by Philipp Blom
Table of Contents
By the same author
Title Page
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 - 1900: The Dynamo and the Virgin
A Nation Vanishes
Dreyfus and the Spectre of Decline
The Dynamo and the Virgin
Chapter 2 - 1901: The Changing of the Guard
Steam Turbines and the Defeat of the Nobility
Rates of Dissolution
New Titles, New Wealth
Chapter 3 - 1902: Oedipus Rex
The Great Cover-up
The Ethics of Style
Chapter 4 - 1903: A Strange Luminescence
The Nobel Prize
The Dissolution of Certainty
Nervous Currents
Chapter 5 - 1904: His Majesty and Mister Morel
Unfair Trade
The Shame of Empires
Media Wars
The Costs of Power
Chapter 6 - 1905: In All Fury
There Is No God!
Borrowed from the Village
The Pugilist at Court
Dangerous Ideas
A Victorious Little War
A Useful Priest
Into Chaos
Seizing Control
Everyone Feared Something
Chapter 7 - 1906: Dreadnought and Anxiety
Ruling the Waves
Manly Strength
Military Virtue, Military Vice
William the Sudden
Phili’s Fall
Being Uranist
Sandow the Magnificent
Madmen and Muscle Jews
Anxious Virility
Chapter 8 - 1907: Dreams and Visions
A Strange Champion for Peace
Dionysus in the Tower
Bohemians and Barefoot Prophets
The Voice of the Blood
Troubling Visions
Isis Unveiled
The School of Life
Chapter 9 - 1908: Ladies with Rocks
The Vote and Working Women
Violence
Between Tolstoy and Autocracy
Outrageous Women
Backlash
Chapter 10 - 1909: The Cult of the Fast Machine
Those Magnificent Men
At the Races
Capturing the Moving World
American Nervousness
Sex, Lies, and Early Cinema
Germany and Nervous Tension
Chapter 11 - 1910: Human Nature Changed
Talking of Copulation
Ritual, Myths and Masks
Searching Far and Near
The God of Ecstasy
Chapter 12 - 1911: People’s Palaces
Starstruck
The Beauty of the Masses
Palaces of the People?
New Tribes
Communities of Consumption
Chapter 13 - 1912: Questions of Breeding
Superior Stock
A New Manliness?
At Home with the Kallikaks
New Men, New Women
Racists and Mystics
Chapter 14 - 1913: Wagner’s Crime
The Inverted Judge
The Influencing Machine
Apaches and Other Hooligans
The Science of Crime
Popular Heroes
Chapter 15 - 1914: Murder Most Foul
The Vortex of Infinite Forces
The Dynamo ...
... and the Virgin
Lost in Space-Time
The Cult of Unreason
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Copyright Page
By the same author
Encyclopédie: The Triumph of Reason
in an Unreasonable Age
To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History
of Collectors and Collecting
For Cecil
and for Chelsea, Samantha, André, Pierce, Aidan,
Martine and Lukas
List of Illustrations
Text Illustrations
p. 6 Porte monumentale, World Fair Paris, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Getty)
p. 9 A view of the World Fair from the Alexandre III bridge, Paris, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Getty)
p. 19 The hall of dynamos,World Fair Paris, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)
p. 28 Edward VII (Corbis)
p. 37 Ernst, Duke of Saxony-Altenburg with his family (Schlossmuseum, Altenburg)
p. 41 Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1901 (Topfoto)
p. 53 Sigmund Freud with his grandchildren, 1922 (Mary Evans Picture Library)
p. 65 AEG turbine factory, Berlin, by Peter Behrens (AKG images) © DACS 2008
p. 66 Fagus works, Alfeld by Walter Gropius (AKG images) © DACS 2008
p. 67 Gustav Klimt, Judith, 1901, Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna (Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 68 Gustav Klimt, Cover of Ver Sacrum, the journal of the Viennese Secession, 1898, Historisches Museum der Stadt, Vienna (Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 72 Marie and Pierre Curie, 1904 (Getty)
p. 81 Albert Einstein (Topfoto)
p. 95 Leopold II of Belgium (Corbis)
p. 96 Edward Dene Morel (Anti-Slavery International)
p. 100 Father with his daughter’s severed hand, Congo (Anti-Slavery International)
p. 118 Ludwig Deutsch, The Nubian Guard, Fine Art Society, London (Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 125 Russian peasants, c.1900 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson Archive)
p. 139 Father Gapon surrounded by supporters (AKG images)
p. 162 Admiral Jackie Fisher, c.1913 (TopFoto)
p. 165 Duel Landau-Maurras, 7 December 1909 (Roger-Viollet/Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 191 Bertha von Suttner (AKG images)
p. 201 Gusto Gräser (Gusto Gräser Archive)
p. 205 Young Wandervogel activists, 1914 (AKG images)
p. 209 Elena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, 1908 (Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 213 Rudolf Steiner, 1913 (AKG images)
p. 225 Mary Gawthorpe, January 1909 (Mary Evans Picture Library)
p. 228 Emmeline Pankhurst arrested outside Buckingham Palace, January 1914 (Getty images)
p. 230 Leonora Cohen (Leeds Museum and Galleries, City Art Gallery)
p. 231 Lillian Lenton, police identity photograph, c.1910 (National Portrait Gallery, London)
p. 250 Louis Blériot flying over the Channel, July 1909 (Topfoto)
p. 292 Mikhail Larionov, Autumn, c.1910-12, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris (Bridgeman Art Library) © AGAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008
p. 294 Georges Braque, Still Life with a Violin and a Pitcher, 1910, Kunstmuseum, Basel (Bridgeman Art Library) © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008
p. 295 Photograph by Thomas Eakins (Weidenfeld & Nicolson Archive)
p. 296 Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art Pennsylvania (Bridgman Art Library) © Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008
p. 303 Oskar Kokoschka, The Dreaming Boys, 1908, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (Bridgeman Art Library) © Foundation Oskar Kokoschka/DACS 2008
p. 304 Alfred Kubin, War, c 1903, Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden © Everhard Spangenberg/DACS 2008
p. 309 Postal Strike in front of the Cinema Palace-Gaumont, 1909 (Roger-Viollet /Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 313 Max Linder in a film still, c.1907-8 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)
p. 314 Sarah Bernhardt (Topfoto)
p. 316 Enrico Caruso (Alinari/Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 318 Photographs by Jacques Henri Lartigue, Donation
Lartigue © Ministère de la Culture, France/AAJHL
p. 324 Kellogg’s corn flakes magazine advert, c.1910 (Advertising Archives, London)
p. 331 Women cyclists (Mary Evans Picture Library)
p. 342 Ernst Haeckel, Ascidiae, plate 85 from Kunstformen der Natur, 1899-1904 (Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 378 Cesare Lombroso, Specimen of Criminals, from L’Homme Criminel, published by Felix Alcan, 1887 (Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 381 Alfred Kubin, Salto Mortale, c.1903, Albertina, Vienna © Everhard Spangenberg/DACS 2008
p. 385 Marius Jacob dir Escande (Roger-Viollet/Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 392 Henriette Caillaux arriving at the Courts of Justice, 1914 (Roger-Viollet /Bridgeman Art Library)
p. 397 Jean Metzinger, The cycle-racing track, 1914, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (The Art Archive) © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008
p. 407 Photograph by Eugène Atget (private collection)
Colour Plate Section
Egon Schiele, Nude Self-Portrait, 1910, Leopold Collection, Vienna (AKG images)
Carlo Carrà, Interventionist Manifesto, 1914, Mattioli Collection, Milan (Bridgeman Art Library)
Luigi Russolo, The Dynamism of an Automobile, 1911, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris (Bridgeman Art Library)
Robert Delaunay, Champs de Mars, Art Institute of Chicago (Scala)
Umberto Boccioni, The Street Enters the House, 1911, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover (Bridgeman Art Library)
Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de Vivre, 1905-6, The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania (Bridgeman Art Library) © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2008
Kazimir Malevich, Taking in the Rye, 1912, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Bridgeman Art Library)
Kazimir Malevich, An Englishman in Moscow, 1913-14, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Bridgeman Art Library)
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, Museum of Modern Art, New York (Bridgeman Art Library) © Succession Picasso/DACS 2008
Gustav Klimt, Mäda Primavesi, 1912, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Corbis)
Giorgio de Chirico, The Uncertainty of the Poet, 1913 Tate Gallery, London © DACS 2008
André Derain, At the Suresnes Ball, 1903, St Louis Art Museum © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008
Unless otherwise credited all photographs were loaned from private
collections. While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, if any
have inadvertently been overlooked the publishers will be happy to
acknowledge them in future editions.
Acknowledgements
No book can come to life without conversations and discussions, and a project as ambitious as the present one is particularly dependent on friends and colleagues who help give ideas a first airing, to try them out, refine them, or occasionly drop them. In the initial stages, my agent Bill Hamilton provided a wonderful foil for shaping the conception as a whole and my publisher Alan Samson wholeheartedly supported my almost suicidal ambition.
At different stages my discussion partners who helped me focus and interlink my observations and who opened my eyes to new connections were Dr Thomas Angerer, Anne Buckley, Prof. John Burrow, Prof. Christophe Charle, Prof. Tony Judt, Dr Stephen Paterson, Dr Ulrich Raulff, Dr David Rechter, Froukje Slofstra, Prof. Jon Stallworthy and Dr Magnus Walter, as well as Victoria Hobbs, Sebastian Ritscher, Sara Fisher and George Lucas, whose tireless support is of inestimable value.
Elise Allen and Simon Kasper kindly helped me with some of my research, and the staff of the British Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Bibliothèque de la Geneviève, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Literaturarchiv Marbach, the libraries of the universities of Leiden, the Sorbonne, Oxford, Vienna, and New York University, the Wellcome Institute, London, and the Musée de la ville de Paris were to hand with assistance and advice above and beyond the call of duty.
My particular admiration and gratefulness go to Prof. Ulrich Sieg, whose depth of historical knowledge and humanity are always crucial for my understanding of my own ideas. Once the text was finished in draft, Bernadette Buckley proved a wonderfully attentive reader and made valuable suggestions.
Last, but by no means least, there is my wife, Veronica Buckley, who has supported me with her love, an unfailingly open ear for my many overenthusiastic soliloquies and occasional writing obstacles, and endless cups of tea provided to my desk, late at night and with infinite kindness.
Nothing is less ethical than so-called sexual ‘morality’; which rests entirely on social convenience…perhaps the most important psychological fact of our time is the tension between ethics and social rules, which is growing slowly and being more and more acutely felt. On this Procrustean bed the modern soul is so overstretched, so wrenched apart in its innermost fibres and made oversensitive, that it is hard to see a parallel in all of intellectual history …
Second problem: that of modernity, how to reconcile with the soul the enormous mass of the new. The particular character of today lies in the fact that no other time had to conquer such a multitude of new elements.
- Count Harry Kessler, Diary, 7 April 1903
Introduction
They are standing on the side of a tree-lined country road; men and boys mostly, full of anticipation. The heat of the summer bears down on them. They look down the road stretching out ahead, as far as they can see. A faint humming sound becomes audible. A car appears on the straight line between the streets, small and surrounded by a cloud of dust, and growing, growing with every passing second. It hurtles towards the spectators, its powerful engine speeding it on, roaring ever more loudly, a vision of concentrated power.
One of the onlookers, a young man of eighteen, readies his camera to take the shot he has been waiting for. The vehicle is coming closer, roaring, pulsing with energy. Now it is almost there. The teenage photographer is looking intently through his lens. He can see clearly the driver and his passenger behind the huge bonnet, sees the number six painted on the petrol tank, feels the shockwave of noise and power as the engine speeds past him. He has released the shutter that very moment. Now, as the dust settles around him, he must wait to see how the photo will be.
When he sees the picture he has taken on that 26 June 1912 at the French Grand Prix, the young photographer is disappointed. The number six car is only half in the frame, the background smudged and strangely distended. He puts the photo away. He is Jacques Henri Lartigue. The image he considers a failure will be exhibited forty years later and will make him famous, showing all the rush, the energy, the velocity that were so important during the years between the turn of the century and the autumn of 1914.
Today, the period before the outbreak of the First World War is often regarded as idyllic: the time before the fall, the good old days, a belle époque celebrated in lavishly decorated films, a beautiful, intact society about to be shattered by the forces driving it inexorably towards disaster. After 1918, according to this reading of events, the phoenix of modernity arose from the ashes of the old world.
To most people who lived around 1900 this nostalgic view with its emphasis on solidity and grace would have come as a surprise. Their experience of this period was as yet unembellished by reminiscence. It was more raw, and marked by fascinations and fears much closer to our own time. Then as now, rapid changes in technology, globalization, communication technologies and changes in the social fabric dominated conversations and newspaper articles; then as now, cultures of mass consumption stamped their mark on the time; then as now, the feeling of living in an accelerating world, of speeding into the unknown, was overwhelming. This is why Lartigue’s photo is so fitting as an emblem for its time. A boy in love with fast cars and velocity, his preoccupations mirrored those of a time during which racing drivers were popular heroes, new speed records were established and broken every week, and mass production, here in the shape of hand-held cameras, was changing everybody’s lives.
Velocity
can be frightening as well as deeply exhilarating, and it is this fear and rejection of change that also echoes across the century. In 1900 the most profound change of all was that in the relationship between men and women, and many indications point towards a deep anxiety on the part of men whose position seemed no longer secure. For the first time in European history women were being educated en masse, earning their own money, demanding the vote and, crucially, suggesting that in an industrial age physical strength and martial virtues were becoming useless. Men reacted with an aggressive restatement of the old values; never before had so many uniforms been seen on the street or so many duels fought, never before had there been so many classified advertisements for treatments allegedly curing ‘male maladies’ and ‘weak nerves’; and never before had so many men complained of exhaustion and nervousness, and found themselves admitted to sanatoriums and even mental hospitals.
Today, identities are questioned in different ways and anxieties are articulated differently, but they still emerge along sexual lines, often as questioned manliness. Resentment at a perceived emasculation by the former colonial powers or the ‘arrogant West’ have led young Muslim men to assert themselves by taking up arms or becoming suicide bombers - another echo of that earlier time, when anarchist terrorists were blowing themselves up by the dozen in attacks on members of the Russian government.
Around 1900, men worrying about not being manly enough found evidence for their deficiency in the decline of fertility in Europe, particularly among the middle classes, while according to the polemicists of the day, the ‘lower’ classes and the peoples in the colonies were rapidly outbreeding ‘civilized’ whites. We hear echoes of this debate today in the hysterical polemics about birth rates among Muslim immigrants to Europe, much-debated forecasts about the growth of the world’s population, and the decline of numbers in Europe and the USA, not to mention biological research indicating the decline of fertility among Western men.