Enchanted Ground
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world. Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental, nor is it accidental that today only within the smallest and intimate circles, in personal human situations, in pianissimo, that something is pulsating that corresponds to the prophetic pneuma, which in former times swept through the great communities like a firebrand, welding them together. If we attempt to force and to invent a monumental style in art, such miserable monstrosities are produced as the many monuments of the last twenty years. If one tries intellectually to construe new religions without a new and genuine prophecy, then, in an inner sense, something similar will result, but with still worse effects. And academic prophecy, finally, will create only fanatical sects but never a genuine community.
Max Weber
Science as a Vocation (1919)
Contents
List of Plates
Paul Czanne, The Abandoned House (18789). Oil on canvas, 50.5 60.4 cm. Private collection. Christies Images/Bridgeman Images.
Paul Czanne, The House of the Hanged Man, Auvers-sur-Oise (c. 1873). Oil on canvas, 55 66 cm. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Photo Scala, Florence.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Woman Reading (18745). Oil on canvas, 47 38 cm. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Photo Scala, Florence.
Ren Magritte, The Submissive Reader (1928). Oil on canvas, 92 73 cm. Private collection. BI, ADAGP, Paris/Scala, Florence. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Ren Magritte, Treatise on Light (1943). Oil on canvas, 55 75 cm. Private collection. Christies Images. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bathers (191819). Oil on canvas, 110 160 cm. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Photo Scala, Florence.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Young Shepherd in Repose (Portrait of Alexander Thurneyssen) (1911). Oil on canvas, 73 91 cm. Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence. World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo.
Ren Magritte, The Ocean (1943). Oil on canvas, 50 65 cm. Private collection. Bridgeman Images. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte 1884 (18846). Oil on canvas, 207 308 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago. The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence.
Paul Gauguin, Te Rerioa (The Dream) (1897). Oil on canvas, 95 132 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London. The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Paul Gauguin, Nevermore (1897). Oil on canvas, 60.5 116 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London. The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Paul Gauguin, Riders on the Beach (1902). Oil on canvas, 66 76 cm. Museum Folkwang, Essen. Photo Scala, Florence.
Edgar Degas, Racehorses (Leaving the Weighing) (1878). Oil on panel, 32.5 40.4 cm. Private collection. Christies Images, London/Scala, Florence.
Charles Filiger, Pouldu Landscape (c. 18903). Gouache on paper, 26 38.5 cm. Muse des Beaux-Arts, Quimper. Transfert de proprit de lEtat la Ville de Quimper en 2013 Collection du muse des beaux-arts de Quimper.
Paul Gauguin, The Loss of Virginity (1890). Oil on canvas, 90 31 cm. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia. 2018 Chrysler Museum of Art.
List of Figures
Introduction
.
Salvador Dal, The Birth of Liquid Desires (1932). Oil and collage on canvas, 96.1 112.3 cm. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venezia (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York). Salvador Dali, Fundaci Gala-Salvador Dal, DACS 2018.
Pablo Picasso, Man with a Clarinet (191112). Oil on canvas, 106 69 cm. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza/Scala, Florence. Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2018.
Alfred Barr diagram for exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence.
Chapter 1
Francis Picabia, Still Lives (1920). Mixed media, dimensions unknown. Reproduced in Cannibale, no. 1, 25 April 1920. Current whereabouts unknown. Image University of Iowa Libraries. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Paul Czanne, Houses at LEstaque (1880). Oil on canvas, 80.2 100.6 cm. Art Institute of Chicago. The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence.
Ouvrez-vous in Mdium: Communication surraliste, November 1953, 1. Authors collection.
Paul Czanne, House on the Hill (19046). Oil on canvas, 65.7 81 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., White House Collection. Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Max Ernst, Czanne et Rosa Bonheur, collage from The Hundred Headless Woman (1929). Private collection. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Cover of douard Monod-Herzen, Principes de Morphologie Gnrale, vol. 1 (1927). Authors collection.
Page from douard Monod-Herzen, Principes de Morphologie Gnrale (1927). Authors collection.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata Beatrix (c. 186470). Oil on canvas, 86.4 66 cm. Tate Gallery, London. Tate, London 2018.
Man Ray, photograph of slipper spoon, 1937 (published in Andr Breton, Lamour fou, 1937). Man Ray Trust/ADAGP-DACS/Telimage 2018.
Man Ray, photograph of mask, 1937 (published in Andr Breton, Lamour fou, 1937). Collection Man Ray Trust. Man Ray Trust/ADAGP-DACS/Telimage 2018.
LOuest-clair, report of the affair of the loch, 28 June 1935.
Cover of Dtective, year 8, no. 349, 4 July 1935.
Dans la rgion, report of the affair of the loch, 29 June 1935.
LOuest-clair, report of the confession of Michel Henriot and funeral of Georgette Deglave, 12 May 1934.
Page from Andr Breton, Lamour fou (1937) showing reproduction of The Abandoned House (18789).
Man Ray, photograph of rubber statue owned by Andr Breton, 1937 (published in Andr Breton, Lamour fou, 1937). Man Ray Trust/ADAGP-DACS/Telimage 2018.
(a, b, c) Cards from the Surrealist Marseille Pack, 19401. Authors collection.
Victor Brauner, The Surrealist (1947). Oil on canvas, 60 45 cm. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Page from Andr Breton, Lamour fou (1937) showing reproduction of postcard with star-shaped building.
Paul Czanne, The Card Players (18923). Oil on canvas, 60 73 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London. The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Screen capture from Charlie Chaplin, A Dogs Life (1918). Roy Export SAS.
Screen capture from Charlie Chaplin, A Dogs Life (1918). Roy Export SAS.
Jean-Franois Millet, The Angelus (18579). Oil on canvas, 56 66 cm. Muse dOrsay, Paris. Photo Josse/Scala, Florence.
Chapter 2
Ren Magritte, The Uncertainty Principle
Next page