Page 43 - Studio International - November 1969

by the Russian aestheticians, and that the The spiral as an image of advanced political Development of a Bottle in Space is a construction
spiral, above all else, appeared to symbolize thought owes its source, however, to the of essentially spiral theme, while Azari aptly
their epoch. It seems to have expressed an heightened style awareness from about the expressed the character of Futurist spatial
apprehension of disorder and of energy in mid-eighteenth century, when the Mannerist theory in a note on the Futurist Aerial Theatre,
daily life (unlike the straight line of later serpentine line began to acquire philosophical describing aircraft 'climbing around an invisi-
abstraction which asserted an underlying connotations of a special kind. In English ble spiral staircase . . . gymnastics on the
harmonious cosmos despite the seeming hap- aesthetic theory from Hogarth, through invisible trapezes of the atmosphere'. W. B.
hazardness of appearances). Tatlin's monu- Burke, to the Picturesque, and beyond to Yeats's 'widening gyre' is yet another example
mental piece of architecture parlante is in many William Blake, the free line became a line of of the revolutionary-spiritual spiral: it is
ways the culmination of the use of this form. free men, came to typify an ideal of 'natural' occult, and yet social in that it demonstrated
Its origins are worthy of investigation. order, of life and imagination; in landscaping, historical change. But a possible link between
The spiral has a broad inherited symbology what has been called a Lockean-type contract Futurist theory and Tatlin's tower could be
as an essentially macro-cosmic image, and between art and nature. But the spiral line Russian Rayonism, which was also concerned
historically was often used as a utopianist and itself is rarely a specific symbol of these ideas, with loaded and radiant 'rays' of force. I do
aspiring form, representative of cosmic motion but rather representative of their existence. not wish to suggest, however, that Tatlin was
and related to the general concept of the (William Mason did, however, in 1797 des- necessarily aware of any of these examples
`mountain temple', with its associations of cribe an undulating gravel path as an 'emblem cited, rather that he was following established
fire imagery. This finds parallel in the Man- pure of legal liberty' !) tradition in using the spiral to epitomize the
neristfigura serpentinata, ' the forme of the flame', In the formal vocabulary of French Revo- energy of his age.
which represents both insecurity and activity. lutionary architectural projects, one finds that
The sexual reference is also worthy of note the spiral is not an especially prominent syn- III
and is manifested, for example, in Dada tactical unit, and those that do occur seem OfTatlin's tower, Mel'nikov is reported to have
machinist imagery. But the dynamism of the in the tradition of Roman triumphal columns, said: 'Our age is dynamic. Tatlin is making
spiral is most pertinent in this present con- where the spiral naturally emerges from con- the spiral a modern symbol'. It was dynamism
text: as it 'grows' it extends itself into sur- siderations more practical than symbolical. that this form evoked to the Revolutionary
rounding space. Velocity is its primary crea- Only Lequeu's Monument a la gloire de nombre mind, but a dynamism with stressed political
tive impetus, and that which allows it reveal its d'hommes illustrés of 1794 makes a direct Revo- import.
integrity to a maximum. lutionary point. Even then, it is still a com- The capitalist individualist, when trying to
Siegfried Giedion has compared Tatlin's memorative emblem, with its inscription, express his personality, prefers the horizontal
tower to the spiral lantern of Borromini's `Mères ! Calmez vos doleurs, ils ont sauvé la line or an immobile column. The socialist, on
S. Ivo della Sapienza. His comparison is based patrie'. the other hand, prefers the climbing vertical
upon similarities of space-time concept (a The first spiral of direct Socialist message line (spiral), which embraces his fellow men in
theme to which I will refer later) ; but in which is aspirational rather than nostalgic its course and soars upwards to embrace the
iconographical terms, Borromini's spiral re- occurs in Rodin's Tour du Travail, planned heavens.
lates to the theme of the Tower of Babel pre- around 1890 as an epilogue to his Gates of Hell, And the metaphor was not restricted to archi-
valent throughout the Renaissance and the and worked on from 1894 to 1897, though, like tectural projects. It is the motive force of the
Baroque. It may seem strange that a theme Tatlin's, never getting past the model stage. planes of some of Pevsner's sculpture and is in
which seems to begin in relation to nationalism The idea appears to have come from Dalou, evidence in Gabo's drawing for a kinetic
(the confusion of tongues) should reach a cli- who in 1889 conceived of a Monument aux sculpture of 1922, as well as infecting such
max in a monument dedicated to inter- Ouvriers, but this did not employ a spiral. fields as book illustration and theatre design.
nationalism. But the biblical interpretation Nevertheless, both projects reflect the con- Adolf Behne relates how Trotsky had used the
of Babel was itself an etymological error, and temporary strength of French Socialism. image in a directly political sense :
the original Ziggurat at Babylon called Rodin, in particular, had close affiliations Trotsky says about an essay by Lenin of 1917
Etemenenanki, the house of the foundation of with the left, for example through his friend that it resembled a powerful steel spiral,
heaven and earth, and its symbolism that of Eugene Carrière. Interestingly, Rodin plan- surrounded by a strong band, which in the
the holy mountain, and the spiral stair the ned that work on his tower be undertaken on a future will expand, spread out and embrace
path to its summit. communal basis, so it could thus express the ideologically the entire meaning of the
During the Gothic period, European minia- collective effort of ideologically motivated Revolution.
ture painters had begun to use Oriental artists. In the analogous Revolutionary situation in
motifs, and representations of Babel were It could be that Rodin's use of the spiral was Germany, the spiral form never specifically
based upon the formal characteristics of influenced by Art Nouveau, for in the decora- achieved the prominence it did in Russia; but
Ziggurats and Mosques. Such representations tive art of the 'nineties the spiral and its a similar world consciousness of cosmic
could involve either stepped or spiralling variants are everywhere. But the only Art motion, of interpenetrating forces in perpetual
forms; but the influence of Herodotus' des- Nouveau monument of real note for the pre- activity extending their global influences,
cription of spiral towers near Babylon caused sent context is Obrist's Design for a Monument of illuminates the writings and projects of the
the latter type to achieve prominence. It 1902, which for the first time used the dia- Glass Chain, around such figures as Taut,
appears that the seminal influence on such gonally orientated spiral, while looking back Scharoun and the Luckhardts. Hans Luck-
images in the work of Jan Scorel, who for the to the Rodin with its angel helping a figure to hardt talked of his communist affiliations in
first time transformed the traditional square the summit. It is unlikely, however, that the light of a demand for an un-schematized
building with a flight of outside steps into a Obrist was thinking in a specifically leftist and 'dissolved' form, whose characteristic
conical tower with a spiral ramp, was the way, but rather of a general symbol for the was to be freedom. Scharoun likewise men-
helicoidal minaret of the Great Mosque at elevation of mankind to spirituality. tions 'passionate forces spreading from the
Samarra. Borromini's spiral lantern can be But international Art Nouveau did certainly focal point of the red dawn of mankind'
viewed against this background; and his exert its influence on the revolutionary move- which 'fill intellectual voids with whirlpools
extension of the theme of the Holy Mountain ment of Futurism. Van de Velde's famous of fervent imagination'. And such descriptions
to that of the House of Wisdom is thus an dictum, 'a line is a force', is mirrored in relate to the phenomenon noted by Siegfried
important innovation. Boccioni's 'lines of force'; and Boccioni's Kracauer where, in such films as The Cabinet