Page 26 - Studio International - May 1972

Metropolis mean that progress not only became a positive and economic stability reached by the end of
virtue in art, but that art itself became a means that year invites such an interpretation. Rather,
John Elderfield of progress in society. Many innovators in the the utopian was now expressed through the
visual arts saw themselves painting abstract medium of rational discourse—for many
pictures of a future society. believed that this new stability was the beginning
To the inventors of the avant garde in mid- of a new, modern world. That is to say, the
nineteenth-century France, who took their triumph of scientific method in the Dawes
Through the creation of an artificial space, a lead from revolutionary politics, the modern Plan era seemed to confirm the earlier
particular set of impressions and responses can could only be created through an art of optimism; and the tendency toward the
be intensified, serving to condense and exception, which defined its advancement or `functionalist' was but the consolidation and
organize a wide range of connotations, free of modernity in a separation from bourgeois rationalization of the utopian.4 But with 'the
the irrelevancies, distractions, and society and its traditional values. For most new' supposedly arrived, there was a change in
qualifications of which daily life mainly subsequent artists, however, revolutionary stance of the avant garde : it became
consists ... (this) involves a corresponding politics too were soon repudiated; and art's purposefully anti-experimental. Not now
diversion of attention from cognitive and independence—indeed, its authenticity— concerned with continued change, but with
rational analysis. depended upon its justifying itself as a fictional the consolidation of something fixed, universal
Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics mode. For some, though, the revolutionary and eternal for the assumed eternity of the
catalyst remained an inextricable part of their modern democratic world. This is seen most
I new (modern) context; and however 'pure' evidently in the Bauhaus insistence on a strict
For Germany, the experience of the Great War the forms they created, these were, in an vocabulary of expression, whose components,
was not just that of defeat. 'This is more important sense, ideologically loaded—and though manipulated in a utilitarian way, were
than just a lost war,' said Walter Gropius. 'A a way of allying art to social life. containers of cosmic quintessences which gave
world has come to an end. We must seek a For the post-war German avant garde, `meaning' to the social contexts in which they
radical solution to our problems.'1 The arts of social and artistic radicalism were part of the were used.
the Weimar Republic shared with its politics, same endeavour. In the early revolutionary In 192o, Bruno Taut, the Expressionist
technology and economics a disbelief in earlier years, when straight-forward liberalism and architect and member of the utopian-
ways of effecting change, and a predisposition common-sense anti-Fascism was enough to communistic association, the Arbeitsrat fur
toward expansion and experiment. While all bring recognition from the Communist camp, Kunst, published a 'cosmic architectural-
the forms we recognize in Weimar arts may be it almost appeared that a political art was being musical masque', Der Weltbaumeister. It tells of
traced to pre-war ones, the obsessive belief in created.3 Witness, say, Eisner's association a dramatic play of architectural forms which,
progress gives them a new kind of significance with the Bavarian Republic or the specific born into empty space, then grow into organic
and meaning. What these arts signify, however, party connections within the Novembergruppe structures accompanied by spheral music and
is not the same as what—as arts—they are; and and similar organizations. But what emerged a dance of 'cathedral stars'. They then
this is of crucial importance when considering was rather a socially concerned artistic dissolve away into 'atomic nothingness' and
a period where artistic and social questions intellegentsia which in its critical evaluation from them comes a 'purified earth' and 'the
seem closely allied. In such a situation, where of society could not help but be influenced by new communities'; all this directed by the
the arts demand consideration in operational as political events in an arena which saw the Weltbaumeister himself. For Taut, the
well as ontological terms (that is, as modes of confrontation of the principal ideologies of `master of world architecture' was a benevolent
action—with each work thus becoming a kind our century; and which could not help but despot. In the thirties, however, another who
of cosmic 'symbolic structure' —rather than as believe in progress since for them their past enjoyed being called a 'Master Builder' proved
states of being), it is all too easy to assume that had been so decisively destroyed. to be far less of a philanthropist. There are,
the art here is but an 'end product'; for As so often happens, however, a of course, significant ties between
Weimar, a way of coping with societal millenialistic ideology—repudiating the Expressionist and National Socialist theory;
dilemmas.2 Though there are, indeed, certain immediate present—constructs its ideal future but my present concern is to draw attention to a
factors common to all the arts of this period with more than a passing glance to the past. very general interpretation of the universe as a
which can valuably be looked at in social And in the choice of past moment to admire, kind of vast Bühnenraum, within which is
terms (and which are the subjects of these notes), there was a surprising consistency among enacted a dramatic complex of organic processes
to point these out is not to insist that their German intellectuals. Whether left-wing or and where man as a biological entity is
`importance' is commensurate with their right, they looked to the Middle Ages. To the moulded by the changes in his environment;
formative value. For social and artistic right, the Gothic was the last historical period all of which is presided over by a grand theatrical
responsibility are not identical; nor do when German Kultur truly asserted itself. To producer.
factors creating excellence in one art the left, it was a kind of utopia of fruitful To Worringer, abstraction was the result of
necessarily operate similarly for another. Hence, interdenominational cooperation, a time when man's uneasiness when confronted by
the impact of mid-twenties mechanolatory was spiritual and social issues were identical, and phenomena he could not understand and which
of inestimable importance for the fruition of when art served them both. For both wings, seemed to threaten his identity. The
architectural forms, but was also responsible the political was so closely allied to the spiritual Expressionist dramatists detached themselves
for a falling-off of quality in the film. Again : as to be virtually inseparable—and this from sensible reality to create isolated symbols
the espousal of a kind of utilitarian matter-of- emotionalization of things properly rational of inner states, self-consciously scrutinizing
factness brought sobriety and acumen to the continued to be significant right through into their social and psychological personalities to
novel : that abstract painting, however, took the thirties. construct for themselves identities in a world
notice of, and wished to take responsibility for, Moreover, if the rational was emotionalized, where particularity seemed to be dying. They
mass communication was too frequently its corollary was likewise true : the irrational created personal identities, however, only for
disastrous. As for the belief in progress itself: was glossed with a surface verisimilitude. From their heroes. Anyone else existed as a
since the newness of an art is ultimately an painting to the novel, we find that by around standardised construct. What more than
external factor, its progress is in no sense 1923 the spiritual as such is subsumed under a anything else seemed to threaten personality
qualitative. In the reformist art-life alliance of cloak of practicality or objectivity. It had not, I was collectivisation and industrialisation, which
Weimar, however, social commitment could suggest, disappeared; though the new social grew in significance as the twenties developed.
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