The Limits of Art: Two Essays

54 Pages·2010·16.318 MB·English

by  Tzvetan Todorov

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CONTENTS
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1
Artists and Dictators
61
Art and Ethics
Seagull Boob 2010
Original text© Tzvetan Todorov 2010
English ttanslation © Gila Walker 2010
ISBN 978 I 9064 9 762 O
Bddm IJbmy c.a.aloguing-in-Publication Data
A c:aralogue record for this book is available from the British Library
T,,aet by Seagull Books, Calcutta, India
Pdar.cd at Trio Proc.css, Calcutta, India

For what is merit in a writer is sometimes vice in a statesman,
and the same things which have often made lovely books can
lead to great revolutions.
-Alexis de Tocquevillel
THE TOTAL WORK OF .ART
Since the age of Romanticism, art has been granted more impor
tance than ever before. It has been regarded as a higher mode
of achieving knowledge than science, and as embodying, in the
place of religion, the highest activity to which human beings
This essay is a much revised and augmented version of an earlier article by Tzvctan Todorov,
'Avam-ga,dcs and Totalitarianism' {Arthur Goldhammer 1ran.s.), published in Du.W..S
136(1) {Winter 2007): 51-66. Reprinted by permission of the author.
I Alexis de Tocquevillc, The Old Rq;imt and tht Rn,olulior1 (Fran~ois film and Fnn~ise
Melonio eds; Alan S. Kahan crans.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Pless, 1998), P· 20 I.
3
TZVETAN TODOROV
ARTISTS AND DlCT ATORS
can devote themselves. Paul Benichou has termed this shift in
of absolute values: 'The An-work is the living presentation of
anicude 'the consecration of the writer'2, whid1 could be extend
Religion.'4 This being the case, Wagner suggested chat a cwo-way
ed to apply to artists in general. 'Beauty in its absolute essence
relationship be established between artistic activity and social life.
is God:3 declared a proponent of Romanticism. As specialists of
Beauty, arcists were its most devoted servants and poets its For art to thrive, society would have to provide it with the
most favourable conditions possible. And since the world in
prophets. The fact that the Romantics considered arc and poet
which Wagner lived-as constituted by the Germanic states of
ry exemplary manifestations of the beaucifuJ did not, however,
his day-was far from offering such conditions, it had to be
imply indifference to other human activities. In the late eigh
transformed, and this transformation would be accomplished by
teenth century, for Friedrich Schiller, author of On the Aesthetic
means of revolution. Thus, Wagner was interested in politics
Education ofM an (1794), as for his successors, an aesthetic edu
only insofar as it contributed to che blossoming of art. Social
cation culminates in a political project: the human condition
revolution was not so much an end in itself as it was a means of
could only be improved by joining the two spheres of activity.
bringing about an artistic revolution-the foundation upon
One of the most influential expressions of this aspiration can which to build a new edifice.
be found in the writings of Richard Wagner. Inspired by Mikhail Why confer such an honour upon artists? This is where the
Bakunin's revolutionary ideals, Wagner took pan in the political second part of the rdationship between an and society enters
agitation in Dresden in 1848-49. Forced into exile after its the picture. J\rt is the nighest expression of activity of a race,'5
repression, he found refuge in Switzerland, where, in 1849, chat which crowns its existence on earth, and 'True An is high
he published two essays propounding his ideas on art and its est freedom,'6 Wagner declared. The composer shared the dream
relationship to society: Art and Revolution and The Artwork of of the Saint-Simonians, who believed that, one day, machines
the Futuw. Wagner aspired to the absolute but did not seek it would relieve men of their most taXing toils and that, having
cast off these exhausting chores, men would turn their attention
in established religions. He saw art as the greatest embodiment
to artistic creation, with freedom and joy. An need not be
2 Paul Bmichou, TIN CMU«nllilm oft he Wntn-, 1750-1830 (Mark Jensen tta11$.) (Unooln
4 Richard Wagner. P,ou Wi,,h, VOL. I (William Aslnon Ellis lnl\S.) (New York: Broude
and London: UM'Cnity oENel,raslra Pn:ss, 1999).
Bros. 1966 [1898]), p. 91.
3 Rodolpbc Topffa:. RJfa,d-~ 1tffflflS pr.,-t d'1 111 ~11m gmnois (Thoughis and minor
5 Ibid., p. 38.
CIOIDJDCIIIS of a Gcnevae painaei'), YOL 2 (Paris: Jacques-Julien Dubocbet. 1848), P· 60. I
haft daa,ood dds procas ar ltngm in my book us umtllrim "41'11bfOIM (The adventur 6 Ibid., p. 35.
ers ol dae IINoluce) (Puu: Robert Lalfonr, 2006).
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\'ZV!TAN TODOROV
ARTISTS AND DlCTATORS
pitted against life, as another version of the Romantic doctrine
maintained, for art was life's crowning accomplishment. 'Artistic commentator on Wagner, the hope of seeing art influence the
manhood' was synonymous with 'the free dignity of Man'.7 As world was an illusion. Marx, on the other hand, was uncon
cerned with the aesthetic education of individuals. The two paths
labour became arr, proletarians would become artists and slaves
were fabulously indifferent to each other, yet neither imagined
of industry would become makers of beauty. The society of the
relinquishing ics superiority over the other. Things changed again
future would no Jonger be in the service of art, as Wagner sug
in the twentieth century, and this is the moment in history that
gested earlier, since all lives would have become artistic. Art
I will be examining more closely hereafter. The movement that
would become the ideaJ modeJ of society. There would be no
emerged at that point in time was twofold, but in each case it can
cause to celebrate artists because everyone would be an artist.
be described as an actualization of the Wagnerian project to cre
Or, to be more precise, the community as a whole, freely decid ate a total work of arc--corresponding in extent with the whole
ing how it would live, would adopt the attitude of the creator. of life and the entire world.
•Who, then, will be the Artist of the Future? The poet? The per
On the one hand, a few particularly radical art movements
former? The musician? The plastician?-Let us say it in one saw themselves as the embodiment of the avant-garde, adopting
word: the Folk [meaning "the people").'8 It was because only a the military metaphor that had widespread currency in the
common effort could achieve this project that Wagner opted for political vocabulary of their day. Several characteristics distin
what he considered the opposite of selfishness- namely, guished these avanr-garde movemencs &om earlier art move
Communism, whose manifesto was published the year before by ments like Naturalism, Impressionism or Symbolism, which had
already regarded innovation as compulsory. For one, these
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
movements did not content themselves with novelty. Then, they
The failure of the revolutions of 1848 in Europe sounded
advocated a radical break with the past, consigning to oblivion
the death knell of such dreams. Then came the beginning of the
all those who had come before them, for they thought that their
second great period in the history of the earthly absolute, from
own art rendered all others' obsolete. And, having given them
I 848 co the First World War, during which time the two paths selves such a sublime purpose, they considered that all means of
the co.11ective and the individual, the political and the aesthetic achieving their ends were good, especially the more radical ones.
-grew dissociated. For Charles BaudeJaire, an enthusiastic Theirs, then, was a call for revolution. Finally, they were intent
7 Ibid., p. 56.
7
I Ibid., p. 47.
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TZVETAN TODOROV
ARTISTS AND DICTATORS
on broadening the field of artistic intervention to encompass che
developed in Russia, Italy, and Germany. There are a number of
whole of social and political life.
lessons char can be learned from this.
On the other hand, several years later, extremist political
movements, in an apparently independent development, framed
lTALJAN FUTURISM
their own projects for transforming society and people, mod
Europe was going through a period of chwge at the beginning
elJed on the paradigm of artistic creativity. This was the case for
of the twentieth century that we have trouble grasping today
Communism, Fascism and Nazism. The idea of the avant-garde
because of the exceedingly rapid pace of transformation since.
was present here coo, but it was embodied in a party rather than
Bue let us imagine for a moment what it must have been like co
in the work of a few talented artists. It was the task of these par see for city dwellers co see their habits curned upside down.
ties (Communise, Fascist, and National Socialist) co lead the Electric power had just been harnessed and was becoming pare
passive masses. of everyday life for millions of people. New easier-co-use energy
sources, such as gas and fuel, were becoming familiar. With the
In both cases, revolutionary violence was seen as an appro
first airplanes, the age-old dream of leaving the surface of the
priate means co hasten the achievement of goals. Activists knew
Earth and flying had come true. Private motor vehicles were tak
they were promoting a change so rarucal chat it risked meeting
ing co roads everywhere. The industrial revolution was radically
resistance and chat this resistance would have to be eliminated
changing everyone's life and seemed to have opened an era of
if need be, by force. The relationship between these two move
inventions that was not about to stop. For the first time in the
ments rud not simply consist in the usual proximity between arc
h.istory of the Western world {Western Europe and North
and power, with each using the other as a means: political pow
America), people had che impression chat innovation was tri
ers employing art for propaganda and to create captivating set umphing over tradition and that works of human design count
tings for political meetings, and artists employing political ed more than natural phenomena. It seemed as if the Cartesian
themes to make their arc more appealing. In this case, the cwo project of man becoming the mascer and possessor of nature was
practices discovered that the bonds between them ran deeper about co be accomplished.
than mere contiguity, and they tended to imitate each other. Artists in societies everywhere, and in particular poets
This twofold movement of convergence between rhe rwo major and painters, are never content with producing works co meet
forms of the earthly absolute-the poJitical and che artistic-
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TZVETAN TODOROV
ARTISTS AND DICTATORS
standards of beaucy. They perhaps form the part of the popula
tion that is most sensitive to the pulse of their times, most able .Futurism' was published in Le Figaro on 20 February l 909 and
to perceive trends of which other people are as yet unaware even caused a sensation.
as they illustrate them by their behaviour. This time coo, artists Tbe manifesto glorified modern life, big cities, and speed.
were the first co capture the social and mental transformations These were common themes with other authors, which
caused by the extraordinary advances in technology. Italian Marinetti managed to synthesize and hyperbolize, and reduce co
Futurism was the first avant-garde art movement to embark on a series of slogans. What made him particularly original was that
this course and it became a model for the movements that fol he situated these themes in the wider context of a plea co elim
inate any reference to the past and to celebrate the cult of nov
lowed thereafter.
elty. The places that preserved the memory of the past did not
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, its founder and leader, cue an
deserve to exist: 'Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries!
altogether untraditional figure as an artist. He demonstrated no
Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! [. ..]
great talent as a novelist, playwright or poet and no great origi
Undermine the foundation of venerable towns!'9 Only after hav
nality as a thinker. But as an activist he was remarkably gifted.
ing integrally destroyed everything that existed could construc
The circumstances around the launch of his first manifesto are tion begin anew. The manifesto also revealed Marineni's pen
telling in this regard. Marinecri filled his text with provocative chant for the Nieczschean superman chat was co play a central
statements intended to 'shock rhe bourgeois' and sent it off to role in nis work. He extolled power, aggression, fighting, war
the Italian press. Unfortunately for him, it arrived at the same ('the world's only hygiene'), virility (leading to 'contempt for
rime as news of the deadly earthquake in Messina in December woman') and injustice--all slogans that had the virtue of draw
1908; and so, this manifesto, signed by an unknown author, was ing attention to himsel£
rdegaced to the back pages of the papers and went unnoticed. In this first manifesto, Marinetti made no direct mention of
'futurist' activity outside the field of art. But it was clear that his
Since Marinetti's work could not exist without an echo from the
approach concerned the whole of social life and he himself
public, he decided co send the manifesto to the French press.
would soon go down this road (though not all the artists and
This in itself demonstrates the growing internationalization of
poets who joined his movement did so). That very year, on the
rultural life of that time-one of the effects of the rapid tech
.nological transformation of the planet. The first 'Manifesto of
9 Sec: acs.umich.cdu/-crshallz.iff4PM1fururi.n•manifcsto.litml
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TZV!l'AN ,.ODOROV
AR'!l878 A!ID DICTATORS
occasion of the 1909 general eleccions, he issued his Political
Maniflsro far Futurist ltoters wfrh directives to ftghr cl ·ca1· didnt exist') a necessity. In another chapter, be developed argu
en tsm
an.d attachment to che past, and co uphold patriotism and Ica1ys ments to support his contempt for women: his disdain was for
wars o( conquest. Ocher traces and proclamations from eh esame the values they embodied-love. affection, and sensuality-'.lnd
their excessive closeness co nature. Women guaranteed the mere
period, inspired by the revolutionary syndicalism theorized by
reproduction of the species through childbirth, whereas he
George.s Sorel, called on anises and proJecarians-'r.he most
aspired to the species' improvement, co the creation of 'a
extreme wings of politics and Jiterature'- co join forces.
mechanical son, the fruit of pure will, a synthesis of all the laws
Marinecri publicly backed Italy's war in Libya in 1912 in numer
chat science is on the brink of discovering'. This new man
ous arrides. 'The word Italy should prevail over the word
what he termed 'multiplied man'-would be mentally trans
.freedam,'10 he stated, in an expression of the growing importance
formed: 'We look for the creation of a non-human type, in
of patriotism in his chinking. Concomitancly, Futurism was
whom moral suffering, goodness of heart, affection and love
spreading to new areas: not only painting, music, theatre and [ ...] will be abolished:11 a rrue man of sreel, mixed with iron
music hall, bur also architecture, objects of everyday life, design and driven by electricity. Marinetti also pictured, somewhat
and habits. prophetically, new technologies invading the world: chemical
In 191 J, Marinctti published (in French again) his collect energy, a metal book of a hundred thousand pages, and a war
between machines.
ed oral and written texts under the ride Le Futurisme, which was
.soon translated inro several languages. He reiterated his attach Throughout the First World \Var, Marinetti continued co
ment to what he termed 'the absolute principle of Futurism', by defend nationalist and militaristic positions. In 1918, he became
even more actively involved in politics when he released his
which he meant 'the ongoing physiological and incellecruaJ
ManifestlJ of the Futurist Political Party in which he developed
development and endless progress of man'. This was clearly a
his usual themes of anci-parliarnentarianism, anti-clericalism,
project to transform human beings and not only the arcs, and it
hostility to feminine values, equality of all before the law, social
concerned as much the body as the mind. Marinetti declared
protection for the poor, and the need ro replace the country's
war to be 'the world's only hygiene' and the struggle against the
senior leaders with younger men. The following year, he joined
enemy ('the eternal enemy that we would have to invent if he
l l Filippo Tommaso Maiinetti, Le Fururis-(Fururism) (Lausanne: I.:age d'homme, l980),
10 GkMul Um (ed.), M11rlnml It~ fot11rimu (Marincmi and Futurism) (J..au,anne: L'ige pp.103, 110,112,159.
4'~ 1977), pp. 18, 19.
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TZVETAN TODOROV
ARTISTS AND DICTATORS
Benito Mussolini who had just founded the Fasci di Com
AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENTS JN GERMANY
bactimen co. The two men had known each other well since
The different avant-garde movements were very much in touch
1915, when they had held their first joint rallies. Mussolini
with one another. Marinetti put a lot of energy into spreading his
came &om Socialise ranks and his movement had not yet broken
ideas to other EuIOpean countries. In Germany, such pre-First
completely with leftist revolutionaries. This break came in 1920
World-War modernist movements as Die Briicke and Der Blaue
and, as a result, Marinetti temporarily distanced himself
Reiter, and more generally the Expressionist movement, advocat
from Fascism and, in his writings, explained his disagreements
ed a radical break with earlier artistic traditions but did not aspire
with political movements. In a pamphlet entitled Beyond
co change the world. Nevertheless, Futurism was well received, its
Communism (1920), he criticized its project of a classless paci
impact conflated with chat of other new groups (which explains
fied society, which ran counter to the Futurist attachment to
Joseph Goebbels's later sympathy for it). The First World War
ongoing war. His dispute with Fascism had to do with the rela
caused a radical shift in attitude in Germany as well as in Russia
tionship with the past: the alliance that Mussolini, as a shrewd
and Italy. In this respect it played no less a decisive role in the
politician, had formed with conservative and clerical forces put direction taken by avant-garde movements than the advances in
him at a distance from Futurist projects. But a short time later, technology in the previous decades. The total war in which the
Marinetti was once again affiliated with the Fascist party. In European nations engaged turned out to be altogether different
his pamphlet Futurism and Fascism (1924), he reasserted the ide than the 'world's hygiene' as extolled by Marinecri. By the amount
ological proximicy of the two movements, seating that 'Fascism's of destruction inflicted on the enemy, the systematic transgres
coming to power achieved the minimum Futurist programme'l2 sion of norms chat had governed conflicts between 'civilized'
and praising 'the futurist temperament of the President of countries until then, and the undermining of the very idea that
the Council', namely Mussolini. Despite differences of opinion humans had of their own identity, this war made feasible what
had been inconceivable until then-the absolute abolition of the
now and again, the poet and the politician remained friends
old society and its replacement by a new order. Advances in new
until the end.
technologies had had a simUar impact but chat had been a more
gradual process. The effects of this war were more brutal because
it was concentrated in a few shore years and concerned not only
the material aspects but the whole organization of social Life.
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