ANNI '30 - The Thirties The Arts In Italy Beyond Fascism

The pamphlet that accompanies the exhibition on Italian art in Fascist Italy is provocative and augurs well for a good two hours of art enjoyment. The exhibition does not deliver all that it promises. Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones contends that far from showing 1930s Italian art as a cauldron of experimentation, it takes the viewer through a “bleak journey into the aesthetic lifelessness of a totalitarian society”.

The day I visited the exhibition (November 24) I overheard snippets of conversation, some of which echoed my own impressions while others seemed unduly harsh. Here is a sample:

I understand that the Fascists didn't have a strict policy on art like the Nazis or Stalin did... No guidelines, no style privileged over another, no particular theme, no explicit political message...strangely liberal for Mussolini.

What happened if the state decided it didn't like a particular work of art?... I'd have been nervous about producing anything and entering any work in those state-sponsored competitions...

They were allowed to experiment but nobody did... So much of it looks like work by other artists from other places...like these Van Gogh-like paintings.

It's worth bearing in mind that what we are seeing was filtered by decisions made by a curator in 2012...

In the end, I'm not sure the exhibition has much to say about Fascism at all, at least not more than it has to say about the limiting effect of employing art as an extension of state... This stuff was not asked to do much and it does very little. Not like those great big, colourful Soviet posters we see from time to time..they're beautiful even if they were ideologically driven and heavy-handed.

If the art had been hung up somewhere and just the dates of the paintings and the names of the artists were posted, I bet that most people would say that this was an exhibition of amateur art in the Depression era in Italy...

My verdict: the little posters punctuating the exhibition which told the personal stories of people who lived through the decade were charming but too many of the paintings lacked “soul” - and perhaps that is what made them representative of the Fascist decade in Italy.

ANNI '30 - The Thirties The Arts In Italy Beyond Fascism is at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from 22 September 2012 to 27 January 2013

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Atheism in Modern History by Gavin Hyman (2007)

There is a brilliant essay in the Cambridge Companion to Atheism written by Gavin Hyman entitled Atheism in Modern History that should be read by anyone who is interested in the historical and theoretical movements that have shaped western religion. This essay is not easy, it assumes a familiarity with philosophical concepts but it is cleverly structured and it defines and clarifies ideas as it moves along.

It begins with the story of a witch-hunt that occurred in France in 1632 — an event which is emblematic of the “trauma of the birth of modernity” because its failure represents the confrontation of a society with the certainties it is losing (theism, faith) and those it is attempting to acquire (modernity).

The next section describes how medieval theism develops into “secularism”, “agnosticism” and “atheism” of all stripes, citing the important cultural developments which precipitated these shifts in thought. The core of the essay, the thesis, resides in the idea that medieval theism, the one espoused by Thomas Aquinas did not and could not have conceived of atheism as we know it today and that it was the work of one unwitting Duns Scotus (a monk!) which so shifted the theological/philosophical paradigm that the possibility of doubt was introduced into Christian thought.

Essentially, the Thomistic idea that God is “transcendent”, forever apart and therefore always unknowable to us was compromised by Duns Scotus and those who followed. Before, only Divine revelation which was of course, only God's prerogative, could allow us a glimpse into His nature. Then came the revolution — God was not “transcendent”, He could indeed be apprehended by us: we now saw that we shared in God's nature. He was infinite and we were finite, He was omnipotent and we were not, of course, of course — but now, the terms by which we could describe Him and our relationship to Him could be “clear and distinct”. We could apply logic to the question, we could use scientific evidence, archaeological findings, we could bring the force of our learning to the study of God and religion in order to get closer to Him. Or, we could use Enlightenment tools to doubt and to build new explanations for our existence...

There is much to recommend this essay to believers and non-believers alike. Bravo to Professor Hyman.

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Modern Poetry in Translation 5 (1969)

Used bookstores like Pele Mele in Brussels offer the reader many inexpensive, serendipitous encounters with literature that even the biggest standard bookstores cannot provide.

Take “Modern Poetry in Translation 5 (1969)”, which features Czech poetry written in the decade that saw the rise and crushing of liberalizing tendencies within both the government and its citizenry. This movement, known as the Prague Spring (1968) inevitably/understandably came to colour the artistic output that followed; this slim volume of poetry offers us an entry point into the psychology of an era. In fact, when approaching a text from the past like this one, a quick read through the editorial and publication information and any added notes regarding problems with publication or distribution can conjure of a feeling for the times that a history book can't really do...

MPT 5 was founded by British poet laureate Ted Hughes and fellow poet, educator and translator Daniel Weissbort. Auspicious beginnings. Hughes was only 39, Weissbort 34, London was “swinging”, the Beatles had arrived, the government was Labour and people were suspicious of the Soviet Union's intentions and tactics. So, the editorial reads a bit like a political pamphlet admonishing our poets for infusing their poetry with “hallucinations, ultimately self-indulgent”, a product of our “easy democracy” while our Eastern brothers are “in tune with the rhythms of their people in a direct, dynamic way”. Histrionics aside, the poetry is a pleasure to read.

There are, of course, direct political statements made - no question about what Jiri Kolar intends in his poem entitled “Advice for a Sycophant”, when every second line reminds collaborators to merely “Blame it on the Party”. The “Romeo and Juliet” poem by Jiri Sotola is completely different. It is a cinematic, romantic, intimate telling of the famous story where the here nameless lovers meet for the last time on a tram, between two trains:

They touch hands and leave,
each on his own, for their compartments, their tombs,
switch off the light, pull shut the sliding door, to sleep,
to sleep, or rather: to lie watching the ceiling,
listening to the rumble of the wheels
and the beating
of the heart.

I was struck by how well my impressions of this stunning artifact were encapsulated in the final two lines of “The Twentieth Century” by Antonin Bartusek:

You see, we took snapshots as we went.
The truth came out in negative.

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The Master by Colm Toibin (2004)

Colm Toibin's 2004 novel “The Master” is a well-researched, sensitively written piece of hybrid writing, blending fact and fiction to produce a beautiful, complex read.

It is a fictionalized account of the people, places and events that shaped the life of the real novelist, playwright and essayist Henry James that will satisfy present James fans and will make new fans out of the uninitiated.

Read the first two pages - the mood, the literary style, and the problematic quest for emotional maturation (one of the central themes that will come to dominate the book) are already there: When Henry the protagonist recounts a dream where he finds himself near his beloved mother, in a half-familiar Italian square where she “beseeches” him to give her “something”, (succor? pity? consolation? a word of love?) “he cannot help her” and instead wills himself to “wake in a cold fright”, immediately looking for ways to “numb” or “distract” himself. Henry is failing – the master fails...

Henry masters the rendering of psychological states in his professional life but he cannot, dare not examine the emotional terrain that shapes his own being. People around him want Henry's friendship and love but he measures these out like J. Alfred Prufrock, in “coffee spoons”. Yes, perhaps Constance Fenimore Woolson's suicide was precipitated by Henry's emotional negligence, but what can he do, he asks himself? And when Henry himself seeks intimacy we watch, cringing, as he backs away from perfect opportunities to connect with others.

Colm Toibin ends the novel with Henry putting his relatives on a train, returning to his house alone, “moving around it relishing the silence and the emptiness” and preparing to “capture” and “hold” the world as he “observed” it in a new book. Clearly, it cannot be otherwise for Henry...

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"Natasha and Other Stories" by David Bezmozgis (2004)

The trick with a short story is to provide enough detail to render the characters three-dimensional and believable while simultaneously leaving enough space for plot so that the episode recounted makes the reader want to stop for a moment before moving on to the next story.

Natasha by David Bezmozgis does just that.

The seven stories in the collection follow the Berman family - Bella, Roman and their son Mark - as they emigrate in the late 70s from Latvia to settle in the Jewish Eastern European section of Toronto.

The stories are chronological, told in the first person by Mark Berman the adult, and they are narrative gems. The narrator is able to translate the mood of the household, the neighbourhood and the intervening decades (Mark is about 30 when he recounts the incidents from his life) into language that is precise, unadorned and yet so very expressive. The style might even be described as cinematographic with scenes that could easily be filmed - sometimes panning out, sometimes zooming in on an object or comment - elevating the mundane to the epic and maintaining a perpetual sense of foreboding for this somewhat unfortunate, ordinary but nonetheless complex little world on Bathurst Street: Nine-year-old Mark wonders innocently (and the reader frets in proxy) at what's become of his father and the wife of the influential Dr. Kornblum while dinner is served. The Natasha of the title is a 14-year-old girl whose unnerving sexual worldliness induces a physical and psychic shiver but offers no self-evident meaning, establishes no causal links, and provides no resolution.

"Natash and Other Stories" portrays situations and responses that are existential in execution and outlook – they are modern and brilliant.

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Dali: Hidden Faces

 
Guess who, at the age of 16, wrote in his journal entitled “My Impressions and Intimate Memories”, “When I come back, I will be a genius and the world will admire me. I may be despised, misunderstood, but I will be a genius, a great genius because I am certain of it”.
The inimitable Salvador Dali, of course. Showman par excellence, iconoclast, bombast and man of deep contradictions, Dali was indeed a genius. Today his life and work are not “despised” or “misunderstood” and in fact, a stroll through a traveling exhibition of his work (held at 19 Grand Place in Brussels) will show just how influential his work has been to the development of art (fine art, decorative arts, advertising, film) and psychology (the subconscious, the erotic, the dream state).
The exhibition displays a bit of everything: some of Dali's sculptures, early efforts at drawing and writing, a copy of his novel entitled “Hidden Faces”, a deck of Tarot cards, playing cards painted on plates, magazine advertisements for women's stockings and more. On display are also items that reveal his curious, ever-shifting contradictory political opinions. He paints a picture of Mao and superimposes Marilyn Monroe's face on it. He takes a photo of Stalin, another of Franco, puts these up against his own face and has someone take a picture of these three moustachioed men – to say what? He was expelled from the Surrealist club for refusing to toe the party line and said that he was apolitical, although he admitted to being an anarchist and a monarchist – both at the same time. Dali's politics changed over time as did his addresses, his financial standing and his friends and allies but he remained his own best publicist, an imaginative thinker and a superb artist.

Salvador Dali Exhibition Brussels Grand Place until September 10, 2012

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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861)

I think that author Jane Smiley is right about Charles Dickens' Great Expectations: readers would accept either ending if they didn't know there were two, but since both versions are available to us, the jury's still out.

Author David Nicholls calls the original ending (the one that Dickens chose to suppress on the advice of several friends) “incredibly bleak” and the second, the official ending “unrealistically romantic and sentimental”. Which is better, asks one reader, the first one where Pip and Estella bid each other farewell because “the fire no longer burns” or the second one which offers hope because the fire “hasn't stopped burning”? Someone makes the comment that if the first version had been filmed it would have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and the second at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

While debates about the relative merits of the two endings continue, some readers have chosen an altogether different response – from George Bernard Shaw to film director Alfonso Cuaron to secondary school students. Shaw pronounces that Dickens has “made a mess of both” and supplies his own unequivocally unhappy ending where Pip tells us, “Since that parting, I have been able to think of her without the old unhappiness; but I have never tried to see her again, and I know that I never shall”. What a hard, hard man.

Cuaron's delightful modern update set in part in an artist's studio in 1998 New York City ends with Estella asking Finn (Pip) for forgiveness while holding his hand and looking out to sea.

And the most original of all is a short video by Peter, Sydney and Rakela, three students who have Pip pour out his heart in a suicide letter and ingest pills.

Perhaps at the heart of this debate is the question of consistency. I agree with Shaw when he writes that Great Expectations is “too serious a book to be a trivially happy one”, but at the same time, the characters are not caricatures, they are capable of psychological and moral growth so that a nuanced ending, one which at least suggests hope and reconciliation is in order.

 

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