i ld "
The Ci n q u ece n to h a s
human
a
on th is
found a tio n .
p articul a r l y strong feeling for t h e re lation
berween
being a nd bui l d i ng-t h a t is, for the reso n a nce of a b ea u tifu l roo m . It
can sc a rce l y imagine an e xis t e nce that is not a rchitectural ly fram e d and founded. " Wblfflin, Die klassische KunstJ p . 22 7. [Benjam in's note I
3 5 . Erotische Ku ns t, vol. 2, p. 20. [Benj amin'S note] 3 6 . Franz Meh r ing , Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie (History of Ger man Social Democracy ) , pa r t 2, Von Lassalles Offen em A n twortschreiben his
zum
Erfurter Progra m m (From Lassa l l e's P ubli c Reply to the Erfurt
Program), constituting vol. 3, part 2, of G es ch ich te des Sozialismus in Einzeldarstellungen
(A Documentary History of Soci a li sm)
1 8 9 8 ) , p. 546. [Benj a m in 's note1
3 7. Adolf Basti a n ( 1 826-1 9 0 5 ) w as a German ethnologist and tra v e l e r who , v i s iting every continent ( 1 8 5 1-1 8 6 6 ) , b e ca me of Berlin
and
a
p ro fess o r at
d i rector of the city's ethno logical museum.
3 8 . Karikatu.r, vo l . 1 , p . 4. [Be njam i n s note1 '
3 9 . Note the beautiful remark about Daumier's re n d eri ngs of p roleta ri a n wc)[n,� Il : " Wh oever rega rds s uch m a te ri al
as
mere ly a n occas i o n fo r fi ne emo ti o n
proves th a t the u ltimate motiva ting powers a t work i n effective art a r e a
cJ osed b o o k to him . . . . P reci s e l y beca use . . . these pictures h ave to do with s ometh in g quite o t h er tha n . . . 'emotio na l s u bj ects; they w ill l i ve etern ally as . . .
m ov i n g monu ments to the e ns l avemen r of m atern a l woman in the
nineteenth cen tu ry. " Del' Male r Daumier, p . 2 8 . [Benj a m i n 's note]
1 50
PRODUCT I O N , R E P RO D U CT I O N , A N D RECEPTION
40. Tang-Plastik, p . 44. [Benjamin's note] 4 1 . Note his thesis on the erotic effects of the work of art: "The more intense
the effect, the grea ter the artistic qu a l i ty, " Erotische K u n s t, vol . 1 , p. 6 8 .
[ B enj a min 's n o te] 42. Karikatur, vol . 1, p. 2 3 . [ B enj a min 's note] 43 . Dach reite1� p . 3 9 . [Benj ami n's note]
44.
Die grossen Meister der Erotik, p. 1 1 5 . [Benjamin's note]
45 . P a u l Julius Mo bius ( 1 8 5 3-1 9 0 7) was a G erma n neuro logist kno wn for his
work relati ng to pathologica l traits in men of genius, such as Roussea u , Goethe, and Ni e tzsche . Cesare Lom b roso ( 1. 8 3 6 - 1 9 0 9 ) w a s an Itali a n p hysi cian and criminologist who he l d that crim inals represent a d istinct a nthro pological typ e , cha racterized by a tavism and d egeneracy
and by specific
physical and mental stigmata
46. See Jaco b Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renai5SGnCe in Italien [The Ci vilization o f the Renai ssance in Italy] (Basel, 1. 8 6 0 ) , Burckhardt ( 1 8 1 8-1 8 9 7 ) , a Swiss historian o f art and c u ltu re, devel oped
concept o f a distinctively
European culture in the age o f the
[hat has been absorbed into
the b asic o ut look o f modern historiography. 47. Dachreiter, p. 4 0 . [Benj a min 's note] 48.
Erotische
Kunst, voL 2 , p . 1 8 6 . [Benj am i n's note]
49 . Tal1g-Plastik, p p . 3 0-3 1 . This i ntuitive and immediate way of perceiving be
comes problematic when it atte mpts to fulfill the d emand s of a materialist a n a lysis. It is well kn own that Marx never explained in any
detail
how the
re la tio n ship between superstructure and infrastructure should be tho ught of
in individua l cases. A ll we c a n d ete rm in e is
that
he envisaged a series of
mediations-transmissi ons, one might say-wh ic h interpol ate b etween the materia l rela tionships of production and the remoter d om a i n s of the s uper structure, which incl udes art , Plekhanov says the same: "When a rt, which is created by the upper classes, l acks any direct re lation to the p rocess of pro duction, this must ultimately be explained by m e ans of economic causes .
The materialist interpretation of history . . . can be appli ed
in this case
as well. It i s a pparent, however, that the ca usal connections which doubt less exist between being and consciousness-between the social relations which are founded o n ' labor' o n the one hand and aft on the o ther-are n o t readily app arent in this case. There a re some i ntermediate stages . . . present here . " (See G. Plekhanov, "Das fra nzosische Drama und die
franzosische
Ma lerei im achtzehnten J a hr hundert vom Standpu nkt der materialistischen Geschich ts au Hassung" [French D ra m a a nd Painting o f the Eighteenth Cen tu ry, from the Standpoint o f Materia l ist H istoriography ] , Die Neue Zeit, (Stu ttgart, 1 9 1 1 ) : 5 43-5 44 . ) This much is
c l e a r,
24
however: Marx's c l a s s i c a l
historical dialectic rega rd s causal contingencies as a given in th is relation ship. In h is later praxis, he became more lax a nd was often content with ana logies. This may have related to his proj ect of repl acing bo urgeois h isto-
E D U A R D FUCHS, COLLECTOR A N D H I STORIAN
1 51
fies of l ite rature and art
by materialis tic ones that were pla n n e d on a n e q u a l l y gra nd s c a l e . S uch projects a r e c h a ra ct e ris tic of the period-an aspect of the Wilhelminian spirit. M a rx's project demanded tri b u te from Fuchs as w e l l . One of the a u thor's favori te ideas, which is expressed in various w a ys , p o sited periods o f artistic rea l is m for t he mercantile nations-Holland of the seve ntee n th century, as well as China of the eigh th and ninth centu ries. Beginning with an ana lys i s of Chin ese gard e n ec o n o my, through which he explains many characteristics of the Chinese Em pire , Fuchs then turns to the new sc u l p tur e w h ic h o rigi na te d under Tang rule. The monu mental rigidification of the Han st y le gave way to increasing fre ed o m . The anon y
mous maste rs who created the pottery hencefo r th foc used thei r a ttention on the movements of men an d animals. " Ti me , " comments Fuchs, " awoke from its long s l umber in those centu ries in China . . . , for trade a lwa y s means intensified l i fe-li fe and movement. Hence, l i fe and m o ve ment had to ente r into the art of the Tan g p erio d . This is what first stri k es us abo ut i t . for example, the entire rendering still he avy and mo n u m e n t al , those
of the
animals in the Han p e r iod is
p e rio d exhibit an overall l i v e-
l iness, an d every limb is in m otion " ( Tang-Plastik, pp. 4 1 -42). This m o d e of consideration rests on mere a n a logy: m o v e m ent in tra de p a ra l l eled move ment in sculpture. We might almost call it no mina l istic . His attempts at elu cid ating the recep tion of antiquity i n th e Ren a issa nce are lik e w ise trap p ed in
a n a l o gy.
" In b o th periods the economic basis was the same, but in th e Re
naissa nce this basis had re ach e d a h igh er stage of d eve l opme nt. Both were
fo un d e d on trade in c o mmodit ie s " (Erotische Kunst, voL 1, p. 42) , Fin all y, tra d e itse lf app e a r s a s the subj ect of a rt i stic practice. And tra de, Fuchs s ays, " has to calculate with given quantities, c a n w ork o n l y with concrete and verifia ble q uantit ie s . This is how trade must a p p r oach the world and t h i ngs if i t w a nts to control them econom ic a ll y. Cons e qu e ntl y, its a esthetic consid eration of th i ngs is re a l i s tic in every respect" ( Tang-P/astik, p . 42) . We can d isrega rd the fa c t that a re pres en tation which is " r e a li s tic in every respect" cannot be fou n d in art. In pr i ncip l e, we w o u ld have to say that a n y connec tion wh ich cla ims equal v alidity for the art of anci e nt Ch ina and for tha t o f e a rl y mo d ern H olland s e e ms prob l em at i c . Indeed, such a c on nec tion does not exist. A glance at the Repu blic of Ve n ice suffices: Ven ice 's art flourished
of its trade, yet the art of P a lma Ve cchio, of Titian, or of Ver o n es e hardly be calle d real istic " in every respect. " Life as we encounter it in th is art wears a fes t ive and r eprese n tativ e aspect. On the other ha n d, work ing life in all stages of its dev e lopme nt demands a solid sense of reality. From thi s consideration the materi al ist ca nnot draw a ny conclusions a b o u t mani fe s ta tions of style. [Benjamin's note] 5 0 . Charles Darwin ( 1 8 09-1 8 82) p u b l ished his account of organic evolu tion and its operating principle, natural s el e cti o n , in the world-fa mous Origin of Spe b eh av ior in The cies ( 1 8 59 ) ; he b e c a us e
could
152
P R O D u eT I O N , R E P R O D U CT I O N . A N D R E C E PTI O N
Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex ( 1 8 7 :1 ) . The influence o f Darwinism o n t h e socia list
u nders tanding
of history was alread y evid ent i n
Germany in t h e : I 8 6 0s (much t o t h e bemusement o f Darwin himself); but only in the 1 8 90s was a true " evolutionary sociali s m " born, with the publi cation of a series of articles by the polit ical t heorist
Eduard
Bernstein ( 1 8 5 0-
1 9 3 2 ) , who, as the " father of revisionism , " envisioned a type of social d e mocracy that com bined private initiative with grad ual social reform. W hen revisionism wa s incorporated into Social Democratic ideology after the turn of the century, the d ogma tic Marxism of Kautsky and the eclectic Ma rxism of Bebel fa d ed into the background. 5 1 . Enrico Ferri ( 1 8 5 6-1 929) was an Itali an criminologist and politician who
ed
ited the socialist organ Avanti (first publi s hed in 1 8 9 8 ) ; he was later an a d herent of fascism. 52. Karl K autsky,
"
Darwinis l11 us und Marxismus, " D ie Neue Zeit, 1 3 , no. 1
( Stuttgart, 1 8 95 ) : 709-7 1 0 . [Benjamin's notel 5 3 . H. Laufenberg, " Dogma und Klassenkampf" [Dogma and Class Warfare] , Die Neue Zeit, 27, no. 1 (Stuttga rt, 1 9 09 ) : 5 74. Here the conce pt o f the " self-acting" [Selbsttatigkeit] has sunk to a sad state. The heyday of this term is the eighteenth century, when the self-regulation of the market was beginning. The concept then celebrated its triumph in Kant, in the fo r m of "
spo ntaneity, "
as well as in technology, in the form of a utomated machi nes .
[Benja min's note I 5 4 . Karikatur, v ol. 1 , p. 3 1 2 . [ B en j ami n 's note] 55. Marie Jean Antoine de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet ( 1 743-1 794 ) , French philosopher, mathematician, and politician, outl ined the progress of the hu man race from ba rbarism to enlightenment, and a r gued for the indefinite perfectibility of h uma nki nd , in Esquisse d 'ull tableau historique des progres de tesprit humain (Sketch for
a
Historical Picture of the Progress of the Hu
man Mind ; 1 79 5 ) . 5 6 . E rotische KUl1stJ vol . 1 , p . 3. [ Benjamin's note] 5 7 . A. Max, " Zu r Frage der Organ i s ation des Proletariats der Intellige nz, " p. 652. [ Ben j a m i n 's note ] 5 8 . Karikatu1� vol. 2, p. 23 8 . [Benj amin's note. J u le s Michelet {"l 79 8-'1 8 74} was a French h istorian and professor at the College de France CI 8 3 8-1 8 5 1 } . Em pha tically democratic and anticlerical, he was the author of such works as Histoire de France ( 1 8 3 3-1 8 6 7 ) and Le Bible de l 'humanite ( :1 8 64 ) . Edgar Quinet ( 1 803-1 8 75 ) was a French writer a nd politician, and a n associate of Michelet. Among his works are the epic poems Napoleon ( 1 8 3 6 ) a nd Promethee ( 1 8 3 8 ) . The Com muna rds we re those involved in the revolution ary government established in Paris in 1 8 7 1 , i n the aftermath of the Franco Prussian Wa r; the Commune of Paris was suppressed i n bloody street-fight ing that ended in May '1 8 7 1 , leaving 20,000 Communards d ead .-Trans. l 5 9 . Mehring commented on the tri al occasioned by D ie Weber [The Wea vers] i n
E D U A R D F U C H S , C O L L E CTO R AN D H I STO R IA N
1 53
D ie Neue Zeit. Parts of the summation for the defense have regained the
topicality they had in 1 8 9 3 . The defense a ttorney " ha d to point out tha t the a llegedly revolutio nary passages in que stion a re countered by others of a soo thing and appeasing character. The a uthor by no means stands on the side o f revolt, since he a l lows for the victory of o rder through the interven tion of
a
handfu l o f soldiers . " Franz Mehri ng, " Entwed er-Oder" [Either
Or] , Die Neue Zeit, 1 1 , no. 1 (Stuttgart, 1 8 93 ) : 7 8 0 . [Benj amin 's note. T he German writer Gerhart Ha uptm a n n ( 1 8 62- 1 94 6 ) was a master of natura list dra ma, as exemplified by Die Weber ( 1 8 9 2 ) , a d rama tization of the S iles ian weavers' revolt of 1 8 44 .-Tral1s. ] 6 0 . Honore de B a lzac, I. e Cousin Pons ( Paris, 1 9 2 5 ) , p. 1 62 . [Benj a min 's note.
See , in English , Cousin Pons, tran s . Herbert J . H unt (Harmondsworth: Pen-" guin, 1 9 6 8 ) , p. 1 4 6 ( Ch ap ter 1 4 , "A Character from Hoffmann's Tal es" ) . Trans· l 6 1 . Edou ard Drumont, Les Heros et les pitl'es [Heroes a n d Fools] ( Pa ris, 1 9 0 0 ) ,
pp. 1 07- 1 0 8 . [Benj a min's note. Drumont ( 1 844- 1 9 1 7) w a s an anti-Semitic and a nti-Dreyfusard j ournal i s t who founded and edi ted La Libl'e Parole. He is the a u thor o f the influential La France juive (Jewish Fra nce; 1 8 8 6 ) . Trans . ] 62. S e e Georg Go ttfried Gervinus, Geschichte dey poetischel1 Nationalliteratul' del' Deutschen,
S
vols.
( Leipzig,
1 8 3 5- 1 8 42 ) ,
specifically Histol'ische
Sch riften ( Writi ngs on History ) , vols. 2-6 . 6 3 . Georg Gottfried Gervi n us, Friedrich Christoph Schlosser: Ein Nekrolog
[Obi tuary for Friedrich Ch ristoph Schlosser l ( Leipzig, 1 8 6 1 ) , pp. 3 0-3 1 . [Benj amin's note. Schlosser ( 1 776- 1 8 6 1 ) wa s a German h istorian, author of Weltgeschichte fiir das Deutsche Volle (World History for the German Peo
ple; 1 9 vols., 1 843-1 8 57) .-Tral1s. ] 64 . T his aspect of Fuchs's work proved useful when the i mperial p rosecutors be
ga n accusing h i m o f " d is tributing o bscene writings . " His moralism was rep resented especia lly forcefully in a n expert opinion s u bmitted in the course o f one o f t h e trials, all o f which without exception e n d e d i n acq uitta l . This o pinion was written by Fedor von Zobeltitz, and its most important pass age rea d s : " Fuchs serioll sly considers himself a p reacher of moral s and an educa tor, a nd this deeply serious understanding of life-this intimate comprehen sion of the fact that his work i n the se rvice of the history of huma nity m ust be grou nded on the highest moral ity-is in itself sufficient to protect him from any suspicion o f profit-hungry specul ati on . All those who know the man and his enlightened idealism would have to s m ile a t s llch a s ll s picion . " [Benjamin's note. T h e passage b y Zobeltitz is cited in the " Mitteilung des Verlages Al bert La ngen in M ii nchen " ( P u blis her's Note, from Verlag Albert Langen in Munich ) , at the beginning of Fuchs, Die g1'Ossen Meister der Er()til� (Munich , 1 9 3 0 ) , p. 4 . -Trans. ] 6 5 . This revi sion has been ina ugurated b y Max Horkheimer i n his e s say
1 54
P R O D U CT I O N , R E P R O D U C TI O N , A N D R E C E P T I O N
" Ego is m u s u nd Freiheitsbewegung, " Zeitschrift fitr Sozialforschung, 5 ( 1 93 6 ) : 1 6 1 ft Th e documents assemb led by Horkheimer correspond to a se ries of interesting proofs on w h ich the Ult r a [ r ig h t - wi n g extremist] Abel Bonnard bases his accusati o n o f t h os e b o u rg e o i s historians of th e French Re v o l u tio n whom Chateau briand q u a i n tly cal ls " l ' ec o le a dmira tive de l a Terre u r " [ the school o f admiration for the Terror] . See Abel B on n a r d , Les Mo det"rfs [T h e Modera tes I ( Pa r is , 1 93 6 ) , pp. 1 7 9 ff. [Benj a min's n o t e . See, in English, Max Horkheim er, " Egoism and F r e e do m Movements: On the An thropology o f the Bo urgeois Era , " i n Horkhei mer, Between Philosophy and So cial Science, tra ns. G. Fr e d er i c k Hun ter, Ma tthew S. Kramer, and John Torpey ( Cambri dge ,
Mass . : MIT Press, 1 .993 ) , pp . 49- 1 1 0.-Trans. ]
6 6 . Der Maler Daum ier, p. 3 0 . [Benj amin 's no te ] 67. N o r b ert Gute rma n a n d H. L e fe b v re , La Conscience mysti{iee
(Paris, 1 93 6 ) , [ B en j a mi n 's note . Wha t Ben j a min means by L a ma r t in e's "excessive use of bona {ides " c a n be grasped fro m an en tr y in The Arcades P rojec t, p. 767 ( Convol L1 te d 1 2,2) .-Trans.] 6 8 . Erotische Kunst, vol. 2, p a rt 1 , p . 1 1 . [ Be nj a min's n o te ] 69. Ero tische Kunst, vol. 1 , p. 43 . Fuch 's moral -historical representation of [he Di rectory has traits re m i n i s c en t of a p o p u l a r ballad. "The terri ble book b y the Marq u i s d e Sa de, with p la tes a s crudely e xec ute d as t h ey are infa mous, lay open i n a l l the s h o pwin dow A n d th e figure of Barras bespea ks " th e d i s si p a ted i magina tion of the sh a meless l i b er tin e . " Karikatur, vol. 1 , p. 1 5 '1 .
. OJ
pp. 202, 20 1 . [Benjamin's note]
Karilwtu.r, v o l . 1 ,
p . 1 8 8 . [Benjamin's note] 7 1 . Ma x H orkh e i me r) " Egoismus und Freiheits bewegung, " p . 1 6 6 . [Benja min 's note] 72 . Many o f the pl a ys of th e German dra matist Frank Wede kind ( 1 8 64- 1 9 1 8 ) , snch a s Erdgeist (Ea rth Spiri t; 1 8 9 5 ) a n d Die B l� c hse der Pandora (Pan dora 's Box; 1 9 04 ) , set up a conflict be twe en a d e s i cca ted , hypocritical bour ge oi s m ora l ity and sexual freedom. 73 . Erotische Kunst, vol. 2, p . 2 8 3 . Fuchs is on t h e track o f s o met h i ng i mpo rtant here. Would it be too r a s h to c o nnec t the thresh o ld between human and a n i m a l , such as Fuchs recognizes in th e orgy, with that other threshol d consti t u te d by the emergence o f up ri g h t posture ? The latter brings with i t a phe nomenon unprecedented in n a t u r a l llistory: partne rs can l ook i nto each other's eyes du ri n g orgasm . O nly th e n does a n o rgy become possi ble. W ha t is decisive is not the i nc re a se in vis u a l stim uli but rather the fa c t that now the ex pre s s i on of satiety and even o f i mp o te n c e can i ts e l f become an erotic s t im u l a n t . [ B e n j am in 's n o te·] 74 . Sittel1geschichte, vol. 3, p. 234. A few pages l a ter, t his confident j u dgmen t has faded-evidence of the force wi th which it had to be wrested away from conventi on . I ns t e a d , we now read: "Th e fact tha t th o usan d s o f pe ople be come se x u � I Iy excite d wh en l oo kin g at a w om a n or man p h o t o g ra p he d in
70.
1 55
E D UA R D F U C H S , C O L L E CTO R A N D H I ST O R I A N
the nude . . . proves that the eye is no longer c a p a b l e of perceiving the h a r m o n i o u s whole but on l y the
p i qu a n t d eta i l " ( i b id . , p. 2 6 9 ) . If
th i n g
it is more the idea that a naked body is
there is a ny
b ei ng
d is p lay e d before the c a m era tha n the sight of n ak e d ne ss itse l f. This is proba
bly the idea b eh i nd most of t hese photographs. I Benjamin's notel 75 . Ibid., p. 1 8 9 . [Benjamin's no te . The A ustrian saririst and critic Karl Kra us ( 1 8 74-1 9 3 6) founded the pol e mi c a l review Die Fackel i n 1 8 9 9 and edited it until s h or t l y before his death. See B e nj a m i n s essay K arl Kra u s " ( 1 93 1 ), in th i s voiume.-Trans. 1 '
"
76 . The w r i ter Max von B oe h n ( 1 860-1 9 3 2 ) p u b lis h e d an eig ht-volume stud y of fashion from the s i xte e n th rhrough t h e n ineteenth c en t mies D ie Mode ,
(Fa s h i on; 1 907- 1 925 ) . Among his othe r works
are
B iedermeier ( 1 9 1 1 ) ,
Antik e Mode ( Fashion i n Antiquity; 1 927), and PuptJen und Puppenspiele
( Dolls a nd Puppets; 1 929). He is ci ted s evera l times in The Arcades Project. 77. Sittengeschichte, s upp lementary vol. 3, pp. 53-54. [Benj amin's note l 7 8 . For Fuchs, a rt is immedia te sensuousness, j u s t as ideol ogy is a n im m e d i ate offspring of interests. "The essence of art is sensuo usness [ Sil1nlichl<eitj . Aft is sensuousness-indeed, sensuousness in its m o s t poten t form. Art is sensuousness become fo rm, be co m e visible, and at th e
same t i m e it is the
h igh es t and noblest form of sensu o us ne ss " (Ero tische Kunst, vol . 1, p. 61 ) . [Benjamin's note 1
79. See Sigmund Freud, Die Traumdeutullg (Leipzig and Vienna, 1 900). Freud ( 1 85 6-1 9 3 9 ) , A ustrian neurologist and foun d e r of psychoana lysis, devel o pe d a theory th a t dreams are an u nconscio us representation of re pressed d e sir e s , e specially sexu al d e s ire s .
8 0 . Karikatul� v o l . 1 , p. 223 . [Benj amin's note 1 8 1 . Erotische Kunst, voL 2, p. 3 90 . [Benj amin's note l 8 2 . Del' Maler Daunt-ier, p. 3 0. [Benj amin's note] 83. B a u delaire discusses Da umier in his essay " Quelques caricaturistes franr;ais " ( 1 85 7 ) . See, i n English, "Some French Caricaturists, " i n Baudel a ire, Th e Painter of Modem Life and O ther Essays, trans. Jonathan Mayne ( 1 9 64;
rpt. New York: Da Capo, 1 9 8 6 ) , pp. 1 71-1 8 0 : " The hot he a d e d Ach i l l e s , -
the cunning Ulysses, the wise Penelope, that great b o o by Telem achus, a n d the fai r Helen who r u i ne d Troy-all of them, i n fa ct, appear before our eyes
in
a
farcical
reminiscenr of those d ec re pit old t ragi c
actors whom
o n e some times sees taking a p inch o f snuff in the wings . . . . [Daumier'sl cari ca ture has fo rmid a ble b r ea dt h but i t is q u i te without bile o r rancor. In all his ,
work, there is
a
founda tion of
and s i m p l i c i t y
8 4 . Th is should b e c o m pare d to th e following reflection:
" "
( p p . 1 78-1 7 9 ) . Ac co rd i n g to m y . . .
observations, i t is in a n a r ti s t s erotically c harge d p i c tu re s that the dominant '
e l e m e n rs of his
palette,
at any pa rticular t i me, emerge mo st clearly. Here, . . .
these elements a t ta i n . . . thei r greatest power of i l l umi nation" (Die grossell Meister der Erotik,
p. 1 4 ) . [Beniamin's note]
1 56 85.
P R O D U C T I O N , REP R O D U C T I O N . A N D R E C E P TI O N
Der Maler Daumiel;
p . 1 8 . D a um ie r's famous
Art
ExpertJ
a
w a te rc o l or that
exists in severa! versions, d e p i cts one s uch fi gure . O n e day, F u c hs was shown a
p rev i olls l y un known version of th is work an d
o b tain ed
a
asked to au th e n tic ate it. He
good re p ro d uctio n o f the picture a n d , focusing on the main por
tion of the s u b j e ct, embarked on a very in stru cti v e compa rison . Not the sligh te s t de via tion went unn o tic e d ; in tbe case of each discrepa ncy, be as ke d
whether it was t h e
p r o d u c t of the master's hand or tha t of i m po t e n ce . Aga i n
a n d again Fuchs retu rned t o the or igin a l , y e t in
a
man ner th at seemed t o s a y
he co u l d have easily d i spe n s e d wi th i t; h is gaze h a d a fami l i a rity th a t co u ld o n l y have come fro m ca rry i n g tbe p i ct u re a round w i th h i m in h is h e a d ye ars . No doubt this was the
case for F u ch s . And only b ecause of t h is
was
for he
a ble to discern the slightest uncerta inties in the con to ur� th e most i nc o n s p i c
uous m istakes in the c o lo ring of t h e sha d ows, the m i n utes t derailings in the a res ult, be was able to i d enti fy the p i c t ur e in ques tion not a s a fo rge r y but a s a g o o d old copy, which m i g h t have been the work of an a mate u r. [Benj a min's note1 86. Pa ul Ga varni ( S u l pic e C he v a l ie r ; 1 8 0 4- 1 8 6 6) was a Fr e n ch illustrator and caricaturist, best kn own for his s ketches of P aris ian life. 87. Dachreitel; pp. 5-6 . [Benjamin's note] 8 8 . Jean de La Bruyere ( 1 645- 1 6 9 6 ) , French moralist, w a s the a u th or of o ne moveme n t o f t he l i n e . As
of the mas t erpieces of French literat u re, Les Caracteres de Theophraste, traduits du grec, a vec les caracteres ou les moeurs
The Mann ers of This Age,
de ce siecle ( C h aracte rs, or w it h the Ch a ra cte rs of Theophrastus; 1 6 8 8 ) , a s e
ries of satirical p o r tr a i t sketches a p p e n d e d to bis tr a n s la tion of the fou r th ce n t u ry
B.C.
ch a ra cter writer Th eoph ras tus . One of La B ru ye r e 's characters
is the print-coll ector D e moc ed e ( not " D a m oc e d e " ) , who appears in C h a pt e r 1 3 , " De la mode" ( On F as h io n ) , He is based on Michel de Marolles ( 1 600-
a b be of Vil leloin and an erudite tr a n s l a to r of Latin poetry, who a co l l e c t io n of pri nts numbering 1 2 3 ,400 i te ms , representing more th a n 6,000 a r t is t s . This collection was ac q u i re d by the government of Louis 1681),
a ma sse d
XIV i n 1 6 67 a nd is now in the Louvre's archive of prin ts, the Ca binet des
Esta mp es . Anne Cl aude P hi l i pp e d e Tu b i e re s , c omte d e C a y l us ( 1 692-1 765 ) , a rcha eol ogist, e n g r a ver, and m a n o f letters, published h i s seven-vo l u me Recueil
dJantiquires egyptiennes,
etrusquesJ grecques, romaines, et gauloises
( CoJJection of l�gyp [ja n, Et r us c a n , Gree k , Ro m an , and G a l l i c Ant iqui ties) from 1 75 2 to 1 7 67. Ba ron Phil i p p von 5 r osch ( 1 6 9 1-1 767)
was a Pm . i an
b orn antiquaria n , diplom a t, secret agent for the English, and collector of ancient art and
m a nuscri pts; h is collection of ant i q u e e ng r a ved a rtifa cts and a ntique glass gems. Winckelmann ( see note 31 a b ov e ) c a ta l o gued 3 ,444 of these in t a gl i os in l 75 8 , and p u b l i s h e d his c a t a log u e in French, Description des p ie rres gravees du feu Baron de Stosch ( D e sc r i p tio n of the E ng r a ve d Gems of the Late Ba ron von Stosch j 1 76 0 ) . Ferdinand F ra n z \X'a llraf ( 1 74 8-1 8 24 ) , a Ca th o l ic c ontained more than 1 0,000 ca meos , intaglios,
E D UAR D F U C H S , C O LL E CTO R A N D H I STO R I A N
pri est
and
1 57
pro fe ss or o f phi l os op h y and n a t u r a l history at th e University of
C ol ogne , bequeathed to the city of Col ogne a rich c o lle cti o n of wo rks o f old Rhenish a r t , acc umulated d u r i n g t h e pe rio d of t h e Fr e n ch Revol ution; of the Wa l lraf-R ichartz Museum in Colo g n e .
h is c o l le ct i o n forms the
Sulpiz B o i s se ree ( 1 7 8 3-1 8 5 4 ) , a Ge rman writer a n d art collecto r, put to
gether, wit h
brother
Melchior ( 1 7 8 6-1 8 5 1 ) , a c o l lec tion of German and
Fl em is h primitives wh i c h ., i n 1 8 27, was sold to King Lud wig I o f Ba varia fo r the A l te Pinako thek museum in M u n i c h . The Na z a ren e s were a gro u p of y o ung Ger man p a in t er s, active 1 8 09-1 8 3 0, wh o were inten t on r e s tor i n g
a
religiolls s pir i t to art. 8 9 . Tang-Plastik, p . 4 4 . [ Benja m in's note1 90.
Honore Daumier,
voL 1, p. 1 3 . Compare these o bservations wi th Victor
Hugo's allegorical interpretation of the wed d in g at Can a . "The mi ra c l e of the loaves represents t h e mu ltiplication of re ad ers m any t i m e s over. On the day t h at Ch ri s t discovered this sym bo I, he fore s h a dowed the printing press . " Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare. cited
(P a r is, 1 934), rBen j a min's note]
fa demagogie: Victor Hugo
9 1 . Dachreiter,
p. 4 6 .
in
Georges Bataul t, L e Pontife de
p. 1 42 . [ Benj amin's note ]
92 . Kal'ikatur, vol . 1, p. 1 9 . The exception proves the r ul e . A mechanic a l process of reprod uction was u s e d to prod uce terra cotta figu res. A mo ng these a re many carica tures. [Benjam i n 's not e l 93 . See Erich K l oss ows ki , Honore
Daumier
note] 94. Dachl'eitel� p.
45 . [Benjamin's note 1
(M unich, 1 90 8 ), p. 1 1 3 . [ Benj a m i n's
1 1 Review of Sternberger's Panorama
Dolf Sternberger, Panorama, oder Ansichten the Nineteenth
Centuryl (Hamburg, 1938),
VOn!
1 9. Jahrhundert
[Panorama, or Views of
238 pages.
Among the contradictions which are not unified b ut which are provision ally clamped together in Germany today are the reactions provoked by recollection of the Bismarck era.] At that time, the petty bourgeoisie en tered into a n apprenticeship to the powers-that-be, one which has b een revived and extend ed under National Socialism. By comparison, the mid dle bourgeois strata still enj oyed much greater po litical power at that time . Only when they had relinquished that power was the way cleared for mono p oly ca pitalism, and with i t the national renewal. Na tional So cialism is thus ambivalent toward the age of Bismarck . It boasts o f h av ing erad jca ted the slovenliness of the age-with some j ustification, if one considers the average lev el of security enj oyed by the lower classes i n tho s e days . On t h e other hand , t h e National S ocialist par ty is wel l aware that it is perpetua ting Wil helmine i mp erialism a nd that the Third Reich is baski ng in the reflected glory of the Second . Its training of the p etty bour geoisie is based on this awareness. Thus , we have on one side the eyes raised deferential ly to those above, but on the other the critical reserve ( an a mbivalence aptly illustrated by the way the leaders o f the new Reich view those of the old army. ) Imagine this situation as a mirror image-that is, symmetrically in verted-and you h ave the outline of S ternberger's book.2 Its attitude is likewise ambivalent, but i n the opp osite djrection. Whe n he probes the age of Bismarck critically, he touches on the features with which one feels
158
R E V I E W OF S T E R N B E R G E R ' S PA N O R A M A
1 59
soli d a r i ty t o day, And when he se e m s to be solic i tin g the r ead e r's good o pinion o f it, he c l i ngs to a solid, moderate standard of bourgeoi s moral i t y which today 's German y has turned its back on. In o ther words, the c r i t i c in Ste r n berger c a n r ev e a l his i n sigh t s , and the historian his sympa thies , only with the utmost caution. This might not ha ve been a hop e less task. But the author's a sp ir a tio n s went further. He wanted to fill a breach. The copious produc t i on of writ ings by acad emics eager to toe the line has its counterpart in an exodus from fields that, unnoticed by orthodox sc h olars h ip , used to be occupie d by an a v a nt - ga r de . Thi s a va n t- g a rde liked to p re s ent its ideas in th e form of essays . Sternberger's astonishing enterprise is to r ev i ve the form an d thematic content of s uch works . As the book's t itl e indicates, he w ante d not to d r aw a ma p of his su bjec t matter but to survey it from serene
h e ights . This is confirmed by the s e q u enc e of chapters. In his efforts to main tain an essayistic stance no mat t er what the cost, the author casts about in a ll directions . The l ess capable he is of coming to t e rms with his he en l a rges it, a nd
s ubjec t matter the more amb i ti ous and co mp r eh en siv e it b e come s .
The question o f whether peop l e 's visual impressi ons a r e determined
only by natural constants , or a d d ition a ll y by historical v a r ia b le s, is at th e v e ry l e ading edge of re se arch . To move a n inch closer to an answer is a
hard-won advance. Stern berger takes this problem in his stride. Had he focused on it closely and said, for e x a mp l e, that ligh t impinges on human e xp e r ience only in a manner pe rm itte d by the historical constell ation, one wou l d have eagerly awaited the ela b o ration of t his i de a . S te r n b erger does indeed say this (p. 1 59 ) , but me re ly in order to have his p iece on this game board as well . His treatment of the q ue s tio n is hedged about with
a p positi o ns , s ub s i d i a ry cla uses, and p arentheses in which the content is lost. Moreover, h e refuses to have any truck wi th those who, if they were
a l lowed to d o s o , m i gh t exp ress interest in an issue closely re la t ed to this ques tion: n amely, in the fact that the natural conditions of human exis tence are altered by human means of produc t ion . Many topics gain
a
hearing, but not t he one they deserve . It is often in
structive to refer back to
in which motifs such as genre, al lego ry,
a nd Jug e n d s ti l are dealt with in rigorous contexts .] Adorno, for e x amp l e, has demons tra ted that a l ate form of a llegoric a l vision is foun d i n Kierkegaard's writings; Gi e dio n , i n his studies of a rchitectural history, s howed that the nineteenth century fe l t a need to concea l its a rchitectural achievements behind a mask of i m i ta ti o n ; Salvador D a l i interpreted Juge nd sti l in terms of S urrealism.4 S te r nb erg er deals with al l of these sub-
P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R OD U C T I O N , AND R E C E P T I ON
1 60
j ects. But in his book they form motifs, in the sense of whimsically ar ranged ornamentation, The essayist l i kes to think of h i mself as an artist. He can then yield to t he temptation to substitute empathy (with an ep och no less than with a way o f thinking) for theory, The symptoms of this d u bious s tate of affa i rs are evident in Sternberger's la n guage An elevated, pretentious s tyle of ,
German i s a llied to the moral a ffectation that was characteristic of the in gratiating family novel of the 1 8 60s. This s tylistic mimicry gives rise to the most convoluted phrasing, "Since then, in genera!/' is
a
fa vorite (vac
uous) cons truction; H of this kin d and extent" mistakes redundancy for transition. Phrases s uch as " it's time to b ring this digressi o n to
a
a
close, "
" l et us move on, however," and " it wou l d iLl befit the author" usher the reader through the book as i f through a suite o f s tately rooms . The au thor's l anguage is a vehicle of regressi on. Nowa days, regression to remote s pheres tha t do not i nvite political in terven tion is widespread in Germany, Childhood recollection s and the cult of Ril ke, s piritual ism and Romantic med icine succeed one another as intellectua l fads.5 Stern berger regresses while holding on to the m o tifs of the avant-garde. His book is truly a Naturally,
case of retreating forward.
cannot avoid coll iding with the enemy. A bove all, he has to
contend with those who hesitate to cast a cri tical vote on the G riinderzeit i n pursuit of their own interests.6 The b arbarism of the p resent was al ready germinating i n that period, whose concept of beau ty s howed the s a me devotion to the l icked-clean which the carnivore d i sp l ays toward its prey. With the a dvent of National Socialism, a bright light is cast on the second half of the n ineteenth century. Those yea rs marked the first at temp ts to turn the p etty bourgeoisie into a party and harness it to precise po litical p u rp oses. T his was done by S toecker, i n the interests of the big land owners ' ? Hitler's mand ate came from a different group. Neverthe less, his ideological nucleus remained that o f Stoecker's m ovelnent fifty years earlier. In the struggle against an internally colonized pe ople, the Jews, the fawning petty bourgeois came to see himself as a mem ber o f a ruling caste and unleashed his iInperial instincts . With National Social ism, a program came into force which imposed the i deals of the Grilnderzeit-glowing warmly in the l ight of world conflagration-on the German domestic s p here, esp ecially that of women. On July 1 8 , 1 93 7, i n
a
speech delivered by the head of the p arty and inveighing
against " d egene rate a rt, " the o r. ientati on o f Germany's culture was aligne d with its mos t s ervil e a n d inferior stratu m , and laid down with the au thority of the state.s In the
Frankfurter Zeitung on July 1 9 , Sternberger
R E V I E W O F S T E R I\J B E R G E R ' S PA N O R A M A
1 61
wrote that this speech " settled accounts . . . with the a ttitudes and theo ries tha t est a blished the pu blic tone in the art world in the era which is now behind us. " This " settling of accounts , " he a d ded, is "not yet com pleted . " He also claimed that it had been cond ucted " with the wea pons of c utting irony a nd the me t hods of philosophical discussion. " The s a me cannot be s aid of this ram ble thro ugh its more distant histo rical back ground. Sternberger's book is orna te a nd difficul t . It diligently seeks o ut the a r cane su bject, but lacks the conceptual force to hold it togeth er. He is u n a b l e t o fonnulate defini tions9-a failing t h a t makes h i m a l l t h e more in clined to present the
disjecta
membra of his text to the rea der
as
a
meaningful symbol. This tendency is exacer ba ted by his disturbing fixation on the " allegoric al . " Allegory is s urrounded by emblems forming a " p a tchwor k " at i ts feet. Sternberger uses t he term matter-of-factly in this sense, though it carries no s uch elaborate connotations in normal us age . The attributes he ascribes to it make us d o ubt whether he associa tes i t with any c lear mea ning. Und er the hea ding "The Allegory o f the Steam
Engine, " he assembles a num ber o f cliches extolling the l ocomotive : a s swift a s a n eagle, an iron horse, a race-horse o n wheels . S uch cliches, he believes, create " a n allegorical p oetry . . . in the precise sense that e l e ments of techno logy, when fused wi th o thers from living na ture, take on a
new, autonomous existence as a Janus figure " (p. 2 6 ) . This has nothing
to d o with allegory. T lle taste guiding suc h language reflected the need to escape a threat. This threa t was thought to l i e in the " ri g id, " " mechani c a l " qua lities associ a te d with technical forms. (In reality, it was o f a dif ferent kind . ) What was generally felt was the oppression emana ting fro111 technology, and refuge from it was sought in Ludwig Kna us 's paintings of groups of children, Grutzner's monks, \Varthmiiller's rococo figurines, and Defregger's v il1agers . ' O The ra ilway was invited to join the ensem ble-but it was the ensemble of the genre painting. Genre pa inting d o c ll ments the failed reception o f techno logy. Sternberger introduces the con cept, but his interpreta tion o f it is entirely fla we d . " In genre p a inting, " he writes, " the onlooker's interest . . . is a lways ac tively enga ged . Just as the scene that has been frozen, the living image, needs completion, so t his i n terested onl ooker is eager to fill the gaps in the painti ng 's patc hwork . . . with the j oys or tears it evokes " ( p . 64 ) . As I ha ve said, the origin of genre painting is more tangi b le . \Vhen the b ourgeo isie lost the a bility to con ceive great p lans fo r the future, it echoed the words of the aged Fa ust; " Linger a whi le ! Tho u art so fair. " l 1 In genre painting it captured a nd fixed the present moment, in order to be rid of the image of its future.
1 62
PRODU
CTI 0 N , R E P RODU CT I O N , A N D R EC E PTI O N
Genre painting was an art which refused to kn ow anything o f h isto ry. Its infatuation w ith the moment is the most precise complement to the chi mera of the Thousand -Year Reich. The connection between the aesthetic ideals of the Griinderzeit and the vaulti.ng a rtistic aims of the Na tional Socialist party has its basis h e re . l2 Sternberger has not broken the theoretica l mono p oly o f National So cialism. It distorts his i deas, falsifies h is intentions . The falsification is mani fest most clearly in his view of the dispute over vivisecti on in the 1 8 70s. In the p amphlets which set off the controversy, certain errors by the viv is ectors prov ided the catchwords fo r a o bstinate rancor against science itself. The movement against vivisecti o n was an o ffshoot o f petty bourgeois interest groups, including the opp o nents of immunization, who revealed their colors so openly in the attack on Calmette}3 These groups provided recruits for " the movement. " The basis for Sternberger's critical stance can be found here . Under the Third Reich, animal p rotec tion laws have been passed a lmost as fast as concentration ca mps have been o pened . There is much evidence to sugges t that such fanatical groups serve as coco o ns for the sadomasochistic character in i ts pupal phase. A study that concerns itsel f with this but refuses to recognize the death 's-head moth which has emerged from the chrysalis must expect to go astray. That is what happens in Sternberger's case. He finds no o ther way to attack the opp onents of vivisection than to denigrate pity as s uch . Since animal p rotecti o n is the last refuge the p owers-that- be have left for pity, they are unlikely to be offended by its d efamation . But in reality they have not left it even this refuge. For them,
fights are fo unde d on
the mysticism of blo od and soi1 . 1 4 National Socialism, which has evoked so much animality in human beings, thinks that it h as been surrepti tiously encircled by beasts. Its protection of animals sp rings from a super stitious fear. O ne d oes not need to subscribe to Schopen ha uer's view of pity n amely, that it is the s o urce of p eople's humanity-to be suspici ous of definition which s a ys that " altruism is as far r emoved from pity ))
as
a
" rev
elation is from feeling " (p. 84 ) . At any rate, one wou ld do better to s p eak of true humanity befo re deriding what flows fro m pity as " genre-pai nting huma nity') (p. 22 9 ) . Any read er who peruses the discussion of these ma t ters-the chapter entitled "The Religion of Tears "-and attempts to ex tract its philosophical content will have little to show. He will have to content himself with the assertion that p ity is nothing b ut the " inner side or the correlative o f the anger . . . felt by anyone who witnesses a s cene of cruelty " (p. 8 7 ) . The sentence is o bscure . All the clea rer, however, is the
R E V I E W O F S T E R N B E R G E R ' S PA N O R A M A
1 63
fact that p ity is mere fr oth for the person who washes his hands in inno cence. The unmistaka ble aim of this book, the cause to which the author has su bscri bed, ca n be summed up in a word: i t is the art of covering traces. The trace of the origins of his i deas, the tra ce of the secret reserva tions underl ying his conformist statements, and fina lly the trace of c o n formism itself, wh ich is the hardest of all to erase. Ambig uity is Sternberger's ele ment. He elevates it to the method that guides his investigations: " Con s traint and action, compulsion and freedom, ma tter a nd spirit, inn ocence and guilt cannot b e disentangled in the past, whose unal terable testi mony, however scat tered and i ncomplete, we have before us h ere . These things are a lways th oroughly interwoven, but the pattern wo ven
Verwirk teJ
[das
can be descri bed " (p. 7) . 15-Sternberger's s i tuation can be de
scribed as fo llows: he confiscated his i deas, and then had them co nfis cate d . No wonder they have a board ed-up lo ok, just as o ne can speak of a " sh uttered ') gaze. These views of the nineteenth century seem designed to block insights in to the twentieth. Written in 1938 and January 1 9 39; suhmitted to the Zeitschrift fiJ r Sozialforsc/umg i n late 1 9 39 but u n p u blished in Benjamin's lifetime. Gesammelte Schriften, III, 572-5 79. Trans
lated by Edmund Jephcott.
Notes L Dolf Sternberger ( 1 907-1 9 8 9 ) , German j ournal ist and political scientist, was a
former s tudent of Adorno's and personally
served after
the
a c q ua
i nted
with Be njami n . He
war as presi dent of the West German cha pter of PEN
(an in
terna tional association of poets, playwrights, editors, essayists , and novel i s ts) . 2. Much of the to ne of this review is exp lained by Ben j a min's conviction, ex
pressed
in
a letter to Adorno and in the draft of a letter to Sternberger h i m
self, that the bo ok is l it t l e more
than plagiarism .
S ternberger knew Benj amin
perso nally; both had contri buted to the Frankfurter Zeitung, a s we ll a s to Fra nkfurt rad io. And he had stud ied with Adorno at the University of Frankfurt. In the letter to Ad orno, Benja m in claims that Sternberger had l i fted not on ly the topic of the study but also its methodology from Adorno, Bl och, and especially
Benj amin
himself. In the draft letter to Sternberger,
Benj a min writes: "You succeed , in your book, in pr oducing tween
an
o lder w or ld of th ou ght (whic h you
s
h a re
a
synth esis be
with Adolf Hitler) a nd a
newer one (wh ich you sha re with me) . Yo u have re ndered u nto the kaiser that which is the kaiser's, and ta ken from use " ( G esamntelte Schriften, nI,
701. ) .
the
exi le
tha t
which YO ll could
1 64
P R O D U CT1 0 N I R E P R O D u eT) 0 N
I
AN
D RE C E PT I O N
3 . Jugendstil is the German a n d Austrian variant of the Art Nouveau style of the 1 8 90s. The m ovement took its name from the !vlunich j ournal D ie jugend (Youth) . 4 . Adorn o does th is i n his book Kierhegaard: Konstruhtion des A sthetischen ( 1 93 3 ) ; in English as Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, trans. Robert Hu llo t-Kentor ( Minnea polis: University of Minnesota 1 9 8 9). Siegfried Giedion ( 1 8 8 8-1 9 6 8 ) was a Swiss a rchitect a n d a rchitectura l histo rian wh ose Bauen in Prank reich ( Construction in France; 1 92 8 ) exerted a deep infl uence on Ben j a min. He tanght at Harvard a fter 1 93 8 . 5 . Ra i ner Maria Rilke ( 1 8 75-1 926), Austro-German w riter born i n Prague, was one of the grea t lyric poets i n t h e German language. His Duineser Elegien (Dui11o Elegies) and SOl1ctte an O rp heus ( Sonnets to Orpheus) were pub lished i n .1 92 3 . 6 . T h e Griinderzeit denotes the period o f r a p i d industria l expa nsion a n d reck less fina ncial specula tion foll owing the fou ndation of the German Empire in 1871. 7. Adolf Stoecker ( 1 83 5- 1 9 0 9 ) , Protesta n t theologi a n a n d politician, founded the profoundly conse rva tive Christlich-soziale Arbeiterpartei ( Christian-So cia list Wo rkers' Party) i n 1 8 78 . Stoecker sought to co nvert G erman workers to the virtues of a monarchical nation alism. He is primarily remembered, however, for his virulent anti-Sem i tism . 8 . Hitler delivered a programma tic speech on N a z i a r t a n d c u l tura l policy one day before the o pening of the I' GrofSe Deutsche Kunstausstdlung" { G reat German Art Exhibition) at th e Haus der Deutschen Kunst ( House o f Ger man Art) i n !vlunich. An exhibition titled "Enta rtete Kunst" (Degenerate Art) ran concurrently with " Great German Art"; it displayed 65 0 works confiscated from 32 Germa n museums. Exa mples of Expressionism, Cu b ism, Dada, S u rrealism, and Neue Sachlichkeit h u ng alongside drawings by the menta lly i ll and photographs of handicapped individ u a ls. 9 . Stern berger is i n the i nvid ious position o f having to break o ff the process of thinking just where it might become fruitful . In the end, this da mages his ca pacity for thought, as we can see from a single sentence: "It is all too easy to laugh at something wh ich in any case is over and done with, and should therefore be regarded as a waste of wit, since wit tends to gain in b rilliance as it becomes rarer" (p. 1 5 8 ) . The first main clause contains two offenses against clea rly o rdered thought. First, "in a ny case " is out of place, because la ughter does not a l ter the temporal loca tion of its o bject. Second, the word "easy" is inappropriate. For while i t might be said to be too easy to la ugh about someth i ng ( for examp le, a non sequitur) which ought ra ther to be a n a lyzed by a difficult process o f tho ught, it can n eve r be " a ll too easy" to make someth i ng insignifica n t the subj ect of laughter. La ughter is not a task in wh ich one gains credi t by overcoming d i fficulties. In the next clause, the ta lk about a " waste of wit" m a kes any sense, however meager, only if " wit"
R E V I E W OF S T E R N B E R G E R ' S PA N O R A M A
is Ll s e d to m e a n " i n t e l ligencc, " as
in
1 65
t h e eighteenth centu ry. One m ight well
spe a k of a waste o f intel l igence, but one could not i magine that the person do i ng the wasting w o u ld l a ugh a s a resu l t. Proba bly however, the word is not being used with this o l d - fashion ed meaning. It is morc l i kely tha t , for
S ternbe rge r, the idea that wit is
ra re
is confused wi t h th e i d e a that the case i n
ques tion i s not a s ubject for j oking. Now, fi rs t o f a i l , n o t eve r y t h ing one laughs a b o u t i s a j oke. Sec o nd , the rarity and te rseness o f wit ca n not be used as
a rea s on
tha t people should find fewer occas i o ns for la ughter-even at
j o kes. Fin a U y, to s a y t h a t wit ten d s to g a i n brill ia nce i ty is c lea r but contra ey to l a nguage .
Brillal1t
[Brillanzl thro u gh r a r
in Germa n has only o ne deriva
t i o n: fro m B r i.l l ia ntine. [Benj a min's note. Bri l l ia ntine was
an
o il y per fumed
prepara tion designed to m a ke hair smooth and glossy.-Trans. j 1 0 . Lu dwig Knaus ( 1 829-1 9 1 0 ) , G e rm a n genre pain ter, was
a
Ku nstaka demie in D Li s seldo r f; groups of c h il d re n reClLr as
professor at t he a
k i n d of sign a
ture in h i s a rt . Ed u a rd v o n Griitzner ( 1 84 6-1 9 2 5 ), another German genre painter, was best known fo r h is s tud ies of d rin king a n d h u nt i ng scenes, as we l l as his dep ictions of was
a
m o n a s tery
l i fe . Robert Warthmtiller ( 1 8 5 9- 1 8 9 5 ) ,
German gen re pai n ter w h o s pecia lize d i n h is to r ic al even ts o f t h e eigh the l ife of Frederick the Great. Franz von
De fregger
( 1 835- 1 92 1 ) was
a German ge n re p a i nter best k nown fo r his
m o n u mental h istory sce nes, e s peci a l l y representations of the Ti ro lean war of
independence. 1 1 . Fa u st's wager with Mep h i s to pheles turns on Faust's restless q u e s t
for experi
ence. In the first p a rt o f Goethe 's d r a m a , Faust utters the fa molLs lines, " If I say to any moment / Linger awhile ! ThO ll art so fa i r ! j Then yOLL ma y cast
me in chai ns. " Late i n li fe, Faust is ind eed tricked i nto utteri ng thesc words, but i s n o net h e les s redeemed b y d ivi ne intervention. 1 2 . S tern berge r a ttempts to trace the
tr i u m p h
o f genre pai nti ng in Nietzsche's
writi ngs on the re v a l ua t i on of v a l ues . In re fe rr ing at this point to a
" recur
rence of genre pa i n t i ng, " he i n tr o d uces what migh t have been a constructive moment. But he d oes no thing to develop it. He fa i l s to decip h e r the h istori ca l s igna ture o f the " i n verted genre, " w i th which Nietzsche set h ims elf i n oppositi o n t o h is c o n temporaries. T h i s signa ture i s to be fo und i n Juge ndsti l . Aga inst the n a i v e fl o ral
ar a
v ita l i ty
o f gen re pa i n t ing, J ugen d s t i l s e t t h e med i umistic
b esq ue ; on the ba n a l i ty o f the e vet-yday, i t tu rned a gaze wh ich had
just p lumbe d the a bys ses o f e v il; and to p h ilistine
c o m p la ce nc y,
i t opposed a
l onging whose arms fo rever rem a i n emp ty. [Benj a m in 's note] 13. Al bert Leon Charles Calmette ( 1863-1 93 3 ), French bacteriologist, dev e l op e d an a ntitoxin fo r vacc i nation of n ewborn infants aga i nst t u berculosis. 14. "Blut und Bode n " ( " Blood and Soil " ) became a sl oga n o f the National Soci al ists. They d erived the p h ra s e from the reactionary j ou rn a l of the same n a me, first pu blished i n 1 929 .
15.
S ternberger's t e r m,
das Verwirkte,
a lso means " w h a t is impo unded . "
II S C R I P T,
I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
In the book One- Way Street (written 1 923-1 926, published 1 9 2 8 }-a c ollection of prose writings whose form is related to German traditions of aphoristic writing and to the montage experiments of early twentieth century modernist poetry and the visual arts-Benjamin makes a series of scandalous claims: that the most relevant form of modern writing is the engineering diagram, that the neon advertising sign is superior to the most a dvanced criticism. As ea rly as 1 9 1 6, in the essay " O n Language a s S uch a n d o n t h e Language o f Man, " he h a d expressed a radical skepti cism regarding the capacity of human language to communicate mean ing. Two modes of language a re differentiate d there: a privi leged, self present language given to humans in Paradise and founded on the human a b ility to name-an ability derived from a nd modeled on God's originary acts of naming-and
a
" bourgeois concep tion '� in which language, "mere
words, " serves only to communicate knowledge of things external to lan guage i tself. For Benj amin, the fall from Par adise is in fact the fall of lan guage: " the birth of the human word. " O ne of the great themes of Benj amin's work is thus the exploration of the nature of language a nd, more generally, the investigation of the pro duction and communication of meaning in a postlapsarian world. In his book on the German Baroque play of mourning, Origin of German
Trauerspiel, Benj amin explores, under the rubric of the fa ll of language, the uses of what he calls " script" (Schrift) in the Baroque-that cultural epoch which began around 1 600 in haly and extended into the early eighteenth century in Germany. Intensely aware of the h uman drive to find meaning in our world, he uncovers strategies in the Baroque era tha t
1 67
1 68
S C R I P T, I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
aim to invest the most profa ne t hings with a n elevated s ignificance; i t is this drive that informs the characteristic trope of the Baroque, allegory. Props on the stage, individual words , and graphic images were invested with
a
rema rka ble , but obscure, power as allego ry endowed them with
" higher" meanings not otherwise a ccessible. B ut because the rela tions hip between meaning and sign was wholly s u bj ective�the product of the a l lego rist's imagina tion, rather t h a n a ny natu r a l o r inherent significance the meaning of these a llegorical objects w a s w holly arbitrary: " Any per son, any thing, any relationship can mean a bsolutely anything else. " And what was true o f such material systems a s t h e allegorical props on
a
stage was a l l the more true of human language : " In the anagrams,
the onomatopoetic turns of phrase, and many other kinds of l inguis� tic virtuos i ty [of the Baroq ue] , word , sylla ble, and sound are emanci pated from all traditional associations of meaning a n d fla unt themselves as a thing that can be exploited allegorica lly. " This " emancipatio n " of the elements of language from la rger, meaning-prod ucing structures was sim ultaneously language's " s hattering" or " dismemberment. " The dis jointed, arbi trary elements achieve ness . .
.
.
a
" ch anged a nd i ntensified expressive
The decimated language h ad, i n its indivi d u a l p arts, ceased to
serve mere commu nication; it places, as a newborn obj ect, its dignity al ongsi de that of the gods, rivers, virtues, and other simila r natural forms that s himmer into the allegoric a l . " Individual e lements of this " d ecimated l anguage" attain to the con dition Benj amin calls " script" : a written form that " strives to bec o me image," or a " sc ript-image "
[Schriftbild]
tha t remains an " a morphous
fragment. " And it is from the gra phic nature of the script-image, a b ov e a l l , tha t meaning " flashes up ') [aufblitztJ-to use t h e ter m Benj amin ar rived at in the 1 9 3 0s when he returned to the ques tion of the script-i mage and developed the related concept of the " di alectical image" in the con text of the Arcades Proj ect) For the Benjamin of the l ater 1 92 0s, the theory of graphology offered one of the richest fields for the investiga tion of scrip t. His 1 93 0 article " Graphology Old and New " sketches a short history of European gra phology, from the establishment of the field i n the 1 8 70s to the recent opening of Berlin's Zentral Institut fur Wissenschaftl iche Graphologie ( Central Institute for Scientific Graphology ) , Like many in the early p a rt of the twentieth century, Benj amin thought of grap h o logy as a science, and he insis te d tha t the " scientific experiments " of those he recognized as i ts s erious present- day practitioners and theorists (incl uding Anj a and Georg Mendelssohn, Ludw ig Klages, Robert Saudek, and Magdalene
1 69
S C R I P T . I M A G E . S C R I P T- I M A G E
Iva novic) sho uld be distinguished fro111 " the complacency with which vulgar practitioners have appealed to the phi l i stin e s curiosity and pas '
sion fo r
" The work of the psychoanalyst and graphologist Anja
Mendelsso h n a nd her b rother Geo rg comes in for special praise fro111 Benj a min, who embraces its emphasis on t h e " pi ctoria l dimensio n " o f ha n d writing a n d i ts status a s a " systema tic attempt t o construe the han d writing of even civilized people as a set of hieroglyphs "-an app roach
he opposes to the emphasis on handwriting a s " fixed expressive move ment , "
a
tenet in the vital ist gra phology of Klages . W here K l a g es work '
set out to offer pred i c tive assessments of moral character based on the a nalysis o f the " general formal l evel " of an i ndivi dual's h a n dwriti n g, the
Mendelssohns, " having learned from Freud, " aimed to interpret the " un conscious image-fantasies " tha t handwriting " co ntains . '� In other words, according to the g rap h o l o g i cal mode l Benja m i n fa
vors , handwriting does not register the inclinations of i n d ividual charac ter, and moral disp osition is not
r
eco g n i z a ble by means of an analysis
of handwriting formulated in terms of metaphor or a na logy ( so , in Benjamin's example, cramped h a n dwriti n g cannot count as evidence of a tendency " to keep one's possessions close together-or to be parsimoni ous " ) . Rather, h a ndwriti n g emerges as a medi u m for the appeara nce of i m a g e s tha t ha ve been produced unconsciously-interna lized, reconfig
ured, and i n turn presented a nd contained in the shap es of letters and words o n a page. That is, the images tha t constitute the p ictorial dimen sion of h an d w r it i ng emerge in relation to the world and the persons and things that occupy it, b ut n ot in ways that allow for the i n terpretat i o n of handwr iting as an expression of individual character and its moral d ispo
sition. If, on Benj a min's reading, script re m a i n ed, i n the B aroque, a form
reserved for the semi-sa cred space of the mourning play, a nd , in hand writing, a n image-repository of the unconscious, his own One- \\7ay
Street became a site for an a lyzing a n d perhaps enacting the process through which, in the context of early twen tieth-century European mo dernity, script is " dr ag ge d out i nto the street by a dv ertisements and sub
j ected to the brutal he tero nomies of economic chaos. " Benj amin 's em pha sis on the image-character of cer tain forms of writing a nticipates
a
day in which script wil l a chieve a " new eccentric fi gurativeness, " the
power to encode a n d disp l ay forms of significance denied to "fa l 1 en, " " b ourgeois " l a ng u ag e . Benj amin was of course not alone in h is valorizatio n of the im a ge
character o f script in the modern era . From the typographical experi-
1 70
S C R I PT,
I M A G E . S C R I PT - I M A G E
ments of mode rnist writers such as S te phane Malla rme and Hugo Ball, to the montage pictures of tl1e Berlin D a d aists and t he collages a n d " over pai ntings ') of the Co logne D a daist and later rarisian S urrealist Max Ernst ( with their u ncanny admixture of image fragments and inscrip tion ) , to the p hotographer Walker Evans' p rofound interest in the i mage character of the scripts ( advertisements, road signs, pol itical sloga ns ) that m ark our buildings as sites in pu blic space, Benj amin's contemporaries experimented with the script-image as a characteristic form of moderni ty. Nonetheless, as argued in the introduction to Pa rt III below, we should take note o f the ways in which, in his writings of the period 1 924-1 940, and especially i n the second half o f the 1 920s, Benj aillin o ffered a sus tained and often i diosyncratic account of the inextricably i ntertwined na ture of image-making a nd writing. He was tire l ess i n h is pursuit of exper imental forms that com bined the two, and made, over the course of his caree r, the short, imagistic but ph ilosophically cha rged prose p iece a form all his own. His texts of this genre, which he referred to variously a s "figures of thought "
(Denkbilder)
or " d ialectical images, " are united in their convic
tion tha t a script-image is uniquely capab le of p rod ucing kinds o f mean ing that are otherwise inaccessible or unrepresenta ble . And his mcd ita tions on
a
wide rangc of media are likewise suffused with this very
p articular understanding of script-as-i mage and image-as-script. In the essays in Parts IV-VI below, on ph otography, film, a nd j ournalism, the concept of the scri pt-image repeate d ly emerges as the key to und erstand ing a range of modern media. M I C HAEL W. JEN N I N G S A N D B R I G I D D O HERTY
Notes 1 . Fo r
a suggestive
the concept
in the philosophy of history and the his t o ry of phorography, see Eduardo Cadava, Words of Light: Theses
0 11
Princeton Universiry Press, 1 9 9 7 ) ,
the Ph otography of History ( Princeto n :
2 Attested Auditor of Books
Just as this era is the a n ti th es i s of the R e n aiss a nce in g e nera l , it co ntrasts in par tic u l ar with the situation in which the a rt of printing was discov ere d . For whether by co incidence or n o t , p ri nt i n g a p p e are d in German y a t a time whe n t h e b o o k in t h e most eminent s ense of the w ord-the Book of B oo k s-ha d , through Luther's trans lation, b ecome the p e opl e 's property. Now ev e ryth i ng ind icates that the book in thi s trad itional form is nearing i ts end . MaJ.J arme, w h o in the crysta l l ine structure of his mani festly t r a dition a l i s t writing saw the true image of what was to come, was
in the
Coup de des the first to
in cor p or a te the gr a p h i c tensions of the ad
vertisement in the printed p age . ' Th e typ o gr a phic experiments l ater under ta ke n by the D a d ais ts s te m m e d , it is true, not from constructive princi p l e s but from the pre ci se nervous reactions of these literati, and we re
therefore far less en dur i n g than Ma l la r me's , which grew out of the inner
nature of his styl e .2 But for th is very reason the y show the contemporary relevance of wha t !'v'la llarme, m on adi c a l l y, in his he r m etic r00 111 , had dis c overe d th ro ugh a p r e estab l i sh ed harmony with all the d ecisive events of
our times i n economics, technology, and public
Scr ip t-h avi ng found,
in the book, a refuge in w hich it can lea d an a u tonomous existence-is p i t i l essly drag g e d out into the street by adv ertisements and s u b jected to
the brutal h e terono mi e s of economic c ha os . This is t he h ard s chool i n g o f
its new form. If c e n t u ri e s ago it began gradually t o lie d own , passing from the u p right i nscription to the m a nus c ri p t resting on slo pi n g d esks b e fo re
fi n a l ly taking itself to bed in t he p rin t e d book, it n ow begins j ust as slowly to rise ag a i n from th e groun d. The news p aper is read more in the
v e rt i ca l than in the horizontal plane, whil e film and a dvertisement force
1 71
1 72
P R O D u e T I O N . R E P R OD U C T I O N
.
A N 0 R E C E P T ION
t he printed word entirely into t h e dicta toria l perpen d icular. A n d before
a
a b o ok, his eyes have been
con temporary finds his way
exp osed to s uch a blizzard of c hanging, colorful, conflicting letters tha t the chances of his p enetrating the arch a ic s tillness of t he book a re s l ight. Locust swarms of print, which a lready eclipse the sun of wha t city dwell ers take fo r i n te l l ect, will grow thicker with each s ucceeding year. Other
demands of b usiness life lead further. The card index marks the conquest o f three- dimensional writing, an d so presen ts
an
astonishing coun ter
point to the three-dimensio nali ty of scri pt in i ts original fo rm as r u ne or knot notati o n . (And today the b o o k is a lready, as t he present mode of sch ol arly producti o n demonstrates, an outd a ted mediati on between two different filing s ys tems . For everything that m atters is to be fo un d in the card box of the research er who wro te it, and the scho lar studying it as simil ates it into his own card ind ex . ) But it is q uite beyond d oubt tha t the developm ent o f w r iting wi ll not ind efinitely be bound by the cl aims to power of a cha o tic academic and comm ercial activity; ra ther, q u a ntity is appro aching the moment of a q u a litative l e ap when writing, a d vancing ever more deep ly into the graphic regions o f its new eccentric fi gura
tiveness, will s uddenly take possession of an a dequa te material content. In thi s p icture-writing, p oets, who wiLl n ow as in earliest times be first and foremost experts in writing, will be a b l e to participate only by mas tering the fields in which (quite uno btrusively) it is b eing constructed : sta tistical and technica l diagrams . With the founding of an inte rnationa l moving script, poets will renew their autho rity in the l ife o f peoples, and find a role awaiting them in comparis on to which all the innovative aspi rations o f rheto ric w ill reveal themselves as a ntiquated daydreams .
Written 1 9 23-1 9 26; p u b lished in 1 9 2 8 . Exce r p ted from Schl'iften, IV, 1 02-1 04. Translated by Edmund Jephcott.
Ol1e- Way Street. Gesam111elte
Notes 1. Th e French poet S teph an e MajJ a rme C J 842- 1 8 9 8 ) was Symbol i st movement, which so ught
2.
a
centra l figure in the
an incantatory l a n g ua g e
d i vorced from
all referentia l function. Benjamin refers to the typogra phic man i p u l a tions o f his poem U,1 Coup de des jamais n 'abolira Ie hasard ( A Throw of t h e Dice Will Never Eliminate Chance; 1 8 9 7) . In Zurich in 1 9 1 6 , artists, writers, and others d isgusted by Worl d War I, and by the bou rgeois ideologies that h a d brought it a bout, l a u nched Dacia, an avant-garde m ovement tha t a ttempted to radica lly cha nge both the work of a r t a n d society. D ad a i s t groups w e r e active in Berlin, N e w York, P a ri s and e lsewhere during the war and i nto the 1 9205 . ,
13 These Surfaces for Rent
Foo ls lament the d ec a y of criticism . For its d ay is long past. Cri ti cism is a
ma tter of correct d i s tancing. It was at home in a world where per
spectives a nd prospects counted and where it was still possible to adopt a standpoint. Now things p ress too urgently on human society. The
" un
douded � )' " innocent" eye has become a l ie, perhaps the whole naive mode o f expression s heer incompetence . Today the most real, mercan t i l e gaze into the heart of things is the advertisement. It tears down the stage u p o n which contemplation m oved, a nd all but hits us be tween the eyes with things as a car, growing to gigantic prop ortions, careens at us out of a film screen. And j us t as the film does not p res ent furniture and fa<;ades in completed forms fo r critical inspecti o n , their insistent, j erky nearness alone being sensational, the genuine advertise ment hurls things at us with the temp o of
a
good film . Thereby " matter
of-factness " is fina l l y dispatched, and in the face of the huge images sprea d across the wa lls of houses , where toothpa ste and cos metics lie h andy for giants, sentimentality is restored to health and liberated in American s tyle, j ust a s people whom nothing moves o r touches any longer are taught to cry again by fi lms. For the man in the street, how ever, it is money that affects him in this way, brings him into perceived contact with things . And the paid reviewer, manipula ting paintings in the d ealer's exhibition room, knows more important i f not better thin gs a bout them tha n the art lover viewing t hem in the warmth of the subj ect i s communicated to him,
wind ow. The sent i ent sp r i n gs .
What, i n t h e end, makes advertisements s o s npe r io r to criticism? Not
1 73
1 74
S C R I P T , I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
what the moving red neon sign says-but the fier y pool reflecting it in the asphalt. Written 1 923-1 926; published in 1 928 .
Schriften1
from
IV, 1 3 1-132. Translated by Edmund Jephcott.
One- Way Street. Gesammelte
14 The Antinonlies of Allegorical Exegesis
"The many obscurities in the connection between meaning and sign . . . did not deter but rather encouraged the use of ever remoter characteris tics of the represented obj ect as symbols, so as to surpass even the Egyp tians with new subtleties. The dogmatic power of the meanings handed down from the a ncients also played a role here, so that one and the same thing can j ust as easily symbolize a virtue as a vice, and therefore, in the end, anything at a ll. "
1
This brings us to the antinomies of the allegorical, whose dialectical treatment cannot be avoided if in fact the image of the Trauerspiel is to be evoked.2 Any person, any thing, any relationship can mean a bsolutely anything else . With this possibility, an annihilating but jus t verdict is pro nounced on the p rofane world : it is characterized as a world in which the detail i s of no great importance . Yet it will b e unmista ka bly apparent, especially to anyone fa miliar with the exegesis of allegorical texts, tha t all those signifying stage p rops, precisely by virtue of their pointing to some thing else, acquire a powerfulness that makes them appear incommensu rable with profane things and which can raise them to a h igher plane, in deed sanctify them. Through allegorical observation, then, the profane world is both elevated in rank and devalued. This religious dialectic of content has its formal correlative in the dialectic of convention and ex pression. For allegory is both of these-convention and expression-and they are i nh erently in conflict with each other. Yet j us t as Baroque doc trine generally conceives history a s created event, a l legory in particular, though no less a convention than any other script, is viewed as created,
1 75
1 76
S C R I P T , I M AG E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
like holy s c r i p ture
[Schrift] . .l The a llego ry of the seventeenth c en t ury i s
n o t co nve nti o n o f expression but expression of convention. Thu s a lwa ys
also the expression of a uthority-secret in
a cc or
d an ce wi th the digni ty o f
i t s ori g i n a n d p u b l i c i n accordance w i th t h e sphere o f i ts v a li di ty. A n d it i s o n c e again t h i s s a m e anti nomy that w e encounter i n p l as t i c form in th e co nflict b etw ee n the cold, facile te c h ni q ue a nd the eru p tive expressive ness o f a llegorical inter pretation. Here, too, there is a dial ect ic a l resolu
tion. It l ies in the n a tu r e of s c r i p t i tself. O ne can, w ithout contradiction, imagine
a
lively, fr ee usage of revealed l ang u a ge, a usage i n whi ch it
wo u ld J ose no t hing of its d i gn i ty. T h e same cannot be said of it s inscri p tio n rS chriftl -th e form
which a llegory so ugh t to present i ts el f . The sa
cred nes s o f s cr ip t is i ns ep a r a b l e from the th o u g h t o f its str ic t codifica tion.
fixes itself in the fo rm of comp le x e s wh ich in th e end c o n stitu te one sole, i naltera ble co mp le x- or at l ea st seek to be come such. For that r e a s o n, a l p h a bet i c a l script, as a c omb i nat io n of script-atoms, distances itse l f most radic ally fro m the i nscription lSchrift]
For all holy s c r ip t u re
of s acred complexes . The la tte r tak e the form of hieroglyphics . If script i s to be gu a r a nteed
a
s acred c ha ra cte r ( the conflict between v a li d ity in
the realm of the sacred and com prehens ibi lity in the realm of the profa ne will al w ays have an e ffe c t u pon script) , then it will p ress towar d com
plexes, toward hieroglyphics . This h appens in the B a r oq u e . Externally a nd sty listica lly-i n the d ra stic character of the typescript, as well as in the ove r load ed me t a ph o r-the written presses toward image , No s ta rker contrast with the ar t s y m b o l , t he p l a s ti c sym b o l , t h e image of organic to
t a l ity is co n c e i v a b le than this am o rp h o us fragment, the form in which the all e go rical script-image
[Schriftbild] reveals itself, In th i s script-image,
the Baroqu e s hows itself the sovereign opponent of cla s s i ci s m ; unti l now,
only Romanticism has been r e c o gn iz e d as such an opponent. An d the te m pt a tion to seek o u t the c ons tants in b oth should 110t be resisted. In both Ro m a n t i ci s m and the B aroque, it is a m a t t e r of seeking not so much a c o rr e c ti ve to c l a ss ic i sm as a corrective to a r t itself. A higher de
gree o f c o n c re tene s s , indeed a s up e r i o r a u th o rity and a mo re l a st i ng va lidity of this co r r e c ti o n , are all u n d en i a b l y to be fo u nd in tha t contrastive prelude to class i c ism, the Baroque. W here Romanticism critically poten tiates the c o m ple t e d work
[Gebilde] in the name of infinity, of form, and
o f the idea,4 there th e p rofound gaze of a l leg ory transfornls th ings a n d works into aro llsi ng script. Such a p e ne tra ti ng is stm at work i n
Winckelmann's " Descrip tion o f t h e Torso o f
in th e Belved ere i n
Rome"5-in the u nclassical manner in w hich he
th r o u gh it p i ec e by
piece, l i mb by l im b . It is no acc id e n t that h e does this on a torso. In the
1 77
T H E A N T I N O M I E S O F A L L E G O R I CA L E X E G E S I S
field of a l l eg o ric a l intuiti on, t h e image i s fr ag ment , rune. Its symbol ic b e a uty evapora tes when the light of divine erudition falls upon i t . The fa l s e l y l ustrous ap p e a r a n c e [Schein] of totality is extinguished .6 Fo r th e
eidos
is exti n g u i s h e d , the simile p e r is h es , the cosmos within it is desic
cated.? The dried -out re buses t hat r em a i n cont a in ins i g h t that is still gra spa ble by the c o n fu se d brooder. By its very na ture, classicism was
forbidden t o c o n t e mp la t e the lack of freedom, the i mp e rfec t i o n , a n d brokenness o f t h e s e n suo u s , o f the b e a ut i fu l physis. But this i s pre c is el y
what Baroq ue allegory, b e neath its mad po mp, pro c l ai m s w i t h unprece d ented force. A d e e p - r oote d i n t u ition of the p r o b le m a tic of art ( it was
by no means m e r e l y the hesitation [Ziererei] of
a
par ticular social c l as s ,
but rather re l i gi o u s s cru ple which assigne d a r ti sti c activity to p e o ple 's ,. l
e i s ure h o u r s �' ) emerges as a reaction to a rt 's renaissanceistic s e lf
glorification.8 Even if the a rt is ts and thinkers of class icism did n o t con cern th emse lve s with what t h e y r ega r d e d as grotesque, certain s tate
ments in neo-Kantian ae sthetics gi ve an i ndica tion of the fe ro c i t y of the c ontro v ers y. 9 The d i al ec tical character of this form of exp r e s s i o n is misunderstood a n d ren dered s uspect as a m b igu it y. " Yet a mbiguity polyvalence-is the basic trait of allegory; a llegory, and the Baroque, glory in the richness of meanings . Yet this a m bigu ity is t h e rich ness of ex
travagance ; n ature, on th e o th e r h a n d , is bound, a c c o rd i ng to the old r u l es of m et ap h y s i c s an d i ndeed no less to those of mecha nics, by the law of economy. A m b ig u i t y thus stands everywhere o p p o s ed to p u ri t y and
coherence of meaning. " Hl No less doctrina ire arc the ntterances of
a
stu
d ent of Hermann Co hen'S, Carl Ho rst, who was r e s t r ic t e d by his topic " Problems of the Baroque "-to more concrete o b servation. Nonetheless, he says that allegory "a lways r ev e a l s an ' o ver s te pp i ng of the bo undaries of some o th er m o d e , '
an
i nc urs i o n of the p l a s tic arts into the realm of
rep resentation characteristic of the ' verbal' arts . " The author contin ues:
such a violation of b orders is p unished nowhere more remors elessly t ha n in the pure cultu re of feelin g, which is more the province of the purely ma i ntained " p l
And
former cJ o ser
to
m u s ic .
. . .
In the unem otional permea tion of d o m i nee ring
th o u g h ts into rhe m os t varied human modes of e x p re sio n fo r
and understa n d i ng
of art
are
gory ach ieves in the fieJd o f the ter ize its intrusion as r u l e-boundedness. th e
greatest
a
Yet
d iv e r te d and v i ola te d .
" pJastic" a r ts .
. . .
This
the feeling
alle charac
is what
One could ther e for e
gross d istu rbance o f the peace and order of a rt i s t i c a llego ry
has never
been absent from t h is field , and
artists have d e di ca te d major works to it. 1 1
1 78
S C R I P T , I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
This fact alone should have engendered
a
different attitude toward a lle
gory. The undia lectical mode of thought of the neo-Kan tian sch o o l is incapable of grasping the synthesis th at emerges o u t of the struggle be tween theological and artistic intention , via a llegorical script-a synthe sis not merely in the sense of a peace but also in the sense of
a
treuga dei
between the conflicting opinions , 1 2 Written i n 1 925; publis hed i n 1 92 8 . Gesammelte Schl'iftel1, I, 350-3 5 3 . Excerpted from of the German Tmuerspiel, s e c t i o n 3 ,
chael W. Jennings. A
previous
and Traucrs piel . " Tra n s l a ted b y Mi-
translation by John Osborne
(London, 1 977)
was consulted.
N otes
1. 27. [Benj amin's n ote . See Karl Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in def A lleg o r ie der Rena issance, besonders der Ehrenpforte Ka isers Maximilian I: Ein Vers uch, " Jahrbuch del' kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des a/lerh ochsten Kaiserhauses, 32, no. l ( 1 9 1 5 ) : 1 -232. This quo t a tion conclu des the p re ce d ing chapter, which bea rs the tide " Examples and Evid ence . " -Trans . .l 2. The subject of B e nj a m i n 's Urspnmg des deutsch en Trauerspiels ( 1 925 ) , from which this text has been e xc e rp te d , is th e seventeenth-century Ge nn a n Trauers{Jiel, or " m o u r n i n g play. " Important Trauerspiele which Benj amin trea ts i nc l u d e Catharina von Geo rgien ( 1 6 5 7 ) , by Andreas Gryphi us; Mariamne ( 1 670 ) , by Jo ha nn Christian I-Iallma nn; and Agrip pina (J 665), b y D a niel Ca spe r von Lohenstein. Benj amin's study is ava i lable in English as The O rigin of German Tragic D ram a, tra ns. John O s b o r n e (London : Verso, 1 . Giehl ow, "Die Hieroglyphenkunde," p. G ie hl ow, " Die
1 9 98 ) . 3 . The German
Schrift has a wide field of connotation. It can mean " text"
m a ter ia l , graphk inscription of a text. In these excerpts, we h ave, unless o therwise noted, tra nsla ted Schrift as " sc r ip t. " 4. Cf. B e nj a m in , The Co ncep t of Criticism, p. 105. I'Benj amin's note. See "The Con cep t of Criticism in Ge r m a n Romanticism" ( 1 92 0 ) , in Benjamin, Se lected Writings, Volume 1 : 1 9 1 3-1 92 6 ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harva rd Univer sity Press, 1 9 9 6 ) , p. 677.- Trans. ,I 5. Jobann Jo a c hi m \Vinckelmann, Versuch einer Allegorie besonders fiir die KU11st, Saculara Llsg. ( from the persona l copy of the author, with many pas s a g es added by h a n d , a nd with previollsly u n e di te d le tters of Wi nk el m a n n a n d notes by his contemporaries re g a rd i n g his last ho u rs ) ) ed . Al bert D res se l ) with a preliminary remark by Consta n tin Tischendorf ( Lei pzig, 1 8 6 6 ) , pp. 143ff. rBenjamin's note. \X!inckel mann's Versuch cineI' A llegorie ( Attempt at an Al l e g o ry ; 1766) is a v a i l a b l e in English in Winckel mann, Writings on Art, ed. David Irwin ( London: Phaidon, 1 9 72 ) . The Germ a n
or even "scripture," but a lso r e fers to the
T H E ANTI N O M I ES O F ALLEGOR ICAL EXE G E S I S
1 79
scholar Winckelman n ( 1 7 1 7-1 76 8 ) exerted great i n fluence on the fi e l d s of a rchaeology and art history through his writings, which presented an ideal ized vision of classica l a n tiquity.-Tral1s. ] 6. Here and in the sections that fo llow, Benj amin plays on the meanings of the
term Schein. I n the idealist theory o f art, the l ustrousness that glimmers forth from the symbolic work of art s igna ls to the observer that the n u min ous m a nifests i tself through the work; Schein is in this sense the guarantor of the " in timation o f immortality. " In Benj ami n 's critique o f the symbol, how evel; this l u strousness is exposed as mere, deceptive appearance.
7. Eidos is a Greek term meaning " image , " " form," or " s hape . " It plays a pro minent role in Pla to's theory of ideal forms.
8. The German word Ziererei plays both on the verb sich zierel1 ( " to hesita te, " "to act coyly toward " ) a nd the n o u n Zierat ( " pomp , " " d ecorati o n " ) .
9. Neo-Kantia nism i s the n ame given t o the reviva l o f inte rest i n Kant's criti cal philosophy sta rting in the 1 8 60s. Benj a m i n himself studied wit h He i n rich Rickert ( 1 8 6 3-1 9 3 6 ) , a prominent figure in the southwestern Germa n school of neo-Kantian ism, which emphasized the role of normative v a l ues. The Marburg school, led by I-Iermann C o hen ( 1 8 42-1 9 1 8 ) , attempted to exten d Kantian phi losophy using models d e rived from mathematics and the natural sciences. Benjamin engages Cohen's work o n both philosophy a nd Jewish theology in his essay " Goethe's Elective Affi n ities," a s well as in the Trauerspiel book. See " G oethe's Elective Affinities " ( 1 924-1 925), in Benjamin, Selected Writings, vo l . 1, pp. 297-360. 1 0. Her mann Cohen, Asthetik des reinen Gefuhls [Aesthetic of Pure Feeling] II, vol. 3 in System der Philosophic ( Berlin, 1 9 1 2 ), p. 3 0 5 . [Benj ami n 's notel 1 1. Carl Horst, Barockprobleme (Munich, 1 9 1 2 ) , pp. 3 9-40; d. also pp. 4 1-42. [Benj amin's note]
12. The tre uga dei, or d i vine truce, was the Cath olic church's attempt to i mpose sanctions in o rder to limit the violence of sec u l a r warfa re.
15 The Ruin
When, with the Trauerspiel, history wanders onto the scene, it does so as script. "Histor y " sta nds written on nature's countenance in the sign script of transience. The allegorical physiognomy of natural history, which is brought onstage in the Trauerspiel, is actually present as r u in. In the ruin, history has merged sensuously with the setting. And so con figured, h istory finds expression no t as a process of eternal l ife, b ut ra ther a s one o f unstoppa ble decline . Allegory thereby p rocla i ms itself beyond beauty. A l legories a re, in the realm of t ho u g ht, what r uins are in the realm of things. Thus the Baro q ue cult o f the ruin. Borinski, less exh aus tive in his argumen t than accurate in his report on factua l matters , knows of this cult. l "The broken pediment, the ruined columns should bear witness to the miracu lous fact t h at the holy edifice has withstood even the most elementa l forces of destruction-lightning and e arthq uake. The artificially ruined appears, then, as the last inheritance o f a n antiquity still visible in the modern world o n l y in its material form, as a pictur esque field of r u b b le . "2 A footnote adds : " Th e rise o f this tendency can be traced to the inge n io us practice of Renaissance artists who displ ace the birth and adoration of Christ from the medieval sta b le into the ruins of an a ntique temp le. I n a work by D omenico Ghirlandaio ( Fl orence, Accademi a ) , the ruins still consisted of flawlessly preserved showpieces;
in the sculptural, co l o r ful representati o ns of the Nativity, the ruins be come a n end in themselves a s picturesque settings for transient splen dor. " 3 The most contemporary feeling for style asserts itself here far �nore powerfully than the reminiscences of a false antiq uity [antikischen Reminiszenzen ] . Wha t lies shattered amid the rub ble, the h ighly s ig-
1 80
1 81
TH E R U I N
nificant fragment, the s crap: this is the no blest material of Baroque cre ation. For it is a common feature of Baroque literature to heap up frag ments-incessantly and without any strict i dea of a goal-and, in the unrem itting expectation of
a
miracle, to view stereotypes as instances
o f intensification. Baroque writers m us t have regarded the work of art as a miracle in j ust this s e n e , And if the a rtwork, on the other hand, b eckoned to them as the ca lcu l a bl e result of this heaping up, these two conceptions are no less commen s urable tha n is that of the longe d - fo r, mi raculo us work with the subtlest theoretical recipes in the mind of an al chemist. The experimentation o f the B aroque poets resemb les the prac tices of the adep ts . What anti q u ity left b e h i nd is, fo r them, p iece fo r piece, the elements from which the new whole is to be blended. No-is to b e constructed. For the perfected v ision of this new thing was: rui n . The bombastic mastering of antique clements i n an edifice tha t, without unit ing them i nto a whole , would still , in destroying them, prove superior to the harmonies of antiquity: t his is the p urpose of the tech nique that ap p lies itse l f s eparately, and ostentatiou sly, to realia, rhetorica l flowerings, and rules . Literature should be called
ars
inveniendi.4 The noti o n of the
man of genius, the m aster of ars inveniendi, is tha t o f a man who could operate in sovereign fashion with existing models. " Imagination, " what the moderns call creative capacity, was unknown as the mea sure o f
a
hi
erarchy o f mental traits. "The noblest reason that n o o n e in German po etry has yet been a b le to app roach our Opitz, let alone surp ass him ( which will not occur in the future either), is that, besides the rema rka ble agility of the exce l lent nature tha t inhabits him, he is as well read in the La tin and Greek texts as he is p roficient in formul ating and invent ing. "5 The German language, however, as the gra mmarians of the age saw it, is in this sense only a nother " nature" alongs i d e that of the ancient mod els. Hankamer explains their view in the following way: " Linguistic na ture, like material natnre, already contains e very secret. " The writer Ct bri ngs no power to it, crea tes no new truth out o f the self-creating soul tha t seeks exp ression. " 6 The writer was not supposed to conce a l his c o m b in atory practice, since the cente r o f all intended effects was not the mere whole b u t rather the work's manifest constructedness. Thus the o s tentation of the crafts manship that, esp ecially in C alderon, shows through l ike the masonry wall on
a
building whose plas ter has begun to
crumble.7 Nature has thus remained, one might say, the great teacher fo r the writers o f this period. Yet nature a p pears to them n ot in the b ud and blossom but in the ove rripeness and deca y o f its creations. Nature looms b e fore them as eternal transience, i n which the saturnine gaze o f those
1 82
S C R I P T . I M A G E . S C R I P T- I M A G E
genera tions was the only one that recognized h ist ory. Dwelling in their monuments ( the fuins ) , as Ag ri pp a von Nettesheim p u t it, a re the satur nine beasts . 8 In decay, solely and a l o n e in decay, historical occu rrence s h rivels up and dis a pp e a rs into the setting. The quin tes se nce of t h ose de c aying t hi n gs is the e xtr e m e op p os ite o f t h e idea of a t ra n s figure d n a ture as conceived by the earl y Ren a issance . Burdach h as shown that the l atter idea of n a ture is " in n o way related to ours . " " For a long time it re mained dependent on the ling ui stic usage and thought of the Middle Ages , even if the valorization of the term ' n a ture' and the idea o f nature v i s i bl y i mp r o ve . The th eory of art of th e fou rteenth to s ixteenth cen tu
ries, in a ny case, understands the imitation of na tur e as the i mitation o f
a
na ture formed by God . " 9 This natu re, th o ug h , which bears the imprint of
th e course o f hi st o r y, is fallen nature . Th e B a r o q u e p refe r ence fo r ap o the osis runs co unter to that p er i od 's cha racteristic mode of o b s e rving things . With the a uthority of their allego rical signi ficance , th in gs bear th e seal of the a l l-too-earthly. Never do t hey tra nsfigure t hemselves from w i thin. Thus their il l u m i n a ti on by the li m e l ig ht of apo t heosi s . There
has
ha r d l y
e v e r been a literature whose virtuosic i llusionism more th o ro u ghly ex
p unged fr o m its works tha t tra nsfi gu r in g lustrous a ppearance
[Schein]
wit h which people had once sought, righ tly, to define t h e essence of art
i st ry. The lusterless ness of Baroq u e lyric can be seen as one of its p rimary c h aracter is t i c s . The drama is no d i fferent. " Thus , one m ust p ress forwa rd
t hro u g h death in to that life for
us / A nd
/ Tha t turns
Egypt's night into Goshen's d a y
grants u s the pea rl - s tudd e d r o b e o f et e rnity ! " 10 Th is is h o w
I-Iallmann paints eternal l i fe from the s ta n dpoin t of the p rop r o o m . A
s tu bborn clinging t o props thwarted the p ortr ay al of love . Unworl d l y l a s c i v i ou s ness , l o st in its own fa nt a sy, holds sway. " A lovely woman, a dorned with a thousand o rna ments, is a n i nexhausti ble table that satis�
the swee t / An eterna l spring that always has wat er / / r a n i n a h u n dred c anes . It i s the teaching o f fi e nd , / t h e manner o f nea r s i ghte d [schelenJ envy, t o deny to others /
fies the ma ny ;
milk of life; A s if l ithe s u g ar
the
the foo d tha t co mforts-and that i s not c onsu med . " I I An y sufficient veil ing of content is missing in the ty pica l works of the Baroque . Their
ra tions , even in the lesser l i terary fO f m s , a r e s o l o ft y as to be oppres
s ive. And gravi ta tion toward the small an d the secret is likewi s e who l l y a bsent. Attempts to replace t h e small an d the s e cre t w i th the r i ddl i ng and the hid den prove to be a s extravagant as t hey afe vai n . In t he true work of art, delight knows how to m ake i tself fleeting, h ow to live in
the moment, dis a p pe a r, becom e new. The Baroque work of a rt wants nothing more than to endure, and so cl ings with all i ts o rgans to the e ter -
1 83
THE RUIN
n a l . Th is a lone makes it poss i b le to u n d erstand how, and with wha t liber� ating sweetness, the first dalliances o f the new century seduced the reader, and how, for the Rococo peri od, chi n o iserie became the cou nter� image to hiera tic Byza nti nism. If the Baroque critic speaks of the
Gesamtkul1stwerk [tota l work o f a rt] thetic h ierarchy a n d as t h e idea l o f
as
the summit of the per i o d 's a e s �
Trauerspiel
i tself, 12 he there by r e �
inforces i n a new w a y this sp irit of heaviness. As an accomplished a llego� rist, Harsdorffer was,
a mong many theorists, the most thorough
advocate for the interweaving of a l l the arts . 1 3 For it is precisely this that the ascen dancy of allego rical contemplation dictates. Winckelmann makes the connection only too clear when, with polemical exaggeration, h e remarks : " Vain is . . . the hope of those who believe that a llegory might be taken so far a s to ena ble one to paint even an ode. H
14
Something
even stranger must be a dded . How do the literary works of the century introduce themselves ? D edica tions, forewords and a fterwords ( by the writer, as well as by o thers), testimoni als, and commendations o f the great masters are the rule. Like heavy, ornate framework, these short texts inevitably surround the contents of the ( arger volumes and the edi tion s of collected works. For the gaze tha t took satisfa ction in the o b j ect itself was a rarity. Amid the welter of daily a ffa irs, p eople thought to acquire works of art; and their engagement with them was, far less than in later periods, a private matter free of c alcul ation. Rea d i ng was o bliga tory and forma tive
[bildendl . 15 The range o f the
works, their intentional
bulkiness and lack o f mystery, should b e unders tood a s the correla tive of s uc h an attitu d e amo ng the p u b l ic . These works seemed destined less to
be disseminated by growing over time than to fill thei r p l ace in the he re and�now. And i n m any respects they forfeited their reward . But j ust for this reason, criticism, w ith rare clarity, lies unfolded in their continued d uration. From the v ery beginning, they a imed for that critical decompo sition which the passage of time inflicted on them . Bea uty has, for the un initiate d , nothing unique a bout it; and for such peop l e , the German
Trauerspiel is less access i ble than almost anything else . Its lustrous sem b lance has died because of i ts extreme coarseness . What endures is the odd deta i l of allegorical reference-an obj ect o f k nowledge nesting in the tho ught- o u t constructions of ru b ble. Criticism i s the mortification of works. The essence of these works a ccommoda t es this more readily than d oes any o th e r form of production. Mortifica tion of works : not there fore-as the Roma ntics h a ve it-the awa kening o f consciousness in liv ing works , 1 6 but the ensettl ement of knowledge in those that ha v e died away. Beauty that endures is an obj ect of knowledge . And though i t is
1 84
S C R I P T . I M A G E . S C R I P T- I M A G E
questionable whether the beauty that endu res still deserves the name , it is nevertheless certain that noth ing is beautiful u nless there is something worthy of k nowledge i n its interior. Philosophy must not attempt to de ny that i t reawakens the beautiful in wo rks. " Science cannot lead to the na ive enj oyment o f art, any more than geologists and botanists can awaken a feeling for the beauty of landscape " : I ? this assertion is as unconvinc ing as the a nalogy that aims to support it is misguided . The geologist a nd the bota nist are perfectly capa ble o f doing j ust this. Without at least a n intuitive grasp o f the life o f the detail, a s embedded i n a structure, all devotion to the beautiful is nothing more than empty dreaming. In the last analysis, structure and deta il are always histo rically charged . The o bj ect of philosophical criticism is to show that the function of artistic form is precisely this : to make h istorical material content [Sachgehaltel , the b asis of every significant work of art, into philosoph ical truth con tent l Wahrheitsgehalten] .1 8 This restructuring of material content into truth content makes the weakening o f effect, where by the attractive ness of earlier charms diminishes decade by decade, into the basis for a rebirth in which all ephemera l beauty comp letely falls away and the work asserts i tself as a ruin. In the allegorical constructions of the Ba roque Trauerspiel, these ruined forms o f the redeemed work of art have always stood out clearly. Written in 1 925; p u b l ished in 1 92 8 . Gesammelte Schriften, I, 353-35 8 . Excerpted from Origin of the German Traucrspiei, section 3, " A l legory and Tra uers pie l . " Tra n s l ated by Mi chael W. Jennings. A previous translation by John Osborne ( London, 1 977) was consulted.
N otes 1 . Karl Borinski ( 1 8 6 1-1 922 ) was a German literary scholar who wrote on the
reception and adaptation of classical art theory in German l i terature. 2. Borinski, Die A nti/� e, I, pp. 1 93-1 94. [Benjamin's n ote. See Karl Borinski, D i e A n tike i n Poetik ul1d KUl1sttheorie v o n Ausgal1g des /dassischen
vol. 1 : Mittelalter, ( Leipzig: D ieterich, J 9 1 4 ) .-Tral1s . [ 3 . I b i d . , pp. 3 05-306n. [Benjamin's note] 4. A rs inveniendi is Latin for " art of i nventing. " S . August B uchner, Wegweiser zu r deutschel1 Ticht/wltst [ Guide to German Lit erature] (Jena, n.d. [ 1 663] ), pp. 8 0 ff. ; quoted from Borcherdt, A ugustus B uchner. p. 8 1 . [Benj amin's note. See Hans Heinrich Borcherd t, Augustus Altertums his auf G o ethe und Wilhelm von Humboldt, R.enaissance, Barock
Buchner lind seine Bedeutung fiir die Literatur des siebzehnten Jahrhtmderts
(Munich: Beck, 1 9 1 9 ). The Silesi an poet and civil servant Martin Opitz ( 1 5 97-1 6 3 9 ) wrote the Buch von der deutschel1 Poeterey ( Book of German
T H E RUI N
185
Poesie ) , one of the first poeto logical treatises on vernacular literature. He was
a
member of the Fr uchtbri ngende Gesellschaft (Fruirbearing Society ) , a
group of n o b les and a uth ors dedica ted to developing and promoting Ger man as a l egiti m a te i ntellectual and arti sti c la ngu a g e a l ongside Latin and Greek.-Trans. ]
6 . Pa u l H a nkamer, Die Sprache: l h r Begriff und ihre Deu tung i m sechzehntel1
und siebzehnten Jahrhundert-Ein B e i trag
zur Frage del' literarhistoris chen
Gliederung des Zeitrawns [La nguage : Co ncept and Interpretation i n the Si xteenth and Seventeenth Centu ries-A Contributio n to the Q L1 estion o f t h e Litera ry-Historic a l Articul ation of t h e Period] ( Bonn, 1 927), p . 1 3 5 . [Benj amin 's note} 7. The Spanish dra matist Pedro Calderon de la B arca ( 1 6 0 0- 1 6 8 1 ) is a ma
j or
figure
in
Trauerspiel book. See also " Cald eron's EI Mayor Hebbel's Herodes und Ma riamn e ( 1 923 ) , in Selected Writings, Volume 1: 1 9 1 3-1 9 2 6 ( Cambridge, Mass.: Benj a mi n's
"
Monstl'uo, L os Celos. a n d
Benjamin,
Har vard U n iver sity Press, 1 99 6 )1 pp . 3 63-3 8 6 . 8 . T h e German h uma n ist, j uris t , and phy sic i a n Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Ne ttesheim ( 1 4 8 6-1 5 35 ) wrote m any treatises on
[he
K a b b ;:tlah, m agi c, a nd
t he occul t . 9. Burdach, Reformation, p. 1 78 . [ Benj amin's note. See Konrad B u rdach,
formation,
Renaissaltce,
Humanismus:
Zwei A bhandlungel1
iiber
Re die
G ru ndlage moderner Bi/dung und Sprachlwnst ( Reformation, Renaissance, Humanism : Two Essays o n the Fou ndati ons of Modern Education and the
Verb a l Arts) ( Berlin : Paete l , 1 9 1 8 ) .-Trans. ] 1 0 . Ha llma nn , "Maria mne , " in Trauer-, Freuden- tend Schiiferspiele [Plays of
Mou rni ng and
of Joy, and Pas to rals ] , p. 9 0 . ]Benj am i n's
n o te . Benjamin c i tes
tbe collection of Johann C h risti an Hallma nn's Trau erspiele a n d other plays pub l ished in Bresluu i n 1 6 8 4. Hallmann (ca. 1 6 4 0-ca . 1 7 1 6 ) , a Si l e sian dramatist of the Baroque period, went to the same Gymnasium ( classica l secondary school ) in
Br es lau
tha t M artin Opitz a nd Daniel Cas par von
Lohenstein attended.- Trans. ]
[ Be nj amin s note. Benj amin Trauerspiel by D aniel Casp a r j ur ist, dip lomat, and d ram a tis t. '
1 1 . Lohenstein, Agrippina, pp. 3 3-34 (II, 3 8 0 ff. ) . cites the 1 724 Leipzig editi o n of Agrippina, a von Lohenstein ( 1 635-1 6 8 3 ) , a S i lesian
Tram. ]
rBenjamin's note. See Kurt Beitrag zur Geschichte (Be r l in : M a ye r & Mul ler, 1 9 1 1 )
1 2 . Cf. K o l itz, Hallmanns D ramen1 p p . 1 66-1 6 7 .
Kolitz, Johann Christian Hallmanns Dramen: Ein
des deutschen Dramas in der Ba1'Ockzeit
.
Trans . ] 1 3 . Benj a m in r e fe rs to the N memberg poet Georg
Philipp H a r s d 6 rffer
( 1 6 0 7-
1 65 8 ) , a ls o a member of the Fruchtbringende G esellscha ft. 1 4.
W i nckelma n n, Versuch eiller Allegorie,
p . 1 9 . [Benj a m in 's note. J oh ann
J oachim Winckelma n n 's Versuch einer A llego rie besol1ders fr�r die Kunst
1 86
S C R I P T , I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
(A ttempt at an Allegory Especi a l ly for Art) was first pu bl is h e d in 1 76 6 ;
1 8 66. It is ava i lab l e in En Irwin ( L ondo n : Pha idon , hi s to rian schol a r Wi nckel m a n n exerted grea t influ ence o n t h e fields of archaeology and a r t his
Ben j a mi n ci te s
an
ed ition publb.hed in Leipzig in
glish in Winckelmann, Writings on Art, ed. 1 9 72 ) . The German archaeologist and art ( 1 7 1 7-1 7 6 8 )
D avid
tory th ro ugh his writings, which presented a n idealized vi s ion of classical a n t iqu ity
in h is
influential writings .-Trans . ]
1 5 . The word Bildung
m e a ns
not merely " e d ucation , " b u t t he active a n d o ngoing
formation of the self. 1 6 . Cf. Benj amin, Der B egrif! del'
Kunstkritik,
p p . 5 3 ft'. [Benj a min 's
n ot e .
In
English: "The Concept of Criticism in German Roman ticis m " ( 1 920), i n Benj a min, Selected Writings, vo l. 1 , p p . 1 1 6-2 0 0 .-Trans. ] 1 7 . Petersen,
" A ufba u , "
p. 1 2 . [ Benjamin's note. See J .
Pe ters e n , " De r Au fbau
del' Uteraturgeschichte," Germanisch -romanische Monatssch rift, 6 ( 1 9 1 4 ) : 12 . - Tl'ans . ] 1 8 . On the notion of material content and truth content, see " Goethe's Elective A ffinities" ( .1 924- 1 92 5 ) , in B enj am in , Selected Writings, vol. 1, especia l ly p p . 2 9 7-29 8 .
16 '"rhe Dismenlberment of Language
The language-theoretica l pr i nc iples and the p ractices of these dramatists combi ne to b ri ng o u t
a
fundamental motif of the a llegor ic al view in a
thoro ug h ly surprising p l ac e . In the anagrams, t he onomatopoetic t urns of p hrase, and many other kinds of l i nguistic virtuo s ity [o f the Baroq ue] , word, syllable, and sound a re em an c ip ated from a ll traditional associa
tions of meaning a nd fla unt themselves as a thing that can be exp loited allegorica lly. The l a ngu age of the Baroque is constan tly convulsed by re bellions among its e le ments . And the foll o w ing passage from Calder6n's He ro d drama is superior to re late d works-in particular, to those o f Gry phius-on ly by virtue of its vividness of e mph asis
[AnschaulichkeitJ,
which it owes to its artistry. Through a coincidence, Mariamne, Herod 's wife, comes a c ro s s scraps of a letter in which her h u s band commands
that, in the event of h is own d e a t h , she be put to death in order to pre serve his s upposedly e nd a n gere d honor. She picks up th e se scraps from the floor and, in highly evocative lines, gives a n account of their contents. What do t hese bits of pap er say ?
" Death �' is the v ery first word
is " h o n o r, " And there I read " Mariamne . " W h a t i s this ? Heavens, save m e ! That I find;
For much i s s a i d in three words, " Mariamlle, " " death," a n d " ho nor. "
Here i s " in
s ilence , "
here
"Dignity," here " commands, " and here " a m bition " ;
An d here it continues " i f I d i e . . . "
1 87
1 88
S C R I P T , I M A G E . S C R I P T- I M A G E
Wha t doubt can there be ? I a m a l rea d y by th e fol ds of the paper that link to one a nother and so unfold t hi s oll trage. Entryway, on yom green carpet let me piece them toge th e r ! 1
i n formed
The words reveal themselves as fateful even in the i r isola tion . I n d e ed one migh t say, the very fac t tha t-isola ted thou gh they are-they s till mean
something lends a thre a t en i ng qu a lity to the r e mn a nt of m eaning they have retai n ed . Language is shattered in this way so that it might acq uire,
in its fra g ments ,
a
c h a n ge d a n d h e ighte n ed expressiveness. The Baroque
n a turalized the c apita ! letter i n German orthogr a phy. Not o nl y the a sp i ra tion to pomp bu t also the dismembering, dissociative p r in cip l e of alle
gorical co n t e mp l a tio n finds its sphere of v ali di ty in the capita l letter. With o ut d o u bt, many of the capitalized words gave readers their first ac cess into the a llego r ic a l. The decimated l a nguage, i n its ind ivid u a l parts , ceased to serve as mere commun ic at i on ; it h a d its dignity, as a n e w b or n
o b j ect, a lo ng side that of the gods, rive rs, v irtues, and o ther simila r natu ral forms that shim m ered into the
a
l lego r ic aL This h ap pens in a particu
larly drastic way, as h a s been said, in the work of the young Gry p hiu s . Tho ugh th e re is no cou n terp a r t to the incomparable p a ssage in Calderon a ny whe r e i n German literatu re, s till the forc e of a Gryphi us does not fare ba dly in com p arison with the Spaniar d 's refinement. For he has mastered
to an
a
ston ish i n g extent the art of
a
l lowing his c h a r a cters to joust as if
with bits of s p eech that have broken fr e e . In the " second treatise ') of Leo
A rminius, for example: Leo: This house will stand, so long as the enemies of the ho use fal l . Theodosia: If their fall do es n o t injure those t h a t surround this hous e . Leo: S u rround it with the sword.
Theodosia: With which t h ey protect us. Leo: Which they have d raw n o n us. Theodosia: Who have supported our throne.2 When the exchanges become a n gry and v iolen t, one finds a preference for a
cc um ula tio ns of dismembered pa rts of speech . They a re more numer
ous in Gryphius than in later authors] a nd confo rm w el l , a l o n gs i d e the
a b r upt laconic p hrases, to the overall stylistic tr e nd o f his dra m a s ; for both convey an impression of th e broken an d the chaotic. Despite the success with which this technique of representing theatrical commotion
D I S M E M B E R M E N T OF LAN G U A G E
1 89
presen te d i tself, it is n o t essenti ally dependen t upon the drama tic acti on. In th e following passage from a work by Schie bel, it f u nctio ns
as a d evi c e
of pas t ora l : E v en
t o d a y, a devou t Christia n sometimes gleans
a
drop of consola-
tio n (perha ps j u st from
a
one li ttle word
sermon) h un g r i l y
s p iri tual song or edifying
a n d swallows it,
as
i t were , so
that i t d o e s h i m good , him inwa rdly,
a nd so refreshes him that he
must confess
it conta i ns something d ivine.4 It i s no a ccident tha t , i n such a turn of speech, the r eception of the words
is left, as it we r e, to the sense of taste . Sound, for the Baroq ue, is and re mains somethi ng p urely sensuous; meaning is at ho m e in script. The vo cali zed word is only h a unted by meaning, so to speak,
if by an inescap
able i llness. In the midst of being uttered it b r ea ks o ff, and mourning is
awakened by a d a mming-up of the feeling that was a bout to pour forth. Meaning is enco untered here-and will continue to be encountered-as the ground of sorrow. The a ntithesis of sound a nd meani n g is bound to be sh arpest where it succeed s i n givin g both in
o n e,
w ithout allowing
them to converge a s an organic l i n gu i sti c structure . This d ed u ci ble task is accomp l ished in one scene th a t stands out as a masterpiece in wise uninteresting Viennese
Martyr Johannes
von
an
other
Haupt- und Staatsaktion.5 In The Glorious
Nepomuck (Act
I, scene
1. 4), one of the intriguers
( Zytho) functions as Echo in the mythological speeches of his v ictim ( QuidoL and answers them w i th i ntima tions of mo rtal ity. 6 The reversa l
from the p u re acoustics o f creaturely speech into the irony, pregnant w i th significance, that echoes from the mouth of the in triguer is typ ical of the charac ter's relationship to l ang u a ge . The intriguer is the master of mean ings . In the harmless outpo ur i n g of a n onoma topoetic n a tu r a l langua ge , these meanings are the inhi bition and the origin of a m our ni n g for which the intriguer, as much as the meanings, is responsible. If now i t is pre cisely the Echo, the actual domain of a fr ee play of sou n d , that is, so to speak, befallen by mea n i ng, then i t must ha ve fully proven itself a revel a tion o f the l inguistic as t h at age per c eived i t . F o r that, to o ,
a
form was
provi d ed . "The Ech o, which repeats the final two or three syllables of a
s ta n z a , ofte n om i t ti n g a letter so that it so unds like an a nswer, w a rn i n g ,
1 90
S C R I PT,
I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
or prophecy, is something very 'pleasing' and very popular. " This game, like other, similar ones that were so o ften taken for trivialities, actually speaks to the matter itself. Bombast as verbal gesture is so uninhi b ited in these games that they could very well serve as illus tra tions of i ts formul a . Language, which on the o n e hand seeks, in t h e fullness of sound, to asse rt its cre a turely rights, is on the other hand bound , in the fl ow of the alex andrine verse, to a forced logicality. This is the stylistic law o f bombast, the formula for the " Asian words " 7 of the Trauerspiel. The gesture tha t seeks to incorporate meaning in this way is of a p iece with the m ost vio lent deformation of history. To adopt, i n langu age a s in life, only the typica l forms of creaturely movement and yet to express the e ntire world of culture, from antiqu ity through Christian Europe-this is the extraor dinary intention that is never reno unced, even in the Traum'spiel. The s ame extreme longing for nature found in pastoral p la ys thus underlies the enormous a r tificiality of the Trauerspiel's mode of expression. On the other hand , this very mode of exp ression, which only represents rep resents the nature of language, that is-and so far as possi ble circum vents p rofane co mnulllicati on, is courtly and elegant. O ne really c annot say that the Ba roque was tru ly overcome, that sound and mean i ng were truly reconciled, until Klopstock, thanks to
A. W. Schlegel called,
figura tively, the "grammatical " tendency of his odes. S His bombast is based far J ess upon sound a nd image than upo n the coordination of words-upon word order. Written in 1 925; pu b l ished in 1 92 8 . Gesammelte Schriftel1. I, 3 8 0-3 8 4 . Excerpted from Origin of the German Trauerspiel, section J , " Allegory and Trauerspiel . " Tra nslated by Mi
chael W. Jennings. A previolls translation by John Osborne (London, 1 977) was cons u l ted.
Notes 1.
Cal d er 6 n � Schauspiele ( trans. Gries ), III, 3 1 6 ( Eifersuc ht das gro!S te Sche usa l,
I I ) . rBenjamin's note. Benj amin cites Johann Diederich Gri es s tra ns l a ti o n '
B e r li n i n ] 8 1 5. The Spanish d ramatis t Pedro Cald e ron de la Ba rca ( 1 6 00- 1 68 1 ) is a major figure in Benjami n's Trauerspiel book. See also " C a lde r6n's E l Mayor Monstruo, Los Celos, and of Calderon's p lays, publ ished in
Hebbel's Herodes ul1d Mariamne" ( 1 923 ) , in Benj a m i n , Selected
.II,, <' U'!,"'"f-...
VolU1ne 1 : 1 9 ,1 3-1 92 6 ( Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1 99 6),
pp. 363-3 8 6 .-Trans. 1 2 . Gryp hius, Trau erspiele, p . 62 ( Leo Armenius, II, 455ff. ) . [Be njamin 's n o te . See
Andreas
Gryphius,
TrauerSfJiele,
e d . Hermann Pa l m (Tii bingen:
Li t tcrarjscher Verein in Stuttgart, 1 8 82 ) . The Silesian p oet and drama tist
191
D I S M E M B E R M E N T OF L A N G U A G E
Gryphius ( 1 6 1 6- :1 6 6 4 ) w a s
a
member o f the Fruchtbringende Gesel lscha ft
a uthor of some of the best-known Trauel'spielcJ i n c lu d i n g Leo
and
Armel1ius, Catharina
VOIl
Georgien, and Papinian.-Trans. ]
3 . Cf. Stachel, Seneca, p . 2 6 1 .
[Benj amin's note. See P a u l S ta c h e l , Seneca und
das deutsche R enaissancedrama: Studien Zltr Literatul'- ttnd Stilgeschichte des 1 6. und 1 7. Jahrhunderts
(Berlin: May er & Muller) 1 9 (7) .�Trans. ]
[ Benjamin's n o te . Benjamin cites J o h an n Georg Schiebel, Neu-el'bauter S ch a usaa l ( Nuremberg: J ohann J o n a t h a n Fe lszecker,
4. Schie bel, S ch a us aal, p. 3 5 8 . 1 6 8 4 ) .-Trmts . ] 5.
Benjamin's use of the term Haupt- und Staatsaktion- " dramas of the state and its head " -is idi osyncratic. The term origina l ly referred to a s er ie s of popu l a r d ra mas
in t h e early eighteenth century; a lthough d iverse in t heme
and tona lity, each of these dramas centers around a comic figure , the Hanswurst. The b e s t- kn own a uthor in the genre-and the most s uccessful actor in the role of the Hal1Swurst-was Joseph Stranitzky ( 1 6 76-1 72 6 ) . Th e gre a t l i terary critic Joha n n Christoph Gottsc hed ( 1 70 0-1 76 6 ) inveighed aga i n s t the genre for i ts use of th e mo st deg ra d e d remna nts of Baroque drama . Benj amin, h owever, a pplies the term to the serious Baroque court drama of the seventeenth ce n t u ry. As a result, his j udgment on the echo o f t h e s e dramas in t h e Vi e nnese Hau pt- und Staatsaktion o f the early e igh teenth
century is thoroughly positive: he calls them "parodies"
crl
tique o f the a bsol utist state exerted a positive soci a l e ffect. 6.
Cf.
Die G lorreiche Marter J oann es von Nep omuck; quo ted from Weiss,
Staatsa ctionenJ pp. 1 4 8ff.
[Benjamin}s n o te . See Karl Weiss,
Die Wiener
Haupt- und Staatsactionen: Ein Beitrag zur G eschichte des deu tschen The 7.
aters ( Vi e n n a : C . Gerold , 1 8 54) .-Jrans.J Hallmann, Trauer-, Freuden- und SchaferslJiele [rlays of Mo urning and of
Joy, and Pastor a ls] , first page o f the unpaginated preface. [Benj a min's note.
Be n j a m i n cites tbe col lection of J ohann Christian Ha llmann's Trauerspiele and other p lays published in Bresla u in 1 6 8 4 . Ha l l manl1 ( c a . 1 64 0-ca . 1 7 1 6) ,
a
Silesi a n dramatist of the Baroque period, went to the s a me Gynma
secondary school ) in Br e sl a u that Martin Opitz and Daniel Lohenstein attended .-Trans.]
sium (classical
Caspar von
8. Friedrich Gottl i e b Kl opstock ( 1 724-1 8 03 ) was
the greatest eighteentb
century German lyric poet before G oethe; he is best known for his epic poem The Messiah and his pastora l odes. The German schol ar, poet, cr itic, and t ra n s lat o r August W i l h e l m Schl egel ( 1 767-1 8 4 5 ) was, with h is brother Friedrich Sch lege l, one of the founders of German Romantici sm.
17 Graphology Old and New
Tod ay scientific grapho logy is
a
good th i r ty years old . L \Vith certain res
ervations, i t can undou btedly be d es c ri b ed as a German ach i eveme n t; and 1 8 97, when the Germa n Gra phological Society was fo un ded in Mu
nic h , can b e de eme d the ye a r of its b irth . It is a s t r i ki n g fact that academic science still withholds recognition, even though this tech ni q ue has been pro vidin g pr oofs of the precision of its p ri n ci p l e s fo r t he past three de c a d es . To this day, no German university has esta b l is hed a c hair for the
i nterpr etation of hand wr it i n g . But i t is worthy of note tha t o ne of the free colleges, the Lessing-Hochschul e in Berl i n , has now taken th e s tep of a dopting the Central Institu te for S cientific Gra phology { un d er the d i r e c tion of Anj a Mendelssohn } . 2 Evid ently this fa ct has also been ackno w l e dged abroad as a m il e s tone in the h i s tory of graphology. At any rate, the oldest li v i ng representative o f this science, J ules Crepieux-Jamin, ar rived from Rou en to attend the opening of the ins t i tute . ] We found him to be a n elderly, somewha t u n w or ld l y g entl em a n who a t first glance looked like a d octor. An important p r ac tic a l doc tor, that is, rather tha n
a pio neering r es e a rch e r. And this would also be an apt descrip tion of Crepieux-Jamin a n d his disciples' p osi ti o n in graphology. He i n herited the ma ntle o f his teacher, .M ichon, who in 1 8 72 had p u b l i s h e d
Geheimnis der Handschrift
his
[Secret of Handwriti ng] , i n wh ich the con
cept of graphology appears for the first time.4 What teacher a nd p up il have in common is
a
sha rp eye for h andwr iting an d a large dose of hea lth y
c o m mon sense, in conj unction w i th
a
gift for i ngeni o us i nference . Al l o f
th i s shows to advantage in their a nalyses, which f o r their part do more t o satis fy th e r equirements o f pr a c tic a l life than those of a science of charac-
1 92
GRA PHOLOGY O LD AND NEW
1 93
ter. The demands of the latter were first articulated by Ludwig K l ages in his fu nd a m ent a l works Prinzipien der Charal?terologie [The Princ i p les of
Characterology] and Handschrift und Charakter [H andw riti n g and Char
acter] . 5 Klages takes aim at the so-called s ign theory of the Pi'ench sc hool, whose pro ponents linked q u a l ities of character to qu ite specific written signs that they used as stereotypes on which to construct th e ir interpreta
tions. In c on tra s t , K la ge s inte rpre ts ha ndwrit ing fu n d a m en ta ll y as ges ture, as expressive m ovement. In his writings, there is no talk of specific signs; he sp e a ks only of the ge n er al characteristics of writing, w hich are n o t re stric te d to the partic u l a r form of individual letters. A special role is as
s igned to the a n alysis of the so-called fo rmal level-a m o de of interp re ta tion in which a Ll t b e characteristic features of a specimen of han dwriting are susceptible to a dual evaluation---either a p ositive or a nega tive interp re ta ti on-an d where it is the formal level of the script tha t decides which of
the two evalua tions should be ap p l ie d in each case. The history of modern German gra pho l ogy can be defined essentially by the debates surrounding
Klages ' theories. These d ebates have been initiated at two focal points. Rob e rt Saudek criticized the lack of precision in Klages' fi n d i ngs concerning the
p hysiological features of h a nd wr i tin g, as wel l a s his a rbitr a ry preoccupa tio n with German handwriting style.6 He himself has attempted to p r od uce
a more differentiated g r a p ho l o gi ca l a naJysis of the various na tional sc r ipt s , o n the b a sis of e xa c t measurements of h a n d wr i ti n g motio n . In
S au d ek, characterol ogica l problems recede i nto the b ac kgr o u n d; whereas in a second tre nd , which has r ecentl y taken issue with Klages, they stand a t the center of atte n ti o n . This view obj ects to his d efin it i o n of h a n d wr i t ing as e xp r ess i ve movement. Max Pulver and A nj a Mendelssohn, its lead ing re p r e s enta t i ve s, are s eeking to cre a te a space for an "id eogra p hic " in terpretation of h an d wri ting-t ha t is to say, a grapho lo gy that i nte rp r ets script in terms of the unconscio us gr a p hic e l em ents , the unc o n scio us image fantasies, that it contains'? The back g r ound to Klages' grap hology is the
p hilosoph y of life of the Ge o rge circle, and behind S a udek's approach we can discern Wu n d t 's ps y ch oph ys i cs; whereas in Pu l ve r 's endeavors the in flucllCe of Freud's t he o r y of the u n c o n s ci o us is u n deniable.s Published
in the Siidwestdeut'sche
Schriftcl1. IV, 596-5 9 8 . Tra nsla ted
Rund(rmkzeittmg,
Novem ber 1 930. G esammelte
by Rodney Livingstone.
Notes 1.
Benj amin wa s himself a n amateu r graphologist. See also his revi ew of the Mendelssohns' Del' Mensch in der Handschrift, in Benj amin� Selected Writ-
1 94
S C R I P T, I M A G E , S C R I P T- I M A G E
ings, Volume 2: 1 92 7-1 934 ( Ca mbridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1 9 9 9 ), pp. 1 3 1 - 1 3 4 . 2 . A n j a Mende lssohn ( 1 8 8 9-1 9 7 8 ) , w h o later p u bl ished widely in French under
her married
name ( a n d differently spelled first name), Ania Tei l la rd, was a
psychoanalyst ( she tra i ne d with C. G. Jung [ 1 8 75-1 9 6 1 ] in Zurich) a n d gra phologist; both she
and
her brother Georg studied with K lages .
3. Jules Crepieux-Jamin ( 1 8 58-1 940) was the author of many graphological treatises, including CEcriture e t Ie caractere {Handwriting and Character; 1 8 92}, which went through numero u s editions and was translated i n to
m a ny langu ages. 4. The a b be Jean Hippolyte !vlichon ( 1 8 06-1 8 6 1 ) p ublished several studies of
grap h o logy, as well a s work in other " b order zones" such as the psychology of b a nditry. 5 . Ludwig Klages ( 1 8 72- 1 956), philosopher and psychologist; attempted to
fo u n d a "metaphysical psyc hology "
that would study
human b e i n gs i n the
c on text of their relationship to a reali ty that was, for Klages, made u p o f ar chety p a l im ages.
6 . Robert S audek
( 1 8 8 0-1 9 3 5 ) , G e rma n n ovelist, playwright, a nd graphologist,
was the author of Wissenschaftliche Graphologie ( Scientific G r a pho logy; 1 926) and the editor of the American journal Character and Personality. His
editi o n of O tto Weininger's notorious G edanken uber Geschlechtsf,robleme ( Th o ughts on Sexual Pro blems ) was published in 1 9 07. 7. Max Pul v e r ( 1 8 89-1 952 ) , Swiss poet, pla ywright, and graph o logist, pub lished his Symbolik del' Handschrift ( S ymbo l ism of Handwriting) i n 1 9 3 1 .
8 . S tefa n George ( 1 8 6 8- 1 9 3 3 ) was a Ge rma n poet a n d t h e ed itor o f the
tial j o u rnal B latter fur
die
influen
Kunst, p u blished from 1 8 92 to 1 9 1 9 . He was the
central , and i ndeed a uthoritarian, figu r e in
a
gro up of writers known as th e
George Circle; a nd he sought, b y means of his lyric poetry and his charis
m a tic leadership, to "purify "
German language
and c u l t l1 re around th e turn
of th e twentieth century. G eorge's conservative-nationalis t i d e a s exerted strong influence on many German intellectuals
of his era.
a
Wi l he l m Max
\'X1undt ( 1 8 32-1 920), Ge rm an physiol ogist and psychol ogist, fou nded the
first lab oratory for experimental psychology at Le i p zig in 1 8 78 .
III PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
Connected, at one end, to Benj amin 's ea rly writings on J a nguage ( 1 9 1 6 ) and , at the o ther, to his work on the A rcades Projec t ( 1 927-1 9 4 0 ) and th e essay "The Work of Art in the Age o f Its Techno logical Re producibility " ( 1 9 3 5-1 9 3 6 ) , th e materials brou g ht togethe r in Part III pro v i d e an overview of his engagement wi th the vis ual arts, in part icu la r the media of painting and " graphics. " In the two .1 9 1 7 texts with which this part opens, Benjamin us es the German word Graphik, which
in this volume has been translated va riously as " the gra phic arts ," " work( s ) of gra phic art," " graphic works," " graphic a rt, " a n d , as in the title above, simply "graphics. " La ter texts emphasize effects of what we might call " graphicnes s " or " vividness, " for which Benj am i n 's term
is Anschaulichkeit. Gral)hik has been construe d b r oa dly here , as part o f an effort to sketch a number of im portant connecti ons a m ong di verse writings in which Benj amin discuss es pai nting, dra win g , print mak in g techniq ues, and the des ign an d illus trati on o f books. The texts i n P art III dem onstrate the importa nce of Benjamin's effo rts t o conceptu a l ize the s i gnifican ce of painting , drawing , and graphic i llustr ation within th e shifting historica l contexts in which his own work wa s produced and in relation to th e s ituations of th e pro duction and initial reception of the pictures and ap proaches to picture-making un d er co nsidera tion. At the
same ti m e, they also reveal the degree to which a ny consi deratio n of a n " image " o r " pictu re " (B i/d) i n Benj a min's work remains close ly b ound tOj indeed intertwined with-we mi ght e ven say determined by-his ex plorations of writing itself as a me dium for the presenta tion of figural im ages and the communication of meanin g .
1 95
1 96
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
Pa u l Klee,
A bs traktes A qu arell (Abstra c t Watercolor ) , 1 9 15. Wa tercolor on pastel
groun d . Now in the Bergg ruen Klee Collec tion, Metro politan Museu m of Art, New
York (accession no.
(Deep Pa thos).
1 9 8 4 .35 1 . 8 ) .
where it is kn own by the later title Scl1uleres Pathos
Photogra ph courtesy of the Metro pol itan Muse u m of Art; r e pro d uce d
by permission of ARS .
The unti tled fr a g me n t k n own as "Painting and the Graphic Arts " and the related essay " O n Painting, or S ig n and Mark , " w h ich were com posed during the s ummer and fall of 1 9 J 7, repres e n t a
res
p onse to some
of the most ambitious and challenging art of the day-including Cubism, particularly the work of Pablo Picasso ( 1 8 8 1- 1 9 73 ) , and the pai n tings of Wassily Ka ndin s ky ( 1 8 6 6-1. 944 ) and Paul Klee ( 1. 8 79-1 940 ) , who were both associated with the Mu nich- based artists ' gro up Del' Blaue Reiter
in the early 1 9 1 05. Desp i te their brevity and their vario usly unfini s he d states, these texts also attempt t o categorize p ainting (Malerei) an d the gra phic arts (Graphilc) in terms of the essential featu res of e a ch medium . Benj a m i n 's i nte r est in the hi s tory and theory of the vis ua l arts was evident as early as 1 9 1 5 , when he a tt en ded and expressed his extreme disap poin tment with, lectu res by the art hi sto r i a n Heinrich Wo l fflin ( 1 8 641 9 45 ) at the university in Munic h . 1 His admiration for the work of the ,
1 97
PAI NTI N G A N D G R A P H ICS
Viennese art historian A lois Riegl
( 1 853-1 905) emerged aro und the same
time, a n d the first line of the untitled 1 9 1 7 fragment-"A picture wants to be held vertica l ly before the viewer" -suggests
a
connectio n to Riegl 's
co ncept of Kunstwollen, which is typicaIJy translated as " artistic voli tion , " and which in later works Benjamin would cite explicitly, for exam ple in the unpu bli s hed
1 929
text " S ome Remarks o n Folk Art. " Crucial
i n Benj ami n's us e of the concept of Kunstwo llel1 is that term's evocation not only of
a
collective human w i ll to prod uce art in pa rticular forms but
also of diverse instances of wi l l , vo lition, o r intenti onality as embodied in works of art and th us rendered potentially comprehensib le to those who view the works, including historians as well as amateurs considering ob j ects made i n tlle d istant past. The untitled 1 9 1 7 fragment on painting and gra phics sets out to es ta blish that " from the human point of v iew, the level of d rawing is hori zontal, that of p ai nting, vertical . " 2 Benj arnin speaks in thi s regard of two "sections" or " cuts " ( his word is Schnitt) through the " s u bstance of the wo rld " : the "longitudinal secti on of painting and the transverse section of certain grap hic works . " The longitudinal section o f painting "seems representation a l " inso far as it appears to " conta in things , " while the tra nsvers e section ( or cross-secti o n ) of drawings and other graphic works seems "symbolic " insofar as it c ontains " signs. " Altho ugh Benjamin ac knowledges that i t is possible to view s ome drawings o r other graphic works by h old i ng them out in front of us such that their vertical orienta tion appears analogo u s to that o f
a
p ainting ha nging on a wall ( indeed
his opening line suggests that all p ictures have a will to be " held vertically before the viewer " ) , he notes that
including children )s drawings
and the drawings of the German a rtist and future Berlin Da daist George Grosz
( 1 893-1 959),
w i ll appear meanin gless u n less arranged for view
ing i n a horizontal position-a p osition, Benjamin implies, that is ana lo go us to the one in which we w o uld set out a text to be read. This turn to what he calls, with emphasis, " our rea ding" lea ds to a consi deration of whether there might h ave existed an " original l y vertical" positi on of writing or script (Schrift) , perhaps in the form of engraving on stone. AU this is to say that Benj amin's earliest meditatio ns o n the media of painting and the graphic arts ( a nd on " p ictu res " and " signs " broadly c onceived) acknowledge-even as they move to esta b lish " the simple principle that p ictures are set ve r ti c a ll y and signs horizon tally " -t hat our habits of viewing and readi ng a re 11istorica lly determi ne d . For Benjamin, it therefore follows that any analysis of works of art and of our m odes o f apprehending pictures and signs has to take into account the " changing
1 98
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
metaphysical relations" that o btain over time. This aspect of Benj amin's
earliest writings on the vis ual arts signals both his engagement with the neo-Ka n tian p h i losophy of the d ay, and his inclination to m o d es o f a na l ysis that w oul d later take s h a p e in re lation to h istorica l ma terialism.3 The longer of the two e a rly texts, " On Painting or, Sign and Mark, " wh ich was d r a fte d in response to remarks on Cubism in a letter to Be n j a m in from his fr i end Gershom Scholem ( 1 8 9 7- 1 9 8 2 ) , represents an attempt to grasp " the unity of pain ti ng des p i t e the a pp aren t d isparity of its va rious schools. Prefacing his discussion of painting ( again, the Ger man word is Malerci) with considerations of the s ign (Zeichen) and the mark (Mal}-the la tter a term that is connected etymologically to Malerei and also has another meaning th at the essay draws u pon at certain p o i nt s (Mal as a moment in ti m e, or an i nstance)-Benjamin cons trues the mark as the " medium of paint i ng, " w l1 ere as he und ers tands dr awi ng and other forms composed by means of " gr aph i c line" a s bel onging to the " s ph ere of the sign . " But even as he associates p ai n t i ng with the mark as a visual form th a t appears on the human body a n d c a n there by acquire e tiologi cal, genealogical, m o ra l , affective, and theological meanings, he insists on the " decisive " role of J anguage in rela tion to p a i nting. If, i n Benj ami n 's te r ms , the mark i s the medium and thus in some sense the "vis ual l an guage" of p a intin g itself, a picture nonetheless requires a " name " i n or der to be conceived and comprehended in relation to the wo rld. Thus, h e asse rts that the " l ingu is tic word " (sprac h lich es Wort) e n t ers into the " language of paintin g " (malerische Sprach e) as a " h igh er power, " even as th e word as such remains invisible i n the pic t ure . This earl y theoretical interest in the power of the act of naming, with regard to human l an guage in gen eral as well as to p ictures, specific al ly paintings, fin ds a coun t e rp a rt in Benj amin's i nsiste n c e, begi n n i ng in the mid - .1 9 20s, on the sig nifica nce of c a p ti o n s and inscriptions bro a d ly conceived . " Dream K itsch," wri tten in 1 9 25 and p ub l i s he d under the title " Gloss on Surrealis m " in 1 927, s uggests that, in contradistinction to the drea ms associ ated in Romanticism with the imagistic fullness and metaphori cal d e n s ity of symbols ( s u c h as the " bl ue flower " which the l iterary hero Heinrich von Ofterdingen longs for, i n Nova lis' eponymo us 1 8 02 novel) , presen t-day dreams h ave " grown gray. " But if Benja min beli eved that d re am s in the context of European modernity in the late 1 9 20s w er e " a shortc u t to banality, " he did not take that to diminish either their mea ningfulness in psychic life or their poten tia l to p lay a decisive role in h i storical events. For Benj amin, th e dreams of his own era were con nected not to art (as i n Romanticism) , but to kitsch-an d dream k i tsc h
1 99
PA I NT I N G A N D G R AP H I C S
Max Ernst, frontispiece to Paul
Eluard, Repetitions
( Paris: Au Sans
Parei l, 1 922) .
Color halftone reproduction o f a circ a - 1 920 "overpainting " o f gouache a n d ink on printed page fro m
Anstalt).
a
German teach ing-aids cata logue
a
(Katalog de,. kol1ler Lehrmil:l:e l
Photograph co urtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University; reproduced
by perm i ssion of ARS.
was kitsch " garnished with cheap m axim s . " Surrealism,
a
movement
in l iterature and the visual arts that came t o prominence in Paris fo llow ing the di s s o l u ti on of the vario us European Dada movements in the early 1 9 2 0s , invoked Sigmund Freud's epochal
Interpretation of Dreams
( l 9 0 0 ) and psycho a nalytic theory in g e n e r al as conceptual foundations
for the r en o vati o n of works of art and li terature and their c a p a c i ty to convey me aning. Crucial in Surrealism was the reconfiguration of b a nal e lements of everyday life in s trik ing j uxtapositions d e s i gn e d to trans form the perceptions, t h e modes of feeling and co gn i ti o n , and eventu ally the social behavior and political action of re aders and viewers . In " Dream Kitsch , " Benj a min a ssociates S urrealist p oetry with the a p h o r i s tic in s cr i p t i o ns in n in e tee n th -ce n t ur y children's b ooks, i n clu di ng what a re now known as " pop-up " or " p op-out" books . In addition to his praise for the Surrealist writers Andre Breton ( 1 8 9 6-1 966) a nd Louis Aragon ( 1 8 9 7- 1 9 82 ) , Benjamin's essay includ es
a brief description of a color h alftone reprod uction of a 1 92 1 go u a ch e <' overpainting " 5 by the German artist Max Erns t ( 1 8 9 1 -1 9 7 6 ) that a p p ea re d a s t h e frontispiece t o Repetitions, a 1 922 book of poems b y Pa u l Eluard (Eugene Emi le Paul Grindel, 1 8 95-1 9 5 2 ) . The scene in Ernst's fro nt i s p iece is a schoolroom, a nd Eluard's titl e a ls o invokes p e dago g i c a J
200
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
exercises.6 Although Benjamin almost certainly would not have k nown
the
original work by Ernst, it is wo rth noting that the printed sheet on
w hich the overpain ting appears is an actual of
teaching
taken from a cata logue
a i d s (Lehrmittel) that were designed to promote the "pur
p oseful expa nsion of the sensory activi ty of children " through an ap proach to peda gogy ca lled Anschauungsunterl'icht (literaJ iy " instruction in perception " ) that was grounded in theories an d practices developed i n the first half o f the nineteenth century by the Swiss philosopher and pio neer of p rogressive ed ucation Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
( 1 746-1 827)
and his Germa n fol lower, the i nventor of ki ndergarten, Friedrich Froebel
( 1 78 2-1 852). Just a s the techni q ue of p llOtoengraving u sed
to reproduce
Ernst's frontispiece to Eluard's book harks back to a technology com mo
n ly
used i n the prod uction of illustrated books and periodical s i n the
late nineteenth century, Ben jamin's text invokes childhood of tha t epoch in setting the stage for his revaluation of kits ch in rel a t i on to a rt. Accord i ng to Benj am in, despite their interest in psychoa n a lysis the S u rrealists " are less on the trai l of the psyche tha n o n the tra ck of things . )' The face they s eek at the top of the " totemic tree of o b j ects the last mask of the b a n al
,
the
"
" is that of kitsch. It is
o ne with which we a d orn o ursel ves, in
d ream a n d conversa tion, s o as to take in the e nergies o f an o utlive d world o f things . " A n d it i s by means of k i tsch a n d n ot a r t (or "wh a t we used to call art" ) that, Benj a min s uggests, his contemporaries can come into renewed contact with " the world of things . " As i f o n the model o f the Lep o rello pop-up picture b ooks mentioned earlier in the essay, "in k itsch the world of things advances on the human being; it yiel ds to his uncertain grasp and ultimatel y fashions i ts figures i n h i s interior. T h e n e w m a n bears w i t h i n himse l f the v e r y quintessence of the old forms, and what evolves
in
the co nfronta tion with a particul a r
m i l ieu from the second half of the nineteenth century-in t h e drea ms, a s wel l as the words and images, of certain artists-is a creature who de serves the name of ' furnished man. n) Thus, the encounter with ki tsch and with kitsch
as
an el ement in, or p o ten tiaIly
a
medium for, works of
art-tra nsforms viewers a n d readers accor d i ng to a model of reception in which the work approaches, a nd finally enters into, the person a ppre hend ing
it,
outfitting him or her i n terna lly w i th " figures " of " the world
o f things . " For
Benja min,
it is by means of this internalization or introjectio n of
" the quintessence o f old for ms " tha t the n ovelty o f th e " new man" or " new human being" (l1euer Mensch) of the
1 9205 makes i tself known. In
the shape of the " furnished man " (moblierter Mensch), he env i s i o ns a
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PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
" crea ture" o u tfitted internally with figures of the recent past a s the s ub j ect of the dreams as well a s the avant-garde art and l i terature of his own day. A variant
e ndi n g
app e nded by Benjamin to
" D ream Kitsch" further descri bes the
"furnished '
a manuscript copy of moblierter Mensch as " the body
[meubhi] w ith forms and apparatuses, i n the sense that, in [meuble.l with
French, one has long spoken o f the mind "fu rnished'
dreams or with scientific knowledge. " D erived as it is from moblierter
Herr-a figurative, idioma tic term that refers to a tenant of furnished rooms as a " furnished gent1eman"-the moblierter Mensch of D rea m "
Kitsch " m ight be s aid to be '" furnished " specifica l l y with " forms a n d ap
paratuses " of a past of which Benjamin took the " furnis hed gentleman )' who dwel.led in rented rooms to be an avatar. In his wri tings of the late 1 920s a nd in the Arcades Project, Benjamin would continue to exp lore actual as well as po tential correspond ences among furnished dwel l ings , " furn ish e d " minds, and " furnished') bodies i n the cultural history o f nineteenth-century Paris and the modernity o f h i s o w n era. Even if, i n writing a b o u t a reproduction, he was unaware tha t phrases from the teaching-ai ds cata logue page were legi b le beneath t h e gouache in Ernst's original overpainting, Benjamin 's choice of a p icture of a group of boys in a c l a s s r oom hardly seems arbitrary, given the la rger claims of " Dream Kitsch. " His conviction that the Surrealists were in pursuit o f
" things " -and that it w a s in t h e context of t his pursu it t h a t t h e sig nificance o f their compos ition of poems a n d pictures recalling the max
ims a nd illustratio ns in n ineteenth-century children's books emerged links the treatment of Surrealism in "Dre a m K i tsch " to the aims of A 11schauungsunterricht in its ori ginal as well as its u pdated forms.
A nschauungsul1terricht is the name Pestalo zzi gave to a method of teach ing he developed in the co ntext o f his efforts to make primary ed uca tion availa b le to children of the lower social classes . Variously ca lled, in the context of nineteenth- and ea rly twen tieth-ce ntury progressive educatio n in the United S tates, " o bj ect teaching " or " obj ect lessons , "
Anschauungsunterricht i s a pedagogical method that stresses the pri m acy of perception (A nschauung) in the develop ment of the human ca pacity to acquire knowledge of the world, and that accordingly orga nizes its lessons first with a focus on concrete sensory experiences of
thi n gs and then with an emphasis on the perceptual and cognitive appre hens ion of represent a ti ons of things in the form of c a ptio ned i l lustrations presented in picture books and primers, as well
as
on wall charts and var
ious forms of hand-held cards and t a blets'? Benj amin often refers to
Anschauungsunterricht in the context of the " ed ucati on of the masses "
202
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
( Vo lksbildullg) , but he m akes clear that i ts p erceptual a n d historical ef fects extend ed to b ourgeois chil dren and, at least p otentially, also to a d ul t rea ders of various cl asses . Indeed, when writing a bo u t children�s books, he invokes both the experiences of h is own late nineteenth-cen tur y Berlin childhood and h i s o ngoing collecting. Ben j a min's " Gloss on S urrealism " envisions k i tsch not only a s a me d i um for the transm ission of new k i nds of knowledge a b out, a nd new poss ibilities for tak ing p leasure in, things, but also as an apparatus for the internal and external transformation or "furnishing " of human beas i f the experience o f " furnishing " (or, p e rhaps better, " refurnish ing " ) amo unted to a kind of learning, and vice versa. In a longer essay o n Surrea lism published i n 1 929, Benj amin envisi ons s uch transformations o r " refurnishings " a s p refigura ti ons-in the context of the S urrealists' " ra dical concept
experinlents with virtual and ac
tual " intoxica tion" (R ausch)-of the possibility of political rev o l ution . He speaks of " a space . . . in which p olitica l materialism a n d physical creatureliness share the inner man, the psyche, the ind ivi dual , " and he s a ys that the Surrealists " exc ha nge, to a man, the play of h u man features fo r the face of an a larm clock tha t e a ch minute rings for sixty seconds . " "To win the energies o f i ntoxication for the revolution: this is the project
o n which Surrealism focuses in al l i ts books and enterprises . " 8 Published a round the time h e began work o n the A rca des Proj ect in
1 92 7, Benj amin's 1 92 5 med itations on k i tsch point to key differences that would continue to emerge b e tween his views of the fate of the art work in modernity a nd those of his friend and Frankfurt School col league Theodor Adorno ( 1 903 - 1 969). Although Adorno's 1956 ess a y " Looking Back on S urre alism'� ech oes some o f what Benj a m in says i n " Dream Kitsch, " Adorno's reaction t o Benj amin's writings o n the great n ineteenth-century P arisian poet and critic Charl es B a Lldela ire ( 1 8 2 1-
1 8 67), to "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Tech nolo gical Repro d ucibility, " and to the Arca des Project fa mo usly involved his p oi nted critici sm of the phil osophical a s well as the p olitical implications of Benjami n 's conceptualizations regard ing both works of a rt and dreams . 9 " A Glimpse into the World o f Children's Books , �' a n illus tra ted essay that was p u b lished in a special issue of Die literarische Welt (December
1 92 6 ) devoted to c hildren's l iterature, opens w ith an account of wha t nap pens when ch ild ren r e a d ill ustrated books , a genre of uniq ue s ig nificance to Benjamin� who possessed not only expertise but a major col lection i n the fiel d . The c hildren's book author Hans Christian Andersen
( 1 8 0 5-1 8 7 5 ) gets it wrong, Benj amin says, but not by muc h , when in one
203
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
MITE 1
D I e .L t T e n X li 1 9 c: Jl r, . W I: I, T
['
! . �l e � �
B nd
b � J.,
e. r er tJ�liagt uns p�anlcMdjl fUliltrliuni nita n61:r:iflljl ra �li6 3tll nctle .lJruia6artlct, 6remalllt .ltitt gt3cidjntlfjal, J1crtm mas '!rlee, Dcm I'tindttrfcun6f clile 4Cuf'gn5e fa /lrtf SccaBe gCllla rtjt qQ&m Wfe6rcfe, IInB 6ucdj 9tmllllfo� llfcfitU baD mo!��,.iJirljrlc IIlIa nCUlfc� r<1t4 oUPtme(l)�"ridj ' r�one .uUtll! twrt1fc i!II l' �nn6t1l, 61Q 6[1; t/cine 117d{ln �131ld'tn {mfl�cit Wc�3rn, nit . lJlilijie Ijtl)ltU; ,Stl4�lflul 3QII�cdQ"6', 1S'clgo!/n� .mdllll� lTUi!tnprtc6.' U"�. ,fid6G!("� (jnMinBcc' unO to/ltll l� 5' 11lm't. DOl' FriJo iin . V.;rlns, BO" [;TI
Walter Benjamin, " All si Boo ks), Die litcfaJ'ische
8Ti �8 .
hr ins Kinderbuch" (A Glim pse into the Wo rld of Children's \x/eft, December 1 926. Photograph courtesy of the Univer
s i tats b i b l iothek cler Freicn U l l i versitat, Berlin.
204
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
of his stories the characters de p ict e d in a n expens ive hook b el on gi ng to a
p rinc ess turn out to be a live ( bird s sing, and huma n figures leap o ut and sp e ak to the princess as s he looks at the p age on which th e y ing back in when she turns to the the picturing child
from
ap
pe a r, l e a p
"Things do not come out to meet
the p ages of the book, " Benj amin states in his
corr ec t ive. " Ins te a d , in looking, the child enters into them
as a
cloud that
beco m e s suffused with the riotolls colors of the world of p i ctu r es . . . . He
overcomes the i llu s o ry barrier of the book's s u rfa ce an d p a s s e s thro u gh col ored textures a nd brightly p ainted partiti ons to enter
a
stage on wh i c h
the fa i ry ta le lives . " Al tho u gh thi s d es c r ipt i on o f the effects o f read ing and viewing p icture boo ks differs fr0111 the formulations in " Dream K i tschll-Benj amin al lu des here to Ta oist concepts that info r m e d c l a s s i cal C hi ne se la n d s c a pe painting, in which c l o uds fi gu r e p r o m i n e ntly-i t is w orth t ak i n g note of a
s imila r i ty enclosed within that d i ffe r e nce . Crucial in both c a ses is the
transformation of th e reader/ viewer, who cha nges shape in response to wh a t he reads a nd sees. In " Dream K i ts ch, " the result is a new kind of
" fu rnis hed huma n be i n g " (moblierter
Mensch)
outfitted by thi ngs en
co untered i n kitsch (or rath e r things tha t come out to gr e e t
be i ngs
from within kitsch ) , whi le in "A Gl i mp se i nto the Wor l d of C hildren's Books " it is
a
ch i ld who becomes a cloud and enters the
of the
book, and ind ee d perh aps p asses into the things depicted on those p ag es . In the
1 926
essay on children's books, one of several Benjamin w r o te
on the su bj e c t , the child 's tactile and more b ro ad ly the book e merge s
as
a
b o d il y
k ey concern . Children " know"
experience of
the pictures in
ABC-books " l i k e their own pocke ts ; they have turned them inside out, without n eg lec ti ng the s ma l lest thread or piece of clot h . " This tactile a p pro a c h to acquiring kno wledge of p ictures and w h at they represent
exten ds to chi l d r en 's inclination to " c omplete " s i mp le black-and -white
wood block ill ustrations by
"scri bbling"
on them, as well a s their ple a
Sllre in s e tti ng the scenes of " pull -o u t " bo oks in m otion.
Benjamin's int e r
est in the m o d a li ti es of perception of colored i l lustrations in c hildren's
books recalls the und er sta n ding of color in German Rom a n ti c i s m
( he
cites Goethe's Farbenlehre, or " Theory of Colo r, " from 1 8 1 0) , and he a n nounces that " pure color is the mediu m of fantasy, a ho m e in the clou ds for t h e playfu l c h i ld , not the stri ct canon of the constr u ctive artist" ) and also an tici pa tes the treatme nt of color in his own writings about hashish intoxi ca tio n , which in tu rn formed the
o f key concepts in th e Ar
cades P roje ct. 1O Twice i n this essay Benjamin makes exp licit his felt connection to chil d re n whose learning to write a bout pictures in words c o in c i d es with th e ir
205
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
scri b b li ng on pi ct u r e s in books. F irst he o ffers an invid ious co m p a r i s on of his own w ri ti n g a bo ut childre n 's bo o ks with the books themselves: " for those few people who as ch ildre n-or eve n as collectors-have h ad the grea t good fortune to come into p os s es s i o n of m a gi c b ooks or p u zzl e books, all of the for ego i ng will have paled in c om p a ris o n . "
A few l i n es
la ter, he descri bes the m oment of the composition o f " A Glimps e into the World of Children's Book s " as pre c is e l y this kind of scene, noting that " a
q uarto fro m the e i ghte en th century " lies o p e n i n front o f h im .
A s if t o underscore the historical character of h i s o w n writing, and thus to convey the urgency of h is engagement with childre n's books that vario usly e m body the Kunstwollen of Romantici s m and th e Bi e de r m eier p er i o d ( 1 8 1 5- 1 848 ) , in his discussion of p uzzl e-pictures B enj am in makes a p as s i ng reference t o " tests, " by w hi ch he mea ns voca tional
ap ti tu de
tests and, more ge ne rally, t h e " p sy chote ch n i c a l tests " o f h is own era that w ou l d a ss ume an impo rta nt p lace in "Th e Work of Art in the Age of Its Techn ological Repro ducib ility, " es p eci all y in the two e arliest versions of that essay, l I Whereas the p u zzle - p i ctu r es in eighteenth - a n d nineteenth
pr im ers H ) resemble a " m a sq u e r a de " in which words u n sy ste m a t i c a l ly take on the appea rance o f th i ng s as if p u tti ng on costu mes for per fo r m a nc es whose tech n i que s of pl a y children m igh t l earn to imi t a te, in the systematized tests of Benj amin's d ay simi l a r pictu res served as d i a gno s ti c tools and models for action in k inds of work tha t a i me d pr ec is e l y to rep l ace the inv ent i o n s and transformations of p l a y w i th the a c q ui s itio n of ha bit and a capacity fo r uniform, re petitive a ct i o n . I n the artwork essay, Benj amin co mp are s what h e calls " th e test per formance of the fi lm a c to r, " which ta kes place in fro nt of the app a ra tus of the cam e r a , to "a performance p ro d u c e d in a mecha nized test, " as in the testing of workers in p repar a ti on for ( a nd in d ee d , as Benj amin ar gues, in the process of) m ech a n iz e d l a b o r. In a p a ss a ge that drew espe cia lly strong criticism from Adorno, w h o r a i se d th e concern tha t Benjamin h a d " p r otect e d himself b y elevating the fe a r e d o b j e ct widl a kind of inverse taboo , " 1 2 B en j amin proposes that the film a c to r should be s ee n as " taking revenge " on behalf of " the maj ority of city d wel le rs , [who} thro ughout [he workday in o ffices and factories have to r e li n q uis h their h u ma n ity i n the face of the apparatus . " �(In the e venin g , " he asserts, " these same masses fill the cinema s to w itne s s the film actor taking re ven ge o n the ir b eh a l f not o nly b y asse r ti n g his h umani t y (or w h at ap pears to them as s u c h ) against the ap p aratus, b u t by p la ci n g that a p para tus in the service of his t r i ump h . " [ 3 It h ardly nee d s s aying that, as a n il l u str a ted ar t i cl e , Benjamin's 1 92 6
century Anschauungsbucher ( r ough ly (' p erception
PA I N TI N G AN D GRA P H I CS
206
essay on children 's books has something in common with the works tha t are its subj ect. The fi rst page of the a rticle as it a p pe a re d in D ie literarische Welt also makes vivid a no ther aspect of Benj amin's writing a bout i mages, namely his i nsistence, i n One- Way Street ( written 1 9231 92 6 , published 1 92 8 ) , t h a t the ubiquity o f a dvertisements on d isplay in the p u b l ic a tions and public spa ces of twentieth-century citi es should be recognized not only as a symptom but a lso as an agent of the trans forma tion of the those sp aces and of the k inds of w riting, rea ding, and viewing tha t take p l ace withi n them. 14 Thus it is s triking to see, i n the context of Benja min's essay, how a l a r ge i ll ustrated a d vertisement for picture books
(Bilderbiicher) takes i ts place-w i th a brigade of tin soldiers standing at assembly before a t i n officer mounted on a rearing toy horse-in relation to the reproductions from nineteenth-century children's books elsewhere on the page. Another i l lustrated essa y, " Chambermaids ' Romances o f the Past Centu ry " aims to understand nineteenth -century works of literary "col porta ge " -that is, the sort o f chea p novels that were distri buted by trav eling peddlers (colp orteurs ) a t country fairs and o n city streets-accord ing to " the concept o f the document, " an approach that once again l oca tes Ben1amin's work in rel ation to the art history of Alois Riegl while now also anticipa ting his treatment of the
of the Soviet writer
Sergei Tretiakov ( 1 8 92-1 9 3 71 , the Germ a n playwright and poet BertoIt B recht ( 1 89 8-1 9 5 6 ) , and other a vant-garde writers and a rtists in "The Au thor as Producer " ( 1 934; see Part I of this vo lume ) . In " Chambe r maids ' Romances
of the Past Centu ry, "
the word " art " appears in q uota
tion marks, whi le works not u s u a l ly conside r e d
l itera ture inspire
Benj amin's call fo r a new approach to the s tudy of the novel-an ap proach th at would focus on the conditions and e ffects o f i ts " use. " The " devouring " of novels emerges as a general category of use, w h i le the tearing-ou t of i llustrated pages to be hung up fo r private display ( and eventually to be consigned to the r u b bish bin ) a ppears as
a
s p e c i fi c mo
da lity of use. As in his writings on children 's l i te r ature and k itsch, here Benj amin emph as izes the tactile a nd more gener a l ly em bodied cond itions o f recep tion, conditions that simi larly are central to h is unp ubl ished " Some Remarks on Folk Art, " also written in 1 92 9 .
It is worth noting with regard t o Benj amin's interest in captions ( a concern that w o u ld emerge as crucial in h i s writings o n photography i n t h e early 1 93 0s ) tha t t h e illustrations t o " Chambermaids' Roma nces of the Pas t Centu ry " bear captions composed by Benj a min himse l f . All mat ter-of-fact in tone, some offering ironic synopses of the " typical s u b j ec ts "
PAI N T I N G A N D G R A P H I CS
207
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Walter Benjamin, "Dienstma d c hen-Romane des vorigen Jah rhunderrs " (Chamber maids ' Romance o f the Past Centu ry) , Das illustriel'te B latt, 1 9 2 9 . Photograph co ur tesy of the Universi t�i.tsbibliothek Johann
Christian Senckcn berg, Frankfurt am
Main.
208
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
pr ese n t e d in th e nov e l s , the captio ns a re at once documents o f Ben j a m in 's own " us e " of t h e s e works of colp ortage and schematic i nstructions fo r r ead e rs who m ight come to t he bo oks by way of his illustrated e ss a y.
The p ictures described in " Moonl it Nights on the Rue La Boetie" h ave no ca p tio n s . Instead, i t is as if viewers w ere i magined to ha ve the capac i ty to co m p os e a p t c a p ti on s themselves in the m o ment of behold ing the p ictures. Th a t is, in e ffect,
what Benjamin
does i n h is text, w hich
all but spells out lines li k e " D o s to evsky on the Terrace of the Casino at Baden-Bade n, " 15 ap p a rently
as
a me a n s o f invoki n g the pict u res he
mostly d ec lines otherwise to d escri be. Benj amin seenlS to s u ggest tha t his appr e hen sio n o f the watercolor tra nsparencies o n dis p l a y in Paris
p roc ee d e d by w ay of a mental act tha t app roximated the p rovision of
a
ca p tio n for the pictu r e in view, an operation that elaborates upon th e " namin g " of p i ctorial compositions as d iscussed in " O n Pa i nting , or Sign and Ma rle " As in h i s
remarks
on Su rreali sm a n d ki tsch, in " Moonlit Ni ghts on
the Rue La Boeti e " Ben j amin takes p ains to associate the wa tercolor techni q ue used to prod uce the transparencies-whose ap p ear a nce he de s c ri bes i n terms tha t evoke cinem atographic p ro j ection-not with " art " ( i n " D r e a m Kitsch " he wrote of " what w e
used
to call art " ; h e re , as in
" Cha m bermaids ' Romances of the Past Century, " he s i mpl y sets the word w ith i n q uotation marks ) but with " th e practica l arts, " among wh ic h he includes o utmoded fai rgroun d proj ecti on t e c h n i q ues , dioramas, and the new tech nolog i ca l med i u m of television . As did S urre a lism and t h e works of kitsch it incorporate d , in whole or in pa rt, by means of cit a tion and ironic imitation, the pa i n tin gs in " Moonlit Nights on the Rue La Boetie " have the effect o f making it seem to their beholders as if events of the histo rical p ast ( th e v i ew ing of the corps e of the assassinated Duc de Be rry) and great works from the trad i ti on of E u r op e a n art ( Raphael's
frescoes in the Vati c a n stanze, as seen in the early nineteenth century by the German Romantic painters known as the N a zaren e s) were taking p l a c e o r becoming visible before th e i r eyes, in th e space of the exhi bition.
In " S o m e Remarks on Folk Art" and i n the Arca des Proj ect, Benja m i n v ariously associates this peculiar effect of " making presen t � ' (uerge
genwartigen) with kitsch and with c oll e cti ng , the latter a practice l inked expl ici tly to the method of h i s own work on the Arcades Project. The re marks on folk a rt a s se r t the unity of k i tsch a n d fo lk art and ac kn owl e dg e the depe n d ence of each on " w ha t is k nown as great art , " while insis ting th a t kitsch a nd fol k art alte r what they take from great art and make use of i t in the service of their own aims - tha t is, a c cordi ng to their own
PA I N T I N G AN D GRAP H I CS
209
Kunstwollen. But here agai n Benj amin d i stin guis hes between " grea t art " and th o se works of kitsch a nd folk art that, even as they d ispl ay
Ktmstwollen> or ien t that " will to a r t" or
{
( a rt
a
i s tic volition " not to ward
art but toward " m uch more primitive, urgent concerns . " Folk art a n d kitsch-in temp ting th eir vi ewers, readers, a n d list en ers (Benj a m in men
tio ns the r efra i ns of folk songs ) " to th ro w the s i tu atio n that is b ro ug h t to min d aro und one's should ers, l ik e
a
favorite old coat " -a waken the
imagination and induce a virtually p hy s ica l respo nse, a response tha t leads i n turn to a re c o gn i ti o n that the situ a t ion n o w brought t o mind is s o m ething that has been expe r ie n ce d unc o n s ci ou s ly in the past. This ef
fec t of deja-utt d ep end s upon a structure of viewi ng, rea ding, or l iste n in g
in which the work
"
a p p r o a c hes " the viewer, rea d e r, or listener, a nd not
the other way arou n d . By means of the work of folk a r t or kitsch, Ben j a m i n suggests, situations or eve n t s that p r e v i o u s ly s tood outside o ur
consciolls a w ar ene s s ac q u i r e th e p o tenti al to be integ rated into present d a y experience. Thus, his 1 92 9 remarks on fo lk art a n d kitsch begin to s ketch a
al s for
s e t of ide a s tha t would emerge i n the Arca des P ro j ect as propos
a new
a p pr o a ch to u n d e r st a n d i n g historical e vents of th e past in
r e l a t i o n to the lived rea lities and p olitical exigenc ies of the pres e n t.
In the encounter sta ged by fol k art or ki tsch , we experience ourselves as
d we lling within the work, but not as having a rrived there by mean s
of our o wn e m p a th ic p r oj ection o r
"
feel i ng - i n " ( the German word for
" e m p a t hy " in these instances w ou l d be Einfiihlung) . As Be n j a m i n puts
it in th e final l i nes o f t h e u npublis h e d text: " Art teach es us to s e e into things . / Folk a r t and kitsch allow us to see o utw a r d from within t hi n gs . " In Surrealism B en j ami n rec o gn i ze d a pur s u it o f
"
t h i n g s " that led i nevita
b l y to k i t sc h and tha t resem bled an a p p ro a c h to learning pr o m o te d u n d e r t h e rubric o f A nschauungsu1'lterricht. Now, in these pre l i m i nary formu la t i o n s r e g a r d i n g the structure of behol ding a n d the
effects of m a k i n g
present in t h e rece p ti on o f ki t sch a n d folk a r t , h e esta bl i shes terms i n
which to conceptual ize the primitiveness as welJ as the urgency o f Kunstwollen aimed a t somet hing ot h er t llan art . The
a
Kunstwolle11
B e nj a m i n s trives to describe in his writings on the v is ual a rts
a
ftcr 1 924
c o nveys the a i ms of his own most ambitio us work, or wh a t Adorno ca lled Benj amin's " m o st extreme theore ti cal experiments . " 1 6
Publ ished in 1 929, \I Anto i ne W ie r tz: Tho ugh ts and Vis i o ns of
a
Sev ered Hea d " co mprises a b ri e f i n tr o d uc to r y paragraph b y Benj amin
followed by a lengthy citation fr o m the IegendeJ or caption, c o m p o sed by B e l g i a n arti st Antoine J ose p h Wiertz ( 1 806-l 8 6 5 ) fo r h i s tri p tych
Thoughts and Visions of a Severed Head
( 1 853 ) , which n o t ab ly
is not re-
Anroine Joseph Wierrz, Pensees
et visions d'une tete coupe-e, 1 853 .
graph courtesy of the Musee Wierrz.
Tempera on canvas. Musee Wierrz, Brussel s. Phoro
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
21 1
produced as an illustration to Benj amin's article . Although it was made with the aim of taking its place in the canon of great European art-the late -Romantic painter sought to emulate in particular the works of the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens ( 1 5 77-1 640)-in Benj amin's account, Wiertz's work emerges as having " l ittle to do with great pa inting-but it is all the more interesting to conno isseurs o f cultural curiosities and to physiognomists of the nineteenth century. " Here the connection to the aims of the Arcades Proj ect is unmista kable, not least because the citational mode of Benjamin's presentation of Wiertz's work prefig ures the method he would come to envision emp loying for the Arcades Proj ect. Cons isting almost entirely of a citation o f a caption, the Wiertz article does not so much reitera te as enact Benj amin's assertion of the impor ta nce o f captions and inscriptions in relation to works o f visual art. In deed it would seem that Benj a min's knowledge of Wiertz and of the mu seum that bears his name came not from a visit to the site in Brussels that he envisions becoming an " o b ligatory destination for honeymooners " ( " once the nineteenth century is Baedeker-ready and its ruins are ripe for moonlight" ) , but from the painter's posthumously published Oeuvres
litteraires ( 1 8 6 9 ) , and perhaps from illustrated catalogues and brochures publis hed by the museum. Benjamin refers to the "compositorial power" of Wiertz's legendeJ and he does not remark on the fact that the legende a lso appears, handwritten, as an element of the painted triptych itself, where it was inscribed by the a rtist upon a trompe-l'oeil p ainted frame. But even as his article on Wiertz reasserts the primacy of the written-in deed more specifically the printed-word , his praise for the p a inter and his writings is connected to a developing interest i n the history of photog raphy, a p reoccupation that would challenge, though by no means dis mantle , the terms in which the primacy of writing held sway in Benj amin's work. Wiertz would emerge as a figure of considerable interest for the Ar cades Proj ect and for Benj amin's writings on photograp hy, a bove all in connection with Wiertz's 1 8 55 essay on that medium and its implica tions for painting. As a painter, Wiertz assumes a place in the Arcades Project alongside the draftsman, watercolorist, and war correspondent Constantin Guys ( 1 8 02-1 8 9 2 ) , the caricaturist J. J. Grandville (Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard , 1 8 03-1 847), and the Symbolist painter and print maker Odilon Redon ( 1 840-1 9 1 6 )-the latter two artists both precur sors of the Surrealists, and all three figures whose work arguably " has little to do with great painting. " Adorno and others have noted that
212
PA I N TI N G A N D G R A P H I C S
Wang Yu a n qi, Landscape in the Styles of Ni Zan mId Huang G0I1gwang. Hanging scroll, ink and light co lors on pa per, 3 7 y� in.
x
1 7 ;;; in. Present l oc a ri o n unknown;
formerl y in rhe collecrion of Jea n - Pierre Dubose. As reprod uced Du bose, Great Chinese Painters
of the Ming and Ch 'ing Dynasties,
111
Jean Pierre
X V to X VIII Cen
turies: A Loan Exhibition (New Yo rk: Wildenstei n , 1 94 9 }, ca talogue no. 4 9 .
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
213
the Arcades Project lacks any sustained engagement with the great mod ernist painters of Paris in the nineteenth century, Edouard Manet ( 1 8 321 8 8 3 ) foremost among them . 1 7 The a bsence is striking, and not to be ex plained away as merely a minor flaw in Benjamin's proposed approach to the Arca d es Proj ect and the century that was to be its subject. In this context i t bears noting that in turning not only to the likes of Wiertz, Redon, Grandville, and Guys (the las t by means of his inten sive engagement with the writings of Baudelaire, who famously du bbed Guys " the painter of modern life, " a gesture perhaps recapitulated in Benj amin's nomination of Wiertz as "the painter of the arcades " ), but also to illustrated children's books and colportage, Benja min began in the l ate 1 920s to conceive categories of works whose ambitions and effects ( a bove all, effects of Anschaulichkeit-perceptibility, vividness, graph ic ness) he associated with A nschauungsunterl'icht as a type of ped agogy and a set of representational prac tices potentially to be put to more gen eral use. " Chinese Paintings at tbe Bi bliotheque Nationale , " a review essay originally publ ished in French in 1 9 3 8 , returns to a number of key themes and topics addressed in the earli er writings in Part III. In his en counter with paintings of the Ming ( 1 3 6 8-1 644 ) and Qing ( 1 644-1 9 1 1 ) periods, Benj amin finds an occasion to address works that, as he p uts it, have been "grouped together under the sign of decadence, " specifically in relation to classical Chinese painting o f the Song ( 960-1 279 ) and Yuan ( 1 271-1 3 6 8 ) periods. Benjamin's interest in reconceptualizing the cultural values and aesthetic achievements of periods of decadence or decline reaches back to his s tudy of the German Baroque Trauerspiel in the mid-1 920s and o nce again connects his work to that of the art histo rian Riegl. In this regard it bears noting that Jean-Pierre Dubosc ( 1 9 041 9 8 8 ) , the French diplomat and connoisseur of Chinese painting whose coll ection formed the basis of the October 1 9 3 7 Bi bliotheque Nationale (Paris ) exhi bition Benj amin reviewed, lamented the tendency in Western scholarship of the first half of the twentieth century to disparage the "sometimes ' baroque' tendencies " of tbe paintings of tbe Ming and Qing periods, which he believed instead "should speak in their favor. " 1 8 As in the Origin of the German Trauerspiel, in the review of Chinese paintings relations among images, script, and modes of perception and cognition emerge as key concerns. Benj amin writes in particular of the significance of the call igraphic inscriptions (legendes) rendered by Chi nese painters within their pictures . In the Ming and Qing periods those inscriptions often made reference to the styles, and sometimes to specific works, of artists of earlier epochs; in the case of the Qing-period hang-
214
PAI NTI N G A N D G RA P H I CS
ing scroll reproduced here, an inscription by the artist Wang Yuanqi indi cates his admiration and emulation of two masters of the Yuan period whose styles he has attempted to combine in the painting. Dubose suggests in an essay about his collection that what we might call the " citational" mode invoked by the inscriptions in Ming- and Qing-period paintings can be understood by means of a comparison to French paint ing of the nineteenth century. " We should remember, " D u bose writes, " that Manet, in some of his most famous paintings, reproduced very ex actly compositions by Vehizquez. " 19 That the question of copying or re production is central to the Chinese paintings that captured Benj amin's attention in the late 1 93 0s points to a connection to the concerns of the artwork essay, while the citational mode of the calligraphic inscriptions suggests a link to the Arcades Proj ect. Benj amin's tho ughts on the paintings in the Bibliotheque Nationale exhibition culminate in his consideration of " an antinomy which finds its 'resolution' in an intermediary element that, far from constituting a balance [un juste milieu] between literature and painting, embraces inti mately the point at which they appear most irreducibly opposed namely, thought and image " or, in French, " l a pensee et l'image. " Later in the review Benj amin uses the term image-pensee, which would seem to relate to the German Denkbild, a word he used to describe the genre of his own brief, meditative writings, and which is usually translated as im age de pensee in French. Following the art historian Georges Salles a nd citing the Chinese term xieyi, Benj a min refers to the art of Chinese paint ing as " first and foremost the art of thinking" ( " l'art de peindre est avant tout l'art de penser" ) or an " idea painting" ( "peinture d'idee " ) , the latter a notion he associated, in less elevated terms, with Wiertz, whom he de scribed in the "Little History of Photography" as an " ungainly painter of ideas " ( " ungeschlachter Ideenmaler " ) . In the " ink-play" of the so-called "literati-artists , " in which calligraphy figures prominently as a medium integral to Chinese painting, Benj amin discovers a capacity to impart to the marks that make up the image a fixity and stability that is also and at the same time fluid and changing. "Thinking, for the Chinese painter, means thinking by means of re semblance , " he writes, invok ing a modality of thought central to his own work, from his earliest writings on language to the essays "On the Mi metic Faculty " and " Doctrine of the Similar " ( both 1 933 ) . And since "nothing is more fleeting than the appearance of a resembl ance, the fleeting character and the imprint of variation of these paintings coin cides with their penetration of the real. That which they fix never has
215
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
more than the fixity of clouds . " " �Why d o landscape painters live to such advanced old age ? ' asks a painter-philosopher. 'Because the mist and the clouds offer them nourishment.' Monsie ur D ubose's collection inspires these reflections . " For their part, Benj amin's writings on modern media were everywhere marked by his awareness that the l andscapes of Western modernity o ffered no s uch sustenance. B RI G I D D O H ERTY
N otes 1. In late 1 927, Benj amin a ttempted unsu ccessfully-despi te the su bmission of a letter on his behalf by t he eminent Austri a n writer H ugo von Ho fm a nnsthal ( 1 8 74-1 929)-to forge a connection to the Ham burg-based art histor i a ns Aby War burg ( 1 8 6 6-1 9 2 9 ) , Erwin Panofsky ( 1 8 9 2-1 9 6 8 ) , and Fritz S a xl ( 1 8 9 0- 1 948 ) . On Benjamin's engagement with art history, see his 1 9 3 2 re view essay "The Rigorous Study o f Art"
( i n this volume), as well as the in
troduction to P art I a bove. 2. Wa lter Benj amin, letter to Gershom Scholem o f 22 October 1 9 1 7, cited in Gesammelte Schrifte1t, II, 1 4 1 4 . For the complete text o f the letter, see Benj amin, Gesammelte Briefe, I, cd. Christoph G6dde and Henri Lonitz (Fra nkfurt: Su hrkamp, 1 99 5 ) , pp . 3 8 8-3 9 7 . 3 . B o t h Benjamin a n d Scholem were trained in philosophy i n various German university departments at a time when the contrib utions of the s o-called Marburg school of neo-Kantian phi losophy, wh ich had its origins in the work o f Hermann Cohen ( 1 842- 1 9 1 8 ) , were a subject of s ignificant inter est and much discussion. The exchange between Benj amin and Scholem that surrounded the composition of " Pa inting and the Graphic Arts " and " On Painting, or Sign and Mark" made pla i n the relevance of neo-Kantian aesthetic though t a n d Cohen's work i n particular to Scholem's as well a s Benj a min's th inking a bout Cubism and a bout painting i n genera l . S e e Benj a m i n, Gesammelte Briere, I, ed. Christoph G6dde a n d Henri Lonitz ( Frankfurt: Suhrka mp, 1 9 95 ) , p p . 3 77-3 97; see also Scholem, Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship, i ntro. Lee S iegel, tra ns. Harry Zoh n (New York: New York Review Books, 2 0 0 3 ) , pp. 7-6 5 . H istorical ma teri alism encompasses a wide range o f a p proaches t o the analysis of culture and society that various ly have their origins in the work of Karl M arx ( 1 8 1 8- 1 8 8 3 ) . While many aspects of Benja min's work share Ma rx's aim of promulgating a " materia list conception of his tory," Benj amin w a s emph atic in stating his i ntention to b reak with "vulgar h istoric a l m a te rialism"-or, as he says regarding Surrealism, " to explode it from within . " S e e Benj amin, The Arcades Project, tra n s . Howard Eiland and Kevin
21 6
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
McLaughlin ( Cambri dge, Mass . : H arvard University Press, 1 99 9 ) p. 46 1 ; and Benj am in, " Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the Eur opea n In telligen tsia," in Selected Writings, Vo lume 2: 1 92 7- 1 934 (Cambridge, Mas s . : Har vard University Press, 1 99 9 ) , p . 2 0 8 . 4. Benj amin, Gesammelte Schriften, II, 1 4 1 3 , a lso citing the letter t o Scholem o f 22 October 1 9 1 7. 5 . Overpainting was a tech nique invented by Max E rn st in which he pai n ted wi th watercolor and gouache on top of pri n ted pages to create pictures that resembled collages. In the origina l 1 922 edition of R epetitions, Ernst's illus trations a re ca l led dessins (drawings) , wh ile in a 1 962 bili ngual French-Ger man reprint on which Ernst collaborated, t hey are c alle d co llages in French and Collagen in German. See Paul Eltlard , R epetitions, avec dessins de Max Ernst (P a r i s: An Sans Pareil, 1 92 2 ) ; and Eluard, R epetitions, mit .1 .1 Colla gen VOIl Max Ernst, trans. Max Ernst and Rainer Pretzell ( Cologne: Ga lerie der Spiegel, 1 962). 6 . Pedagogy and domi natio n, and pedagogy as domi n ation, a re key S urrealist themes. For example, Ernst's fro ntispiece and Benj amin's gloss on that p ic ture find an echo i n the opening of Andre Breton's 1 93 7 Surrealist novel L'A mour fou (Mad Love) , which refers to " boys of hars h d iscipline " who evoke for the narrator " certa i n theoretical beings, . . . key bearers , possess ing the clues to situations. " See Breton, Mad Love, trans. Mary Ann Caws (Lincoln: Universi ty of Nebraska Press, 1 9 87), p . 5 . 7 . Pestalozzi's conceptua l ization o f Anschauung with regard t o pedagogy was derived from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant ( 1 724- 1 804); English trans lations of Kant variously render A l1schauung as " intuition" or " percep tion. " For Benjamin's use of the term Anschauungsunterricht in relation to pedagogical theories a nd practices of the ninetee nth century as well a s the 1 920s, see the text of his radio b r oadca s t " Children's Litera ture," Selected Writings, vol. 2, pp. 25 1-252. In a review essay called " Old Toys: The Toy Exhibition at the Miirkisches Museum, " which was p u blished in the Frank fu r te r Zeitung in Ma rch 1 92 8 , a nd which Benja mi n understood to be closely connected to the Arcades Project, he praises the exhi bition orga nizers for the breadth of their conception of "toys," citing specifically the inclusion of " books, posters, and wa ll charts for Al1schauungsunterricht" among the ob jects on display in the muse u m . See Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 2, p. 9 8 . See also Benj amin's discuss ion of A nschauwzg a nd his comparison o f old a nd new a pproaches to popular education (Volhsbildung) i n t h e review essay " Garla nded Entrance," in Part I of this volume. 8. Benjamin, " S u rrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia , " Selected Writings. v o l . 2, pp. 2 1 8-2 1 9 , 2 1 5 . 9 . See Theodor Adorno, " Look i ng Back o n Su rrealism," i n Notes to Literature, tra ns. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New Yor k : Columbia University Press, 1 9 9 1 ), vol. 1 , pp. 8 6-9 1 ; a nd the letters to Benj amin o f 2-4 August 1 93 5 , 5 August
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
21 7
1 9 3 5 , 1 8 M arch 1 9 3 6 , 6 September 1 9 3 6 , a n d 10 November 1 9 3 8 in
Adorno and Benjamin, The Complete Corres1)ondence, 1 92 8-1 940, ed . Henri Lon itz, trans. Nicholas Wa l ker (Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , pp. 1 04-1 1 6 , 1 2 7- 1 34, 1 45-1 4 8 , 2 8 0-2 8 9 . 1 0 . See Benj a m in, On Hashish, ed. Howard Eiland ( Cam bridge, Mass . : Harvard
University Press, 2006). 1 1 . See the i n troduction to Part I o f this volume. 12. Adorno, letter to Benjamin o f 18 March 1 9 3 6 , in Adorno a n d Benj a min, The Complete Correspondence, p. 1 3 0 . 1 3 . See "The Work o f A r t in the Age o f Its Technological Reproducibility, " sec
tion X, i n Part I of this volume. 14. See " Attested Auditor of Book s " and "This S pace for Rent, " i n Part II of this
volume. 15. The R u ssian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky ( 1 8 2 1 -1 8 8 1 ) was compelled to com
plete his nove l l a The Gambler ( 1 8 6 7 ) i n a period of j us t a few weeks i n order to pay off gamb ling debts incurred at the ca sino at B a den-Baden. 16. Adorno, letter to Benj a m in of 1 0 November 1 9 3 8 , in A dorno and Benj amin, The Complete Correspondence, p. 2 8 5 . 1 7 . S e e Adorno, le tter to Benjamin of 2-4 August 1 93 5 , in Adorno a nd
Benj a m i n , The Complete Correspondence. p. 1 1 0 . 1 8 . Jean-Pierre D u bose, " Great Chinese Painters of t h e Ming a nd Ch'i ng Dy
n asties , " in Great Chinese Painters of the Ming and Ch 'ing Dynasties XV to X VIII Centuries, exhibiti o n cata logue, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, 1 1 March to 2 Ap ri l 1 94 9 ( New Yo rk: Wildens tein, 1 94 9 ) , p . 1 2 . See also Cata logue de l'Exposition des Peinture Chinoises de la Collection ]. P. Dubosc,
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Octo ber 1 9 3 7 ( P aris: Biblio theque Nat io nale, 1 9 3 7 ) , foreword by Georges S alles, preface by J . -P. D u bose. For Benj a min's
perspective on related matters in the history o f German literature and the place of " script" within it, see the selections from Origin of the German Trauerspiel and the introduction to Part II in this volu me. 19. Dubose, " Gre a t Chinese Painters of the Ming and Ch'ing Dyna sties , " in Great Chinese Painters of the Ming and Ch 'ing Dynasties, X V to X VIII Centuries, p. 1 1 .
18 Painting and the Gra p hic Arts
A pictur e wants to be held vertically before the viewer. A floo r mosaic lies horizontal ly a t his feet. Despite this disti nction, it is customary s imply to vie w a work of graph ic art as a pa in t i n g . There is) howe ve r, a very imp or tant and far-reaching d i stincti o n to be made within the g raphic arts: it is
possible to look at the study of a he a d , or a Remb r a n dt l a n ds c ape , in the same w ay as a p a i n ting , or in the best case to le a ve the s heets in
a
n eutr a l
horizontal position. Yet consider chi ld re n 's d ra wings: setting them before oneself vertically us u a lly contravenes their inner mea ning. It is the same w i th Otto GrotS's d r a wing s : 1 th ey have to be placed ho rizonta lly on the ta ble. Here a profound problem of a rt and its mythic roots presents itself. We might say that there are tw o s e c tions th roug h the substance of the
w orld : the longitu d ina l section of p a intin g and the tr ansverse section of c e r t ain g ra phic works. The lo n gi tu dinal s ection seems repre sent a tiona l
it somehow contains th i ngs; the transverse section seems symbolic-it cont a ins s ig ns . Or is it only in
our rea d ing that we place
the pa g es hori
zo n ta l ly before us ? And is there s uch a thing as an originally vertical posi tion for writing-say, for engraving in stone ? O f c ourse , what matters here is oot the merely external fact b ut the spirit: Is it actually possible to b ase the pro blem on the si mple princ iple th a t picture s are set ve r ti ca lly and s igns horizontally, even tho ugh we may follow the development of this throug h changing met a physical relations across the a g es ? Ka odinsky 's pictures : the simul taneous occurrence of conj u ration and ma n ifes ta tion
[Beschworung und Erscheinung].
Written in 1 917;
unpublished in
Benjamin'S
lifetime. Gesammelte
Transl a ted by Rodney Livingstone.
219
Schriften, II, 6 02-603.
PAI N T I N G A N D G R AP H I C S
220
Notes text in Benj a m in 's Gesammelte Schriften has Gro W ; that text a handwritten c opy of Benj a min's u n titl e d fr a gme nt which was made by his fri e nd Gershom Scholem ( 1 8 9 7-1 9 8 2 ) , a phil os o ph e r and his torian of Jewish mystic i s m According to the e d i t o rs of the Gesammelte " GrozJS. " Schriften, in Scho l em s manuscript the artist's last name is In this i ns t anc e Ben j a m in was s u re l y not referring to the Austrian psycho
1 . The p rin te d
is
"
'
b ased on
.
'
,
analyst a nd anarchist Otto Gross ( 1 8 77- 1 920) , who was c onn e c te d to the
Berlin-based
jo urnals Die A k tion, edited by Fran z
Pfemfert ( 1 8 79-1 95 4 ) , and Neue
e dited and p u b l is hed by the poet
circles aro u nd the
Wiehmd Herzfelde ( 1 8 9 6-1 9 8 8 ) , h is brother, artist John He a r tfield ( 1 8 9 1 1 9 6 8 ; b orn He l mut Herzfel d ) , and the R a th er, h e must h a ve been a lluding t o
wri te r Franz J un g ( 1 8 8 8 -1 9 6 3 ) , tbe Germ a n artist G e o rg e Grosz
( 1 8 9 3-1 9 5 9 ) , who as a protes t against Germa ny's patriotic p rop a g a n d a and a n expression of enthusiasm for Ame rican mo dern i ty d uring World War I
changed the s p ell i ng of his n a m e , which had o ri gin a lly been Georg GroJS. Publ ished in j o urn a ls such edited by Rene Schickele
as
t he Expressionist m o nthl y Die Wei(/en B latter,
( 1 8 8 3-1940), and
Neue Jugend, a n d in the
w id ely
advertised portfolio of lithographs Erste George Grosz-Mappe, issued by Neue Jugend and Herzfelde's Malik Verl a g in Berlin in l a te 1 9 1 6, G rosz's d r a wi ngs of the p e ri o d 1 9 1 5-1 9 1 7, which Benjamin would have know n re sembled children's d rawings as well as what a t that time was c o m m o n ly ,
called " the ar t of the insane. "
1 O n Pa inting,
or
Sign and Mark
A. The S i g n
The s p here of the s i gn comprises diverse fields which are characterized by the vario Lls that " l ine" has within them. These meanings are: the geometric l i ne , the line of script, the gr ap hic line, and the line of the a bsolute sign ( the magical line as such -tha t is to say, not a line made magical by whatever it hap p e n s to represent) . a . , b. The line of g e ome try and the line of script will not be considered in what follows . c. The graphic line. The graphic line is determined in o p p os i tion to the surface [die Flachel . This o p positi o n has not only a visual but a meta physical dimensi o n . The gro u nd [der Untergrund] s itu a tes itself in relatio n to the line . The gra phic line designates the surface, and in so do i ng determines it by attaching itself to i t a s its ground. Converse ly, the graphic line can exist only up on this ground, so that a drawing that com pletely covered its g rou n d would cease to be a drawing. The grou n d is t h e r e b y a ssi gned a specific position that is i n di s p ens able to the mean ing o f the drawing, so t h at in a graphic work two lines can establish their re lationship to e a ch other only r el a t i v e to the groun d-an occu rrence, inci dentally, in w hich the difference between the graphic line and the geomet ric l ine emerges especially clearly.-The gra p hic line confers an i dentity on its ground . The identity of the gro und of a drawing is completely dif ferent from that of the whi te surface on which it is located , and of which i t would be dep rive d if one wanted to a p pre h end the paper surface as a surge of white waves ( though these mi ght not even be distinguisha ble to the naked eye ) . The p ure d rawing wili not a lte r th e grap hi ca lly me a n i n g-
221
222
PA I NTI N G A N D G RA P H I CS
imparting function of its ground by
"
l e a ving it blank" as a white groun d ;
this illumin ates how it can be that, in c er tain circumstances, the represen tation o f clouds and s ky in d r awi ngs is a r isk y venture and can act as a
touc hs to n e of the drawing's purity of s t yl e . d. T h e a bsolute sign . In order to u nderstand t he absolute sign-that is is necessary to know to say, the m y t hol o gi c a l essence o f the s o mething of the s p h e re o f the sign in gen e ra l , which we mentioned at the o utset. At a ll events this sp h e re i s pr o b a bly not a medi um b ut instea d rep resents a n order t h at is pro b a bly at the m oment w h ol l y unknown to us . What is striking, however, i s the o p po s i ti on of the absolute sign and the a b sol u te mark. This opposition, which m e t a p h ys i c a lly is of enormous i m p o r t a n ce , is not a given: it had first to be discovered . The s ign appears to be more of a s p atial relation a n d to have more reference to p e rs ons; the ma rk (as we shall show) is m o re temporal and tends to exclude the pers on a l . Exa mpl e s of a bsolute signs are the sign of Cain, the sign that the Israelites put on their houses d ur i n g the Te n th Plague, a nd the pre sum a b ly similar signs i n Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; with the neces s ary reservations one can dedu ce from these instances that the absolute sign has a p re do mi n a nt ly spa t i a l and personal significance . 8. Th e Mark
a. The a b so l u t e mark. Insofar as a nyth ing can be d is c o ve red about the nature of the a b solu te mark-that i s to sa y, about the mythical essence of the mark-it will be of importance for the entire sp h e re of the m ark, in o pposi t i on to that of the sign . The first fundamental difference is to be seen in the fa c t that the sign is imp ri nte d ; the mar k , by c o nt r a s t, emerges. This indicates that the sphere of the ma r k i s that of a me di u m . Whereas the absol ute sign does not app e ar pr ed o m i n a n t ly on l iv ing b ei n gs b ut rather is also impres se d on inanimate b u ildings, trees, and s o forth, the m ark appears pr i n c i p a ll y on living b e ings ( Ch r is t 's stig m ata, b l u s hes, p e r h ap s le pros y and birth marks ) . The opposition b e tw e e n mark and a bso l u t e mark does not exist, for the mark is alw ay s abso.lute and in its a p pearing is similar to no t h in g else. It i s especially s triki n g that, turning up as i t does on the living, the mark is so often linked to guilt ( b l u s h i ng) or innocence ( C h r i st 's s tigm a ta ) ; indeed, even where the mark a ppears on the life l es s ( the sunbeams in S t ri n d b e rg 's A dvent) , it is o ften a warning s ign of gu i l t. I In that s e nse , however, it coincides with the sign ( as in B e l s h azzar 's Feast), and the p rod igi o usne ss of the app a ri tion is b ased in large part on u nit ing these two s t ru c tu res , s o mething of which o n l y God
O N PA I N T I N G , O R S I G N A N D M A R K
223
is capable.2 Since the conn ection between guilt and atonement is a tempo ral and magical one, this temporal magic appears in the mark in the sense that th e resistance of the present between the past and the future is elimi nated, and these , magically fuse d, descend together on the head of the s inner. But the m e dium of the mark is not confined to this temporal meaning; rathel; a s comes to the fore so unsettlingly i n the case of blush ing, it a l so at the same time p os s esses a meaning that tends to dissolve the personali ty into certain of its most ba sic components [ Urelemen.te] . Th is leads
ll S
b ack to the connection between the mark and guilt. The s ign,
however, appears not i n fr equently as something that distinguishes a per son, and this opposition between sign and m ark likewise seems to b elong to the m etaphysical order. As far as the s phere of the mark in general ( that is, the medi u m of the mark in general) is concerned, the only thing that can be revea le d in this connection will be stated b ased upon a con sideration of painting. As mentioned, h owever, everything that can be said of the a bsolute m a rk is of great significance for the medium of the mark in general. b. Painting. A p icture has no ground [ Untergl'und] . Nor does one color ever lie on top of another, but instead at most appears in the me dium o f an other color. And even th a t is often difficult to determine, and so in princip le it is often impossible to say with regard to m any paintings whether a color belongs to the deepest or the uppermost dimens ion of the groun d . The question, however, is nonsensica l . There is n o g round in painting, nor is there any graphic l i ne . The reciprocal demarcations of the colored surfaces ( the composition) of
a
picture by Raphael are not
based on graphic line. This error stems in part fro m the ten dency to attri bute aesthetic value to the p urely technical fact that, before p a inting their p ictu res, painters compose them by mea n s of draftsmanship. But the es sence of s uch composition has nothing to d o with graphic art. The only instance in which l ine and color coincide is in the watercolor, in which the contours made with the drafting pencil are visible and the paint is put on tra nsparently. There the ground is retained, even t houg h it is co lored . The medium o f p ainting is designated a s the m a r k i n the narrower sense; for painting is
a
medium , a mark, since it has neither ground nor
graphic line. The problem of the p a inted form [das Problem des
malerischen GebildesJ surrenders itself only to the one w ho has come to understand the nature of the mark in the narrower sense, even as he must be astonished to find a composition in the picture that cannot be traced b ack to a graphic design. The fact that such
a
composition does not exist
as mere sem blance lScheinJ-that, for example, the beholder of a picture
224
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
by Raphael does not perceive configurations of peop le, trees, and animals in the mark by chance or by mistake-becomes clear from the following consideration: if the picture were mere mark, it would be quite impossi ble to name it. The actual pro blem of p ainting can be discerned in the statement that a picture is indeed a mark; and, conversely, that the mark in the narrower sense exists on ly in the picture; and , further, that the pic ture, insofar as it is a mark, is only a mark in the picture itself. But on the other hand, the picture may be connected with something that it is not that is to say, somethi ng that is not a mark-an d indeed this connection is ac hieved by na ming the picture . This relation to what the picture is named after, the relation to what transcends the mark, is created by the composition. This is the entry of a higher power into the medium of the mark-a power that, once there, remains in a state of neutral ity, which is to say that it does not use any aspect of the graphic to explode the mark but finds its place within the mark without exp lo ding it, because even though it is immeasurably higher than the mark, it is not hostile toward it but related to it. This power is the linguistic word, w hich lodges in the medium of the language of painting, invisib le as sllch and revealing itself only in the composition. The picture is named after the composition . From what has been s aid, it is self-evident that mark and composition are elements of every p icture tha t claims the right to be named. A picture tha t did not do this would cease to be one and wouJd therefore enter into the realm of the mark in general; but this is something that we cannot i magine. The great epochs of p ainting are distinguished according to composi tion and Ilfedium-that is to say, according to w hich word and into which mark it enters. Of course, as far as mark and word are concerned in this context, it is not a matter of t he possibility of arbitrary combina tions. For example, it is conceiva ble that in the pictures of, say, Raphae l the name might predomina te, a n d in the pictures of present-day a rtists the j udging word might enter the mark. To understand the connection between the picture and the word, the comp osition-that is, the act of naming-is decisive. In general , the metaphysical location of a painting or a school of painting is determined according to the mark and word, and requires a t the very least a refined elaboration of the various forms of mark and word-an undertaking a s yet barely in its infancy. c. The mark in space. The sphere of the mark also occurs in spatial structures, j ust as the sign in a certai n function of the line can without doubt acquire architectonic (hence also spatial) significance. Such marks [Maler] in space are visibly connected in terms of meani ng with the
225
O N PA I N T I N G , O R S I G N A N D M A R K
sphere of t he mark, but we need further investigation in o r der to say
in
w h a t way. Above ali, th ey appear as monuments to the dead or grave stones
[Toten- oder Grabmale],
but these
are
ma rks
[Maler]
meaning of the word only if they have not been g i v en
an
in the exact
architecto nic
an d sculptural sha pe .
Written in 'J 9 1 7; unpubl ished in Benja min's lifeti me. Gesammeite
Schrifteft,
II, 603-607.
Translated by Rodney Livi ngstone.
Notes 1. In Advent ( 1 8 99),
a
p l ay by the S we d i s h
dramatist August Strindberg ( 1 8 49-
1 9 1 2 ) , a j udge and his wife a re pursued by solkatten ( literally " sun cats" ) s u nbeams that remind
them of their past
2. See the Book of Daniel, chapter 5.
s ins.
A so ft green
glow in the evening red .
-c . E H E I N
LE
20 A Glimpse i nto the World of Children's Books
In one of And ersen's tales, there is a picture- book that cost " half
a
king
dam . " In it everything was alive. "The birds sang, and people ca me out of the book and spoke. " But when the princess turned the page, " they leaped back in again
50
that there should be no disorder. " Pretty and
unfocused, like so much that Andersen wrote, this little i nvention misses the crucial point by a hair's breadth. Things d o not come out to meet the picturing child from the pages of the book; instead, in looking, the child enters into them as
a
cloud that becomes suffused wi th the riot
O llS colors o f the world of p ictures. Sitting before his painted book, he
m akes the Taoist vision of perfection come true: he overcomes the illu sory barrier of the book's surface and passes through colored textures a nd brightly p ainted partitions to enter a stage on which the fairy tale lives. Hua, the Chinese word for " painting " meaning " a ttach "
[anhangenJ :
[tttschenJ
is much l ike gua"
you attach five colors to the things. In
German, the word used is anlegen: you " lay on " colo rs . In such an open, color- bed ecked worl d where everything shifts at every step, the child is a l lowed to join in the game. Draped with colors o f every hue tha t he has picked up from reading and viewing, the child s tands in the center of a m asquerade a nd joins i n . While reading-for the words have all come to the masked ball, are j oining in the fun and are whirling around together, like tinkling snowflakes. " 'Prince' is a word with a star fastened ar ollnd it, " said a boy o f seven. W hen child ren think up s tories, they are like the ater d irectors who refuse to submi t to censoring by " sense. " This is easily proved . If one gives children four or five specific words and asks them to make a short sentence on the s pot, the most a mazing prose comes to
226
A G L I M PS E I NT0 THE W0 R L0 0 F C H I LD R E N I S BOO KS
227
light: not a glimpse into but a guide to children's books . At a stroke, the words throw on their costumes and in the blin k of an eye they are caught up in
a
battle, l ove scenes, or a brawl. This is how children write their
stories, but also how they read them. And there are rare, impassioned ABC- books that play a similar sort of game in pictures . Under Plate A, for example, o ne finds a higgledy-piggledy still-life tha t seems very myste rious until. one realizes what is happeni ng and what Apple, ABC-book, Ape, Airplane, Anchor, Ark, Arm, Armadillo, Aster, a nd Ax are a ll doing in the same place . Children know such pictures like their own pockets; they have searched through them in the same way and turned them inside out, without neglecting the smallest thread or piece of cloth. And if, in the co lored engraving, the child's imagination s inks dreamily into it self, the black-and-white woodcu t, th e plain prosaic illustration, draws it back out of itsel f. Such pictures, with the urgent demand for description that lies within them, ro use the word within the child. Jus t as the child describes Ibeschreibt] the pictures with words, so, too, does he " inscribe "
[beschreibt] them in a more literal sense. He scrib bles on them. Unlike the colored pictures, the surface of the black-and-white illustration is ar ranged only suggestively and has a capacity for
a
certain condensation
[ Verdichtung] . So the child composes into the picture. At the same time as he learns language from them, he also learns writing [Schrift] : hiero glyphics . It is under this sign tha t, still today, the first words learned from primers are supplemented with line drawings of the things they refer to : egg, hat. The genuine value of such s imple graphic children's books is far removed fro m the blunt urgency that led rationalist pedagogy to recom mend them. "The way the chil d marks out a little place for himself," ex plores his picture landscape with his eyes and finger, can be s een in this paradigmatic nursery rhyme from a n old picture-book, Steckenpferd and Puppe [Hobby-Horse and Doll] , by J. P. Wich (Nordlingen, 1 8 43 ) :
dwarf, Behind the little dwarf, th e r e stands a little mounta in, From the littl e mountain, there flows a littl.e stream, On the li ttle stream, there floats a l ittle roof, Beneath the little roof, there stands a liule room, Inside the Httle room, th e r e sits a little boy, Behind the little boy, there stands a little bench, On the little bench, there rests a little chest, In the little chest, there stands a l ittle box, In the little box, there lies a little nest, I n front of the little town, there sits a little
228
PAI NT I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
Aesoj)'S Fables, second edition. Published by Heinrich Friedrich
Mii l ler,
Bookseller,
Kohlmarkt 1 2 1 8 , Vienna, no date. Collection of Walter Benj amin.
In front of the little nest� there sta nds
That's a lovely little place,
I'll
m a ke
a
a
little cat,
note of that.
In a less systematic, more capricious and boisterous way, c hildren play
with pu zzle-pictures in wh ich they set out in pursuit of the "thief, " the " lazy pupi l , " or the "hidden teacher. )' Moreover, these pictures-which may seem rela ted to those drawings full o f contradictions and impossib i l ities which today a r e recognized for their u sefulness as tes ts-are really only a masq uerade, rollicki ng improvised burlesques in which people walk upside down, stick their arms and legs between tree branches, and
A GLIM P S t
I
N r 0 r H E W0 R L0 0 F C H I L O R E N ' S B O O K S
l H
I \'lt�, \ \ \\, �
ti l
i'(\
. . ..
�
.
, .. I
I ;
" I '.
,
.
�.
, . { r
.' u
Moral sayings from the book
use
a
II
.t ll; .
� I.L
, " '''', : l f , .. , :' . • • f IL" . " '"
,.
Ie
:,. \
, . ...
..
i( ln
. ,I ., I:I } J " , ' ''' # i... .. ,
r.
it
229
#
J
'I: :'"
•
, . ,
by Jesus Sirach, Nuremberg. Collection o f Walter Benjamin.
h O llse roof as a coat. These carnivals overflow even into the more
s er io us space of sp eHing - and reading-books. In the firs t half of the last century,
[ P a ll l]
Renner in Nurem berg published
a
set of twenty-four
s he e ts in wh ich the letters were introduced in disguise, as it were. F s te p s out in the dress of
a
Fra nciscan, C as a Clerk, P as
a
Porter. The game was
s o pleasura ble tha t v a ri a ti o ns on these old motifs h ave s urvive d to this day. Last, the re bus rings in the Ash Wednesday of this c a rni va l of words and letters. It is the unmasking: from the midst of the res p lendent pro cessi on, the motto-the gallnt figllre of Reason-gazes out at the ch il-
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
230
The B ooll of Tales for Daughters and Sons of the Educated Classes, by Johann Peter Lyser. With eigh t copperplate i llustrations. Leipzig: Wigand'sche Verlags-Expedition,
1 8 3 4 . Collection of Walter Benjamin.
dren. The re bus
(a
word that, curiously, was formerly traced back to
rever instead of to res ) has the most distinguished origins: it descends d i rectly from the hieroglyphics of t h e Renaissance, and one o f its most pre cious printed works, the Hypnerotomaehia Poliphili, may be described as its p a tent o f nobility [AdelsurkundeJ . It was perhaps never as widely known in Germany as in France, where arou nd 1 84 0 there was a fashion for charming collections of printed sheets on which the text was printed in picture writing [Bildersehrift] . Even so, German children, too , had delightful " pedagogica l " rebus books. From the end o f the e i ghteenth century, at the l a test, comes the Sittenspruehe des B uehs Jesus Siraeh
fur Kinder and junge Leute aus allen Standen mit B ildern welehe die vornehmsten Worter ausdrucken [Moral Sayings from the Book of Ecclesiasticus for Children and Young People of All Cl asses, with Pic ' tures that Express the Most Imp ortant Words] . The t ext is delicately e ngraved i n copper, and wherever p ossible a ll the nouns are represen ted by smal l, beautifully painted p ictures that were either matter-of-fact
A G L I M P S E I N T0 T H E W0 R L 0 0 F C H I L O R E N I S B O O KS
231
(sachlich] or allegorical. As l ate as 1 842, [Benedictus Gotthelf] Teubner p u blished a Kleine B ibel fur Kinder [Little Bible for Children] , with 460 illustrations of that sort. And j us t as children's books opened up a wide field for thought and the imagination, they did the same for the active ha nd . There are the well-known p ul l-out books ( which have degenera ted the most a n d seem to be the most short-lived as a genre, j ust as the books themselves never last for long ) . A delightful example was the Livre jou-jou, which was published by Janet in Paris, presum a b ly in the 1 8405. It i s the s tory of a Persian prince . All t h e incidents of his a dventures are illustrated, and each j o yful episode where he is rescue d can be made to appear with the wave of
a
magic wand, by moving the s trip at the
side of the page . Similar to these are t he books in which the d oors and curtains in the pictures can be opened to reveal pictures behind them. And finally, j ust as a novel has been written a bout a dress-up doll (Jsabellens Verwandlungen oder das Madchen in sechs Gestalten: Ein Unterhaltendes B uch fur MCidchen mit sieben kolorierten beweglichen Kupfern [Isabella's Transformations, or The Girl in Six S hapes : An Enter taining Boo k for Girls, with Seven Colored Pictures that Move] , pub lished in Vienn a ) , it so happens there are now books of those beauti ful games in which little card board figures can be attached by means of i nvisible slits in the board and can be rearranged at will . Thus, the fea tures of a landscape or a room ca n be altered according to the diffe rent situations that arise in the course of the story. For those few people who as children-or even as collectors-have had the great good fortune to come into possession of magic books or puzzle-bo oks, all of the forego ing will have p aled in comparison. These magic books were ingeniously contrived volumes that p resented d ifferent sequences of p ages, depending on where the reader held his han d . To the dexterous person familiar with such a book, it will show the s a me picture ten times over on continu a lly cha nging pages, until his hand slips-and then, as if the book were trans formed in his palm, a n e ntirely d ifferent set of p ictures will appear. A book like that (such as the eighteenth-century quarto tha t lies open be fore the present writer) seems variously to contain nothing but a flower vase, or repeated ima ge s of a grinning devil, then s om e p arrots, followed by all black or all white p ages, windmills, court jesters, pierrots, and so on . Another book shows, depend ing upon how one flips through it,
a
se
ries of toys, tasty trea ts for a well-behaved child, or-if one goes through the oracle-book a d ifferent way-an array of instr uments of p unishment and terrifying faces for the na ughty child. The heyday of children's books, in the first half of the nineteenth cen-
PA I N T I N G A N D G RA P H I C S
232
The Magical Red Umbrella: A New Tale for Children.
von Gustav Kiihn.
Neuruppin Printers,
and Verlag
Collection of Walter Benjamin.
tury, pro b ably did not r es u l t so l e ly fro m the c o ncr ete p edagogical under standing o f the day ( which was in some re s p e c ts superior to tha t of to day ) , b llt, even more, emerged o ut o f e v e ryd a y bourgeois life as an a spect of that life . In
a
wor d , it emerged from the Biedermeier peri od. Even the
smallest cities contained p u blishers whose
mo
s t ordinary products were
as elegant as the modest ho usehold furnit u re of the tim e , in the drawers of which their books lay
u
ntou c h e d for a century. This is why there are
A GLIM PS
E I NT0 T H E W 0 RL0 0 F C H I LO R E N ' S B O OKS
233
chil d ren's books not j ust from Berlin, Leipzig, Nuremberg, and Vienna; for the collector, wor ks published in Meissen, Grimma, Gotha, Pirna, Plauen, Magdeburg, and Neuhaldensle ben have a much more promising ring. Illustrators were at work in almost all of those towns, though the maj ority have remained unknown. From time to time, however, one of them is rediscovered and acq uires a biographer. This was the case with Johann Peter Lyser, the painter, musician, and j ournalist. A. L. Grimm's Fabelbuch [Book of Fables] ( Grimma, 1 827), with Lyser's illustrations, the B u ch der Mdhrchen fur Tochter and S6hne gebildeter Stdnde [Book of Fairy Tales for Daughters and Sons of the Educated Classes] (Leipzig, 1 834), with text and illustrations by Lyser, and Linas Mahrchenbuch [Lina's Book of F� iry Tales] (Grimma, n . d . ) , with text by A. L. Grimm and i llustrations by Lyser, contain his most beautiful work for children. The coloring of these lithographs pales beside the fiery coloring of the Biedermeier period, and matches better the hagga rd and often careworn figures, the shadowy landsca pe, and the fairy-ta le atmosphere which is not without an ironic-sa tanic streak. The craftsmanship in these books was fully committed to the everyday life of the petty bourgeoisiej it was not there to be enjoyed but was to be used l ike cooking recipes or house hold maxims. It represents a popular, even childlike variant of the dreams that assumed their most exaggerated forms in the works of the Roman tics. This is why Jean Paul is their patron saint. L The central -German fairy-world of his stories has found expression in their pictures. No writ i ng is closer to their unpretentiously resplendent world of colors world than his . For his genius, like that of color itself, rests on fantasy, not cre ative power. When the eye sees colors, the perceptions and intuitions of the imagination lPhantasieanschauung] , in contrast to creative conceits [sch opferischer EinbildungJ , manifest themselves as a primal phenome non . All form, every con tour tha t human beings perceive, corresponds to a faculty within them that ena bles them to reproduce it. The body in dance, the hand in drawing imitate th at contour and appropriate it. But this faculty finds its limits in the world of color: the h uman body cannot produce color. It establishes a correspo ndence to it not creatively but re ceptively: in the eye s himmering with color. (Anthropologically, too, sight is the watershed of the s enses because it perceives form and color simul taneously. Thus, the body possesses, on the one hand, faculties of active correspondences-form-seeing and movement, hearing and voice-and, on the other, those of an passive sort: the seeing of color belongs to the sensory realms of smell and taste. Language itself synthesizes this group into a unity in words like " looking, " "smelling, " " tasting, " which apply
234
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
to the o bj ect, intransitively, and to the human subject, transitively. } In short, p ure color is the medium of fantasy, a home among clouds for the playful child, not the strict canon of the constructive artist. Here is the link with its " s ensuo us-moral " [sinnlich-sittlich} effect which Goethe un derstood entirely in the spirit of the Romantics :
illu m i na tio n and their o bscurity, the transparent colors a re wi th
In their
out limits) j u st as fire and water can be regarded as th e i r zenith and nadir. . . . The relation of light to tr anspa ren t color is, when you come to look into
it deeply, infinitely fascinating, and when the colors flare up, merge
into one another, arise anew, and vanish, it is like taking breath in great pauses
from one eternity to the next) from the greatest l ig h t down to the
s o li ta ry
and eternal silence in the
d eepes t sh a de s . The opaque colors, in
contrast, are like flowers tha t do not dare to compete with the sky, y e t are co nce rne d w ith weakness (that is to say, white ) on the one side, and with e vil
(that is to say, black) on the o t h er side. It is th es e, however, that are
able . . . to p ro d u ce such pleasing variati on s and such natural effects that . . .
ul tim a tely
the
ing above them
transparent colors end up as no more than spirits play
a nd serve o nly to enhance them.2
With these words, the " Supplement" to the Farbenlehre [Theory of Color] does justice to the sensi bilities of these worthy colorists and hence to the s pirit of children's games . Just think of the m a ny games that pro ceed from pure perception [Anschauung] to fantasy: s oap b u b bl es, parlor games, the watery color of the magic la ntern, watercolor painting, decals. In all of these, the color seems to hover s uspended above the things. Their magic lies not in the colored thing or in the m ere dead color, b ut in the colored glow, the colored brilliance, the ray of colored light. At the end of its panorama, the glimpse into the world of children's books culminate s i n a rock covered with Biedermeier flowers. Leaning on a sky- blue god dess, the poet lies there with his melodious h ands. Wha t the Muse whis pers to him, a winged child sitting next to him sketches . Scattered around are a harp and a l ute . Dwarves fiddle and toot in the d ep ths o f the moun tain, while in the sky the sun is s etting. This is how Lyser once p a inted the la ndscape, and the eyes and cheeks o f children poring over books are re flected in the glory of the sunset. Written in 1 926; published in Die literarische Welt, 1 926. Gesammelte pp. 609-6 1 5 . Translated by Rodney Livingstone.
Schri(ten,
IV,
A GLI M
PSE
I NT0 T H E W0 RL0 0 F C H I LDR E N I S BOO KS
235
Notes 1. Jean Paul Richter ( 1 763-1 82 5 ) is remembered for a series of wildly extrava gant, h ighly imaginative novels that combine fantasy and realism; they are
inde bted to Laurence Sterne.-Tra ns. 2 . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Zw' FarbenlehreJ ed . Hans Wohl b old (Jena,
1 92 8 ) , pp. 440-442.-Trans.
21 Dream Kitsch
G LO S S O N S U R R EA L I S M
No one really dreams any longer of the Blue Flo we r. · Whoever awakes as Heinrich von O fterd ingen today must h ave overslept.2 The history of the dream remains to be written, a n d opening up a p erspective on this sub j ect would mean d ecisi vely overcoming the s up erstitious belief in natural
necessity by means of his torical illumination. Dr ea m i ng has a share in history. The s ta tistics on dre aming would stretch beyond the ple as u re s of the anecdotal landscape into the ba rrenness o f
a
ba ttlefie ld. Dreams have
started wars, a n d w ars , from the very earlies t times, have determined the propriety and impropriety-indeed, the range-of d r eam s . No l onger does the dream r eve a l
a
blue horizon. The d ream has
grown gray. The gray coating of dust on th i n g s is its best part. Dreams are now a shortc u t to b anali t y. Technology co ns ign s the o u ter image of things to
a
long fa r e w e ll , like ba nkno tes tha t are bound to lose their
val u e . It is then tha t the hand re trieves this oute r cast in dreams and , even as they are slipping away, makes contact with famil i ar co n t o u r s . It ca tches hold o f obj ects a t their most thre a d bare and timewo r n point.
This is not always th e most delicate point: children do n o t so m u c h clasp a gl a ss as snatch it u p . And which s ide does a thing turn toward dreams ? What point i s its most decrepit? It is th e si d e worn thro ugh b y ha bit and
garnis hed with ch e a p maxims. T he side which things turn toward the dream is ki tsch . Cha tteri ng, the fantasy images of things falJ to the ground like l eaves from a Leporello picture book,
The Dream.3 :Nlaxims s helter 23 6
under every
237
D R E A M K I TS C H
leaf: " Ma p l us bel le malH'esse c'est la p a resse," a nd "Une m e d a i l le ver n i e p o u r I e p l u s g ra nd ennui , " and " D a ns Ie corrido r il y a quelqu'un qui me veut a la mort. " 4 The Surrea1 ists h a v e c om p ose d s uch lines, and th eir a l
l i e s a mong t h e artis ts have copied the picture book.
Repetitions
is the
name that Paul El uard gives to o ne of h i s collections of poetry, for w hose
frontispiece Max Ern s t h a s drawn fo ur sma l l b oys. They tu rn their b a cks to the reader, to their tea cher and his d esk as wel l , and look out over a balustrade w here a b a lloon hangs in the air. A gi a n t p en c il rests on its point in the windowsill. The repetiti on of childhoo d experience g i ve s us pause: whe n we were li ttle, there was as yet no agonized pro test against the world of our p ar e n ts As c h i ldren i n the mid s t of t h a t worl d , we .
s howed ou rselves superior. When we reach for the ban a l,
we
t a ke hold of
the good along with it-the good that is there ( open your eyes) right be
fore you. For the sentimentality o f our p a rents , s o often distilled, is goo d for
providing the most o bj e ct i ve image o f our fee l i ngs . The l ong-winded ness o f th e i r speeches, b i tte r as ga l l, has the effect o f reduci ng us to a c ri mp e d pictu re p uzzle; the ornament of conversation was full of the most a bys m a l entangl ements. With in is heartfelt sympathy, is love, is kits c h . " Sur
rea lism is called up o n to reesta b lish dial ogue in its essential truth. The in terlocutors are freed from t h e obligation to be p o l ite. He who speaks will d e velop no theses . B ut in p r i nc ip l e , t h e re p ly ca nnot be concerned for the self-respect of the perso n speaking. F o r in the mind of the listener, words
and images a re o n ly a s p r ing b o ard
Surrealist Manifesto.
. "
Bea utifu l sentiments from Breton's
They a rticula te the formula of the dial o gic misun
derstanding-which is to say, of what is truly a l i v e in the d ialogue. " Mis u ndersta nding" is here anothe r word for the r hythm with w h i ch the only true rea l ity forces its way into the conversation. The m or e effectively a man is able to s p ea k , the more successfully he is misund erstoo d .
I n his
Vague d e reves
[Wave of Drea111s L L o u is Aragon describes how
the mania for d rea m in g s p r e a d over Paris . Young people be l i e ve d they h ad come u pon o nc of the secrets o f poetry, w he reas in fact th ey did away with p o etic composition, a s with all the
intensive forces of that pe
riod.5 Saint-Pol-Roux, b e fore going to bed in the early morning, p u ts up a notice on his door: " Poet a t work. " h_This all i n order to b la ze a way i nto the heart of thin gs ab olished or superseded, to d e c ip he r the con tours
of the b a n a l as rebus, to start a concealed Will iam Tell fro m o u t of wooded entra ils, or to be a ble to a nswer the question, "Where is the
brid e ? " Pictu re puzzles, as schemata of the d reamwork, were long ago discovered b y p sych oa n a lysis . The Surrealists, with a s i mil ar conviction,
PAI NT I N G A N D G RA P H I CS
238
are less
on
the trail of the psyche than on the track of things . They seek
the totemic tree of obj ects within the thicket of primal history. Th e very last, the topmost face on the totem pole, is that of kitsch. It is the last mask of
banal, the one with which we adorn ourselves, in dream and
conversation, so as to take in the energies of an outlived world of things. What we llsed to c all art begins at a distance of two meters from the body. B ut now, in kitsch, th e world of things advances on t he human be ing; it yields to his uncertain gra sp and ultimately fas hions its figures in his interior. The new man bears within himself the very quintessence of the old forms, and wha t evolves in the confrontation with a p articular milieu from the second half of the nineteenth century-in the dreams, as well as the words and images, of certain a rtists-is a creature who de serves the name of " furnished man. " 7 Written in 1 925; p u blished in D ie neue Rwzdschau, January 1 927.
Gesammelte Schriften,
II, 620-622. Tra ns lated by Howard Eila nd .
Notes 1 . The s u bti tl e , " Gl oss on Surre al ism/' was used as the title of the p u blish e d ar ti cle in 1 927. 2. Heinrich von Ofterdingen is the title of a n unfinished novel by the German poet Navalis ( Friederich von Hardenberg; 1 772-1 8 0 1 ) , first p u blis hed i n 1 802. Von O fterd in g en is a medieva l poet in sea rch of the mys ter ious Blue Fl ower, which bears the fa ce of his unknown beloved. 3 . Leporello is Don Giovanni's servant carries
a ro u n d
a
in
Moza rt's opera
D on Giovanni.
He
c a tal og ue of his ma ster 's conquests, which acco r d i ons out
to show the many names. In the mid-nineteenth century, there was a Germa n pu b lishing house, Lep orel l o Verlag, wh ich p r od uced
such p o p - o u t b ooks .
4. "My l ov e l ie st mistress is idlene ss . " " A gold medal for the gre a test bo r edom . " " In the hall , there is s ome o n e who has i t i n for me . " 5 . Reference i s to
the
Une vague de reves was first p u blished along with Aragon's Paysan de Paris ( Pa ris Peasant; Benj amin's earliest work on the A rcades P roj ec t . years 1 922-1 924 .
i n the fall of 1 924; 6.
1 926), i t insp i red Saint-Pol-Roux is the
pseudonym of Paul R o u x ( 1 8 6 1 - 1 940 ) , French Sym
bolist poet. 7 . B enj a m i n 's term here is " der moblierte Mensch. " A vari a n t end ing of " D re am
Kitsch" in
manuscript copy of the essay bears within h i msel f the very q uintessence o f the old forms , and what evo lves in the confrontation with a p ar ticular milieu from th e second half of the nineteenth century-in the dreams, as well as the w ord s and images , of c er ta i n artists-is a creature who d eserves the name o f a
"The new man
239
D REAM KITS C H
' furnished man': the body 'furn i s hed'
[meuble]
apparatuses, [meubte] with
with forms and
i n the sense th a t, in French, o ne speaks of the mi n d 'furnished '
d reams or with scientific kn owledge . "
See
Ben j a min,
Mensch "
is also
Gesammelte Schriften, II, p .
1 42 8 . The term
a play on " d e r moblierte Herr"
( th e "
"
d e r moblie rte
furnished gentl e
m a n " ) , a colloquial German exp ress ion that r e fe rs to the (ma l e ) te n a n t of a fu r nish e d room Of a partment and that Benjamin p ut to use elsewhere in his ..,.1"" "la<' of the late 1 920s. Ideas a b ou t fu rniture and furnishing, and a b o u t
n,
habits of
modern dwe l l i n g i n genera l, wou l d come to occupy an i m p ortant
place i n the Arca des Proj ect.
22 Moonlit Nights on the Rue La Boetie
At first, it is like entering an aqu arium. Along the wal l o f the huge dark ened hall, runs what appears to be a strip o f illu minated water behind glass, broken at intervals by narrow j oints. The p lay of colors in deep sea fauna could not be more fiery. But what reveals itself here are supra terrestrial, atmospheric miracles. Seraglios are mirrored in moonlit waters; nights in abandoned parks expose themselves. In the moonlight one recognizes the cha teau o f Saint Leu, where a hundred years ago the body of the last Conde was discovered hanged in a window. l Somewhere a light is still burning behind the curtains. A few shafts of sunlight fall at intervals. In the purer rays of a summer morning, you can peer into the stanze of the Vatican, as they appeared to the Nazarenes.2 Not far off, the whole of Baden-Baden constructs itself; and if the sun were not dazzling, one might be a b le to recognize Dostoevsky on the casino terrace among the doll-like figures on a scale of 1 : 1 0, 0 0 0 . But even candlelight comes into its own. In the twilit cathedral, wax candles form a s ort of chapelle ardente surrou nd ing the murdered duc de Be rry; a nd the lamps in the silken skies of an island of love almost put chu bby Luna to shame.3 This is a unique experiment in what the Romantics called the " moon lit night of magic . " It emerges tri u mphantly in its noble essence from ev ery conceivable test to which its specific form of poetry has been sub jected here. It is almost frightening to think of the power i t must have had in its cruder, more massive state-in the magic pictures of the fairs and in dioramas. Or was this watercolor painting (done on paper that was scraped and rubbed, cut out in different places, given an underlay, and finally covered with wax in order to achieve the desired transparency)
240
M O O J\I L I T N I G H T S
O N TH E R U E LA B O ETI E
241
never popular because the technique was a lways too expensive? Nothing is known a bout tha t. For these forty transparencies s tand here in com plete isolation. Nothi ng s i m ilar to them is known, and one knew nothing even of the present o nes llntil recently, when they were discovered in someo ne's estate . They b elonged to a collection assembled by a weal thy afic ionado, the great-grandfa ther of their present owner. Every piece was made individu ally and s pecifically for him. Great artists l i ke Gericault, David, a n d Boilly are said to have been involve d to a greater or lesser de gr ee Other experts believe that D aguerre worked on these plates before .
he created his fa mous diorama (which burned d own in 1 8 3 9 , a fter seven teen years } .4 Whether the greatest artists really were involved or not is importan t only for the American who sooner or la ter will p a y the o n e a n d a half millio n francs for w hi ch the co l lec tion can be had . For this t e c h nique has nothing to do with 't art " i n the s trict s ense-it belongs to the practical arts . Its place is somewhere a mong a perhaps only pl'ovi ion a Uy unor dered set that extends fro m the practices o f v ision to those of the electric televisio n . In the nineteen th cen tury when children were the last a udi ,
ence for magic, these practical arts all converged in the dimension of play. Their intensity was not thereby d im i n is he d . Anyone who takes the time to l i n ger before the transparency of the old spa of Con trexeville soon
fee ls a s if a hundred years a go he had o ften strolled along this sun ny path between the po plars, had b r ushed up against the stone wall - modest magical effects for domestic use, of a sort one otherwise only experiences in rare cases-Chinese soapstone groups, for e xa m p le or Russia n l ac ,
quer paintings . P u b l is hed in D ie literariscbe Welt. Marc h 1 92 8 . Gcsammeltc Schriftcll,
IV, 5 0 9-5 1 1 . Trans
lated by Rodney Liv i ngs tone.
N otes 1. "The
last Cond e " is the traditi o n a l name fo r Louis Henri-Joseph, due de
B o urbon ( 1 75 6-1 8 3 0 ) . Having pl a yed to cra cy in the
French
Revo l u tion, he
a m in o r
led
a
role on the side
d i sso l u te
l i fe
of the aris
in Engla nd and re
tu rned to France with his mistress, Sophie D a wes, in 1 8 1 4 . A fter fou nd hanged
however,
in his ch a teau,
D a wes
e
w a s sus p c te d
released by order o f Lo uis P h il i pp e, a nd
he
was
of th e m urd er; she was,
the
crime remained un�
solved.
2 . The Nazarenes were
a
gro up of yo ung painters, i ncl udirm Friedrich Overbeck who fi rst met at the Aca d emy of
( 1 78 9- 1 8 6 9 ) and Fra nz Pforr ( 1 78 8-1 8 1 2 ) ,
242
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
Fine Arts in Vienna . The group relocated to Rome in 1 8 1 0, where they stud ied Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican. Ta king fifteenth- and early sixteenth century German and Italian art as a m odel of spi ritual s incerity, they devel oped an archaizing style of p a i nting.
3. In Catholicis m , a chapelle ardente is a darkened room, illuminated with can dles, in which the body of a deceased person lies until placed in a ca sket . Cha rles Ferdinand de Bourbon, due de Berry ( 1 778-1 8 20), served in the prince de Conde's army against the French Revolution, was exiled to En gland, and, after his return to France in 1 8 1 5 , was assassinated by Louis Pierre Louvel,
a
worker obsessed with, in his own words, " exterminating the
Bourbons . " 4 . Lou is Jacques Mande D aguerre ( 1 78 7-1 8 5 1 ) w a s a French painter a n d the inventor of the daguerreotype. In 1 822, he opened the Diorama in Paris-a panorama in which pictures were p a inted on cloth transparencies illumi nated with v arious lighting effects. See Benjamin's "Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century " ( 1 935), in this volume.
23 Chambermaids' Romances of the Past Century
Chambe rmai ds' romances ? Since when a re wor ks of literature catego
rized accord ing to the class th a t consumes them ? Unfo rtunately, they are n o t-o r al l too seldom. Yet how m uc h more i l l u m ina t i n g this would be than hackneyed aesthetic appreciations ! Nevertheless, s uc h a categoriza t ion would pose problems. Above all, beca use we so rarely obtai n
an
y in
sight into the rela tions of production. They used to be more tra nsparent th an the y are in o ur day. Th i s is why a start should be made with ch eap
fiction, with
if i ndeed li terary history is ever going to
A V ""
,.,.,' '''
t h e g eol o g ic al stru cture of the b ook-a l p s, ra ther than confining itself to a view of the pea ks . Before the d evelopment of advertising, t he book tra d e was d e p en dent on itinerant colporteurs or booksellers for d istri bu ti on of its wares among the lower cl asses. It is amusing to imagine the co m p le te literary traveling s a lesman of tha t age and those classes, the man who knew how to i ntroduce gh os t stories and t a l es of chivalry into the servan ts' quarters in the cities and the peasa nts' cottages i n the vi l la g es . To a certain extent he must h ave been a b l e to become part of the stories he was selling. Not
as the hero, of co urse, not the b anish ed prince or the knight errant, but perhaps the ambigu ous old man-warner or sed ucer?-wh o a ppears i n m any o f the s e stories and who, i n the first i l lustr a t ion s hown here, is a b out to make himself scarce at the sight of
a
crucifix.
It is not s urpris ing that this entire body of litera ture has been despis ed
for as long as the superstit ious belief in
a bs
o l ute " art" has existed. The
concept of the document, however, which we nowa d a ys a pply to the works of primitives, child ren, a n d the sick, h a s a l s o p ro v id e d e s sen ti al
243
244
PA I N T I N G
AN D GRAP H ICS
"Swea r! " This i l lustration is (rom
:l m
d i eva l tal e of ghosts
Per/stein, the Knigh t of the Golden K eYi
o r,
a nd
chivalry entitled
A delmar
von
The Twelve Sleep ing Maidens, Protectors
of the Enchanting Young Man.
contexts within which to consider these writi ngs . People recognized the
value of typical s u bj ects rtypische Stoffe], took a n interest in studying the small number of tru ly living ones that c ontin lle to have an impact and are capable of renewa l , and saw tha t the artistic will
[kiinstlerische Wille}
of
C H A M B E R M A I D S ' R O M A N C E S 0 F T H E PAST e E N TU RY
245
-,
bit
I j�Cint Don pat'in.
? :
� . Ib'
••
� 1iI¥Uit
"ref.r., '8n:1
The Princess of Vengeance, Known
as
- .J !'r<".Q
the Hyena of Paris
"J swear it; they shall all su ffer the fate of this man ! " The bea u ty portrayed here is a collector of preserved human heads, which she keeps on the shelves of
a
cup board in
her house.
different generations and classes was embodied j ust as decisively in their variation as in t heir formal la nguage . The archive of such eternal subj ects is the dream, as Freu d has taught us to understand it. Works that p ander so directly to the public's hunger for stories are in teresting enough in themselves; but they become even more so when the same spirit is expressed graphically and colorfully through illustrations . The very principle of such illustrations testifies to the close connection between reader a nd story. The reader wants to know exactly what their place is. If only we had more such pictures ! But where they were not pro tected by the stamp of a lending library-like two of those shown here they have followed their predestined path: from the book to the wall and from the wall to the rub bish bin. These boo ks raise many questions . Apart from external ones, such as matters of a uthorship, influence, and s o on, there is the question of why, in stories that were written in the heyday of the b ourgeoisie, mora l au-
246
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
"My Curse u pon Yo u ! " This i l l u stra tion comes from
a
An tonetta Czerna, the Princess Wounded Heart
(Pjmal
shooti n g of the young
story o f recent times by O . G . Derwicz, en titled
of
the Wild; 01; Th e Vengeance
of
a Woman's
no date). These smartly dressed lad ies have turned up for the
man
as if for a garden party.
C HAM BERM AI DS'
RO MANC ES
OF TH E
PAST C E N TU R Y
247
" S ta nd Back, Base Scoundrel ! "
"Black Knight, " who has just co n q uered the bea uti ful Rebecca. O ne might say that
This is the notorious a bout to overpower
dancing a kind of country
York Castle and is
the two figures are
waltz o f horror.
thority is always tied to a lady or gentleman of ra nk. Pe rh a p s because the serva nt classes sti ll felt a certain solidarity with the middle class and s h are d its most secret romantic ideals.
ha ve a motto in verse at the head o f each of their There you can encounter Goethe a nd Sc h iller, and
Many of these novels bloodth irsty chapters .
e ven Schlegel and Im mermann, but a lso such leading p oets as Wa l d a u
,
Parucker, Tschabuschnigg, or the simple B. , l t o whom we owe these lines: Alone she strays , a bandone d ,
city streets, Every instant to fear through the endless
the ene mies she m ight meet. We are still c l umsy in o u r efforts to app r o a c h these clumsy works. We
feel it is strange to take s er i o us ly books th a t were never p a r t o f a " l i brary. " But let us not fo rget tha t books were o riginally o bjects for use-
PAI NT I N G A N D G RA P H ICS
248
indeed, a means o f subsistence. These were devoured . Let us use them to study novels from the point of view of their fo od chemistry! Published in Das ilIustrierte Blatt, Apri l 1929. Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 620-622. Trans lated by Rodney Livingstone.
Notes 1. Benj amin pro b ab ly refers h e re to Friedrich Schlegel ( 1 772- 1 829 ) , th e pro m i nent Roma ntic
theorist,
transla tor, scholar, critic,
and
novelist.
Karl
Le berecht Im mennann ( 1 796-1 840) was a German a u thor whose novels of
contemporary social anal ysis and v illage life were widely read.
Max
Wa l d a u
( pseudonym of Richard Georg Spiller v o n Hauenschild; 1 825- 1 8 5 5 ) w a s poet and
n ov elis t
Nach der Natur (After an
Aus der Junkerwelt (From the Ad ol f Ritter von Tscha buschnigg
Nature ; 1 850) and
World of the Country Squires; 1 8 5 0) .
( 1 8 09-1 8 77) was
a
active in East Prussia; he is best-known for the novels
Austrian
wri ter and poli tician; after a l ong political
career, he became minister o f justice in
1 8 70-1 8 71 . His novels Die
Industriellen (The Fools; 1 875 ) were oriented toward societal analysis and critique.
and
24 Antoine Wiertz
THOUG HTS A N D VISIONS OF A S EV E R E D H EAD
Once the nineteenth century i s Baedeker-rea dy and its ruins are ripe for moonlight, the Musee Antoine Wiertz in Brussels will be one o f the obligatory d estinations for honeymooners . 1 Wiertz lived from 1 8 06 to 1 8 6 5 . His work has little to do with great painting-but it is all the more interesting to connoisseurs of cultural curiosities and to physiognomists of the nineteenth century. Some titles from the catalogue of Wiertz's oeuvre will convey an idea of his specialty: The Suicide; The Overhasty Burial; Hunger, Madness, and Crime; The Burn t Child. Wiertz himself wrote the museum's catalogue, tho ugh admittedly without signing it. From this catalogue-p u b lished posthumo usly i n 1 8 70-we take the fol lowing text. I t i s , so t o speak, the " caption " [Beschriftungl to his great triptych, Th oughts and Visions of a Severed Head. 2 The report deserves to be rescued from o bscurity, not o n ly because of its tend entious ness but also because of its grandiose costuming [Einkleidung] and its compositional power. - WALTER BENJA M I N
Tri ptych: First M i n ute, Second M i n ute, Th i rd M i n ute
Just moments ago, several heads fell under the scaffold. O n this occasion, it occurred to the artist to pursue inquiries o n the following question :
249
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
250
D oes the hea d , after i ts separation from the trunk, r e main for
a
few sec
onds capable of thought ? This is the report of that investigation. In the com pany of Monsieur . . . and Monsieur D, an expert magneropath, I was allowed onto the scaffold. There I asked Monsieur D to put me i o rapport with the cut off head, by means of whatever new pr o ce du re s seemed appropria te to
him.) Monsieur D a c q uiesced. He made some preparations a nd then we waited, not without excitement, for the fall of a h u ma n hea d . Hardly had t h e inevita b le moment come when the dreadful blade plunged down, sha ki ng the entire scaffo l d , a nd the head o f the con d emned man ro lled ioto the terrible red sack. O u r hair stood on end a t that moment, but the re was no time left for us to d istance
Monsieur D took me by the hand (1 was u nder
his magnetic influence) , led me before the twitching hea d , and asked, " What d o YOll fee l ? What do yo u see ? " Agitation prevented
me
from an
swering him on the spot. But righ t a fter that 1 cri e d in the u tmost horror, wha t I had to go
"Terri bJe! T h e head thro u g h, b u t it was as if an o ppressive nightmare held
me
in its spell. The
head of the executed man saw, thought, and suffere d . And I saw what he saw, understood what he thought, and fel t what h e suffered . How long did it last? Three minutes, they told me . The executed man must h ave tho ught : three h u n dred years . What t h e m a n killed i n t h i s w a y s u ffers, no hum a n language c a n ex press . I wish to limit myself here to reiterating the a nswers I gave to a l l questions d u ring the tim e tha t I felt myself i n some measure identical to the severed head.
First M inute: On the Scaffold Herewith these a nswer s : An incomprehensible n oise roars in his head. Sound of the guillotine blade coming down .-The offender thinks that lightning, not the blade, has struck him.-Astonishingly, the head lies here und er the scaffo l d and yet stil l believes it is a bove, sti ll be l i eves i tself to be parr of t he body, a nd s till wa its for the blow that will cut i t off. Ho rrifying s uffoca tion.-Brea thing impossible .-That comes from an inhu man, supernatu r al hand, heaving down l ike
a
mounta in on the hea d
a n d neck.-Where does this h o rrible inhuman h and come from? The s uf fere r recognizes it: i ts fingers to u ch purple and erm i n e . Oh, even more horri ble suffering l i e s before h i m .
251
ANTO I N E WI ERTZ
Second M i n ute: Under the Scaffold
The pressure ha s turned into a s l i ci ng . Now the executed man first be c om e s conscious of his situ a tion.-He m e a s ur es with his eyes the space sep ara ting h is head from the b od y and says to himself: S o , my head is ac tua lly cut off. The raging delirium i nc r e a s e s . It seems to the executed m an th a t his head is burning, a nd circli n g aro u n d itse lf . . . . And in the mi d d le of t h i s
raging fev e r an ungraspable, i ns a n e, unnama ble thought se i z es the dying br a in . Can one bel i eve it ? The man whose head is c u t off c on ti nu e s hop e . All h i s re m ain ing blood p u lse s fa s ter th roug h hi s li vi ng veins a n d clings to this hope. Now comes the moment when the executed man th inks he is s tretch ing b is cranlped, trembling ha nds toward the dy i ng head. It is the s a me a hand against a gaping wound. And it oc
curs with the intention, the dreadfu l intention, of s etti ng the head back on the tr unk , to pres e rv e
a
l it t le b l o od , a little life .
. . .
Th e eyes of the mar
tyred man roll in the i r bloody sockets . . . . The body becomes stiff as granite. That is d ea th
. . .
No, not yet.
Third M i n ute: I n Eternity
Not yet d eatll. The ile ad sti l l thi n ks and suffers . Suffers fire tha t b urns, s u ffer s the dagger that dismem bers, suffers the
poison tha t cramps, suffers in th e limbs, as t hey are s awn through, suffers in his viscera, as they a re torn out, suffers in h i s flesh, as it is h ac k ed and tramp l ed down, s u ffers in b is bones, which are slowly boiled in b u bbling
oil . A l l this s u ffering put to g e th er s till cannot convey any i d e a of wh a t the executed man is going through .
And h e r e a thought makes him s tiff with terror : Is he a lready dead and must he suffer l i k e this from now on ? Perhaps for all eternity ? .
.
.
Now, h ow e v e r, human existence fa des away from him. It seems to him slowly to bec01ne one with the night . Now j us t a faint mist-but even
that recedes , diss ipates , and d isappears. Ev erythin g goes bl ack .
.
.
.
The
be head e d man is dea d . Published in Das Tagebuch, 1 92 9 . nie Bourneuf.
Gesal1mtelte Schl'iften, IV,
8 0S-8 0 8 . Translated by An
252
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
N otes The te xt Benj amin p resents here is a p artial transl ation of the caption (legende) that the l ate-Romantic Belgi an pain ter. Antoine Joseph Wiertz ( 1 8 06-1 8 6 5 ) com posed for his 1 8 5 3 tr iptych, Pensees et visions d'une tete coup ee, as p u b lished posthumously i n Wiertz's O eu vres litteraires ( Brusse ls: Parent et Fi ls, 1 8 6 9 ) , p p . 49 1-495. Benjamin was working from an edition p u blis hed i n Paris ( Librai rie Internationa le, 1 8 70 ) . The legende also appears with i n the triptych itself in the form of a p a i nted inscri p tion o n
a trompe-l'oeil frame, the latter
a
device Wiertz
frequently llsed in h is wo rk. In his transla t ion, Benj amin abbre v i a tes sections of \X!iertz's text and o m i ts the artist's intro ductory remarks on the pain ting, as wel l as his tions of the visi o ns o f the subject
d escrip
(a guillotined man) i n the l ast two sections. A l
though Benja min's translation renders Wiertz's t i tle as " Ged a nke n und Gesichte eines Gekbpften" ( Thoughts and Visions o f
a
Beheaded Man ) , the present En
glish translation returns to Wiertz's origina l French in referring to "a severed hea d " ( "une tete cou pee " ) . This choice was mad e for two reasons: first, because Benjami n's translation of " d 'une tete cou pee " as " eines Gekopfcen" in the Ger m a n title is
bo th in accurate a nd inconsistent with the rest of his transla tion o f
Wiertz's text; a nd , second, because a n accurate transla tion o f
Gekopften,"
which refers to the person ( and the b ody) of the executed man ( "a beheaded o ne " ) , rather than to a severed hea d (as i n the Frenc h " une tete coupee " ) , wo u l d h a ve i n troduced into t h e English title an awkwardness p resent neither in t h e orig inal French nor in the inaccurate but felicitous Germ a n . See the i n troduction to Part IV of this volume
some remarks on wha t may be at stake in the i nconsis
tency of Benja min's translation of Wiertz's text. 1. A bra nch of the
Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique since 1 8 6 8 , the
Musee Wiertz is housed in B russels at 62 rue Va utier-a neoclassical building which the d io-muse u m, in
government constructed for Wiertz in 1 85 0 as a stufor a number of his mon umenta l h istory p a intings
a n d the promised beq uest of the entire body of work in his possession. Wiertz m a i ntained his studio in the building unti l the time o f h i s d eath, at which point his estate became nationa l property. B en j a m i n c ites Wiertz's 1 855 essay on photography in The Arcades ject, where he describes the artist first to demand, if no t actually
as
Pro
"the p a inter o f the a rc a des" a nd " the the use of photogra p h i c montage
for p o litical a g itatio n . " Benjamin, The Arcades
Project (Cambridge, Mass . :
Ha rva rd U n iversity Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , p p . 845, 6 71 ( Co nv o l u te Y l , t ) , a n d 6 . See also the references to Wiertz in " Lette r from P a ris (2)" and " l.ittle History of Photography," in this v o l ume. 2.
The tri ptyc h , which tod a y h angs behind a counter in the main ga llery of the Musee Wiertz, where p ostcards as welJ as copies of Wiertz's legende are dis played for sa le, is made up of three pa nels of roughly equal size. The first
253
A N T O I N E W I E RTZ
shows spectators pointing up at the head less body on the scaffold. Th e sec o n d ) from
another vantage
po int, shows the executioner
up from the scaffold as the hea d , which
emits rays
th at
hoisting the b o dy si gnal a rapport
between the head and the a uthor of the text, rolls to the grou nd . The third shows smoke a nd flames swirling in a location that i s no lo nge r identifiable. Using a process of his own in vention, Wiertz b lended h is p igments with turpentine rather than oil to achieve a m atte surface. The triptych is now in poor conditi on d ue to the i nsta bility of the medi um. There were w idespread d o u bts in the nineteenth century as t o whether
death by guillotine-favored by the Jaco b ins d uring th e French Revolution a speedy, e g a litarian, a n d therefore " h umane" means o f execution-was really insta n taneolls, a l ong with speculations as to whether conscio usness
as
coul d
abide
in a severed h ea d .
3 . In the nineteenth century, in the wake o f t h e theories of " animal magne t ism "
promulgated by Franz Anton Mesmer ( 1 734-1 8 1 5 ) and o thers, the phe nomena of hy pno tism and a s closely l i n ked, and the language of magnetism was often used to d escribe hypnotic rapport and influence.
25 Sonle Renlarks on Folk Art
Fol k art and kitsch o ught for once to be reg a r de d as a s ingl e great m o v e ment that p asses cer tai n themes from hand to ha n d , like bato ns, be
hind the back of w h a t is k n ow n as great art. They bo th dep e n d on gre a t art a t the level of individual works, but a pply wha t they have
taken in t h e i r own way and in t he service of t h e i r own g o al s , their Kunstwollen. I What is th e direction of t h i s Kunstwollen ? Well, cer t a inl y not toward art, but towa rd someth ing far m ore primitive, y et more compel ling. If w e ask o urselves wha t " art" in the mo de rn sen se means to folk art on the one h and and t o kitsch on the other, the answer w o u l d be: a l l folk art draws the human being i nto i tself. It ad dresses him o nl y so that he mus t answer. Moreover, he answers with questi ons : "Where a nd when was i t ? " The idea s ur fa c es in him that this space and t h i s moment and this p o sition of t h e sun must h ave existed o nce before. To throw the s i t u a t i o n that is br o ug h t to mind h e re around o ne 's sho ulders, like a favorite old coat-this is th e de e p e s t tempta tion awa kened by th e refrain of a folk song, in wh i ch a basic feature of a ll folk art may be perceived. It is not j us t that our image of our cha racter is s o disconti n u o us , so m u c h a ma tter of improvisa tion, that we are eager to fa l l in with e v ery suggestion made by the graphologist, the p a l m - rea d er, and similar practi ti o n e rs . Rather, our de s ti ny may be said to be g o ver n e d by th e same in te n s i v e imagination that illumina tes in a flash the dark corners of t he self, of o ur character, a n d cr e a te s a space for the i nte r p ol a tio n of the most un e xp e c t ed d ark or l i gh t fea tures. Wh e n we are in e a rn e st, we discover our convicti on that we have experi enced infin i t e ly more than we know a b o u t .
254
255
S O M E R E M A R K S O N F O L K A RT
This i ncludes what we have read, and what we have dreamed, whether o r in O Llr sleep. And who knows how and w here we can open up other regions of our des t i ny? Wha t we have experienced u nconsciously echoes, after its own fash ion, wherever we enter the world of p r i m itives : their furniture, their o r naments , t heir songs an d p i c t ures . "After its own fashion" -this means in an enti rely d ifferent manner from the way in wh ich grea t art affects us. As we stand in fro nt of a painting by Titian or Monet, we never feel the ur g e to p u ll o u t our watch a nd set it by the pos i ti o n of the sun in the pic
ture . B ut in the case of p i c tures in c h i l d r e n 's books, or in Ut r ill o 's paint ings, which really do recuperate the primitive, we migh t e a s i l y get such an urge . This means that we find ou rselves in
a
s ituation of
kind we
a re used to, and it is n o t so much that we c ompare the p os ition of the sun wit h our watc h as that we use the watch to comp are this position of the s un with an earlier one. The deja
vu
is cha n ge d from th e pathologica l ex
ception t h a t it is in civilized life to a m agic a l ab i J i ty at whose d i s posal folk art ( an d kitsch no less s o) places i tse lf. It can do so bec a u se the deja vu
really is q uite d i fferent fro m the i nte llectual r e co g n i ti o n that the new
s itu at i o n is the same as the old one. It would be more a ccurate to say: is
fundmnentally the
old o ne . But even this is mis t aken . For the si tu a t i o n is
not experienced as if by someone sta nd ing o utsid e it: i t has pu lled itse lf over us; we have encased ou rselves within i t. However one gr a sp s it, it amounts to the same t h ing : the pri m a l fact of the mask. In t h i s way the pr im it iv e , with all its devices and pict u res , opens u s to an endless arsenal o f masks-the masks o f our fate-by me a ns o f which we stand a p ar t from moments and si tuations that have been l i ved through unconsciously b ut tha t are here finally r eint e gr a te d .
O n ly impoverishe d , uncreative man k nows of no other way to trans form himself than by means of disgu ise. D isguise seeks the arsenal o f m asks wit h i n us . B u t for the m o s t part, w e a re very po o rly eq uipped with them. In reality, the worl d is fu ll of masks; we do not s uspect the exte nt to which even the most u np r ete ntious pieces of furnitnre
( s uc h
as R o
manesque armchairs) u se d t o be m a s ks , too . Wea ri ng a m a s k , m a n looks
out on the situation and b u ilds up his figure s w ithin it. To hand over these masks to
llS,
a n d to form the space and the fignre of our fate within
i t-this is wh a t folk art a pproaches us with. O nl y fro m this vantage point can we say clearly and funda menta lly what dis tinguishes it from a ctu al " art, " in the narrower sense.
Art teaches us to see into things . Folk a rt and ki t s ch all ow us to see outward from w ithin t h i n gs .
256
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
Fragment written in 1 929; unpu blished in Benjam i n 's l i fetime . G esammelte
Sch,.i(ten, VII
pp. 1 85-1 87. Transla ted by Rodney Livingstone.
N otes 1. On the term
Ku1tstwolIenJ
see the introduction to Part I in this volume.
26 Chinese Paintings at the Bibliotheque Nationale
A n o t ew o r thy collection of Chinese p a i n t ings belonging t o Monsieur J .-P. D ubose was exhi bited last Octo ber a t th e Bi bli o th equ e Nationale. 1 There the p u bl ic was a ble to see masterp ieces th a t it r arely encou n ters, while conn oisseurs took a dvantage of the occasion to mark a sh i ft in values that is cu rrently t a k i n g pl a c e in this field . We sh o ul d recall here the 1 9 3 6 Oslo exhib ition curate d by Dr. O . Siren) which a l rea d y garnere d atten tion for Chinese p a i nt i n g from the s ixtee n th, seventeenth, and ei g h t e e nth centur i e s . 2 The stature of th e paintings from these periods is soli d l y established in China and J a p a n ; yet h ere in the West, bec a use of a certain b ia s a n d a cer tain ignorance, we have laude d a bove all C hinese p ai n t ing frOlTI the S ong period ( tenth, eleventh, and twe lfth centu ries ) , and accorded equa l regard to tha t of t h e Yua n pe ri od ( thirteenth and fourteentll centu ri es ) , whic h is viewed a s a c o nt i nuat io n of t he forme r. This some w h at confused a dm i ra tion for t he "Song-Yuan " used to turn a b ru p tl y into contempt at the mere men ti o n of the Ming a n d Qing d yna s t i es . It should first be noted, however, th a t the a uthenticity o f many s up posed Song and Yua n p a intings i s questi onabl e . Mr. Arth ur \Valey and Dr. S i re n have s ho w n persuasively in their books that few p a in tings can be a ttri b u ted with certainty to the so-ca lled classic peri o d of Chinese painti n g . ] It seems we hav e been swooning m a inly over copies. Yet wi th out p r ej u d ging the real greatness of Ch i n ese painting fro111 the So ng and Yuan p eri o ds , we can, o n the basis of the Bibliotheque Nationale exhibi ti on , revise our s up erfic ial assessment of the Chinese pai nte rs from t he M i ng a nd Qing d ynast ies . To tell the truth, there was never any ques tion
257
258
PA I NT I N G
AND
G RAP H I C S
of naming even a singl e one of these p ainters . No one bothered . The con demna tion fe ll wholesale on (( Ming p a int in g ,
n
on " Q ing painting"
gro uped together u nder the sign o f d e c a d e nc e . Yet Monsieur Georges Salles, who h as earned our grati tude for i n tro ducing us to Monsi eur Dubose's collection, s tresses
th e more recent
painters m ainta ined the a ncient mastery.4 They p ract i c e d , he says, " an art that became a fixed profession-Mallarmean fa cets cut ski l l fu lly onto the
old alexandrine. n s This exhi bition i nte res ted u s fr o m another perspecti ve as well, one
more closely ti e d to the personality of the collector himself. Monsieur Dubose, who lived for a bout ten years in China, became an eminent con noisseur of Chinese ar t by virtue of a n a es thetic e duca tion tha t was essen ti ally Western . His p r efa c e m ak es clear i n an unobtrus ive way how valu
a b le the t ea chings of Paul Valery, in particular, were for hi111 . 6 We are not surprised, then, to learn that he was interested in the l ite r a ry profession, w h i c h, in China, is inseparable fr om the profession o f the painter. Here is
a
fact that is a t once of utmost importance and s o m ewh a t
s trange in th e eyes of Europeans: t h e link tha t has b e e n revealed between the thought of a Valery, who s ays th at Leon ardo da V i n ci "takes p a i nti ng as his philosophy/' and the synth et ic view of the u niverse which is char acteristic of the p ainter-philosophers of China. "Pa inter and great man o f l e tte rs ' " "calligrapher, po et, a n d painter" -such designations a r e com mon for the master painters . The paintings p rov e them well fOlm de d . A grea t number o f p a intings feature i mp o r tant ca p ti o n s . If w e set a side the ones a dded later by collectors, the most i nteresting are those that come from the h a nd of the a rtis t s themselve s . The subjects of these calligraphies, wh i ch constitute) in a way, p a rt of the painting, are m ulti p l e . They sometimes c o ntain commenta ries and references to illustrious masters . Even more often , they consist solely of personal remarks . Here
are some that c o u ld just as easily have been taken from a d i ary as from a collection of lyric poetry: On the trees, the snow still remains frozen . . .
I could
gaze a t this s ight, unwearied, for
an
entire d ay.
-TS ' I EN K I A N G
In
a
pavilion at the water's heart, where n o one goes,
I finished rea d ing the so ngs of '( Pin , " Those o f the seventh month. -LI E O U WA N G - N c A N
C H I N E S E P A I N T I N G S AT T H E B I B L I 0 T H E Q U E N A T I O N A L E
" These pain ters are li ter a ti ,
')
259
says Monsieur Dubosc. He adds: " Their
paintin g is, however, the opposite of all literature. ,. The antinomy he indicates in these terms might well constitute the threshold that genuinely gives access to this pa inting-an antinomy which finds its " resolutio n " in a n i nte rmediary element that, far fr om consti tut
i ng a b a l ance [un juste milieu] between literature and painting, embraces intimately the point at which they appe ar most irred uc ibly opposed na mely, thought a n d image. Here, we should speak of Chinese calligra phy. " Chinese calligraphy, as an art," says the erudite Lin Yutang, " i m p lies . . . the cult and appreciation of the a bstract bea uty of li ne and com position in the characters, when these a re asse m b l ed i n such a w a y that
t hey give the impression of a n unsta ble e q u i l i briu m . . . . In this s earch for every theoreti c a l ly possible type of rhythm and structure t h a t appears in
the h istory of Chinese calligraphy, we see that pra ctically all th e organic forms and all the movements of living be ings tha t exist in na ture have been inco rporated and a ssimilated . . . . The artist . . . seizes upon the s tork's thin stilts, the hare's bounding contours, the tiger's massive paws, th e lion's mane, the elepha nt's ponderous wa lk-a nd wea ves them into a web of magical bea uty. " 7 Chinese calligraphy-this " ink-pl ay, " t o borrow t h e p hrase tha t Mon sieur Dub osc uses to designate the p aintings-thus appears a s somethi ng eminentl y in motion . Altho ugh the s i gn s have a fixed co nnection and form o n the paper, the many " resemblances'; they co ntain set them
m ov
ing. Expressed in eve ry stroke of the brush, these virtual resem blances fo rm
a
mirror w here tho ught is reflected i n this a tmosphere of resem
blance, or resonance . Indeed, these resemblances are n ot mutually exclusive ; they become intermingled, constituting a whole tha t solicits thought the way beckons to a veil of gauze. The term xieyi ( " idea painting
"
)1
a
breeze
which th e
Chinese reserve fo r this notation, is significant in this rega rd. An essential fe ature o f the image is that i t i ncorporates something eterna l . Th is eternal quality expr esses itself in th e fiXi ty and stability of the stroke, but it is also manifest, more su btly, th a n k s to the fact that the image embod ies some th ing that is flu id and ever-changing . It is from this blending of the fixed and the muta ble tha t Chinese painting derives a ll its meaning. It goes in s earch of the thought-image. "In China, " says Mon sieur Sal les, " the art of p ainting is first and foremos t the art of t h.i n king. " And thi nking, for the Chinese painter, means th inki ng by mea ns of re semb lance. Moreover, just as resem blance a lways a ppears to us like
a
fla s h of lightning (since no thing is more tra nsient than the a ppearance o f
PA I N T I N G A N D G R A P H I C S
260
a resem bl ance) , the fleeting and changeful character of these paintings merges with their penetration of the real . That which they fix is no more immuta ble than
a
cloud. And this is their true and enigmatic subs tance
it consists of change, like life. Why do landscape painters live to such advan ced old age ? asks
a
philosophical painter. "Because the mist and the clouds offer them no ur ishment. " Monsieur Dubose's collection inspires these reflections. It evokes ma ny other tho ughts as well. It adds immensely to our knowledge of the East. It deserves a long life. The Musee du Louvre, by acquiring it, has con firmed its merit. Written in French; first published in Europe: R evue Mensuelle, 181 (January 1 , 1 9 3 8 ) .
Gestlmmelte
IV, 601-605. Transla ted by Timothy J. Attanucci.
Notes 1 . Jean-Pierre D u bose ( 1 904-1 9 8 8 ) was
a
French diplomat and connoisseur of
Chinese painting whose collection formed the basis of the October 1 9 3 7 ex hibition at the Bibliothcque Nationale
in
Par i s .
2. Osv a ld Siren ( 1 8 79- 1 9 66) was a pro m i nent Swedish a r t historian who spe cia lized at the outset of his career i n the pa inting of the early Italian Renais
sance and la ter became an internationally re nowned expert on Chinese a rt. Benja min refers here to Siren's catalogue A n Exhibition of Chinese Paintings in the National Museum, Stockholm, Ap ril-May 1 93 6, National Museum exhibition ca tal o g u e no . 54 (Stockholm: Nordisk Rotogravyr, 1 9 3 6 ) . 3 . Arthur Waley ( Arth u r David Schloss, 1 8 8 9-1 966) was a distinguished British s in o logi s t. He acquired his knowledge of C binese painti ng while serving as
Ass istant Keeper of O riental Prints and Man uscripts at the British Museum beginning in 1 9 1 3 ; he was later can Studies, London. He
is
a
lecturer a t the Scho o l of Ori ental and
Afri
best known for his translations of Chinese a nd
Japanese poetry. Benj amin pres uma bly refers
to An Introduction to
the
Study of Chinese Painting (New York: Scribner'S, 1 92 3 ) . 4 . Georges S a lles ( 1 8 8 9-1 9 66 ) was cura tor o f Asian a r t a t the Musee du Lou
vre, where in Apr il 1 93 7 he organized
an
exhi bition of anc ient Chinese a rt
that Benjamin proba bly visited; see the exhibition catalogue A rts de Ia Chine ancienne, intro. Georges Salles (Paris: .Musee 1 9 4 1 to 1 94 5 he
was
de
l ' O rangerie, 1 9 3 7 ) . From
director of the J\tlusee Guimet, and from 1 945 to 1 9 5 7
h e was d irector o f the Mu sees de France. S alles's work w a s imp ortan t to Benj amin
in
the late 1 93 0s. See
Benj amin's
review of Le R egard: La Collec
tion-Ie musee-la fouille-une journee-l'ecole ( Paris: PIon, 1 9 3 9), which appeared in the Gazette des Amis des Livres in May 1 940. Ben j a min, Gesammelte Sch1'iften, III, pp. 5 8 9-595.
C H I N E S E P A I N T I N G S AT T H E B l B L I
0T
H E Q U E N AT I O N A L E
5 . The French poet Stephane Malla rme ( 1 8 42-1 8 9 8 )
was
a centra l figure
261
in the
Sym bolist movement . 6. Paul Va lery ( 1 8 7 1-1 9 45 ) , French poet
and essayist, is best known
for ess ay
istic fictions such as La Soiree avec Mo nsieur Teste ( 1 8 9 6) a n d maj or poems of the Symbolist and post-Symbolist period. 7 . Lin Yutang ( 1 8 95 - 1 976),
a
prolific C hine s e poet, novelist, historian, and cul
and Germany. His in and customs for a Western audience were
tural c ritic, was educa ted in China, the United S tates, terpre tations of Chinese culture
widely read and enormously influential. Benja min may be quoting here from the French translation of My Country and Hitchcock, 1 93 5 ) .
My People (New York:
Reynal &
IV PHOTO G RA P HY
Benj amin's initia l engagement with pho tography took p lace in 1 922, d uring a period of intensive work on the great French poet Ch arl e s B a udelaire. In two s hort texts written in prep aration for a public address on the poet, Benj amin presents Baudelaire as a pr ivil eged reader of a sp e cial body of p hoto gr a p hic work: photographic plates upon which time it self has preci p itate d the " essence of t hings . " These p l ates a r e n egatives, an d , while " no one can deduce from the negative . . . the true essence o f things as they r ea lly are, " Benj amin nonetheless attri b utes to Baud elaire not the a bility to d evel o p s uch a nega tive, b ut rather a " p re s en tim en t of its real picture. " In these ea rliest evocations of photographic images, then, Benjamin stresses the c apacity of the photograph to grant access to a deep stratum tha t is u navaila b le to unaided vi s ion . This notion is in fact at the center of his first p ublished statements o n photogra phy, the l ittle essay " News abou t Fl ow er s , "
B l o s sfe l d t's book Urformen der Kunst
a
r eview of Karl
( O riginary Forms of Art; 1 92 8 ) .
B l ossfeldt, an instr uctor at the Berlin College of Art, was convinced tha t his stu d ents could b est learn t o draw b y imitat ing forms that recur i n t ne natural world. O ver the course of severa l years, he set pla nt pa r ts-tw ig ends, seed pods, tendrils, leaf buds, a n d so on-against sta rkly n eutr al b a ck gro un d s a nd p h otogr ap he d them wit h extre m e m a gni fic a tion . What for Blossfeldt was evidence of nature 's status as the master teacher was for Benjamin the portal into a hitherto u na nticip a ted aspect of reality : " a geyser of new image�worlds hi s s es up at p oints in o u r exis tence where we wou l d least h ave thought them possible . " The m etaphor ical reference to a geys er- l i k e eruption of images triggered by the viewing
263
264
P H O TO G R A P H Y
of photographs inevita bly entails the sense that they are prod uced , a t least in part, in the unconscious . What, though, is the nature of these " image-worlds " ? Benjamin stresses that they are not solely s u bjective p henomena: he refers to them as " image imperatives," implying tha t some part of their character i s o b j ective and inherent i n the photographic image itsel f. The images that spring o u t of
us
are inevita bly subjective,
but our percepti on of them is cond itioned by something objective, grounded as it is within the encounter with
a
specific photograph.
This early interest in the individ ua l's encounter with the photograph gives way, in the magisterial " Little History of Photography/' to broa d e r co ncerns. This essay, for a ll i t s b r e v i ty, i s o n e of the earliest histories o f the mediu m . 1 Benj amin 's h istory sets itself apart a s the first important s o cial history of photography; consonant with h is more general practice , Benj amin here forcibly breaks the photograph out of the context p ro vided by an examination of the photographer and his or her style, and examines its embeddedness within economic, s ocial, technological, a n d political practices. I t is precise ly new ideas a b o u t t h e technology of the photograph, in fact, that a llow Benjamin to build here upon his earlier,
apod ictic claim that the photograph harbors image-worlds. In the "Little History, " the image-world emerges as
a
place in every photograph which
enco des not j ust the specific cha racter of
a
past moment (the " s uchness "
o f that moment), but also " the future . " If the " Little History" provides little information as to the nature and significance of this revealed " fu ture,
n
the essay "The Work o f Art in the Age of Its Technological
Reproducibility" might be said to center on this problem of the artwork's encoding of the relationship between two apparently u nrelated historical moments.2 In attempting to elucidate the manner in which these image-world s might play a role in the transformation of human sensory a n d cogn itive capacities, Benj amin in this essay intro d uces two o f his most frequently cited-i f least understood-concepts. First, and most generally, Benj amin links the emergence of a photo graph's image-world to the way in which photographs-l ike film and other photo�based media-ma ke possible for us the experience of the " optica l unconscious. " With this term, Benj amin p oints toward the capacity of the ca mera to fix within the photographic emulsion an image of a n ature-the material world before the lens, and especially the spatial and tempora l rela tionships among its e lements which is different from the one that " speaks . . . to the eye. " To put this another wa y, in the optical unconscious the world presents itself to the photograp hic a pparatus in an a spect d i fferent from any it could ever
P HOTOG RAPHY
265
present to the unaided human senses. Benj a min's primary exa mple here, the photographic " freezing" of one instant i n which a human is caught in m id-strid e, refers silently to the famous series of m otion s tudies by the photographer Ea dward Muybridge ( 1 8 3 0- 1 904) in which the camera re veals the o r ientati on of the body as it moves through space over time . But the optical unconscio lls clearly entails much more than the revela tion of physical and temporal aspects of nature thro ugh the use of spe cific photographic techniques such as stop-motion photography or the enlargement practiced by Bloss feldt. In the " Littl e His to ry, " Benj a min cla ims that it is the optical unconscious alone, as it oper ates within
a
wide range of photographs, that can mark the " difference between tech nology and magic visi ble as a thoroughly historical variabl e . " Benjamin's use of the term '( magic " here p oi nts to the embeddedness of these argu
ments
within his general thinking about the problem of commodity fe
tishism. Marx, in Capital, had a ttributed to the commodity-an appar en tly " e asily understo o d, trivial thing"-"sensu o lls , yet extrasens o ry
[sinnlich ubersinnlich]
properties . Commodities appear to be " gra nted
a
life of their ow n, they beco m e indepen dent entities which stand in rela tionship to one another and to men . " 3 Commodities act precisely as d o fetishes . They a r e man-made obj ects that appear t o h a v e s upernatural or magic powers and as such wield power over humans: commodities have a d e bilitating effect Llpon the human perceptua l apparatus a nd inte l lect. As noted in the general introduction to this volume, Benj amin ca lls this ef fect of commodities working in networks H phantasmagoria . " And it is precisely to photography that
Benjamin first attribu tes the power to iden
tify phantasma goria a nd reveal its effects as magical. The photograph aids, in other words, in the process of the d isenchantment of the world as it m akes visi b l e the effects of magic-unreason-upon human nature and
human social
interactio n . 4
If Ben j amin implies that a l l photographs potentially provide access to the optical unconscious, the second key term around which the essay is organized-" a ura "-i s itself a thoroughly " historical v ariable. " The aura emerges as the s ign of the convergence of two things: the historical conditions of p ossibil ity of a certa in kind of photograph, and the sel f consciousness of a certain c lass, the bourgeoisie, at a particular moment of its development.s The long exposure times required for early portrait photography led to the development of a series of artificial aids-invisi ble props that held the sitte r m otionless, remote or unusual sites such
as
th e cemetery where neither man nor beast would enter the frame, and so on-w h ich
i m a ges were " built to last, ') and indeed that
266
P H OTO G RA P HY
every detai l of the sitters and their clothing were im bued w i th an unm i s taka ble "permanen ce . " But Benj a m i n makes clea r in th e " Litt le History " that this permanence, a s w e l l as other class attribute s such as the a bility to generate an " an imated conviv iality, " were a lso o bjective attri butes of the class, and not me rely p h o tograp hic a rtifacts. " These pictures were made in roo ms where every client was confronted, in the person of the photographer, with a technician of the latest school; whereas the p hotog rapher was confronted, in the person of every cl ient, with
a
member of a
risi ng class eq uipped with an a ura tha t h a d s eeped into the very fol ds of the m an's frock coat or floppy cravat. " The aura, in othe r words , is at one and the same time the " bre a thy halo" so evident in many daguerreotypes and early salt prints
and a n ob
j ective attribute of a class that developed at a p a r ti c u la r histo rical mo ment. As Benj a min pu ts i t, " in this e arly period subj ect and technique were a s exactly congruent as they became incongruent in the period of decline that immedi a tely fo llowed . " Tha t " p e r i o d o f decl ine " was the perio d o f modernist photogra phy; the incongruence contrasts the ongoing decline of hu man his tory i nto
barbarism w ith the in c r e a s i n g a bi lity of modernist p hotographers to use photographic tech ni q u e for social and political en d s . If the first p a rt of the essay is given o ver to an examination of pho tography as the represen tative
form
of the bourgeoisie in the mid-nin eteenth century, the latter
h a l f a ttempts to prov i de
of photographic practices that a re
t urned back against the hegemon ic class. Two modern photographers are here made to occupy ex emp l a r y p ositions : Eugene A tget e merges as the
liberator of the world of things from thrall in wh i c h they are held by aura, and August Sander wrench es the re presenta tion of the human countenance free from the musty conventions of bo urgeois portraiture. Atget's 4 , 000 images of P aris and its s urroundings c apture no t its beauty or picturesqueness, but its empty s paces and discarded obj ects . His dispassionate s urvey of a terrain substi tutes for the "exotic, romanti cally sonorous " texture of early photography a " salutary es trangement between man and h is surroundings . " Benj a m in 's A tget steps for th fro m h i s i mages as
a
kind o f photographic Brecht, a b l e to shake t h e o bserver
free from the participatory re v er i e suggested by earlier pho tographs, and to crea te, by defami l iarizing t he mo st familiar t hi ngs , a n e u tr al space for the development of cri tica l capacities. August S ander's p hotogra p h ic practice in some ways paral lels tha t of Atget. He had produced, by the early 1. 9 3 0s, tho usan ds of images o f Ger
mans from eve ry social group and employment type. The great taxono my
267
PHOTOGRAPHY
of German s ociety tha t Sander hoped to prod uce bo re the wo rking title
Menschen des 2 0 . Iahrhunderts ( Ci ti ze n s
of the Twen tie th Century ) . In
these remarka ble images, S a n d er draws u pon the appeal of the h uman face in all its s i n g ul a r i ty in ord er to achieve something seemingly very d if
feren t: a cha racterizatio n of tha t face's representa ti veness . Be n j ami n saw in Sa n der's typological approach a p owe r ful p ol i t ic a l tooL His images were a " tra i n i n g manua l " that co u ld pro v i d e political opera tives with vi ta l infor mation on a citizen's " p rovenance " d u ring " s ud den shifts of power. " Photography, i n o ther words, ma des the site of
a
sh ift toward
a
poli tics ge n u in e ly attuned to col lective concerns a n d co llective power. The final pages of the " Little H i s t o ry
deal, su rp ris ing l y, with the is sue o f art a s photography and p ho t og r a p h y as art. Free d from political a nd
"
interest, photography becomes (' creative " and serves only to
confirm thi n g s as they are. The concluding s ecti on begi ns with a glancing attack on " crea tive " photograp hy-a criti que that is d evel oped at greater length in other essays included in this volume : the s p ecific polemic against Albert Renger-Patzsch, a proponent of the photography o f " New
O b j ectivi ty, " and agai nst his influenti al photo book Die Welt ist schon is taken u p again in "The A ut h o r as Producer " ; and the problem of " art photography" s tands a t the center of the essay " Letter from P a r is
(2):
Paint i n g a n d P ho to gr aphy . I n the " Letter from Pari s , " Benj a min shows, for the fi rst time anywhere, tha t " p h o t og ra phy's cla i m to be art was con "
temporaneous wi th its emergence as a commodity. " P h o tography's a bil ity to represent commodities, and to reproduce and d issemi nate such rep resentations, ens u red that ce rtain good s were placed into circulation "which had more o r less escaped it up to then . )' Jus t as photography holds the p o tential to open the optical u nconscious to the viewer and in so doing open the door to a r e form of perception tha t might lead to social change, s o too does i t hold the po ten t ial to make " segments of the field of optical perception into saleable com mod ities . "
I n the " Littl e Histo ry "
and i n the
" Letter from Paris , " Benj a m i n con
cludes h is consid eration o f photogr a p h y by o p e n i n g a ta n tali zing vantage
p oin t toward what he s ee s a s i t s future. He puts the pro blem confront
ing the medium succinctly. The imag es produced by the ca mera have a " shock effect " tha t " paralyzes the associative mechanisms in the be
holder. " Benj amin here derives a set of claims from what i s most o ften as cribed to p hotog r a p hy as i ts sole c a pacity: the a b ility to capture th ing s " as they are " and in so doi ng to r e p lic a te the apparen tly fixed, i mmuta ble q u a lity of the world in a fixed and immuta ble sensory apparatus in the beholder. How, though, are we to see the world "otherwise" ?
IS,
268
P H OTOGRAPHY
m i g ht
not as phantasmagoria, but i n ways tha t
be li ber a ti ng ? For
Benj amin1 th is hidden capacity of pho tography is related to the powe r of association .
Benjamin's conte mporary,
the great Austria n novelist Robert
Musil, in his b o o k The Man without Q ualities, made a distinctio n be tween " reality-sense" and " possibility-sense. "
Here this or tha t he invents: Here this or tha t m i ght , could, or o ught to happ e n . If he is tol d that s o m e th i n g is the way it is, he will think: Well, it cou ld p r o b a bly j us t as well be o the r w i se. So the s e n s e of p ossibil ity cou l d be d efined ou t r i g ht as the a b ility to conce i v e of e v e ryt h i n g the re m ight be j US[ a s well , a nd to attach no more i m portance to what is t h an to w ha t is not.6 Whoever has [poss ibility-sense] does n o t say, for insta nce: h as happened, will h a pp en , must hap pen; b u t
Musil's possibilist is content to inhabit " a more d elicate medium, a hazy medium of mist, fan tasy, daydreams, and the s u bjunctive mood . " The " a ssocia tive mechani sms " Benj amin evokes, in contrast, lead to political agency. But Benj a min woul d explore the implicatio ns of photography's
a sso ci a tive capacities, a nd the politics that proceed from them, only much later, in the essay " The Wo rk o f Art in [he Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. "
MICHAEL W.
JENN ING S
N otes 1 . Josef
Maria Ed er
had published a te ch n i c a l hisrory o f photography, based
extensive research
into
photochemistry, as e a rly
as
on
1 9 05 ; b ut the end of t h e
1 9205 and th e eady 1 93 0s saw the firs t real s urge of interest in t he hi story of
the medi u m .
Georges
Potonnie's
Histoire
de
la
decouverture
de
la
Wilhelm Dost's Vorlaufer der Photographie (Precurs ors o f Photography; 1 932) inves tig a re d the e arly h istory of the medi um; and Beaumont Newhall's History of
p h o tograph ie ( His tory of the Discovery of Pho togra phy; 1 925) and
Photography, the first comprehens i ve hi sto ry of the m ed ium, a pp e a re d
years l a t er, in 1 93 7 . For a comprehensive survey of p hotographic
a
few
h i s t o rie s ,
see D ougl as R. Nickel, " History of Photography: The S ta te of Research , " 3 (Septem ber 2 0 0 1 ) : 5 4 8 -5 5 8 . 2 . O n the capacity o f the artwork t o m a k e histo ry present, see the ge nera l i ntro A rt Bulletin, 8 3 , n o .
duction to this v olu me . 3.
Karl l\Ilarx, " The Fetishism of Commodities and the
Secret
Thereof, " excerpt
from Capital, in The Marx-Engels R eader, ed. Robert C . Tucker (New York: Norton, 1 9 72 ) , pp. 2 1 5-2 J 6.
269
P HOTO G RA P H Y
4. On Benja min's commi tment to disenchantment, see the genera l introduc tion to this volume and especially Jiirgen
Habermas'
semin a l early article " Con
sciousness-Raising or Rescuing Criti q u e , " i n Gary Smith, ed. , O n Walter
MIT Press,
Benjamin: Critical Essays and Recollections ( Cambridge, 1 9 8 8 ) , pp. 90-1 1 8 .
5 . For a d i scussio n o f Benj amin 's use o f the term " aura " with i n
a
more
general
theory of the work of art, see the int ro d uc t i o n to Part I in this vol ume . 6 . Ro bert Musil , The Man without Qualities, tran s . Sop hic Wilkins ( New York: Vintage Interna tio n a l , ] 9 9 6 ) , p . 1 1 .
27 News about Flowers
Karl Blossfeldr,
Urformen der
rOrig i nary Forms of
Art: Photographic Images of Plants ] , edited and with an introduction by Karl Nierendorf (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1 9 2 8 ), 120
Criticism is a socia ble art. 1 A healthy rea der mocks the reviewer's j udg ment. But what plea ses that reader most deep l y is the d elicious bad taste of ta king p a rt uninvited when someone else reads. Opening a book so tha t it b eckons like a table already set, a ta ble at which we are a bout to take our place with a ll of our insights, questions, convictions, q u i rk s , prej udices, and though ts , so that the couple of hundred readers ( are there that many ? ) in this s ociety dis appear and just for tha t reason a l l ow us to enjoy life-this is criticism. O r at least the only form of criticism that gives a reader an a ppetite for a book. If we can agree on this, then the table is set with the one hundred twenty plates in this book, inviting countless o bservations from countless o bservers. Yes, we really wish this rich book ( p oor onl y in words ) that many friends . The silence of the scholar who presents these images must really be honored; perhaps his knowledge is of the kind that m akes the one who possesses it mute . And here, doing is more important than knowing. The perso n who created this collection of p lant photos can eat more than bread. He has d on e more than his share of tha t great stock taking of the inventory of h uman perception that wil l alter our image of the world in as yet unforeseen ways . He has p roven how right the pio neer of the n ew light-image, Moholy-Nagy, was when he said: " The l im its of p hotography cannot be d etermined. Everything is s o new here that even the search l eads to creative results . Technology is, of course , the
271
272
P H O TOG R A P H Y
pathbreaker here. It is not the person ignorant of writing but the one ig norant of photography who wil l be the illiterate of the future. " 2 Whether we accelerate the growth of a plant through time-lapse p hotography or s how its form in forty-fold enlargement, in either case a geyser of new image-worlds hisses up at points in our existence where we would least h ave thought them possible. These photographs revea l an entire, unsuspected horde of analogies a nd forms in the existence of plants. Only the photograph is capable of this. For a b racing enlargement is necessary before these forms can shed the veil that our stolidity throws over them. What is to he said of an o b server to whom these forms alrea dy send out signals from thei r veiled state ? Nothing can better portray the truly new objectivity of his proce d ure than the comparison with that highly persona l but ever so bril liant procedure by m eans of which the equa l ly revered a nd misunder s tood Grand ville, in his Fleurs animees, made the entire cosmos emanate from the world of plants.3 Grandville took h old of the proced ure-God knows, not gently-from the opposite end . He stamped the punitive mark of creatureliness, the human visage, d irectly onto the blossom of these pure children of nature. This great pioneer in the field of the adver tisement mastered one of its fundamental principles, graphic sadism, as hardly any other of i ts a d epts has done . Isn't i t o d d now to find here an other principl e of advertisement, the enla rgement of the plant world into gigantic proportions, gently healing the wounds opened by caricature ? Originary Forms of Art-certainly. What can this mean, though, but originary forms of nature ? Forms, that is, which were never a mere model fo r art but which were, from the beginning, at work as originary forms in all that was created . Moreover, it must be food for thought in even the most sober observer that the enlargeJnent of what is large-the plant, or its buds, or the leaf, for example-leads us into a whol ly d iffer ent realm of forms than does the enlargement of what is small-the plant cell under the microscope, say. And if we have to tell ourselves that new painters like Klee and even more Kandinsky have long been at work es tablishing friendly relations between us a nd the realms i nto which the mi croscope would like to seduce us-crudcly and by force-we instead en counter in these enlarged plants vegetal " Forms of Style. "4 One senses a gothic parti pris in the bishop'S staff which an ostrich fern represents, in the larkspur, and in the blossom of the saxifrage, which also d oes honor to its name in c a thedrals as a rose window which b reaks through the wall. The oldest forms o f columns pop up in horsetails; totem poles a ppear in chestnut and ma p le shoots enlarged ten times; and the shoots of a monk's-hood unfold l i ke the body of a gifted dancer. Leaping to-
NEWS ABOUT FLOW E R S
273
ward us from every calyx and every lea f are inner image-impera tives
[Bildnotwendigkeiten] , which have the last word in a11 phases and stages of things conceived as metamorphoses. This touches on one of the d eep est, most unfatho m a ble forms of the creative, on the variant that was always, a bove all others, the form of genius, o f the crea tive collective, and of nature . This is the fruitful , dialectical opposite of invention: the
Natura non facit saltus of the a ncients .S One might, with a bold supposi tion, name it the feminine and vegetable princ iple of life. The variant is submission and agreement, that which is flexible and that which has no end, the cleve r and the omnipresent. We, the o bservers, wander amid these giant plants like Lilliputians . It is left, tho ugh, to fraternal great spirits-sun-soaked eyes, like those of Goethe a nd Herder-to s uck the last sweetness from these calyxes. Pu bUshed In Die literarische
Welt,
November 1 9 2 8 .
Gesammelte Schl'iften, III,
1 5 1-1 5 3 .
Translated by Michael W. Jennings.
Notes 1 . Karl Blossfeld t ( 1 8 65-1 932) was a Germ a n photographer a nd art teacher whose entire photographic o utput was devoted to the representation of plant parts: twig end s , seed pods, tendrils, leaf b u d s, a nd so on. These he meticulo usly arranged against stark backgrounds and p h otogra phed with magnificati on, so that u nfamiliar shapes from the organic wo rld were re vealed as startling, elegant architectural forms. Blossfeldt originally pro duced his work as a study aid for his students
at the Berlin College of Art; he
believed tha t the best human art was modeled on forms preexisting in na t ure . 2 . Benj amin refers to the Hungarian photographer a nd painter Laszl 6 Moholy
Nagy ( 1 895-1946).
3 . Gra ndville is the pseudonym of Jea n-Ignace-Is idore Gerard ( 1 8 03-1 847), a ca ricaturist and i llustrator whose work appeared i n the period icals Le Charivari and La Caricature; his book Les Fleurs anim ees was p ublished in
1 847. 4 . Benj amin is referring to Stilfragen: Grundlegungen
zu
einer Geschichte der
Ornamentik ( Q uestions of Style: Towa rd a History of Ornament; 1 8 93 ) , a
work by the Austrian art histori an Alois Riegl ( 1 85 8-1 905 ) . It traces the
in
fluence of n atural forms such as the acanthus thr ough a series of stylistic pe riods in the anc ient world. S. Natura non facit saltus: Latin for
" nature d oes not make a leap . " In rational
ist p h i losophy, the phrase expresses the notion that God leaves n o gaps in nature.
28 Little History of Photography
The thick
surro unds the be gi n nings of photography is not quite as as
that whi c h shrouds the early days of printing; more obviously
th an in the case of the printing press, perhaps, the time was ripe for the invention, and was sensed by more than one-by men who strove inde pendently for the s a me obj ective: to capture the i mages in the came ra obscura , which had been known at le ast since Leonardo's time . When, a f ter a bout five years of effort, both Niepce a nd Daguerre simu ltaneously succeeded i n do ing this, the state, aided by the pa tenting d i fficulties en c o un tered by the inventors, a s s u med control of the e n terprise and m a de it p u b lic, with co mpens a tion to the pioneers. I This p aved the way for
a
rapid ongoing development which long precluded any backward glance. Thus it is tha t the h istoric al or,
if yo u
l ike, p hilosoph ical questions sug
gested b y the rise a nd fall o f photography have gone unh eeded for de
ca des . And if they are beginning to enter i nto c onscio usness today, there is a d efinite reason for it. The l atest writings on the s ubject p oint up the fact tha t the flowering of p h o tography-the work of I-Ell and Ca meron, H ugo and Nadar-came in i ts first decade.1 But this was the decade which preceded its industrializati o n . Not tha t h ucksters and charlatans did not appropriate the new techniques for gain, even in tha t early pe riod; indeed , they did so en masse. But tha t was closer to the arts o f the fairground, where photography is a t home to this d ay, tha n to industry. Industry
ma d e
its first real inroads with the visiting-card p i c ture, whos e
first ma nufacturer, s ignificantly, b ecame
a
milliona ire . I t would n o t be
surp risin g if the photographic methods which today, for the first time, are harking b ack to the preindustrial heyday o f photography had an under-
274
L I TT L E H I ST O RY O F P H OT O G R A P H Y
275
gro u n d connection with the crisis of capitalist industry. But that d oes not make it any easier to u se the charm of o l d photographs, a vaila ble in fine recent pu blications,3 for real insights into their nature. Attempts at theo retical mastery o f t he subj ect have so far been entirely rudimentary. And no ma tter how extensi vely i t may have been debated in the last century, basically the discussion never got away from the ludicrous s tereotyp e which a chauvinistic rag, the
Lei/niger Stadtanzeiger,
felt it h a d t o o ffer
in timely opposition to this black a rt from France . "To try to capture fleeting mirror images, " it said, " is not j ust an impossi b le u nde rta king, as has been estab lis hed after thorough German investigation; the very wish to do s uch a thing is blasphemous. Man is made in the image of God , a nd God's image cannot be captured by any machine of human devising. The utmost the artist may venture, b orne on the wings o f divin e i nspiration, is to rep roduce man's God -given fea tures without the help of any machine, in the moment of highest dedication, at the higher bidding o f his genius . " Here w e ha ve the philistine n otio n o f " art" i n all its o verweening o btuse ness, a stra nger to all technical cons i derations, which feels that its e n d is nigh with the al arming appearance o f the new techno logy. Nevertheless, it was this fetishistic a nd fundamentally antitechnological concept of art with which the theoreticians o f photography sough t to grapple for a l most a hu ndred years, naturally witho u t the smallest success. For they undertoo k n othing less than to legitimize the p hotogra pher before the very trib unal he was in the process of o verturning . Far different is the tone o f the address which the p h ysicist Arago, speaking on behalf of Daguerre's invention, gave in the Chamber of Deputies on July
3, 1 839.4
The beautifu l thing a bo ut this speech is the connections it makes w i th all aspects of human activity. The panorama it sketches is broad enou gh not o nly to make the d u b ious project of a uthentica ting p hotography in terms of painting-which it does anyway-seem beside the point; more impo rtant, it offers an insight into the real scope of the inve ntion. " When inventors of a new i nstrument," says Arago, " a ppl y it to the o bservation of nature, what they expect of i t always turn s o u t to be a trifle com pared with the s u cce ssion o f subsequent d iscoveries o f which the instru ment was the o rigin. " In a great arc Arago's speech spans the fie l d of n ew techno logies, from astrophysics to philology: alongside the prospects for photographing the stars and planets we find the idea of esta blishing a photographic record of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Daguerre's photographs were iodized silver plates exposed in the cam era o bscura, which had to be turned this way a n d that until, in the proper light, a pale gray image could be discerned. They were one o f a
P H OTO G R A P H Y
276
kind; in 1 8 3 9
a
p l a t e cost an average of 2S g o ld fr a n c s . T h e y were not
i n fre q u e ntl y kept in a case, like j ewe l r y. In th e hands o f m a n y a pain ter, th o ug h , they became
a
technical a dj unct. Just as seventy years l ater
Utrill05 pa i n te d his fascinating views of Paris not fro m life but from
picture p o s tc a rd s , so t he h ig h l y regarded English portra i t pain ter D avid Octavius Hill b a s e d his fresco of the first g e n e r a l synod o f the Church o f Sc o tl a n d i n 1 843 on a l o n g s e ri es of p ortr ai t p h oto gr aph s . B u t th ese p ict u r e s he took h i m s e l f . And i t is they, u npretentious m a k es h i ft s meant for internal use, that gave his name a place in history, while as a pa i n t er he is fo rg otte n . Admittedly a n umber of his studies lead even d e e p e r into the n e w te c h no l ogy than t h i s s eries of portraits-anonymous images, not p ose d s u b j e ct s . Such figures had l o n g been the subjects of painting. Where the p a i n t i n g remained i n the posses s i o n of a p a r ti cu la r famil y,
now a n d then someone woul d as k
a
b o ut the p e rson portrayed. But after
tw o or thre e gen erations this interest fa des; the pi ct u r e s , if they last, d o s o o n l y as testimony to the art o f th e pa i nter. With p h o t o gr aph y, however,
we encounter someth ing new a nd s tr a ng e : in Hill's N ew ha v e n fishwife,
her eyes cast down in such ind o l en t, s e d u c ti v e m o d es ty, there rema ins so m eth ing that goes b e yo n d testimony to the p hotographer's a rt, so m e thing that c a nn o t be sile nced, that fills you with an unruly desire to k no w w h a t her name was, the woman who was a l i ve there, who e ven now is
s ti l l real and wil l never con s e nt to be w h o ll y a bsorbed in " art. " And I ask: How d i d the bea u ty of tha t hair,
those eyes,
beguile ou r fo re bears ?
How did that mou th kiss, to whic h desi re c urls up sense less as s m o ke wi tholl t
fi re ? 6
Or o n e turns u p the p i c t u r e o f D a Llt h e n de y t h e p h o t o g r a p h e r, the fa ther of the po et, from the time of h is engagement-to the woman he later dis c o ve re d , o n a day sho r tl y a fter the birth of her s i x th c hil d , l y i ng in
t h e bedroom of their Moscow house with her veins slashe d . Here she
can he seen w i t h him. He seems to b e h o l d i ng her, b ut her gaze p a s ses h i m by, a b s o r b ed in a n o mi n o lls dis tance . Immersed l on g enough i n such
a
picture, one r e c o gn i ze s to what extent opposi tes touch, here too: the m os t p r e cis e t ec h n o l og y can give i ts p rod u c ts a m a gical value, such as a p a i nte d picture can never again p os s e ss for u s . No ma tter how artfu l the p h oto gr a pher, no
ma
t t e r how carefully posed his s u b j ec t , the b eholder
fe e l s an irresisti ble comp ulsion to s e a rc h sllch a picture for the tiny spark of co n ti nge n c y, the here a n d now, wi th which r e a li ty has, so to s peak,
seared t h rou gh the image-cha racter of the p h ot og r a p h , to find th e incon-
LITTLE H I STORY O F P H OT O G R A P H Y
277
Newhave11 Fishwife. Photo by David Octa vius Hill.
spicuous place where, within the suchness [Sosein] of tha t long-past min ute, the future nests still today-and so eloquently tha t we, looking back, may rediscover it. Fo r it is another nature that speaks to the camera rather than to the eye; " other )) a bove a l l in the sense tha t a space in formed by h uman co nsciousness gives way to one informed by the un-
278
PHOTOGRAPHY
Ka rl Dauthendey (Fath er of the Poet), with His Fiancee. Photo by Ka rl Dauthendey.
conscious. While it is common tha t, for example, an individual is able to offer an account of the human gai t (if only in general terms ) , that same individual has no knowledge at all of human posture during the frac tion of a second when a person begins to take a step . Photography, with its devices of slow motion and enlargement, reveals this posture to him. He first learns of this opt i c a l unconscious through photography, j ust
L I T T L E H I ST O RY O F P H OT O G R A P H Y
279
as he learns of the instinctual unconscious through psychoana lysi s . De tails of s tructure, cell ular tissue, with which tec h nology a n d medicine are normally concerned-a ll this is, in its origins, more c losely related to the camera tha n is t he emotionally evoca tive l a ndscape or the soul ful portrait. Yet at the same time, photography reveals i n t h is m a te rial physiognomic aspects, i ma ge worlds, w hich dwell in the smallest things-meaningful yet covert enough to find
a
hidin g p lace i n wa king
dreams, b ut which, enlarged and ava ilable for formulation, make the d i f ference between technology and
vis i b l e as a thorough ly historical
varia ble . Thus, Blossfeldt with his astonishing plant p hotogra phs7 revea ls the forms of ancient columns in horse willow, a bishop's crosier in the os trich fern, totem poles in tenfold enlargements of chestnut a nd maple s hoots, and gothic tracery i n the ful ler's thistle. Hill's subj ects , too, were p roba bly not far from the truth when they described " the phenomenon of pho togr a p llY" as still being "a great and mysterious experience " even i f, for them, thi s wa s no m ore than the consciousness of " standing before a n ap paratus which in the briefest time could produce a picture of the visible environment whose effects were as lively and realistic as those of n ature i tsel f. " It has been said of Hill's camera tha t it kept a d iscreet distance. But hi s subj ects, for their part, are n o less reserve d ; they main tain a certain shyness before the c amera , and the watchword of a l a ter photographer from the heyday of the art, " D o n 't look at the camera, " could b e derived from thei r attitude. B ut that d i d not mean the " They're l o o kin g a t you " o f a nimals, people, a nd babies, which so d i stastefu ll y im p licates the buyer and to which there is no better counter than the way old Dauthendey ta l ks abou t daguerreotypes: "We didn't trust ourse l ves a t first, " he reported, " to look long a t the first p ictures we developed. We were abashed by the disti nctness of those human i mages, and be lieved tha t the little tin y faces in the picture could look bac k at us, so b affling were the e ffects on everyone of the u nu sual clarity and the u n us ual fidelity to nature of the first daguerreotypes . " The fi rst reproduced human beings entered the viewing space o f pho tography
[Blickraum der Photographie]
with i ntegrity-or ra ther, with
o u t i nscription . Newspapers were still a luxury item which p e o p l e seldom bou ght, looking at them more o ften in the coffeehouse; the ph otographic
process had not yet become the tool of the newspaper, and very few hu man
beings had hitherto seen their na mes i n p ri nt . The h uman counte
nance had a silence a bout it in which the gaze rested . In s hort, all the po tentialities of this art o f portraiture rest o n the fact that contact between a ctuality and photo had not yet been esta blished . 1vlany oJ I-E11's portraits
280
PH OTOG RAP H Y
The Philosopher Schelling,
ca.
1 8S0. Photographer ( G e r m a n ) u nknown.
were made in the Edi n burgh Greyfriars cemetery-and nothing is more characteristic of this early period, except perhaps the way his subjects were at home there. And indeed the cemetery itself, in one of I-Iill's pic tures, looks l ike an interior, a separate cl osed-off space where the grave stones propped against gab l e wal ls rise up from the grass, ho[J owed out l ike chimneypieces, with inscriptions inside instead of flames. But this set ting could never h ave been so effective if it had not been chosen on tech nical grounds. The low light-sensitivity of the early plates made pro longed exposure outdoors a necessity. This in turn made it desirable to ta ke the subj ect to some out-of-the-way spot where there was no o bstacle to quiet concentration . "The synthetic character of the expression which was d ictated by the length of time the subj ect had to remain still, " says Orlik of early photography, " is the main reason these photographs, apart from their simplicity, resemble well-drawn or well-painted pictures and produce a more vivid and lasting impression on the beholder than more recent photographs . " 8 The proced ure itself caused the subjects to l ive their way into, rather than out of, the moment; during the long duration of the exposure, they grew into the picture, in the s harpest contrast with appearances in a snapshot-which correspond to that altered environ-
L I TT L E H I S T O RY O F P H O T O G R A P H Y
281
ment where, as Kracauer has a p tl y noted , the s plit second of t h e exposure determines " whether an ath lete becomes so famous that pho t o gr aphers start taking his p icture for the illustrated papers . " Eve r y th ing about these ea rly pictures was b uilt to la s t . Not o nly the incomparable g ro u ps in which people came together-and whose disappearance was surely one of the most precise symp to ms of what was ha p penin g in s o c i ety in the second half of the cen t ury- but the very creases in people's clothes held t h eir sha p e longer. J u st consider Schell ing's coat. I t wil l s u rely pass into immo r tal i ty along with him: the contours it has borrowed fro111 its wearer are not u nwor thy of the creases in h is face. In s hort, everythin g suggests that Bernard von B rent a n o was right in h i s view that " a photog rapher of 1 8 5 0 was on a p a r wi th his instrument "-for the first time, and for a long w h i le the last . 9 To apprec i ate the powerful impact made by the d a guerre o typ e in th e age of its discovery, one sh o uld also b ear in mind t h at p lein air p a int i ng was then openi ng up e nti rely new perspectives for the most adv anced pa inters. Co n sci o u s that in th i s very area p ho t o g r a p hy had to t a k e the ba ton from painti ng, even Arago, i n his h istorical review of the early attempts of Giovanni Battista D ella Porta, expl i c i tly commen ted: "As re gards the effect p roduced by the im perfect transparency of o u r atmo sphere ( whi c h h as been inaptly termed ' a t mosp h er i c perspective' ) , n ot even experienced p ainters expect the camera o bscura "-i.e . , the copying of im a g es appe a r ing in it-"to h e l p them render it a cc ura tely. " 1 0 At the momen t when Daguerre succeeded i n fixing the images of the camer a obscura, pain te r s p arted company on this point with technicians . The real victim of pho tography, howevel; was not landscape p a in ting but the p o rtr a i t minia t u re . T h ings develo ped so r api d l y that by 1 840 most of the innumera ble min i a tu ri sts had alread y become p rofes s ional p ho t o gr a phers, at first o n l y as a sidel i ne , but before long exclusively. Here the ex perience of their o rigina l l ivelihood stood them in good s tea d , and it is not their a rtis tic ba ck ground so much as their tra i ning as craftsmen that we have to thank for the hi gh level of the i r photogra p h i c achi e ve me nt . This tra n sit i o n a l genera tion d i sappea r ed very g ra d u a lly ; indeed, there seems to have been a k ind of biblical bless i ng on those first p h o t ogra phers : the Na d a r s , S tel z ners , P iersons, B a y a rds a ll l i ved well into t h eir ei gh t ies and nineties , 1 1 In the end, though , businessmen invaded profes sional p hoto gr a p hy from eve ry side; a nd when, later on, the retouched negative, whi c h was the bad painter's reve nge on p hotogr a p h y, became u b i q uitous , a s harp d ecline in tas te set i n . This was the time photograph albums came into vog u e . They wer e most at home in the chillies t s po ts ,
282
P H OTO G RA P H Y
on occasional tables or little stands in the drawing room-Ieatherbound tomes with repellent metal hasps and those gilt-edged pages as thick as your finger, where foolishly draped or corseted figures were d isplayed: Uncle Alex and Aunt Riekchen, little Trudi when she was still a ba by, Papa in his first term a t university . . . and finally, to make our shame complete, we ourselves-as a parlor Tyrolean, yodeling, waving our hat before a painted snOW5cape, or as a sma rtly turned-out sailor, standing rakishly with our weight on one leg, as is proper, leaning against a p ol ished door j amb. The accessories used in these portraits, the pedestals and balustrades and little oval ta bles, are still reminiscent of the period when, beca use of the long exposure time, subjects had to be given sup ports so tha t they wou ld remain fixed in place . And if, at first, " head clamps " and " knee braces" were fel t to be sufficient, "further impedi menta were soon added, such as could be seen in famous pa intings and therefore had to be ' artistic. ' First it was columns, or curtains. " The most ca pable started resisting this nonsense as early as the 1 8 605. As an En glish trade j ournal of the time put it, " in painting the column has some plausibility, but the way it is used in photography is absurd, since it usu ally stands on a carpet. But anyone can see that columns of m arble or stone are not erected on a fo und ation of carpeting. " This was the period o f those studios-with their draperies and palm trees, their tapestries a nd easels-which occupied so ambiguous a place between execution and representation, between tortu re chamber and throne room, and to which an early portrait of Kafka bears p athetic witness. There the boy stands, perhaps six years old, dressed up in a humiliatingly tight child's suit over loaded with trimming, in a sort of greenhouse landscape. The back ground is thick with palm fronds. And as if to make these upholstered tropics even stuffier and more oppressive, the subject holds in his left hand an inordinately l arge broad-brimmed hat, such as Spaniards wear. He would surely be lost in this setting were it not for his immensely sad eyes, which master this landscape predestined for them. This picture, in its infinite sadness, forms a pendant to the early pho tographs in which people did not yet look out a t the world in so castaway and godforsaken a manner as this boy. There was an aura about theIn, a medium that endowed their gaze with fullness and security even as their gaze penetrated the medium itself. And once again the technical equiva lent is o bvious: it consists in the absolute continuum from brightest light to da rkest shadow. Here, too, we see in operation the law that new ad vances are prefigured in older techniques, for the earlier art of portrait painting, before its disappearance, had produced the strange flower of
283
L I TT L E H I S T O R Y O F P H O T O G R A P H Y
the mezzotint. The mezzotint process was of course a tec h nique of repro du cti o n, which was only later combined with the new photograp hic
re
p r od uction . The way l ight s truggles out o f darkness i n the work o f a Hill
is re m in i s c ent of mezzotint: Orl ik talks about the " c om p r e h en s ive i l l u mi nation " brought about by the long exposure times, which " give s these
e a rly pho togra p hs their greatness . " 12 And a m on g the invention's contem poraries, Dela roche h a d a l ready notcd t h e " unprecedented a nd exqui site " general i mpression, " in which nothing disturbs the tra nquilli ty of the composition. " 1 3 So m uch for the technical determinedness of the a ur a tic a pp eara nc e . Ma ny group photos in pa r ti cu l a r sti l l p re ser v e an air
of anima ted c o n v i v i a l i ty for a brief tim e on the plate, b efore being ruined by t he " original pri nt "
[OriginalaufnahmeJ .
It was this breath y hal o
that was s ometimes ca p tu r e d with delicacy and depth b y the now old
fashioned oval frame. That is why it would be a misreading o f these incuna bula of photography to m ake too much of thcir " artistic perfec tion" or their " taste . " These pictures were made in rooms where ev ery c l i ent was confronted, in the person of the photographer, with
a
techni
cian of the l atest school; whereas the photographer was c onfr o nt e d , in
the perso n o f every client, wi th a mem ber of a ri s i n g class equi p ped w i th an a ura tha t had seeped into the very folds of the man's frock coa t or floppy cravat. For th is aura was by no means the mere p r oduct of a p rim
itive ca mera . Rather, in t h is early period s u b j e c t and tec h nique were a s exa ctly congruent as they become incongruent i n the period of decline that immediately followed. For soon ad v an c es in optics made i ns tru ments a vai l a b l e that wholly overcame darkness and
re c o r de d
appea r
ances as fai t h full y as a ny mirror. After 1 8 8 0, though) photographers made it t heir b usi ness to simulate the aura wh i c h had bee n banished from
the picture with the suppression of da rkness th rough faster l enses, ex actly as it was bei n g banished from re ality by the deepening d ege ne r a ti o n of t h e i mperi alist b ou r geo isie . They s a w i t a s thei r tas k to simulate this
aura u s ing all the arts o f retouching, and especial l y the so-called gum print. Thus, espec ially in Jugends til [Art NouveauL a pen u mbra l tone , in terrupted by artificia l highl ights, came into vogu e . Notwithstanding this fash ionable twilight, h o wever, a pose was more and m ore clearly in evi dence, whose rigidi ty betrayed the impotence of tha t generation in the face o f technical progress .
And yet, what is again and again decisi v e fo r photo gr a p h y is the pho
togra pher 's a ttitude to his te c h ni ques . Cami lle Rech t has found an apt
metaphor: " Th e violin ist, " he s ays, " m u s t first produce the note , must
seek it out, find it i n a n i nst a nt ; the pianist strikes the key and the note
284
P H OTO G R A P H Y
Robert Brysol1. Photo by David Octavius H i ll .
rings o u t . The painter and the photographer both have a n instrument a t their di s pos a l Drawing and coloring, for t h e painter, correspond t o the .
violinist's prod uctio n of sound; the photographer, lik e the p i a nist, has the a d vantage of a mechani c a l device t hat is subj ect to restrictive laws, whi le the violinist is und er no s uch restraint. No Paderewski will ever reap the fame, ever cast the almost fa b ulous spell, that Paganini did. " 1 4 There is, however-to continue the metaphor-a Busoni of photography, and that is Atget. l5 Both were virtuosos, bu t a t the same time precursors . The com bination of unparalleled absorption in their wor k and extreme preci sion is common to both . There was even a facial resemblance . Atget was an actor who, disgusted with the profession, wiped off the mask and then set abou t removing the makeup from rea lity too . He lived i n Paris p o o r
LITTLE H I STORY OF P H OT OGRAPHY
285
and unknown, selling his pictures for a trifle to photographic enthusiasts scarcely less eccentric than himself; he died recently, leaving behind an oeuvre of more than 4,000 pictures . Berenice Ab bott from New Yo rk ga thered these together, and a selection
has
has
j us t appea red in an excep
tionally beautiful v o l u me p L1 bl i shed by Camille Recht. 16 The contempo rary journals " knew n o thing o f the 111an1 who for the most p art hawked his photographs arollnd the stu dios and sold them for next to nothing, often for the price o f one of those picture postcards which, around 1 900, showed sllch pretty town views, bathed in midnight blue, complete with to uched-up moon. He reached the P o le of utmost mastery; but with the b i tter mo desty of a great craftsman who a l ways lives in the s hadows, he neglected to p lant his flag there . Therefore many are able to Hatter themtha t they h a ve discovered the Pole, even though Atget was there before them . " Indeed, Atgees Paris photos are the forerunners of S urrea l ist pho tography-an advance party of the o n ly really bro a d column realism managed to set i n m otion . He was
the first to
Sur
disinfect the stifling
a tmos phere generated by conventiona l portrait pho tography in the age of decline. He cleanses this atmosphere-i ndeed, he dis pels it al together: he initiates the emancipation of o bject from aura, which is the most signal achievement of t he J a test school of p hotography. When avant-garde peri odicals like
Bifur
or Variete pu blish pictures that are captioned "West
min s te r, " " Lille, " " Antwerp, " or " Breslau " but tha t show only details, here a piece of balustrade, there a treetop whose b are branches crisscross a gas lamp, or a gable wall, or a l a mppost with a life buoy bearing the
name of the town-this is nothing but
a
literary refinement of motifs that
Atget discove red. He looke d for what was unremarked , forgotten, cast ad rift . And thus such p ictures, too, work aga inst the exotic, ro mantically so norous names of the cities; they suck the a u ra o ut of rea lity l ike water from a sink i ng s hip .-What is au ra, actually ? A strange web of space a n d
unique appearance of a d istance, n o ma tter h o w close i t may b e . at rest on a summer's noon, to trace a range of mountains on the
time: the While
ho rizon, or a branch tha t th rows i ts shadow on the o bserver, until the moment or the hour becomes part of their appearance-this is what it means to bre a th e the a ura of those mountains, tha t b ranch. Now, " to bring things closer" to us, or rather to the masses, is j ust as passiona te an inclination in o ur day as the overcoming of whatever is u nique in every situation by means of its reproduction . Every d ay the need to possess the o bj ect, from the closest proximi ty, i n a picture-or rather
a
copy-be
c omes more imperative. And the difference between the copy, which il lustrated papers a nd n ewsreels keep in readiness, and the origi n a l p icture
286
P H OTO G RA P H Y
is unmista k a ble. Uniqueness and du ration are as in ti ma tely i n te rtwine d
in the latter as are transience and reproducibility i n the former. The p e el ing away of the o bject's shell, the destruction of the aura, i s the signa ture of a percept i on whose sense for all that is the s ame in the world 1 7 has grown to the point where even the singular, the unique, is divested o f its uniqueness-by means of i ts reprod uction. Atget almost always passed
b y the " great sights a n d so-called l and marks . " Wh a t he did not pass by was a long row o f boot lasts; o r the Pa ris courtyards, where from night to morning the h a ndcarts s tand i n serried ranks ; or the tables after people have fi nished eating and left, the dishes not yet cleared away-as they
ex-
by the hundreds of thousands a t the same hour; or the brothel at No . 5 , Rue
--
, whose s treet number appears, gigantic, at four different
p laces on the building's fac;; a de. Remarkably, howevel; al most all of these pictures a re empty_ Empty i s the Porte d' Arc ueil b y the fortifications,
empty are the triumphal steps, empty are the cour tyards, empty, as it should be) is the Place du Tertre . They are not lonely, merely without mood; the city in these pictures
cleare d out, like
a
dwell i n g that has
not yet found a new tenant. It is in these ach i ev e m en ts that Surreal ist photo graphy sets the scene fo r a salutary estrangement between man and h i s s u rro u n dings . It gives free play to the polit i c a l l y ed ucated eye, under whose gaze all intimacies are sacrificed to the illumination of deta i l . I t i s o b v ious that this new w a y o f seeing stands t o gain leas t in a n area where there has been the gre a tes t s e lf- i n d u l ge n ce : commercial, conven tional portrait photography. On the other hand) to do withou t people is for photography the most i mpossible of renunciations . And anyone
who did not know i t was taught by the best Russ i a n films that milieu a nd landscape, too, revea l themselves most rea dily to those photogra phers who succeed in capturing the i r anonymous p hysiognomy,
as
it
were presenting them at face value . Whether this i s possible, however, d epends very much on the subj ect. The generation that was not o b sessed with going down to posterity in photographs, rather shyly draw i ng back i nto their p rivate space in the face of s uc h proceedings-the way
SdlOpenhauer withd rew into the depths of his chair in the Fr ankfurt pic ture, taken a bout 1 85 0-for this very reason allowed that space, the s pace i n which they l i ve d , to j o in them on the p l a te . That generation d id not pass on its virtues. So the Russian feature film w a s the first opportu
nity in d ec a des to p ut before the camera people who had no use for their photographs . And immediately the human face a pp eared on film with new and imme asurahle
s
i g n ific a n ce . But i t was no longer
a
po rtrait.
What was it? It i s the outstanding s ervice o f a German p hotographer to
L I TT L E H I S T O R Y O F P H O T O G R A P H Y
287
have answered this question. August S ander18 has compiled a series of faces that is in no way i n fe rior to the tremend ous physiognomic gallery mo unted by a n Eisenstein or a Pud ovkin, and he has d one it from a scien tific viewpoint. 1 9 " His complete work comprises seven groups which cor respond to the existing social order, and is to be pu blished in some forty five folios containing twelve photographs each . " So far we have a samp le volume containing sixty reprod uctions, which offer inexh austible ma te da l for study. " Sander s tarts off with the p easant, the earthbound man, takes the observer through every social stratum and every wal k of life up to the highest representatives of civilization, and then goes b ack down a ll the way to the idiot . " The photographer d id not approach this enormous undertaking as a scholar, or with the advice of ethnographers and sociol ogists, but, as the p ublisher says, " from direct observ a tion. " It was assur edly a very impartial, indee d bold sort of observation, but delicate too , very much in the spirit of Goethe's remark: "There is a delicate empiri cism w hich so intima tely involves itself with the o b j ect that it becomes true theory. " So it was quite in order for an observer l ike Dablin to have hit on precisely the scientific aspects of thi s work, commenting: "Just as there is comparative anatomy, which helps us to understand the nature and history of organs, so thi s photographer is doing compara tive photog raphy, adopting a scientific standpoint superior to that of the photogra pher of d etail . " 2 0 It wouLd be a pity if economic considerations should preve n t the continuing publication of this extraordinary body of work. Apart from this bas ic encouragement, there is a more specific incentive one might offer the publisher. Work like Sander's coul d overnight assume
unlo oked -for topicality. Sudden shifts of power such as are now overdue in our society can make the abil i ty to read facial types a matter of vital importance. Whether one is of the Left or the Right, one will have to get use d to being looked at in terms o f one's provenanc e . And one will have to look at others the same way. Sa nder's work is m o re than a picture book. It is a training man ual.
HIn our age there is n o work o f art tha t is looked at so closely as a photogr aph of oneself, o ne's closest relatives and friends , one's sweet heart , " wrote Lich twark back in 1 9 0 7, thereby moving the inquiry out of the realm of aesthetic distinctions into that o f social functions.l1 O nly
from this vantage point can it be carried further. It is indeed significant th a t the
h a s raged most fiercely around the aesthetics of p hotogra
phy-as-a rt, whereas the far l ess question a bl e social fact of art-as-photog raphy was given scarcely a glance . And yet the ilnpact of the photo� graphic rep roduction of artworks i s of very m uch greater importance fo r
288
PHOTOGRAPHY
Pastry Cook. Photo by August Sander.
LITTLE H I ST O RY OF PHO T O G RAPHY
289
Parliamenf.({ry Representative (a Democrat). PhotO by August Sander.
the fu n ct ion of art than the g r e ater or lesser artistry of a photography that regards all experience as fair game for the camera. The amateur who returns home with great piles of artistic shots is in fact no more appealing a figure than the hunter who comes back wi th quantities of game that is
PHOTOGRAPHY
t o a nyone but the merchant. And the day does indeed s ee m to be a t hand when there wil l be more illustrated magazines than game mer chants. So much for the s n a psh ot But the emphasis ch a n ges completely if we turn from photography-as-art to art-as-photogra phy. Everyone will have noticed how much more rea d ily apprehensible a picture, above all a sculpture, and indeed also archi tecture are in a photo than in reality. It is all too tempting to blame this squarely on the decline of artis tic apprecia tion, on a failure of contemporary sensibility. But one is br o ught up short by the way the understanding of great works was transformed at a bollt the s ame time the techniques of reproduction were being d e velo p ed Such works can no longer be re gard ed as the products of individuals; they have become a collective creation, a corpus so vast it can be assimi la te d only through minia turization. In the final analysis, methods of me chanical r epr o duc ti on a re a technique of diminution that helps people to a chi e ve a de g r ee of mastery over works of art-mastery without which the wo r ks could n o longer be put to use. H one thing typifies prese n t da y relations between art and photogra phYl it is the unresolved tension between the two introduced by the pho togr a ph y of works of art. Many of those who, as photographers, deter mine the current face of this technology s ta rted out as painters. They turned their back on painting after making a tte mp ts to bring its means of expression into a li v ing and unequivocal connection with modern life The keener their feel for the temper of the times, the more problematic thei r starting p oint became for them. For once again, as e i ght y years be fore, photography has ta k en the baton from pa int in g As Moholy-Nagy has said: useless
.
.
-
.
.
The creative potentia I of the new is for the most part slowly revealed
in
through old forms, old instruments and areas of design which
their es
sence have already been s uperseded by the new, but which under pressure from the new as it takes shape arc driven to
for
a
euphoric efflorescence. Thus,
example, futurist (static) painting brought
forth
the clearly defined
of the film was
problematic of the simultaneity of motion, the representation
in
stant, wh ich
al
ready
was
known but
later to destroy it-and this at a time when
far from being understood .... Similarly, some of the
painters (neoclassicists and verists) today using representational-objective
methods
can
be
regarded-with caution-as forerunners of
sentational optical form which will soon cal, technica I
be
a
making use only
new repre
of mechani
methods.22
And Tristan Tzara, 1922: " Wh en every thin g that called itself art was stricken with palsy, the p h o t ogra ph e r switched on his thousand-
LITTLE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
291
Dis/)/ay \'(lin dow. Photo by Germaine Krull.
candJepower lamp and gradually the light-sensitive paper absorbed the darkness of a few everyday objects. He had discovered what could be done by
a
pure and sensitive flash of light-a light that was more impor
tant than all the constellations arranged for the eye's pleasure. '�2..3 The
292
PH O TOG R A PHY
Storefront. Photo by
Germaine
Krull.
293
LITTLE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
photographers who went over from figu ra tive art to p h ot ography not on opportunistic gr ounds, not by chance, not out of sheer laziness, today
constitute the a v a nt-garde among their colleagues, because th ey are to some extent protected by their background agai ns t the greatest danger facing p hot og r ap h y today: the touch of the commercial artist. (' P h ot og
raphy-as-art," sa y s 5ascha Stone, "is a very dangerous field. "24 When photography takes itself out of context, se v erin g the connec
tions illust ra ted by Sander, Blossfeldt, or Germaine Krull, when it frees itself from phy si ogn omic, political, and scientific interest, it becomes "creative."25 The lens now looks for
togr a ph y turns into
a
"interesting juxtapositions"; pho
s or t of arty journalism. "The s pi ri t, van quis hing
mechanics, translates its exact results into p a rab les of l i fe." The more far reachi ng the crisis of the present social order, and the more rigidly its in dividual components are lo cke d tog eth er in the ir death struggle, the more the creative-in its
essence a variant (contradiction its father, imi
tation it s mother)-becomes a fetish, whose lineaments live only in the fitful illumination of changing fashion. Th e cr ea tive i n ph otogr a phy is its capi tulation to fashion. �'The world is beautiful"-this, pr ecis ely, is its motto.26 In it is u nmas ke d the posture of a ph otograp hy that can endow any soup can with cosmic significance but cannot g r as p
a
single one of
the human connections in which it exists, even when this ph otogr ap h y 's
most dream-laden subjects are a forerunner more of its s al abi li ty than of a ny knowledge it might produce. But because the true face of this
kind of p h otograp h ic creativity is the advertisement or assoc iat ion, its l og ica l counterpart is the act of unmasking or construction. As B r ech t says: "The situation is complicated by the fact that less than ever does the mere 'reproduction of r eality ' sa y any th in g about reality. A p h ot o g raph of the Krupp wo r ks or the AEG reveals next to nothing about
these institutions.27 Actual rea li ty has slipped into the functional. The
reification of human relations-the factory, say-means that th ey are no longer exp licit . ficial,' ' p osed . "
50 �
in fact 'something must be built up,' some thin g 'arti
We m us t credit the Surrealists w i th having tra ine d the
pioneers of such phot og raphi c construction. A f urt he r stage in this con test between creative and constr uct iv e ph otogr a p hy is typified by Russian film. It is not too m uch to say that the great ac hiev em ents of Russian directors were possible o nly in
a
country where ph otog r ap h y sets Ollt
not to charm or persuade, but to experiment and instruct. In this sense, and in this on l y, there is still some meaning in the grandiloquent sa lute offered to photography in 1855 by that ungainly painter of ideas Antoine Wie rt z.28
PHOT O GR A P HY
294
For some amazes
now the glory
of our
age has been a machine which daily
the mind and startles the eye. Before another century is out, this
machine wiH
be the brush, the palette, the colors,
the craft, the experience,
the patience, the dexterity, the sureness of touch, the atmosphere, the luster, the exemplar, the perfection, the very essence of painting .... Let no
photography will be the death of art.... that infant prodigy, has grown to its full stature,
one suppose that daguerreotype When the daguerreotype,
when all its art and strength have been revealed, then will Genius seize it
by
the scruff of the neck and shout: "Come with me-you are mine now!
We shall work togt�ther!"
How sober-indeed, pessimistic-by contrast are the words in which Baudelaire announced the new technology to his readers, two years later, in his Salon of 1859. Like the preceding quotation, they can be read to day only with a su btle shift of emphasis . But as a counterpart to the above, they still make sense as a violent reaction to the encroachments of artistic p hotography. "In these sorry days, a new industry has arisen that has done not a little to strengthen the asinine belief . .. that art is and can be nothing other than the accurate ref1ection of nature . A vengeful god has hearkened to the voice of this multitude. Daguerre is his messiah." And: "If photography is permi tted to supplement s ome of art's functions, they will forthwith be usurped and corrup ted by it, thanks to photography's natural allia nce with the mob. It must therefore revert to its proper duty, which is to serve as the handmaiden of s cience and the arts.') One thing, however, both Wiertz and Baudelaire failed to grasp: the cannot lessons inherent in the a uthenticity of the p hotograph. be forever circumven ted by a cOlnmentary whose cliches merely estab lish verbal associations in the viewer. The camera is getting slnaller and smaller, ever read ier to capture fleeting a nd secret images whose shock effect p aralyzes tbe associative mechanisms in the beholder. This is where inscription must come i nto play, by means of which photography inter venes as the l iterarization of all the cond itions of l ife, and wi thout which aU photographic construction must remain a rrested in the approximate. It is no accident that Atget's photographs have been likened to those of a crime scene. But isn't every square inch of our cities a crime scene? Every passer-by a culprit? Isn't it the task of the photographer-descend a nt of the augurs a nd haruspices-to reveal guilt and to point out the guilty in his pictures? "It is not the person ignorant of writing but the one igno rant of pho tography," somebody has said, "who will be the illiterate of .
.
.
LITTLE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
295
the future.)'29 But mustn't the photographer who is unable to read his own pictures be no less deemed an illiterate? Isnlt inscription bound to become the most essential component of dle photograph? These are
the questions in which the span of ninety years that separates contempo rary p hotog ra ph y from the daguerreotype discharges its historical ten
sion. It is in the illumination of these sparks that the first photographs emerge, beautiful a nd unapproachable, from the da rkne ss of fathers'day.
Ollf
grand
Published in Die litcrarische Welt, September-October 1931. Gesmnmelte Schriftel1, II, 368-385.
Translated by Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shonct� N otes Niceph o re Niepce (1765-1833), French inv entor, succeeded in mak-
1.
ing the first permanent photographic image. In 1826-1827, he used
a
cam
era to p ro d u c e a view from his studio that was captured on a pewter plate. His death cut off his collaboration with the French painter and i nventor Louis Jacques Mande D agu erre (1787-1851), who, co ntinu ing Niepce's l ine
of experimentation, found
a
way to reduce the exp osu re time from Niepce)s
eight hours to twenty minutes.
Daguerre sold the
rights to his invention, the
daguerreotype-the first practical p h otog raphic process-to the Fr ench gov ernment in 1839.
2. David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), Scottish painter and
orated
photographer, colla b
wit h the chemist Robert Adamson on a s e ries of remarkable por
traits. Julia 1Y1argaret Cameron (1815-1879), English ph oto g r a ph e r, was,
unlike many of the most important early photographers, an amateur. She is consid ered one of the greatest p o rt ra it photographers of the nineteenth century. The French Romantic writer Victor Hu g o (1802-1885) and his
photo g raph ers and produced a siz able body of work. Nadar (Gaspard-Felix To urn a ch o n ; 1820-1910), French
entire family were enthusiastic amateu r
w r ite r, caricaturist, and p ho tographe r, emerged from a large group of Pari
sian st ud io portraitists as one of the great po rtr a itists of the century. Among
his
many innovations are his natural pos ing of his
a patent on the first aerial photograph
subjects,
use of ph otogr a phs in m a p ma k ing and surveying, the
(from a balloon), and the first photographic interview: twenty-one images of
Chevreul, accompa ni e d by text. Frnhzeit del' Photographie, Bildbuch nach 200 01'iginaien (F r a nk fu rt : Societats Ve rl ag ,
the scientist Eugene 3. Helmut Bossert
and
1840-1870: Ein
1930).
Heinrich
H ein r ic h Guttmann, Aus der Sc hwarz ,
David
Octavius
Hill:
Der
Meister
del'
Photographie (Leipzig: Insel, 1931), with 80 plates. [Benjamin's note] 4. Dominique Fran � ois Jean Arago (1786-1853), French physi cis t
and politi-
PHOTOGRAPHY
296
cian, was active in the study of light. He devised an experiment that proved the wave theory of light and contdbuted to the discovery of the laws of light polarization. 5. Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), French painter, was known for his Montmartre street scenes.
von Traum und Tod (The Carpet of Life and the Songs of Dream and D eath), "Srandbilder, das Sechste," verses 13-16. 7. Karl Blossfeldt, Urformen de,. Kunst: Photogmphische Pflanzenbildel� edited and with an introduction by Karl Niercndorf (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1928), with 1 20 plates. [Benjamin's note. Bl ossfeldt (1 8 6 5-1 932), a profes sor of drawing and painting in Berlin, created a sensation in the 1920s with the publication of his magnified photos of plant parts; see "News abollt Flowers" (1928), in this volume.-Tral1s.] 8. Emil Orlik, Kleine Aufsatze (Berlin: Propylaen Verlag, 1924), pp. 38ff. Orlik (1 8 70-1932) was a German graphic artist and painter whose work was in fluenced by Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). 9. Bernard von Brentano (1901-1964), leftist novelist and journalist, wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt. He is perhaps best known for the historical novel Theodor Chindler. which depicts the transi 6. Stefan George, Del' Teppich des Lebens und die Lieder
tion from the empire to the Weimar Republic. 10. Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Della Porta (1535-16 1 5) was an Italian
11.
12. 13.
14. 1 5.
physicist and dramatist whose works contain descriptions of the camera obscura, as well as of a special lens he developed for it. Carl Ferdinand Stelzner 1805-1895) was a German painter and photogr3 pher who, like many miniaturist painters, turned to daguerreotypy; to gether with Hermann he shot some of the earliest news photographs. Pierre-Louis Pierson (1 822- 1 9 13) was a prominent French studio portrait ist; his firm, Mayer and catered to high society and the court. In 1862 Pierson and his partners, the brothers Leopold Ernest Mayer and Louis Frederic Mayer, named official photographers to Napoleon III. Hippolyte Bayard (1 8 01-1 8 8 7), French photographer, was active as an in ventor in the earliest days of photography. I-Ie is widely regarded as one of photography's first significant artists, and held the first known photographic exhibition, displaying thirty of his own works. p.38. Orlik, Kleine Paul Delarochc, cited in Schwarz, David Octavius Hill, p. 39. Delaroche (1757-1 8 5 9 ) was a French academic painter who specialized in historical subjects. Eugene Atget, Lichtbildel� with an introduction by Camille Recht (Paris and Leipzig, 1930), p. 10. [Benjamin's note] Eugene Arget (1857-1927), French photographcl; spent his career in obscu rity making pictures of Paris and its environs. He is widely recognized as one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century.
LITTLE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
297
'16. Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), American photographer, pr es e r v e d Atg et's
work
and oversaw its earliest pu b lication .
spi rit of Atget,
a
She un d ertook , very
much in the
photographic documentation of New York City in the
1930s and 19405. 17. Ben j amin is qn oting
Johannes
V. Jenscn, Exotische
Novellen,
trans. J ulia
Koppel (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1919), pp. 41-42. Jensen (1873-1950) was a Danish nove li st, poet, and essayist who in 1944. See
" Has hi s h
won
in Marseilles" (1932),
t he Nobel Prize for Literature
in Ben jamin , Selected
\Vrit;'lgs.
Volume 2: 1927-1934 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvar d Un i ve rs ity Press,
1999),
p.677. 18.August Sander, Das
Al1tlitz del' Zeit: Sechzig Aufnahmen deutsche,. Me11schen
des 20. 1ahrhu11dertsJ with an i ntrod uc t ion by Alfred Dablin (Munich, 1929). [Benjamin's note. Sander (1876-1964),
a
Ge rman photographer,
sought to compile a photographic portrait of the German pople; Oas
Antlitz
der
Zeit (The
Face o f Our
Time)
was the first precipitate of this so
ciologically oriented project, which included portraits of peasant,
artisans,
businessmen, and artists,
19. The Soviet fil mm a ker
and
a mong
many others.-Tral1s . .l
worker s,
th eorist Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-
1948) directe d Battleship Potemllin (1925), Strike (1925), October (1927), Alexander Nevsky (1938), a n d Ivan the Terrible (rel e a se d in two parts, 1944
and 1958). Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin (1893-1953), also an impor t:lnt Soviet
filmmaker and
th e o rist , directed Mother (926), The End
Petersburg (L927), and Storm
over Asia
of St.
(1928).
20. Alfred Dobl in , introduction to Sandel; Antlitz der Zeit, p. vi . The G e rman
21.
writer Alfred Doblin (1878-1957) is best known for his Alexanderplatz (1929). Al fre d Lichtwark, i n t roduc t i on to Fr itz Matthies-Masul'cn, Photographie: Entwi Hung und
Eil1{luss in Deutschland
novel Berlin Kiinstlerische
[Artistic Photogra
phy: Deve lopmen t and I nflu e nce in GennanyJ (Berlin: Marrq ua r dt , 1907), p.16. 22. Uisz16 Mohaly-Nagy, Malerei
Moho!y-Nngy (1895-1946),
teacher,
Fotographie Film (Muni ch : Langen, 1925). Hungarian painter, photographer, an d art
emerged as a d ominant figure at thc Bauhaus, where he was respon
sible for the famons Pre li m i n ary Course. As a pho togra p he r, he moved freely
and representational p hotogra phy. He influential photogra pher of the 1920s in Europe.
bet we en the abstract photogram a rguabl y the most
was
23. Tristan Tzara, "La Ph otogra phie a I'envers" (Photography from the Verso),
von del' Kehrseite," in G: Tzara (1896-1963), Romanian-born French poet and essayist� was one of the founders of Dada in Zurich. He carried Dacia ideas to Paris a fte r World War 1. 24. Sascha Stone (Alexander Sergei St einsa pi r ; 1895-1940), German-Jewish pho tographer, worked as a professional ph otog rap h er in Berlin, prim arily for the illustr ate d magazines published by Ullstein Verlag. S tone was act ive at translated by Benjamin as "Die Photographie
Zeitschrift fUr elementare Gestaltung (July 1924): 30.
PHOTOGRAPHY
298
the borders of the group around the journal G, which in clu ded Moholy Nagy, Mies van der Rohe, Hans Richter, El L issitzky, and Walter Benjamin. He created the ph otom on tag e for t h e book jacket of Benjamin's Eil1halmstra(5e ( On e -\Vay Street; 1928). 25. Germaine Krull (1897-1985), Ge rman photographer, e migr ate d to Pa ris in 1924, where she became known for her work in portraiture, as we l l as in ar chitectural, industrial, an d fashion photogr a phy 26. Die Welt ist schon (The Wo rld Is Beauti ful) is the title of a pho to volume pub lished in 1928 by the German pho tographer A lbert Reng er Pa tzsch (18971966); it became the m os t influential of all the photo essays published in the Weimar Rep u blic. In this book, Renger-Patzsch a rran ged his photographs of pl a nts, anim a ls , bui ldings, manufactured goods, and industrial landscapes often close ups of isolated details-around form a l rhymes. Benjamin was in volved in a long-standing pole mic against his work. See e spe cia lly "The Au th or as Producer" (1934), in this volume. 27. The Krupp works at Essen was the ori gina l plant in the Krupp steel, arma men ts, and shipbuilding empire , founded in 1811 b y Friedrich Krupp. The AEG is the A llgemeine Elektricitats Gesellschaft, or General Electric Com pany, founded in Berlin in 1833 by the industrialist Emil Rathenau; it was la rgely responsible for bui lding the electrical infrastructure of modern Ger many. 28. Antoine Joseph Wiertz (1806-1865) was a Belgian painter of colossal h ist o ri ca l sce n es , lampoon ed by Baudelaire. See Benjamin's Antoine Wiertz" (1929) and "Letter from Paris (2)" (1936), in this volume. 29. B enj a min is paraphrasing Moholy-Nagy here; see Be nj a min s "News About Flowers," in this volume. .
-
-
"
'
29 Letter from Paris (2)
PAINTING AND PH O T O G R APHY
Taking a stroll in the Parisian neighborhoods of Montparnasse or Montmartre on Su ndays or public holidays when the weather is bea r a ble, you come a cross, at various points where the streets widen, canvas covered stalls , either in rows or forming a little maze. T here you will find people selling paintings of a certain kind, intended for the " best room'): stilllifes and seascapes, n ud e s , genre paintings, and interiors. The painter, not infreq uently sporting a s louch hat and velvet j a cket in the Romantic style, has installed himself next to his paintings on a little folding stool. His a rt is addressed to middle-class families out for a walk. They might well be struck more by h is presence and imposing attire than by the paintings on display. But one would probably be overestimating the busi ness acumen of the pai n ters if one supposed that their personal a ppear ance is designed to attra ct c ustomers . Such painters were certainly far from the minds of the participants in the major debates which have been waged recently concerning the situa tion of painting,' The only connection between their work and painting as art is that th e products of both are intended more and m o re for the market in the most general sense. But the more distinguished painters do not n eed to market t hemselves in person. They can use art dealers a nd sa lons . All the s ame, what their itinerant colleagues put on show is some thing more tha n painting in its most debased state. These painters dem onstrate that the a bility to wield palette and brush with moderate skill is w ide s pre a d . And to this extent they have a p la ce in the debates just mCl1-
299
300
PHOTOGRAPHY
tioned. This is conceded by Andre Lhote, who writes: "Anyone who takes an interest in painting today sooner or later starts painting too.... Yet from the day an amateur takes up his brush, painting ceases to at tract him wi th the quasi-religious fascination it has for the layman" (Entretiens, p. 39).2 To find an epoch when a person could be interested in painting without getting the idea that he himself should paint, we would have to go back to the time of the guilds. And just is often the fate of the liberal (Lhote is a liberal spirit in the best his ideas taken to their logical conclusion by the fascist, we Alexandre Cingria that things began to go wrong with the abolition of the guild system-that is, with the French Revolution.3 Without the guilds, artists could present themselves "like wild animals," disregarding all discipline (Entretiens, p. 96). As fo r their public, the bourgeoisie, "af ter being ejected in 1789 from an order based politically on h i era rc hy and spir itu ally on an intellectual structure of values, 'j they" had l ess and less appreciation for the cynical, mendacious, amoral, and useless for m of production which now determines artistic laws" (Entretiens, p. 97). We can that fascism spoke openly at the Venice conference. That this conference was being held in Italy was no less natural than it was characteristic of the Paris conference to have been convened by the Mai son de la C u lt u re.So much for the official temper of these events. Anyone who studies the speeches more closely, however, will find considered, thoughtful reflections on the situation of art at the Venice conference whereas not all the partic(which, of course, was an international ipants at the Paris conference were able to the debate entirely free of stereotypes. It is significant that two of the most important speakers in Venice took part in the Paris conference and were able to feel at home in its atmospherej these were Lhote and Le Corbusier.4 The fonner to ok the opportunity to look back on the Venetian event. "Sixty of us came to gether," he said, "in order to ... try to understand these questions some what more clearly. I would not dare to claim that a single one of us really succeeded" (La Que'1'elle, p.93). That the Soviet Union was not represented at all in Venice, and Ger many by only one person (though this person was Thomas Mann), is re grettable.s But it would be a mistake to suppose that advanced positions were completely neglected. Scandinavians like Johnny Roosval and Aus trians like Hans Tietze, not to mention the Frenchmen named above, oc cupied at least some of them.6 In Paris the avant-garde took precedence in any case. It was made up of painters and writers in equal proportions) so as to emphasize the importance of restoring sensible communication be tween painting and the spoken and written word.
LETTER FROM PARIS
(2)
301
The theory of painting has s p lit off from painting itself to become a specia l field of art criticism. Underlying this divisjon of labor is the col lapse of the solidari ty which once existed between painting and public af fairs . Courbet was perhaps the last pai nter i n whom this solidar ity was h ighly de veloped . Theory about h is painting gave answers to p roble ms touching on areas other than painting. Al1l0ng the Impressionists, the ar got of the studio was already re p ressing genuine theory; and from there t hi ngs have ste a d ily evolved the stage where a n intelligent and well-in formed observer can conclude that painting "has become a completely esoteric and antiquated aHair, ... no longer commanding any interest in itself or its pro blems." It is "a l most a relic of a past era; and to be a part of it, ' . . a p e r sonal misfortune."7 S uch views are the fault not so much of painting as of art criticism. While appearing to serve the public, in reality it serves the art trade. It has no concepts-just a kind of jargon which changes from season to It is no a c c id ent that Waldemar for years the most influential P aris art critic, took a fascist stance in Ven ice,S His snobbjsh p r a ttle can command attention only as long a s the cur rent forms of the art business fl our i sh . One understands ho w he has reached a point where he awaits the salvation of French painting from some coming " leader " ( se e Entretiens, p. 71), The interest of the Venice debate lay in the contributions of those who uncompromisingly descri bed the crisis of p ainti ng. This applies especially to Lhote. His statement that "we face the questio n of the useful image " (Entretiens, p. 47) indicates where the Archimedean point of the deb a te is to be soug ht . Lhote is both a painter and a theoreti d an . As a pain ter, he derives from Cezanne; as a theoretician, he works with i n the framework of t he Nouvelle Revue Fram;aise.9 He is by no means on the extreme left. So the need to reflect on the " use " of the i mage is felt in other quarters as we l l. The concept of the "use" of the image does not refer only to useful ness in relation to pa inting or the enj oyment of art. (Rather, its pu rp ose is to help us decide precisely what such uses are. ) It is impossible to con a strue the notion of use too broad ly. To work might have thro ugh its subject would o bstruct progres s completely. History shows that painting has often performed general social functions through its indirect effects. The Viennese art historian Tietze pointed to these when he defined the u se of the image as follows: "Art helps us un d erstand reality. . . . The a rtist s who provided humanity with the fi rst conventions of visual perception were of no of prehistoric times who formed the first words" (Entretiens, p. 34). Lhote traces the same line within historical time. Underlying each new technology, he notes, is a new optics. " We know the delirium that accom-
302
P H O TOGRA PHY
p an ied the inventio n of perspective, which was the d ecisive discovery of the Renaissance. Paolo Uccello was the first t o hit on its laws, and his en thusiasm was such that he woke his wife in the middle of th e night to bring her the tremendous news. I coul d , " Lho te continues, "elucidate the different stages in the development of visu al perception, from primitive societies up to t od ay, by the si mple example of the plate . The primitive would have drawn it, like a ch i l d , as a circle j a contemporary of the Re naissance, as an oval; and the modern artist, who can be exemplified by Cezanne, . . . would present it as an extra ordinarily complex fig u re, of which you may get some idea b y thinking o f the lower p ar t o f the oval as flattened and one of its sides as swollen" (Enttetiel1S, p. 38). It might per haps be o bj ecte d that the usefulness of such achievements in p a inting does not ap ply to perception itself but attaches only to its more o r less ex pressive reproduction. Yet even then it would be authenticated in fields outside art. For s uch reproduction operates through numerous chan nels-commercial drawings a nd advertising images, popular and scien tific i llustra tions-which influence the standard of production and educa tio n within society i tself. The basic concept one may have of the usefulness of the im age h as be e n c on s idera bly e xp and e d by photogra phy. This expanded state is th e one current now. The high point in the reached when photography is included in the analysis, in order to clarify its rel ati onship to painting. Though this was not the case in Venice, the o mission was made good by Ar ago n in Paris. I() As he la ter o bserved, this took a cer t a in courage. Some of the painters present were affronted by his attempt to found i de as about the history of p ainting o n the hist ory of photography. " I m agi n e a phy s ic ist be ing offended because someone talks to him about chemistry," Aragon comments. II S tudy of the histor y of photography began a bout eight or ten years ago. \Y1e have a num ber of pu bl i catio ns , mostly illustrated, on its infancy and ea r l y masters. 12 But o nly one o f the most recent of them has treated the subj ect in conjunction wit h the h istory of painting. That this a ttempt was made in the s p ir it of dialectical materialism gives new confirmation of the highly original perspectives this method can open. Gisele Freund's s tudy La Photographie en France au dix-neuvieme sieele descr i bes the rise of pho t ography in tandem with the rise of the b ourgeoisie; the con nection is exemplified in a p arti cu larly successful way by t h e h is tory of the portrait,l3 Starting from the expensive ivory mini3 ture (the portrait technique most wi dely used u nder the ancien regime), t he author de scribes the various procedures which contri buted to making po r tra i t pro d ucti on quicker and cheaper, and therefore more widesp read, a r oun d
LETTER FROM PARIS (2)
303
1780, sixty years before the invention of photography. Her description of the "physiognotrace" as an intermediate form between the portrait miniature and the photograph has the merit of a discovery.14 The author then shows how, with photography, technical development in art con verged with the general technical standard o f society, b ringing the por trait within the means of wider bourgeois strata . She shows that the min iaturists were the first painters to fall victim to photography. Final ly, she reports on the theoretical dispute between painting and photography around the middle of the century. In the theoretical sphere, the d ispute between photography and paint ing focused on the question of w hether photography is an art. The a uthor points o ut that the answers to this question gave rise to a peculiar con stellation. She notes the high artistic standard o f a number of early pho tographers who went about their work without artistic pretensions and were known to only a small circle of friends . "Photography's claim to be an art was raised precisel y by those who were turning photography into a business" (Freund, p . 49). In o ther words, photography's claim to be an art was contemporaneous with its emergence as a commodity. This circumstance is not without its dialectical irony: the very proce dure which was later to call into question the concept of the artwork itself, by accentuating its commodity character through reproduction, claimed to be artistic. IS This l ater develop ment begins with Disderi.16 He knew that the photograph is a commodity. But it shares this property with all the products of our society. (The p ainting, too, is a commodity.) Disderi a lso knew what services photography is able to render the com modity economy. He was the first to use photography to draw certain goods (primarily works of art) into the process of circulation-goods which had more or less escaped it up to then. He had the shrewd idea of acquiring a state monopoly on the reproduction of works in the Louvre's collection. Since then, p hotography has made more a nd more segments of the field of optical perception into saleable commodities . It has con quered for commod ity circulation o bj ects which up to then had been vir tually excluded from it. This development falls outside the framework of Gisele Freund's study. She is concerned primarily with the epoch in which photography began its triumphant progress. It is the epoch of the juste milieu. 17 With regard to the aesthetic standpoint of that movement, as characterized by the author, it is of more than anecdotal interest that one celebrated mas ter of the time regarded the exact depiction of fish scales as a supreme goal of painting. This school saw its ideals realized overnight by photog raphy. A contemporary painter, Galimard, naively concedes this when
304
P H OT O G RAPHY
h e writes in a review o f Meissonier's p a i ntings : "The p u bl i c will not con tradict us if we express our a dm ir at i on for a subtle p a i n t er who . . . this year has given us a picture which yields no th i ng in a cc u r a c y to the da guerreotype . " 1 8 The painting of the juste milieu was si m p ly waiting to be towed a long by pho togra p hy. Not s ur p r is i n g ly, it contributed nothing, or at least n ot h ing goo d , to the development of the p hoto g ra p hic craft. Wherever that craft came under its i n fluen c e , we find p hotogr a p hers as se m b ling stage props and wal k - ons in their studios, in an attempt to emulate the his t ory painters who were d ec or a ting Versailles with frescoes for Louis Ph i lippe . They d id not hesitate to photogr a p h th e s cul p tor Callimachus i n the act of inventing t he C or i nt h ian ca p i tal as he c a ugh t si ght of an acan thus plant; they composed a scene in which "Leonardo " is seen p a inting the Mona Lisa, a nd th e n photograph ed that scene.-The p ainting of the juste h a d its adversary in C ou r b et; with the rel a t i onship between painter and photograp her was temporarily re versed . In llis famous painting La Vague rThe Wa ve] , a pho t o g r aphi c su bject is discovered through painting.19 In COUl·bees time, both the en l arged photo and the s n ap s hot were unknown. His painting showed them the way. It equip pe d an exped i tion to explore a world of forms and structu res whi c h were not c apt u re d on the photographic plate u nti l a de cade later. Com'bees s p e c ia l pos i ti on was that he was the last who could at te m p t to s u rp a ss p ho togr a p hy . La ter painters tried to evade it-first and foremost the Impressionists. The painted i m age slipped its moorings in draftsmanship; thereby, to some extent, it escaped c o m p et i tio n with the camera . The was seen around the turn of the c e n tu ry, w he n p h o to g r a phy, in tu r n , tried to emulate the Impressionists. It resorted to gum bichro mate p r ints-a nd we k now how low it sank with this tech n ique. Aragon observed astutely: " P a i n te r s . . . saw the camera as a c om p e tito r. . . . They tried not to do things the way it did . That was t heir great idea . But to r e fus e in th i s way to recognize an important achievement of man kind . . . must lead to reactionary be h a vior. In the course of time, paint ers-even the most gi fte d o f them-. . . became t r u e i gno r am u s e s . " 20 Aragon has explored the questions raised by painting's most recen t d e ve l o p me nt s i n h i s 1 93 0 s tu d y entitled L a Peint-ure au defi,2! The chal lenge to p a i nt in g is posed by ph o tog ra phy. The treatise deals with the e ve n ts that led pai nting, w l1ic h hitherto had avo i de d a c olli s i on with pho togra phy, to confront it head on. Aragon describes how this ha pp ened in connection with works by his Surrealist friends of that ti m e . T h e y made use of various procedures. "A piece o f a p h o to graph was glued into a
305
L E TT E R F R O M P A R I S ( 2 )
p ainting or a drawi n g, or something was drawn or p a i nted o n a p h ot o g r aph
"
(Aragon, p. 22 ) , Aragon mentions further p ro cedu res, such as
cuttin g ph otos into the shape of some t h i ng other than wha t they repre sent. (A loco motive can be cut out of a photograph of a rose. ) Aragon saw this techn iq ue, which h as a cl ear co nnection to D a daism, as proo f of th e revolutiona ry e n e rgy of the new art. He con trasted it with t ra d ition a l art. " P a inting has long been leading
a
comfo rta ble life ; it flatte rs t h e c u l
HIred connoisseur w h o pays for i t. I t is a l uxury artic l e . . . . In these new experiments, artists can be seen emancipating themselves from domesti cation by money. For this c o l lage technique is poor in resou rces . And its value will go u n recogn ized for a long time to com e " (Aragon, p. 1 9 ) . T h a t was i n 1 93 0 . Aragon would not m a ke these s ta tem e nts today. The S u r realists' a ttempt to master p hotogra p hy by " artistic " means has failed . The error o f the deco ra tive-a rt p hotographers with their p hilistine creed, which provided the title fo r Renger-Patzs c h 's well-known collec tion of pho togra phs D ie
Welt ist schon
[The Wo rl d is Bea utiful ] , was
thei r error, toO.22 They fa iled to recognize the social i mpact of p hotogra phy, and therefo re the importance of i nscri p tion-the fuse gu iding the c r i tical spark to the image mass (as is seen best in Heartfie l d ) . Aragon h a s very recently written about Heartfiel d;23 a n d h e h a s taken other opp ortu n ities to point to the critical element in photograp hy. Today he d etects this elemen t even in the seemingly form a l work of
a
virtu oso photogra
p her like Man Ray.24 In Man Ray's work, he a rgued in the Paris debate, p hotogra phy s llcceeds i n repro ducing the style o f the most m odern pai nt ers. " Anyone u nfamiliar with the painters to w hom Man Ray allu des
Querelle� p . 60 ) . ta k e leave o f the exciting story o f the meeting o f painting and
could not fully appreciate his achieve ment" ( La Let
us
p h otography by qu oting a n appealing fo rmulation by Lhote . To hi m i t seems beyon d d ispute " that t h e mu ch-discussed replacement of pain ting by photography has i ts proper place i n what might be called the ' ongoing b us i n es " of p ainti n g . Bu t that still leaves room for p a i nting as the: myste rioLls and inviol a b le d omain of th e pu reJ y h u m a n " ( La
Querelle,
p.
1 02 ) .
Unfortu na te ly, t h is interpretation i s n o more than a trap which , s n a p p ing shu t beh ind th e l i bera l th inker, delivers him up defenseless ly to fascism .
How much more far-sighted was the ungainly p a i nter o f i deas, Antoine Wiertz, wh o wrote, almost a h u n d red years ago, o n the o ccasion of the fi rs t World Exh i b itio n of Photograp hy; A few yea rs ago a and which
daily
machine
was
a m. a zes o ur
born to
us w h i c h is the glory o f our age,
minds a nd sta rtles our eyes . Before another
P H OTO G R A P H Y
the p alette, the dexteri ty, t h e accuracy,
century has passed, this machine wi l l be the pa i ntbrush, p a ints, the skill, the experience, the pa tience, the
the color sense) the gla ze, the mod e l , the perfection, the essence of pa int ing . . . . Let no o ne bel i eve th a t t h e daguerreoty pe wi l l kill art . . . .
da guerre otype, this ti ta n
chi l d ,
h a s g rown up,
o n ce
h a v e been u nfo lded, geni ns w i l l grab it b y the n a p e of th e "This way ! Yo u ' re mine now. We're
g oin g to work
Once th e
a ll its a r t and strength
neck
a nd cry:
together. "25
Anyone who has Wi e rtz' s grand paintings befo re him will know that t he genius he refers t o is
a
p o l i tica l o ne. In the flash of a great s o cia l inspira
tio n , he believed, pa in ting and p h o t ogr a p hy must one d a y fuse t oge the r. There was tr uth in his prop hecy; yet i t is not within works but wi thin
ma
j o r a r tis ts t hat th e fusion has taken p lac e . They be l on g to the generation o f Heartfield, and have been changed fr o m pain ters into photograp hers
by politics. The same gene ration has p roduced p a i n te r s like George Grosz and Otto D ix, who have worke d toward the same goal.16 Pai n ti n g h C:1 s no t lost its fun ct io n . The i m p o r tan t thi n g is not to
block
our own view of this
fu nc tion-as Ch risti a n G a i lla rd d oes, for exa mple : " If social stru gg l e s
were to
be the su bject of my work, " he says, "1 would need to be moved
by them vi s ua l l y " ( La QuerelleJ p . 1 9 0 ) . For conte m p o r ary fascist states , w here "peace and orde r " reign in the towns a nd v i ll a ge s , this i s a ver y
problematic formu lati on . S h o u l d n ' t Gaillard have the o p posite experi e n ce ? S houldn't his social e m o t i o n b e co nv e rted into visual ins p ira tion ? Such is th e case w ith the great caricaturists, w hose pol itica l k nowl e dge
permeates th e i r physiognomic p e r ce pt i on no less d ee pl y tha n the experi ence of the sense of touch i m b ue s t h e p e rce p tion of s pace . IV1.asters like Bosch , Ho ga rth , Goya, a n d D a u m ier pointed the way. "Among t he m os t importa nt works of pa i n t i n g , " wrote Rene Creve!, w ho died re centl y, " h a ve a lwa ys b ee n th os e w h i ch , m ere ly by p o i n t i ng to co rr u p ti o n , in d ic ted those r espo n si b l e . From Grii n ewal d to D a11, fro m the putr id Chris t to the
a l w a ys been able to dis
cover n ew truths which were not tr uths of painting a lone " ( La Querelle,
p . 1 54 ) . It is in the nature o f t h e si tu a ti o n in we ste rn Europe thC:1 t precise ly w h e re pai nting is most a cco mp l ish e d it h as a destructive, p u r gi n g effect.
This m a y not e me r g e as c l e a r l y in a co u n tr y which sti1l2H has democratic freedoms as it does in co untries w he r e fascism is in control . In the latter countries, there are painters who have b e e n forbid den to pa i n t . (And it i s usually the a rtis ts ' sty le, not their s u b j ect m a t ter, which brings the p ro hi-
307
L E T T E R F R OM P A RIS ( 2 )
bition-so deeply does their way of seeing strike at the heart of fascism. ) The police visit these painters t o check that nothing has been painted since the last roundup. The painters work by night, with draped win d ows. For them the temptation to paint "from nature " is slight. And the paU id landscapes of t heir paintings, populated by phantoms or monsters, are taken not from nature but from the class state . Of these painters there was no mention in Venice-or, sadly, in Paris. They know what is useful in the image tod ay: every p u blic or secret mark which demonstrates that w ithin human beings fascism has come up against limits no less insupera ble than those it has encountere d across the globe . Written November-December 1 9 36; unpubl ished in Benj a m in's life time.
Schriften,
Gesammelte
III, 4 9 5-5 07. Tra nsl ated by Edm und Jephcott.
Notes This was the second of two reports Benj amin prepared on contemporary Parisian arts a nd letters. The first "Pariser Brief, " subtitled " Andre Gide und sein neuer Gegner" (Andre Gide and His New Adversa ry), originally p u b l ished in 1 9 3 6 , is reprin ted in Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriften, 111, 48 2-495 . 1.Entretiel1s: I.;Art
et la realite; eArt et fetat ( Conversatio ns: Art and Real
ity; Art and the Sta te ) , with contribu tions by Mario Alvera, D a niel Baud Bnvy, Emilio Bodrero, et a l . ( Paris: Ins titut Internation ale de Coopera tion Inte l l ec tu elle,
1 9 3 5 ) . La Q uerelle du realisme: Deux debats par [ ,Association des lJeintures et sculptures de la maison de la culture (The Question of Rea lism: Two Debates Presented by the Association of Painting and Sculpture at the Maison de l a Culture ) , with contri butions by Lur\=a t, G ra n a ire,
et
al.
( Paris:
Edi tions
Socialistes
Internationa les,
1 93 6 ) .
[Benj am in's note]
2. The French p a in ter and cri tic And re Lhote ( 1 8 85-1 962) was associ a ted with Cubism.
3 . Alexa ndre C i ngria ( 1 8 79-1 945), a Swiss-born painter, mosaicist, and glass maket; was the author of La Decadence de l'art sacre ( The Decadence of Sa cred Art; 1 9 1 7) and Souvenirs d'un peintre ambulant (Memoirs of an I tiner a nt Pain ter; 1 9 3 3 ) . 4 . L e Corbusier ( Cha rles Edollard Jeanneret; 1 8 8 7-1 9 65) w a s one o f the most impo r tant twen tieth-century architects and ci ty p la nners, known for his d is tinctive combination of function a l and expressive forms. He is the a u thor of
Apres Ie Cubisme (After Cubis m; 1 9 1 8 ) , Vers une architecture ( Toward a New Architecture; 1 92 3 ), a n d Urbanisme (The City of Tomorrow; 1 9 2 5 ) . 5 . Thomas Mann ( 1 8 75-1 9 5 5 ) won the Nobel Prize for literature i n 1 929 and left Germany for the United States i n 1 93 3 . He i s the a u thor of
308
P HOTOG RAPHY
Buddenbrooks ( 1 90 1 ) , D er Zauberberg (The Ma gic Mo un ta in ; 1 924), a n d o ther well-known stories, novels, and essays. 6 . O n the other hand, remnants o f past intel lectual epochs�vestiges t ruly wor thy o f a m useum-could a lso be encou ntered in Veni ce . For ex a m pl e , t his
D ok tor Faustus ( 1 9 47 ) ,
is the product of a combina in va rious situations; and fa l se art is the resu lt of s uch a c o m bin at i o n i n which t h o u gh t impairs the art work" (Entretiens, p. 1 60 ) . [Benj amin's note. Salvador de M a d a r i a ga y Rojo definition by Sa lvador de Ma d a ri a ga : "True art t i o n o f t ho ugh t with sp ac e ,
a
combina tion possible
( 1 8 8 6-1 97 8 ) was a S p a n ish wri ter and d iplomat, the S panish RepubJ ic's ch ief
d e l ega t e to the
League of Nations ( 1 93 1- 1 9 3 6 ), a nd the author of nov
els, p la ys, poetry, litera ry critici sm, a n d historical s t u d ies . Johnny R o o sval
( 1 879-1 9 65 ) wa s a Swedish
art
h i s tori a n , e d uca t e d
in
Berlin, who took a
narrative and p oetic a p p roach to his specia lty, the churches of Gotl a nd .
Hans Ti etze ( 1 8 80-1 9 54 ) , a n Austrian art scho l a r a n d pr ofe sso r o f t h e his tory of art a t Vie n n a, celebra ted mod ern a r t in s uch works as L ebendige Kunstwissenschaft (Livi ng Aes t h e t i cs ; ] 9 25 ) . He and his
wife
are the s u b
zu
Joyc e 's 50.
j ects of a fam o u s pai n t ing by Oska r K o k o schk a ( 1 9 0 9 ) .-Trans . j 7. Herma nn Broch, James Joyce u n d die G egemvart: Rede
Geburtstag [Ja mes Joyce and the Present Day: A Speech in Honor o f Joyce's F iftieth Birth d a y ] (Vien na, Le ipzig, and Zurich, 1 93 6 ), p. 24. [Benj amin's
note . The A u str i a n novelist Hermann Broch ( 1 8 8 6-1 95 1 ) wrote Die Schlafwandler (The Sleepwalkers; 1 9 3 1 -1 932)
and
D er Tod des Virgil
(The
Death of Virgil; 1945 ) . Brach spent five months in a Nazi prison in 1 9 3 5; h is release was secured through an interna tional effort by friends and fellow writers, i n c l u ding James ] oyce.-Trans. ]
8 . Wa ldemar Geor ge
J ar o ci n s ki ; 1 8 93-1 9 70 ) , born in Poland to a
Jewish fa m i ly, was an art historian who lived
in
Pa ris from 1 9 1 1 ,
publishi ng
works on s llch painters a s Pic asso, RO U3 Ult, Ma tisse, and Utrillo. His de
fense of modern art in te rms of a revolutionary a ntirationalist id eal took on new meaning a fter 1 93 0 , whe n he openly em b ra ced Italian fascism.
9 . Lhote ( see note 2 above) was an art cri t ic for the lead ing Paris j o u r na l Nou velle Revue Franfaise until 1 94 0 .
1 0 . T h e French p o e t , novelist, a n d essa y is t Louis Arago n ( Louis And rieuxi 1 8971 981 ) was a promi n e n t Surrea l ist. 1 1 . Louis Aragon, " Le Rc a li s me a l'ordre du jom; " in Comm une, 4, seri es 37 (September 1 93 6 ) : 23. [Benjamin's note] 12. See, a m on g other works, H elm u t Theodor Bo ssert and Heinrich G uttman, A us der FrUhzeit der
J 840- 1 8 70 [The Early
Years of Photog
raphy, 1 840- 1 8 70] ( Fra nk furt am Main, 1 93 0 ) ; Camille Recht, D ie alte
Ph otographie I Early Photograp h y] ( P a ris , 1 93 1 ) ; Heinrich Schwarz, David Octavius Hill, der Meister de r Ph otogl'aphie [David Octavius Hill, Master Photographer] (Leipzig, 1 9 3 1 ) . In a ddi t i o n , there a re two important so urce works:
[Ado lphe-Eugene l D isderi , Manuel o1Jeratoire de pho togratJh ie
L E T T E R F ROM P A R I S ( 2 )
309
[Hand book of Photography] (Pa ris, 1 8 5 3 ) , and Nadar [Gaspard-Fe lix Tou rn achonl, Q uand j'hais photographe [Wh e n I Was a Photographer ] ( Paris, 1 9 0 0 ) . [Benjamin's note] 1 3 . Gisele F reund, La Photographie en France au dix-neuvieme siecie [Photogra phy in France during the Nineteenth Century] ( Paris, 1 93 6 ) . The author, a Germa n emigra nt, was awarded a doctorate at the So r bonne for this study. Anyone who witnessed the pu blic disputa tio n which conclu ded the exa m i n ation must have ta ken away a strong impress ion of the vision a n d li berality of the exa miners. A metho dological o bj ection to this deserving book may be mentioned here. "The g reater the genius of the artist, " writes the a u thor, " the better his work reflects the tend encies of the society of his time-pre cisely through wh at is original i n the form of his work " ( Freund, p. 4 ) . Wha t seems d u b ious a bout this statement is not the attempt to rel ate the artistic quali ties o f
a
work to the socia l structure at the time of its production; it
is the a ssumption that thi s structure a p pears as constant over t i me . In rea l ity, the view of i t is likely to cha nge from epoch to epoch. Hence, if the significance of an a rtwork is defined in rel ation to the soci a l structure at the time it is produced, then its a bility to make the time of its production ac cessi ble to remote and a l i e n epochs could be determined fro m the history of its effects. D ante's poem, for example, had this a bility for th e twelfth cen tury; Sha kespeare's work, fo r the Eliza bethan period. Cla rification of this methodologica l q u estion is the more importa nt s ince Freund's formu lation leads straight back to the position which was given its most radical-and at the same time most questiona ble-expression by Ple k h a nov, who declared : " The greater a writer is, the more strongly and clearly the character of his work depends on the chara cter o f his time, or, in other words [my italics], the less the ele ment which might be called 'the p ersonal' can be found in his works . " Georgi Plekhanov, " Les ] ugements de Lanson sur Balzac et Corneille , " in Commune, 1 6 , series 2 (Decem ber 1 93 4 ) : 3 0 6 . [Benja min's note . Gisele Freund ( 1 908-2 000) studied sociology with Nor bert Elias and Karl Man nheim before working as a photogra pher i n Ber l i n . S he emigrated to France in 1 93 3 , becoming friends with Benj amin, who m she photo gra p hed. See Benj a min's 1 93 8 review of La Photographie en France, in this volu me. The work of Georgi Valentinovich P lekhanov ( 1 8 5 6- 1 9 1 8 ) , the Russi a n political theorist and Menshevik revo lutionary, was
a
major influ
e nce on the development of Marxist aesthetics.-Trans.l 1 4 . The physi ognotrace, invented in 1 783-1 784 b y G i l les-Louis Chretien, w a s a machine for tracing a subj ect's profile, which it reprod uced m echa nically on a piece of paper affixed to the center of the i nstrument. 1 5 . The following is a similarly ironic constellation in the same field. The camera, a s a high l y stan dardized tool, is not much more suited to expressing na tional peculiarities through its prod uct than is a rolling mill . To a degree pre viously u nknown, i t makes image production i ndependent of national con-
31 0
P H OT O G R A P H Y
ventions and styles . It therefore per tu r be d theoretic ians, w ho are comm i tted to snch con ventions and s tyles. The reaction was pro mpt. As ea rly a s 1 8 5 9 , w e read in
a
ter e mer g es
review of a p hotographic exhibition: " Specific national charac
. . . clearly in the works of the d i fferent countries . . . . A French
photogra pher will never be confused Figu iet; La Photographie au
salon de
.
.
.
with an English col league " (Louis
1859 [Paris, 1 86 0 ] , p . 5 ) . And in the
very same vein, more than seventy years la ter, 1vl a rg h er i t a Sarfatti said at the Venice
c on feren c e :
" A good portrait photogra p h w i l l tell us a t first glance
the n a tional ity not of the sitter but of the photographe r " ( Entretiens, p . 8 7 ) .
[Benjamin's note. The Ita lian j ourna list Margherita Sarfatti ( 1 8 8 6-1 9 6 1 ) w a s an art critic fo r II
Popolo d'Italia,
a literary cri tic fo r La StampaJ and
the a uthor of a bes t-selling biography of Mus solini .-Trans. ]
1 6 . A ndre-Ad o l phe-Eugene
( 1 8 1 8-1 8 8 9 ) wa s
a
French entrepreneur
who i n trod u c ed mass-manufacturing p rinc ip les in to portrait photography in
1 859, and amassed a fortune before the co l lap s e of the Second Emp ire in 1 8 7 1 . H e was the i n ve nto r of the popul ar carte-de-visite photogra p h
(poc ket-size p ortra i t ) . S e e Benjamin, Th e A rcades Project, trans. H oward Eil a nd and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mas s . : Ha rvard University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , pp. 6 7 1-692 ( Convolute Y,
"Photography " ) .
1 7 . A reference to the reign o f Louis Philippe i n France ( 1 8 3 0-1 848 ) . P rocl a i me d
U Citizen K ing " d u ring the July Revo lution in 1 8 3 0 , Louis Phi l ippe s o u ght to portray his constitutional o nl y
m ona rchy
as middle-of-the-ro a d : " We must not
cherish peace , " he said in a s p eech in 1 83 1 , " we must a void ev e rything
that migh t p rovo k e war. As reg a rds do m e stic po l icy, we will endeavor to m a inta in a juste milieu [happy mediu m] . "
His regime
was m arke d by the
rise o f the b o urgeoi sie to power, m ai n l y thro ugh its domination of i nd ustry and finance. 1 8 . Auguste G a l i ma rd,
Examen du salon de
1 84 9 (Paris, n.d.), p. 95 . [Benj amin 's
note. Nicolas-Augu ste Galimard ( 1 8 1 3-1 8 8 0 ) was
a
French painter who
wrote reviews for L'Artiste, La Patrie, and La Revue des
deux ntondes. The
French p a i nter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier ( 1 8 1 5-1 8 9 1 ) was accla imed by many of h i s contemporaries for his p a insta king attention to d e t a il in his military s u bj ects and genre scenes.-Trans. ]
1 9. Courber's L a Vague ( 1 8 7 0 ) hangs i n the Louvre. 20. La Querelle, p . 64. Compare Derain's malicious assertion:
"The grea t
ger for art is an excess of culture. The true artist is an uncu ltured person"
(La Quel'elle, p . 1 63 ) , [Benjamin's note. The French pa inter A ndre Derain ( 1 8 8 0-195 4 ) became well known when he, Henri Matiss e , and M a u r ice de Vlaminck were dub bed the "Fa u ves," o r " wi l d beasts, " a t the 1905 Salo n
d 'Automne.-Trans.] 21. Louis Aragon, La Peinture au defi [The Challenge to Painting] ( P ari s , 1 93 0 ) .
[Benj amin's n o te ] 22. Albert Renger-Patzsch, D ie \Velt ist s ch on: E inh undert
photographische
L E TT E R F R O M PA R I S ( 2 )
Aufnahmell
31 1
(M unich : K. Wolff, 1 9 2 8 ) . In this bo ok, the Germ a n ph otog r a
pher Renger-Patzsch ( 1 8 9 7- 1. 966) arra nge d his photographs of pla nts , ani
manu fact u red goods,
mals, buildings,
ind u str ia l landscapes-often
close-ups
rhymes. See "The Author as
P r od ucer " ( 1 93 4 ) , in t h is vo l u me .
2 3 . Aragon, «J ohn Heartfield et
la
beaute revolutionnaire, " in Commune, 2
( M a y 1 9 3 5 ) : 2 1 . [ Be n j a min's note. John Heartfiel d (Helmut Herz felde; 1 8 9 1 -1 9 6 8 ) , Ge rm a n gra phic a rt i t, photographer,
and d esi g n er,
was o ne of
the found ers of Berlin Dada. He we nt on to reinvent p hoto montage a s
a
po
litical w capo n .-Tram . ] 24.
The
America n p ho t o gra p h e r and pa i n te r Man Ray
1 8 90-1 9 7 6 ) , an influential
me mber
of
D adaist
( E mma nu el
Rad nitzky;
and Surrea l ist ci rcles in Paris
and 1 93 0s, was well known for tec h n iques, as in his p h o togra ms . Wiertz, Oeuvres litteraires (Paris, 1 8 70 ) ,
i n the 1 92 0 s
his use o f unusual pho to
graphic 25. A. J.
p. 309. [Benj a min's no te.
Antoine J oseph Wiertz ( 1 8 06-1 8 65) was a Belgian painter of col oss a l his tor ical scenes, lamp o on e d by Baudel aire. See Benj a min's " A n toine Wiertz " ( 1 92 9 ) , in this vol ume.-Trans. I 2 6 . The German pa i n ters George Gr o sz ( 1 8 9 3-1 9 5 9 ) a nd Otto D ix ( 1 8 9 1- 1 9 69 ) were
a ssocia ted
fi r s t wi th Berlin D ada and t h e n w i t h t h e
Neue
S achlichkeit
( New O bj ectivity ) . Their scabrous p a i ntings commented on the conse quences of mil i tarism , capitalism,
and
p o stwar cond i tions i n
Germany.
27. A p a in ti ng by D a l i . [Benj a min's note] 2 8 . " Stil l " : On the o ccas io n paper
Choc s et
of
the g re at
Cezanne
exhibition, the Paris news
a b o ut putting an end to the " b l u ff" of Cezanne. The exh i bi
tion had been a rr anged b y the left- wi ng French
government, it cla imed, " in and of all other peo ples, into the mire . " So much for c ri ticis m . There are also pa in te r s wh o are prepared fo r all eve n tualities . They follow the example of R a o u l Du fy, who
order to d rag the artistic sensibility of its o wn people,
writes that if he were
a
G e rm a n and had to cele brate the triumph of Hidel;
he would do i t in the s a m e way that ce rtain medieva l artists pa inted reli
La QuerelleJ p . 1 8 7) . painter Raoul Dufy ( 1 8 77- 1 9 5 3 ) is best witty vi e ws of r ega tta s a nd race-cou rses.- Trans. ]
gious images , with o ut themselves being believers (see [Benj a m in's note. Th e French
known for
his
r e fi n e d ,
30 Review of Fre und's Photographie en Fran ce au dix-neuvieme siecle
Gisele Freund, La Photographie
en
Frmlce
au
dix-neuvieme siecle:
de soci% gie
et
d'esthetique [Photography in France in the Nineteenth Century: An Essay in Sociology and Aesthetics1 ( Paris: La Maison des Amis d u Livre, 1 9 36}, 1 54 pages.
Study of the hi story of photo gra phy beg a n a bout eight or ten years ago. We have a number of pu bl ic ati o n s , m ostly illustrated, on its infancy and its early masters . But only this most recent study has trea ted the subj e c t in conjunction with the history of painting. Gisele F re u n d 's study de scribes the rise o f p h o to g r ap h y as c on d itio n e d by that of the bourgeoisie, su cc e s s fu l l y ill u st r a ti ng the causal connectio n by examining the h is tory of the portrait. ' Sta rti ng fro111 the expensive ivory miniature ( the p ortra it te ch niq u e most widely used under the ancien regime), the author de scribes the various procedures which contrib uted to making portrait p ro d u cti o n quicker and c h e a p e r, and therefore more widespread, around 1 780, s ixty ye a rs before the invention of photography. Her descrip tion of the " physiognotrace" as an i n ter me d i a te form between the p o r tr a it min iature and the ph o to g r a p h shows in exemplary fas hion how technical factors can be m a de s o ci a ll y transparent.2 The author then exp l a i ns how, with p hotogra p h y, technical development in art c o nv erg e d with the gen eral technical s tandard of society, bringing the portrait within t he means of wider b o urgeoi s strata. S he shows that the mi n i at ur i sts were the first painters to fall victim to p hoto g raphy. Fin a lly, she reports on the theoreti cal d i sp ute between painting and p h oto gr a p hy around the m i ddle of the century.
312
R E V l E W 0 F F R E U t\1 D . S P H 0 T O G R A P H I E EN F R A N C E
31 3
The question of whether photography was an art was d ebated at that time, with p assionate contributions from Lamartine, Delacroix, and Bau delaire.3 But the more fundamental question-whether the invention of photography had not changed the entire c haracter of art-was not raise d . The author has perceived the decisi ve issue clearly. She notes the high a rtistic sta ndard of a num ber of early photographers, who went about their work without artistic pretensions and were known to only a small circle of friends. "Photography's claim to be an art was raised pre cisely by those who were turning photography into a business" (p. 4 9 ) . In other words, photography's claim to be an art is contemporaneous with its emergence as a commodity. This is consistent with the influence which photography, as a technique of reproduction, had on a rt itself. It isolated art from the patron, delivering it up to the anonymous market and its demand. The book's method is based on the materialist dialectic, and discus sion of the volume could further devel opment of the l a tter. For this rea son, I would touch on an objection which might also help to define the position of Freund's research in scholarship. "The greater the genius of an artist, " writes the author, "the better his work reflects the tendencies in the society of his time-and precisely through what is original in the form of his work" (p. 4 ) . What seems d ubious about this sta t e ment is not the attempt to relate the artistic scope of a work to the social structure a t the time o f its production, but the assumption that this structure appears always with the same configuration. In reality, i ts configuration is likely to change with the different periods in w hich it is o bserved. Defining the signi ficance of an a rtwork in relation to the social structure that pre vai led at the time it was produced therefore amounts to determi ning a distinctive capa bility of the artwork-namely, its ability to make the pe riod of its prod uction to the most remote and alien e pochs-in terms of the h istory of its i nfluence. Dante's poem, for example, mani fested such a capability for the twelfth century, j u st as Shakespeare's work did for the El izabethan period. Clarification of the question touched upon here is all the more impor tant since Freund's formulation threatens to lead straight back to the po sition which was given its most radical, and questiona ble, exp ression by Plekhanov. '
31 4
PH O T O G R A P H Y
Written ca. November 1 93 7; p u blished in the Zeitschrift fur Sozialforsclnmg,
fall 1 93 8 .
Gesammelte Sch riften, Ill, 542-544. Translated b y Edmund Jephcott.
N otes 1 . Thi s review is an a d a ptation of a section of Benj amin's " Letter fro m Paris
(2 ) " ( 1 93 6 ) , in this volume. GiseJe Freund ( 1 90 8-2000) s tu died socio logy with Norbert Elias and Karl Mannheim be fore working a s a photographer in Berlin. She emigra ted to France i n 1 9 3 3 , becoming friends with Benj amin, whom she p hotogra phed.
2 . The p hysiognotrace, i n vented i n 1 78 3-1 784 b y Gilles-Louis Chretien, was a machine for tracing a subj ect's profile, which it reprod uced mechanicaHy o n a p iece of paper affixed t o the center o f t h e instrument.
3. On the n i neteenth-century French debate a bout the a rtistic status of photog raphy, see Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLa ugh l in ( Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press, 1 99 9 ) , pp. 671692 ( Convolute Y, " Photography " ) . 4. I n h i s " Letter from Paris ( 2 } , " Benj a m i n cites a French translation o f the po lemic in question: G eorgi Plekhanov, " Les Jugements de Lanson s u r Balzac et Cornei lle," Commune, 1 6, series 2 (December 1 934): 306. The work of Georgi Valentinov ich Plekhanov ( 1 856-1 9 1 8 ) , Russian pol itical theor i st and Menshevik revolu tiona ry, was
a
major i n fluence on the development o f
Marxist aesthetics. G ustave Lanson ( 1 857-1 9 3 4 ) , French critic, w a s t h e a u t h o r of Histoire d e t a litterature franfaise ( 1 8 94 ) and o ther w orks of literary history.
v FI LM
For Walter Benj amin the category of the aesthetic, the focus of much o f his work, must b e understood n o t in the simp l e sense o f a theory o f the of the Greek ( beautiful) arts but rat her in terms of the or igina l root aisthetikos ( " of sense p e r c e ptio n " ) which comes from aisthanesthai ( '< to p erc e i ve " ) , For it is as a the ory of perception (Wahrnehmung) that aesthetics is so c en t r a l to Be nj a mi n 's oeuvre and-in lig ht o f a mod e r ni ty where perception has i n cre a s in g ly been s h a p ed by technology-has effec tively become the study of m e d i a . In "The Work of Art in the Ag e of Its Technological Reproducibility " Benj amin is explicit on this matter, insist ing that " film . . . proves to be the most i mpo r t ant subject matter, at pres ent, for the theory of perception which the Greeks called aesthetics " ( sec ti on XVIII) . Moreover, as Benjamin remarked in a note j otted down during the composition of the artwork essay: <' So long as art theory is u n a ble to find a n example in film for every one of its e lements, i t is in need of improvement. " l The q uestion therefore is not whether fil m is art but rather, as Benjamin reminds us, how our very conception and practice o f art has changed in light of the cinema.
One of the many issues that the s till rather new medium of film sharply into focus in the late 1 920s a nd early 1 930s was the h i s tor i ci ty of human sense perception. As Benja min noted on numer ous occasions, maj or h istorical shifts in our mode of existence ( from agri cultural to industrial, for e x a mp l e) are paralleled by equally d ramatic changes in th e very way we see the worl d ,1 Among the signatu re fe a t u res of the modern " mode of existence" is, of course, technology. The ques tion o f how to conceptualize the reciprocal determinatio ns between his-
brought so
315
31 6
F I LM
torical l y variable forms of percepti on and changes in technology is one tha t Benj a min ad dressed repeated ly. Along the lines first sketched by the soc i o logist Ge o rg S immel in his canonical 1903 text "The Metropolis
and Menta l Life, " Benj amin o bserved how the tempo and altitude of modern means of transportation such as the railroad and the a irpla ne , for example, generate " a heightened need for ever-changing impres s io ns . "3 Or, in the early drafts of the Arca des Project fro111 the l ate 1 920s, he drew a connection between the " rhythms of today " and those of film:
" Very cha racteristic is the opposition, in film, between the dow n right
j erky rhyth m of the i mage sequence, which s atisfies the deep-seated need of this generation to see t he 'flow' o f ' develo p ment' d isavowed , and the
continuous musical accompan iment . " 4 Like the highly pulsating expe r i ence of the city and the
d is j ointe d
montage of the c inema, these new tech
nol ogical forms also prov o k e d radically new modes o f apprehending space and time . In the process, as Benj amin put it in hi s 1 9 3 9 ess a y " O n S o m e Motifs i n Baudel aire , " such techno logy " has subj ected the human sensorium to
a
complex kind of training. " 5
I t i s i n the context o f this sensory recali bration that Benj amin locates the i mportance of the new cin em ati c med i um, which is cast alterna te ly as a
symptom
or
embodiment
of, or as a sch ool fo r, this " d ecisive refunc
tioning of the human perceptual apparatus . " 6 In some essays Benj amin reads film as a
materialization
of the new perceptual conditions of mo
dernity: "There came a day when a new and urgent need for stimuli was met by film . In a film} p erception conditioned by shock
Wahrnehmung]
w a s established as a formal princi ple. "
7
[chockformige
In o ther texts
compares the character of cinematic spectatorship (structured as it is by the mechanica l conditions of the cinema's projection) with the Taylorized labor characteristic of the assemb ly
line,S Given tha t
cinematic med i u m gi ves exp ress i o n to
for Benj amin the
fund amental transfonna
tions in the d omains of form, perception, and even experience that are the s ignature of a new era, its p o l i tical ramifications are unambiguous. Thus, if Benj amin turns his critical a ttention to fi lm on a num ber of
o ccasions, this is not least because film s ta g es m os t d ra matical l y the inter
face of aesthetics and p o l itics . As B en j a m i n puts it in " Re p ly to Oscar A. H . Schmitz " ( Ch a pter 3 2 below ) , his polem ical response to Schmitz's conservative review of S e rge i
Eisenstein 's film Potemhn:
Why d oes [Schmitz] make s u ch a fu ss about the po litical deflowering of art? . . . The cla im that pol itical tendencies are implicit in every a rtwork of every epoch-since these are, after a ll, historical creations of consclo us-
FILM
31 7
ness-is a p latitude. But just a s deeper l ayers o f rock com e to light only at points of fracture
[B ruchstellen] , the d ee p e r formation of a p o l i tic al
posi
tion ITendenz] b e com es visible only at fracture points in the history of art
(and in artwo rks). The technical revolutions-these are fracture
points in
artistic development where p olitic a l pos i tions, exposed bit by bit, c om e to the surface. In every new technical revolution, the polit ical position is transformed-as if on its own-from a deep ly h i dden
element of art into
a
manifest one . And this brings us ultimately to film. Among the points of fr a ct u re in artistic formations, film is one of the most dramatic.
Perhaps the most prominent feature of the challenge posed by fi l m is what Benj amin refers to as the " shock-characte r " produced by montage, the radical juxtaposition of discontinuous elements. The shock qua l ity of the montage in certain types of filmic image-se -
quences is crucia l for Benj amin because, o n the one hand, i n their refus a l o f facile continuity, they correspond to a collective, d is tracted m o del o f reception t hat serves as a n alternative to t h e individual a bsorption a n d contemplation characteristic o f t h e bourgeoisie's cult o f a r t . 9 T h e filmic experience o f shock has a productive d imension
as well, in that it
" rou
t inizes" the spectator for the s taccato sense-perceptions that are so perva sive in late industrial cul ture, thereby serving as a sort of ('training" fo r the new tempo and quality of expe rience in [ate capitalist urbanism . Seen in this light, cinema)s sensorial recalibration can be read a s an urgent practical and p o litical empowerment: "The function o f film is to train hu man b eings in the apperceptions and reacti ons needed to deal with
a
vast
appa ratus whose role in their lives is expanding almost daily" ( "The Work of Art, " section VI ) . O n the other hand, acclimatizing function.
the same " training" could also b e said t o have an The contemporary a nalogy would be the function
of video games a s a further reca l ibration of the perceptual apparatus in an age o f heightened (e lectronic rather than mechanica l ) shocks, readying a
younger ge neration for the psycho-sensorial demands o f twenty-first
century military and industrial cond itions. To the extent tha t cinema " prepares" viewers for new modes o f production, one could argue that it
is simply quietist, e n a b l ing a lienated wo rkers to cope with their a l i en ation rather than tran s for m i n g the cond i tions that p roduced it. Yet even here, Benj amin sees a utopian potential for such viewers as well: "Deal i ng with this appara tlls also teaches them that technology will release them from their ens lavement to the powers of the apparatus only when
31 8
F I LM
humanity's whole constitution has adapted itself to the new producti ve forces which the second technology has set free" ( "The Wo rk of Art, " section VI) . Thus, shock training by the cinema can be re a d as prepara tion for a new technical mastery that co uld, at least potentially, be en listed in the service of a progressive project. Redemp tion here is sought not i n the nostalgic longing for o utdated forms o f experience-aesthetic or otherwise-but through vanguard technological expertise.lO It is in this context tha t one must situate Benj a mi n 's rea ding o f the film actor's work as an allegory of mastery over the apparatus . Unlike the stage actor,
Benj a min insists, the cha llenge facing the film actor is to resist
a llowing th e c inematic apparatus to destroy his humani ty. The perfor mance of the film actor--confronting not an audience ( an d the reciproc ity o f its gaze) but spotl ights, cameras, crew, microphones, a nd so on-is what he calls a tes t achievem ent, or test perfo rmance: to meet this chal lenge means H to preserve o ne 's humanity in the face of that apparatus " C'The Work of Art, " s ection X ) . This achievement, Benj amin goes on to note, h a s great appeal for the masses, whose humanity is subjugated by apparatuses daily in urban factories and production j o bs : "In th e evening these same masses fill the cinemas, to witness the film actor tak ing revenge on their behalf not only by asserting his humanity ( or what appears to the m as such) aga inst the apparatus, but by placing that appa� ratus in the service o f his triump h " ( section X) . The s tardom of the s tar stages the triumph o f humanity o ve r a technology that ( for most o f the audience) is experienced as oppressive. The star, in turn, becomes an a lle gory for victory o ve r, and appropriation of, a technology that, in its q uotidian Ta ylo rist manifestations, is usually an i n strument of subj uga tion. This is the basis o f Benj amin's unambiguous enthusiasm for Charlie Cha plin and sympathy for Mickey Mouse. Even as Benj amin also recog nizes that the star-cult simultaneously functions as a means by which the film industry precludes the rea lization of certa in of the mediu m's most critical and progressive p otentials-notably the masses' understanding of itsel f as a clas s 1 1 -he insists that even within this reification there is a pro gressi ve moment as well: "The representation of human b eings by means o f an apparatus h as made possi ble
a
high ly prod uctive use of the human
being's self-alienation" ( "The Work o f Art, ') sectio n XII ) . The " training" envisioned i n the artwork essay o f course takes p lace in the cinema. And it enables the formation o f a new, decisively broad ened situation of spectato rs hip : Benjamin opposes the " concentration" of the art lover to the supposedly vulgar " distraction " of the masses. 1 2 In line with earlier s ections o f the essay
(III-IV) in w hich he d iscusses the
FILM
31 9
auratic quality of the a utonomo us work, he argues that concentration on the a uratic work enables only the viewer's absorption into the work, while distraction enables members of the massed audience to a bsorb the work into themselves.13 In a telling fragment from The Arcades Project, Benj amin characterizes this active appropriation of the work by the mass a udience as a making present of something past: "The true method of making things present is to represent them in our space (no t to represent o urselves in their space) . . . . The same method a p p lies, in essence, to the consideration of great things from the past-the cathedral of Chartres, the temple of Paestum-when, that is, a favorable prospect presents it self: the method of receiving the things i nto our space. We don't displace our being into theirs; they step into our life . " [ 4 In the artwork essay, ar chitecture is put forward as the " p rototype " of a work received by the collective in distraction. Benjamin privileges certain traditional modes of the reception of a build ing�its use, which is tactile and immediate, ver sus the buil ding as viewed, which is distanced and contemplative-and asserts that this mode of reception occurs through ha bit and n ot through a local awareness. Only in the "simultaneous collective reception" (section XV) that is distraction, then, can "the desire of the present-day masses to 'get closer' to things " (section IV) be realized. At the heart of Benjamin's artwork es say is the conviction that film, in its combination of "the shooting by the specially adjusted photo graphic d evice and the assembly of that shot with others of the same kind, " offers the audience "a pure view of that reality, free of the foreign body of equipment" (section XIV). This apparently ��equipment-free aspect of reality " is o f course the " height of artifice" the product of a highly subjective viewing angle, of the distortion inher ent in photographic representation, and, above a ll, of editing. Benj amin is under no illusion regarding the objectivity of the images of things that are actually brought closer to an a Lldience. Yet, in satisfying the desire for such images) film is a ble to do other, more significant work. It offers the audience insights into the "necessities governing our lives " by revealing otherwise hidden, but enormously con straining and inhibiting aspects of the world through which we move. Film has the potential, in other words, not so much to penetrate reality as to penetrate the phantasmagoria that distorts a nd conceals reality fro m the human sensory and cognitive capacities; i t h a s the unique capa city to bring the conditions that actually obtain to the level of consciousness. And, in what is perhaps t lle essay's most utopian moment, Benjamin asto film the ability " to assure us of a vast and unsuspected field of
320
FILM
action [Spielraum] " (section XVI ) . This which
a
field of action is the space in
cinematic a udience is transformed through " s imultaneous collec into a mass-indeed, a mass that bears the potential for
tive reception "
social c hange. As he did in " Little H istory of Photography, " Benj amin re
marks on the effec ts-slow m o tion, close-ups , enlargement, an d so o n that m ake all this possible, and subsumes them under t he notion of the " optical u nco nscious. " 15 In the artwork
though, he ascri bes to the
optical unconscious not j ust the power of disenchantment ( th e
unmask ing o f " the necessities governing our l ives" and with them phantasmago ria ) but the p ower to inform masses of viewers, schooled in distraction, of the political powers
l ie open to them: a political p ower derived
from d iscovering the explosive potential of that which is inconsp icuous and
apparently meaningless-in sho rt, stuff of a habituated yet tactile and immediate experience o f the modern worl d. "Th e Work of Art i n the Age of Its Technological Reproduci bility" plays, then, on a series of reversals: the seemingly ba nal and worthless work that has been technologically reproduced is favored over the privi leged, a utonomous work; a h abituated and distracted mo d e of reception is favored over the kind of concentration and a bsorp tion long held to be the o nly reception adequate to the demands of high art. Benj amin effects these reversals for explicitly pol itical ends, as he m akes plain
in
section
XVIII of the essay: "The tasks which face the human apparatus of p er points cannot be performed solely by optical
cep tio n at h is torical turning
means-that is, by way of cont empla tion. They are mastered grad ually taking their cue from tactile reception-through habi t. " TH O M A S
Y. L E V I N
Notes
Schriften, VII, p . 678. 2. S ee especially t h e introduction t o Pa rt 1 i n this volume. 3. Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 5 8 3 . Benj amin goes o n to cite
1. Walter Benj a min, G esammeLte
the Fr e n ch psychologist, p hilosopher,
1 9 62)
and
on the transformation of vision through the advent o f the
Wa llon notes: " It thus appears to be indisputa ble
that
tex t by ( 1 8 98-
a i r pl a ne .
th e se technological i n
ventions have effects right down into our muscular system, o ur sensory fac ulties and ul t i m at e ly our i ntell igence." Henry Wal l o n , " Psychol ogie e t Tech nique , " in: A La lumiere du Marxisme (Paris, 1 9 3 5 ) , pp. 1 45 , 1 47. Benj amin, The Arcades Pro;ectJ tra ns. Howard Eiland and Kevin Mc Laughlin (Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard Uni v ers i ty 1 999), p . 845, ,
4.
a
politician Henry WaHon
Convolute HO, 1 6 .
321
FI LM
5. Benj amin, " On Some �10tifs in Baudelaire , " in
Select:ed
Writings, Volume 4:
1 93 8- 1 940 ( Cambridge, Mass . : Ha rvard Un iversity Press, 2 0 0 3 ) , p . 3 2 8 . 6 . Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften, I, 1 049. 7. Benj ami n , " On Some Motifs in Bau dela ire , " p . 32 8 . 8 . Frederick Wi ns low Taylor ( 1 856- 1 9 1 5 ) esta blished the discipline o f business
ad ministra tion and was a pioneer in the study of corporate rationalization and management efficiency. "Taylori s m " a nd "Taylorizatio n " were slogans, pa rticularly in Europe, for a more genera l i n d ustrial moderniza ti on. 9 . See especia l ly Benjamin's strategic e ndorsement of
a
new experientia l " p ov
erty" a nd of a " positive barbarism " : Benj a min, "Experience and Poverty, " in
Selected
Writings, Volume 2 : 1 92 7- 1 934 (Cambridge, Mass . : Harv a rd
Uni versity Press, 1 99 9 ) , pp. 73 1 -7 3 6 . For an exte n ded and suggestive dis cussion of the place of the a rtwork essay in Ben j a m in's theory o f experience, see Miriam Bra tu Hansen, " Benj a min and Cinema: Not a O lle-Way Street, "
Critical fnquiry,
1 0.
25 (Winter 1 9 99 ) : 3 0 6-343 .
In a central fragment on film from The A rcade s Project, B en jamin is explicit in his rejec tion o f a political agen d a that i llcludes the " e ducation " o f a ma ss audience toward high a rt: "On the politica l significance of film. Socialism wo uld never have elltered the world i f its prop onents had sought only to excite the enthusi asm of the work ing classes for a better order of thi n gs . What made for the power aud authority of the movement was that Marx u nderstood how to interest the workers in a social order which would both b enefi t them and a ppear to t hem as
j ust . It is exactly the same with art. At no point in time, no ma tter how
utopian, will a nyone win the masses over to a higher art; they can be won over only to one nearer to them. An d t he d i fficulty consists precisely
in
find
ing a form for a rt such tha t, with the bes t conscience in the world, one could
hold that i t is a higher art. This wil l never h a pp en with m o s t of what i s prop agated by the avan t-garde of the bourgeoisie. Here, what Berl advances is perfect ly correct: 'The confusion over the word " revolution"-which, for a Leninist, sign ifies the acquisition of power by the p roletariat, and w hich elsewhere signifies the overturni ng of recognized s p i ritual values-is suf ficien tly a t tested by the s u rrealists in t h ei r desire to esta blish P icasso
as a
rev
o luti onary. . . . Picasso d eceives them . . . . A p a inter is not more revolution ary for having " rev olutionized"
painting tha n
h a ving " revo lutioll ized ') fas hio n , or than
a
a
tailor l i ke Poi ret is for
doctor is fo r h a ving " revol ution
ized') medicille . ' " Benjamin is here q uo ting Emmanuel Bed, " Premier pam phlet, " Europe, 75 ( 1 92 9 ) : 4 0 1 . Benj amin continues: " The masses positi veiy require from the work of a r t (wh ich , for them , h a s i t s p lace in t h e c i rcle of consu mer items ) some thing that is warm ing. Here the flame most read ily kindled i s that o f h a tred. Its heat, however, b urns o r sears wi thout providing t he ' heart's ease' which q u a lifies a rt for consumption . K i tsch, 011 the other hand, is n o thing more thall art with a one-hundred-per-cent, a bsolute and instantaneous availa bil-
FILM
322
ity for consumption . Precisely wi t hin the consecra ted forms of expression,
the refore , kitsch and art s t a n d ir r e co nci l abl y opposed . For develop i ng, l i v i ng
forms, ho wever, what matters is th a t they have wi thin the m someth i n g s ti r -
up
ring, useful, ultim a te ly heartening-that t hey take
while yet
into themselves, and hence b ri ng themselves near to surmoun t i n g
kitsch,
Tod a y, perh a ps , film alone is e q u a l to this tas k-or, at
a ny rate, more rea dy for i t th a n any o ther art form . And whoever has recog nized th i s wil l be inclined to d isallow the pre ten s i ons of a bs t rac t film, as im porta n t as its experiments m ay b e . He will cal l for
a
close d season
all-a
n atu ra l pr eserve for-the sort of kitsch w hose provi dent i a l site is the cin ema , Only film can deto n ate the exp l osi v e stuff which the n ineteenth century has accum u la ted in th a t strange and p erha ps former ly unknown materia l
which i s kitsch. B u t, just a s wi th t he po l i t ica l structure o f film, s o also wi t h t h e o ther di s ti nc t iv ely modern mea n s o f expr essio n
tic design) : a b st rac ti o n can be dangerous . "
(such as
lighting o r plas
Benj a min, The Arcades Project, pp. 3 95-396, Convolute K3 a, 1 . O n the
explosive power of kitsch , see the intro d uction to Part III in this
v olu me .
l 1 . In "The Work of Art in the Age of I ts Tec hn o l ogical Reproduci bility, "
Be nj a m i n sta tes very clear ly that, under t h e conditions of cap i ta l , film can
not realize its most progressive po ten t i a I, and he goes to s ome le n g ths to enumerate the
m ea ns
that the fi lm industry llses to its e nds, foremost among
them a po w erful pu bl i c i ty apparatus which enlists the careers and the love
e : " All this in order to dis t o rt and corr upt
lives of the stars in its
s ervic
the o r iginal and j u stifi e d
interest
o f the masses in
film-an
interest in under
s tand i ng themselves a nd therefore their c lass " ( s ect i on XIII). Indeed, Benjamin concludes, t he tendency so characteristic of fascism-to secretly explo i t tile un den i a ble desire for new socia l formations i n the i n terest of a minority o f o wners-i s par ti cularly tr ue of film ca pi tal. This makes the " ex prop r i a tio n o f film capi tal " a ta sk of central importa nce ( s ec tion XIII ) .
1 2 . For
a
c on temp ora ry discussion o f the aesthetic p o l i tic s o f d istraction, see
Siegfried K r aca u e r 's 1 926 essay " Cult of D ist ractio n , " i n K r a ca uer, The Mass O mament, tra n s . a nd ed. Th omas Y. Levin ( Cambridge,
Mass:
H a r
vard University P re s s, 1 9 9 5 ), pp. 323-326 . For an extended di sc us s io n of
Benjamin's late work, see Howard E i l a nd , " Recep boundary 2, 3 0, no. 1 (2003 ) : 5 1 -66. o f the a ura, see M i riam Bratll Hansen, " Benj a m in's Aura , "
the rol e of di s tr a c tio n in ti on in D istracti on, "
13. On th e concept
Critical lnqu iry, 3 4 (Wi n te r 2 00 8 ) : 3 3 6-3 75.
14. Benj a m i n , The
Arcades Project,
p . 206, Convolute H2, 3 .
1 5 . O n the optica l u nconscious, s e e t he introduction t o P a r t IV i n this volume.
31 On the Present Situation of Russian Film
The greatest achievements of the Ru ss i a n film i nd ustr y can be se en more
readily in Berlin th a n in Moscow. What onE s e es in Berl in has been p res e
l e cted , while in Moscow this se l ect i on still has to be made. Nor is obta i n
ing advice a simp l e matter. The Russians are fai r l y uncritical a bout their own films. ( For e x a mple, it is a well-known fa ct that Potemkin owe s its g reat s u ccess to Germany. ) ! The reason for th is insecurity in t h e ma tter of j ud g ment is that t h e Russ ians lack E u ro p ean sta ndards of compari son. Good foreign films are seldom seen in Russia. Whe n b uying films, the government takes the view t ha t the Russian market is so important for the compe ting film companies of the world that they rea l l y have to s uppl y it a t red uced prices with what a re in effec t a dvertising samples. Ob vi o u sly, this means that good, expens ive films are never imported. For i n d iv id ual Russian artists, the resulting ig nora nc e on the par t of the p u b lic h a s i ts agre e a ble sid e . Ilj insky works with a ve r y i mprecise copy of C hapl in and is r ega r d e d as a comedian onl y b ec a u se Chap li n is unknown he re .2 At
a
more serious, general level, i nterna l Russian conditions have a
d epre s s ing effect on the average film. It is not easy to obta in suita ble sce narios, bec a use the choice of subj ect matter is governed by s trict controls .
Of a ll the arts in Russia, l iteratu re enjoys the greatest freedom fro m ce n
sorsh ip . The theater i s s crut i ni z e d m uch mo r e close ly, and control of the film in dustry i s even s tricter. This sca le is proportion a l to the size of the a u diences . Under this re g i men the best films deal wit h e p iso d es from the Russian Revolution; fi l m s tha t stretch fu r th er back into the Russian past c onst i t ute th e in s ignific a nt average, while, by Eu rope a n stand a rd s , come-
323
324
FILM
dies are utterly irrelevant. At the heart of the difficulties currently facing Russian producers is the fact that the public is less and less willing to fol low them into their true domain: pol i ti ca l dramas of the Russian civil war. The naturalistic politica l period of Russian film reached its climax around a year and a half ago, with a flood of fi lms full of death and ter ror. Such themes have lost all their attraction in the m eantime. Now the motto is internal pacification. Film, radio, and theater are all distancing themselves fro m propaganda . The search for conciliatory subject matter has le d producers to resort to a cu rious technique. Since film versions of the great Russian novels are largely ruled out on poli tical and artistic grou nds, directors have taken over well-known individual types and built up new stories around them. Characters from Pushkin, Gogol, Goncharov, a nd Tolstoy are frequently taken over in this way, often retaining their original na mes .·1 This new Russian film is set by preference in the far easte rn sections of Russi a . This is as m uch as to say, " For us there is no 'exoticism. ' '' "Exoticism" is thought of as a component of the counterrevolutionary ideology of a co lonial nation. Russia has no use for the Roman tic concept of the " Far East." Russia is close to the East and economically tied to it. Its second message is: we are not dependent on foreign countries and natures-Rus sia is, a fter all, a sixth of the world! Everything in the world is here on our own soil. And in this spirit the epic film of the new Russia, entitled The Soviet Sixth of the Ea1'th� has just been released. It mllst be admitted that Vertov, the director, has not succeeded in meeting his self-imposed chal lenge of showing throug h characteristic images how the vast Russian nation is being transformed by the new social order:l The filmic coloniza tion of Russia has misfired. What he has achieved, however, is the demar cation o f Russia from Europe. This is how the film starts: in fractions of a second, there is a flow of ima ges from workplaces (pistons in motion, laborers bringing in the harvest, transport works) and from capitalist places of entertain ment ( bars, dance halls, and clu bs ) . Social film s of re cent years have been plundered for fleeting individual excerpts ( often j ust details of a caressing hand or dancing feet, a woman's hairdo or a glimpse of her bejeweled throat) , and these have been assembled so as to alternate with images of toiling workers . Unfortunately, the film soon abandons this approach in favor of a description of Russian p eop les a nd l and scapes, while the link between these and their modes of production is merel y h inted at in an all too sha dowy fashion. The uncertain and tenta tive nature of these efforts is illustrated by the simple fact that pictures o f cranes hoisting equipment and transmission systems are acc o mpanied by
o N T H E P R E S E N T S I T U AT I O N 0 F R U S S I A N F I L M
325
an orchestra p laying motifs fr0111 Tannhauser and Lohengrin.5 Even so, these pictures are typical in their attempts to make fi lm straight from l ife, without any decorative or acting apparatus. They are produced with a " maske d " apparatus. That is to say, amateurs adopt various p oses in front of a dummy camera, but immediately afterward, w hen they think tha t everything is finished , they are filmed without being aware of it. The good, new motto " Away with all masks ! " is nowhere more valid than in Russian film. It follows from this that nowhere are film stars more superfluous . Directors are not on the lookout for an actor who can play many roles, but opt instead for the characters needed in each partic ular instance. Indeed, they go even further. Eisenstein, the director of Potemkin, is making a film about peasant life in which he intends to dis pense with actors altogether. The peasants are not simply one of the most interesting s ubj ects for a film; they are also the most important a udience for the Russian cultural film. Film is being used to provide them with historical , pol itica l, techni cal, and even hygie nic information. Up to now, however, the problems encountered in this process have left people feeling fairly perplexed. The mode of mental reception of the peasant is basically d ifferent from that of the urban masses. It has become clear, for example, that the rural audi ence is incapable of fo llowing two simultaneous narrative strands of the kind seen countless times in film. Tl1ey can follow only a single series o f images that must unfold chronologically, like the verses of a street ballad. Having often n oted that serious scenes provoke uproarious laughter and that funny scenes are greeted with straight faces or even genuine emotion, filmmakers have started to produce films directly for those traveling cine mas that occasionally penetrate even the remotest regions of Russia for the benefit of people who have seen neither towns nor modern means of transport. To expose such audiences to film and radio constitutes one o f the most grandiose mass-psychological experiments ever undertaken in the gigantic laboratory that Russia has become. Needless to say, in such rural cinemas the main role is played by educational films of every kind . Such films range from lessons in how to deal with plagues of locusts or use tractors, to films concerned with cures fo r alcoholism. Even so, much of the program of these itinerant cinemas remains incomprehensible to the great majority and can be llsed only as training material for those who are more advanced-that is to say, members of village soviets, peas ant represe ntatives , and so on. At the moment, the establishment of an " Institute for Audience Research " in which audience reactions could be studied both experimentally and theoretically is being considered. I n this way, film has taken up one of the great slogans of recent times:
FILM
326
"With Ollr faces toward the village ! " In film as in writing, politics pro vides the most powerful motivation: the Central Committee of the party hands down directives every month to the press, the press passes them on to the clubs, and the clubs pass them on to the theaters and cinemas, like runners passing a baton. By the same token, however, such slogans can also lead to serious obstacles. The slogan "Industrializa tion!" provided a paradoxical instance. Given the passionate i nterest in everything techni cal, it might have been expected that the slapstick comedy woul d be highly popular. In reality, however) for the moment at least, that passion d ivides the technical very sharply from the comic, a nd the eccentric com edies imported from America have definitely flopped. The new Russian is unable to appreciate irony and skepticis m in technical matters. A further sphere denied to the Russian film is the one that encompasses all the themes and problems drawn from bourgeois life. Above all, this means: They won't stand for dramas about love. The dramatic and even tragic treatment of love is rigorously excluded from the whole of Russian life. S uicides that result from disappointed or unhappy love still occasionally occur, but Communist public opinion regards them a s the crudest ex cesses . For film-as for literature-al l the problems that now form the focus of debate are problems of subj ect matter. Thanks to the new era of social truce, they have entered a difficu lt stage. The Russian film can reesta blish itself on firm gro und only when Bolshevist society ( and not just the a new "social comedy" to state ! ) has become sufficiently sta ble to thrive, with new characters and typical situations . Published i n Die literarische Welt, March 1 927, Gesammelte Schriften, II, 747-75 1 . Trans lated by Rodney Li vingstone.
N otes 1 . Benj am i n refers to Battleship Potemhill ( 1 92 5 ) , d i rected b y the Soviet film
maker and theorist Sergei lvlikhailovich Eisenstein ( 1 8 9 8- 1 94 8 ) . Eisen stein's large body of work includes the films Strike ( 1 925 ) , October ( 1 927), A lexander Nevsky ( 1 93 8 ) , and Ivan the Terrible ( released in two parts, 1 944 and
1 95 8 ) .
2. Igor Vla d imirovich Iljinsky ( 1 9 0 1-1 9 8 7 ) was his comic p o r t r a ya l s of buffoons, The Lond on-born
actor
a
Russian a c to r, well known for and urban hustlers.
and d irector Charlie Cha plin ( Ch arles Spencer
Cha p li n ; 1 8 8 9-1 977) came to the United States with a vaudeville act in
1 9 1 0 and made his motion p i c t u re debut th e r e in 1 9 14, eventually ac hiev ing
o N T H E P R E S E N T S I T U AT I O N 0 F R U S S I A N F l L M
wo rldwide
re no wn as
The Kid ( 1 92 1 ) , The ( 1 93 6 ) ,
and
The Great
327
comedia n . He starred in and d irected such films as Circus ( 1 92 8 ) , City Lights ( 1 93 1 ) , Modern Times Dictator ( 1 940) . See Benjamin's short pieces " Chap
a
lin" ( 1 929) and " Chap lin in Retrospect" ( 1 92 9 ) , in this volume.
3. Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov ( 1 8 1 2-1 8 9 1 ) w as
a Russian no vel ist whose Precipice ( 1 8 69) . ( D enis Arkadyevich Kaufman; 1 8 96-1 9 5 4 )
works include O blomov ( 1 8 5 9 ) a nd Th e
4. 5.
The Soviet director Dziga Vertov is best k n own for h i s fi l m Man with the Movie Camera ( 1 9 2 9 ) . Benj amin refers t o Richard Wagner's operas Tannhauser ( 1 8 4 5 ) a n d Lol't!:11J!.1'ln ( 8 5 0) .
32 Reply to Oscar A. H. Schmitz
b e i ng an act o f impolitenes s toward the p u b l ic Shouldn't we s i mp ly allow our readers to make up their own minds about a lame a rgument full of clumsy concepts ? In this instance, they wo u l d not even need to have seen Battleship Potemkin. J An y more than Schmitz did.2 For whatever h e knows about the film he could h a ve gleaned from the first newspape r notice that came to hand But that is what characterizes the c ult u r a l Philistine: o t h e rs rea d the notice and think themselves duly warned; he, however, has to " form his own opin io n He goes to see the film and i magines that he is i n a posi ti o n to trans late his embarrassment into obj ective knowledge. Th is is a d e l u s i on Bat tleship Potemkin can be o b j ec ti vely discussed either as film or from a political point of view. Schmitz d oes neither. He talks a bou t his re c e nt rea ding Un su rp ri s i ngly, this leads him nowhere. To ta k e this rigorous de picti o n of a class movement that has been wholly shaped a ccor d i ng to t h e p rin cipl es of the fi l m medium a nd try to see how it me a s u res up to bourgeois novels of society b etrays an i ngenuousness that is quite dis arming. The same c a nnot quite be s a i d of h is onsl a u g ht on tendentious art. Here, where he marshals some heavy artillery from the arsen a l of bourgeois a e st he tics , plain speaking would be more appr o p r i a te Why does he make such a fuss abou t the p olitical deflowering of art, whi l e
There are replies that come close to .
.
. "
.
.
.
faith fully tracking d own all the sublima tions, libid inous vestiges, and
two thousa n d years of a rt i sti c production? How l ong art s up posed to a c t the well-brought-up young l ady who knows her way around all the pl ac e s of ill rep ute yet wouldn't dream of asking a b out p oli tic s ? But i t's no use: she has always dreamed about it. The
comp l e x es through is
-
328
R E P LY T O O S C A R A
H . SC H M I TZ
329
cla i m that p olitical tendencies are implicit in every artwork of every ep och-since these are, after all, historica l creations of consciousness-is a platitude. But j ust as deeper layers of rock come to light only at points of fracture, the d eeper formation of a political position becomes visible only at fracture p oints in the history of art ( and in artworks) . The technica l revolutions-these are fra cture points i n artistic d evelopment where po litical positions, exposed bit by bit, come to the surface. In every new technical revolution, the political position is transformed-as if on its own-from a deeply hidden element of art into a manifest one. And this brings lI S ultimately to film. Among the points of fracture in artistic formations, film is one of the most d ramatic. We may truly say that with film a new realm of con sciousness comes into being. To put it in a nutshell, film is the prism in which the spaces of the immediate environment-the spaces in which people live, p ursue their avocations, and enj oy their leisure-are laid open before their eyes in a comprehensible, meaningful, and passion ate way. In themselves these offices, furnished rooms, saloons, big-city streets, stations, and factories are ugly, incomp rehensi ble, and hopelessly sad. Or rather, they were and seemed to be, until the advent of film. The cinema then exploded this entire prison-world with the dynamite of its fractions of a second, so that now we can take extended journeys of ad venture between their widely scattered nlins. The vicinity of a house, of a room, can include dozens of the most unexpected stations, a nd the most astonishing station n ames. It is not so much the constant stream of im ages as the sudden change of place that overcomes a milieu which has re sisted every other attempt to unlock i ts secret, and succeeds in extracting from a petty-bourgeois d welling the s ame beauty we admire in an AHa Romeo. And so far, so good. Difficulties emel'ge only with the " plot . " The question of a meaningful film p l o t is as rarely so lved as the a bstract formal p roblems that have arisen from the new technology. And this pro ves one thing beyond all others: the vital, fundamental advances in art are a matter neither of new content nor of new forms-the techn ological revol ution takes p recedence over both. B u t it is no accident that in film this revolution has not been a ble to discover either a form or a content appropriate to it. For it turns out that with the untendentious play o f forms and the untendentio us p lay of t h e plot, the problem can be re solved only on a case-by-case basis. The superiority of the cinema of the Russian Revolution, like tha t of the American slapstick comedy, is grounded on the fact tha t in their d i f ferent ways they are both based on tendencies to which they constantly
FILM
recur. For the slapstick comedy is tendentious too, in a less o bvious way. Its target is techno logy. This k ind of film is com ic, but only in the sense that the laughter it provokes hovers over an abyss of horror. The obverse of a ludicrously liberated techno logy is the lethal power of naval squad rons on maneuver, as we see it openly disp layed in Potemk in. The inter national bourgeois film, on the other hand, h as not been able to discover a consistent ideological formula . This is one of the causes o f its recurrent crises. For the complicity of film technique with the milieu that consti tutes its most essential project is incompatible with the glorification of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat is the hero of those spaces that give rise to the adventures to which the bourgeois a bandons himself in the movies with beating heart, because he feels constrained to enj oy " beauty" even where it speaks of the annihilation of his own class. The proletariat, however, is a collective, just as these spaces are collective spaces. And o nl y here, in the h uman collective, can the film complete the prismatic work that it began by acting on that m ilieu. The epoch-making impact o f Potemkin c a n b e explained b y the fact that it made this clear for the first time. Here, for the first time, a mass movement acquires the wholly archi tecton ic and by no means monumental (i.e., UFA) quality that j ustifies its i nclusion in film.J No other medium could reproduce this collective in motion. No other could convey such beauty or the currents of horror and panic it contains. Ever since Potemkin, such scenes have become the un dying possession of Russia n film art. What began w ith the bombardment of Odessa in Potemkin continues in the more recent film Mother with the pogrom against factory workers, in which the suffering of the u rban masses is engraved in t he asphalt of the street like running script.4 Potemkin was made systematically in a collective spirit. The leader of the mutiny, Lieutenant Commander Schmidt, one of the legendary figures of revolutionary Russia, does not appear in the film. That may be seen as a " fa lsification o f history, " a lthough it has nothing to do with the estima tion of his achievements . Furthermore, why t he actions of a col lective s hould be deemed unfree, while those of the individual are free-this a b struse variant of determinism remains as incomprehensible in itself as in its meaning for the debate. It is evident that the character of the o pponents must be m ade to match that of the rebellious masses. It would have been senseless to de pict them as differentiated individuals . The ship's doctor, the captain, and so on had to be types. Bourgeois types-this is a concept Schmitz will have nothing to do with. 5 0 let us call them sadistic types who have been summoned to the apex of power by an evil, dangerous apparatus. Of
331
R E P LY T O O S C A R A . H . S C H M I T Z
co urse, this brings us face to face with a political formulation.
An out
come which is unavoidable because it is true. There is nothing feebler than all the talk of "individual cases . " The individual ma y be an individ ual case-but the uninhibited effects of his dia bolical behavior are some thing else; they lie in the nature of the imperialist state and-withi n limits-the sta te a s such. I t is w e l l known that many facts gain their meaning, their relie f, onl y when they are put in context. These are the facts with which the field o f statistics concerns itse lf. If a ?v1r. X happens to take his own life in March, this may be a supremely unimportant fact in itself. But it becomes quite interesting if we learn that su icides reach their annual peak during tha t month . In the same way, the sadistic acts of the ship's doctor may be isolated incidents in his J ife, the result of
a
poor
night's sleep, or a reaction to his discovery that his breakfast egg is rotten. They become interesting only if we estab lish a relationship between the medica l profession and the state.
During the last years of the Great War,
there was more than o ne highly competent study of this topic, and we can only feel sorry for the wretched li ttle sadist of Potemkin when we
compare his actions and his j ust punishment wi th the murderous services
performed-unpunished-a few years ago by thousands of his colleagues on the sick and cripp led at the behest of the general staff. Potemkin is a great film, a rare achievement. To protest against it calls for the courage born of desperation. There is plenty of bad tendentious art, including bad socialist tendentious art. Such works are determined by their effects; they work with tired reflexes and depend on stereotyp ing. This film, however, h as solid concrete founda tions ideologically; the details have been worked out precisely, like the span of
a
b ridge.
The more violent the blows that rain down upon it, the more beautifully it resounds. Only if you touch it with kid gloves do you hear a nd move no thing. Pu bl ished (along with Osca r A. H. Schmitz's "Pote m k i n and literarische Welt, March 1 927. Ges(lmmeite Li v i ngstone.
Schriften,
Tendentious
Art " ) in Die
II, 751-755. Translated by Rodney
Notes 1 . Benjamin refers to BattLeship Potemkin ( 1 925 ) , directed by the Soviet film
maker
and
theorist
Serge i
Mikhailo vich
Eisenstein
( 1 92 7 ) , Alexander Nevsky ( 1 9 3 8 ) , and parts, 1 944
and 1 95 8 ) .
( 1 8 98- 1 94 8 ) .
Strike ( 1 925 ) , October Ivan the Terrible ( released in two
Eisenstein's la rge body o f work i nclu des the fil m s
332
FILM
2 . Osca r A dol f Hermann Schm i tz ( 1 8 73- 1 93 1 ) , a p l aywright and es sa y i s t , ma intained close contact w i th the circle around reply to Schmitz exemp lifie s
Potemkin.
the tenor
Stefan George.
of the argu ments over
3. U FA (Uni vers um-Film AG), the large s t firm
in
Benj a mi n 's
Battleship
fi l m industry, was owned everything from m a chine s hop s and fil m la bora tories to p ro duc ti on and distribu t ion fac i lities. It was a cq u i re d b y the Hugen berg Gro u p in 1 927, nationa lized by t he Germa n Reich in 1 9 3 6-1 9 3 7, a n d d isma ntled by t h e A llies i n 1 945. 4 . The film Mother ( 1 9 2 6 ) , based on Go rky 'S nove l , was made by the S ovi e t di re cto r a n d film th e or i st Vsevolod IIlarionovich Pudovkin ( 1 893-1953 ) . the Germa n
founded in 1 9 1 7. Ver tica lly i ntegra ted, UFA
33 Chaplin
After a s h owin g of The Circus. l C h a pl i n never all ows the a udience to smile while watch i ng h i m . Th e y m ust e i th er d ou b le u p l aug h i ng or be very sad.
Chaplin g re ets people by taking off his bow le r, and it looks like the lid rising from the kettle when the w a te r boil s o ver. His clo t he s are i mpe r m e a ble to every b low of fa te. He looks l ik e a man who h a s n't ta ken his cl othe s off for a month . He is unfamiliar with beds; when he lies down, he does so i n a wheelbarrow or on a seesaw. Wet through, sweaty, in c lo th e s far too small for him, Ch ap l i n is the living embodiment of G oe t h e's apen;u: M a n would not be the noblest creature on earth if he were not too noble for it. This film is the first film of Chaplin's old age . He 11as grow n older since his last films, but he also ac ts old. And the most moving thing about this new film is the fee ling that he now has a clear o ve r v iew of the possi biliti es open to him, a nd that he is resolved to work exclusively wi th i n these limits to attain his goal. At e v e ry point the variations on his greatest the mes are d is pl ay e d in the i r full glory. The chase is set in a maze; h i s u ne xp ec ted a ppearance would astonish a magician; the mask of noni n vo lve m en t turns him into a fa i r-ground marionette. The most wonderful p ar t is th e way the end of the film is stru ctu red. He strews c o n fe t ti o v er the happy couple, and you think: Th is must be the end. Then yo u see him s ta nd i ng there when the circus procession starts off; he s h u ts the door behin d everyone, a nd you think: This must b e the end. Then you see him s tuc k in the rut of the c i r cle e a r lier d ra wn by poverty, and you think: This must be the end . Then
333
FILM
334
you see a close-up of his completely bedraggled form, sitting on a stone in the arena . Here you thi nk the end is absolutely unavoidable, but then he gets up and you see him from behind , walking further and further away, with that gait p eculiar to Ch arl i e Chaplin; he is h is own walking trade mark, j ust like the company trademark you see at the end of other films. And now, at the only p oint where there's no break and you 'd l i ke to be a b le to fol low him with Y O Llr gaze forever-the film ends ! Fra g ment written in 1 9 2 8 or early 1 929; unpublished in Benjamin's l i fetime.
Schriften, VI,
Gesammelte
1 3 7- 1 3 8 . Translated by Rod ney Livingstone.
Notes 1 . The London-born actor and director Charlie Chaplin ( Charles Spencer Chap lin; 1 8 8 9-1 977) came to the United States with a vaudeville act i n 1 9 1 0 and made his motion picture debut there in 1 9 14, eventually achieving world wide renown
as
a comedia n . Besides The Circus ( 1 92 8 ), he starred in and di
rected such films as The Kid ( 1 9 2 1 ), City Lights ( 1 9 3 1 ), Modem Times ( 1 93 6 ) , and The Great Dictator ( 1 940). See also Ben j amin's " Chaplin in Retrospect" ( 1 929), in this volume.
34 Chaplin in Retrospect
The Circus is the first prod uct of the art of film that
is also the product of
old age . 1 Charlie has grown ol der since his last film. But he also acts old. And the most moving thing about this new film is the feeling that Chaplin now
h as
a
clear overvi ew of his p ossibilities and is reso lved to work ex
clusively within these limits to attain his goal. At ever y point the varia tions on his grea test themes a re d isplayed in their full glo ry. The chase is set in a maze; his unexpected appearance would astonish a magicia n ; the mask of noninvolvement turns him into a fairground marionette . . . . The lesson and the w a rning that emerge from this great work have led the poet Philippe Soup ault to attempt the first definiti o n of Chaplin as a histori c a l phenomenon . In November the excellent Paris review Europe (published by Rieder,
Paris),
to which we shall return in grea ter detail,
presented a n essay by Soupault containing a number of ideas aro und which a definitive picture o f the great artist will one day be able to crys tallize. I What he emphasizes there above a l l i s that Chaplin�s rel a tion t o the film
is fund amenta lly
not that of Chaplin the actor, let alone the sta r. Fol
lowing Soupault's way of thi nking, we might say that Chaplin, consid e red as a total p hen omeno n , is no more of an actor than was Wil liam Shakespeare. So upault insists, rightly, that " the undeniab le su periority of Chaplin's films . . . is based on the fact that they are imb u ed with a poetry that everyone encounters i n his life, a dmitted ly without always be ing conscious of it. " What is meant by this is of course
not that Chaplin is the
" au tho r " of his film scripts. Rather, h e is simp ly the author o f his own filnls-that is to say, their director. S O llpault h as rea l ized that Chaplin
335
336
FILM
was the first ( and the Russians have followed his example ) to construct a film with a theme and variations-in short, with the element of composi tion-and that all this stands in complete o pposition to films based on action and suspense. This explains why Soupault has argued more force fully than anyone e lse that the pinnacle of Chaplin's work is to be seen in A Woman o f Paris. This is the film in which, as is well known, he does not even appear and which was shown in Germany under the idiotic title Die Nachte einer schonen Frau [Nights of a Beautiful Woman] . (The Kamera Theater ought to show it every six months . It is a foundation document of the art of film . ) When we learn that 1 2 5 ,000 meters o f film were shot for this 3,000meter work, we get some idea of the capital that this man requires, and tha t is at least as necessary to him as to a Nansen or an Amundsen if he is to make his voyages of discovery to the poles of the art o f film.3 We must share Soupault's concern that Chaplin's productivity may be paralyzed by the dangerous financial claims of his second wife, as well as by the ruthless competition of the American trusts. It is said that Chaplin i s planning both a Napoleon-film a n d a Christ-film . Shou ldn't w e fear tha t such projects are n o more than giant screens b ehind which the great artist conceals his exhaustion? It is good and useful that at the moment old age begins to show itself in Chaplin's features, Soupault should remind us of Chaplin's youth and of the territorial origins of his art. Needless to say, thes e lie in the metrop olis of London. In his endl ess wa lks th rough the London streets, with their black-and-red houses, Chaplin trai ned himse lf to o bserve. He himself h a s t o l d us that the idea of creating his stock character-the fellow with the bowler h at, j erky wa l k , little tooth brush moustache , and walking stick-first occurred to him on seeing office workers w a l k i n g along the Strand . What he saw in their bea ring and dress was the attitu de of a person who takes some pride in himself. B u t the same c a n be s a id of the other c haracters that s u rro u n d him in h is fi l ms. They, too, originate i n London: t h e shy, y o u n g , winsome girl; the burly lout who is always ready to use h is fists and then to take to his heels when h e sees tha t peop l e aren't afraid of him; the a rrogant gentle man who can be recognized by his top ha t.
Soupault appends to this portrait a comparison between D ickens and Cha plin that is worth reading a nd exploring further. With his art, Chaplin confirms the old i nsight that only an imaginative world that is firmly grounded in a society, a nation, and a p lace will suc-
CHAPLIN IN RETROS P ECT
337
e v o k ing t h e g r e a t , u n i nterrup t e d , ye t high l y differentia ted reso nance that exists between nations. In Russi a , people wept w hen they sa w The Pilgrim; in Ge r man y, pe o ple are interested in the theoretical implications of his comedies; in England, they like his sense of humor. It is n o wonder tha t Chaplin himself is p uzzled and fascinated by these dif ferences. No thin g p o i n ts so unmistaka b ly to the fact th at the film will have immense significance as that it neither d id nor could occur to any one that there exists any j udge superior to the actual a udience. In his films, Ch a plin a p pea ls both to the most i n ter n a ti o n a l and the most revo l u tio n a ry emotion of the m as s e s : their l au ghter. " Adm it te d l y, " Soupault says, " Chaplin mereJ y makes p e o pl e laugh . But aside from the fact that this is the hardest thing to do, it is s o ci a l l y also most il11porta nt . " ceed in
Published i n Die literarische Welt, Feb ru ary
1929. Gesammelte Schriften,
IIl, 1 5 7-1 59.
Tra nslated by Rodney Livingstone.
N otes The London- born actor and director Ch a r l i e C h a p l i n ( C harles Spencer Chap l i n; :t 8 8 9-1 9 77) released The Circus in 1 92 8 . Ch a pli n came to the United States with a vaudeville act in 1 9 1 0 and made h i s motion picture debut there in 1 9 1 4, eventually achieving worldwide renown as a comedian. He sta r r e d in and directed such fil m s as The Kid ( 1 92 1 ) , City Lights ( 1 93 1 ), Modern Times ( 1 936), a nd The Great Dictator ( 1 940 ) . See a ls o Benj amin's " Chap lin" ( 1 929), in this volume. 2. P h il ipp e Soupa ult, " Ch a rl i e Ch a p l i n , " Europe: Revue MensLlelle, 1 8 (No 1.
vember 1 9 2 8 ) : 379-402 .
3. Fridtj of Nansen ( 1 8 6 1 - 1 9 3 0 ) a n d Roald Amundsen ( 1 8 72-1 928 ) were Nor weg ian explorers
of the polar reg io n s .
35 Mickey Mouse
c o nv e rs a ti o n witb Gu s t a v Gluc k and Kurt \Veill . I-P ro p e rty rela tions in Mickey Mouse cartoons: here we see for the first time that it is p o ss i bl e to have one's own a rm , even o ne 's own b o dy, stolen . The route taken by a file in an o ffice is more like that taken by M i c k ey lVlouse tha n tha t taken by a m a r a t h on runner. In these films, m ankind makes preparations to survive civilization. Mickey Mouse proves th a t a c r eatu re can still survive even wh e n it has thrown off all resemblance to a h u ma n b e i n g . He dis r up ts the e ntire hier arc hy of creatures that is s up p o s e d to culminate in mankind. These fi l ms disavow experience more r a dic a lly than ever befo re . In sLlch a world, i t is not w orthwhi l e to have experiences. S imilarity to fairy t a l e s . Not since fa i ry tales have the most i mpor ta nt and m o s t vital events been e v o ke d mo re unsym b ol ica l l y and more una tmosp herica l ly. There is a n immeas urable gulf b e twe e n them and M aeterlinck or Mary Wigma n.2 All M ickey M o us e fil ms a re founded on th e motif of l eav i ng home in o rd e r to lea rn what fea r is . 3 S o the expl a n a t i o n for the huge po pul ar i ty o f th e s e films i s n o t mecha nization, the i r form; nor is i t a misunderstanding. I t is si m ply the fact that the public recognizes its own life in them.
From a
Fragment written in 1 9 3 1 ; unpu blished in Benjamin's l i feti me. Gesammelte
1 44-145. Trans lated
by Rodney Livingstone.
338
Sch riftel1, VI,
MICKEY MOUSE
339
N otes 1. Gustav G luck ( 1 902- 1 973 ) , perh aps Ben j a min's cl osest friend d u ring the 1 9 30s, was d irector o f the foreign section of the Reichskred i tgesel l sc h a ft
( I m pe ria l
Cred i t Bank) in Berl i n
u n ti l
"J 9 3 8 . He was a ble to
ar
r a n g e the
transfer to Paris of the fees Benj amin received from his occa sional co ntribu
tions to G erman newspapers until 1 9 3 5 . In 1 93 8 G l uck emigra ted to Argen
a board me mb e r of the Dresdn e r Bank. The Kurt Weill ( 1 900-1 9 5 0 ) is bes t known for h is colla bora ti o n s with Be rtolt B re c h t includ ing Die D reigroschenoper (The Threepe nny Opera; 1 92 8 ) and Aufstieg lmd Faff der Stadt Mahagonny ( Ri e }l n d Fa l l o f the C i ty o f Ma h agonnYi 1 9 3 0 ) . 2 . M a u ri ce Maeterlinck ( 1 8 62-1 949), B elgi an writer a n d drama tist, w a one of th e l eadin g figures o f the Symbol ist move m e n t a t th e en d o f the n ineteenth century. The Germa n d a n cer and c h o reogra p h e r Mary Wigm a n ( 1 8 8 6ti n a ; a fter World War II, he was
German composer
,
Expressionist s tyl e of d ance. She and h e r compt lll y o ften or to percussion only; the i d e a wa5 tha t the shape of the da nce would emerge from the d a ncer's own rhythmic movement. 3. B e n ja m i n refers to ooe of the fairy tales c o llec te d by the Brothers Grimm, "The Bo y Wbo L e ft Home i n Order to Lea rn the Meaning o f Fear. 1 973 ) developed
an
performed in silence
n
36 The Formu la in Which the Dialectical Structure of Filn1 Finds Expression
The formula in which the dialectical structure of film-film considered in its technological dimension-finds expression runs as follows. Discontin- ' uous ima ges replace one another in a contin uous sequence. A theory of film woul d need to ta ke account of both these facts. First of all, with re gard to continuity, it cannot be overlooked that the assembly line, which plays such a fundamental role in the process of production, is in a sense represented by the filmstrip in the process of consumption. Both came into being at roughly the same time. The social significance of the one cannot be fully understood without that of the other. At aLI events, our und erstanding of this is in its i nfancy.-That is not quite the case with the other element, discontinuity. Concerning its significance we have at least o ne very important pointer. It is the fact that Chaplin's films have met with the greatest success of all , up to now. I The reason is quite evident. Chaplin's way of moving [Cestus] is not reaUy that of an actor. He could not have made a n impact on the stage. His unique s ignificance lies in the fact that, in his wo rk, the human being is integrated into the film image by way of his gestures-that is, his bodily and mental postu re . The inno vati o n of Chaplin's gestures is that he d issects the expressive movements of human beings into a series of minute innervations. Each single move ment he makes is composed of a succession of stacca to bits of movement. Whether it is his walk, the way he handles his cane, or the way he raises his hat-always the same j erky sequence of tiny move ments applies the law of the cinematic image sequence to human motorial functions. Now, what is it about this behavior that is distinctively comic?
3 40
T H E D I A L E CT I C A L S T R U CT U R E O F F I L M
in fall
Fragment
1935j unpublishc.d
1 040. Translatl:d by Edmnnd Jephcott.
341
tie.'S(m1lfrielte Schriftel1,
I,
N otes 1 . The London-born actor and director Charlie Cha plin ( Charles Spencer Cha p l i n ; 1 8 8 9- 1 977) came to th e United States with a vaudeville act in 1 9 1 0
and ma de his moti o n pictu re debut there i n 1 9 1 4 , eventually achievi ng
worldwide renown as
a
comedia n . He starred in and d i rected such fi lm s
as
The Kid ( 1 92"1 ), The Circus ( 1 92 8 ) , City Lights ( 1 93 1 ) , Modern Times
( 1 93 6 ) ,
a
n d The
Great D ictator ( 1 94 0 ) .
See Benjamin's sh or t pieces " Cha p
li n ll ( 1 929) and " Chaplin in Retrospect" ( 1 92 9 ) , in this volume.
T H E P U B LI S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D R A D I O
Benj amin's writings on j ournalism display a fi nely j u d ged balance. On the one hand, they express a clear-eyed skepticism regarding the ways in which capital influences the mass media-"it is virtually impossible, " ac cording to Benjamin, " to write a history of information separately from a history of the corruption of the press. H I On the other, they credit the newspaper with the potential for socia l change. Benj amin believed that the newspaper could be refunctioned as an organ of emancipatory com munication; yet he also saw that, like all modern mass media, it too often served as a panacea, p urveying " soothing little remedies" 2 that hid and ameliorated the dehumanizing effects of urban capitalism. A fragment from The Arcades Project is perhaps the best indica tion of Benj a min's fundamental position: "The ideologies of the rulers are by their nature more changeable than the ideas of the oppressed. For not only must they, like the ideas of the latter, a d apt each time to the situation of social con fl ict, b ut they must glorify that situation as fundamentally harmonious . " 3 If the newspaper conveys images of harmony and consola tion disguised as i n fo r m atio n, t hen the rea d er must be equipped ( as Benjamin maintains in his 1 929 essay on Surreal ism) , wit h a generous supply of pessimism. " Nlistrust in the fate of literature, mistrust in the fate of fr eedo m , mis tr ust in the fate of European humanity, but three times mistrust in all rec onciliation: between classes, between nations, between individuals. And unl imited trust only in IG Farben and the peaceful perfecting of the air force. " 4 Benjamin never theorized the mechanisms through which such skepti cism could be inculcated in the readers of the m odern newspaper. Instead,
343
344
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U S TRY A N D RA D I O
he evoked one towering fi g u re who could embody his scalding mistrust of the press: Karl Kraus . The Austrian j ou rn a l i s t and author Kraus pub lished his j ournal Die Fackel (The Firebrand ) almost single- handedly f r om 1 8 99 u ntil s ho r t l y before his death in 1 9 3 6 . His b i tt er "struggle against the empty phrase " took the form of satire : the jo u rn a l was relent less in i ts attacks on and parodies of t he mainstream press and the public figures Kraus deemed responsi ble for the evisceration of language . Not s urprisingly, Die Fackel was the object of libel litigation from its earliest issues. Benja min is ha r d ly content, though , si mp l y to repeat the frequent characterizations of Kraus as the satiri c a l scourge o f the Austrian p r es s Such was Benjamin's respect for the gra vity of the general problem of language as it was d e p l oy e d i n the press that he ascribed t o Kraus the sort of extraordinary status that alone mig h t transcend the contemporary s it uation: the status not of a n avenging a ng e l but of an obsessive, con sumed, and inhuman mo ns te r In h igh lig h tin g Kraus 's confession that he " shares the guilt, " Benj amin ranks Kraus alongside the great poet Charles Baudelaire-figures who embody an age not because they rise a bove it o r present i ts characteristic features in concentrated form but because, in l i fe, they were cap a b le o f allo wi n g the character of a histori cal moment to inscribe itself in their very flesh . Bertolt Brecht s a id it best about Kraus: " When the age laid hands upon itself, he was the h ands. l' s The p o r tr ait o f Kraus as the scourge of journalism is the culmi n ation of Benj amin's l i felong fascination with the problem of mortificat ion. Benj amin's Kraus is anything b ut a r efo rme r, anything but a savior. He is the principle o f the annihilation of j ournalistic language. Yet Benj amin's c r iti q u e o f the publishing industry is more than an ex tension of his theory of language; it had important political d imensions . From his earliest essays on the press, he focused on the problem of the ex clusion of large segments o f the p o p ulat io n not merely from the quite limited forms of authorship with in which their interests might fin d ex pression, but, more p erniciously, from the control of the apparatus itself. This dimension of Benj amin's t ho ught is often referred t o as Brechtian, in acknowledgment of Benj amin's sometime approach to the en ga ged poli tics advocated by his friend, the great d ramatist Bertolt Brecht ( 1 8 9 81 95 6 ) . 6 In a conversation with Brecht a bout Benj amin's essay "The Au thor as Producer" ( P a r t I a bove), Benjamin reiterated its central claim: " that a d ecisive criterion of a revolutionary fun ction of l iterature l ies i n the extent t o which technical advances lead to a transforma tion o f artis tic forms and hence of intellectual means o f p ro ducti o n Brecht counters Benj amin's position, with its empha sis on the p olitics of form, with a .
.
."
T H E PUBL I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RADIO
345
much more radical notion of how the apparatus of production might be m o d ifie d . " Brecht was w i l l ing to concede the validity of this thesis on ly for a s i ngl e typ e-name ly, the upper-mid d le-class wr i t er, a type h e th o u gh t included himself. 'Such a wr i ter, ' he said, ' ex per i enc e s solidar ity with th e interests of the proletariat at a s in g l e poin t: the issue of th e development of his means of pro d uct i on . But i f s o li d a r i ty exists at this single point, he is, as producer, totally p r o le t ar i anize d . This total pro letarianization at a s i ngl e point leads to a s o li da r i ty all a l ong the lin e . " 7 Brecht's emphasis o n the emergence of producers within a br o a d ap paratus of pr o du c tio n had important consequences fo r Benjamin. Much of his writing on th e newspaper focuses precisely on the pro b l e m of h ow to turn a reader-und erstood as a p assive r ec ei ve r of information-into a p r oduce r. One solution would en ta i l p r o v id i n g the working with ac cess to writing. As Benjamin says at the end of "The Newspaper" ( Chap ter 39 in this volume) ; Work itself has its turn t o speak. And its re p resenta tion i n words be co m es
a
p art of the ability that is needed for its exercise. Li terary c om
petence is no longer founded on specialized training but is now based on poly technical ed ucation, a nd thus b ecomes p u bl ic property. It
is,
in
a
word , the literarization of the cond itions of l iving that masters the other wise insoluble antinomies. And it is at the scene of the limitless debase ment of th e word-the newspaper, in short-that its salva tion is being p repared .
Part of B enj a m in 's critique involves the de m o c r a t iz a t io n of the pro cesses of l it e r a r y pro d uct i o n . In s ections of the paper such as the letters to the editor, control of writing is wr en ch e d from the grasp of a s pe cially trained e lite and p assed to the hands of a broad p ublic w ith a very d ifferent-but no l e ss important-training. Benj amin clearly hoped that this pro c ess mi gh t transform the newspaper from the inside o ut. The con cept of " literarization" he invokes, though, ma rks a s h i ft in the arg u m e n t toward even broader p oli t ica l im p l ic a tio ns . If p o l itical antinomies ( com peting clas s inte res ts , ra di ca lly u neq u a l access to c ap it a l, and so on) remain i nsol uble within " the conditions of living, " Benjamin places here and throughout his late work-enormous hope in the transformed processes of reading an d wri ting that he c a l ls " Iiterarization . " Texts themselves might p ro v id e s p ac es for th e prod uctiv e confrontation with i s s u es of class conflict, as t he newspaper becomes a pub lic forum. The t er m "poly technical, " h o wev e r, suggests a broader context, evoking as it does the " techn ical diagrams " mentioned i n " Attested Auditor of Books "
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TH E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RA D I O
( C h apter 1 2 a bove ) and thus the concept of script, as well as the notio n of " p oly technical training " toward a new form o f sp ecta to rship de
scribed in the a rtwork ess a y. 8 " Literariza tion " is thus a textu al condition i n which readers o f a U classes a r e exposed t o " fl ashes" o f i n s ig h t that might themselves make recogniza ble the otherwise hidden, fun da mental contradictions in the "conditions o f living. " And this recognition is the precondition for any form of social change. Thus, the dense passage quoted above suggests that the reading public might become more than passive receivers of in formation ( or rather ideology disguised a s i n formation) : it might prog ress to a state in which it b ecomes a p u blic of producers and readers of script�the graphic figure that may bear an ema ncipatory charge. Such a transformation, for Benj amin1 wo u ld constitute a revolution in the con trol of the apparatus of production.9 J u s t a s Benj amin's reflections on the news p a p er as
me d iu m were i n formed by his own extensive experience p u bli s hin g in lTIn s s-circulation venues su c h as the Frankfurter Zeitul1g, his theoretical texts on radio were i ntimately linked to his sizable ( though much less wel l-known) body of broadcast work. Like the newspaper, the new mediu m of radio seemed to hold out great promise for fundamental transforma ti ons in variolls do ma ins, with all sorts o f far-reaching sociopolitical ramifications. For ex ample, the very character of " th e popular, " Benj alnin argues ( i n the es say " Two Ty p e s o f Pop ularity, " below ) , u n derg o es a massive shift with the advent of radio . Whenever you consider broadcasting something o n the airwaves, the conditions o f such dissemination require that you fun damentally rethink the material in terms of a new kind of audience: "Thanks to the technol ogical possibility [r a d ioJ opened u p o f addressing u nlimited masses simultaneously, the practice of p o p ulari z i ng developed beyond the character of a wel l-intentioned p h il a nthro p ic intention a nd became a task with i ts own types of formal and generic laws . )' What would it mean to write for radio i n a manner adequate to these new con ditions ? Benjamin was inti mately fami liar with the d iffic u l ty posed by this challenge, not only as a theoretical but also as a practical matter. Nearly two yea rs a fter his radio deb ut on March 23) 1 927, with a program enti tled " Young Russ ian Poets., " Benj amin)s i n tensive engagement with ra dio is effectively announced by the a p pearance, in late August 1 929, of his « Con versa tion with Ernst SchoenH ( Chapter 43 bel o w) , a dialogue with the n ew director of Siidwestdeutscher Rundfunk (S outhwest German Ra-
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U S T R Y A N D R A D IO
347
dio ) on the possibilities and current state of pu blic broadcasting. 1 0 This text marks the first of a series of essays that Benjamin would write about the medium that had begun to provide of his most regular sources of income. I I In slightly more than three yea rs, beginning in the s ummer of 1 929, Benj amin created eighty-six programs for Radio Frankfurt under Schoen. These included read ings of his own essays and book reviews ( a pract ice popular among Weimar authors such as Tho mas Mann, Alfred Da blin, and many others ) , lectures on various topics ( i ncluding Brecht, Kafka, and Kracauer) , stories, d iscussion programs, a nd a l a rge num ber of broadcasts ( almost two-thirds o f his total radio outp ut) for the Jugendstunde, or Youth Hour. 12 Scholars have specula ted tha t Benj a min recorded more than sixty of these programs himse lf, b u t unfortunately not one of these traces of his " full, beautiful voice " ( as his colla borator the j ournalist Wol f Zucker once descri bed it) has s u rvived. 1.3 Given the extent of his involvement wi th the fledgling na tiona l broad cast medium-which did not exist in Germany until 1 923-it seems strange that Benjamin, who was famous for catal oguing everything he did (compil ing l ists of books h e llad read, essays written, and so o n ) , was almost comple tely silent about h is radio work. Indeed, the few refer ences to his broadcasts in his correspondence are almost a lway s disparag ing, dismissing as an annoyin g wage-earning obli gation what was i n fact-as evidenced b y the broadcast manuscripts a n d other documenta tion that have s urvived-quite a passionate engagement. To understand B enj a m in S seeming ambivalence concerning his involvement with radio, one must place his work in the context o f the nascent state of German ra dio in the later years of the Weimar Republic. '4 Founded for political rea sons as an exclu sively " cultural " ( which is to say explicitly nonpolitical ) entity, German Rundfunk was a very curious institution. Every sort of cultural organization, no matter how banal, was allotted its own regular broadcast slot; there was no live reportage ( except for the occasional sports broadcast); and all programs were sub j ect to meticulous and usu a l ly provincial censorship. Despite its potentia l, radio in the late Weimar Republic was, in short) not a medium that could readily lend itsel f to the kind of avant-garde experimentation and compelling actuality that was characteristic of other contemporary technical media, such as p hotogra p h y and film. This is the polemical context for the " Conversation with Ernst Schoen , " a n d e specially for the very risky insistence that quality progrmnming would be p ossi ble only a fter one a bandoned the model o f ra dio as a " huge p ublic educa tion enterprise" whose exclusive content was " Cul'
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T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N DUSTRY A N D RAD I O
as a means to ex
ture with a massive
plore daily life, to undertake the a na lysis of c urrent events-in short, to assume the challenge posed by being political . Radio, Benj a m in insisted, should take up the mantle from earlier p o liti c a l stage cabare ts , such as Le Chat Noir in Paris and D ie Elf Scharfrichter in M unich, but in a manner s pecific to the new medium. It was j us t this challenge that Hans Flesch effectively attempted t o translate i nt o rea l ity when he took over the d i rec tion of Radio Berlin, insti tuting a d epartment for c u rre nt events, broad casting important trials, parlia ment a ry debates, and local fare from new mo bile radio stu d ios, and producing the very first on-air p oli tical debates. While Benjamin's compa ratively modest innovations were not on the order o f such fundamental institutional interventions, his broad
casts-with titles l ike " Postage Stamp Scams/' " T lle Tenements, " "True S tories a bout Dogs," and " Visit to a Brass Factory, )) to take j us t a few examples-did push the boundaries of his ostensi bly l iterary rubric in
the d irection of what today we would c al l " cultural criticism. " He also coauthored with Wolf Zucker a new type o f nonliterary radio play called a Hormodell ( "l is tening mod el " ) which, unlike the traditional Horspiel ( " listening plai' ) , foc used on p ractic a l pro blems of contemporary life presented in a " casuistic" fashion . One of the first of these was " Gehaltserhohun g ? ! Wo denken Sie hin ? " (A Raise ? ! Where Did You Get That Idea ? ) , which explores techniq ues for negotiating an increase in pay and d oes s o by s taging two contrasting versions of the same s i tuation. In a typescript tha t refers to this l is tening mod el and two others-"Der Junge sagt einem kein wahres Wort " (The Boy Tells N othing But Lies) and " Kannst du mir bis Donnerstag a ushelfen ? " (Can You Help Me Out Ti ll Thursd a y ? )-and tha t may have served as a n introduction to the
broadcast by R ad i o Frankfurt of all three p ieces in 1 9 3 1-1 932, Benj amin expla ins their common s tructural logic as follows: The fun d a menta l purpose of these models is didactic. The focus of instruc tion consists in the confrontation of an exam ple and
a
coun ter-example .
In each of the liste n ing models, the speaker appea rs three times: at the
o utset he introd u ces the listeners to the su bject
will be explored, then
introduces to the audience the two dialogue pa rtners who appear in the first part of the Hormodell. This in iti a l section presents the counter-exam ple: this is not the way to do it. Following the condLlsion of the first part, the speaker returns and points out the mistakes that were made. He then in tro d uces the listeners to
a
new cha ntcter who wil l appear i n the second
and will demonstrate the right way to deal with the same situation. At
THE PUBLISHING
the end the speaker compares
and formulates
the
349
I N D U STRY A N D R A D I O
incorrect
me
thod
with the correct
one
model has m o re tha n fou r principle roles: ( 1 ) the speaker; ( 2 ) t h e model figure, w h o is the same in the first and the second parts; ( 3 ) the clu msy partner in t h e first p art; ( 4 ) th e smart partner in t h e second part. 1 5 a
conclusion. Thus, no listening
As is evident from the dialectical character of this genre experiment, Benja min understood radio as an important opportunity for the Brechdan refunctioning of an entire medium. The point was not simply to deliver material to the radio phonic apparatus in its current state, but to transform the apparatus itself by taking full advantage of opportuni ties that the new medium made possi ble but that were still largely llnex ploited or even unrecognized . However, unlike Brecht's call for radio to be converted from a one-way distribution technology into a two-way medium of commu nication (a utopian demand that Brecht himself ac knowledged was pragmatically impossibl e under current conditions ) , 1 6 Benja min'S interventions were focused o n making more attainable changes at the level of programming. The listening models attempted to do j ust tha t, provoking the l isteners in their refusa l to develop charac ter psychology, providing them with practical models with which to con front the very real problems of their current situation, a n d , on at least one occasion, giving them the opportuni ty to come to the studio and talk a bout the program ( and then broadcasting that discussion). When the rad io station would forward piles of ( mostly furious) listener mail, Benjamin's responses would invariably thank the letter writers for their interest and would agree with their objections, since, for Benj amin, a s his collaborator Zucker recalled, in the business of the listening model the customer was always right. This is precisely the " thorough refashion ing and reconstellation of t he material from the perspective of popular ity" which Benjamin saw (in " Two Types of PopularitYl " be low) as the salutary consequence of radio's mass listenership. As he goes on to say there, "What is a t sta ke here is a popularity that not only orients knowl edge toward the public sphere, but also simultaneously orients the p ublic sphere toward knowledge. In a word: the truly popu lar interest is a l ways active. " If German radio was slowly beginning to change, these incremental reforms did not survive the s hifting political climate of 1 932: almost overnight, the tentatively political character of the airwaves was el imi nated a ltogether. As a consequence, Benjamin's final radio broadcast tac ticall y adopted a rather traditi onal format-a reading of some excerpts
350
TH E PUBLISHING
I N D U STRY A N D R A D I O
from his Berlin Childhood around 1 900. It
a i red on J anuary 2 9 , 1 93 3 , G er man airwaves tr a n s mitt e d the very first n a ti o n wide l iv e b ro a dc ast , vio l ati n g every rule and censorship d ic t a t e of the medium-the Nazi torchlight p a ra d e celebrating the appointment of Hit ler as cha nce llor of G er m a ny. It is h a r d ly surprising tha t Be nj a m in 's la st co m m i s s io ne d r a di o p l ay) a "cross-section" through the work of the Enlightenment writer, astro n o me r, and phy sicis t Georg Chr i s to p h Lichtenberg ( 1 742-1 79 9 ) , h a d to b e c om p l e ted in Fe bruary 1 9 3 3 in exile on the Balearic Islands a nd was never broadcast. Set on the Moon) i n a lunar cr ate r a c tu a l l y n a m e d aft e r Lich te nb e rg , this ironic dias p o r ic a lle gory tells the tale of the meeting of the " Moon Co mmittee for Earth Re sear ch " which is studyi ng the human race, as e xe mpl i fied b y Li ch t e nb e rg . P erp l exe d by the fact that manki nd has amo u nted to so l i tt le , the c om mittee members review Lichtenberg's case and decide tha t his a chie v e ments do in fact merit r e c ogn i ti o n . As Ben j a min w ri t es i n a corrosive draft that makes c l e ar the political stakes of this int erp lan et ary pe rspec the d a y before the
tive : " The Mo on Comm ittee reca l ls the ap propriate manner o f celebrat
honored citizens of the Earth w h o indeed d epe n d on this, s o l on g as e arth itself is n o t yet at a stage where it is a ble to accord its subjects their civic r i gh ts . H 1 7 It i s against this b ac k gr o u n d that we must situate B enj a min's last text on radio, " On the Minute' ( Cha p t e r 4 5 ) -a r e t r osp ec t iv e meditation on h i s very first in-studio p erform ance, pu blished in the Frankfurter Zeitung on D e c em be r 6) 1 9 34, u n de r the pseudonym Detlef Holz. Bey o n d its as tute characterization of the medium-specific differences between a lecture delivered to an audience and one spoken over the r ad i o , "On the Min u te " d escribes the d ra m a tic consequences of his nervo us misreading of the studio clock. In light of B enjamin)s se r i o u s interest in new media in g e nera l, and h is r a t h er fr a u gh t engagement with the medium of radio in p a rticu la r, it is tempting to rea d this account as a n a l lego r y of his fai l ed attempt to transform-that is, p ol itici ze-th e medium. The essay co n cludes with a remark by a friend who heard the broadcas t and m istook Benjamin's p erfo r ma t ive fa i l u re ( a l o n g silence in th e course o f his deliv ery ) as m e re ly an a l l -t oo - fami lia r malfunction of the radio m e d i um : he a s s u me d tha t the s ilence was due s imp ly to a faulty receiver. But what is t his, if n o t a comment on how wha t is p e r ceive d as a tech no l ogic a l fa i l ure is in fact the result of human d e ficie n cy ? In other words, the failings of Weimar radio were not a ( mal-)fu nction of the technology, but a result o f an a ll-too-human failure to d eve lo p the medium's s u bstan tial p o t en ti a l . Thi s fact would als o e xp l a in Benjamin's curious silence ing
the
T H E P U B L I SH I N G I N D U STRY A N D R A D I O
a bout his large corpus of radio broadcasts. His reticence thus bespeaks not an ambivalence about the medium as such, but ra ther his enormous frustration at his inability-despite passiona te engagement-to trans form it into the empowering vehicle he knew it could be. TH O MA S Y. L E V I N AND M I C H A E L W. J ENN I N G S N otes 1 . Walter Benjamin, "The Pa r i s of the Sec on d Empire in Ba udelaire," in Selected Writings, Volume 4: 1 93 8-1 9 4 0 ( Cambridge,
Harvard University
Press, 2003 ) , p. 1 3 . 2 . Ibid . , p . 2 1 . Benjamin often
u sed Bertolt Brecht's
term umfunk tionieren ( " to
re functi o n " ), which means to wrest a tool , an idea,
a
phrase from its original
context and, while retaining its " use value," to i nvest it with
a
new, usual ly
p o l iti c a l capacity.
3 . B en j am in,
The
Arcades
Project,
trans .
Ho wa r d
Eiland
and
Kevin
McLaughlin (Cambrid ge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1 999), p . 3 64, Convolute 177, l .
4. Benjamin, " S u rreal ism, " i n Selected Writings, Volume 2: 1 92 7-1 93 4 (Cam brid ge, Mass . : Harva rd University Press, 1 999), pp. 2 1 6-2 1 7. I G Fa r b e n
( the acronym for Inte ressen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, or " Syndi cate of Dyestuff C orporations " ) was a cong l om erate of German companies,
founded in the wake of World
I, which expanded fr om its initia l con
centration o n p a i n ts a n d d yes to b ec om e the do minant chemical indus try. It
was infamous for its manufacture o f the poison gas Zyklon B, u sed in G er man concentration camps d ur ing the National Socia list regime. 5. Benj amin, "Karl Kraus, " Chapter 40 in this volume.
6 . The d i rect, engaged, " Brechtian" element of Benjamin's thought beca me, in the course of the 1 930s, a s ou rce o f tension between Benj amin and his Frankfurt School c o ll e a g u e s Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. For
an account of these tensions, see Ernst Bloch, The od or Adorno, Walter
Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht, et a l ., A esthetics and Politics, ed. Rona ld Tayl 01; a fterword by Fredric Jameson (London: New Left Books, 1 9 7 7 ) . 7. Benjamin, " No te s from Svend borg, S ummer 1 9 3 4 , " Selected Writings, vo l . 2, p. 7 8 3 . 8 . See th e introd uctions t o Parts I and I I in this volume .
9 . O n the p ro bl em of " recogniza bility," s e e especiaUy Co nvo lu te N o f The A r cades Project, and the essay
" On the Concept
of History" in Selected Writ
ings, vol. 4.
10. Ernst Schoen ( 1 8 94-1 9 6 0 )-the successo r to H an s Flesch, the p io n e e r i ng first dir ec tor of th e Radio Frankfurt station, who ha d left to run the Funk-Stunde AG (Radio Hour Ltd . ) in Berlin-was one of the very few friends B e nj a mi n
352
1 1.
TH E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D R A D I O
had kept from h i s schooldays. They re ma i ne d close despite Schoen's affair with Ben j a m i n's w i fe ) Dora, i n the early 1 9 20s. Bes ides " Re flections on Rad i o " ( C ha pt e r 41 b e l ow ) , "Theater and Radio " ( Cha pte r 42 b e l ow ) , "Two Ty pes of Pop u la ri t y " ( C h a p ter 44 below) , a nd " On the Minute" ( Chap ter 45 bel ow) , Benjamin's writings on radio include the fragmentary sketch "Situation im Rundfunk" an d a n e xch a nge of letter s between Benjamin an d Sc h o e n i n Apr i l 1 93 0 dea li n g with bro a dca s t m a t ter s. See Gesammelte Sch riftell, II, 1 49 7ff. (April 4 and A pr i l 10, 1 9 3 0 ) .
1 2 . Sabine Schillcr-Lerg's pathbrcn king 1 9 8 4 study Wa lte r Benjamin und der Rtmdfunk : Programmarbeit zwisch en Th e o rie u nd Praxis ( Mu nich : Saur,
remains t he definitive resource on the radiophonic dim ension of see also her essay "Wa l te r Benj amin, Radio J o u rna li s t : T h eory and Practice of We i m a r Radi o , " Journal of Communication Inqu iry, 1 3 ( 1 9 8 9 ) : 43-5 0 . To t he extent that t he y have s urvived, Benjamin's texts for r a dio are co l lec ted in Gesammelte Schrifte n, VII, 6 8-2 94. Examples of Ben j a mi n 's radio broadcasts in tra n sl a tio n include " Chil dren's Li te r a t u r e " ( 1 9 2 9 ) , " An Outsider Ma k e s His M a rk" ( 1 9 3 0 ) , " Bert B rec h t" ( 1 93 1 ) , " Unp ackin g My L i bra ry " ( 1 93 1 ) , "Franz Kafka: Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer" ( 1 93 1 ) , "The Lisbon Earthquake" ( 1 93 1 ) , and " The Ra ilway Disa s ter at the Fi rth of Tay" ( 1 9 3 2 ) , in S e lected Writings, voL 2, pp . 25 0-25 6 , 3 05-3 1 1 , 3 65-3 7 1 , 4 8 6-4 9 3 , 494-5 00, 5 3 6-5 40, 5 63-5 6 8 . S e e a l s o Jeffrey M e h l m an, Walter Benjamin for Children : An Essay on His Radio Years ( C hicago: Un iv ersity o f Ch ic a g o Press, 1 9 93 ) . 1 3 . Late i n his Hfe, Z uc ker pub lished a n acc o unt of his r a dio collaborations w ith B enj a min: Wol fgang M. Zu c k e r, "So en tsta nden die Hormodelle, " D ie Zeit, 1 984)
Benj a m in's corpus;
47 (November 24, 1 9 72 ) , Literary S u ppl ement, p. 7. 14.
O n th e history of Weimar ra d i o , see Winfried B . Lerg, Rundfunkpolitik in der We im arer RelJUblik, vo l . 1 of Hans Bausc h , ed . , Rundfunk in D eutschland
(Munich: Deu tscher Taschen buch Verlag , 1 9 8 0 ) . For a d is cussi o n of e a rly German ra dio in i ts contemporary cul tura l context, see C h ri s top h e r H a il ey,
" Ret h i n k i ng Sound: M usic and Radi o in Wei ma r Germany," in Bryan
Gi lliam, cd., Music and Performance during the Weimar Repub lic (Ca m bridge: C a m bridg e Universi ty Press, 1 9 94 ) , pp. 1 3-3 6 . 1 5 . Benjamin, "Ho rm odelle, " Gesammelte Schrifte1f, IV, 62 8 . 1 6 . For Brecht's position o n radio, see his 1 93 2 text " Th e Ra d i o a s a n Appara tus of Commu nication," in Anton Kaes e t aI., eds . , The Weimar Repub lic Sourcebook (Be rkeley : University of C al i fo rnia Press, 1 9 94 ) , pp. 6 1 5-6 1 6. 1 7 . C om mi ss i oned by Ra dio B e r lin, which paid Ben j a min for the piece even t h o u g h it never a ired , " Lichten berg: Ein Qucrschnitt" ( Lich ten berg: A Cross-Section) grew o u t of a vast bibliography of Lichten b erg's writings which Ben j a min h a d been working on si nc e 1 9 3 1 for th e l awyer and Lichte n be rg collector Martin Domke ( 1 892- 1 9 8 0), whom he had known fro m h i s schoolda y s . See G esa mm elte Sch riften, IV, 69 6-720 ; and VII, 8 3 7845.
37 J ournalisnl
Alongside all the s olemnity that frames Lindbergh's flight across the At lantic, we may allow ourselves the ara besque of a j oke-the amusing pendant to the regrettable frivolity with which the Paris evening papers prematurely announced the triumph of Nunge s ser and Co li . 1 The same papers are now expose d for the second time. Th ey owe this to an idea conceived by a studen t at the Ecole Norm ale-a n idea that Karl Kraus might envy.2 As is well known, this Ecole Norma le is the celebrated French s tate school that e v er y year admits only an elite group of appl i cants, after the sti ffest entrance examinations. On the afternoon of the first day Charles Lindbergh spent in Paris, someone telephoned all the newspaper ed i tors with the news tha t the Ecole Normale had resolved to declare the aviator «a former student. " And all the papers p rin ted the a n nouncement. Among the medieval Scholastics, there wa s a school that described God 's omnipotence by s aying: He co uld a lter eve n the past, un ma ke what had really happened, and make real what h ad never hap pened . As we can see, in the case of enl i gh tened newspaper editors , God is not needed for thi s task ; a b u rea ucrat is a ll that is re qu ired . Published in Die literarische Welt, June 1 927. Gesammelte Schl'iftell, IV, 454. Translated by Rodney Livingstone.
Notes 1. O n May 2 1 , 1 92 7 , the America n aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh ( 1 9 021 9 74) l anded in Paris, winning the
owner
Raymond O rteig for the first
prize of $25 ,000 offered by the h otel nonstop between New York and
353
354
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U S T RY A N D R A D I O
Paris. Less th a n two weeks before Lind bergh's a rrival, th e French a vt a tors Charles Nungesser ( 1 8 92-1 927) and Franc;ois C o l i ( 1 8 8 1-1 927) d is a p peared o ve r the North Atl antic during t h ei r a t tempt to win the prize. 2. Benja min refers to the Austria n s a tirist and critic Karl Kraus ( 1 874- 1 9 3 6 ) . See Benj a min's " Karl Kraus" ( 1 93 1 » in this volume.
38 A Critique of the Publishing Industry
Writers are among the most backward sectors of the population when it comes to exploiting their own social experience. They regard one another simply as colleagues; their readiness to form j udgmen ts and protect their own i n terests is, as in all peop le concerned with status, far promp ter to ward those benea th them than towa rd those higher up. The y do some times manage to obtain
a
go od deal from a p u blisher. But for the most
part they are un a ble to gi ve an acco unt of the soci al function of their writing, and it follows tha t in the ir dea lings with publishers they are no better a ble to reflect on th eir function to any effect. There are un doubt edly publishers who take
a
naive view of their own activities and who
genu inely believe tha t their only moral task is to d i stinguish between good books and bad, and that the ir only commercia l task is to distin� guish books that will sell from those that will not. In general, however, a publisher has an incomparably clearer idea of the circles to whom he is selling than writers have of the aud ience fo r whom they write . This is why they are no ma tch for him and a re in no position to control h i m. And who else sho uld do tha t? Certa inl y not the rea ding public; the activi ties of pu blis hers fa ll outside their field of vision. This leaves the retailer as the onl y co u rt of appeal. It is superfluous to re mark how probleluatic retailers' control must be, if only beca use it is irre sponsible and secret. What is ca lled for is o bvious . Tha t i t canno t happen overnight, and th at it can never be fully implemented in the capitalist economic system, should not p revent us from stating it. As a prerequisite fo r everything else, wha t is indispensa ble is
a
statistical su rvey of the capita l a t work in
the p ublishing world. From this platform, the investiga tion should pro-
355
356
THE PU BLI S H I N G I N DUSTRY AND RADI O
ceed in two direc tions . On the one hand, a s a fo l l o w u p to the question: -
What is the source o f these capital sums ? In other words, how muc h cap ital h a s migra ted into pu blish ing from the banking, textile, coal, steel, and printing industries ? On the o ther hand, what d oes pu blishing cap ital supply to the book market? It wo uld be but a short step from there to combine these questions and investigate whether, when cap i tal flows into publ ishing, it is d i rected at specific customer strata and trends that corre spond, say, to coal and steel , as opposed to textiles . But the sta tistical fo undatio ns of this third area are too difficult to ob tain for there to be any prospects of undertaking such a p roject soon. In contrast, the more unreliable opi nion surveys of the p u blic and of books ellers could easily be s upp lemented by informa tion gathered at in tervals from the pub lish ers the mselves about the sales figures in differe nt markets for the ir main products. S ince pu blishers already inform ns a b out the s ize of editions, this should not prove to be s uch a peri lolls step , or so one might think . Of the very greatest interest, furt hermore, would b e statistical information a b o ut the relation between the size of an edition and advertising costs ; li kewise, a statistical picture o f the relation between commerci al success (sales figures ) a nd literary success (critical recep tion in the press ) . Las t, and the most difficult of all: the percentages of successful bo oks and fail ures among a ll the titles issued annu ally by ind ividual pub lishers and by the German book trade as a whol e . The o b j ection that s uch methods would lead t o thinking that co mmer cial s uccess is the only criterion relevant to books is as obvious as it is false. Of co urse, there are valuable bo oks that fail to sell, and tha t a go od pu blisher will neverthel ess wish to sell not only a s a ma tter of honor but on p u blishing princip les . (In the same way, confectioners will put sugar icing castles and candy towers in their shop windows without any inten tio n of selli ng them . ) But of cours e the analysis we are calling for, and whic h has the additi onal benefit of being the most reliable method o f making u s e o f books t o inquire i n t o t h e spiritual currents of the nation, also has the particular merit of elimina ting the most common-and most erroneous-view o f publishing in vogue at presen t . According to this view, a publishing house is a com bi ned operation, consisting of organized patronage on the one hand and a lottery on the ot her, in which every new boo k is a number a nd the reading public acts as banker. From the play ers ' (in other words, the pu blishers') winnings, a part is used to b et on numbers that look splendid and s ignificant but that scarcely figure in the roulette of the reading public . In shoft, this is the abstract view of p u b lishing: on the one hand, the publis her as
a
broker between individual
A C R I T I O U E O F TH E P U B L IS H I N G I N D U S T R Y
357
manuscripts; on the other, " the " reading pu blic. But this view is fa lse th rough and through, because the publisher is not in a position to form an opinion in a vacuum about either the ide al val u e or the co mmer ci al value of
a
book. In t he fin a l a nalysis, a publi sher has to have
a
clo se
relationship with sp ecific literary fields-within which he does no t need to fol low any particular line-beca use this is the only way for him to maintain contact with his read ing pub lic, without which his business is do omed to failure. O bvi ous though this is, it is no less striking that in Germany, which possesses a number of physiognomically clearly defined pu blishing ho uses-lnseI, Reclam, S. Fischer, Bec k, a nd Rowohlt-n o at tempt has eve r been mad e to undertake a sociological study, let alone a critique of these insti tu tions. Yet this would be the only way to measure the gulf that divides our great publishi ng houses from th ose dilettantish private operations that disappear every year by the dozen, only to be re placed by similar firms th at open up in their wake. Moreo ver, it would be hard to resist the observation that even the straightforward commercial satisfacti on of demand wou ld be, if not exactly l a uda ble, at a ny rate far more resp ecta b le than a pretentious i dealism that floods the market with meaningless books, tying up capital in them that could be much better in vested fo r nonliterary purp oses . Only experience will enable us to discover the benefits of an annu al critical survey o f German pu blishing po licy. Such a critique, in which literary standards would ha ve to take a back s e at to soci ological ones which, themselves, would be only one aspect-would lay bare the antinomy b e tween what might be called constructive and organic pu b lishing poli cies . A p u blisher may construct his operations so as to encom pass and esta blish certain sectors. But he can also l et his business d evelop organi cally out of loyal ty to particular authors or schools. These two ap proaches cannot always go ha nd in hand. This very fa ct ought to lead a publisher to make a definite business plan and approach writers with spe cific projects. Not th at such an approach is entirely unknown. But in an age in which both economic prod uction and intellectu al production have been rationa lized, it should become the norm. One reaso n there is no sign of it at present lies in the general underestimatio n of the role of pu blish ers' referees . The time when ercise
a
a
Julius Elias or a Moritz Heimann could ex
decisive influ ence on a publisher appears to be over. ' But p u b lish
ers are making a great mista ke w hen they treat their referees merely as gatekeepers or else as n a ysayers , instead of as experts in publishing pol icy who are intelligent enough to sol icit usable manuscripts rather th an merely
through useless on es . And for the ir pa rt, the editors are
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U ST R Y A N D R A D I O
358
wrong to set their own idealism a gainst publishers' m a teri al i sm instead of t reating ideas in such a way that the publisher will be tied to them for the sake of his material interests. It may lend additional weight to these brief p roposals if publishers come to see tha t the leaders among them will benefit more in terms of both honor and profit from a sound criticism of the ir activities than from a case-by-case opinion of their products or their sense of fair play. ,
Published in the Uteraturblatt der Fmnhftlrter Zeitung, November Schriften, 11,
769-772. Translated by Rodney Livingstone .
1 930.
Gesflmmelte
N otes 1. J nlills Elias ( 1 8 6 1 - 1 9 27) , German historian of art and literature, was a cham pion of Impressionism and the editor of Ibsen's collected works. Moritz Heimann ( 1 8 6 8-1925), senior editor at Fischer Verlag, furthered the ca reers of such a uthors as Gerhart Ha nptmann, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann.
39 The Newspaper
In our writing, opposites that in happier ages ferti lized one another have become insoluble antinomies. ) Thus, science and belles lettres, criticism and l iterary prod uction, culture and politics, fall apart in disorder and lose all connection with one another. The scene of this litera ry confusion is the newspape ri its content, "subj ect matter" that denies itself any other form of organization than that imposed on it by the reader's i mpatience. For impatience is the state o f mind of the newspaper rea der. And this im patience is not just that of the politician expecting information, or of the speculator looking for a stock tip; behind it smolders the impatience of people who are excluded and who think they have the right to see their own interests expressed . The fact that nothing binds the reader more tightly to his paper than this all-consuming impatience, his longing for d aily nourishment, has long been exp loited by publishers, who are con questions, opin stantly inaugurating n ew columns to address the ions, and p rotests. Hand i n hand, therefore, with the indiscriminate as simila tion of facts goes the equally indiscriminate assimilation of readers, who are instantly elevated to collaborators. Here, however, a dialectical moment lies concealed: the decline of writing in this press turns out to be the formula for its restoration in a different one. For since writing gains in breadth what it loses in depth, the conventional distinction between author and p ublic that the press has mainta ined ( although it is tending to loosen it thro ugh routine ) is disappearing in a socially desirable way. The reader is at all times ready to become a writer-that is, a describer or eve n a prescriber. As an expert-not p erhaps in a discipline, but perhaps i n a post that he holds-he gains access to authorship. Work itself has its
359
360
T H E P U B LI S H I N G I N D USTRY A N D RA D I O
turn to speak. And its representation in words becomes a part of the abil ity tha t is needed for its exercise . Literary competence is no longer founded on specialized training but is now based on poly technical educa tion, and thus becomes public property. It is, in a word, the literarization of the conditions of living that masters the o therwise insoluble antinomies . And it is at the scene of the limitless debasement of the word-the newspaper, in short-that its salvation is being prepared. P ublished in
Del' (jffentliche Dienst (Zurich),
Ma rch 1934. Gesammelte
629. Tra nslated by Rodney Livingstone. A portion of this essay A u tor als Produz(�ru" {Ap ril 1934). Jephcott (New York, 1978),
was
A previolls
was
Schriften, 11, 6 2 8-
incorporated into " D e r
translation of that portion, done b y
Edmund
consulted.
Notes 1. The following passage is a mod ificati on of similar id eas expressed in " D ia ry from August 7, 193 1, to the Day of My D eath " ( 1 93 1 ) , in Ben j amin, Se lected Writings, Vo lume 2 : 1 92 7-1 93 4
sity Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , pp. 5 0 1-5 0 6 .
( Cambridge, Mass . :
Benjamin a lso
Auth or as Producer" (19 3 4 ) , in this volume.
Harvard Univer
cites from th is essay in " The
40 Karl Kraus
Dedicated to Gustav Glii c k1
1 . Cos m i c Man [AJlmensch]
How noisy everything grows. -K RAUS, Words in Verse, II
In o l d engravings, there is a messenger who rushes toward us crying aloud, his ha ir on end, brandishing a sheet of p aper in his hands-a sheet ful l of war and pest i lence , of cries of murder and pain, of danger from fire and flood-spre a ding everywhere the Latest News. "News " in this sense, in the sense that the wor d has in Shakespe a re, is d is sem i n a t ed by D ie Packel [The Torch] .2 Full of betr ayal , earthquakes, poison, a n d fire from the mundus intelligibilis. The h atre d with which it p urs ues the tribe of journalists that swarms into infi nity is not only a m or a l hatred but a vital one, such as is hurled by an ancesto r u p on a race of degenerate an d dwarfish rascals that has sprung from his seed. The very term " public opinion " outrages Kraus. Opinions are a pr iv ate matter. The public has an i n te res t only in judgments . Either it is a j udging public , or it is n one . But it is prec i sely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make th e p ublic incapable of j udging , to in s i nua te i nto it the attitude of someone irresponsible , un in formed . Indeed , what is even the most pre cise information in the daily new sp apers in comparison to the hair-rais ing meticulousness observed by D ie Fackel in the p resentation of legal , 361
362
TH E PUBLI S H I N G I N D USTRY AND RAD I O
linguist ic, and political facts ? D ie Fackel need not trouble itself about public opinion, for the blood-steeped novelties of this " news pape r " de mand a passing of j lldgme nt. And on nothing more impetuously, ur gentl y, than on t h e p ress itself. A hatred such as that which Kraus has heaped on journalists can never be founded simply on what they do-however o bnoxi o us this may be; th i s hatred must h a v e its reason in their very being, whether it be anti thetical or akin to his own. In fact , it is both. His mo s t recent portrai t, in i ts very first sentence, characterizes the j o urn alis t as "a person who has litt le i nterest either in himself and his own existence, or in the mere exis tence of things , but who feels things only in their re l a tionships , a bove aJ l where these meet in events-and only in this moment become united, substantial, and alive. " What we have in this sentence is n othing other than the ne g a ti ve o f an image of Kraus. Indee d , who c o u l d have shown a more burning interest in himse l f and his own existence than the writer who is n e v er finished with this subject? Who, a more attentive concern for the mere existence of th ings, their origin ? Whom does that coinci de l1C e of the event w ith the date, the witne s s , or the camera cast into d e eper despair than him? In the end , he brought toget he r all his e n ergie s in the struggle against the empty p hras e, which is the linguistic expres s ion of the desp o ti sm with which, in j ourna lism, topic a l i ty sets up its do minion over things . This side of h is struggle against the press is illumin ated most v i v idly by the life's work of h is comrade-in-arms, Adolf Loos. Loos found his providential adversaries in the arts-and-crafts mongers and architects who, in the ambit of the "Vienna Workshops," were stri v in g to give birth to a new art industry) He sent out his rallying cry in numerous essays p articularly, in its en d u ring formulation, in the article " Ornamentation an d Crime, " which appeared i n 1 9 08 in the Frankfurter Zeitung. The lightnin g fl a s h ignited by this essay described a curiously zigzag course. " O n read i n g the words with which Goethe censures the way the philistine) and thus many an art connoisseur, run thei r fingers over en gravings and reliefs, the revela tion came to him that what may be touched c annot be a work of art} and that a work of art must be out o f reach. " I t was therefore Loos's first concern t o separate t h e work of art from the article o f use, as it was that of Kraus to keep apart i n for m a tion and the work of art. The hack journalist is, in his heart, at o ne with the ornamentalist. Kraus did not tire of denouncing Heine as an or namentaiist, as one who blurred the boundary between j ou rnal i sm and literature , as the creator of the feuilleton in poet r y and prose; indeed, he
363
KA R L K R A U S
later placed even Nietzsc he beside Heine as the betrayer of the aphorism to the i mpress ion . H It is my opinion , " he says of the fonner, " that to the mixture of elements . . . in the decomposing European style of the last half century, he added psychology, and that the new level of language he created is the level of essayism, as Heine's was that of fe uilletonism. " Both forms appear as symptoms of the chronic sickness of which all atti tud es and standpoints merely mark the temperature curve: ina uthen ticity. It is fro111 the unmasking of the in au thentic that this ba ttle against the press arose. '''Who was it that brought into the wor l d this great excuse: (I can do what I am nof ? " The empty phras e . It, however, i s an a bortion of tec hnology. "The newspaper indus try, like a fac tory, demands sepa rate areas for working and selling. At certa in times of day-twice, three ti mes in the bigger newspapers-a particular q uantity of work has to have been procured and prepared for the m achine . And not from j ust a ny m a teria l : every thing that has happened in the meantime, a nywhere, in any region of life-politics , economics, art, and so O ll-must by now have been reached and j ourna listically processed . " Or, as Kraus so splendi dly sums it up: "It ought to throw light
on
the way in which technology, while u n
able to coin new platitudes , leaves the spirit of mankind in the sta te of be ing una ble to do without the old one s . In this duality of
a
changed life
dragging on in unc hanged forms, the world's il ls grow and prosper. " In these words, Kra us d e ftly ti ed the knot binding technology to the empty phrase. True, its u ntying would have to fol low a different p a ttern, j our na lism being clearly seen as the expression of the ch anged function of language in the world of h i gh capitalism. The empty phrase of the kind so relentlessly purs ued b y Kraus is the la bel that ma kes a thought m ar
keta ble, the way flowery l angu age, as ornament, g ives a thou ght value for the conno isseur. But for this very reason the liberation of l a nguage has b ecome identical wi th t hat of the empty phrase-its transformation from reprod uction to productive i nstru ment. Die Fackel itself contains models o f this, even if not the theory: its formulas are the kind that tie up, never the kind t l1at unti e . The intertwining of b iblical m a gniloquence with stiff-neckcd fixation on the indecencies of Viennese li fe-this is its way of approa ching phenomen a . It is not content to call on the world as witness to the mis demeanors of a cashier; it must summon the dead from their graves .-Rightly so. For the shab by, obtrusive abundance of these scandals in Vicnnese coffeehouses, the press, and s ociety is only a minor manifestation of a foreknowledge that then, more swiftly than anyone could perce ive , suddenly a rrived at i ts true and original s ubject: two
T H E P U B LI S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RA D I O
364
months after the outbreak of war, Kraus c a l le d this s u bj ect by its name in
h i s speech "In These Great Times/' with which all the demons that in the herd of sw ine who were his contemporaries.
habited this possessed man passed i n to
In
grea t times, which I knew when they were small, which wil l aga in
be small
if they stW h a ve
time, and which, because i n the field of organic
growth such transforma tions a re not poss ible, we prefer to a d d ress as fa t times and tru l y also as ha rd times; in these times, when precisely what happening c o uld not he imagi ned, and when what must longer b e
imagined,
happen
is
can n o
and if i t cou l d i t would n o t happen; i n these grave
times that have l aughed themselves to death at the p ossi biU ty of growing serious and, overtaken by their own tragedy, long fo r distraction and then, c a tching themselves in the act, seek words ; in these loud times , booming with the fearful symp hony of deeds that engender rep orts, and of reports that bear the b lame for d eeds; in these u nspeaka ble times, you can expect no word of my own from me . None excep t this, which j ust preserves si lence from misinterpretation. Too deeply a m I awed by the una l terability of l anguage, the s u bordin ation of language to misfortune. In the empires bereft of imaginati on, where man is dying of spiritual starva tion though feeling no spiritual hunger, where pens are dipped in blood and swords in ink, that which is not tho ught must be done, b ut that which i s only thought is inexpressible. Expec t from me no word of my own . Nor should
I be capable of saying anything new; for in the room w here someone writes, the noise is great, and whether it comes from a n imals, from chil dren, or merely from m ortars shall not be decided now. He who addresses deeds violates both word and deed and is twice despica ble. This profession is not exti nct. Those who now have noth i ng to sa y bec ause it is the turn of d eeds to speak, ta l k on. Let him who has so mething to say step forward and be silent!
Ev e rythi ng Kraus wro te is l i ke th a t :
a
s i l e n c e turned inside o ut , a si
l e n c e that catches the storm of events in i ts b l a c k fo l d s a nd billows, its liv id lin i ng turned outwar d . Notwithstanding th e i r abundance, each o f
th e instances o f this silence seems t o have b ro ken upon i t w ith the s u d denness of a gust of wind. Imme d i a te ly, a pr e c ise apparatus of control is brought i nto play: thr ough a meshing of oral and written forms, the po lemical p os si b i li t i e s of every situ atio n are tot a l l y exhausted. With what from the barbed wire of edito� p re c au t io ns this is su r r o u n d e d can be rial pronouncelnents that e nc ircl e s each edition of Die Packet as from
KA R L KRAUS
365
the razor- s lla rp definitions and
pr ovi s o s in the programs and lectures ac companying his re a d i ngs from his own work . The tr i nit y of s il en c e , k nowledge , and a lertness constitutes the figure of Kraus the polemicist. His silence i s
a dam before which the re fle c t i n g basin o f his k n ow l ed ge is constantly deepened. His alertness p erm i ts no one to ask i t questions, forever unwilling to conform to princi ple s o ffered to it. Its first prin ci p le is, rathel; to dismantle the s ituation, to discover the true question the sit ua t i o n poses, and to present this in p la c e of any o t h e r to his opponents . If in Johann Peter Hebe l we find , de veloped to the utmost, the constructive, creative side of tact, in Kraus we see its most destruc tive a n d cri t ic al fa c e .4 B u t for both , tact is moral a le rt nes s-S t a ssJ calls it " conviction re fined into d ia lect i c s "-a nd th e expre ss io n of an u nkno wn convention more important than the a c k nowle dged one.S Kraus lived in a world in which the most shamefu l act was still the faux pas; he di s tinguis h es be tween degrees of the m ons tro us , and does so p r e c i s e ly because his c rite rion is never that of bo urgeois respectability, which, once above the threshold of trivial m i s demeanor, becomes so q u i c kly s hort of bre a th tha t it can form no c o n ce pt i o n of v i ll a iny on a wor l d - hi s to rical scale. Kra us knew this c r iteri o n from the first; moreover, t h e re is no o ther criterion for true tact. It is a the ologic al criterion . For tact is not-as nar row minds imagine i t-t h e gift of a ll otti ng to each , o n c o n sidera ti o n o f all rel at ionsh ips , w h a t is so ci ally b efitti ng . On th e contrary, tact is t h e ca p aci t y to treat so c i a l rela ti on s h ips , th ough no t d e pa r ting from t hem, as natu ra l , e ve n p a r ad i s al , relations hi ps , and so not o n ly to ap pr o ach the king as if h e had b een born with th e crown on hi s brow, but the l a ckey like a n Ada m in l i ve r y. H e b el po ss e ss e d this noblesse in his priestly bear ing; Kraus, in a rmo r. His concept of creation contains the the olo gica l in h eri tan ce of spe c ula ti ons th at l as t poss es s ed contemporary validity for the whole of Eu r op e in the seventeenth c entury. A t t h e t heologi ca l core of this concept, however, a transfo rmation has taken place that has caused it, quite without constraint, to coincide with the cosmopolitan credo of Austrian w orld l i n ess , which made creation into a c hurch in which noth ing remained to re c a l l the rite except an o ccasional whiff o f i nc ens e in the mists . Stifter gave t h i s creed its mos t a uthentic stamp, and his echo is heard wherever Kraus concerns himself with a nimals, pl a n ts , c h i l d r en. S tifte r w r it e s : The sti rring of the air, the rippling of water, the growing of corn, the toss
ing of the sea, the verdu re of the earth, the shining of the sky, the twinkling
366
T H E P U B LI S H I N G I N D UST RY A N D RAD I O
the s urf, the mou n ta ins spewi ng fi re, t h e e a rthquake laying wa ste t o cOll n tries, I do n o r hold greater than the former phe nomena; in d eed I be l ie v e them smal ler, be cause th e y are only effects of far hig he r laws . . . When m an w as in his in fa n cy his spiritua l eye not ye t touched by science, he was s eized by wha t o f t h e stars, I l i ghtn i n g
flash
h old
great. The
thunderstorm
a pproaching in s p l en d o r,
tha r c leaves houses, the s t orm d riving th e ,
.
,
wa s close at ha nd a nd obtrusive, a nd was moved to fear and a dmi ration; but whe n
his mind
was opened, when his gaze began to be directed at t h e
connections between th i n gs, pa r ticular p h eno m ena sank from s igh t a n d t h e l a w rose a s in
nature
even
higher, mira cles cea sed,
and
wonder increased .
.
. Just .
the genera l laws act s i l e n tl y a nd incessantly, a nd co nspicuous
acts the i n fin ite intercourse of human be ings, a nd the miracles of th e m o ment w h en dee d s a re performed are merely sma l l signs of this genera l powe r. 6
events
afe
o n l y sing le ma nifes tations of these laws, s o the moral law
s i lently, a nima ting the soul thro u gh
Tacitly, in these famous sentences, the holy has given place to the modest yet questionable concept of law. But this nature of Stifter's and moral universe are transparent enough to escape any confusion with Kant, and to be still recognizable in their core as creation. This insolently secular ized thunder and lightning, storms, surf, and earthquakes-cosmic man has won them back for creation by making them its world-historical an swer to the criminal existence of men. Only the spa n between Creation and the Last J udgment here no redemptive fulfillment, let alone a historical overcoming. For as the landscape of Austria fills unb roken the captivating expanse of Stifter's prose, so for him, Kraus, the terrible years of bis life are not history b ut na ture, a river condemned to meander tbrough a landscape of helL It i s a landscape in which every day fifty thousand trees are felled for sixty newspapers. Kraus imparted this i nfor the title "The End . " For the fact that mankind is l osing the mation fight against the creatllrely is to him j ust as certain as the fact that tech nology, o nce deployed against creation, will not stop short of its master, either. His defeatism is of a supranational-that is, planetary-kind, and history for him is merely the wilderness dividing his race from creation, w hose last act is world conflagration. As a deserter to the camp of animal creation-so he measures o ut this wilderness. "And only the animal that is conquered by humanity is the hero of Efe H ; never was Adalbert Stifter's patriarchal credo given so gloomy and herald ic a formulation. It is in the name of the creature tha t Kraus again and again inclines to-
KARL KRAUS
367
ward the animal and toward " the heart of all hea rts, that of the dog, " for him c reatio n's tru e mirror of virtue, in which fideli tY, p u rity, gratitude smile from times lost and remote . How lamentable that people usurp its place! These are his followers. More n umerously and eagerly than about their master, they throng with unlovely s niffings about the mortally wounded opponent. Indeed, it is n o accident that the dog is the emblem atic beast of this a uthor: the dog, the epitome o f the follower, who is nothing e xcept devoted creature. And the more p ersonal and unfounded this devotion, the be tter. Kra us is right to put it to the ha rdest test. But if anything makes plain what is infinitely questiona ble in these creatures, it is that they are recruited so lely from those whom Kra us himself first called intellectually to life, whom he conceived a nd convinced in one and the same act. His testimony can determine only those for whom it can never become generative. It is entirely logical that the imp overishe d, reduced human being of our day, the contemporary, ca n seek sanctuary i n the temple of living things only in tha t most withered form: the form of a private individua l. How much renunciation and how much irony lie in the curious struggle for the " nerves "-the last root fibers of the Viennese to which Kraus could still find Mother Earth clinging. "Kraus," writes Ro bert Scheu, " d iscovered a great s u bj ect that had never before set in motion the pen of a j ournalist: the rights of the nerves . He found that they were j us t as wor thy an object of impassioned defense as were property, house and home, political party, and constitution. He became the a dvocate o f the nerves and took up the fight against petty, everyd ay imitations; but the s u bj ect grew under his hands, became the p ro blem of private life. To defend this against pol ice, p ress, morality, and concepts, and ultimately against neigh bors in every form, constantly finding new enemies, became his pro fess ion . " Here, if anywhere, is ma nifest the strange interplay between re actionary theo ry and revolutiona ry p ractice that we find everywhere in Kraus. Indeed, to secure p rivate life against morality and co ncepts in a s ociety that perpetr ates the political radioscopy of sexua lity and family, of economic and physical existence, in a s ociety that is in the process of building h ouses with glass walls, and terraces extending far into the liv i ng rooms that a re no longer living rooms-s uch a watchword would be the most reactionary of all, were not the private life that Kraus made it his business to defend precisely that which, unlike the bourgeois form, is in strict accordance with this social upheaval; in other words, the p rivate life that is dismantling itself, openly shaping itself, that of the poo r, from
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T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RAD I O
whose ranks came Peter Al ten berg , the agitator, and Ado l f Loos. In this figh t-an d on ly in this fig h t-h is followers also
ha ve their uses, s i n ce it is
they who most sublimely ignore the anonymity with which the sa tirist has trie d to surround his private
e xistence , a n d nothi ng holds them in in p erson before his threshol d and
check except Kraus's decision to step
homage to the ruins in which he is a " private individual. " d eci si vely as he ma kes his own e x ist en ce a public iss u e when the fight d emand s it, he has always j us t as ruthlessly opposed the d is tinc tio n between personal and obj e ctiv e criticism-a disti ncti on which has been used to d iscredi t polemics, and which is a chief instrum ent of c orru p t i on i n our lite r a r y and p o li tica l a ffairs. That Kraus a ttacks people less for what th ey are than for what t he y do , more for what th ey say than for what they write, and leas t of all for th ei r books, is the precondition of his polemical authol'ity, w h i ch is able to lift the intellectual univ e rse of a n a u thor-all the more surely the more wo r t h le s s it is, with confidence in a trul y prestabilized, r ec onci l ing harmony-w ho le and i ntact from a single fragme n t o f sente nce, a s i n gl e word , a single intonation. But the coinci dence of personal and o bjective elements, not only in h is opponents b u t a bove a l l i n himself, is best demonstrated by the fact that he never puts forward an o pinion. For op i ni o n is false s u b j ectiv i ty that ca n be sepa rated fro m the person and i n corporate d in the circ u lation of commodi ties . Kraus has never o ffered an argument that did not e ngage his whole person. Thus , he embodies the secret of authority: never to disappoint. Authori ty has no other e nd than this: it dies or it d i s appoi n ts . It is n o t in the least u ndermined by what others must avo id: its own despotism, in j ustice, inconsistency. On the contrary, it wo uld b e disa pp ointi n g to o b s erve how it arrived at its p ro nou ncements-by fairness, for example, or even self-consistency. �'For a man, " Kraus once s a i d , " being right is n ot an e rotic matter, and he g la d ly p r e fers o thers' being right to h i s being wrong . " To prove his manhood in this way is d enied to Kraus; h i s exis tence demands that at most the self-righteousness o f others i s opposed to his wrongness, and how righ t he then is to cling to this. " Ma n y will be right one d ay. But it w i ll be a r i ghtn es s r esu l ting fro m my wrongness to d ay. " Th is is the l ang u a ge of true autho r ity . [nsigh t into its operations can reveal only one thing: tha t i t is bi n d i n g, mercilessly bin d i n g , toward itself in the same d e gree as tow a rd o thers; that it d oes not tire of trem bling before itself, tho u gh never before others; that it never does enough to sat isfy itself, to fu l fill i ts resp o nsibi l i ty toward itself; and that thi s s ense of responsi b i lity never a ll ow s him to accept a rguments derived from his private co n stituti o n or even from the limi ts of human ca p a ci ty, but alpay
As
KARL KRAUS
369
ways only from the matte r at hand, h owever u nj ust it m a y be from a p ri vate p o i n t o f view. The characteristic of such u nlimited a u th o rity has fo r all time been the union of legislative and executive power. But it was never a more intimate union than in the theory of langu age . This is therefore the most decisive
expression o f Kraus's authority. Incognito like Haroun al Rashid, he passes by night among the sentence constructions of the j o urnals, and, from behind the petrified fac;ades of phrases, h e peers into
the interior,
d iscover i ng in the orgies o f " b lack m agic " th e v iolation, the martyrd om, of words: Is the press a messenger? No: it is the not on ly claims that the true events are its news of events, but it also b r i ngs
about a sinister identi fication that constantly creates the illusion tha t deeds
are r e p o r ted before they a re carried out, and frequently also the possibility of a s i t u a ti o n (which in a ny case exists) tha t w hen wa r correspondents are not a llowed to witnes s events, sold iers become re p or ters I therefore wel .
c ome the charge th a t
all
press. It is not a
my life I h av e overestimated
servant-How cou l d a servant dema nd a n d receive
so
mnch?
It is the
event. O nc e aga i n the i nstrument has r u n aw ay with us. We have place d the person who is supposed to r e p ort outbre aks of fire, a n d who o ught
doubtless to play t he
mos t
su bordinate
world , over fi re and over the
role in the State, in power over the
over fact and over our fantasy.
Authority and word a gainst corruption and magic-thus a re the catch a p rognosi s No Kraus least of all, can leave the utopia of a n " o bj ective H newspaper,
words distributed in this struggle. It is not idle to offe r one,
.
the chimera o f an " impartial transmission of news , " to its own device s . T h e newsp aper is an i nstrument o f power. I t can d erive its v a l u e only from the character of the power i t serves; no t only
in what it represents, but also in what it does, it is t h e express i on of this power. When , how
ever,
c apitalism defiles not only the e nds but also the mea ns of j our
nalism, then a new b l ossoming of paradis al, c osmic humanity c an no more be exp ected of
a
power that d efea ts it tha n a second blo o mi ng of
the language of Goethe or Cl audius .7 Fro m the o ne
now prevailing, it will
d istinguish itself first o f a ll by putting out of circ u lation ideals that de base the former. This is enough to give a m e asure of how l ittle Kraus would have to wi n o r lose in such a s truggle, of how unerringly Die
Packel would illumin a te i t. To the ever-repeated sensations with which
eternally fresh " news " o f eternally renewed, uninterrupted l ame nt
the dai l y press serves its public, he opposes the t h e h is tory of creation: the
.
370
T H E P U B L I S H I NG I N DU STRY A N D RAD I O
2 . Demon
Have I sl ept ? I
-K RA U S ,
am
j ust fa lling as leep.
Words in Verse, IV
It is de ep J y ro oted in Kraus's n ature, and the s tigma of every d e bate co n c ern i n g h im, that all apologetic miss th eir m a rk . The great work of Leopold Liegler springs from a n ap o l o g e ti c posture. To c e r tify Kraus as an " ethical p e rs o n a li ty " is his fi rst o bjective. This cannot b e d o n e . The dark b ac kgr oun d from which Kraus's image detaches itself i s n o t formed b y his contemporaries, b u t is the p r i me va l world [ Vorwelt] , or the world of the d em o n . T he l ight o f the day of Creation falls o n
from this darkness . B u t n o t i n a l l parts; others re mai n that are more d ee pl y immersed i n it than one suspects . An eye that cannot adjust to th is darkness will neve r perceive the o u tl i ne of th is fig ure . On it will be waste d a l l the ges ture s that Kraus tire lessly makes i n his u nc o n qu e ra bl e need t o b e p e rcei ved . For, as in th e fa iry ta le, the demon in Kraus has made vanity the exp ression of his being. The d e m on 's s o l i t u d e , too, is felt by him who ge s tic u late s w ildl y on the hi d den hill: "Thank God n obo d y knows my n a me is R um p e l s ti lts kin . " J u s t as this dancing demon is n e v e r s ti l l , in Kra us eccentric r e fl ectio n i s in con tinuous uproar. "The patient of his gifts," Berthold Viertel called him. In fact, his capacities are m a l a dies ; a nd over and a bove the real ones, his vanity makes him a h yp ochond r i a c . If he d oes not see his reflection in hims e lf, he s ees it in th e adversary at his feet. His po l em i cs have been, from the firs t , the most i ntimate inter mi ngling o f a te chni q ue of u n m a s k i ng that wo rks with the most a d vanced means, and a self-expressive a rt th a t wo rks wi th the most archaic. But in this zone, too, am bigu i ty, the demon, is man i fe s t : self-expression and u n m as k i n g merge in it as self-unmasking. Kraus has said, "An ti-Sem itism is the m e n ta l ity that offers up a nd means se r i o u s l y a te n th of the j ibes th a t the stock-exchange wit holds r ea dy for his own blood " ; he thereby indicates the nature of the r el ati o n s h i p of nis own opponents t o h imself. There is no r e pr o a ch to him, n o vil ification of his person) that c o u l d not find its m os t l e giti m at e formulation in his own w r i t ing s , in th ose p a ssa ge s where self-reflection is ra ised to self-admira tion. He will pay to get himself talked a b ou t, a nd is a lw a y s by the in the success of these s p ec u la ti on s . If style is the p ower to move him-thus h e e merges
KA R L KRA U S
371
w i th o u t fa ll i ng into b an a l ity, it is a ttained c hiefly b y the ca r d iac s trength of great thoughts, which drives
l engt h and breadth of linguistic thi nki n g
the blood of language th rough the c a pi l l a ries of syntax into the remotest l imbs. While such tho u ghts are quite unmistakable i n Kraus, the power ful heart of his style is n e ve rth el e ss the image he bears of himself in his own breast and ex pose s in t h e most merciless ma nner. Yes, he is vain. As s uch he has been portrayed by Ka rin M ich a el is , who d es cr ibes how he c rosse s a room with swift, restless bounds to reach the lecture podium. And i f h e then offers a sacrifice to h is vanity, he would not be the demon th at he is were it n ot fi nal l y himself, h i s life and his s uffering, that he ex poses wi th all its wounds, all its na k edness. In this way his style c o m e s into be ing, and with it the typical reader of D ie FackeL, for whom in a s u b o rd i n a te clause, in a particle, indeed in a comma, fibers and nerves quiver; from the obscurest and driest fact, a p ie ce of his mutilated flesh ha ngs. Idiosyncrasy as the highest critical organ-this is th e hidden lo gi c of that self-reflection and the hellish state known only to a writer for whom every act o f g r a tifi c a t i o n becomes at the same time a stati on of his martyrdom, a state experienced, apart from Kraus, by no one as de e pl y
as by Kierkegaard. " I a 111 , ') Kraus has sai d, " p e rh a p s the first instance of a writer who si multaneously wri te s and experiences his writing t h eat r ica ll y. " T hus he shows his vanity its most le git im a te p la ce : in mime. His mimetic genills� imitating while it g l o sses , pu l ling faces in the m idst of polemics, is fes tively u nl e a she d in the re ad i n g s of dramas whose authors, with good rea son, occu py a peculiarly intermediate p o s ition : Shakes peare and Nestroy, d rama tis ts a n d a c to rs ; Offenbach, composer a nd c on d l l ct o r. s It is as if the demon in the man sough t the tumultuous a t mosphere of these dramas, shot through with a ll the lightning flashes of improvisation, because it a lo n e offered h i m the thousand opportunities to bre a k out, teasing, tor menting, th reatening . In t h e m his own voice tries out the abundance of personae i nh a b it i ng the performer ( "persona " : th at th ro ug h which sound passes) , a nd a bollt his fingertips dart the gestures o f the fig ures populat ing his voice. But in h is polemics, too, mimesis p l ays a d e c i s i v e role. He imitates his subjects in o r d er to insert the crowba r of his hate into the finest j o i nts of their posture. Thi s qui bbler, p r o b i ng between syllables, digs out the larvae that nest there in c l u mp s . The larvae o f v e na l i ty and garrulity, i g n o m i ny a n d b o n homie, childis hness and co ve t o u sn ess , g lut tony and dishonesty. Indeed, the exposure of inauthen ticity-more d i f ficult than that of th e merely bad-is h ere performed behavioristically. The quotations in D ie Fackel are more than do c umen ta ry proo f: they are
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T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RAD I O
the props with which the quoter unmasks himself m i m et i c ally. Admit tedly, what e m e r ges in just this connection is how c l os el y t h e c rue l t y of th e satirist is linked to the a m b i g u o u s mo d e s t y of the inter preter, whi c h in his public rea dings is h e i g h tene d b e yo n d co m preh e ns io n . " To c r e e p " -this is t he t er m used, not wit hout cause, for the lowest ki n d o f fla ttery ; and Kraus creeps into those h e i m p e rs o n a te s , i n o r d e r t o a nnihi late them. Has courtesy here bec o me the m imicry of h ate, hate the mim icry of courtesy ? However that may be, both have atta ined p er fectio n, a bsolute pitch. "Torment, " o f which the re is so m u ch tal k in Kraus in such o p a q ue a ll u s ion s , h ere has its seat. His protests a gain s t l e tte rs , p r inte d matter, documents are nothing b u t the defensive reaction of a m an who is But what i m p li c a te s him s o d e eply is m o re than deeds a nd misdeeds; it is t h e l a ngua ge of h is fellow men. His passion for imitating t he m is at the same time the expression of and struggle against this i mpl i c a ti o n , and a ls o the cause and the res ul t of that ever-watchful guilty conscience in which a lone the demon is in his e l e me n t. The economy of his errors and weaknesses-more a fantastic e dific e than t h e to t a l it y of his g ift s-i s so d el ic a tel y a n d pre c i s ely organized that all o ut w a rd confirmation only disrupts it. Well it may, if this man is to be cer tifie d as the " pattern of a h a rm o n i o usly and p e rfe ctl y formed human typ e , " i f he is to appear-in a t er m as a b s ur d s tyl isti c al ly as semanti c al l y-a s a p hi l a n t h r op i s t , so that a ny o ne l i s te n i ng to h is " hardness " with " the ears o f the soul " would find the reason for i t i n co mp a ss i o n . No ! This i nco r ru p ti b le , piercing, resolute ass urance d oes not spring from the no ble poetic or humane d i spo si t i on that h is followers are so fo n d o f a t t r i buti ng to h i m . How utter ly banal, a nd a t the s a me time how funda mentally wrong, is their d erivation o f his hatred from love, when it is ob vio u s how m uch more elemental a r e the forces here a t work: a humanity that is o nl y an alternation of malice and sophistry, s o p hist ry and malice, a nature tha t is the h i gh es t school of aversion to mankind and a pity th a t i s al i ve o n l y when interlaced with vengeance. " Oh, h a d [ only been left the ch oice / to carve the d o g or the b u tc h e r, / I should h a v e c h o s e n . " Noth i ng is more perverse than to try t o fashion him a fter the image o f w h a t he loves . R i g h tl y, Kraus the " timeless world-disturber " h a s been confron ted with the " eternal world-improver, " on whom benign glances n o t infrequently fall. " W h en the age laid hands upon itself, he was the h a n ds , " Brecht sa i d . Few ins i ghts can stand beside t h i s , and c e r t a i n l y not the co mm en t of his friend Ado lf L o o s. " Kraus, " h e declares, " s tands on the thresh o l d of a
KARL KRAUS
373
new age . " Alas, by no means .-For he stands on the thresho ld of the Last Judgment. Just as, in the most opu lent examples o f Baroque altar paint ing, saints hard-pressed against the frame extend d efensive ha nd s toward the breathtakingly foreshortened extrem ities of the angels, the blessed , and t h e d amned floating before them, so the whole of world history presses in on Kraus in the extremities of a s ingle item of local news, a sin gle p hrase, a single advertisement. This is the inheritance that h as come down to him from the sermons of Abraham a Sancta Cl ara . Thence the overwhelming i mmediacy, the rea d y wit, of the wholly uncontemplative moment; and the inversion th a t a llows his will only theoretical, his knowledge only practical, expression. Kraus is no historic type. He does not stand on the threshold of a n ew age. If he ever turns his b ack on cre a tion, if he breaks off in lamenta tion, it is only to file a complaint at the Last Judgment. Nothing is understood a bout this man until it has been percei ved that, of necessity and without exception, everything-language and fact falls, for him, within the sphere of j ustice. AJI his fire�eating, sword-swal lowing philology in the newspapers pursues j ustice j us t as much as lan guage. It is to misunderstand his theory of language to see it as other than a contri bution to the l inguistic rules of co urt, the word of someone else i n his mo uth a s other tha n a corl)us delicti, and h is own a s other than a j udging word . Kraus knows no system. Each thought has its own ce l l . B u t each cell can i n a n instant, and ap parently almost without cause, be come a chamber, a legal chamber over which la nguage presides. It has said of Kraus that he h as to "suppress the Jewish ness in himself, " even that he "travels the road from Jewishness to freedom " ; n othing better refutes this tha n the fact that, for him, too, j us tice and language re main founded in each other. To worshi p the image of d iv ine justice in lan guage-even in the German language-this is the genuinely Jewish saIto mortale by whic h he tries to break the spell of the demon. For this is the last o fficial act of this zealot: to place the legal system itself under accusa tion. And not in a petty-bourgeois revolt against the enslavement of the " free individual " by " dead formulas. " S tiJ] less in the posture of those rad icals who storm the legal code wi thout ever for a moment having taken tho ught of j u stice. Kraus accuses the l aw in its substance, not in its effect. His charge: high treason of the l aw against j ustice. More exactly, betrayal of the word by the concept, which derives its existence from the word: the premeditated murder of imagina tion, which of the a bsence of a single letter and for which, in his "Elegy on the Death of a Sound," he has sung the most moving lament. For over jurisdiction, " I IT n r�""" 'l 'trl n,CT
374
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RAD I O
stands orthography, right-spelling, a n d woe to the former if the latter should be wanting. Here, too, therefore, he confronts the press; indeed, in this charmed circle he holds his rendezvous with the lemures. He has seen through law as have few others . If he nevertheless invokes it, he does so precisely because own demon is drawn so powerfully by the a byss it represents. By the a byss tha t, not without reason, he finds most gapi ng where and sexuality meet-in the trial for sexual of fenses-and has sounded in these famous words : " A t rial for sexual of fenses is the deliberate development from an ind ividual immorality to a general immorality, a gainst which dark background the proven guilt of the accused s ta nds out luminously. " Mind and sexuality move in this sphere with a solidarity whose law is amb iguity. The o bsession of d emonic sexuality is the ego that, sur rounded by sweet femin ine mirages " such as the bitter earth d oes not harbor, " enjoys itsel f. And no different is the loveless and self-gratifying trope of the o bsessed m ind: the j oke. Neither reaches its obj ect: the ego does not a ttain women any more than the j oke attains words. Decompo sition has taken the place of procreation; stridency, tha t of secrecy. Now, however, they shimmer in the most winsome nuances: in repartee, lust comes into its own ; a nd in onanism) the j oke. Kraus portrayed himself as hopelessly su bj uga ted to the d emon; in the pandemonium of the age, he reserved for himself the most melancholy place in the icy wilderness lit by reflected flames. There he stands on the Last Day of Humankind9-the "grumbler " who has descri bed the preceding d ays. "I have taken the tragedy) which disintegrates into scenes of disintegrating humanity, on myself, so that it might be heard by the spirit who takes pity on the vic tims, even though he may have renounced for all time his connection with a h uman ear. May he receive the keynote of this age, the echo of my bloodstained madness, through which I share the guilt for these noises. May he accept it as redemptionr' " I share the guilt . . . " Because this has the ring of the m anifestos to even if they are finally self-accusations-of an intelligentsia call to mind the memory of a n epoch that seemed to be turning away in which pri from it, there is something to be said a bout this guilt vate and historical consciousness so vividly meet. This guilt will a lways lead to Exp ressionism, from which his mature work was nourished by roots tha t cracked open their soil. The slogans are well known-with what scorn did not Kraus himself them: geballt, gestuftJ gesteilt [clenched, stepped, s teeped]; stage sets, sentences, paintings were COITI posed.-Unmistakable-and the Expressionists themselves proclaim it-
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375
is the in fluence of early m e d i ev a l miniatures on th e world of their imagi na tion . But anyone who examines their figures-for exmnple, in the Vi enna Genesis lO-is struck by s O lne t h in g very mysterious, not only in their w i d e - o p e n eyes, not only in th e unfathomable fol ds of their g a rm e n ts , but also in their whole expression. As if fa lli ng sickness had overtaken they lean toward them thus, in the i r running which is always one a n o the r. "Inclination " may be s e en , before all e ls e, as the d eep hu man a ffe c t trem ul o u s l y pervad ing the w o rl d of these minia tu res , as it does the mani festos of that g en er a t i o n of poe ts . B u t o n ly one, as i t were i nward ly curved, aspect of t h i s relation is revealed by th e front of these figures. The same p henomenon appears quite d i fferent to someone who looks at their backs. These backs are pile d-i n the saints of the a do r a tions, in the s e r v a nt s of the Gethsemane scene, in the witnesses of the en trance i nt o J e r us a l e m-i n to terraces of human necks and human shoul d er s that, really clenched in steep steps, lead less towa rd heaven than downward to a nd ev e n under the eart h . It is imp ossi b l e to find , fo r t he ir p a thos, an expression that ignores the fact tha t they coul d be c l imbed l i k e h e a p ed rocks or r o u gh - h ewn s te ps . Wh a te v e r powe rs m a y h a v e fo ug h t o u t the i r s p i ri t ua l battles on these should ers, one of them, fr om our expe rience of the c o n d iti o n of the defeated masses i m m ed i a te l y a fter the end of th e war, we are able to call by its name. Wha t fi nally remained of Ex pressionism, in w hi ch an o r igi na lly human i mp u l s e was converted almost without residue i n to a fashion, was the experience an d the name of tha t n a mele s s power toward which the backs of people bent: gu i l t . " That obe dient masses are led into danger not by a n unknown will b ut by a n un known guilt makes t he m pitia ble, " K r a us wrote as e a r l y as 1 9 1 2 . As a "grumbler" he p artic ip a te s in th e ir lot in order to denou nce them, a nd den ounces them in order to participate. To meet them th ro ugh sacrifice, he o ne day threw himself into the arms of the Catholic ch u rc h . In those biting min u e t s that Kr a u s whistled to the chasse-croise of Ju stitia and Venus, th e leitmoti f-that the p hi l is t in e k n ows n o th in g of love-is articulated with a sh a rp n ess and persistence that h a ve a c o u n te r part only in the c orre spo nd i n g attitude of decaden cey in the p r oc l a rn a ti o n of a r t for art's sake. For it w a s prec i s el y art for art's sake, which for the decadent movement applies to love as well, that linked expertise as c l o s ely a s p ossi b l e to craftsmans hip , to t ec hn i q u e , a nd allowed poetry to shine at its br i ghte s t o nly against the foil of hack w riting, as it m a d e love stand out against pe r v ersi o n . "Penury can tu rn every ma n int o a j o u r n a l ist, but not every woman into a p ros ti t ute. " In th i s formulation Kraus be trayed the false bottom of hi s polemic a gainst j ournalism. It is much less
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the philanthropist, the e nlighte n e d friend of man a n d nature, who un leashed this implaca ble struggle than the lite ra r y expert, artis te, i ndeed the dandy, w h o s e a ncestor is Baudelaire. Only Baudelaire h ate d , as Kraus did, the satiety of he al thy common sense, a n d the c o mp ro mi s e that i n te l lectua ls made with it in o r de r to find s h elte r in j o u rnal ism. Journalism is b e tra y al of the li tera r y life, of mind , of the demon. Idl e chatter is its true substance, and every fe u il le t o n poses a new th e inso luble question of the re l a ti o ns h ip between the forces of s t u pi d i ty a ncl malice, whose expression is goss ip . It is, fu nd a me n t a l ly, on the c o mp l ete agreement of two forms of existence-life under the aegis of mere mind, and life u nder the a e g i s of mere s e xua l i ty-th a t the s o l i d ar i ty of the man o f letters with the w h o re is fo u nd e d , a s o l i d a ri ty to which Baudelaire's e xi ste nc e is once again t h e most inviola b le testimony. So Kraus can call b y their name the laws of his own craft, i n t ertwined with those of sexuality, as he d i d in Die Chinesische Mauer [The Great Wal l of Ch i n a] . Man " has wrestled a thousand times with the other, who p erhaps does not li v e but vic tory over him is certain. N o t be c a u s e h e h a s s up e ri or qua liti e s but be cause he is the other, the latecomer, who b r ings woman the j oy of v a ri ety and w ho will triumph as t h e last in the sequence . But they wipe it from he r b row like a bad dream, and want to be the first. " Now, if l a ng uag e this we read between t h e lines-is a woman, how far t he a uthor is r e moved, by a n u nerring i nsti n ct, from t ho s e who hasten to be the first wi th her; how llluitifa riously he forms h is th ought , thus inciting her with i nt u ition rather than s l a k i n g her with k n o w l e dg e ; how he lets h a tr e d , contempt, malice ensnare one a n o the r ; how he slows his step a n d seeks the d eto u r of followers hip, in o rd er finally to end her j oy in v a rie ty with the l ast thrust th at Jac k h o lds in r e a di ne ss for Lulu! II The life o f l ette rs is existence u n de r the of mere mindj as prostiTh e delnon, howthe a e g i s of mere tu tion is ever, who leads th e whore to the street exiles the man of letters to the courtroom. This is th e r efo re , for Kraus, the forum that it has always b e en for the great j o ur na l is t-fo r a Ca rr e l , a Pa ul -L o u i s Couriel; a Lassalle. Evasion of th e genu ine a n d demonic function of me re mind, to b e a d i s turber o f the peace; a bstention from attacking th e whore from b e h i n d Kraus sees this double om ission as defining the j oul'na l ist.-Robert Scheu r i ghtly pe r c e iv ed that for Kraus p ros t i tu t i o n was a n a tu r a l form, not a so cial deforma tion , of female s e x u a l i ty. Yet it is o nl y the i nte rl a c i ng of sex ual w ith c omm e rc i al i ntercou rse that constitutes the c h a r a c te r of prosti t u t i o n . It is a n a tu r a l phe n o me n o n as mu c h in te r ms of its n atur a l economic aspect (since it is a manifestation of c omm o d i t y e xc h a nge ) as in
KARL K RAUS
377
terms of its natural s e xu ality. " Contempt for p r osti tut i on ? / Harlots worse th an thieves ? / Learn this: not o n l y is l ove paid, / but payment, too, wins love ! " This am b i guity-this d ouble nature as twofold natural ness-makes prostitution demonic. But Kraus " enlists with the power of natu re . " That the sociological realm never becomes transparent to him no more in his attack on the press tha n in his defense of prostitution-is connected with this attachment to nature. That fo r him the fit state of man appears not a s the destiny and fulfillment of nature l i b e rated th ro ugh re vo l utio na ry chang e , but as an element of nature per se, of an archaic nature without history, in its pr is t i n e , p rim ev al state, throws un certain, d isquie t i ng reflections even on h i s ideas of freedom and human ity. They are not removed fr om the realm of guilt tha t Krans ha s tra versed fro m pole to pole : from mi n d to sexuality. But in the face of this re ali ty, to which K raus e xpo s e d h imself more harrowingly than any other, the " pure mind " that his followers worship in the master's activity is revea led as a worthless chimera . For this re as o n , none of the motives fo r his d ev elop me nt is more important tha n the con stant curbing and checking of mi n d . Nachts [By Nig htJ is the title he gives to the logbook of this control. For night is th e mechanism b y which mere mind is converted into mere sexuality, mer e sexuality into m e re mind , and where these two a bstractions hostile to li fe find re st i n recog n izi n g each other. "I work day a n d night. So I ha ve a lot of free time. In ord e r to a s k a pic tu r e in the rool11 how it likes work; in order to ask the clock whether it is tired a n d th e n ight how it has slept. " Th e s e questions are sacri ficia l gifts th a t he throws to the d e m o n while working. His night, however, is n ot a m a t e rn a l ni ght, or a moonlit, romantic night: it is th e hour between sleeping and wa k ing , the night watch, the centerpiece of his threefold solitude: that of the coffeehouse, w h e r e he is a lone with h is enemy; of the n octu r n a l room, where he is a lon e with h is demon; of the lecture hall, where he is alone with his work.
3. Monster [Unmensch]
Already the
snow
falls.
-K RAU S , Words in Verse, III
Satire is tlle on l y l eg iti ma t e form of regio n al art. This, however, was not what p e o ple meant by c a l l ing K r a u s a Viennese satirist. Ra th e r, they were
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attempting to shunt him for a s long as p ossi b l e o nto this siding, where his work cou l d be assim ilated into the great store of lite r a ry consumer goods. The presentation o f Kra us as a satirist can thus yield the d eepest insight both into what he is and into his most melancholy carica tures . For t h i s reason, he was at p ains fro m the first to distinguish the genu ine satirist from the scribblers who make a trade o f mockery and who , in their invectives, have l ittl e more i n mind than giving the p ublic somethin g t o laugh a b o u t . I n co ntrast, the great type of the satirist never had fi rmer ground under his feet t h a n am i d a generation a b o u t to mount tanks and put on gas masks, a m a nkind tha t has r u n out of tears b ut not o f lau ghter. In him civilization pre pares to survive, if i t must, and communicates with him in the tru e mystery of satire, w h ic h consists i n the devouring of the adversary. The s a ti ri st is the figure in whom the c anni b a l was received into c i vil iza t io n. His re co l l e c t io n of his origin is not without filial piety, so that the pr op osa l to eat peo ple has become an essential constituent of his inspi ration, from Jonathan Swift's pe rti nent pr o j ect co n c e r ni n g the use of the ch il dre n of the less we alth y classes, to Leon Bloy's suggestion that l a n d l o rds of insol vent lodgers be conceded a right to the s a le of the lo dge rs' flesh. In such directives, great sa tirists have taken the measure of the h uman it y o f their fellow men . " Hu ma nity, c ulture, and freed o m are p recious thi ngs that cannot b e b o ug ht dearly eno ugh with b lood, under stan ding, and human d i g n ity -thus Kraus concludes the d ispute be tween the canni bal and human rights. One sho u ld compare his formul a tion with M a r x 's treatment of the "J ewish question , " in o rder to j udge how t o tall y t h i s p la y ful reaction of 1 90 9-the reaction against the classi cal ideal of hu manity-was l i ke l y to become a co n fession of materialist h umanism at the first opportunity. Ad mittedly, one would need to u nder stand Die Fackel from the first number o n , li te r all y word for word, to predict that this aesthetically o rie nted j ournalism, without sacri ficin g or gai ning a s ingle mo tif, was d estined to become the p olitical prose of 1 93 0 . For this it had to thank its p artner, the press, which disposed of h u manity in the way to wh i c h Kraus a lludes in these words: " H u m a n rights are the fragile toy tha t grown u ps like to tram ple on and so will not give up . " Thus, drawing a bou ndary between the private a n d pu blic spheres, w h i c h i n 1 7 8 9 w a s s upposed to inaugurate freedo m , became a m o c ke r y Th r o ug h the newspaper, says Kierkegaa rd, "the distinction b e twe en pu b lic and private affairs is abo lished i n p r i va te p u b li c p r a t tle . . To open a d i al ect i c a l d e bate between the public and private zones that commingle demonically in p r attl e , to lead co ncrete humanity to victory this is operetta's p urpose, which Kraus discovered and which i n "
.
-
. "
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KARL KRAUS
O ffen bach he raised to its most expressive level . 12 Just as pra ttle seals the enslavement of l angnage through stupidity, so o peretta transfigu res s tu pid ity thro ugh music. To fa il to recognize the bea uty of feminine s tu p id ity was for Kraus always the bl ackest philistinism. Before its radiance the chimeras of progress evaporate. And in O ffenbach's operettas the bour geois trinity of the true, the beautifu l , and the goo d i s b rought together, freshly rehearsed and with musical accompaniment, i n its star turn o n the trapeze of idiocy. Nonsense is true, stupidity beautiful, weakness goo d . This is Offe n b ach's secret: how in the dee p nonsense of p ublic d isci pline-whether i t b e that of the upper ten tho usand,
a
dance floor, or a
military s tate-the deep sense of private l icentiousness o p ens a dreamy eye. And what, in the form
l anguage, m ight have been j ud icial s trict
ness, renuncia tion, d iscrim ination, beco mes cunning and evasion, o b str uctio n and postponement, in the form of music.-Music
pre
server of the moral order? Music as the police o f a world o f plea sure ?
falls on the old Paris ballro oms, on the
Yes , this is the sp lendor
Gra nde Chaumiere, on the Closerie des Lilas in Kra us's rendering of La Vie parisienne. "And t h e inimita ble d up l icity of this music , which sinlul taneously p uts a plu s a nd
a
m inus sign before everything it sa ys, betray
ing idyll to parody, mockery to lyricism; the abundance of m usical de vices ready to perform all duties, uni ting pain and pleasure-this gift is here developed to its p urest pitch . "
L3
Anarchy as the o nly international
constitution that is moral a nd worthy o f man becom es the true music of these operettas. The voice of Kraus speaks, rather tha n sings, this inner music. It whistles b i tingly
a
bout the peaks of dizzying s tu pidity, reverber
ates sha tteringly fro m the a byss of the absurd; and in Frescata 's lines it
hums, like the wind i n the chimney, a requiem to the genera tion of our gra ndfathers.-Offen bach 's work is to uched by the pangs o f death. It contracts, rids i tself of everything s uperfluous, p asses through the dan ger ous span of this existence and reemerges saved, m o re rea l than before . For wherever this fickle vo ice is hea rd , the lightning fl a s hes of a dvertise ments and the thunder o f t he Metro cleave the Paris of omnibuses and gas j ets. And the work gives h im all th is in return. For at moments it is transformed into a cu rtain,
and
with t h e wild gestures o f a fairgrou n d
showman w i t h which he accompanies the whole performance, Kra u s tears aside this curta in a n d suddenly reveals the interior of h is cabinet o f horrors. There t h e y sta n d : Schober, Bekessy, Kerr, a nd t h e other skits, n o longer enemies b u t curiosities, heirlooms from t h e world o f O ffen bach
or
Nestroy-n o , oJ der, rarer stiJ l, fares o f the troglod ytes, ho usehold gods o f stup idity from prehistoric times . 1 4 K raus, when he rea d s in public, d o es
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not speak the words of Offenbach or Nestroy: they speak from him. And now and then a breathta king, hal f- blank, hal f-glittering whoremonger's glance falls on the crowd before him , inviting them to the unholy mar riage with the masks in which they do not recognize themselves, and for the last time invokes the evil privilege of ambiguity. It is only now that the sa tirist's true face, or ra ther true mask, is re vealed . It is the mask of Timo n the misanthrope. "Shakespeare had fore knowledge of everything"-yes . But a bove all of Kraus. Shakespeare por trays inhuman figures-Timo n the most inhuman of them-a nd says : Nature would produce such a creature if she wished to create something befitting the world as your kind have fashi oned it, somethi ng worthy of it. Such a c reature is Timon; such is Kra us. Neither h as, or wants, any thing in common with men. " An animal feud is on, and so we renounce humanity" ; from a remote village in the Swiss m ountains Kraus throws down this challenge to mankind, and Timon wants only the sea to weep at his grave. Like Timon's verse, Kraus's poetry stands opposite the colon of the dramatis persona� of the role. A Fool, a Caliban, a Timo n-no more thoughtful , no more dignified or better-but, nevertheless, h is own Shakespeare. All the figures thronging about him should be seen as origi n a ting in S h akespeare . Always he is the model, whether Kraus is speak ing with Otto Weininger about man or with Peter Altenberg a bout women, with Fran k Wedekind a bo ut the stage or with Adolf Loos a bout food, with Else Lasker-Schuler about the Jews or with Theodor Haecker abo ut the Christians. The power of the demon ends at this realm. His semihuman or subhuman traits are conquered by a truly inhuman being, a monster. Kraus hinted at this when he said, "In me a capacity for psy chology is united with the grea ter capacity to ignore the psychological. '� It is the inhuman quality of the actor that he claims f01' himself in these words: the cannibal qua lity. For in each of his roles the actor assimilates bodily a human being, and in Shakespeare's baroque tirades-when the cannibal is unmasked as the better man, the hero as an actor, when Timon plays the rich man, Hamlet the mad man-it is as if the actor's l ips were dripping blood. So Kraus, following Shakespeare's example, wrote himsel f parts tha t let him taste b lood. The endurance of his convictions is persistence in a role, in i ts stereotypes, its cues . His experiences are, in their entirety, nothing but this: cues. This is why he i nsists on them, de� manding them from existence like an actor who never forgives a p artner for deny ing him h is cue. Kraus's pu blic readings of Offenbach, his recital o f couplets from Nestroy, are bereft of all musical means. The word never gives way to the
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381
instru ment; but by exten d i n g its boundaries
further and further� it finally d epotentiates itself, d is s o lv i n g into a merely creaturely voice. A humming tha t is to the word what h is s mile i s to the j oke i s the holy of holies of this p er fo rm er's art. In th i s smile, t h is h u mming-i n w h i c h , as in a crater lake amid the most monstrous crags and cinders, the world is peacefully and
the deep complicity with his listeners and to the word permits no compro mise . But as soon as th e word turns i ts back, he is ready for a nythi ng. Then the tor m e n ti ng, inexha ustible charm of the distinction between these r e cita ls makes itself felt: the charm of like and unlike minds annulled and the homogeneous mass of false
contentedly mirrored-irrupts
m o dels that Kraus has never al lowed to enter h i s words . His service
friends created-the charm that sets the tone of these performances .
Kraus confronts a world of enemies, seeks to coerce them to love, yet co erces them to n o th in g but hyp ocris y. His defenselessness before the la tter has a precise connection to the subversive dilettantism that is pa rticularly prominent in h i s Offenbach renderings. Here Kraus confi nes music to limits narrower than were ever dreamed of in the ma n ife st os of the George schoo1.15 This cannot, of course, obscure the antithesis between the l inguis tic gestures of the two men. Rather, an exact correlation exis ts between the factors w h ic h g i ve Kraus access to both poles of li n g u is tic express i on-the enfee b led pole of humming a nd the armed pole of pa thos-and those which forbid his sanc tification of the word to ta ke on
the fo rms of the Georgean cult of l an g u a ge . To the cosmic rising and fall ing t h a t for George " d eifies the b ody a n d embod ies the divine, " la n g u a ge is s imply a Jacob's ladder with ten thousand wo r d - rungs . Kraus's lan guage, by c o n tr a s t , h as done away w i th all h i er a tic mo ments. It is the me dium neither of prophecy nor of domin a tion . It is the theater of a sanctificati on of the name-with this J e wish certainty, it sets i ts elf against the theurgy of the " wo rd - b o dy. » Very late, with a decisiveness tha t must have matured i n years of s ile n c e , Kraus entered th e l i s ts ag a i n s t the grea t p a r tn er whose work had arisen a t t h e s ame time as his o w n , beneath the thre s hol d of the century. George's fir s t p ublished book and the first vol ume of Die Fackel are d ated 1 8 99 . And only retrospectively, i n " A fter Thirty Ye a r s " ( 1 929), d i d Kraus issue the cha llenge. T h e r e , a s the zealot, he confronts George, the object of worship, who dwelJs in the temple from w hic h he never nor
had
to drive the traders and the lenders,
yet the pharisees and scribes,
who there fore-camped a bo u t the place-describe it.
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T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U S T RY A N D R A D I O
The profanum vulgus
pra ises t h is reno u ncer,
who never told it w hat it ought to h ate. And
he
who found the goal before th e way
did not come from th e origin
[ Ursprungl .
"You came from the o r ig i n-th e o ri g in is the goal" is received by th e Man " as God's comfort a n d promise. To t h is Kraus alludes here, as does Berthold Vi ert el w h e n , in the same way as Kraus, he calls the w o r l d a " wro n g , devia ting, circu itous way back to p a r a d is e . )) " And 50, )1 he continues in this m o s t i mp or t a n t passage of h is essay on Kraus, "I at tempt to interpret the de v e l opm e n t of this odd t a l e n t : i n t e ll e c tu a li ty as a d eviation . . . leading b ack to i mm e d i ac y ; p u blic i ty-a false trail back to language; sa t ire -a detour to the poem . " This " or i g in " -t h e seal of a u t he n ti ci t y on the p h e no m e n o n-is the s u b j e ct of a d is co v er y that has a c ur io us e lement of recognition. The t he a ter of this p h i l o s o ph ic al recogni tion scene in K r a u s 's work is p o e t r y, and its language is rh y me : '
Flairant d a ns tous les coins Ies hasards de
la
rime,
Trebucha nt sur Ies m o ts comme sur les paves, Hem'tam pa rfois des vers depuis Iongtemps reves. [Scenting rhyme's hazards Stum bling
on
i n every cornel;
words as on u neven pavements,
Jostling now and t he n long-dream ed -of l ines.]
Also, to be sure, a licentious angel, " here ch asing a me ta p ho r that has just turned the corn er, there c o up l ing words like a procurer, p er v er ting phr a se s, infatuated with similarities, b l is s fu ll y a bu sing chiastic em braces, always on the l ook o u t f or a d ven tu re , i m p atien t and hesitant to consum mate in j oy and torment. " So, fin a l ly, th e h e d on i s tic i mp u ls e of the work finds its p urest ex p res si o n in this m e l a n c h o l y and fant as ti c relationshi p to existence in which Kraus, in the Vie nne s e tradition of Raimund and Gi r ardi , arrives a t a conception of happiness that is as res igne d as it i s s e ns u a l. 1 6 This must b e b orn e in mind i f one is to understand t he u r g e n c y
KARL KRAUS
383
wi th which he decried the da ncing pose affected by Nietzsche-not to
[ Unmensch J was b ound to p greet the Su e rm a n [ Ubermensch] . The child recogn iz es by rhyme that it has reached the ridge of l an at their origin. Up guage, from w hich it can hear the rushing of all
mention the wra t h with which the monster
there, creatllrely e xistence is at home; a fter s o much d umbness in the ani mal and so much lying in the whore , it has fo und i ts tongue in the chil d .
" A good brain m ust be capa b l e of ima gining e ach fiber of childhood with a ll its manifestations so intensely that the temperature is raised" -i n statements s uc h as this, Kraus aims further than it ap pears. He himself, at any rate, satisfied this requirement to the e xtent that he never envisaged the child as the object o f ed ucation; rather, in an image fro111 his own youth, he saw the child as the a ntagonist of education who is educated by this antago ni sm , not by the educator. " It was n ot the c a ne that sho uld be abolished, but the teacher who use s it badly. " Kra u s wants to be nothing except the teacher who uses it better. The limit of his p h il a nth r o p y, his
pity, is marked by the
which he first felt in the same class at school
to which he owes his best poems .
" I am only one of the epigones"-Kra us is an epigone of schoo! an thologies . "The German Boy's Tab le Grace," " Siegfried's S wo r d , " "The Grave in the Bllsento , " " Ka iser Karl Inspects a School"-these were his models, poetically re-created by the attentive pupil who learned them. So "The Steeds of Gra velotte " became the poem "To Eternal Peace ' " and even the most incandescent of his hate poems were ignited by H6lty's " Forest Fire , " who s e glow p ervaded the an th olo gi es of o u r school days . A n d if on the l ast day not o nly the graves but the school anthologies open, to the tune of " How the Trumpe ts Blow, Hussars Away, " the true Pegasus of the little folk will burst from th em and, with a shriveled mummy, a p u p p et of cloth or yel lowish ivory, h a ngi ng dead and w ithered from the sho ulders of his horse, this unpar alleled fashioner of verses wi ll go careening off; b ut the two-edged sa ber in his hand, as polished a s his rhymes and as incisive as on the First Day, will belabor the green woods, and blooms of s ty le wil l bestrew the gro u nd . Language llas never been
perfectly distin guished from m i nd ,
never more intimately b o u n d to eros, than by Kraus in the observa tion,
" The more closely you look at a word, the more dis tantly it looks bac k. " This is a Plato nic love of language. The only closeness from w hich the word cannot escape, however, is rhyme . S o the primal e r o ti c re la t ionship between nearness and distance is , in his la n gu age , given voice as rhyme and name. As rhyme, language rises up from the creaturely world; as
384
THE P U BLIS H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RA D I O
name, it draws aU crea tures up to it. In "The Forsaken " the most ardent interpenetration of language and eros, as Kraus experienced them, ex itself with an innocent grandeur that recalls the perfect Greek epi g rams and vase pictures . "The Forsake n " are forsaken by each other. But-this is their great solace-also with each other. On the threshold be tween dying and rebirth, they pause. With head turned back, j oy "in un heard-of fashio n " takes her eternal leave; turned from her, the soul " in unwonted fashion" silently sets foot in an alien worl d . Thus forsaken with each other are j oy and soul, but also language and eros, also rhyme and name.-To The Forsaken " the fifth volume of Words in Verse is dedicated. Only the ded ication now reaches them, and this is nothin g other than a n avowal of Platonic love, which does n o t satisfy its desire i n what i t loves, b u t possesses a n d holds i t in the name. This self-o bsessed man knows no other self-renunciation than giving thanks. His love is not possession, but g r atitu de. Thanking and dedicating-for to thank is to put feel ings under a name. How the beloved grows distant and lustrous, how h er minu teness and her glow withdraw into name: this i s the only experience of love known to Words in Verse. And, therefore, "To live without women, how e a sy / To have lived wi thout women, how h a rd." From within the linguistic compass of the name, and only from w ithin it, can we discern Kraus's basic polemical procedure: citation. To quote a word is to ca ll it by its name. So Kraus 's achievement exhausts itself at its highest level by m aking even the newspaper quota ble. He transports it to his own sphere, and the en1pty phrase is suddenly forced to recognize that even in the deepest dregs of the journals it is not safe from the voice that s woops on the wings of the word to drag it from its darkness. How wonderful if this voice approaches not to punis h but to save, as it does on the Shakespearean wings of the lines in wh ich , b efore the town of Arras, someone sends word home of how in the early morning, on t he last blasted tree beside the fortifications, a l ark began to sing. A single line, as saviOl� and not even one of his, is e no ugh to enable Kraus to into this inferno , and insert a single italicization: "It was a nightingale and not a lark which sat there on the pomegranate tree and sang . » 1 7 In the quota tion that both saves and p unishes, language proves the m atrix of justice. It summons the word by its name, wrenches it destructively from i ts context, but precisely thereby ca lls it back to its origin. It ap pears, now with rhyme and reason, sonorous ly, congruously, in the struc ture of a new text. As rhyme, it gathers t ne similar into its aura; as na me, it stands a lone and expressionless . In citation the two realms-of o rigin and destruction-justify themselves before langu age . And conve rsely, -
"
.
KARL K RAUS
385
only where they interpenetrate-in citation-is language consummated. I n it is mirrored the angelic tongue in which all words, startled from the idyllic context of meaning, have become mottoes in the book of Creation. From its two poles-classical humanism and ma terialist humanism the whole world of this man's culture is embraced by citation. Schiller, admittedly unnamed, stands beside Shakespeare: "There is also a moral no bility. Mean natures pay / With that whic h they do; noble, with that which they are" -this classical distich characterizes, in the convergence of manorial noblesse and cosmopolita n rectitude, the utopian vanishing point where Weimar h umanism was at home, and which was finally fixed by Stifter. It is decisive fo r Kraus that he locates origin at exactly this van ishing point. It is his program to reverse the development of bourgeois capitalist affairs to a condition that was never theirs. But he is nonethe less the last bourgeois to claim his j ustification from Being, and Expres sionism was portentous for him because in it this attitude had for the first time to prove its worth in the face of a revolutionary situation. It was precisely the attempt to do justice to this situation not by actions but by Being that led Expressionism to its clenched, precipitous voice . So it be came the last historical refuge of p ersonality. The guilt that bowed it and the purity it proclaimed-both are part of the phan tom of the unpolitical or " natura l " man who emerges at the end of that regression and was un masked by Marx. He writes: Man as member of bou rgeois socie ty, un political
as natural
man,
necessari l y
appears
man . . . . Po litical revolution d issolves bourgeois l i fe i n to its
component parts without revolutionizing or criticizing these components
w o rk , pri the found a tion o f its existence . . . a n d therefore to i t s natura l basis The rea l m an is acknowledged only in the form of the egoistica l i ndivid u a l ; the true man, o nly in the fo rm of the abstract citoyen Only when the really individ u a l m a n takes back in t o h i ms el f the abstract ci t i zen and, as an indi vidual m a n , has become in hi empirical life, in his indi vidual work, in his indi themselves.
vate
It sta nds
to bourgeois society, to the world o f needs,
interests, privat e right, in the same rel ation
as
it does to .
vidua l circumstances
a
species-being
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
a nd therefore no longer separa tes
soci a l power from h i msel f in the form of pol i tical power, only then is llU man ema ncip a tion comp lete . t8
The materialist humanism which Marx here opposes to its classical coun terpart manifests itself for Kraus in the child, and the developing h uman being raises his face against the idols of ideal man-the romantic child of nature as much as the d utiful citizen. For the sake of such development,
386
T H E P U B L I S H I NG I N D U S T R Y A N D R A D I O
Kraus revised the school a n thology, i nvestigated German education, and found it tossing helplessly on the waves of j o u rnalistic caprice. Hence his " Ly r i k der Deutschen " [Lyric of t h e Germa ns" :
He who
can
is their man
and
not he who must;
th e y strayed fro m being to seeming. Their lyrica l case was not C la u d i us b LI t
Hei ne.
The fa ct, however, tha t the develop i ng m a n actually takes form not withi n the natural sphere but in the sphere o f manki nd, i n the struggl e for libera tion, and that he is recognized by the posture which the fight with exploitation and poverty stamps u po n him , that there is no idealistic but only
a
materialistic deliverance from myth, and that a t the origin of
ation s ta nds not pur ity but p urifica ti on-all this di d not leave its tra ce o n Krau s 's materi a list hum anism until very late. Only w hen despairing d i d he discove r i n ci tatio n the power not to preserve but to p u rify, t o tear
from context, to destroy; the only power in w hich hope still resides that something might snrvive this a ge-because it was wrenched from it. Here we find confirmation that a ll the martial energies o f this man a re innate civic virtnes; only in the me lee d i d they take on their com bative
as
pect. But already no one recognizes them any m ore; no one can grasp the necessity that compell ed this g reat bourgeoi s c haracter to become a come dian , this guardi an of Goethean l ingu istic values a polemicis t, or why this i rreproachably honorable man went berserk. This, however, was bound to happen, since he thought fi t to change the world by begin ni ng with his own class, in his own home, in Vie nna . And when, admit ting to himself the futility of his enterprise, he abruptly broke it off, he placed the ma tter back in the hands o f nature-this ti me dest ructive not creati ve nature: Let ti m e sta nd sti ll ! S u n , M a ke
be consumm a te !
t h e e n d ! Announce eternity!
l e t yo ur li gh t boom th und er, that ou r str.ident death be s i lence d . R ise lip with
menace ,
You gol den bell, m e l t i n y o ur o w n heat, Make yo urself a g u n aga inst the cosmic foe ! Shoo t fi re b rands i n h i s face! H a d I b u t Joshua's I tell you , G i d eon w ould be aga i n ! 1 9
powel;
O n this unfettered nature Kraus's later pol itical credo i s founded, tho ugh in a ntithesis to S ti fter's p atria rcha l code; it is
a
confession that is in every
387
KA R L K RA U S
respect astonishing, but incompre hensi ble only in the fact tha t it has not been pre served in Die Facl?el's largest type, a nd that thi s most powe rful of postwar bourgeois prose must be s ough t in the now-va nished issue of Novem b er 1 920: W h a t 1 mean is-and n o w fo r
once
I shall speak pla inly to this dehuman
ized bro od of owners of property and blood, and to a l l their followers, be ca use th ey do not und erstand German and from my "contra d ictions" a re incapable of d e d ucing my true i n te ntion . . . -wha t [ mean is, communism as
a r e ali ty is o n l y the o b verse of their own life-vi olating ideol ogy, a dmi t
ted ly by the grace of a pure r ideal o rigin,
a
dera nged re me dy w it h
a
purer
ideal purpose: the devil take its practice, but God preserve it as a con s ta nt th rea t over the
heads of those who have property and would like to c o m
pel a l l others to preserve it, d ri v i ng them, w ith the conso l a ti o n tha t worldly go ods are n o t the h ighest, to the fro nts o f hun g er and patriotic hon.or. God preserve i t, so thM this rabble who are bes ide themselves with brazenness do n o t grow
more brazen sti I I , and so that t he society of th ose
exclusi vely entitled to e nj oymen t who bel ieve th ey are loving s u bord inart; ,
h um anity wough if they g ive it syphilis, may at lea s t go to bed with a
nightmare! So that at least th ey may lose the i r appetite for preaching mo r a lity
to the i r victims, take less del i gh t i n ridic u l i ng th e m !
A humanl natura ), no ble langu age-pa rticularly in the ligh t of
a
note
worthy declaration by Loos : " If human work consists only of destruc tion, it is truly human, natural, noble work . " For far too l ong, the accent was placed on c re a t ivity People are only creative to t he extent that they .
avoid tasks and s uper v is io n Work as a sup ervised task-its model being .
political and technica l work-is attended by d ir t and detr i tus, intrudes d estructively into mat tel; is a brasive to w h a t is already ac hieved and criti c a l towa rd its cond i tions l a n d i s i n a l l t h i s opposite to t h e work of the dil ettante luxuriating in crea tion. His work is innocent and pure, consum
ing and pur ifying masterl iness . And therefore the monster sta n d s among us as the messenger of
a m
o r e real humanism. He is the conqueror of the
empty phrase. He feels solidarity not with the slender pine b u t with the pl a n e that devours it, not with the precious ore but with the blast furnace tha t p urifies it. The average European has not suc ceeded in uniting his life with technology, because he has clung to th e fetish of creative exis tence . One must have followed Loos in his struggle with the d ragon " or na ment," heard the stellar Esperanto of Scheerbart's cre ations, or seen IClee's New Angel ( who preferred to free men by ta k i n g from them, ra ther than make them happy by giving to them) to understand a humanity tha t proves itsel f by des tructi on.20
THE PU B L I S H I N G I N DU STRY AN D RADIO
388
Justice, therefore, is destructive in op pos ing the cons tructive a mbigu itie s of law, and Kraus destructively did j ustice to his own work: " All my errors stay behind to lea d . " This is a sober la n g u a ge that bases its do mi nance on permanence . The writings of Kraus have a lr ea dy begun to last, so that he might fu rnish th em with an epigraph from Li cht en b e r g , who dedicated one of his most profound works to " Your Majesty Forg etfu l ness. " 2 1 So his m odes ty now appe ars-bolder than his former sel f-asser tio n, which dissolved in demonic self-reflection. Neither purity nor sacri
fice mastered the demon; but wh ere origin and d e structio n come to ge the r, his re i gn is o ve r. Like a creature sprung from the child and the cannibal, his co nqueror stands before him: not a new man-a monster, a n ew
an
gel . Perhaps o ne o f those who, according to the Ta hn u d , are a t each mo ment cre a ted a new in countless thr ongs, and who, once they have raised
their voi ces before G od, cease and pass into nothingness. Lamen ting, chas tising, or rejoicing ? No matter-on this eva nescent voice the ephem er a l work of Kraus is modeled . Ange l us-that is the messenger in the old engra vmgs. Publis hed in the Frankfurter Zeitung und Hf111delsblatt, March Schriften, II. 334-367. Translated by Edmnnd
1 93 1 . Gesammelte
Jc phcott.
Notes 1. Gustav Gluck ( 1 902- 1 9 73 ) , perhaps Benjami n'S cl osest
fr i e nd dur ing the
1 93 0s , was di rector of the foreign section of the Reichskreditgesel l schaft
(Im perial Credit Bank) i n Berlin unti l 1 93 8 . He
was
a b l e to a rrange the
transfer to Paris of the fees Benjamin received fr o m his occasional contribu
tions to German newspapers u nti l 1 9 3 5 . In 1 93 8 Gluck emigra ted to Argen tina; after Worl d War II, he was
a
board member of the Dresd ner Bank.
Au s t rian satirist and critic Karl Kraus ( 1 8 74-1 9 3 6 ) fo u nd e d the Vien nese j o urnal Die Fackel i n 1 8 9 9 and edited it until shortly before his death. In the j o u rn a l 's early years, its contri b utors included the a rchi tect Adolf Loos (see note 3 b e low ) and the com poser A rno ld Sch onberg, but, a &er De cember 1 9 1 1 , Kraus wro te the entire conten ts of the journal himself.
2. The
3. The Austrian architect Ad o lf Loos ( 1 8 70-1 9 3 3 ) was
a
trenchant critic of t h e
attempts of the Wi ener Werkstattc [Vienna Works hopsl to u nite the fine and the decora tive a rts by tu rning the ho use into
a
richly orna mented " total
work of art. " The Wie n er Werk sta tte pro duced furn iture, jewelry, textiles, and househ o ld o bj e cts . 4.
J oh a n n Peter H e bel ( 1 760-1 826) was developed
a
a
German j ournalist a n d a u th o r who
number of i nnova tive shor t prose forms d u ring his wo rk
to r and chief wr iter a t t he Badischer Landkal(mdar,
an
as
edi
annual publication
KAR L K R A U S
389
not unlike the Am e r i c a n O ld Farmer's A lmanac. See
Ben j amin's
t wo 1 9 2 6
essays o n He b e l i n B enj am i n , Selected Writings, Vo lume 1 : 1 9 1 3-1 926 ( Cambridge, Mass . : Ha rvard Un iversity Press, 1 99 6 ) , pp . 42 8-43 4 .
5 . Otto S ta s s I , Lebensform u n d D ichtul1gsform [Life Fo rm a nd Po e t i c Form] ( M u n i ch, 1 9 1 4 ) . 6 . This q uo t a ti on by the Au s t ri a n writer Adal bert St ifter ( 1 8 0 5-1 8 6 8 ) c o mes fro m the in t r od u ct i o n
to
his Bunte Steine ( l 8 53 ) , a v o l u me of short stories.
Stifter's pr o se is c h ar a c t e ri zed by an un u s ua ll y graceful style a n d a reverence
fo r n atural processes. See Ben j a min's essay "Sti fter" ( 1 9 1 8 ) , in Benj amin, Se lected Writings, vol. 1, pp. 1 1 1 - 1 1 3 .
7 . Matth ias C laudi u s ( 1 740- 1 8 1 5 ), German p oe t , w as pe r ha ps the most nota
b le p oe ti c vo i c e be tw e e n K l o p s to ck and G oe t h e . He s e rved as e d i t or of th e i m p o r tan t j ournal Der Wands b ecker Bote.
8. J o hann Nestroy ( 1 8 0 1 -1 8 6 2 ) , Austrian d ra m a ti s t and character a c t o r, used sati re, irony, and p a ro d y as weapons aga i nst the newly rising bo urgeo isie. His best-known work is Einen Jux will er sich mach en (He Intends to Have a Fling; 1 8 4 2 ) , adapted b y Thornton Wilder as The Matchmaker
and
later
turned i nto the m usical p l ay and fi l m Hello, D o lly! J a cq u e s Offenbach
( 1 8 1 9-1 8 8 0 ) , German-born m u s i c ia n a n d composer, pr o d u ced many s u c cessful o p e re tta s and operas bouffes in Pari s , where h e m ana ge d the Gaite
Ly rique ( 1 8 72-'1 8 7 6 ) . 9.
D ie letzten
Yage d e r Menschheit ( Th e Last D ays of H u mankind ) is the t itl e o f
Kraus's mammoth apo ca ly p ti c dra m a , which sought to expose t h e b u reau cra t i c mediocr ity and pol i tic a l c riminality th at he believed had brought Eu
ro p e to the Grea t War. T he p l ay was p u b lished in i ts fina l form in 1 9 23 . Due
to its length (it has 220 s ce nes and
a p pr o x i
m a te ly 500 cha r a cte r s ) ,
it was
first performed in Vienna only in 1 9 6 4-and even then in a s h o r tene d ver SIOn.
1 0 . " Vien na Genesis " refers to an illumina ted manuscript-a copy of the book of Genesis-in th e collection o f the Austrian Na tional Li b r a ry. Its d a t i n g (early Byza ntine, per ha p s 5 00-6 00 Sy ri a ) a re
been
a
d ispu te d .
A . D . ) a nd
p l a c e of origi n ( Co nstantinople
The lin ka g e of Expressionism
a nd
Of
late antiq uity had
co ncer n of Benjamin's from the time h e read the Aus trian art h isto
ria n Alois Riegl's s t u d y
D ie spatromische
Kunst-Indust1'ie (The Late Roman
Art In d us t ry ; 1 9 0 1 ) duri ng the years of the Fi rst World Wa r. 1 1 . Benj a min r e fers here to the " L ulu " cyc le , two dramas b y the German p l a y wright Frank We de kin d ( 1 8 6 4- 1 9 '1 8 ) , In Erdgeist ( Ea rth Spi rit; 1 8 9 5 )
a nd
Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora'S Box; '1 9 0 4 ) , the c on fl ic t of a desiccated,
h y p o c r i t i ca l b o urgeo is m o rali t y with a p er s o n al and, above a ll, sexua l free dom
is p l a ye d
out in the fa te of the
b a s ed his o p e r a
Lulu
a mora l
fe mme fa t a l e Lulu . Al ban Berg
on Wed ek i n d 's pl ays.
12. Kraus t ra n sl a te d a nd edited Offenbach's farcical operetta La vie parisienne ( l ibretto by
Henri
Me i l h a c and Ludovic H a levy ) , wh ic h premiered a t th e
390
TH E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U S T R Y A N D R A D I O
Palais Royal i n 1 8 8 6. See Benjam i n )s "KarJ Kraus Rea ds Offen bach " ( 1 92 8 ) in Ben jamin, Selected Writings, Volume 2 : 1 92 7- 1 93 4 (Cam bridge,
Mass.:
Harvard U niversity Press, 1 999 ) , pp. 1 1 0-1 1 2 . 1 3 . Karl Kraus, " O ffenbach Rena issance , " Die Fackel, 5 5 7-55 8 ( Ap r i l 1 9 2 7 ) : 47. 14. The Austrian politician Johann Schoher ( 1 8 74-1 9 3 2 ) was twice p ri me mi nis
ter of Austria ( 1 92 1- 1 922 and 1 92 9- 1 9 3 0 ) . He served for m any years as Vi enna's chief of police, and was responsi ble for the bl oody suppressi on of workers' dem onstr ations in 1 927. I mre Bekessy ( 1 8 8 7- 1 9 5 1 ) founded the gossipy a nd sensa tion a l is t Vienna daily D ie Stunde (The Hour) in 1 923 . Al fred Kerr (Alfred Klempererj '1 8 67-1 94 8 ) was Berlin's most prominent and influential theater critic. A l l were ta rgets of Kraus 's polemics i n the 1 920s. 15. " George school " refers to the circle o f conserva tive intellec tu a ls a round the
poet Stefan George ( 1 8 6 8 -1 9 3 3 ) , whose h igh-modern ist verse a ppeared in such volumes as Das Jahy der Seele (The Yea r of the S o u l j 1 8 9 7) and D er siebente Ring (The Seventh Ring; 1 90 7) . George's attempt to " puri fy " Ger
man la nguage a nd culture exerted a powerful influence on younger poets . 1 6 . The Austrian comic d ra ma tist Ferd inand Raimund ( 1 79 0- 1 8 3 6 ) was-along
with Johann Nestroy-a mong the preeminent playwrights of Vienna i n the mid-nineteenth century. The Austrian acto r Alexa nder Girardi ( 1 8 5 0-1 9 1 8 ) was famous for his performa nces i n Raimund 's plays. 1 7. Kraus cites this I.i ne i n Die Fackel and attributes it to an anonymous Be lgian
soldier. G ranat means " pomegranate" ; Cranate, " grenad e " or " s hell." 1 8 . This
is
the conclusion of Karl Marx's 1 8 44 review of B runo Bauer's " On the
Jewish Q uesti o n . " 1 9 . Karl Kraus, Wo rte i n Versen, I I (Words in Verse, II) . 2 0 . Benj ami n discusses the German wri ter Pa u l Scheerbart ( 1 8 63-1 9 1 5 )
in
his es
says " Experi ence a nd Poverty " ( 1 93 3 ) , in Benj amin, Selected Writings, vol. 21 pp. 73 3-734, and "On Scheerbar t " ( la te 1 9 3 0s or 1 940), in Benjamin, Se lected Writings, Volume 4 : 1 93 8-1 940 ( Ca mbridge, Mass . : Harvard Univer
s ity Press, 2003 ) , pp. 3 8 6-3 8 8 . The New Angel is P a u l Klee's ink wash drawing Angelus Novus ( 1 9 2 0 ) , which Benjamin owned for a tim e . 2 1 . Benjamin
refers t o the German scientist, s a tirist, a n d aphorist Georg
Christoph Lichtenberg ( 1 742- 1 79 9 ) .
1 Reflections on Radio
The cr u ci al failing of th is ins titution has bee n to perpetuate the fu n da
mental sepa ration between practitioners and the public, a se p a r a ti o n that is a t odds with it s t ech n ol o gic a l basis. A ch i l d can see t h a t it is in th e spirit of radio to put as many p eo p l e as p o ssi b l e in fro n t o f a micr o p ho n e on every p os s i bl e occasion; the p u b lic has to be turned into the witnesses of i nterv i e ws and conversations in which now this person and now tha t
one has the opp ortunity to make h i ms e lf heard . Wherea s in Russia th e y are in the process of d rawing out the log ic a l i mp l ic a t i o ns of th e d i fferent appa ratuses, with us the m ind less n o ti o n of the "offering, 1) under whose aegis the p r a ct i t i o n er pres e n ts hims e lf t o t he p u bli c, s till has th e field to
itself. What this absurdity has l ed to after long years of p ra c ti ce is that t he pu blic has become quite helpless, quite inexp ert in i ts critical reac tions, and h as se e n itself more or less reduced to s a botage ( s wi t chin g off). There has never been an o the r genuine cu ltural i n s ti t uti o n th a t has fa iled
to authenticate itself by taking
a
dv an ta ge of i ts own forms or technol
ogy-using them to cre ate in the p u b l ic a new expertise . Th is was as true of the Greek th e a ter as of th e Meistersingers, as true of the French s tage
as of orators fr0111 the pu l p i t . But it was l e ft to the present age, with its unrestrained develop ment of
a
cons u m er mentality in the operagoer, the
novel r ea de r, the tourist, and other s i m ilar types to c o n vert the m i n to dull , inarticulate ma sses-and crea te a " public " ( in the n arrower sense of
the wor d ) tha t has n ei ther y a rdstic k s fo r i ts j ud gme nts nor a language for its fee l ings. This barb arism h a s rea ched its z e n it h in the attitude of the ma sses toward radio p rograms , and now seems on the point of reversing i tself. Only one th ing is n eede d for th i s : list en ers must d irect their re-
39 1
392
TH E P U B L I S H I NG I N DU ST RY A N D RAD I O
flections at their own rea l reactions, in order to sharpen and j ustify them. This task would of course be insoluble if their b ehavior really were-as radio managers and especially presenters l ike to imagine-more or less impossible to calculate, or simply dependent upon the content of the pro grams. But the most superficial reflection proves the opposite. No reader has ever closed a j ust-opened book with the finality with which the lis tener switches off the ra dio a fter hearing perhaps a minute and a half of a talk. The problem is not the remoteness of the subject matter; i n many cases, this might be a reason to keep lis tening for a while before making up one's mind. It is the voice, the diction, and the language-in a word, the formal and technical side of the broadcast-that so frequently make the most desirable programs unbearable for the listener. Conversely, for the same reason b ut very rarely, p rograms tha t might seem totally irrele vant can hold the listener spellbound. (There are speakers who can hold yo ur attention while reading wea ther forecasts . ) Accordingly, it is the technical and formal aspects of radio that will enable the listener to train himself and to outgrow this barbarism. The matter is rea l ly quite o bvi ous . We n eed only reflect tha t the ra dio listener, unlike every other kind of audience, welcomes the human voice i nto his house like a visitor. Moreover, he will usually j udge that voice j ust as quickly a nd sharply as he wou ld a visitor. Yet n o one tells it what is expected of it, what the lis tener will be grateful for or will find unforgivable, and s o on. This can be explained o nly with reference to the Indolence of the masses a n d the nar row-min dedness of broadcasters . Not that it would be an easy task to de scribe the way the voice relates to the language used-for this is what is involved. But if radio p aid heed only to the arsenal of impossibil ities that seems to grow by the day-if, for example, it merely provided from a set of negative assump tions a typology of comic errors made by speakers-it would not only improve the standard of its programs but would win lis teners over to its side by appealing to them as experts. And this is the most important point of all . Fragment written
no
later t h a n November 1 93 1 ; u npubl ished in Ben j a m i n 's lifetime.
Gesammelte Schriften , II,
1 5 06-1 5 07. Transl ated by Rod ney Liv i ngstone.
42 Theater and Radio
T H E M U T U A L C O N T R O L O F T H E t R E D U C AT I O N A L P R O G R A M
Theater and radio: fo r the unprej udiced reader, the c o n temp la ti o n of these two institutions will not p erh ap s evoke an impression of h a rm o n y. It is tr u e that the competition between them is not as ac ute as between radio and the c o ncert hall. Nevertheless, we know too much a bo ut the ever-expanding a ct i vi ti es of radio, on th e o n e h a n d , and the ever increasing p r o b l e m s of the theater, on the o th e r, to find it easy to envisage a c olla bo ra ti o n between the two . For all that1 c o l l a bo rati o n does exist. A n d has existed, m oreo ve r, for a considerable time. They could o nly work together in the realm of education-so much m u s t be admitt ed from the outset. But this c oll abo r a tio n has j ust been i nitia ted with partic ular energy by Siidwestfunk [ S o u t h we s t Radio ] . Ernst Schoen, the artistic director, has been one of the fi r s t to take note of the works t h a t Bert B r ec h t and his literary and musical colleagues have been in tro d u cing to p u bli c discussion over the last few years . l It is n o accident that these wo rk s-Der Lindberghflug, Das Badener Lehrstiick, Der Jasager, Del' Neinsager, among others-were u n a m b ig u o us ly geared toward ed uc a tion/ On the other ha nd, they also represent a highly original combina tion of theater and radio. These fo undations would soon prove via ble. Radio pl ays of a s i mil a r kind could be broadcast-Ford, b y Elisabeth Hauptmann, is one such.3 In addition, p r ob l ems of ever yda y life-school and educa tion, t he te chn i qu es of success, marriage difficulties-could be d e b a t e d in the fo rm of ex a m ple and counterexample. S o - ca l l e d rad io models [HormodelleJ-written by Walter B en j a min and Wolf Zucker-
3 93
394
T H E P U B Ll S H I N G I N D U ST RY AN D RAD I O
were also promulgated by the Frankfurt-based radio station (in colla bo ration with Berlin) . Such extensive activity provides a welcome occasion for a closer look at work of this kind, and simul taneously helps prevent misunderstandings about it. But taking a closer look of this sort means being una ble to ignore the most obvious a spect of radio-namely, its technological d imension. Here we would be well advised to put all touchiness a si de and s imply to affirm that, in comparison to the theater, radio represents not only a more ad vanced technical stage, but also one in which technology is more evident. Unlike the theater, it d oes not have a classical a ge behind it. The masses it grips are much largerj above a ll, the material elements on which its appa ratus is based and the intellectual foundations on which its programming is based are closely i ntertwined in the interests of its a udience. Con fronted with this, what can the theater offer ? The use of l ive people-and apart from this, nothing. The thea ter's future development out of this cri sis may very wel l take its lead a b ove aU from this fact. What is the sig nificance of the use of live peopl e ? There are two very d istinct possi ble a nswers to this: one reactionary and one progressive. The first sees a bsolutely no reason to take note of the crisis at all. According to this view, universal harmony rema i ns intact, and man is its representative. Man is conceived to be at the height of his powers, the Lo rd of Creation , a personality ( even if he is the meanest wage la borer) . His stage is mo dern culture, and h e holds sway over it in the name of " humanity. " This proud, self-confident, big-city theater is as indiffer ent to its own crisis as to that of the world outside it ( even though its best-known m agnate recently abandoned it) . And whether it presen ts dramas of the poor in the modern style or li bretti by Offenbach, it will always produce itself as "symbol , " as " totality, " as Gesam.tkurzstwerk [total artwork] . What we have described here is a theater of ed uca ti o n a nd of enter tainment [Zerstreuung] .4 Both functions, however opposed to each other they may s eem, are merely complementary p henomena in the realm of a saturated stratum which turns everything it touches into stimuli. But it is in vain that this theater attempts to use complex m achinery and a vast horde of extras in o rder to compete with the attractions of the mass market film; in vain that its reperto ire is expanded to include all times a nd places, when, with a much smaller apparatus , ra dio and the cinema can create space in their studios for anything ranging from ancient Chi nese drama t o the latest Surrealist experiments. I t i s hopeless t o try to compete with the technological resources avail able to radio and cinema .
T H E AT E R A N D R A D I O
395
But not hopeless to debate with them . This is the only thing that can be e x pe cted from the p r ogre s sive stage . Brecht, the first to have devel oped its theory, calls it " epic . " This Epic Theater is u tterly matter-of-fact, not least in i ts attitude toward technology. This is not the pl a ce to ex pound on the theory of Epic Theater, let alone to show how its disco ve ry and constnl Ction of gestus is nothing but a ret r a nsl a tion of the m ethods of montage-so crucial in radio and film-from a technological process to a human one. It is enough to point out that the principle of Epic The ater, li k e that of montage, is based on interruption . The only difference is th a t here i nterruption has a pedagogic function and not j us t the character of a stimulus. It bri ngs the action to a h a l t , and hence compels the listener to take up an attitude toward the events on the stage and forces the actor to adopt a critical view of his role . The Epic Theater bri ngs the drama tic Gesamtkunstwerk into confron tation with the drama tic la boratory. It retu rns with a fres h approach to the grand old o p portunity of theater-namely, to the focus on the people who are present. In the center of its experiments stands the h uman being in our crisis. It is h uman being who has been eliminated from r adio and film-the huma n being ( to put it a little extremely) as the fifth wheel on the carriage o f its technology. And this reduced, debarred human be ing is subjected to various trials a nd judged . What emerges fro 111 this ap proach is that e vents are alterable not at their climactic points, not through v i r tue and decision-making, but solely in their n orm a l , routine processes, through reason and practice. What Epic Theater mean s is the attempt to take the sma llest p o s si b le u nits of human behavior and use them to construct what was known as " action " in the Aristotelian theory of drama . Thus, Epic Theater challenges the theater o f convention. I t replaces culture with training, distraction with group formati on. As to this last� everyone who has followed the development of radio will be aware of the efforts made recently to bring to gether into coherent groups liste ners who are similar to one another in terms of their social stratification, in terests, and environment ge n era l ly. In like fa s hio n , Epic Theater a ttempts to attract a body of interested people who, independ ently of c rit icism and ad vertisi n g , wish to see realized on the stage their most pressing con cerns, including their political concerns, in a series of " actions" (in the above-mentioned s ense) . Remarkab ly enough, what this has mean t in practice is that ol d er plays-such as Eduard II [Edward II] and Dreigroschenoper [T h reepe n n y Opera]-have been rad ically trans for m ed , while more recent ones-such as D er ]asager and Der
TH E P U B LI S H I N G I N DUSTRY AND R A D I O
396
Neinsager-have been treate d as if they were parts of o n goi n g controver sies s This may shed light on what it means to say that culture ( the culture of knowledge ) has been rep laced by training (the training of critical j udg ment) . Radio, which has a particular duty to take up o lder cultural prod ucts, will best do this by means of ad aptations that not only do j ustice to modern technology, but also satisfy the expectations of an audience that is contemporary with this technology. Only in this way will the ap para tus be freed frOln the nimbus of a " gigantic machine for mass educa tion " ( as Schoen has described it) a nd reduced to a format that is worthy of l1 uman beings. .
IU?:!'5iis,�'ctl Landestheaters,
Published in 773-776.
l fU lfl 5 hll tl:;a
Livingstone.
May
1 932. Gesammefte
Schriften, II,
N otes
1 . Ern st Schoen ( 1 8 94- 1 9 6 0 ) , German musician, poet, and tra ns l a to r was the ,
artistic di r ec tor B e n j a m i n with
of a
m
aj or radio station in Frankfurt. Sc h o e n provided
opportunities to present his work on the radio during the
1 9205 and e arly 1 930s. 2 . Der Lindberghflug is a cantata (with text by Brecht and music by Kurt Wei l l ) b a s e d on Breches radio p l a y Der Flug der Lindberghs (The Fl ight of the Lindberghs; 1 9 3 0 ) , which was l a ter renamed D e r Ozeanj1ug (The Flight
over Ocean ) . B rech t wrote the didactic plays Das Badener LehrsWcI? vom Einverstandnis (Th e Baden-Baden Didactic Play of Acquiescence; 1 929) , Der Jasager (He W h o Said Yes; 1 93 0 ) , and Der Nei17sager (He Wh o Said No; 1 9 3 0 ) for p erfo r m a nce by amateur, p o li t ica lly engaged troupes. 3 . Th e dramatist Elisabeth Ha u p tma nn ( 1 8 97-1973) bega n collaborating with B rech t in 1. 9 24 . S he emigrated in 1 93 3, first to F ra n ce and then to the United States. 4 . Zerstreuung m ea ns not o nly " entertainment" b u t also " distraction," a sense to which Benj amin turns later in this essay.
B r echt s p lays Leben Eduards des Zweiten von En gland (Life of Edward the Second of England; 1 924 ) and D ie Dreigroschenoper (Th e Threepenny Opera; 1 92 8 ) .
S. B e nj a m i n is referring to
'
43 Conversation with Ernst Schoen
" J u s t a s a n upr i ght piano might a pp ear in a poem by Laforgue, in a s ce n e from Proust, or i n an by Rousseau, the scragg l y figure o f the loud speaker, or of headphones b ulging on e ars like tumors with the hanging entra i ls of the cord, is suited to the poetry of Aragon or Cocteau , to a p ainting by Beckmann or, bette r, de C h i rico . " I This is an incisive and compell ing o bservation. It i s taken from an essay in the j o u rn a l Anbruch ent i tl e d " Musical Entertainment by Means of Radio. "2 The author is Ernst Schoen . .l W hich makes the co mpel l in g also surp rising: it is the di rector of a r adio station who is here speaking about his ins trume n t in such an ap p osite, cultivated , yet unpretentious way. To listen to the plan s and goals of such a man struc k me as all the more interesting b ecause t h e station in q uestion is Radio F ra n k furt , which had ac q ui r e d a rep u t ati o n th roughout Europe even before its fonner prograln d irector, Hans Flesch,4 focused attention on Frankfurt when he was hired away by Berlin and left his colleague b eh i nd as his successor. "To understand some th i ng histor i call y, " Schoen b e gi ns , " means to grasp it as a react i o n , as an e ngagement. Our Frankfurt e n ter p r i se thu s must also b e g r a s p ed a s a resp onse t o an i nade q ua c y, indeed as a n oppo sition to that which originally d etermined the s h a pe oJ the radio s tation's programming. This was, in short, C u lture with a massive cap ital C. Peo ple though t that rad i o ha d put into the i r hands the instrument of a vast public-education en te r p ri se ; lecture series, instructional courses, large scale didactic ev ents of all sorts were introd uced-and ended in fiasco . What did this revea l ? That the l is t e ner wants entertainment. And radio had nothing of the sort to o ffer: the shab biness and infer i or i ty of its "col-
397
398
T H E P U B LI S H I N G I N D U STRY AN D RA D I O
orfll l " offerings corresponded to the dryness a n d technical narrow-mind edness of the pedagogical p rograms. This is where someone had to i n ter vene . What had previously been a d ecorative ornament suppl ementing the serious program-club fa re like "Pillow Rol l" or "Happy Wee k end " -would now have to be elevated out of the stale atmosphere of amusement into a well-ventilated, l oose, and witty topicality, fashioned into a strllcture in which the most varied elements could be related to one another in a positive way. Schoen provided the slogan: " Give every lis tener what he wants, and even a bit more ( namely, of that which we want ) . " What Radio Frankfurt demonstrated, however, was tha t to do this wa s possi b le today only by means of a po liticiza tion which shapes the current historical moment-without the i llusory ambition of civic education-the way Le Chat Noir and Die Elf Scharfrichter did in for mer times .5 The first step was already sketched out. What was needed now was to move from the status quo of the urban cabaret to a selection of those quali ties which are available in such a vigorous manner only to radi o . Si multaneously, radio had to take advantage of its superiority over ca baret in this specific regard-namely, its ability to gather, in fron t of the mic ro phone, artists who would be unlikely to come toge ther in the space of a ca baret. In this context Schoen rema rks: What is m uch more important to m e than the cu rren tly s o mewh a t forced sea rch fo r the l i tera ry ra dio play, wi t h its du bious s on i c scenery, is to find the best methods fo r transl ating every word- based work-fro m the lyric drama to the experimental pla y -i n to c u rrent l y e mergen t forms. Th e situ ation is o f co u rs e completely d i fferent with
plays,
which
are
rc
pect to nonl itera ry radio
ma terials and topi ca l co n t e n t and b y R a d i o Frankfurt. Here, we wil l first have
d eterm ined by their
wh ich in fact were pioneered
to d eve l o p a series o f models and co u n ter-models o f tech n i q u es
of n e go t i a
tion-" How do I dea l with my boss ? "6 a nd th e l i ke-based on experience
gained from the programs wi th such success.
on crime a nd
div orc e, which
w e re
produced
This part of Schoen's agenda has already won the support of B er t Brecht, who will be a partner in these ventures. 7 Schoen does not, b y the way, think complacently o f anointing the technical achievements-the sort one hears every month in the radio-as "cultural treasures. " No, he keeps a cool head a bout such matters and is, for example, completely aware of the fact that television-which repre-
C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H
399
E R N ST S C H O E N
sents a n expansion of his field of activity-brings with it new difficulties, problems, and dangers. For the moment, radio does not have to deal with a fully developed television. But when we consider the next relevant chapter-optical radio [BildfunkJ,B whose establishment depends on the Reich's Radio Corpora tion-it is clear that i ts capacities for artistic em p loyment wil l (as Ernst Schoen says) expand to the extent that we are able to l iberate it from mere reportage in order to play with it. My mainly literary interests m ay be the cause-but isn't it more l ikely the modesty of my p artner (Ernst Schoen actually trained as a musi cian , and was a student of the Frenchman Varese) which has so far kept our conversation from touching on musica l issues ? He won't be able to completely sidestep a question about the Baden-Baden Music Fes tival, which, as everyone kn ows, devoted two days to m usic composed for radio.9 But I am a bit surprised to see that here, too, Schoen avoids being sed uced into the domain of the aesthetic. He remains focused on the technologica l, and makes more or less the fo ll owing argument: Tech nicians think there is no need for radio-specific music, since ra dio is sufficientl y developed to transmit any sort of music perfectly. Schoen comments: Yes, in theory. But this pres u pposes perfect tra nsmitters fect receivers, which do not exist
in
[Sender]
practice. And this de termines
and per
the
task
o f radio music: i t must take into account specific losses of qua lity that are stil l
an
u navoidable aspect of
here Schoen al i gns himself thetic-for
a
with
all
broadcasting today. Moreover ( and
Scherchen),10 the grounds-c a ll them aes
newly esta b lished radio music d o not yet exist. The Baden
Baden festival confirmed this . The h ier.archy o f the value of the works which were played there correspond ed p erfectly to their rela tive suita bility for radio. In both respects} the Brech t-Wei ll-Hindemith
Ei sler's
TemtJo der Zeit canta ta clearly came
out
Lindberghflug and
on top . ] 1
" At a specific and rel atively arbitrary point in its development, " Ernst Schoen remarks in conclusion, " radio was torn from the silence of the labora tory and made into a matter of public concern. Prior to that moment, hs development was slow; these days, it is scarcely developing any faster. If even a portion of the energies currently being expended on the often all-too-intense enterprise of broadcasting were i nstead directed toward experimental work, the result would promote the advancement of rad io/'
400
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RA D I O
Published
in Die literarische Welt, 5,
no.
35
548-55 1 . Translated by Thomas Y. Levin.
(August 3 0, 1 92 9 ) .
Gesammelte
Schriften..
IV)
N otes
French Sym bo l i s t novelist, e ssayist, and critic; He n ri
1 . Ben j a mi n is referri ng here to Jules Laforgue ( 1 8 6 0-1 8 8 7 ) , poet; Marcel Proust ( 1 8 7 1 -1 922 ) , French Rousseau ( 1 8 44-1 9 1 0 ) ,
F r ench
post- Impres sionist painter, known as <e Le
Do u a n ie r " ; Louis Ara gon ( 1 8 9 7-1 9 8 2 ) , French poet a nd n o v elist;
Jean Cocteau ( 1 8 8 9- 1 9 63 ) , French S u rre a list poct, novelist, d rama tist, d esigner, a n d filmmaker ; Max Beck ma n n ( 1 8 84-1 950), Ge rma n painte r, draftsman , printmaker, scu lptor, wri ter, and champion of "New Obj ectivity " ; a nd Gi orgio de Chirico ( 1 8 8 8- 1 978 ) , pre-S urrealist Greek-Italian painter and fo under of
scuola meta{isica art movement.
Anbruch: 3 ( 1 92 9 ) : 1 28-129. This A ustr i an jou rn a l, p u b lished in Vienna from 1 9 1 9 to 1 93 7, was the firs t d evoted exc lu
2 . Ernst Schoen, " M usikal ische Unterh a l t ung durch Rundfunk , " M O llatssch rift fur m o denze
MusikJ
1 1 , no .
si ve l y to contemporary music. Schoen's essay a p p ea red in a speci a l issue on " l ight music" which a lso conta ined texts by Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, and Kurt We i l l .
3 . Ernst S ch oe n ( 1 894-1960), the program director for R a d i o F r a nkfur t,
was a
trained musician and comp ose!; h avin g s tud ied with both F errucci o B u soni and Edgard Varese . He was o n e of the very few fr iends Benja min had re ta ined from his schoolda ys-a nd this des p ite
Schoen's affair wi th B e n j am in 's
w i fe , D o ra , in the ear l y 1 9205. Sch o en is credi ted with getting Benj a min in
volved in
radio,
to such
an
ex tent tha t Benj amin earn e d
a
l iving from h i s ra
d i o bro a dc a sts for three years
B esides
a
( 1 929-1 9 3 2 ) . ser ies o f letters Benj a mi n wrote to Schoen prior t o 1 9 2 1 -w h ich
are collected in The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, e d . Gershom Scholem and Theodor W. Adorno ( Ch icago : University of Chicago 1 9 9 4) -the re is
an
Press,
imp ortant ( a nd unfortuna tel y still untrans late d ) epi sto
l a r y exchange abou t
radio
1930 which i s reprint ed , a l o ng Rundfun k," in Benj amin, G esammelte Schriftel1, II, 1 4 9 7- 1 5 05 . See a lso Ernst Schoen, " Musi lc im Ru n d fu n k : Del' Fra nkfnrter Sender, " A nbruch , 1 2 ( 1 9 3 0 ) : 255-25 6 . 4 . Hans Flesch ( 1 8 9 6-1945 ) , t h e pioneering first progra m d irector of Rad i o Fra nkfurt starting i n 1 924, explo red from the outset t h e possi b ili ties o f radio-specific works, i nc l u d ing t h e remarka ble Zau berei a u f dem Sender ( Magic in Airwa ves ) , the very first Ger man Horspiel (radio p l ay ) , in which Flesch a ntic i pa ted the poss i bili ty of acoustic montage years be fore it became a techno logica l rea l i ty. He qu ic k ly made a name for h i mse l f as a ti reless in novator, which ena b led him to ge t not only Walter Benjamin but a l so the you n g Theo dor W. Adorno, BenoIt B recht , and Flesc h 's friend and b rotherpo l itics in April
w i th a tex tu a l fragment en titled "Sit u ation im
40 1
C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H E R N S T S C H O E N
in-law Paul Hindemith inte rested in colla borating on p rojects fo r Radio Frankfurt. O n July 1 , 1 9 2 9 , Flesch took over as the di rector of the Funk Stunde AG (Radio Ho ur Ltd . ) in B er l i n , w here he conti nued to pursue his avant-garde progra mming.
5. Le Chat Noir ( "The B l ack Cat" ) , a well-known Paris ian cabaret founded in
1 8 8 1 in the bohemian d istrict o f Montmartre, was the model for Die Elf Scharfrichter ( " The El even Executioners " ) , the fi rst l i te rary-artistic ca ba re t in Munich ( 1 9 0 1 - 1 9 0 3 ) , As a priva te c l u b , t h e latter w a s a b l e to e l u d e cen sors hip of its often highly satirica l progra m of chansons, recitations, puppet pl ays , dram a ti c p iece s , a nd literary pa rodies. Its most wel l-known reg u l a r was the author, performer, a nd enfant terrible o f Munich's avant-garde, Frank Wedekind, whose fa mous Moritaten-satirical ba l lads ma rked by h o rr i fic detail and mora lizing j udgments-would l a te r be taken up by Brecht and become a styl istic model for Germ a n ca baret s inging . 6. " Wic nehme ich meinen Chef? " ( H ow Do I Deal with My Boss ? ) is in fac t the title of the very
first
of the H6nnodelle ( " listening models " ) that Ben j amin
wrote, to geth er with Wolf Zucker, in the late 1 92 0 s and tha t were des igned to explore various negotiating strategies. It was broadcast by the Berlin Funk-Stunde on F ebru a ry Frank furt, which
8, 1 9 3 1 , a nd was sub s equ e ntly taken up by Radio i t on March 2 6 , 1 93 1 , under the
broadcast
" Gehaltserhohung ? ! Wo d enken Sic b in ? " (A Raise ? ! Where Did You Get That Idea ? ) ; Be n j a m in, Gesamm elte Schriften, IV,
of
6 3 0 ff.
An Eng l ish vers ion
" Geha ltserhoh ung ? ! " tra n s la ted by Seetha Alaga p an as " Pay Rise? You
Must Be Joking ! " and edited a nd i n trod u ced by K e nn e th G. Hay, was pub lished in The Tempest ( Leeds ) , 1, no. 1 ( December 1 9 9 2-Ja nuary 1 9 93 ) . 7 . For Brecht's position o n radio, see
h is
1 93 2 text "The Radio a s a n A pp ara tus
of Co mmunication , " in An to n Kaes et a I . , eds . , The Weimar Relmhlic
Sourcebook ( Berkeley: Uni versity of Cal ifornia P r e s s , 1 994), pp.
6 1 5-6 1 6 .
8 . Optical radio} or B ildfunk-the use o f radio waves t o send pictures, in a man ner thar today would seem rem i n i scent of the telefa x-was first in troduced with
much fa n fa re
s ll s pended
just over
in Germany on November 20, 1 92 8 , but was abruptly a
yea r later due to lack of commercial interest. Tho ug h
today it is largely fo rgotten, this fascinating m oment in the genealogy o f the televisua l was still a s u bj ect of great media-theoretical d iscuss i on a t the time o f Ben j a min's essay. 9. In L 927 the Dona uesch ingen Music Festival, an annua l event begun in the
mu
ea rly 1 9 20s a nd devoted to the promotion of contempora ry ( chamber)
s ic o f a l l s o rts, changed its venue (and name) to Baden -Ba d en , where it con tin ued to explore ava nt-ga rde composition and the rela ti onship to n ew dia s u c h
as
film and radio
as
me
well as new musical technologies such as J org
Mager's S pha r oph o l1 ( a n e lectronic m icrotone genera tor which was the
fore
runner o f the modern synthesizer) . The 1 929 festival, which featu red works fo r radio, m u s ic for amate urs, and film scores, was given financia l support
THE P U B L I S H I N G I N DUSTRY AND RAD I O
402
Germa n Re ich 's Radio Corporation. For a contemporary revi ew sec und Technik i n Baden-Baden, " Anbrucb, 1 1 , n o . 7-8 ( 1 92 9 ) . l O . The German cond uctor, viol ist, a nd composer Herm a n n Scherchen ( 1 8 9 l� 1 96 6 ) , was an e ngaged a d vocate of contemporary music, conducti ng the wo rld premieres of numero ns wo rks by com posers such as A rn o l d Schon berg, A l b a n Berg, An ton Webern, Paul Hindemith, a n d Ern s t Krene k . 1 1. The " epic" Brecht's Del' Lindberghflug (Th e Lind bergh by t he
,
Fra n k Warscha uer, " Mus i k
Flight)-a
chorus, a n d orchestra wh ich took th e first suc-
transa tlantic a irplane voyage by Charles Lindb ergh in 1927 a s a fig ure fo r the power o f the indivi dua l i n socie ty-h a d its worl d p re m ie re , w ith m usic by P a u l Hindc m i t h and K u rt Wei ll, on July 27, 1 929, at the Baden Baden Cha m b er Music Festiva l as a purely radiophonic work. B roadcast i nto numerous nearby sp aces from a room th a t had been outfitted as a performed a t the festi makes hift s t u dio, i t was o n l y one of n u merous val that were w ri tte n esp ecia l ly for radio, includ i ng Eisl er's " ra dio canta ta " cess fu l
Tetnpo del' Zeit (Tempo
of the Ti m e ) .
44 Two Types of Popularity
F U N D A M E N TA L R E F L E C Tl O I\l S 0 1\1
A
R A D I O P LAY
The radio play "What the Germans Read Whi l e Their Classical Authors Wrote, " which this j o urnal has excerpted for its readers, l attempts to do j ustice to a few basic thoughts a bout the sort o f popularity [ Volkstumlichkeit)2 which radio should be striving for in its literary profiles . Given how transfonnative the advent o f radio was in so many respects, it is-or should be-nowhere more transformative than with re spect to what is understood as " popular" [ Volkstumlichl?eit] . Accord ing to an older conception of the term, a popular presentation-however valuable it may be-is a derivative one. This can be explained easily enough, since prior to radio there were hardly any modes of publication that really served the purposes of popular culture or popular educa tion. The forms of d issemination that did exist-the book, the lecture, the newspaper-were in no way different from those in which scientists con veyed news of their research to their professional circles. As a result, representation appropriate to the masses [volksmafSige DarstellungJ had to take place via forms employed by science and was thus deprived of its own original methods. Such representation found itself l imited to clothing the contents of specific domains of knowledge in more or less appropriate forms, perhaps also see king points of contact in experience or in common sense; but whatever it offered was always second-hand . Popularization was a subordinate technique, and its pu blic stature con firmed this. Radio-and this is one of its most notable consequences-has pro-
403
404
THE PUBLIS H I NG I N D USTRY AND RADIO
foundly changed this state o f affairs . Thanks to the techn ological possi bility it opened up-that of addressing countless numbers of people si multaneously-the practice of popu l arizing developed beyond a well intentioned philanthropic effort and became a task with its own types of formal and generic laws, a task as different from the older practices as modern advertising is from the attempts of the nineteenth century. This has the following consequences for experience: the older type of popul ar ization simply took for granted the time-tested a nd well-esta blished in ventory of scien ce, which it propounded in the same way the sciences themselves had developed i t, but stripped of the more difficult concep tual lines of thought. What was essential to this form of popularizatio n was omission: its layout always t o some extent remaine d that o f the textbook, with its main sections in large type and e la borations in slnall print. The much broader b ut also much more intensive popularity [ VolkstUmlichkeit] , which radio has set as its task, cannot remain s atis fied with this proced ure . It requires a thorough refashioni ng and re constellation of the mate ri al from the perspective of popularity [Popularitat] . It is thus not enough to use some con temporary occasi o n t o effectively stimulate in terest, i n order t o offer t o the n ow expectantly attentive listener nothing more than what he can hear in the first year of schoo1. Rather, everything depends on conveying to him the certainty that his own interest has a substantive value for the material itself-that his inquiries, even if not spoken into the microphone, require new scien tific findings . In the p rocess, the prevailing s uperficia l relations hip be twee n science and the popular [ Volkstumlichkeit] is replaced by a proce dure which science itself can hardly avoid. For what is at stake here is a popularity that not only orients knowledge toward the public sphere, but also simultaneously orients the p u blic sphere toward k nowledge. In a word : the truly pop u l ar interest is always active. It transforms the mate rial of science and penetrates that science. The more liveliness demanded by the form in which such pedagogical work takes p lace, the more indispensable is the demand tha t it develop really lively knowledge and not only an a bstract, u nverifiable, general liveliness. This is why what has been said here is especially true of the ra dio play, to the extent that it has a didactic character. Now, as regards the literary ra dio play in particular, it is no better served by so-called conver sations culled in an a rts-an d-crafts manner from the fruits of reading a n d from quotations o f b ooks a n d l etters than it is b y t h e du bious arrogance of having Goethe or Kleist adopting the language of whoever wrote the manuscript and speaking it into the microphone. A nd because the former
405
T W O T Y P E S O F P O P U LA R I T Y
is just as d u bious as the latter, there is only one way out: to take on the scientific questions directly. This is exactly what I am trying to do in my experiment.] The heroes of the German spirit do not appear there as themselves, nor did it seem appropriate to present as many acoustic sam ples of works as possible. In order to explore the question deeply, the point of departure was intenti onally kept on the surface. It was an at tempt to show l isteners what was in fact present so randomly and abun dantly that it permitted typification: not the literature but the literary conversation of those days.4 Yet it is this conversa tion-which, as it oc c urred in cafes and at trade shows, at auctions and on walks, commented in an infmite variety of ways upon schools of poetry and newspapers, censorship and bookstores, youth education and lending libraries, en lightenment and obscurantism-that is also most intimately relate d to issues of the most advanced literary scholarship, a scholarship that in creasingly tries to researc h the demands made on poetic activity by the conditions of its time. To bring together once again the talk a bout book prizes, newspaper articles, lampoons, and new p u blications-in itself the most superficial talk imaginable-is one of the least superficial concerns of scholarship, since such retrospective recreations make su bstantial d e mands on any factual research that is adequate to its sources. In short, the radio play in q uestion seeks the most intimate contact with the latest research on the so-called sociology of the audience. It would find its strongest confirmation in its ability to capture the attention of both the expert and the layman, even if for different reasons. And thereby would also give voice to what may be the simplest definition o f the concept of a new popularity [ Volkstiimlich keitJ . Publ ished i n R ufer und Horer: MOl1a tshefte fiir den Rundfullk Gesammelte Schriftell, IV, 6 7 1-6 73.
Translated by Thomas Y. Levin.
(September
1 93 2 ) .
N otes 1 . Benj amin's radio profile of a historical li tera ry taste, "Was d ie Deutschen l as e n , wahrend i h re Kla ssiker sc h r i eb e n " ( G esammelte Schriften, IV, 641670 ) , was broadcast by Radio Berl in o n Februa ry 7,
1 932,
i n its Fu nk
Stunde ( Radio Hour) program . The sections pu bl ished that same year in the radio j o u rnal
Rufer und Horer, 2,
no. 6
( S e p te m b e r 1 932}-which
differ
from the fu ll - len gth version in that they con ta in numerous si mp li ficat i ons of expression as we l l as Germa niza tions of foreign words-a re r e p ri nted in
2.
Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 1 05 6-1 07 l . Volkstihnlichkeit refers to a broad range of cu ltura l obj ects a nd p ractices that
406
T H E P U BLISH I NG I N D U STRY AND RADIO
are folksy a nd folkloric on the one h a nd a nd pop u l ar ( i . e . , mass-oriented, o r intended for t h e general public) o n t h e other.
3. The
Versuch ( " experimen t " ) Benjamin refers to here, using an explicitly
Brechtian genre-designation , is h is own r adio play " Wh at the Germ a ns Read While
Their Classical Authors Wrote . "
4. The " convers a tion a bout literature " was
a
common Romantic form. See,
fo r example, Fried rich Schlegel 's " Gesprach liber d ie Poes ie" (Conversa tion about Poesy; 1 8 0 0 ) , one of his mos t importa n t formulations o f litera r y theory.
5 On the Minute
After trying for months, I had received a commission from the head o f broadcasting i n D . t o entertain listeners for twenty minutes with a report from my field of specialization: the study o f books. I was told that if my banter fell on sympathetic ears, I could look forward to doing such re p orts o n a more regular basis. The program director was nice enough to point out to m e that what w a s decisive, besides the structure of my obser vations, was the manner and s ty l e of the lecture . " Beginners, " he said, " make the mistake of thinking they' re giv i n g a lecture i n front of a l arger or smaller audience which j ust happens to be invisible. Nothing could be further from the truth. The rad io l istener is a lmost always a solitary indi vid ual; and even if yo u were to reach a few thousand of them, you are al ways o nly reaching thousands of solitary individuals . So you need to be have a s if you w e r e speaking to a sol itary individual-or to many solitary individuals, if you like, but in n o case to a large gathering of people. That's o ne th ing. Then there is a noth e r : you must hold yourself strictly to the tinle limit. If you don't, we will have to do it for you, and we'll do so by j ust brutally cutting you off. Experience has ta ught us that going over the allotted time, even slightly, tends to multiply the d e lays over the cou rse of the program. If we don't intervene a t tha t very moment, our en tire program unravels .-So don't forget: adopt a rela xed style of speak ing and conclude on the minute ! " I followed these suggestions very precisely; after all, a lot was a t s take for me in the recording of my first l ecture. I arrived a t the agreed-upon ho u r at the radio station, with a manuscript tha t I h a d read aloud and timed at home. The announcer received m e cordially, and I took it as a
407
408
T H E P U B L I S H I N G I N D U STRY A N D RAD I O
particu lar sign of confidence that he did not insist o n monitoring my de but fro m the adjacent booth. Between his opening announcement and the concluding sign-off, I was my own master. For the first time I was stand ing in a modern radio stud io, where everything was designed for the complete comfort o f the speaker a nd the unencumbered realization of his capacities. He can stand at a podium or settle i nto one of the roomy seats, has a choice of the widest variety of light sources, and can even walk to and fro c a r ry i n g the m icrophone with him. There is also an elapsed -time clock-whose face marks not hours but only minutes which keeps him informed of the value o f every m o me n t in this sound proof chamber. When the clock hit fortYI I had to be done. I ha d read more than half of my manuscript when I glanced over at the dock, whose second hand was tracing the same path prescribed for the minute hand , only sixty times faster. Had I made a production error at home? Had I now set the wrong pace ? O ne thing was clear: two-thi rds of my speaking time had al re ady elapsed. As I continued re a d i n g word after word , in a confident tone, I silently and feverishly sought a solution. Only a brazen decision could help-entire sections would have to be sac rificed and the o bservations leading to the conclusion would thus have to be improvised . To wrench myself out of my text was not without its dan gers. But I had no other choice . I gathered all my strength, skipped a number of manuscript pages while d rawi n g out a longer sentence, and finally landed happily, like a pilot a t his airport, i n the conceptual nimbus of the final paragraph. With a sigh of relief I immediately gathered up my papers and, in the hea d y rush of the command performance that I had j ust completed, stepped away from the podium in order to put on my coat in a leisurely fashio n . At this point the announcer really ought t o have come in. B u t he was nowhere to be seen, and so I turned to the door. In the process my gaze fell once again u pon the clock. Its minute-hand indicated thirty-six! A fu ll four minutes remained unti l forty ! What I ha d noted in midflight, a moment before, must have been the position of the second hand! The an� nouncer's a bsence suddenly made sense. However, i n the same instant the si lence, wh ich ha d just been so comforting, suddenly e nveloped me l ike a net. In this chambe r made for technology and the people who rule by mea ns of it, I was suddenly overcome by a new shudder, which was re la ted to the oldest s hudder known to man. I l e n t myself my own ears, which s uddenly perceived n othing except the sound of silence. But I rec ognized that silence as the silence of death, which at that very moment was snatching me away in thousands of ears and tho usands of homes.
O N TH E
MINUTE
409
I w as overcome by an indescriba b le fear a nd imme d i a t e ly thereafter by a wild determination. "Save whatever can still be saved ! " I s a i d to my self, as I tore the ma n u s c ri p t out of my coa t pocket, grabbed the first page I could find a mong th e ones I had s k i p p e d , and began to rea d again wi th a v oi ce that seemed to be drowned o ut by the thu mp ing of my h ea rt . I c o u l d n ' t expect myself to come up with any ideas on the s p ot . And since the passage that I'd happened upon was short, I st re tche d out the sylla bles, let the vowels resonate, rolled the R's, and inserted p r egnant pauses between the s entences . In this way I onc e again reached the e nd-th is time the right on e . The announcer came and released me in a c or d ia l manner, j ust a s h e h a d received me e a rl i er. B u t my anxiety did n o t abate. So when I ran in t o a fri end the next day w h o 1 knew had he ard llly talk, I asked in pass ing what he'd tho ug ht of it. " It was very nice," he s ai d . " But these receivers a r e a lw ays u nre l i a bl e. Mine completely stopped working again, for an e nti re minute. " P u b l ished under the pseudonym Dctlef Holz nos,
620-621
(December 6, 1 934).
Thomas Y. Levin.
as
"Auf die Minute , " Frankfurter Zeittll1g, 79,
Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 76 1 -7 6 3 . Translated by
I N D EX
Arnheim, Rudolf, 3 2
A bbott, Berenice) 2 8 5
Activism, 8 4 , 9 2
A del112ar v o n Perlstein
( book
of tales ) ,
244 Adorno, Gretel Ka rplus, 2 , 6 Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund, 2,
1 59 , 1 6 3 nn l ,2, 205 , 209, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 400n4; " L oo kin g Back on ism,�> 202 Ad ver ti si ng , 5, 1 67, 1 6 9 , 1 71-1 72, 1 73-1 74, 206, 243, 272, 2 9 3 A esop 's Fables, 2 2 8 Aesthetics, 4 , 2 8 , 4 1 , 48n23, 6 7 , 3 1 5 Agrippa von Nettes heim, Heinrich Cornelius, 1 8 2
A ll ego ry, 1 04, 1 6 1 , 1 68 , 1 75-1 7 8 , 1 8 0, 1 82 , 1 8 3 , 1 8 7, 1 8 8
Altenberg , Pe ter, 3 6 8 , 3 8 0 Andersen, Hans Christi an� 202, 204, 226 Andreade s , G. A.) 68 A nschaulich k eit, 1 9 5 , 2 1 3 Anschauungsunterricht, 1 3 , 200, 201-
202, 209, 2 1 3 Antiquity, 1 8 0, 1 8 1 . See also
an ci en t;
Romans, ancient
Greeks, 275
Aragon, Louis, 5 4n3 3 , 92-9 3 , 1 99 ,
302, 3 97; Paysan d e Paris, 9 5 n 2 1 , 2 3 8 n 5 ; L a Peinture a u deli, 3 043 0 5 ; Vague de reves, 95n2 1 , 2 3 7 Arcades, 5 , 9 6-9 8 , 9 9. See also under Benj amin, Wa lter Architecture, 36, 40, 7 1 -72� 97, 9 8 ,
9 9 , 1 0 3 , 1 09, 3 1 9
Ar is tot l e , 9 1
Arp, Hans, 3 9 a nd a rcades) 9 6 ; a n d I'art pour fart d o c trine, 24, 42, 1 1 3n45, 3 75 ; a s authentic, 1 4, L 5 , 2 1 , 24; author ity of, 1 4, 1 5, 2 1 ; a utonomy of, 1 , 2 8 ; a nd B a ro que era , 1 7 6 , 1 77, 1 8 1 -1 8 4; and bourgeoisie, 125, 321n1 0; a n d capitalism, 1 1 ; a nd chambermaids' romances, 243 ; as c o m modity, 303; and concentration, 39-40; and consumption, 56; and c u lt and ri t u al , 1 4, 1 5 , 24 , 25; cult vs. e x h i bit ion value of, 25, 27; and dec a denc e, 3 75 ; decl ine o f, 2 1 3 ; de genera te, 1 60; demystification of, 1 ; develo pment of, 1 9 -20; d isenchanr ment of, 1; and distraction, 39-4 1 , 5 6-5 7; and educat i o n , 5 6 ; a s enc od ing history, 9, 1 0; as entertainmen t, 3 9 ; and fascism, 20; fetishization of, 1 5 , 1 42; and film, 28-30, 3 1 5 ; folk, 208-209, 254-25 5; fo rger y of, 2 1 ; form in, 1 0; and formalism, 1 2 6 ; and Fuchs, 1 1 7, 1 2 5 ; and furni sh ed man, 2 0 1 ; a nd genius, 126; here and-now o f, 2 1 , 22; and hi s to ry, 2, 9-1 1 , 1 84; history of, 67-72, 1 1 9 ; a nd iconogra phy, 1 2 6 ; ide a lis t view of, 1 26 ; a n d interpl ay of nature and humanity, 26; and Jllgendstil, 1 0 3 ; and k its c h , 200, 2 0 8-209) 254, 255; and Kunstwo llen, 1 9 7; Marx ist theory of, 1 1 6 ; a s mask, 2; a nd m ass e s , 3 9 , 40, 1 2 6 , 1 42 , 3 2 1 11 1 0;
Art:
meaning co ntent vs. mater i a l
412
I N D EX
Art (continued)
70; mo rtification of, 1 ; as o b j ect o f d e v o ti o n, 3 9 ; ownership o f, 2 1 ; a nd panoramas, 99; penna nence of, 1 5; and photograp hy, 2 8 , 2 6 7, 275 , 2 8 7, 2 8 8-293 , 294, 3 0 3 , 3 1 3 ; and politics, 1 0, 1 5 , 20, 42; prehistoric, 2 5 , 26; production of, 6, 9-1 0; and pro l e ta ri a t, 1 9; pu re, 24; recep ti o n o f, 9-1 0, 15, 1 1 8 , 1 1 9 , 1 26, 1 3 0 , 200, 206; a n d repro d uction, 1 9-42, 3 6, 1 26; as ruin, 2; and society, 1 0 , 3 1 3 ; and technol ogy, 1 9-42, 1 6 1 ; and tra d i t ion, 2 1 , 2 4 ; truth content o f, 2; as un i q ue, :1 4, 2 1 , 24; u n ity of, 1 1 8 ; valu e and essence of, 6 7; wearing out of, 5 6 , 57 Art Nouvea u , l 1 3 n35 Arts, p rac tic a l , 208, 241 Association, 267, 2 6 8 , 293, 294 Atget, Eu gene, 27, 266, 2 84-285 , 2 8 6, 294; Lich tbilder, 296n14 Audi ence, 3 0 , 3 1 , 3 3 , 36, 90, 325, 346, 3 9 7-3 9 8 . See also Rea der/ re a d i n g Aura, 1 5 , 22, 23, 24, 27, 3 1 , 3 9 , 48n23, 265, 266, 2 8 2, 283, 2 85286, 3 1 9; d e fin ed , 1 4-1 5 , 23, 285 content in,
A uthor. See Writers Avante-ga rde,
2, 1 00, 159, 1 60, 2 0 1 ,
300 Ball , Hugo, 1 70 Ba l zac, Honore de, 9 6 , 1 0 8 ; Le Cousin PonsJ 1 3 2-1 33 Barba rism, 1 24, 266, 3 9 1 , 3 92 Baroq ue era, 1 6 7-1 68, 1 69, 1 75 , 1 76, 1 77, 1 8 0-1 84, 1 8 7, 1 8 8 , 1 89, 1 9 0, 2 1 3 , 3 73 Baroque mourning plays . See
Trauerspiel
Bastian, Ad olf, 1 2 8 Ba u d elaire, Charles, 5, 43n7, 71 , 1 041 06 , 1 1 3 n45, 140, 202, 2 1 3 , 263, 3 1 3 , 344, 3 76, 3 82; "Le Cy gn e , " 1 04; Les Fleurs du Mal, ] 05; " Une
Marty r e , " 1 02 ; Salon of 1 85 9, 294; "Spleen et ideal, " 1 0 5; " Le Voy a ge , " 1 05 Ba ya rd , I-Iippolyte, 2 8 1 Beautifu l s emb l a n c e , 32, 1 25 Beauty, 24, 44n 1 0, 1 2 7, 1 8 0, 1 8 3-1 8 4 Be b e l , August, 1 1 6, 1 5 1 n5 0; Die Frau und der SozialismusJ 1 22 B e ckm ann, Max, 3 9 7 Bekes s y, Imre, 3 79 Benjamin, Dora, 2, 3 5 1n1 0, 40 0n3 Benjamin, Walter: " Antoine Wiertz: Tho ughts and Vis io ns of a Seve re d Head, " 209; Arcades Project, 5-6 , 7, 95n2 1 , 1 6 8 , 1 95, 2 0 1 , 202, 204, 209, 21 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 4, 23 8 , 23 8nn5,7, 3 1 6, 3 1 9 ; The Arcades Pmject ( book), 1 5 , 3 4 3 ; "At te s te d Auditor of Books , " 3 45-346; "The Au tho r as P r od uc er, " 1 0, 206, 267, 344; Berlin Childh ood around 1 9 00J 12, 350; " Chamberma ids' Romances of the P ast C ent u ry, " 2 0 6-20 8 ; " Children's Literature, " 1 3 ; " Chi nese Paintings at the Bibli otheque
N ationale, " 2 1 3-2 15; " Con versa tion with Ernst Schoen," 346-348; " D o c tri n e of the S i m i la r, " 214; "Dream K i tsc h " ( " Gloss on Surreal ism " ), 19 8-202, 204, 20 8 ; es s ay on Na ples ( 1 925 ) , 7; essay s on Baudelaire, 5; a nd Pov e rty, " 7; "A G l i mpse i nto the World of Chi ldre n 's Books , " 202-206; " Grap h ol o g y Ol d a n d New, " 1 6 8 ; " L e tt er from Paris ( 2 ) , " 267; " Little History of Photography, " 1 3- 1 4, 2 1 4, 264-26 7, 320; " Moonlit Nights on the Rue La B o etie , " 20 8; " News a bout Fl o w e rs /' 263 ; One Way Street, 2, 12, 1 6 7, 1 69 , 206; " On L anguage as S u ch and on the La ng u ag e of Man, " "1 67; " O n Pa i n ting , o r Sign and Mark , " 1 96, 1 9 8 , 20 8 ; " O n Some Mo tifs i n Baudel a i re , " 3 1 6; " On the Mimetic Fa cul ty, " 2 1 4; " O n t h e Minute , "
41 3
I N D EX
Origin o f the German Trauerspiel, 1 67, 2 1 3 ; «Pa inting and the Graphic Arts " ( un title d fragment), 1 9 6; "Paris, Capital o f
350j
the Nineteenth Century, " 5 , 1 6 ; " Reply to Oscar A. H.
Schmitz, "
a n d Fuchs, 1 3 5, 1 3 7 ; a n d Gervinus, 1 34 ; a nd intellectuals, 92; and Kraus, 3 65; and l iterature, 8 4 , 8 6; a n d Mau blanc, 9 2 ; and pa inti ng ,
2 9 9 , 3 0 0 ; and ph otography, 2 65-
2 6 6 , 2 8 3 , 3 02-3 0 3 , 3 1 2; and p rol e
3 1 6-3 1 7; " The Rigorous S tud y of
tar iat, 1 0 8 ;
Art, " Art, "
and
9; " Some
Remarks on
Folk
'j 9 7, 2 0 6 , 2 0 8-2 0 9 ; " Su rreal
and
Stern berger, 1 59 ;
S urrealism, 1 0 8-1 0 9 . See a ls o
Petty bou rgeoisie
ism, " 343; " Th e Telephone," 1 2 ;
Bouton, Charles, 1 .1. 1 n 1 3
"To th e Planetari u m , " 1 2; " Two
Brahe, Tycho, 5 8
Types of Popula ri ty, " 3 4 6 , 349;
B ra n d e s , Georg ( Georg
« Wha t the Germans Read \X'h i l e
h en), 1 2 8
M o r r i s Co
The i r Class ical Authors W r o te , "
Brecht, Berto i t, 4 , 5 6 , 8 5, 8 9-9 1 , 2 0 6 ,
"The Work
2 6 6 , 2 9 3 , 3 44-3 4 5 , 3 4 9 , 3 5 1 n 6 ,
403-405;
of
Age of Its Technological
Art i n the Re p r o
d uci bil ity, " 3 , 4, 9, 1 95 , 2 02 , 205, 264, 2 6 8 , 3 1 5, 3 1 7, 3 1 8 , 3 2 0 Berl , Emmanuel, 3 2 1 n 1 0
Bernste i n , Ed uard, 1 5 1 n50 Berry, due d e ( C ha r l e s
Bo u r bo n ), 2 0 8 , 2 4 0
l�erdinand de
Das BadDrei r!TC)SC,'llH101.�(!r, 395; Der Jasage1� 3 93 , 3 95 ; Leben Eduards des Zweitl.'1t von England, 3 95; D el' 3 72 , 3 9 8 , 3 9 9 , 40011 4 ;
3 9 3 ; Die
Lindberghflug,
nahme, 8 8 ;
3 93 ; Die Mass
Der Neinsage r,
Biedermeier ( pe r i od style ) , 9 8 , 2 0 5 , 232, 2 3 3 , 234
Brenta no, Bernard von, 2 8 1 B re ton, Andre, 5 2n30; ifesto, 2 3 7
Bild, 1 95
Brach, Hermann,
B l a ue Rei re r, Der, 1 9 6
Surrealist Man
30807
Burckhardt, Ca rl Jaco b,
Bloch, Ernst, 4 B ios, \X'il helm, 1 2 0
Renaissance,
Kultur der
129
B lossfe l d t, K a rl , 273 n 1 , 2 7 9 , 2 9 3 ;
Burd ach, Konra d , 1 8 5 0 9
B loy, Leon, 378
Ca l deron de
U,fo rm en der Kunst, 263
Boeho,
Max von,
138
13 Barca , P e d ro ,
1 8 1,
"1 8 7-1 8 8
Calligr'lphy, 2 1 3-2 1 4
Boettichet; Kar l , 97
B o h le,
3 93 ,
3 9 5-3 96
Bible, 1 7 1 , 1 76
Theater- Catechisrtlus,
Ca lmette, A l b ert Leo n Ch a rles , l 6 2
Ca lver, Richard, 1 20
Boisseree, Sul p iz, 73 n 8 , 1 4 1 Bonna rd, Abe l , 1 5 3 n 6 5
Bosch, Hieronymll s , 3 0 6 Joseph ) , 2 4 1 n 1
277, 279, 2 94, 3 0 9n 1 5 . See aho
Film ; Photography
Borinski, Ka rl, 1 8 0 Bo u rbon, d u c de ( Lo uis
C a m e ra, Il , 1 2, 3 5 , 3 7, 2 0 5 , 2 64,
Hen ri-
a nd a rt, 1 2 5 , 3 2 1 0 1 0; a n d B i s ma rc k era, 1 5 8 ; a nd cham ber m a id s ' romances, 245, 247; fa lse conscio usness of, 1 0 6 ; and fi l m ,
B o urgeois ie :
3 1 7, 3 2 6 , 3 3 0; and fH. neur, 1 04 ;
Ca mera o bscura, 274, 2 8 1 Ca meron, Ju li a Marga ret, 274
Capi ta lism,
5,
6,
1 1, 1 3 , 15, 19, 33,
3 4, 1 2 3 , 1 3 2 , 1 5 8 , 2 7 5 , 322n1 1 , 343, 3 55-3 5 6, 3 63 , 3 6 9
Caption, 1 9 8 , 2 0 6 , 208, 2 1 1 Ca rre l, Armand, 3 76 Cayl us , comte d e , 1 4 1
41 4
I NDEX
Ceza nne, Paul, 3 0 1 , 3 02
1 1 1 n 1 3 , 2 4 1 , 274, 275-2 76, 2 8 1 ,
Chambermaids' ro mances, 243-2 4 8 Chaplin, Charlie ( Ch a rles Spencer
294
Chaplin), 3 8 , 3 1 8 , 3 23 , 3 3 5-3 3 7 , 3 4 0; Th e Circus, 33 3-334, 3 3 5 ; The Gold Rush , 2 9 ;
Paris, 2 8 , 29, 3 3 6
A
Woman of
Chapta l , Jean-Antoine , comte de, 1 0 '[ Chevalier, Michel, 1 0 1 Children, 1 9 7, 2 1 9 , 23 7, 24 1 Chi ld re n 's books, 1 9 9 , 200, 2 0 1 , 202206, 2 1 3 , 226-234 Ci ngria, Alexandre, 3 0 0 Classicism, 1 76 , 1 77 Claudius, Ma tthias, 3 6 9 Coctea u, Jean, 3 9 7 Cognition, 1 2, 2 1 3 , 264 Cohen, Herma n n , 1 77, 1 79n9, 2 1 5 n3 Coli, Fra nr;ois, 3 5 3 Collective/collectivities, 1 0 , 1 2 , 1 5 , 4 0 . See also M a sses
D a l i, Salvador, 1 5 9 ; Stinking Ass, 3 0 6 D'Annunzio, Ga briele, 54n3 7 Da nte A lighieri, 1 3 5 , 3 0 9 n 1 3, 3 1 3 Da nzel, Theo dor Wilhelm, 1 1 9 D arwin, Charles, 1 5 1 n 5 0 D a rwinism, 1 3 0 Daumicr, Honore, 1 39-1 4 1 , 1 43 , 1 4 9 n3 9 , 3 0 6 Dauthendey, Ka rl, 2 7 9 ; Karl Dauth elldey (Father of the Poet), with His Fiancee, 276, 2 7 8 David, Jacques-Louis, 9 9 , 2 4 1
D e Chirico, Giorgio, 3 9 7 Defregger, Fran z von, 1 6 1
De;a-vu,
209, 2 5 5 Delacroix, Ellgene, 1 3 3 , 3 1 3
Delaroche, Pa u l , 2 8 3 D e l l a Po rta, Giovanni Battista, 2 8 1 D e Quincey, Thomas, 1 3 2 Derain, And re, 3 9 , 3 1 O n 20
Collective conscio usness, 9 8 Co llective u nconsciousness, 1 0 6
DeJwicz, O . G., A ntonetta CzemaJ 246
Collectors , 1 04, 1 1 7, 1 2 5 , 1 3 2- 1 3 3 , 1 4 0-1 42, 1 43 , 2 0 8 Colportage, 2 0 8 , 2 1 3 , 243
Deu bel, Leon , 1 03 Dickens, Cha des, 3 3 6 D iora m a , 1 11 nn I 3 , 1 6, 2 0 8 , 2 4 0
Comedy, slapstick, 3 6, 3 8 , 3 2 6 , 329,
Disderi, Ado lphe-Eugene, 3 03 Disney, Walt, 3 8
330
Commodity, 1 0 0 , 1 0 1 , 1 04, 1 0 5-1 06, 265, 267, 3 0 3 , 3 1 3 C0111111,une (periodical) , 9 1-92
Commun ism, 42, 8 5 Cond orcet, marquis de, 1 3 1 Coper n icus, Nico l a i , 5 8 Courbet, Gustave, 1 0 8 , 3 0 1 ; La Vague, 304 Courier, P a u l-Louis, 3 7 6 Cousin, Victot; 43n7; " D u Vrai, d u beau, et d u bien , " 1 1 3n45 Cre p ie ux-Ja min, Jules, J 92 Crevel, Rene, 3 0 6 Cubism, 1 00, 1 64n8, 1 9 6 , 1 9 8 D adaism, 2, 3 8-3 9 , 6 3 , 8 6 , 1 4 8 113 0, 1 64n8, 1 70, 1 7 1 , 1 97, 1 9 9 , 3 0 5 Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mande, 9 9 ,
Distracti o n , 5 4 n3 3 , 5 6-57, 3 1 9 D ix, Otto , 3 0 6 Dobl in, Alfred, 2 8 7; Wissen und Verandern, 8 4- 8 5 Dost, Wilhelm, 2 6 8n 1 Dostoevsky, Feodor M ikhailovich, 240 Dra malthea ter, 3 0 , 3 2 , 3 5 , 8 9-9 1 , 1 6 8 , 1 75 , 1 8 2, 3 93-3 96 Drawing, 71-72, 1 9 5 , 1 9 7, 1 9 8 , 2 2 1 222 Dreams, 1 9 8-1 99, 2 0 0 , 2 0 1 , 23 6 , 23 8 , 245, 279
Dreyer, Carl Theodor, La Passion de Jeanne dJArcJ 4 7n22 D rumont, Edouard, 1 3 3 Dubose, Jean-Pierre, 2 1 3 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 5 , 257, 25 8 , 2 5 9 , 2 6 0
41 5
I N D EX Du Camp, Maxime, 1 2 3 ; Paris, 1 0 7
sciousness, 3 2 9 ; and cult vs. exhi bi
Dum a s , Alexandre, 1 3 4
tion va l u e , 25; destr uctive side of,
Du rer, Alb recht,
Melancolia. 70
22; d ev e l op m e n t o f, 52n3 0; d i a l e c ti
cal st r u ct ur e of, 3 40 ; and d istrac
tion, 4 1 ; ed iti ng of, 35; a nd e d uc a -
Edel; Josef Maria, 2 6 8 n 1 Edison, Thomas, 52n30
14; a nd fasci sm , 3 4 , 4 4 n 9 ; a nd
Ed ucation, 1 3 , 2 0 1 -202, 204, 2 1 3 , 2 1 6n5, 3 8 � 3 93 , 3 94, 3 9 5 , 4 04 Eisenstein, Sergei M i k h a i lovich, 2 8 7; Battleship Potemk in, 3 1 6, 3 2 3 , 3 2 5 ,
3 2 1 n 1 0 , 3 3 1 ; p r od u ct i o n of, 2 9-3 8 , 3 5 ; and reproduction, 2 8 , 44n 9 ;
El i a s , J uliu s , 357
Pa ul
a n d montage, 90, 9 1 ; a n d pa inting, 3 5 , 3 6 , 5 3 11 3 2 ; a nd p an o r a m a s , 1 6 ,
44n9, 3 1 8 , 3 1 9 , 3 3 6; a n d r ea lity,
8 8 ; Tempo del' Zeit, 399
E l G re c o , 129 Eluard,
masses, 34, 3 8 , 205, 3 1 8-3 1 9 , 3 25 ;
9 9 ; a nd politics, 4 9n24, 3 1 6-3 1 7,
3 2 8 , 3 3 0-3 3 1 Eisler, Ba nns, 8 7-8 8 ; Die Massnahme>
.
here-a nd-now of art, 22; an d
Russian, 3 4, 2 8 6, 2 9 3 , 3 23 -3 2 6 , Em i l e Paul
Grindel) : Repetitions, 1 9 9-200, 20 1 , 2 3 7 Enfant i n , Barthelemy Pr o s p e r, 1 0 1
336;
a n d shock-character o f mon
tage, 3 1 7-3 1 8 ; s hock effect o f, 3 9 , 4 1 , 5 3 n3 2; s i l ent v s . s o u nd, 3 1 ;
sound, 2 1 ; and tec h n o lo gy, 3 3 , 3 29 ,
Enge ls, Friedrich, 1 04, 1. 1 6, 1 1 7 , 1 1 8 ,
3 3 0 ; and te s t performances, 3 0-3 1 ;
1 22, 1 24, 1 2 7, 1 3 2; Communist
and tr a d ition, 22; training th ro u g h ,
Manifesto, 1 05 , 1 0 8 ;
Die
Lage del'
Arbeitenden Klassen in England, 1 3 1 Entretiells: L'Art e t la rea lite; VArt et fitat, 3 00, 3 0 1 , 3 02 Epic Th eat e r, 3 9 5
Ernst, Max, 1 70, 1. 9 9 , 200, 2 0 1 , 2 1 6 n5 , 2 3 7
26; and unconscio us, 3 7-3 8 ; view point in, 34-3 5 . See also Ph o to gr a
p hy
Film a c tor, 3 0-3 2, 3 3 , 4 9 n24, 205 , 318 Film a ppara tus, 3 0 , 3 2 , 3 5 , 3 7, 2 0 5 , 3 1 8 . S e e also Camera
Eva ns, Walker, 1 70
Fi lm comedy, 3 2 3-3 24, 3 2 9-3 3 0
Expressionism, 1 64n 8 , 3 74-3 75, 3 8 5
Film stars, 3 3 , 3 2 5 F lan e u r, 5 , 9 9 , 1 04-1 05, 1 07
Fackel, D ie ( periodical) , 3 44, 3 6 1-
3 6 2, 3 63, 3 64, 3 69 , 3 7 1 , 3 7 8, 3 8 1
Flesch, H a ns , 3 4 8 , 3 9 7 Fourier, Charl es, 45 n1 1 , 9 8
( Guid o d i Pietro ) , 29
Facsimile [Abbild}, 23
Fra Angel ico
Fascism, 4, 1 4, 20, 3 3 , 3 4, 4 1 , 42,
French Re vo lu tio n, 1 0 8 , 1 3 5
44n9, 8 0 , 8 5 , 8 9 , 300, 3 0 1 , 3 05, 3 0 6-3 07. See also National S ocia l ism Fashion , 8 8 , 9 8 , 1 02, 1 0 6 , 1 3 8 F ern a nd ez, Ra mon, 79
Fre u d, S i gmu nd , 1 6 9 , 1 9 3 , 245 ;
Trau m deutungJ 1 3 8 , 1 9 9
Freund, Gisde, La Photogl'aphie en France au dix-neuvieme sl,(�cle, 3 0 23 0 3 , 3 1 2-3 1 4
Ferri, Enrico, 1 3 1
Fro e be l , Fried rich, 2 0 0
Feuilleton, 99, 1 09 , 1 2 1. , 3 6 2, 3 63 ,
Fuchs , Ed u a r d , 1 1 6-1 5 7, 1 1 9; D ie
176 Film, 2 8 , 3 1 5-3 2 0 ; a n d advertising,
1 73 ; and art, 2 8-3 0, 3 1 5 ; and a u ra, 4 8 n23 ; and bourgeo isie, 3 2 6, 3 3 0 ; a n d capitalism, 3 3, 3 4; a nd con -
Geschichte der erotischen Kunst,
1 3 0 ; Das individuelle Problem, 1 2 6 ;
Karikatur der e Ul'opaischen
Volkel;
1 3 3 ; Sittengeschichte, 13 8 ; Tang Plastik, 1 2 8-129
41 6
I N D EX
Fulton , Ro bert, 1 "1 1 n 1 3
Graphik, 1 95 , 1 96
Furnished h uman being, 2 0 0-2 0 1 ,
Graphology, 1 6 8- 1 6 9 , 1 92-1 93 , 2 5 4 Greeks, a n c i ent, 24, 2 7-2 8 , 3 8 , 40,
2 02, 204, 23 8
Futur i s m , 4 1 -42
42, 5 6-5 7, 1 4 2 , 1 4 8 n3 1 , 3 1 5
Grimm, A. L.: Fabelbuch, 2 3 3 ; Linas Christian, 3 0 6
Mahrchenbuch, 2 3 3
Ga lima rd, Nicolas Augu ste, 3 03-3 04
Grimme, Hu be rt, 6 9
Gance, Abel, 22, 2 9
Gross, Otto, 220n1
Gal'tenlaube, D i e ( periodical ) , 1 2 3
G rosz, George, 1 4 8 n3 0, 1 9 7, 2 1 9 ,
Gautier, Theo phile, 43n7, 1 13 n45
220n1 , 3 0 6
G ava rni, Paul, 1 4 1
Gri'ln, Ca rl, 9 8
George, Stefan, 3 8 1 -3 8 2
G rUnewa l d , Matthias, 3 0 6
George, Waldemar ( Georges
Griltzner, Eduard v o n , 1 6 1 Gryphius, Andrea s, 1 8 7; Leo
Jarocinski ) , 3 0 1
Arminius, 1 8 8
George circle , 1 9 3 Gericalllt, Theodore, 24 1
G llizot, Fran�ois, 1 03
Gervinus, Georg, 1 1 9 ; Geschichte der poetischen Nationalliteratur, 1 3 4
Gu tzkow, Karl, B riefe atts Paris, 1 0 8
G u ys, Cons tantin, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3
Gesamtk unstwerk, 3 94, 3 95
Gesund heitshaus Kreuzberg, 60-64
H aecket; Theodor, 3 8 0
G -group, 2, 3
Hallmann, Joha nn Christian, 1 8 2;
G hirlandaio, D omenico, 1 8 0
TrauerslJiele, 1 9 1 n 7
Gied ion, Siegfried, 1 5 9
Handwriting. See Grap hology
Gieh low, Karl , 70, 1 7 8 n 1
Hankamer, Pau l, 1 8 1
Girardi , Alexander, 3 8 2 G i ra rd in , Emi le d e , 9 9
Harden, Maximi lian, 1 2 0
Gluck, Gustav, 3 3 8
Hartlau b, G. F., 9 4n5
Goethe,> Johann Wolfgang von, 1 ,
H a u ptm a n n, Elisa beth, Ford, 3 9 3
Harsdorffer, Georg P hilipp, 1 8 3
9 5 n 1 � 1 1 8 , 1 2 6 , 24� 2 73 , 2 8 7 ,
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 1 3 2
3 3 3 , 3 62, 3 6 9 ; Elective Affinities, 2 ;
Hausmann, Raoul , 2
Faust, 4 8 n 2 3 ; Die Wah lverwandt
Haussmann, Georges -Eugene, Ba ron,
schaften, 4 8 n23;
Wilhelm
Meisters
Lehrjahre, 4 8 n2 3 ; Zur Farbenleh re,
204, 2 3 4 Goncou rt, Edmond Louis Antoine d e , l41
Goncourt, Jules Alfred Hu ot d e , 1 4 1
1 0 6-1 07; Confession d'un lion devenu
vieux,
Ht:artfield, John
1 06
(Helmut Herzfe l d ) ,
8 6, 1 48 n 3 0 , 220n 1 , 3 0 5 , 3 0 6
Hebel, Joha nn Peter, 3 6 5 Hegel, G. W. F. , 4 8 n2 3 , 1 0 9 , 1 2 7;
Gottsched, Joha n n C hristo ph, 1 9 1 n5
Vorlesungen iiber die
Goya y Lucientes , Franc isco Jose de,
4 4 11 1 0; Vorlesul1gell zur Philosophie
306
Grand ville, J . J . Uean-lgnace- Is idore
" � L.fJ t:: i: I K .
der Geschichte, 4 4.lfl 0
Heima nn, Moritz, 3 5 7
Gerard), 1 0 1 -1 02 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 ; Flew's
Heine, Heinr ich, 1 1 9 , 1 3 2 , 3 62-3 63
animees, 2 72
Heracl itus, 38
Grap hic arts, 1 95, 1 97, 2 1 9
Herder, Johann Gottfried , 273
G raphic images, 1 6 8
Herzfelde, Wie l a nd , 220n 1
Graphic line , 1 9 8 , 22 1-222 , 223
Hieroglyphics� 1 76, 230
Graph icness, 6, 7 , 2 1 3
Hill, Da vid Octavius, 2 74 , 279-2 80�
417
I N D EX
2 8 3 ; Newhavel1 Fishwife. 2 7 6 , 2 77;
Robert Bryson, 2 8 4 Hil ler, Kurt, 94n5
Inte l lectuals, 8 4, 8 5 , 9 2 , 1 04-1 0 5
oder das Gestalten, 2 3 1
Isabel/ens Venvandlungen Madchen in sechs
Hindemi th, Paul, 3 9 9 , 400n4
Iva novic, Magda l ene, 1 6 8- 1 6 9
Hirsch, j ul ian, 1 1 9 Historical
materialism,
1 1 6, 1 1 8 , 1 1 9,
1 24 , 1 2 � 1 3 6 , 1 3 8 , 1 42 , 1 43 n l ,
jean Pa u l . See Richter, Jean Paul Jensen, J oha nnes v. , Exotische Novel/en, 43n6
198
Historicism, 1 1 8
Jentzsch, Hans G abrie l , 120
History : a n d Arcades Proj ect, 2 0 9 ; a n d art, 2 , 9-1 1 , 2 1 , 1 84 , 1 9 5 ; o f
Joel, Ernst, 6 0-6 1 , 6 3 Journalis m/newspa pers/press, 2 1 , 3 3 ,
art, 67-72, 1 1 9 ; and B aroque era ,
8 2 , 8 3 , 8 6, 1 0 6 , 1 7 1 , 2 79, 2 9 3 ,
1 75 , 1 8 0, 1 8 2 ; cultural, 1 2 1 , 1 24 ,
343-3 44, 345, 3 5 3 , 3 5 9-3 6 0 , 3 6 1 ,
1 2 5 ; d i a lectica l p resentation of v s .
3 6 2 , 3 63 , 3 69 , 3 7 5 , 3 7 6 .
contemplation, 1 1 8 ; e p i c element in,
Publishing industry
See aho
1 1 8 ; a nd Fuchs, 1 3 1 , 1 3 5 ; im por
Jugendstil, 1 03 , 1 5 9, 1 6 5 n 1 2 , 283
tance of, 1 6-1 7; and p er cept io n , 6 ,
.l u ng, Franz, 220n 1
9 , 2 3 , 1 5 9 ; a lld photogra phy, 2 6 5 ,
2 6 6 ; t heory of, 5-6; a n d
Kafka, Franz, 2 82 and
Kand i nsky, Wassily, 1 9 6 , 2 1 9 , 272 Kant, Im manuel, 43 n 7 , 1 1 3 n 4 5 , 1 22 ,
rea ding ha bits, 1 9 7 Hitler, Adolf, 4 , 4 1 , 1 6 0 , 1 6 3 n 2, 3 5 0
1 5 2n5 3 , 3 66 Kastner, Eric h , 8 8
Hoffma n n , E . T. A . , 1 32 Hoga rth, William, 3 0 6
Kautsky, Karl, 1 1 6 , 1 3 1 , 1 5 1 n5 0
Homer, 4 2
Ke l ler, Gottfried, 9 5 n 1 7 , 1 1 8
Horkheimer, Max, 1 43n 1 , 1 5 3 n 6 5
Kepl er, johannes, 5 8
Horst, C a r l , 1 7 7
Kerr, Alfred (Alfred K lcmperer) , 94n5 ,
Hugo, Victor, 1 3 1 -1 32, 274; "To the
379
Peo p les of Euro pe, " 1 02; William
Kierkegaard, S0ren, 1 5 9 , 3 7 1 , 3 7 8
Shakespeare, 1 3 2 , 1 5 7n90
Ki uch, 1 9 8- 1 99 , 2 0 0 , 202, 2 0 6 , 20 8-
H u m a n i ties, 1 2 1 , 1 22
209, 2 3 8 , 254, 3 2 1 n l 0
Ludwig, 1 6 8 , 1 6 9 ;
Huma n senses, 3, 9, 1 1 , 1 2 , 1 3 , 2 64, 2 6 5 . See also Perception
Hypnerotomachia PolifJhili,
Hmzdschrift und Charak ter, 1 93 ; 23 0
Prinzipien der Charakterologie, 1 9 3 Klee , Paul, 2 72; Abstraktes
I bsen, Henrik, Master B uilder, 1 03
1 9 6; New Angel, 3 8 7
Aquarell,
Iljinsky, Igor Vlad inl irovich, 323
Kleine B ibel far Kinder (Te u b n er ) , 2 3 1
Image, 23, 97-9 8, 1 6 9, 1 7 0 , 1 76 , 1 77,
Klopstock , Friedrich Gottli eb, 1 9 0
1 9 5 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 4 , 263-26 4 , 272, 2 7 3 ,
Knaus, Ludwig, 1 6 1
276, 3 0 1
K01'11,
Image-wor ld, 1 1 -12, 264, 272
Imme rman n , Karl Le b recht,
247
c., " Proletari at und Klassik, "
1 22.
K racauer, S i egfried, 2, 4, 54n3 3 , 2 8 1
Imperi a l Panorama, 5 2 n3 0 , 75-76
Kraemer, H a ns, 1 20
Im pressionism , 1 0 0 , 30 1
Kra us, Karl, 1 3 8 , 344, 3 5 3 , 3 6 1 -
Inscri ption , 62, 1 70 , 1 7 1 , 1 7 6 , 1 7 8 n 3 , J 9 8 , 1 9 9 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 3-2 1 4 , 252, 2 7 9 ,
2 8 0, 2 9 4 , 2 9 5 , 3 0 5
3 8 8 ; "After Thirty Yea rs, " 3 8 1 3 8 2 ; " El egy o n the Death of a
Sou nd, " 3 73 ; "The End, " 3 6 6;
I N D EX
418
Liebknecht, Wilhel m ,
Kra us, Ka rl (continued)
" The Fors a k e n, " 3 8 4; " In Th ese
Great Times, " 364; " Lyrik der Deutschen, " 3 8 6 ; Na chts, 3 77;
Lin fert, Carl, 6 8 , 70, 7 1 7 2 -
Lis sitzky,
" O ffenb ach Renaissance," 3 9 0n1 3 ; "To Eternal Peace , " 3 8 3 ; Wo rds
Verse, 3 77, 3 84
1 16
Li e gl e r, L e opo l d , 3 70
in
EI , 2
Li tera ture, 3 3-3 4, 3 6 , 6 8 , 7 9-93 , 1 8 1-1 8 4 , 2 0 6 , 2 1 4 , 25 8-259, 3 2 3 , 3 24, 344 , 345-346
Krull, G erm a in e , 2 9 3 ; Display Win
Lithography, 20, 21
dow, 29 1 ; Storefront, 292 Kzmstwolle11., 1 0 , 1 9 7 , 2 0 5 , 2 0 9 , 2 5 4
L ivre jou-jou (ch i l d ren'S
La Bruyere, Jean de, 1 4 1
Lornbroso, Cesa re, 1 29
book), 2 3 J
L o h en stein, Daniel Ca spar von, 1 8 5n l l
Lacis, Asia, 2 , 7
Laos, Adolf, 3 62 , 3 6 8, 3 72-3 73 , 3 8 0 , 3 87
La fa rgue, Panl, 1 07
Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de,
Louis Napoleon.
See Napoleon III
Louis P h i l ippe, 1 0 3 , 1 0 7, 1 32 , 3 04,
1 3 6, 3 1 3 La m p re c ht, Karl, Deutsche
3 1 On 1 7 Luther, Martin, 1 71
Geschichte, 1 24-1 25
L a ngl e , Ferd inand, Louis - B ro nze et Ie Language, 1 9 5 ; a n d a l l ego ry, 1 8 7 ,
1 8 8 ; a n d Baroque e ra, 1 76, 1 8 11 8 4; and children's b o ok s , 227, 23 3-234; disl1lc!mbenllent of, 1 68, 1 8 7-1 9 1 ; and knowledge, 1 67; and Kraus, 344, 3 62, 363, 3 64, 3 6 5 , 3 6 9 , 3 7 1 , 3 73-3 74, 3 76, 379, 3 8 1 , 3 82, 3 8 3 3 8 5 3 8 7 ; and meaning, 1 6 7; and movable type, 20j n ature of, 1 6 7- ] 6 8 ; and p a i nting, 1 9 8 ; and ra d i o , 3 92 ; and scri pt, 1 6 7, 1 6 81 70; the o ry of, 7 -
Lyser, Johann Peter, 2 3 3 ; B uch der Miih rche11. fur Tochter
Saint-Simonien, 1 00-1 0 1
,
Laske r-Schuler, Else, 3 8 0
and S o h n e
gebildeter Stande, 23 0, 2 3 3 ; Fabelbuch,
233; Linas
Mahrchenbuch, 2 3 3 Machiavelli, Niccol(), 1 3 5 Mad ariaga y
Roj o,
S a l va d o r de,
308n 6
Maeterlinck, M a u r i c e , 3 3 8
Magical R ed Umbrella, The, 232 Ma le, Emile, "l 4 8 n3 2
Mallarme, Stephane, 24, 1 70, 1 7 1 , 258;
Un Coup de des jamais
n 'abolira Ie hasard, 1 72
Edona rd,
Lassalle, Fer d in and, 1 1 6 , 122, 3 76
Manet,
Le Cor busier ( Ch a rles Ed ou a rd
Mann, Heinrich, 84, 9 4 n 5
Mann, Th oma s, 9 4 n 6 , 3 0 0
Jeanneret), 3 0 0
Marinetti, Emil i o Filippo To m aso, 4 1 -
Leo n a rdo d a Vi n ci 2 5 8 , 2 74 ,
Leopardi,
Giacomo, D i a l o gue "
be
t w een Fash ion a nd Dea th, " 1 02 Le Play, Frederi c ,
2 1 3 , 214
GUUI'jets eurOpee11.5,
4 2 ; " Manifeste de Futurisme," 54n3 7
Mark, 1 9 8 , 222-225 Marol les, Michel, 1 4 1
108
L e p o rell o pop-up books, 200, 2 3 6
Marx, Karl, 1 2, 1 9 , 97, 9 8 , 1 0 1 , 1 02 ,
Lessing, Gotthold Ephra i m , 1 1 9
1 1 6 , 1 22, 1 2 7 , 1 3 1 , 1 3 2, 1 5 0n4 9 ,
Lhote, Andre, 3 0 0 , 3 0 1-302, 3 0 5
2 1 5 n3, 2 6 5 , 3 2 1 n l 0 , 3 78 , 3 8 5 ;
Lichtenberg, 350, 3 8 8
G e org
C h ristoph , 8 9,
Lichrwark, Alfred, 2 8 7
Communist M a nifes to ,
1 05 , 1 08
Ma rxism, 1 4 3 , 143nl , 1 5 1 n5 0 Mask, 2 5 5 , 2 9 3
419
I N DEX Ma sses: and a rt, 3 9 , 40, 3 2 0 , 3 2 1 n l 0; education for, 61, 201-202; and fas c i s m , 4 1 ; and film, 3 3 , 3 4 , 3 8 , 2 0 5 , 3 1 8-3 1 9 , 3 2 5 ; lea d er s h i p of,
50 n25 ; pa rticipation by, 3 9 ; and pho togra phy, 5 4 n 3 6 ,
8 7 ; a nd p ro le
Na poleon H I , 1 0 7, 1 0 8 , 1 1 4 n48 Nati o n a l
S ocia l ism , 1 5 8 , 1 6 0 , 1 62 .
See also Fascism
Nature, 26, 59, 99, 1 0 9, 1 8 1 -1 8 2 , 264, 2 6 5
Nazaren es, 1 4 1 , 2 0 8 , 2 4 0
tariat, 4 1 ; and ra d io, 3 4 6 , 3 9 1 , 392,
Neo-Kantianism, 1 7 7, 1 78 , 1 9 8
3 94 , 4 0 3-4 04; and re produc tion,
N e r val , Gerard de, 1 32
2 3-24, 3 6 ; and un iqu eness, 23, 24;
Nestroy, Johann, 3 7 1 , 3 7 9, 3 8 0
and war, 4 1 -42 M a u b l a nc , Re ne, 92, 9 3 Mehring, F r a n z ,
8 8 , 1 1 6, 1 1 7, 1 24-
1 25 , 1 4 3 n 1 ; Lessing-Legende, 1 1 9 , 127
Newha ll, Beaumont, 2 6 8 n l New O bj ectivi ty [Neue Sachlichkeitl, 6 3 , 84, 8 6 , 8 � 9 2 , 1 4 8 n 3 0 , 1 6 4n8 Newsp'l.pers. See Journalism/newspa
pers/press
Meissonier, Jean-Loui s-Ernest, 3 04 Mendelssohn, Anj a , 1 6 8 , 1 6 9, 1 92, 1 93
Mendelss ohn, Ge org, 1 6 8 , 1 6 9 Mes mel; Franz Anton, 253n3
Nguyen Trang Hiep, Paris, ca pita le de la France, 9 6 Niepce, Joseph Nice phore, 1 1 1 n 1 6, 2 74
Mi c ha elis, Ka rin, 371
Nietzsche, Fri edr ich, 9 4 n 5 , 1 46n1 9,
Michon, Je a n Hippolyte, 1 9 2
Nouvelle R evue Franfaise ( perio dical),
M ic h e let, Ju l e s , 9 7 , 1 3 2 M icke y Mouse (cartoon character), 3 8 , 5 1 n2 9 , 3 1 8 , 3 3 8
Midsummer Nigh t's Dream, A ( film) , 29
1 65n 1 2 , 3 6 3 , 3 8 3 301
Nava lis (Fried rich Le op old , Freiherr von Harden bu rg ), Heinrich von
Ofte rdingen, 5 1 n 26, 1 9 8, 2 3 8n 2
Mies Va n d e r Rohe, Lud wig, 2 Mobius, P a u l Ju l iu s , 1 2 9 Moho l y - Nagy, Lisz16, 2, 3 , 9 , 2 7 1 272, 2 9 0 ; " Production-Reproduc
Nungesser, Ch arles, 3 5 3 Offenbach, Ja c que s , 1 0 2 , 3 7 1 , 3 79 , 3 8 0, 3 9 4; L a v i e parisie1l11eJ 3 8 9 n 1 2
O p itz, Marti n, 1 8 1
ti on," 1 1 -1 2 Monet, Claude, 255
Orl ik, Emil, 2 8 0, 2 8 3
M o n tage, 62, 63 , 9 0 , 9 1 , 1 0 9 , 1 70, 3 1 7-3 1 8 , 395
P acher,
M i ch a e l , 6 8 , 6 9
Montez, Lola ( M a ri e Gilbert ) , 1 2 0
Pacht, Otto, 6 8 , 6 9 , 70
MUller, Friedrich v o n , 1 1 8
Painting, 2 7, 1 49n34, 1 9 5 , 196, 223-
Jv1uri l l o , Bartoleme Esteban, 1 2 9 Mllschg,
68
Music, 8 7-8 8 , 3 7 8-3 79
Musil, Robert, The Man with out
Qualities, 2 6 8
224, 299-3 1 1 ; a nd architecture, 7 1 ;
Chinese, 2 1 3-2 1 5 , 2 5 7-2 6 1 ; a s commodity, 3 0 3 ; a n d film, 3 5, 3 6 , 53n3 2 ; a n d gra phic arts, 2 1 9 ;
and
l angu age, 1 9 8 ; a nd l i tera ture, 2 1 4;
Muthet; Richard, 6 7
longitudinal section of, 1 97, 2 1 9;
Muy bridge, Eadward, 265
and Mi ddl e Ages, 4 0 ; and panora
Nadar ( Gaspard-Felix To urna cho n ) ,
276, 2 8 1 , 2 8 2 , 2 8 4 , 2 9 0 , 302-3 03,
mas,
1 0 0 , 274, 2 8 1
99;
and pho to g ra p h y, 2 8 , 1 0 0,
304, 3 1 2; and public a ffairs, 3 0 1 ;
Name/naming) 1 9 8 , 2 0 8 , 224
unity of, 1 9 8 ; and vertical orienta
Napoleon 1, 9 7
tion, 1 97, 2 1 9; waterco lor, 240-24 1
INDEX
420 Pa n o fsk y, Erwin, 9
Piran d e l lo, Luigi, 3 2 ; Sigira, 3 1
Panorama, S, 6, 1 6 , 99-1 0 0 , 1 1 1 0 13 ,
Planeta ri u m , 5 8-5 9
1 5 8-1 63
Pl ato, 79, 89 Play, 2 6 , 48n23 , 24 1
Pa ris, S , 96- 1 0 9
Paris
desert ( a n onym ous work), 1 0 7
Pe rc e p ti o n, 5, 6, 7, 9 , 1 2 , 23 , 4 0 , 4 1 , 1 5 9 , 2 0 1 , 20 4, 2 1 3 , 2 3 3 , 27 1 , 3 0 2 , 3 1 5-3 1 7 . See also Hu m a n se n se s
Pes ta l oz zi ,
Johann He in r ich , 200, 2 0 1
P etty bourgeoisie, 5 0n25, 1 5 8 , 1 6 0,
P lekhanov, Georgi Va len tinovich, 1 1 6 , 1 5 0n49, 3 0 9n 1 31 3 1 3 Poe, E d ga r Alla n, 43n7, 1 1 3n45; "The Man o hhe C r owd , " 1 1 3 n40; " P hi
loso phy o f Furniture , " 1 04 Poete, Marcel,
Urze vie de cite Paris,
16
2 3 3 . See also Bourgeoisie
Pfau, Lu d wig, 1 2 3
Portrai ture, 1 0 0, 279, 282, 2 8 6, 3 02303, 3 12
P femfert, F r anz , 2 2 0 n 1 Ph a lans tery, 9 8
Po tonnie, Georges, 2 6 8 n 1
Phantasmagoria, 1 1 , 1 4, 1 0 1 , 1 02 ,
Press. See Journalism/newspapers/
1 0 3 , 1 04, 1 0 6 , 1 0 7 , 1 0 8 , 26 5 , 2 6 8 , 3 1 9 , 320
p ress Prevost, Pierre, 99
Philosopher Schelling, The (ph oto gra ph ) , 2 8 0 , 2 8 1
Pri n cess of Vengeance, The (book), 245
Ph oto gr a ph y, 263-26 8 , 27 1-273 ,
Pro letariat , 1 2 , 1 9 , 4 1 , 5 01125 , 79, 9 1 ,
3 02-3 1 0 ; and art, 2 8 , 267, 275,
1 0 1 , 1 05, 1 0 7, 1 0 8 , 1 2 1 , 127, 13 1 ,
2 8 7 , 2 8 8-2 9 3 , 2 94, 3 03 , 3 1 3 ; a nd
1 3 2, 330, 345
a u r a , 27; a uthen tic ity o f, 2 1 ; a nd
Proust, Marcel, 3 9 7
ca ptions , 206; as co mm od i ty, 267,
Psychoa nalysis/psychology, 1 4 , 1 3 6-
3 0 3 , 3 1 3; and creativi ty, 293 ; a n d
1 3 9 , 1 93 , 1 9 9, 2 0 0 , 2 3 7, 279. See
cult vs. e xh ibiti o ll value, 27;
also Unconsc ious
tive-art, 3 0 5 ;
d e co ra
de ve lopmen t of, 1 0 0;
and e d ucation , 1 3 - 1 4; and fetish ism, 293 ; Fre u n d on, 3 1 2-3 1 4;
his
to ry o f, 264-267, 274-295; indus tri a l ization of, 274-2 75; and
j o urnalism, 293 ;
and masses,
54n3 6 ; M o ho l y - Na gy on, 1 1 , 1 2 ;
and mon t age , 9 0 j a n d na ture, 1 0 9; a nd New Obj ectivity, 8 6, 8 7, 8 8 ;
a n d pa i n tin g , 2 8 , 1 0 0, 276, 2 8 1 ,
Publishing ind ustry, 343-3 4 6 , 355-
3 5 8 , 359-3 6 0 . See also J o u rna l ism/
newspa pers/press
,md Filmmanuskript, 47n22; Mothel:.
P u dovkin, V. 1 . , 2 8 7; Film R egie 330 P ul ver, Max, 1 9 3
Qtterelle du realisme, La, 3 05 , 3 0 6 Q u i ne t, Edgar, 1 3 2
282, 284, 2 9 0 , 302-3 03 , 3 0 4, 3 1 2 ;
a n d pa n orama s , 9 9 ; and
Ra d i o , 4 9 n24, 9 0 , 9 1 , 3 46-3 5 1 , 3 9 1 -
physiogn o trace, 3 0 3 , 3 1 2; and pol i
3 92 , 3 9 3-3 9 6 , 3 9 7-400, 403-405,
t i cs, 2 6 8 ; a nd
4 0 7-4 09
reproduction, 20-2 1 ,
24, 2 5 , 290, 293, 3 1 3 ; an d shock
Raim und, FerdIn and, 3 8 2
e ffect, 2 6 7 , 2 94 ; a nd Wiertz, 2 1 1.
Ramuz, Charl es Fer di n a nd , 4 8 1123
See
also Camera; Fil m
Ra nke, Leopold vo n , 1 1. 9
Photomo n tage, 8 6 , 1 00
Ra p ha e l, 2 0 8 , 2 2 3 , 224
Picasso, P a blo, 1 9 6
Ray, Nian (Emmanuel Radni tzky) ,
Piers on, Pi erre- Lo uis, 2 8 1 Pilgrim,
The ( fi l m ) , 3 3 7
305
Rea d er/rea d i ng, 33-3 4 , 1 9 7, 202,
421
I NDEX
Redon, Odi lon, 2 1 3
267; Parliamentary Representative (a D em ocrat), 2 8 9 ; Pastry Cook, 288 Saud ek, Robert, 1 6 8 , 193 Scheerba rt, Paul, 3 8 7; GlasarchitektU1� 9 7, 9 8
Re inhardt, Max, A Midsummer
Schelling, Fried rich W i lhelm Joseph
204, 2 0 6 , 2 1 9, 226-227, 245 , 345 , 346, 3 55, 356, 3 5 7, 3 5 9-3 6 0 . See also Audience
Rech t , Camille, 2 8 3-2 84, 2 8 5 ,
2 9 6n 1 4
von, 2 8 0 , 2 8 1
Night's Dream, 29
Renaissance, 40, 1 2 9 , 149n34, 1 71 ,
Scherchen, Hermann, 399 Scheu, Robert, 3 6 7
1 8 0, 230, 3 02 Renger-Patzsch, A l bert , Die Welt lst
Schickele, Rene, 220n 1 Schiebel , Johann Georg, 1 89
scha� 8 6-8� 2 6 7, 2 9 8n26, 3 05
Ren n e r, Paul, 229
Schiller, Friedrich, 247, 3 8 5
Reproduction, 1 1 , 14, 1 5 , 1 9-42, 1 26 ,
Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 74n 1 6
142, 2 8 5-28 6 , 290, 293, 3 03 , 3 1 3 Revolution, 202, 344 Ri bera, Jose, 1 2 9 Rich ter, Hans, 2 Richter, Jean Paul, 233; Levana, 9 8 Rickert, H ei n ri ch, 1 79n9 Riegl, Alois, 9-1 0, 23, 69, 1 9 7, 206, 2 73 n4; Late Roman Art Industry 1 0 , 70 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 3 9 , 1 60 Rimbaud, Arthur, 1 0 8 Robespierre, Maximilien de, 1 3 5
Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 73n8, 1 90
,
Sch legel, Fried rich, 1 , 247 Schlosser, Friedrich Christoph, 134 Schmidt, Erich, 1 1 9 Schmitz, Oscar A dolf Hermann, 3 2 8 ,
330 SchobeG Joha nn , 3 79 Schoen, Ernst, 2, 346-347, 3 9 3 , 3 9 7-
1 60, 1 76, 1 83 , 1 9 8 , 204, 205, 20 8 , 233, 240 Roosval, Johnny, 3 0 0 Rousseau, Henri, 3 9 7
400; "Musical Enterta inment by Means of Ra dio, " 3 9 7 S cholem, Gersho1l1, 1 9 8 , 2 1 5 11n2,3, 220n1 Schon berg, Arnold, 3 8 8 n2 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1 62, 2 8 6 Schrift, 1 78 n 3 Schultz-Delitzsch, I-Termann, 1 2 1 Science, 1 22, 1 2 7 , 1 8 4 Script, 1 6 7, 1 6 8-1 70, 1 71-172, 1 76 , 1 8 9, 2 1 3 , 3 4 6 Script-image, 1 6 8 , 1 76
Ru bens, Peter Pa ul, 2 1 1
Sedlmayr, Hans, "Towa rd a Rigorous
Rococo period, 1 8 3 Rodin, Auguste, 1 2 5 Romans, a n cient, 23 Romantic ism, 1 , 3 , 1 3 2, 1 33, 1 4 1 ,
Ru in, 1 8 0- 1 84
S t u dy of Art," 6 8
Russia, 3 4, 83 , 8 9 , 92, 3 9 1 Russian film , 34, 2 8 6 , 2 9 3 , 323-326,
Self-alienation, 32-3 3 Severin-Mars ( a ctor ) , 2 9 Sha kespeare, W illiam, 1 35 , 3 09 n 1 3 ,
336
3 1 3 , 3 3 5 , 3 7 1 , 3 8 0 , 3 84, 3 8 5 S a i nt-Pol-Roux ( P a ul Roux) , 237
Sign, 1 6 8, 1 97, 1 9 8 , 22 1-2 22, 223
Saint-S imon , Henri d e , 1 1 2n24
Simmel, Georg, "The Metropolis and
Sa int-Simonians, 1 0 1 , 1 2 3
Ment a l Life," 3 1 6
Salles, Georges, 2 14, 2 5 8 , 259
Siren, 0 . , 257
Sander, August. 2 6 6-26 7, 2 87, 293;
Sittenspriiche des Buchs Jesus Sirach,
Das A n tlitz der Zeit, 297n 1 8 ; Mel1schen des
2 0 . Jah rh underts .
229, 23 0-23 1 Max, 1 25
Slevogt,
422
INDEX
Social Democracy, 1 3 1 , 1 5 1 n5 0
Tietze, Hans, 3 00, 3 0 1
Social Democra tic Party, 1 1 6 , 1 2 1 ,
Tikkun, 8 n 3
Ti tia n (Tizia no Vece l l i ) , 25 5
1 23 , 1 3 0
Soupa u l t, Philippe, 3 3 5-3 3 6, 3 3 7
Toul ouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 1 4 8 n 3 0
S tahr, Adolf Wilhelm Theod or, 1 1 9
To ussenel , Al phonse , 1 0 2
S tel zner, Ca rl Ferdina nd, 2 8 I
Traucyspiel,
Stern be rger, D olf, 1 5 8-1. 6 3 Stifter, Ad albert, 3 65-3 6 6 , 3 8 5 , 3 8 6
Tretiakov, Se rgei, 8 "1 - 8 3 , 2 0 6 ;
manders
S toe ck er, Adolf, 1 60
S a s ch a , 2 9 3 S t o sc h , Baron Phi l ipp v o n ,
1 , 2 , 1 75 , 1 8 0- 1 8 4 , 1 90,
21 3
of the
Field,
82
Com-
Tschabuschnigg, A d o l f Ritter von, 247
Stone,
141
Stassi, O tto, 3 6 5
Stramm, A ug us t, 3 9
S tra nitzky, J o s eph, 1 9 1 n5
Stri nd berg , August, Advent, 222 Su rrealism, 36, 1 0 8- 1 09, 1 6 4n 8 , 1 70, 1 99 , 200, 2 0 1 , 2 0 2 , 209, 2 1 1 , 2 1 606, 2 3 7-2 3 8 , 2 8 5 , 2 8 6 , 2 9 3 , 3 0 4-3 05, 3 9 4
Swift, Jon a tha n, 3 78
Tuc h o l s ky, Ku rt, 8 8
Tzara} Tris ta n , 290-2 9 1 Uecello, Paolo, 1 49 n 3 4 , 3 0 2 Unconscious, 1 9 3 , 2 5 5 ; optical, 3 73 8 , 2 6 4-2 65 , 26 6 , 2 7 8-2 7� 3 2 0 .
See
also
Psychoanal ysis/psychology
Urbanis m/city, 5, 9 9 , 1 0 4, 3 1 7-3 1 8 Uto pia , 9 8 , 1 0 5 Utrill o,
S y mbol , 1 9 7, 1 9 8
M a u ri ce,
2 5 5 , 276
S y mbolists, 2 1 1
Valery, Pau l, 25 8
Synchronici ty, 5 , 1 5
Va nderb u r ch , Emile, Louis-Bronze et
Taine, Hippolyte, 1 0 1
Va n de Ve l de, Henry, 1 03
Ta oism, 204, 226
Ve r tov, D z iga ( Denis Ar kad yevieh
Ie Saint-Simonien, 1 00-1 0 1
Tay lorisll1, 3 1 6, 3 1 8 , 3 2 1 n 8
Techno l ogy, 1 , 3 , 6; and ancient
Kau fman) , The Soviet Sixth of the Earth, 324
Greeks, 2 7-2 8 ; a nd art, 1 9-42, 1 2 7,
Viertel, Berthold, 3 70 , 3 8 2
1 6 1 ; and cosmos, 5 8 , 5 9 ; d es t r uc
Vi rg i l ,
tiveness of, 1 2 3 ; and ecs ta tic tra nce,
Aeneid,
1 05
Viv id n ess , 1 8 7, 1 95 , 2 1 3
1 2 , 5 8 ; and film, 3 3 , 3 1 8} 3 2 9 , 3 3 0 , 3 4 0 ; a n d Ha ussmann , 1 07; a n d
J ugendstil, 1 03 ; and Kra us, 3 6 3 ,
Wagner, Richard, 1 0 6 ; Lohengrill, 3 2 5 ; Tannhausel� 3 25
3 66; and mass a rt, 1 42 ; and na ture,
Wa l d a u , M ax (Richard Georg Spiller
2 6 , 5 9 ; and p anorama s, 99; a nd
perception, 1 2 , 3 1 5-3 1 6 ; a nd p ho togra p hy, 265, 279 ; a n d politics, 49 n24; prehis toric vs . modern, 26;
von Hauensch i l d ) , 247
Wa ley, Arthur (Art h ur D a vi d SchlossL 257
WaHon, Hen ry} 3 2 0 n 3
and rad io, 3 9 1 , 3 94 ; a nd revolu
Wa llraff, Ferdinand Franz, 1 41
tion, 4 5n 1 1 ; and science, 122, 1 23 ;
Wa ng
a n d sensori u m , 1 3 ; a n d utopianism , 1 3 ; a n d war, 4 2
Tel ep h o ne , 77-78 Television, 2 0 8 , 3 9 8-3 9 9
Yu a nq i ,
Landscape in the Styles
of Ni Zan and Huang GongwangJ 212, 2 1 4
War,
4 1-42
Warb urg Institute, 9
Theate r. See Dramaltheater
Warthmiiller, Ro bert, 1 6 1
Th i r d Reich, 1 5 8 , 1 6 2
Weber, A l fred, 1 4 7n28
423
INDEX
\Veber, Max, 1
\Vincke1mann, Johann Joa chim, 126,
Wedekind, Frank, 1 3 7 , 1 5 4n72, 380
Weill, Kurt, 3 3 8 , 3 99
dere in Rome, " 1 76
Wei ma r era, 94n5
Wo l fflin, Heinrich, 6 9 , 70, 1 96 ; Die klassische Kunst, 6 7, 1 26 - 1 2 7
Weininger, Otto, 3 8 0
Weiss, Karl , The GlorioHs Martyr Johannes von Nepomuck, 1 8 9
227-2 2 8
Worl d Exhibiti ons, 1 0 0-1 02 Worringer, Wi l hel m, 9 Writers, 3 3-3 4, 79-95 , 3 4 5 , 3 55 , 3 59
Werfel, Franz, 2 9
Wich , J . P. , Steckenpferd and
1 4 1 , 1 4 8 113 "1 , 1 8 3 ; " Description o f
t h e Torso o f Hercules In t h e Bel ve
Puppe,
Wickhoff, Franz, 2 3
Writing, 6, 1 6 7, 1 6 9 , 1 7 0 , 1 95 , 204205, 2 0 6
Wundt, Wilhelm Max, 1 9 3
Wie rtz, Antoine Joseph, "1 0 0, 2 1 4 , 2 9 3-2 9 4 , 305-3 0 6 ; Oeuvres
Ziel, Das . 94n5
litteraires, 21 1 ; Thoughts and Vi
Zobeltitz, Fedor von, 1 5 3 11 6 4
sions of a Severed Head. 209-2 1 1 ,
Zola, Emile: Therese RaquinJ 9 8 ; Tra
249-25 1
Wigman, Mary, 3 3 8
vail, 9 8 Zucker,
\'V'ol f,
3 4 7, 3 4 8 , 3 4 9, 3 93
C R E D ITS
This work is
a
tra nslation of sel ections from Wa lter Benj amin, Gesammelte
Schriften, Unler Mitwirkung von Th eodor W. A dorno und Gershom Scholem,
herausgegebe17 von Rolf Tiedemann
und
Hermann Schweppe1thause1� copyright
© 1 972 , 1 9 74, 1 977, 1 9 8 2, 1 9 8 5 , 1 9 8 9 by Suhrkamp Verl ag. With tbe excep
tions noted below,
all translations were
previously p u b l ished in Wa l ter Benj a m i n,
Selected Writings, 4 vols . , cd. Michael W. Jennings et a 1 . ( Cambridge,
vard Un i versity
Mass . :
Har
1 9 9 6-200 3 ) , Chapters 3, 1 2-1 3, and 1 8-20 previ ous ly ap
peared in Selected Writings, Volume 1; Chap ters 5 , 8 , 1 7, 2 1-23 , 2 5 , 27-2 8 , 3 135, and 3 7-42 in Vol u me 2; Chapters 1 -2 , 6-7, 1 0, 2 9 , a n d 36 in Vo lume 3; a n d
Chapters 1 1 and 3 0 in Vol ume 4 . The translation of " Paris, d i e Hauptstadt d e s XIX. Jahrhunderts " ( Paris, the Ca p i tal of the Nineteenth Century) was previously p u blished in Wa lter Benj amin, Th e Arcades Project, trans. H oward Eiland a nd Kevin Mc La ughlin ( Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) . Portions o f the tran slation o f !
in Wal ter
Benj a min,
Illu
minations, ed. Hannah Arendt ( New York: Ha rcourt, Brace and World, 1 9 6 8 ) ,
and are reprinted by perm ission of Harcourt, I nc. The translations of " Zurn Pl a netarium" (To the Pla neta ri um), " D er Au tor a ls Produzen t " (The A uthor as Producer ) , " Vereidigter Bilcherrevisor" (At tested Au ditor of Book s ) , a nd " D iesc Fliichen sind
Zl1
vermieten " (This Space for Rent)
first ap peared i n Walter Benja min, ReflectionsJ ed. Peter Demetz (New York: Harcourt Brace J ovanovich, 1 97 8 ) , and are reprinted by permission of Har coun, Inc. The tra nslation of " S trenge KUllstwissenschaft" (The Rigorous Study of Art) first appeared in O c to b er, 47 (Winter 1 9 8 8 ), translation © 1 9 8 8 by October Maga zinc Ltd. a nd the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The translati on of " Kleine Gesch ichte
cler
Photographie" (Little History of Pho
tography) was first published i n Walter Ben jamin, " O ne- Way StreetJJ and Other \'(iritings ( Londo n : NLBNerso, 1 97 9 , J 9 8 5 ) .
C R E D I TS
426
The tra nslations of " Bekranzter Eingang" ( G a rlanded En trance), "Anti nomien der Allegorese" (Antinomies of Allegorical Exeges i s ) , " D ie « SprachzerstuckeJ ung"
( D ismem berment
of
Langu a ge ) ,
Ruine " (The Ruin ) , " Anto ine
Wiertz:
Geda nken und Gesichte e ines Gekopften" ( An toine Wiertz: Tho ughts and Vi
sions of
a
Severed Head), " Peintures ch i n o i se s a 1a
Bibliotheque Nationale " ( Chi
nese Paintings at the Bib liotheque NationaJ e ) , " Gesprach mit Ernst Schoen"
( Conversation with Ernst Schoen), "Zweierlei Volkstiimlichkeit "
(Two
Types of
Popula rity), and "Auf die M inute ') (On the Minu te) are published for the first
time
in this volume.
"In wanting to be a great literary critic [Benjamin] discovered that he could only be the last great literary critic. He explained certain aspects of the modern with an authority that seventy
"This
one-volume gathering of
Ben
years of unpredictable change have not
jamin'S dialectical writing on media of
vitiated :'
all kinds, ranging from children's litera ture to cinema, has at its heart the sec
-Frank Kermode
ond, most expansive version of his "Walter Benjamin's work, fragmentary
path-breaking essay 'The Work of Art in
and partly esoteric as it is, fully with
the Age of Its Technological Repro
stands a comparative measure, and
ducibility: Readers familiar only with
surpasses any of its rivals in philo
partial versions of this piece, where
sophic consequences. There has been
Benjamin began to record the melan
no more original, no more serious critic
choly loss of aesthetic presence at the
and reader in our time:'
turn of the twentieth century, will find their understanding transformed-for
�George Steiner
this second version, like all the essays
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was the author of many works of literary and cultural analysis. Michael W. Jennings is Professor of German, Princeton University. Brigid Doherty is Associate Professor of German and of Art and Archaeol ogy, Princeton University. Thomas Y. Levin is Associate Professor of German, Princeton Uni versity.
"In recent decades, Benjamin's essay on
and supplemental texts included here,
the work of art may Ilave been quoted
explores a set of latent, utopian possi
more often than any other single source
bilities inherent in mechanical means
in an astonishing range of areas - from
of art-making. Benjamin, the visionary
new-left media theory to cultural stud
magus
of
particulars,
repeatedly,
foundly,
culture, from the postmodern art scene
grounds and the consequences of our
to debates on the future of art, espe
ever-changing
cially film, in the digital age. The antin
world:'
image of
-Susan Stewart
thinking, his efforts to explore the most extreme
implications
of
opposing
stances, are still invaluable for illumi The
Belknap
Press of
Har.ard Unive'sl\}'
nating the contradictions in today's
Pre..
media environment. Anyone interested
Cambridge, Massachusetts
in the fate of art, perception, and cul
London, England
ture in the industrialized world must welcome this collection of Benjamin's writings on media:'
www.hup.harvard.edu
-Miriam Hansen
ISBN 978-0-674-02445-8
Cover illustrations copyright ©
2006
by
Ralph Steadman. www.ralphsleadman.com Cover design by Jill Breitbarth
pro
ies, from film and art history to visual
omies and ambivalences in Benjamin's
and
reveals both
the
the
made
