[Juenger-list] EJ, Die Schere #67: Note

[martin krueger" <thingyding@inwind.it (martin krueger)]

Gunther Rebing has put a good question:

> Or how do our Spanish friends like that first sentence of #67 when they
look
> at their Siglo d'oro?
>
> It seems to me that the universal law of cultural history EJ takes for
> granted here is intrinsically a German product, and only when used at home
> it might to some degree be productive as a heuristic tool. Foreign readers
> might do well to read it as an idiosyncratic attempt at coming to terms
with
> a unique historical constellation. To my mind it is hardly a universally
> viable explanation apt to improve our notion of what makes cultures
develop
> and change.
>
>
> Yes, I agree with you. But I do not think that there is something
> intrinsically German to view. If the Verflachung is characteristic of
> something, probably it is characteristic of an age of acceleration (and
> crowding). The wind of acceleration flattens any form. Even Henry Moores
> wonderful sculptures look as if they have gone through a
> desert-storm-treatment. I agree with J in terms of an antagonism between
> industrial tecnology and art, but I suppose, romanticism is always
> anticapitalistic to some degree and anticapitalism is always romantic to
> some degree. Material wealth is certainly not sufficient, if one wants to
> have a Sixtine Chapel, but how can one consider it an obstacle?
> Yet there is a difference if material wealth appears in a context in which
> wealthy people are ready to pay enormous ammounts to get rid of their sins
> or i f it drops into a secularized context in which this will not occur
and
> industrialization is busily transforming the inner and the outer landscape
> in a way which fits so well with J's symbolism of a titanic world.
> It is surprising however that a man like J is so much affected by a view
> which at the end makes of all artists outsiders or even bohemiens.
> The bohemien is an artist in a precarious situation: during the rise of
> industrial tecnology (when esthetic activity did not yet create what we
now
> call products, and products were not yet reproducable for a huge market).
> Michelangelo was not only a great constructor, he was also a military
> architect and therefore responsable for example for the fortification of
> Florence during the siege (as Riemenschneider was the Lord of the town of
> Wuerzburg in a time when artists had not yet been pushed into the golden
> cage of art by the factory society) and he was nothing less than a
bohemien.
>
> There is a quote by Bismarck I like very much. Unfortunatly I do not
> remember it exactly and I do not find it in this moment, but may be
someone
> can help us? It says something like "The first generation creates the
> patrimony, the second generation
> administrates it and the third generation studies art history." Or was the
> studying generation the fourth generation? What I want to say is that
there
> is a curve of austerity. Just have a look on the portrays of the Medici
> family. Look at Cosimo il Vecchio's peasant face and then look at Cosimo
I,
> 100 years later, the first gran duke, and then, and then...
>
> J's text seems to be inspired not by Bismarck but by Jesus Christ:  "No
man
> can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the
other;
> or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God
> and mammon."(Mt 6, 24)
>
> Picasso in his youth was a bohemien and knew what hunger was.
>
> But later his case can teach us what it can mean - besides what we all
know
> about the Beatles and the reproducibility of esthetic products and Madonna
> etc. - if there is a market envolving the planet for art.
>
> > "Just after the Second World War Picasso bought a house in the South of
> > France and paid for it with one still-life. Picasso has now in fact
> > trascended the need for money. Whatever he wishes to own, he can acquire
> by
> > drawing it. The truth has become a little like the fable of Midas.
> Whatever
> > Midas touched, turned into gold. Whatever Picasso puts a line around,
can
> > become his. But the fable was a comic-tragic one; Midas nearly starved
> > because he couln't eat gold.
> > It was in the early 1950s that Picasso's earning power and wealthe
became
> > fabulous to this degree. The decisions which so radically affected his
> > status were taken by men who had nothing to do with Picasso. The
American
> > government passed a law which allowed income-tax relief to any citizen
> > giving a work of art to an American museum: the relief was immediate,
but
> > the work of art did not have to go to the museum till the owner's death.
> The
> > purpose of this measure was to encourage the import of European works of
> > art. (There is still the residue of the magical belief thet to own art
> > confirms power). In England the law was changed - in order to discourage
> the
> > export of art - so that it became possible to pay death duties with
works
> of
> > art instead of money. Both pieces of legislation increased prices in
> > salerooms throughout the art-loving world.
> > There was another reason for the rise in prices. By the early 1950s the
> > amount of money available for investment had increased to an
unprecedented
> > degree. The reconstruction after the war, the stimulus of rearmament,
the
> > consolidation of the developed economies at the expense of the
undeveloped
> > ones, had all led to a situation where there was capital to spare. This
in
> > itself would have stimulated art investments, but there was an
> additional -
> > might almost say more human - motive involved.
> > The possibilities of foreign and colonial investment had changed since
> > pre-war days. The sums involved were now too vast for the average
private
> > investor to take private decisions: now he simply handed his capital
over
> to
> > a highly organized investing group. Monopoly capitalism becomes
anonymous
> in
> > character for the average investor no less than for the average
employee.
> > Consequently there were investors who were looking - as a sideline - for
a
> > field of investment which offered a chance of personal interest and
> > excitement, whilst still remaining comparativly safe. Some of them found
> > art. And so art, a t about this time, took in certain lives the place
that
> > was once occupied by South America railways, Bolivian tin, or tea
> > plantations in Ceylon." (John Berger, The Success & Failure of Picasso).
> >
> >
> Martin Krueger