Faust
German movies of the 1920's receive a remarkably poor press in conservative circles. Some critics regard them as little more than obvious reflections of Weimar decadence, as some of the lesser films doubtless are. Sometimes even the ubiquitous use of expressionist technique is presented as definitive proof that the mental derangement of souls in pain means that the art itself is deranged—a genuinely confusing subject with object. German expressionism in film is often merely the best kind of indigenous romanticism (the tradition of Novalis or Hoffmann) reacting to the psychological breakdown of its own culture. Few American directors have even tried this territory, with the notable exception of Frank Borzage. If these misunderstandings were not enough, an influential work of criticism has long dominated any counterthesis broached. That silly tome is one of those volumes summarizing its argument in its title, From Caligari to Hitler. How can anyone argue with that? The only problem is that this thesis is largely hogwash, and, the benighted persistence of this view is, at least in part, residue of prejudice against German culture in the wake of the World Wars, which is yet another confusion of cause and effect. The Nazis, having twisted to ill purpose anything worthwhile that German culture has given the world, perverting its mythology among its less noted crimes, have tainted to this day in many minds all the memory of Germanic culture, except for some pre-twentieth century composers. I would, for example, defy anyone over a certain age aware of the place even to think of Bayreuth devoid of a lingering trace of the swastika floating somewhere at the corners of his mind.
Contrary to the nonsensical accusations that these films are full of rampant degeneracy, its two greatest filmmakers were a Catholic convert (Fritz Lang) and, more to the point here, a cultural Catholic—F.W. Murnau—who, although not without some personal moral flaws, kept his quirks entirely out of his art. Both men in their ways devoted themselves to translating the marchen to film. Marchen poorly translates into English as “fairy tale.” The stories collected by the brothers Grimm were marchen. They are tales of Fairie, those terrifying woods where Hansel and Gretel discovered themselves. This was the same place where in 1300 a certain Italian found himself in the middle of his life when the right way was wholly lost to him. This is also the world of Lang and Murnau.
Murnau recaptured the Catholic emphasis of the vampire tale in his 1922 version of, and artistic improvement upon, Bram Stoker’s Dracula—Nosferatu (The Undead). Stoker only half understood what he was creating, but Murnau’s semi-pirated edition places that creepy count squarely in his medieval context.
By 1926, Murnau’s cinematic art had become so beautiful to the eye and so penetrating in its storytelling style that in my opinion his work is still the standard by which to judge other films. Such a work is his Faust, one he specifically called a marchen. Elements of his take on the story are almost as old as that legendary Manichean Faustus St. Augustine debated. Some aspects of the tale derive inevitably from Goethe, mostly in the Gretchen love story—but sans Enlightenment posturing, smugness, and shallowness. Some qualities from Marlowe’s play flit around the edges of Murnau’s theme as well.
St. Augustine also has a bearing on this film in a way that might apply to any marchen generally, but here becomes the direct theme, one that is about “sehnsucht”—that intense longing never satisfied in this world, the ache for completeness that never attains real completion short of the afterlife. Tellingly, the only English word approximating sehnsucht is “numinous,” itself a sesquipedalian, Latinate word. Most of C.S. Lewis’ imaginative works treat this subject directly and he tried to approximate its meaning by extending the definition of the word “joy” to include the concept. Thus was Lewis surprised by joy. Murnau films represent as well as the visualization of what Lewis called the Northernness that so engulfed him and the other Inklings, as it had George MacDonald before them. St. Augustine famously encapsulated and anticipated the best romantic German art, and all art that plays even about the edges of sehnsucht, “Our hearts are not at rest until they rest in Thee.” This is hardly identical to the Liza Minnelli-Cabaret world those who would deride this kind of film try to conjure.
In a prologue reminiscent of epic invocation, Michael the Archangel contends with Mephisto, permitting him to tempt Faust. If the devil wins the venerable old doctor’s soul, the world becomes his. In a startling image, Mephisto literally enwraps the world beneath his wings and begins his hellishness by spreading the plague to a poor player. The fear of the disease panics his street audience and triggers terror throughout the town. Faust, a most highly regarded member of the community, becomes aware of the situation, and the people beg him to help. He demurs at first, but Mephisto suddenly appears, offering him a trial day—the afflicted will be cured, but only for a day unless Faust makes the inevitable pact. Mephisto further offers what most tempts the scholar, pursuit of knowledge and youth. Thus they will meet at a crossroads that night where a magic circle weaves. Old Scratch makes the inevitable offer of twenty years of fulfilled desire. Faust already has an eye to young Gretchen. By the way, the actor who plays her brother is the same Wilhelm (William) Dieterle who fifteen years later was to direct in Hollywood The Devil and Daniel Webster. As usual with temptation, the initial desire is an apparent good, to cure plague. No lasting good, however, ever comes by evil means.
After some healings, the observant crowd realizes Faust is a cursed soul when he is unable to act in the presence of a crucifix. They begin stoning him. Faust wants out, but the trial day is not yet over. Needless to say, temptation now begins in earnest. By means of a little evil magic, before time is up (and omitting some details) Faust veers to the brink seducing the Duchess of Parma, just as Mephisto lets him know time is about to expire. Faust then does what any red-blooded sinner in a hurry to get back to sin usually does in such a spot; he sells his soul for a hot date and the prospect of many more and for lots of power to boot. Ah, the human condition.
My own temptation here, until I caught myself, is to continue telling the whole story. This tendency alone, again according to Lewis, is prima facie evidence that we are dealing with a mythopoeic world. He observes that myth itself resides in the very pattern of events and cannot be separated from it. This remains true whatever the artistic merits of the work. George MacDonald, that supreme master of mythic creation, was sometimes a rather pedestrian stylist. Does it really matter in his case? And MacDonald acknowledged he drew his greatest source of inspiration from where? Novalis, marchen, and the Augustinian Christianity that fostered them.
In Faust, the movie, added to all that corresponds to marchen in visual realization, which in part means self-consciously painterly (as only a painter can be painterly), Murnau delights in his realization, that which looks like something come to life on a canvass. Perhaps the bulk of good German art is self-conscious and highly controlled? May be. Faust is certainly an exhibit for making such a case. Each aspect of its design was predetermined and arranged on studio stages, including a vast miniature nearly the length of a football field representing with a moving camera tracking an Alpine vista, which represents the journey of Mephisto and Faust to Parma. Murnau worked with the technicians to design a small roller coaster with camera attached to film the trip. This method may sound like a cheap gimmick in the telling; the result is breathtaking in the viewing, inspiring a sense of wonder in any receptive audience—the sense of wonder that is the domain of marchen.
Some years ago, a conservative friend basically accused me of torturing Murnau’s film to fit a Christian reading and presented an alternate interpretation that made the movie little more than another pop culture version of Goethe’s humanism. This is at least one step up from viewing it as an example of Weimar decadence, I suppose. True, Faust and Gretchen are redeemed because of love, and even probably Murnau and the UFA producers allowed for a script that can possibly be read that way. Yes, love redeems them, but only after genuine tragedy and the quite real repentance of both parties, both of whom pay for sin with a truly atoning death. The love that saves them is not eros, but agape. Salvation comes from love, but even our casual attention to detail reveals that the redemptive love comes from God, the God Who is Love. God thus saves Faust and Gretchen through their deaths. This kind of presentation is hardly the Enlightenment hash du jour its negative critics would claim.
Murnau even lards the comic relief with sound theology, no matter what his conscious thought, although, like humor from past times, a little goes a long way. Nothing changes so fast and differs more from country to country than what people find funny. At least those scenes, like many parallels in Shakespeare the groundlings found uproarious, may offer us a little time to catch our breaths until we return to the main action. That said, the comic relief contains much Catholic theology no matter how little of the humor translates. But even these digressions serve as light counterpoint to the love story. Faust has become weary, suffering from real ennui, certainly not the phony kind. The weariness incites in him a restless desire for he knows not what. After finding Gretchen, he falls in love (not lust) and tries to reform for he has found that love which takes him out of himself, perhaps including all his pre-Mephisto life as well. Meanwhile, that hellish spirit is hardly elated by this turn of events. While Faust courts his beloved, Mephisto plays up to the local crone who dabbles in love potions. We cut back and forth from the young couple surrounded by playing children to the devil and his would-be witch, who parody the principal action. Hell cannot create; it can only mock.
I should mention another feature of Murnau’s commendable understanding, one of a nature rarely if ever captured in a presentation of the Faust legend, and that is his take on sinful satiety. The one problem in Christopher Marlowe’s otherwise towering masterpiece is that we follow Faustus and Mephistopheles about Europe with each scene merely repeating Faust’s love of naughtiness. This action needs trimming in every presentation to prevent boredom settling in. In Goethe, can sin really be said to exist? Probably not. In both instances, dramatic tension dissolves.
I have seen performances (at least of the Marlowe) in which the theologically illiterate take an illogical leap over Faust’s debaucheries and assorted evils because they didn’t know what else to do. Nothing in these performances really happens between the selling of the soul and Mephisto’s claiming of it at the climax. Some major scenes and no real drama. Many today would desire to see the evils without the drama, but that is another discussion. Murnau handles the artistic problem in much the same way as Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray—skipping the intervening years begun with the wish that forever changed his life, and proceeding to the dramatic action caused by the maturity of the resultant evil. We understand that evil. We are human, which means we are capable of, and tempted to, real horrors. We merely have to look into our hearts to imagine the extreme moral depravity both Dorian and Faust embrace. Murnau leaves us no wiggle room to watch Faust without causing a partial self-examination. There but for the grace of God . . .
I have barely touched the surface of this masterpiece, and over the years have found new and deeper meanings reveal themselves at each screening. I heartily recommend being sure to find the version originally edited by Murnau which was intended for viewing by German audiences; old dupes have circulated for decades, most prints having lost much of the detail important to this work. Also, the entire movie played in America with different and inferior editing—not by Murnau. Kino has released a beautiful two-disc version. This one is worth a little extra dough if you love films.
An epilogue about the epilogue: When agape finally wins, the Archangel Michael at last announces to the defeated Mephisto that the prince of the heavenly hosts has defended Faust in battle and in the instance of his case has cast down into hell the one who roams about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
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"The stories collected by the brothers Grimm were marchen. They are tales of Fairie, those terrifying woods where Hansel and Gretel discovered themselves. This was the same place where in 1300 a certain Italian found himself in the middle of his life when the right way was wholly lost to him."
"Yes, love redeems them, but only after genuine tragedy and the quite real repentance of both parties, both of whom pay for sin with a truly atoning death. The love that saves them is not eros, but agape. Salvation comes from love, but even our casual attention to detail reveals that the redemptive love comes from God, the God Who is Love. God thus saves Faust and Gretchen through their deaths."
Dr Livingston,
This is quite an extraordinary understanding of fairy tales and Christian revelation. I doubted I would ever meet a Ph.D. in these times who saw these "storied" relationships converging towards the central reality of life ---suffering, death and redemption. "Once upon a time" it was the very purpose of a real and higher education to catch a glimpse of such things
but today it remains as lost as paradise itself. You are a remarkable man in my estimation for even seeing such things
and more courageous than most for ever mentioning it.
I thoroughly endorse Mr. Livingston's high estimate of Murnau's Faust, which I remember bowled me over when I finally saw it on the BBC while visiting a Germanophilic friend in England. This was many years ago by now, so I won't say I recall the details of the film that Mr. Livingston cites or can second his argument about the Christian tenor of the film. I can say that within a few minutes, I appreciated the marchen, or as I have expressed it to fellow film nerds, the volkisch, nature of Murnau's realization of the familiar story. Of course, with burly Emil Jannings as Mephistopheles, opting for such a treatment was something of a necessity. At any rate, Murnau's is a far cry from the high-culture-playing-at-low-culture that we see in Gounod's opera; Sam Ramey's no Emil Jannings, nor vice versa.
For those unfamiliar with Murnau's work apart from Nosferatu (which is better than Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, but better than Stoker's novel?), let me recommend, besides Faust, his great American film, Sunrise, one of the very finest silents; Tabu, his shot-on-location, half documentary/half romance set on a South Pacific island; and even City Girl, about a farm girl who relocates to Chicago and of which we luckily have the originally shelved silent version only, having lost the dubbed and partially reshot (is that right, Art?) sound version that flopped colossally in 1930. For beauty of visual storytelling and lighting, Murnau is pretty much non pareil. (I still haven't seen his middle-1920s Tartuffe, which I'm told is among his best.)
I admit I was unaware of conservative bias against the great German cinema and much else in Weimar-era culture that is of comparable quality. But I suppose it figures, given the high amount of Weimar art that is expressly leftist and the work of left-oriented creators. I'm thinking especially of the musical theater of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and the Boschianly ugly, excoriating cartooning of Georg Grosz. Also, in cinema besides Murnau and Lang, some films of E. A. Dupont and G. W. Pabst (Die Liebe des Jeanne Neys, based on a Russian Communist novel). It occurs to me that all the Weimar figures Mr. Livingston and I mention left Germany as Hitler came to power.
(Hello, Art, and from Arno as well as me.)
You are right about City Girl. Murnau's cut turned up in 1976 and ranks with his best work. I somehow think those who rate it an attendant lord haven't seen it. Tartuffe, if not reaching the heights of all his films surrounding it, is better than most important filmmakers' very best movies.
Leftism represents a good deal of the bias, but peceiving those years of turbulence as essentially decadent is just as much to the point, especially after what followed. By extension, I have heard many conservatives denigrate expressionism itself as part of the decadence itself rather than as a reaction to it. Even Pabst and Dumopont, so long as they kept shy of politics, could make some extraordinary movies like Pandora's Box and Variety.
"I have heard many conservatives denigrate expressionism itself as part of the decadence itself rather than as a reaction to it"
Dr. Livingston, I always enjoy your essays, both here and in Gilbert. When you mention expressionism, are you referring to all the arts, as well as film? Or just in film?
I would gather that I am bourgeois, and would have to join the conservatives, if you are referring to painting. The work of Kandinsky, Koenig, Picasso, and many others, certainly seems decadent, insofar as it acquiesces to evil, despair, and ugliness.
If they are merely reacting to decadence, it is not registering with me.
Perhaps this is not what you mean. I don't understand how the term expressionism can apply to film. Is it applied to cinematography? Or to the actual story and acting? In other words, is it style? Or substance? Thank you in advance for your consideration.
After reading your post, I have decided that expressionism is a term that should be jettisoned as soon as possible. In his preface to Dymer, C.S. Lewis listed fouteen different possible meanings of the word romantic, many of which contradict each other. He concludes that we should strick the word from our vocabularies. In like manner, any definition of expression that would include both Kandinsky and Murnau is useless, and I will henceforth strike it from my own vocabulary. The artists you named were indeed pernicious in their art and in their influence. They sat up nights looking for new ways to look ugly. But then, another definition makes Van Gogh the expressionist par excellence.
I also think that the source of the conservative bad press comes from similar linguistic confusions. You are right in guessing that the term has a clearer meaning in film than in painting and sculpture. It is a style first, but a style that can be used for only some kinds of storytelling. As to being bourgeois, these films were highly popular with genral audiences. Many of the best German filmmakers came to America later and were highly influential in the States. The Karloff versions of Frankenstein are pure expressionism as film people use the word, albeit with a British accent. Even John ford made one movie in the style, but note the appropriatemenss of the story. Have you ever seen The Informer? Victor McLaglen as a doomed Irish informer in the time of troubles is about as far from esoterica and decadence as I can imagine.
I would highly recommend Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen. Merely google her name and I think you will see why we should not throw out the Murnau along with the Picasso.
Gentlemen,
There is an excellent essay on the contrast between the traditional notion of art and the modern notion of art at the following:
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/A_Figure_of_Speech_or_a_Figure_of_Thought_Part_1-by_Ananda_Coomaraswamy.aspx
I very rarely suggest this sort of thing out of respect for Dr. Fleming who does not want random acts of kindness and pseudo intellectuals posted on his web page. But since we have discussed these things before and I am a good listener, I know he would respect this type of high regard for the older tradition.
Thank you for your response, Dr. Livingston. (And for the reference, Robert). I know virtually nothing about film, actually; both its history and its mechanics. But I had a feeling that what you meant couldn't possibly imply association between Murnau and expressionist painting. I'm glad to know that I was on the right track and I appreciate your clarification.
Dr. Livingston,
Your words:
"German expressionism in film is often merely the best kind of indigenous romanticism (the tradition of Novalis or Hoffmann) reacting to the psychological breakdown of its own culture."
You are absolutely correct in stating that German romanticism, either in form or content, lived longer in the performing and visual arts - paintings, music and ultimately film than it did in literature. In German literary romanticism itself, the emergence of that which we have come to call "the Gothic" was a dark and often degenerate form of the genre.
German romanticism has its art-historical context in German Idealism which includes, of course, the Enlightenment, Storm and Stress, the Classical Age and Romanticism, roughly in that order, with a great deal of overlapping.
At its philosophical core, German romanticism was an attempt, naive at best, to reestablish through art or to at least reintroduce the Medieval synthesis in which Wirklichkeit could consort with Realität, i.e. that which was from the "world" beyond the senses could be perceived and interacted with in the world of the senses.
This is precisely the "Sehnsucht," the longing or the yearning, to encounter in the world of the senses manifestation of or at least evidence of that other world in their own.
This core principle of German romanticism, at least one form of it, was based on the perception that the Enlightenment had "put a wall of separation," to borrow an American idiom, between the world beyond the senses and the world of the senses; the romantics wanted to batter that wall down.
Another element of German romanticism was romantic irony: were the characters of a given story really encountering the world beyond the senses or were they merely products of their imaginations. Romantic irony in a degenerate form, hinting already at Freud, can be found in Tieck's Der Blonde Eckbert, which ultimately plays on the theme of incest. Romantic irony, in its non-degenerate form is in fact the tension of faith: Am I encountering God and how does He expect me to react to this encounter? It at least raises the questioning self-admonition: Perhaps things are not as they seem in this world of "Realität."
Of course, the goal of German romanticism is not reached; the synthesis thought to have been found in the Medieval world is not achieved or even found in the world of the early 19th century. Realism and ultimately naturalism win the day, at least among bookish folk.
I hold that Murnau in his FAUST is going back to the core principles of German romanticism: Wirklichkeit does cohabitate as is indeed incarnate in Realität, i.e. agapae which can only come from God can be found among the most fallen.
I assert that Murnau's cover and his leverage is the application of the word "Märchen" to the story of his film. He he employs in Weimar of the 20's no little portion of Romantic irony. The word "Mähre" means a happening which has such value or merit that it should be spread through retelling. What story might we know that is indeed worth telling from generation to generation? The word "Märchen," the diminutive of "Mähre," implies a story for children, i.e. not suited in style or content for adults. What story do we know that can be understood and accepted only if one comes as a little child?
This is not a stretch in the case of a Murnau with his deep knowledge of German language, literature or culture and his penchant for detail.
Mr. Peters,
I found this description very helpful in understanding Romanticism:"it, was based on the perception that the Enlightenment had “put a wall of separation,” to borrow an American idiom, between the world beyond the senses and the world of the senses; the romantics wanted to batter that wall down."
This human desire for the "word made flesh" is what we sometimes have called the "preparation for the faith." The intellectual tradition of the greeks and romans had a very intense desire to understand this and it gives an intellectual bent to the assertion that " I have come so that you might have life and life more abundantly." Those looking for the abundant life in their passions divorced from their intellects are on a wide road to nowhere. Thanks for your always good posts.
At its philosophical core, German romanticism was an attempt, naive at best, to reestablish through art or to at least reintroduce the Medieval synthesis in which Wirklichkeit could consort with Realität, i.e. that which was from the “world” beyond the senses could be perceived and interacted with in the world of the senses.
Here we have the crux of disagreement, i.e. the attempt was neither naive nor a failure in its art. To paraphrase Chesterton, was Novalis or Murnau merely going downstream with the flow like a dead thing, or pushing upstream like a live thing? Of course, whether or not an artistic movement actually changes its society is not of much importance, otherwise the best English literature of the past 150 years would have brought that country back into the arms of Christianity. The efforts, dare I call them the romantic efforts, of Newman, Hopkins, Thompson, Chesterton, Belloc, Tolkien, Greene, Waugh, et. al., must then also be called naive. The etymology of marchen and the reintroduction of a Medieval synthesis helps validate a Christian interpretation of these concepts. At the very worst, in light of the English interpretation of German romanticism, we are left in the position of St. Bernard's interpretation of The Song of Songs--once the song reading the poem as an allegory of Christ's love for his church, we cannot unthink our thought; it becomes part of the poem. (To stave off objections in advance, I wish to add that an interpretation must be consistent with the literal text. I am not in any way sympathetic to those who would make a Rorschach test out of art.)
Dr. Livingston I believe? This is quite good stuff "To paraphrase Chesterton, was Novalis or Murnau merely going downstream with the flow like a dead thing, or pushing upstream like a live thing? Of course, whether or not an artistic movement actually changes its society is not of much importance, otherwise the best English literature of the past 150 years would have brought that country back into the arms of Christianity." The important thing for a tradition is that it is handed down -- with or without complete understanding. Perhaps I misread Mr. Peters, but knowing him as I do, I doubt that he has much to disagree with concerning your clarification but will allow him to speak for himself. Romanticism to my mind is not naive, but there were and are always will be naive romantics in the mind of believers like myself and Mr. Peters.
Robert,
By "naive" I meant only those of a certain school within the German romantic movement who believed that they could re-establish the Medieval synthesis through literature. They were not merely attempting to demonstrate that which was; they actually believed that through literature they could re-establish or conjure it up. Ultimately, they failed.
Oh, I quite agree. There were some weird folk in the English romantic effort too, like Willy Yeats and the theosophists. Conjuring the dead and fooling with evil spirits best left alone. There is an out of print and very expensive book written about this misdirected effort. That is the danger involved in the effort to enter the kingdom of heaven without the help of a Tradition-- it is called, The Way Down and Out, and is a little literary history of the modernist attempt by some good but decadent, French and English poets to recover the sacred through a misguided attempt to exhaust the passions with unmitigated licentiousness and to annhilate the senses until the only thing left was the "spirit". It was a little more sophisticated than the mud wrestling and groping at Woodstock, but not by much. They forgot that suffering for the good is a prequisite for entering into its eternal rest. If they had known their classical literature or own tradition a little better, they would have known that having ones way forever is the definition of hell!!! In any case I have read enough of your posts to understand where you were headed and look forward to more of them, as well as meeting you and Dr. Livingston this summer at the Rockford Summer School. Keep up the good work.
Dr. Livingston @ 10,
I do not believe, despite my ineptness at posting in quick time on fora such as this one, disagree on the issue.
I am extremely puzzled by the statement in posting 4:
"The work of Kandinsky, Koenig, Picasso, and many others, certainly seems decadent, insofar as it acquiesces to evil, despair, and ugliness."
Can't make head nor tail of what this could possibly mean, yet I'm disturbed by it. I can't say I recall a painter named Koenig, but neither Kandinsky nor Picasso--in his work--seems to "acquiesce" to anything. Kandinsky was a pioneer abstractionist with a keen sense of continuing the romantic project toward transcendence by concentrating on color and line as the essentials of graphic art. Picasso in his most famous work was a cubist concerned with ambiguities of visual perception and representation. Neither artist do I think of as very expressionist; that is, concerned first with rendering reality colored by utterly personal reactions, with painting "what I see." Not caring for abstraction or nonrepresentational painting (I don't think either K or P ever created the latter, though K approached it) is one thing. Seeing such art as a surrender to "evil, despair, and ugliness" is something else that, as I say, I don't understand.
(And yes, Picasso often behaved despicably--I know nothing about Kandinsky's personal life--but how does that affect his art?)
Mr. Olson, thanks for your comment. I assure you that I am more disturbed by those artists than you are by me. I have no idea of their personal lives. I do not want to know; indeed to point to it would be a cheap shot, and unfair, since it is irrelevant to my point.
Let's put aside Kandinsky since it would require too much explanation.
I'm sorry about "Koenig"; it should have read "Willem de Kooning".
He was one of the most famous abstract expressionists of the 20th century. His painting called "Woman" and Picasso's "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon" are good examples of what I meant by ugliness;
while "Guernica" could suffice for despair. The reason most often given for these is that they were a reaction to the horrors and decadence of the 20th century.
But consider, that for two millennia, despite the prevalence of poverty, war, pestilence, and appalling living conditions (and probably a lot of unattractive women), artists attempted to portray things as ideally as their talents allowed them, to create art that is uplifting, edifying, and beautiful. From mediaeval icons to Bouguereau's Pieta.
Come the 20th century (with art for art's sake), and many artists
(the ones that are now considered the best) freely chose to paint deliberately distorted, ugly, despair-ridden images. When I see this, I ask "Why?"
Why -- when art-for-art's-sake gives you total freedom -- choose ugly over beauty? When Dr. Livingston said expressionism was a reaction to decadence, I couldn't understand. The examples of expressionism in painting, to me, look as if they are ADDING to the decadence. To react means to oppose something. To oppose it would require one to create, on the contrary, inspiring, virtuous, and uplifting things. Would it not? But this is exactly what Picasso and Kooning did not do, and it is why I used the word acquiesce.
Alas, as he said, he was talking about film, a field in which the meaning is -- I am relieved to hear -- completely different.
Well, I hope that I have cleared up the confusion.
Mr. Ezzo,
You have hit upon a point that Scott Richert recently made at the John Randolph gathering at the Alamo --- the difference in the Christian tradition between Truth -- something noble, good and beautiful, -- and what we often call reality which is something potentially fallen, perhaps only practical,filled with imperfections,degraded and overcome by sin and despair. St. Paul slightly addresses this when he suggests there are certain topics and conversations about "reality" that Christians should not even concern themselves with too much. Of course this all is a very large subject but I believe your insights are worth our attention given the current, corrupt and naive understanding of freedom. Thank you for your posts.
The pleasure is mine, Sir. I feel honored to have been complimented by someone of your wisdom and knowledge.
Mr. Ezzo,
Thanks for your clarification. I can't assail and I certainly don't want to derogate your position. I can only say that I, for one, am willing to accept the interpretation of "Guernica", at least, as an honest protest, like Goya's hideous "The Sleep of Reason Breeds Monsters." Protest is an honorable function of art, and it is seldom conventionally beautiful.
De Kooning I never could appreciate, so we've got no argument about him. Kandinsky's juxtapositions of color and his active line frequently allure me, and I don't see why they should be regarded as ugly, much less evil. A lot of his work abstracts a sailing boat and another, equally neutral object (a chair? I haven't lately refreshed my memories of his work). Indeed, although he is called expressionist, I don't see that he has all that much in common with Richter, Marc, Kokoschka, etc., whom I admit aren't favorites of mine, either.
Picasso doesn't much speak to me. His colors are too pallid and murky for my taste, and his cubism doesn't lift my spirits as do Juan Gris' marvelous still-lifes, in particular. I fail to see what's ugly, evil, or despondent in Picasso's work as a whole, however, except for the blatant, brutal sexuality in so much of his 1930s and later representational art.
Now, if you were talking about Lucien Freud or Francis Bacon, I'd be with you 100 percent. Their stuff strikes me as deliberately depraved and also far less concerned with the technical matters the cubists and other early abstractionists seem obsessed with.