Antliff Allan. Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (ENG)
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Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxx.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/dominicanuc/Doc?id=10308829&ppg=30
30 ANARCHY AND ART
T
was confronted with a tigh tly constructed manner of paint
ing,
broad, extremely polished and honest. The gures were
true without being v
ulgar; the fleshy parts, rm and supple,
were powe rfully alive; the backgrounds were airy and endowed
the gures with astounding vigour. The slightly muted col
oration has an almost sweet harmony, while the exactness of
t
ones, the breath of technique, establish the planes and he l
p
set o each detail in a surprising way.
I see again these energy
lled canvases, unied, solidly co
nstructed, true to life and as
beautiful as truth.))
Having establis
h
ed t
h
e libertarian
primacy of style, Zola caustical
ly
riuiuleu Prouuhun fur emphasizing th xact uppusite, namely th
subject matter. Proudhon saw Courbet "from
the point of view of pure
rho\lght, o\ltside ofl1 pinterly q\l:llities. For him CnVS is s\
l
b
ject;
paint it red or green, he could not care less .... He [always] ob
liges
the painting
mean somethin
g
; about the fo rm, not a word."56 The
problem, Zola concluded, was that Proudhon fa iled to understand that
"Courbet exists through himself, and not t
hugh the subjects he has
chosen." "As for me," he continued,
"it is not the tree, the face, the
scene I am shown that moves me: it is the man revealed through the
work, it is the forceful, unique individual who has discovered how to
create, alongside God's world, a personal world."S7
Zola dened a work of art as
"a fment of c1'eation seen through a
tempemmcl1t"
(Zola's emphasisl.58 For him, the "fragment" was sec
ondary
"tempenllnent" and the index of temperament was style.
Equating
the exercise of temperament with freedom, Zola turned sty
l
istic ori
gi
na
l
ity into an anarchist act. Here, the politics of art implod
ed into the art object as the artist strove to assert personal freedom
through stylistic innovation. The contrast with Proudhon's artist,
who
could not approach a condition of freedom except through social
critique, seemed unequivocal. It took the Paris Commune (March 18
to May 28, 1871) to resolve the debate.
The Commune was an outgrowth of the defeat of Emperor
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxi.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/dominicanuc/Doc?id=10308829&ppg=31
A Btnillifi D/nll 31
Paris in Flames,
1871. Litbo.V"nph. From Enmt Aljrrd Viuul, M Adventures in [he
Paris Commune, 1914.
Napoleon HI fo llowing an ill-advised declaration of war with Prussia
in July 1870. Prussia formed an alliance with other German princi
palities and invaded France. Defeat followed defeat and on September
2, 1870, Napoleon ITI surrendered with most of his army just out
side Paris. Insurrectionary demonstrations in the capital led to his
capitulation and the pro
clamation of a republican Government of
National Defense on September 4. This government signed an un
popular armistice with the Germans on January 28, 1871. In early
February, a newly elected and overwhelmingly conservative National
Assembly transferred the seat of government from Paris to Versailles.
While the conservatives consolidated at Versailles, radicals in Paris
rejected the
armistice and called for the socialization of the economy
under
a communal fo rm of government. The Paris Commune was
elected by 275,000 Parisians in March at the same time as parallel
communes were declared in Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Narbonne,
Le Creusot, and St. Etienne. Later that month, National Assembly
troops moved against the regional communes and by mid-April, Paris
was left isolated.59
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxii.
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32 ANARCHY AND ART
In Paris, the Communards
i
mplemented a host of popular mea
sures such as the expropriation of workshops and their transfer to
worker-owned cooperatives, the
requisition of empty buildings for
p
u
bl
i
c housing, and paying top government ofcials the equ
ivalent
of a skilled worker's wage. Grassroots clubs in the city districts (01--
1'ondsemtms)
infused Paris with the spirit of direct democracy. The
fou nd
i
ng dedication of one such club to "uphold the
r
ig
h
ts of the peo
ple, to accomplish their political education, so that they might govern
themselves," communicates the anarchic tenor of city.60 In April, the
Commune a
ttempted to rally the rest of the country to its cause in an
appeal
" the people of France" calling for:
the toral autonomy of the commune extended to every township
in France, and the ensuring to each the fullness of his rights
nli t �v�ry Fr�n hlT1n th fr�� �xrr_in f hi" nlri.
and aptitudes as man, S citizen and as worker; the commune's
autonomy is to be res tricted only by the right to an equal au
tonomy for all the other communes that adhere to the contract
that will ensure the unity of France.61
Courbet, who regarded the Paris Commune as a rst step towards
Proudhon's
anarchist program, threw
himself into the effort.6!
O
n
April 30, at the Commune's height, he wrote,
I am, thanks to the people of Paris, up to my neck in poli
tics: president of the Federation of Artists, member of the
Commune, delegate to the Ofce of the Mayor, delegate to
[the Ministry of] Public Education, four of the most important
ofces in Paris .... Paris is a true paradise! No police, no non
sense, no exaction of any kind, no arguments! Every
thing in
Paris rolls along like clock-work. If only it could stay like this
forever. In shor t, it is a beautiful dream. All government bodies
are organized
fe derally and run themselves.6
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxiii.
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A Btilti/i ll Drtlll 33
Bodies of Clmmlll7lrds pbotogmphrd t Cemetery, Paris, 1871. Pbotogmpb m Enust
(Ind Viutelly, My
Avntun:s in the Paris Commun. 1914.
The Federation of Artists had been formed on April 13 at Courbet's
instigation. Its rst act was to issue a manifesto declaring complete
freedom of expression, an end
government interference in the arts,
and equality amongst the mcmbership.<HCompletc freedom of expres�
sion: fo r Courbet, there was no conict between Zola's advocacy of
freedom
throu
gh style and Proudhon's advocacy of freedom through
critique-an anarchist future could accommodate both.
On May
21, the French army finally breached the Commune's de�
fe nses and, backed by relentless bombardments, poured into the city
centre. Barricades slowed the army down as the Communards fought
back street by street and vast swaths of Paris were engulfed in ames.
Once the Paris defenses had been br
eached, the military went on a
killin
g rampage: fteen� to thirty�thousand Parisians were slaugh�
tered before the ghting nally ended on May 28; 38,000 more were
arrested in its aftermath, including Courbet.65 He spent six months in
jail and his property was seized. Penniless upon his release and
threat�
ened with re�arrest, Courbet ed to Switzerland, where he died in
exile on December
31, 1877.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxiv.
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34 ANARCHY AND ART
NOTES TO CHAPTER I
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, DII prillcipc lrt ct de des/illatioll social (Paris, 1865).
1 Emile Zola, "Proudhon and Combet,"
My Hatreds, trans. with an introduction by
Paloma Paves-Yashinsky and Jack Yashinsky (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press,
1992), 9-21. The review was originally published in two instalments-on July 16,
1865 and August 31, 1865-in
U Sailit Pube.
3 Pierre-Jo�eph Prouuhon, I Vhat is Proper? rln Inqlliry into th PI·inciple of Right allti
of Govnmlwt
(New York: Dover Press, 1970): 177, 280, 286.
4
The state was also paying attention: in 1842, Proudhon was charged with "attack
i
ng property, inciting contempt for government, and offending against religion
and morals." Thanks to a skillful self-defence, he was acquitted. See Henri de
Lebac, TIH UlI-!rXi Socilist: Stlldy of ProlldbOll, R. E. ScantldJUry, trans.
(New York: Sheed & ard, 1948): 7.
5
Bakunin was in Paris from l larch 1844 until November 1847 and he and
Proudhon engagd in lengthy <Iiscussions about Hegel's {Iialecti�, sometiTlls
through th nighl. Sec Brian Morris,
11ill: tb bilosopby of FTU0 (Momreal:
Black Rose Books, 1993): 12-13; Marx lived in Paris from 1844 until his expulsion
from France in February, 1845. Marx rst met Proudhon in September 1844 and
they also discussed Hegel's philosophy;James H. Billington,
Fi n? ill the Millds of
: Origills of fbr Revofutiollary Faitb (New York: Basic Books, 1980): 289-290;
Karl Griin was Proudhon's third important source of information on Hegel
and Feuerbach. Griin got to know Proudhon shortly after arriving in Paris in
Sptember 1844; Billington, 191.
6
Hegel, quoted in Lesek Kolakowski,
ill C in ,WTxiflll: Th FOlnl
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978): 72.
7 Ibid, 73.
8 Ibid, 81.
9
Ibid.
iO Ibid,83.
II Ibid, 85.
11
David McLellan, Tb Ollg lhgrfiulls ( Kad r (Nw York: Fredrik A.
Praegcr, 1969): 89.
IJ
Feuerbach (
I
UOled in ibid, 92.
14 Ludwig Feuerbach, "Provi5ional Theses for the Reformation of Philosophy,"
(1843),
Tbe YO flllg Hegia lls: All Amhology, Lawrence S. Stepelevich, ed.
(Cambri{lge: Cambridge Univcrsity Press, 19H3): 164.
15 George odcock,
PilTf-Josepb Pnldholl: A Biography (Montreal: Black Rose
Books, 1987): 87-88.
16 Griin quoted in de Lebac,
134, note 33. According to Steven Vincent, Griin
also provide Proudhon with translations of his article on Fe uerbach, "Louis
Feuerbach and the Socialists,"
(1845); Louis Feuerhach's preface 10 the second
edition of his swer o{Cbrisfiallity (UN I); and a cOUllcntar}, on Feuerbach's
philosophy by his brother Fredcric Feuerbaeh, entitled Th Religioll of tb FlltllT
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxv.
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A Beautiful Drral 35
(1843-45). See Stephen Vincent,
Pien-e-Jonph Prolldholl alld the Rise of Frellch
Repllblicnll Socialism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1984): 94-95.
17
Griin quoted in oodcock, 88.
18
Pierre-Jo�eph Proudhon, I jstice dtms la 1voll/tioll el dum /'eglise (Paris, 1858):
198.
19 Ibid, 492-93.
20 Pierre-Jo�eph Proudhon, General Mea of th Revolutioll ill tbt' NillelItb Cenllf
(Lontlon: Pluto Pre�s, 1989): 40.
21 Proudhon read the French translation of the
Critiqlle of Pun Reason in the winter
of 1840 and again in the winter of 1841. See Vincent, 62, 72.
22 Roger Scruton,
Kallf (Oxford: Oxford Unh'ersity Press, 1982): 46.
23 1
hid., 48-49.
24 Bakunin also rejected the higher, subsuming synthesis of the Hegelian dialeCli
cal triad. See Robert M. Cutler, "Introducrion," The Basic Bukllllill: irills
1869-1871, Robert M. Cutler, trans. amI cd. (Ne
w
York: Prometheus Books,
1992). Cutler's is the best interpretation of Rakunin's dialectics [ have encoun
tered. Proudhon's reconciliation of Kant's critical dialectic with Feuerbach's
radical Hegelian dialectic is a point of contention. Some state that the Hegelian
model of the dialectic was rejected by roudhon in favour of Kant's. Others read
Proudhon's Feuerbach-inuenced dialectic as Ieeiian. Either way, Proudhon
ends up being bram1cd as a "confused" theorist and lhis has hampered discus
sion of his aesthetics. See, for example, T.J. Clark, The Asolll Bourgeois: Artists
lId Politics ill Fl1-1848-1851 (Prim.:eton: Princeton University Press, 1982):
166-167.
25 James Henry Rubin,
RI alld Social Visioll i COflrbtt and Pdholl (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1980); 34.
26 Proudhon,
DII prillciple de I'ar" I.
27 Courbet rst gained recognition in 1848 when h won a state prize for the genre
painting
Aftr Dillner I Onlis (1847).
28 See
J. Clark, bllage of the People: GIISrRJ,'e COllrbet alld rbe 1848 Revolutioll
(Lomlon: Thames and Hudson, 1999).
29 Ibid.
30
11
Rubin, 38-47.
Ibid., 164.
32 Proudhon, DII prillcipe de lrt, 3.
33 Ibid., 31.
34
Ibid.
35 Ibid .. 38.
36 Ibid., 39, 40-42.
37
Ibid., 199. Prou(lhon also condemned idealist "art-for-art's-sake" trends amongst
anti-academic artists. Sec Andre Resder,
L'�rbiqlle o1n'{hi�t (Paris: Presses
Uni\'crsitaircs dc Francc, 1973); 20.
38 Proudhon,
DII prillcipe de lrt, 199.
39 Ibid., 43.
40 Ibid., 84.
41 Ibid.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxvi.
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36 ANARCHY AND ART
42 Nina Adu massoglou-Kallmyer, "An Anistic and Political Manifesto for
Cezanne,"
Th Art Blllltill (September, 1
9
90): 484.
43 Ibid., 48
5
. Zola's a�siation of arti�tic individualism with anarchism continut:d
into the 1870s and '80s. See Ann Lecomte-limy, "L'Artist de Te mperlllem
chez Zola ct e"anl la Public: Essai D'Analyse Lexicologique
et SClIliologit
l
ue,"
E
mile ZO/ lld
tb Art, jean-ax Guieu and Alison Hilton, cds. (Washington:
Georgetown University Press, 1988): 85-98.
44 "[ am diametrica lly opposed to Promlhon: he wants art to be the nation's product,
r require that it be the product of an individual"; Zola, "Proudhon and Courbet,"
My Hlmls, 14.
45. Ibid.,
9
.
45 [bid.
46 Ibid.,
II.
47 Ibid.
48 [bid.
4
9
Ibid., 20.
50
Ibid., 21.
51 Ibid., [2.
52
Ibid., 17.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55
Ibid., [8.
56
Ibid., 19.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., 12. Arguably, the Proudhon-Zola debate marks an importam juncture in
the history of nineteemh-century aesthetic theory. The formulation of an ami
metaphysical subjecriist aesthetic is commonly reserved for Friedrich Nietzsche.
See Alrew Bo
w
ie
,
Aethrt;cs alld Subjectivi: from Klmt to Nirtrcbe (anchester:
Manchester University Press, 1
9
90).
59
Tbr Pa l"is CommliC of 187 J, Eugene Schul kind, ed. (London: jonathan Ca
p
e,
1972): 19-13.
60 "Organe des Cluhes,"
ill/dill Gr1I1I111/ no. 1 (May 6, 1871) in Schul kind, 117.
61 "An Official Proclamation of the Commune (April 19, 1871)," ](n/J
oceil dr la
Commue, April
20, 1871) in Schulkind, 150.
62 In an open letter emitled "To the Anists of Paris" published on April 6, Courbet
wrote that the "apostles" of the Tevolution wen: the wOTkers and its
"ChTi�tn
was Proudhon. This letter was accompanied by a call for a meeting the next day
to form the Federation of Artists of Paris. Gustave Courbet. "To the Anists of
P
aris," ]oa/ ofcirl ,/r I C0llmr (ApTil 6, 1871) in Lrttrn of Gltvr GOrt,
P. Te n-Docsschate Chu, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1
9
91): 409.
63 GuStave Courbct lO his
family
,
Charenlon, April 30, 1871 in Lette of Gl/stave
Courbct,
416.
64 The manifesto is cited in jean Peidier, fA COll1C cr les Artisus (PaTis: Nouelles
Editions btines,
1
9
80): 64.
65 Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, My dvCtllres i tbe Commune: Paris 1871 (London:
Chatto and "indus,
1914):
3
53-
3
54.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxvii.
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CHAPTER 2
WA NDERING
Neo-lm'essionists find Depictions of the Dispossessed
At the bottom of the stain lay the lIIari1len of the street cur�
n�1It, tbe tmmps wbo bd l l/ert
of tbe crowd lift, who
refu sed to obey-they had abal1do11ed time, possessios, labm;
sIml1Y. Thpy mnlbd nnd flepl ; llme1·�1·hyl"1 lO lhe
wodd.
-Anats Nin, "Houseboat," 19411
Followingthe fa ll of the Paris Commune in 1871, successive Republican
governments presided over an explosive expansion of French indus�
trial capitalism which quickly eroded older, marc rural forms of pro�
duct ion and community life. The economic juggeaut was made
possible thanks to a new infrastructure of rail lines and roads which
spread through the countryside, bringing economic transformation to
hitherto relatively untouched areas.1 It came with a price: in villages,
towns, and hamlets throughout France, the products of local crafts�
men were displaced by cheap goods mass�produced
in fa ctories, and
small�scale fa rms geared to the material needs and ecological capaci�
ties of the local community were undermined by imported produce
from abroad and the reconguration of agricultural production on
a
large�scale, export�oriented basis. This process was augmented by
a great economic depression that lasted from 1873 to 1896, a crisis
which forced artisans and peasants into debt, and from there to the
j)
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxviii.
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38 ANARCHY AND ART
GstW AIrirsitlx, The Slag CJp, co 1904. Pbotogmpb.
mines, factories, mills, and urban centers that fe d the industrial capi
talist monolith.}
Roger Magraw writes that as the old skills and rural communities
died,
"uprooted, alienated, deskilled workers took refuge in consum
erism, or, more often, in drink, crime, and domestic violence."'+ But
many of the displaced refused to be victims; instead, they entered into
a state of revolt against encroaching capitalist servitude, articulated
in the form of an anarchist critique of marginalization and the cruel
existence of the dispossessed.
Nowhere was this critique more clearly encapsulated than in the
art of the neo-impressionists. The term "neo-impressionism" was
coined in
1886 by the anarchist art critic Felix Feneon character-
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xxxix.
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IVnlld"I"illg 39
Ize the stylistic evolution of a group of Paris-based painters whose
ranks included Paul Signac,
Camille Pissarro, Lucien Pissarro,
Georges Seurat, Anna Bloch, Charles Angrand, aximilien Luce,
Albert Dubois-Pillet, and Henri Edmond Cross; shortly thereafter,
the group expanded to include Theo Va n Rysselberghe and a circle of
artists based in Belgium. The difference between impressionism and
neo-impressionism, Signac would later explain, was the neo-impres
sionists' "scientic" application of color, as opposed
to "instinctual"; a
second difference was that, po
litically speaking, almost all of the neo
impressionists were avowed anarchists whose paintings and graphic
contributions
journals such as Le Pere Pinord, L'eu debors, La Plule,
Assiette Au BeU1Te, and Les Te mps Nouveaux
played a key agitational
role
in the lIluvement.5
Ta ke, for example,
Les E1mts h e Wa llde1'e (1897) (see color
pbre 2), lirhogrph prod�led
by
Theo V:ln Rysseherghe for ln 1-
bum of prints issued by Les Temps No uveaux (see color plate 2). Van
Rysselberghe's tide came from a poem of the same name by the an
archist playwright Emile Ve rhaeren. In the corner of the print is a
passage from Ve rhaeren's poem which reads: "Thus the poor people
cart their misery for great distances over the plains of the earth ... "
In
the late 1880s and early 1890s, the workers of Belgium had repeat
edly risen up in a series of mass strikes, riots, and violent clashes with
the police and army. The rst such incident erupted in the
industrial
city of Liege, where a commemoration of the Paris Commune led to
full-scale rioting that spread throughout the country's industrial min
ing
region.6 We can better grasp the desperation of the region's work
ers through photographs of their living hell-the prosperous (from a
bourgeois perspective) towns where workers were reduced to combing
sl
a
g
heaps for bits of coal "aer hours." Men, women, and children
worked ten- to thirteen-hour days, six days a week, in the mines and
mills of Belgium; they were paid at
or below subsistence level, and
if
there was no work, they starved.;
Va n Rysselberghe's
Wa lldeTers are refugees displaced by poverty,
the police, and the army. In the 1890s, thousands of such fa milies were