DIE SCHERE #7: Notes

[Rebing <Rebing@compuserve.com>]

EJ takes up again the topic of art from #3. Evidently, this is not a
systematic analysis or elaboration of the topic, but EJ looks at it each
time anew from a different angle and finds new facets. However, he has an
underlying basic idea of art which is clearly enunciated in at the
beginning and again in #8. 
The maxim he found in the morning paper seems to have won his assent.
However, he will soon place the maxim within the context of a restricted
view of art: for him it is merely an argument in the perennial quarrel
between different tastes. Its restriction lies in presupposing that art
must be "something", e.g. moralistic, idealistic, or socially relevant.
EJ maintains that all such arguments remain "in den Vorhöfen", ignore the
true high rank of art. However, he does not proceed to outline this truth
now (he will do so in #8). Rather he will now touch upon two other aspects
of art, the political and the comical. 
First he inserts an anecdote illustrating another "something" which art may
be expected to be, namely politically correct. The Master is factually
precise here as he is wont to be in such matters: he does not, as it is
mostly done, merely quote that famous verdict of the Kaiser but he names
the when, the where and the why. To bash Wilhelm for his ideas as well as
for his taste and for his politics is very much politically correct in
Germany these days. EJ serenely grants him to be not quite wrong ("nicht
ohne Instinkt") in this particular instance and from his particular world
view as Der Kaiser of that arch-bourgeois society against which all
modernists rebelled. 
This is only a glint of the rapier in passing. Still using Hodler as his
example EJ moves on to one of his more favourite source of quotable quotes,
the author of "Der Untergang des Abendlandes". Hodler, already too
expressionist (and thus politically subversive) for Wilhelm and provoking
his political ire, is still too idealistic for Spengler and provokes the
caustic wit of the latter. Again, EJ grants that even a patently one-sided
or overly pointed judgment may contain some truth ("traf er den Kern der
Sache näher"), namely that truth that EJ himself is driving at now on his
way towards defining the true nature of art. 
Halfway beween the mere bickering about taste and that true nature lies the
fundamental question where the borderline between the aesthetic and the
ridiculous runs. As Walter has pointed out, many contemporary critics will
not be willing to follow EJ here. They would argue: that borderline is
again a mere problem of taste. Warhol's Campbell Soup can is art to you,
ridiculous to me — but de gustibus non est disputandum. 
EJ, the zoologist, however, here cooly oversteps the boundaries between art
and nature. Both are governed, he claims, by the law of modus in rebus, das
Maß der Dinge, an inner equilibrium innate to all things living and dead.
Not only the law of extinction of the unfit prevents girafes from sporting
much longer necks than they use to have. Even people with no philosophical
training sense — and express their inkling by laughing — when Nature seems
to have strayed from the modus in rebus and to have got too far afield in
creating the bizarre forms of certain animals. Proteus, the Greek god who
continually changes his form and appearance, seems here to have assumed the
role of a wavering tightrope walker. A superb image, though perhaps not
persuasive enough in the eyes of postmodernists who believe that anything
goes and that a modus in rebus could only be in the beholder's eye. 
In order to sustain his conviction of the omnipresence of that borderline
beyond which the comical destroys the intended aesthetic effect EJ adds the
afterthought of shifting fashions in hats and beards. (1) The next phrase,
however, seems to my mind to be too compressed to yield a rephrasable
meaning. The ratio/relationship (between art and the ridiculous?) is
inverted/perverted when presented as art in the circus or onstage? Like
Walter, I cannot make head nor tail of this phrase. Any suggestions? 
(1) On the latter, don't miss the relevant chapter in Charles Mackay's
"Popular Delusions and the Credulity of Masses" if you come across this
curious book!

Günter Rebing