Balzacs Hausmantel oder: Textprozesse und ihre Bedeutung für die Erschließung komplexer poetischer Strukturen

Es gibt für Kunsthistoriker in der Regel viel weniger Möglichkeiten, den Konkretisierungsprozess eines Werks zu verfolgen, als für Musik- oder Literaturwissenschaftler. Das hat seinen Grund natürlich in der Linearität der Aufzeichnungssysteme beider Künste, die mit Zeichennotationen operieren. In der Regel sehen wir bei einem Bild, einer Zeichnung oder einer Skulptur nichts als das fertige Werk. Es gibt aber auch in der Kunstgeschichte Beispiele für die Frage, welchen Aufschluss wir gewinnen können, wenn wir die Stadien der Konkretisierung eines Werks studieren. Die Ausführungen zur Balzac-Statue von Auguste Rodin mögen für den Begriff von Werkkonkretisierung Modell stehen und dafür, welchen kognitiven Gewinn man aus seiner Rezeption ziehen kann.

Die Inszenierung von Text- und Werkgenesen in Dichter-, Künstler- und Komponistenhäusern

The homes of poets, artists and composers are not only memorials and biographical museums but also places in which texts, pieces of art and music were created. A person’s biography is quickly revealed in these homes by looking at the original furniture and the typical objects of daily life common at the time. To make the creative work visible though, guidance and explanations are necessary. In many homes the pieces of work aren’t merely shown, instead, an attempt has been made to provide specific insight into the process of the creation of them. Not only are the relevant documents shown but also, using various media, the origins of the pieces are made comprehensible to the beholder. The origins are staged. Sometimes, with the help of drawers which can be opened, the stages of the origins can be contemplated (Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Koeppen) and then the manuscripts are illustrated in the order of their creation on a time beam (Honoré de Balzac). In Heinrich-Schütz’s home the development of a melody can be followed acoustically. But there are also homes in which their owners – mainly visual artists – even developed concepts for the keeping and archiving of the creation of their works (Gustave Moreau, Auguste Rodin) during their lifetimes, so that the observer can later experience them in all their authenticity in their original surroundings. In this article various forms of conveying the creation of works are presented, commented on and placed in the exploration context of places of creativity.

Auguste Rodin Draws Blind: An Art and Psychology Study

Late in his life Rodin produced many thousand “instant drawings.” He asked models to make natural energetic movements, and he would draw them at high speed without looking at his hand or paper. To help understand his “blind drawing” process, the authors tracked the eye and hand movements of art students while they drew blind, copying complex lines presented to them as static images. The study found that line shape was correctly reproduced, but scaling could show major deficiencies not seen in Rodin's sketches. The authors propose that Rodin's direct vision-to-motor strategy, coupled with his high expertise, allowed him to accurately depict in one sweep the entire model, without “thoughts arresting the flow of sensations.”

A Second Gestural Revolution and Gesturing Hands in Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin, Mary Wigman, and Tilly Losch

This chapter has two aims: to trace in more detail gestural dance’s ability to realize what Susan Leigh Foster calls “physicality as a discourse”; and to show how modernist dance reflects upon this discursiveness through the pronounced and sometimes self-referential use of hands. Addressing modernist choreography as a second gestural revolution, the chapter argues that it constitutes a recovery, on its own terms, of the meaningful corporeality that was established by the first gestural revolution of the eighteenth-century ballet reform. In order to test Jacques Rancière’s modernist aesthetic of the autonomous subject on a set of examples, the chapter also explores Hilde Doepp’s 1926 book Träume und Masken (Dreams and Masks), Rainer Maria Rilke’s writings on Auguste Rodin, photographs of hands by Albert Renger-Patzsch and Charlotte Rudolph, and the queer aesthetic of Tilly Losch’s Tanz der Hände (Dance of the Hands).

Shirakaba and Rodin: A Transnational Dialogue between Japan and France

This essay examines the role ofShirakaba(White Birch, 1910-1923) as an art magazine that aspired to create new audiences and foster the exchange of ideas by providing an alternate space to address diverse views about modern art, literature, theory, and identity. In addition to introducing European modernism to Japan through the writings of western artists, authors, and thinkers,Shirakabacreated access to and direct exchange of artwork with a number of artists such as Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Heinrich Vogeler (1872-1942), Max Klinger (1857-1920), and Bernard Leach (1887-1979). Among these,Shirakaba’stransnational dialogue with the French sculptor Auguste Rodin was the most significant. I argue thatShirakaba’sdiscourse with Rodin not only facilitated new forums for the public access and display of modern art in Japan, but also was emblematic of its humanist ideology rooted in artistic subjectivity and self-expression.