Picasso – Modernism’s Little Red Riding Hood

Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in a wider context.

 

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907; 243.9 cm × 233.7 cm, MOMA, NY City.

 

Picasso – Modernism’s Little Red Riding Hood [Caperucita Roja]

• Picasso gulled the crowd, the Old Wolf in “modern” clothing.
• Iconic Les Demoiselles dressed as “modern” talks neo-primitive – timeless Old Values – on the role of women.
• Moreover it talks to “corrupt” women who exploit men’s weakness, “fallen” from the celebrated ideal role of mother and carer.
• Here is no hint of Modern Liberal Values [MLV}, liberating women from prescriptive traditional roles.
• Unlike Matisse et al, no neo-Golden Age for Picasso.
• Ironic therefore is that perhaps the single most famous work in modern art shouted Old Values.
• But “bad news” sells.

           

“Women are machines for suffering… For me there are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats” [PP, 1943].

 

What fraction of the millions who troop by Les Demoiselles, in the flesh or online, actually look?

How many ask what it says?

The same with critics and scholars, quick to wax at length on a detailed inventory of the Spanish magpie’s references to other works and artifacts, recent and longer past.

But how many bother with what the image says? Means?

How many are lazy, or cowed by conventional wisdom or self-interest.

 

SUMMARY

a/ Picasso and Modernity: the Old Wolf in “modern” clothing.

• Pablo Picasso [1881-1973], the triumphant long reigning king of the early/mid 20^th C “modern” painters – who elbowed his way there like Alexander storming east to the Indus – saw himself as just that, a king.
• And it showed in many of his works, dressed in the “modern” but mostly talking Old Values, especially in broadcasting:
  • timeless traditional identities / roles for women:
    • not only the god woman, the ideal woman, as mother and carer, attendant on the male;
    • but the “corrupt woman”, the wily femme fatale, the delinquent or lapsed woman, succumbing to the temptation of taking advantage of men’s weaknesses. This dark woman role has a long history in the West, including the Christian Biblical foundation story of Eve in Paradise Garden misleading the first man; also witches; and femme fatale figures like Salome and prostitutes.
  • And, per contra, the traditional role of man as leader, creator, thinker.
• His old time values were evident not only in his mountain of works, but also starkly in his well publicized personal life.

 

b/ The point of Art: to say something.

• The main point about Les Demoiselles is what’s it saying, not how.
• In saying something Art can talk aesthetically, can soothe, relax, entertain. It can inform or communicate, didactically. And it can moralise, satirise, lecture, lambast.
• And Les Demoiselles is clearly saying something through its the reactionary message.

 

c/ Modernity a 5m year moment for humankind: Les Demoiselles in the full modern context.

• Modernity – the modern liberal order, modern liberal values [MLV] – is a 5 million year moment for the human species, humankind, most obvious in the historically unparalleled material / health / longevity bounty.
• It arrived emphatically post WW2, second half of the 20^th C, after a long and painful gestation in Europe stretching back to the 15^th
• The resistance by Old Identity Values was reflected in a protracted violent sequence, from the French Revolution through the US Civil War to WW1, Russian Revolution, Nazis, WW2 and the Maoist Revolution.
• It’s been driven by radical and ongoing technical change stemming from scientific breakthroughs but above all by conducive radical ideas and institutions, by harnessing individual freedom responsibly within the government supervised institutions of competitive markets, independent rule of law and full franchise liberal democracy.
• Secondly it entails a revolution in the traditional role of women – another 5m year moment – ie liberation from motherhood [and secondary duties in housekeeping and menial labour] as their sole approved role.
• Hence under MLV they suddenly have equal opportunity, a right to compete for careers across the board, a wrenching pervasive change from prevailing traditional circumstances, and problematic if not offensive to many, mostly men but including some women.
• It’s worth noting that although Modernity was born in the West [particularly Britain], the model is universally applicable and has spread to the non-West, especially in Asia.
• Indeed in most international fora today transparent rules-based democracy is as the ideal default system.

 

d/ 1907’s Les Demoiselles, Picasso and Modernity: the wolf in “modern” clothing.

• “.. the first, and greatest, masterpiece of modern art..”? [Jonathan Jones, 2007].
• Really? Just look at it. The fundamental point is what is says not just how it’s dressed.
• Picasso’s Les Demoiselles was a radical modern painting in 1907, large and in a novel proto-Cubist style, drawing on “primitive” heads; but with confronting content, 5 naked in your face whores in a Barcelona brothel.
• But while the angular fragmentary painting style was novel, “modern”, the subject was distinctly “unmodern”, neo-primitive, a reactionary, anachronistic, traditional comment on women’s place in the “tribe”, not the celebrated good woman but the dark woman, the wily “corrupt” woman, who exploits her appeal to weak concupiscent men.
• It’s unclear whether or not Picasso was conscious of this statement, and the irony.
• Thus tapping “primitive” art in the work [African masks and antique Iberian faces] to emphasize the timeless quasi-spiritual negative role was authentic not superficial, let alone making any comment on European colonisation.
• Picasso’s views were not misogynist in that only the aberrant cohort of dark women was being upbraided, not the mainstream, the “faithful mothers and carers”. Thus his views were widely shared.
• The time and effort in the painting was unusual for Picasso. He is known for his vast output across over 75 years, but most works were executed quickly. Les Demoiselles by contrast took over 6 months, of extensive preparation then careful execution. Though then it was barely seen in public until the NY show in 1939.
• Why the effort? The unusually laborious enterprise? 1906 was a pivotal year for the ambitious Picasso. He was at last gaining traction with customers for his art, and now he sought to capitalize on this momentum. So Les Demoiselles was deliberately radical, calculated to shock, attract attention,

 

e/ Picasso a “genius”? No, a clever and ambitious reactionary.

Style innovation…

• Picasso was a “genius”? Not really. He was artistically talented, was busy, creative and prolific, and above all he was ambitious. But he was not a genius, creatively, in what he said and how.
• Picasso’s novel touch was to make Les Demoiselles big, and to push the angular shard like proto Cubist style, drawing especially on Cezanne, but also the stylized pared simplicity of “primitive” art, which he encountered from c1905.
• Inspiration from “primitive art” was already underway [cf Gauguin, Derain] and would have continued to infiltrate Western art.
• Picasso also keenly observed past Western art, in Spain and beyond, and also that of his proximate contemporaries, especially Gauguin, Matisse and Derain, and drew on aspects of all this in Les Demoiselles.
• Les Demoiselles is commonly celebrated as radical in its abandoning longstanding Western representational art.
• But cubism and abstraction would have arrived anyway, one way or another.
• It was George Braque [1882-1963, whom Picasso met cMay 1907] who really kick started Cubism – advanced the style from Picasso’s proto-Cubist start – with his important Estaque landscape paintings from autumn 1907 through early and mid 1908.
• As to flattening of perspective, abandoning realistic 3D representation of space this shift was well underway before Les Demoiselles, particularly by Andre Derain [[1880-1954, only a year older than Picasso] from 1904 in his early Fauvist landscapes [which really did stand out] and allegorical Arcadia paintings.
• Derain was joined in this by Matisse after the older painter visited Derain at Chatou early 1905.
• Derain was also quicker than Picasso and Matisse to notice the creative potential in “primitive” art.

And reactionary content…

• Near contemporary Albert Einstein [1879-1955] was certainly a genius through his breathtaking leaps in advancing humankind’s knowledge of physics, his major hypotheses not being validated until long after they were proposed.
• But it seems hard to accord Picasso “genius” status when all he did with modern art was advance the wardrobe, and when the message of his most famous work was Old Identity Values views on women, and a dark take at that.
• We see in Les Demoiselles an illiberal anti-modern mind-set. His attitudes to women were traditional rather than modern liberal and indeed very little of the subject matter in his large oeuvre is modern, in the sense of addressing modern life, didactically or polemically.
• Unlike Matisse [but like say J. Pollock], and notwithstanding his magpie interest in past and contemporary painting, it’s worth noting that Picasso was not much of a theorist, never put pen to paper to explain his approach or philosophy, painted more by instinct, and let his output speak for itself.

More irony: strong vested interests now guard conventional wisdom on Picasso…

• More irony.
• Ironically the material fecundity of modern “Western” liberal democracy – the huge growth in real per head national incomes – means that rational critical opinion on Picasso is now significantly obscured, compromised by the money a stake.
• The financial interests of the global art industry [museums and galleries and dealers] in promoting the careers and works of prominent pioneer figures like Picasso has grown hugely, in step with the relevant major economies.

 

f/ Matisse said more than Picasso?

• Arguably the dogged more cerebral Matisse in his work did achieve a more cohesive core message, and one more in step with the “modern”, the modern liberal order, and one which still resonates.
• Henri Matisse [1959-1954] is commonly regarded alongside the 12 years younger Picasso as a second founding giant of 20^th C modern art. They met in 1906 and interacted importantly then, Matisse apparently helping to inspire Les Demoiselles.
• Picasso was busier and made more noise but Matisse ultimately said more through his work, cohesively and constructively, talking to his troubled early 20^th C world.
• He first attracted attention for his bold colourful Fauve works in 1905 [though arguably Fauvism was really kick started creatively by the underestimated younger Andre Derain and Derain’s close friend Maurice Vlaminck]. But Matisse quickly moved on with a sequence of important images 1904-10 [Luxe et al, then Bonheur et al, and Dance] on the broad theme of the Good Life, the Golden Age, harmony among peoples.
• Derain also subscribed to these themes in his own relevant sequence of paintings.
• But there was nothing „Golden Age“ about Picasso’s work!
• Around this time and through WW1 Matisse delivered some perceptive indoor genre paintings, like the various goldfish works and also some bold portraits, especially like his son in the Piano Lesson [MOMA] from late summer 1916, also.
• Between the wars, now based south in Nice, he retreated to painting mainly decorative interiors, often featuring odalisques. Then coming out of WW2 and cornered by sudden illness which hampered his hand coordination, he signed off with his spare large quasi-abstract cut outs, culminating in his large valedictory The sorrow of the king (La tristesse du roi)[1952, Pompidou].
• Matisse’s signature works around the Good Life could be branded escapist and anachronistic and among the many women he painted [like Picasso he painted a lot] were also some of the „fallen“ [the odalisques], but overall he offers a constructive humanist take on Man’s wider collective purpose far beyond anything Picasso advocated and at a time [first half of 20^th C] when society being reminded of it was not unhelpful.
• Thus at the risk of being labelled too innocent or starry-eyed Matisse reminded his troubled times not to lose sight of loftier ambitions for society, of harmonious co-existence and a healthy aesthetic purpose.

 

A/ The singular revolution that is Modernity.

The arrival of Modernity – what might be called the modern liberal order, or modern liberal values [MLV] – over approximately the past 150 years, expressed culturally through Modernism, is a 5 million year moment for the human species.

It is most obvious in its material expression, the eventual material and health bounty from the economic take-off, ie the Industrial Revolution and beyond, driven by radical technical change but especially by conducive ideas and institutions, by competition among private economic entities, within a framework of government supervised rule of law, enforcing property rights.

Secondly it entails a revolution in traditional power relations in society in two arenas, firstly in politics and the law and secondly, in the role of women.

Thus in the modern liberal order traditional rule by kings or emperors has been replaced by full franchise liberal representative democracy and the independent rule of law.

Secondly there has been a 5 million year revolutionary moment for the role of women.

Traditionally, forever and a day, women’s primary role was motherhood and child raising, period, allied with secondary roles in housekeeping, cooking and menial labouring jobs, indoors or outdoors.

Under MLV they suddenly have equal opportunity, in access to education and in careers, a wrenching pervasive change from prevailing traditional circumstances.

 

B/ Summary take on Les Demoiselles.

The making.

The work seemed to be provoked by Matisse’s success and in particular by his original, controversial Le Bonheur de Vivre [Joy of Life] revealed at April 1906 Salon des Independents, following his eye opening summer 1905 Fauvist creations from Collioure with Andre Derain.

Many think Bonheur challenged the ambitious Picasso into mounting a creative response, but given too the ambitious Picasso was now keen to build on traction he was getting with buyers.

A year later [April 1907} Matisse showed his bold sculptural Blue Nude [of Bistra] right when Picasso was executing Demoiselles, and this work may have fuelled Picasso’s mission.

Unlike most of Picasso’s works Demoiselles was a sustained major project, spread across approximately 7 months from late 1906, entailing a long period of preparatory sketches, and reflection, before the execution.

Then in undertaking the image he made at least one important change, simplifying the composition by removing two male figures, thus removing distractions from the viewer engaging with the phalanx of working ladies.

 

Unusual within context of his other work.

The size and complexity of the painting was unusual for Picasso, and the extended time to execute it.

Compared to his work from 1905 and 1906 it came out of the blue, then although his approach continued to change creatively in 1908 and beyond – famously – he did not produce another comparable laboured large figurative group.

 

The meaning generally? Self evident: it’s a deliberate shocker.

Since when it finally became publicly accessible [1929] Les Demoiselles has been the subject of keen analysis, reflection, debate and opinion, by many commentators, art critics and others.

Critics broadly agree on many specific sources for the detailed visual content of the work.

But debate on the meaning of Demoiselles – style and content – has delivered a range of opinions.

There is broad agreement on some self-evident aspects, especially that for 1907 the work was outspokenly radical, both in the proto-Cubist style and in the confronting content, the subject.

 

Thus the image is relatively large [2.4 x 2.3m], showing a concentrated group of 5 figures, all angular and to a degree distorted, all 5 faces stylised not representational.

Three draw on pre-Roman Iberian stone sculpture and, even bolder, two use “primitive” African masks, after Picasso had just been introduced to this material.

The figures are crammed into a small poorly defined basically flat, two-dimensional space.

So the style abandons realistic / representational depiction of subjects, including depth and perspective, and the distortion / fragmentation of the figures foreshadows Cubism which most regard as taking root in 1908.

 

Second, the content, the subject depicted is confronting.

Five naked women are selling sex in a brothel, to male customers symbolised by – reduced to – a single still life of fruit lower right as an unmistakeable visual metaphor, the scrotal grapes etc and the phallic slice of melon.

So there is general agreement the painting shocks in these two respects, and that it represents an important creative advance in modern art.

Most even see it as emphasizing a radical break in long [400 year] tradition in Western art, going back to the Renaissance, and logically back even to Classical art of Greece and Rome.

 

But thirdly it seems likely the image was intended to shock, deliberately.

Around 1906 in Paris the 25 year old ambitious and artistically talented Picasso was finally attracting meaningful custom for his work, from buyers like Steins [Leopold and Gertrude, who he met circa November 1905], dealers like Ambroise Vollard, who Picasso knew since 1901, on his first visit to Paris.

So the big effort on Les Demoiselles was likely intended to capitalise on this growing attention.

 

The meaning of the specific image? Bluntly “unmodern”: Picasso’s neo-primitive views on women.

Beyond general agreement the image shocks there is less agreement on the meaning of the specific image: the five ladies parading across the foreground [and the visually loaded bowl of fruit] in frank confrontation of viewers, not least males.

The obvious place to look for deeper meaning is in the author, the expat Spaniard.

First, although Picasso studied old art assiduously [aware of the rich Spanish tradition] and sought it out in the obvious museums in Spain and France, he was not then or later an organised art theorist, publishing reflections on art generally or on his work. So while he drew on specific observations in the work of past painters his own works till then did not obviously reveal any wider themes or purpose.

This is in revealing contrast with Matisse?

 

Second, Picasso in his life and works did comment importantly on women.

He painted a lot of them, including many nudes.

And he partnered with many [8 meaningful relationships?], but always on his terms, such that – unhappily – two committed suicide in the wake of termination of the relationship, and only one [Francoise Gilot] appeared to stand up to him, and depart on her terms.

In essence Picasso seemed to display a traditional attitude to women, at the heart of which was clearly separate roles, women having their place, the female generally subordinate to the male, so that women had their place, which precluded any modern liberal notion of equality.

Hence his resort to “primitive” art in Les Demoiselles – incorporating stylised “primitive” faces for the 5 ladies, specifically adapting pre-Roman Iberian female faces, then African masks – is not superficial but authentic, emphasizing that these roles are timelessly archetypal.

So it’s hard to disagree with the gist of argument from Carol Duncan [cf] that the imagery in Les Demoiselles reflects traditional view of women, and with a dark twist.

a/ The primary role of women in traditional societies is as the mother and child raiser, the reflecting the vital reproductive role, one often celebrated spiritually through variations on the “mother goddess”. The role is regarded as instinctive, even animalistic and not requiring much cerebral, creative activity.

b/ Men by contrast are the “civilised” doers and thinkers, the providers and builders, the leaders and creators.

c/ But some women go rogue, the Dark Women. Aware of their sexual attraction to men – and of the weakness of some men – some are tempted into exploitative roles, as the femme fatale, the alluring seductress, inclined to take advantage of men.

The ladies in Demoiselles relate to the femme fatale, the notion of the wily seductress leading men astray, which has a long history in many cultures and religions, including in Christianity [notably in the foundation story of the Fall of Man in Paradise Garden, in which Eve – coaxed by the snake – encourages Adam to disobey God’s command and taste the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge].

It also reflects particularly in European experience with alleged witchcraft [causing c40-60k executions in early modern Europe?], which some Church figures encouraged.

These views on women are not misogynist. Misogyny means inherent dislike of all women, which is not the case here where it’s only the aberrant cohort cited for rebuke.

 

Richly ironic therefore is that the content of this iconic “modern” painting, from the canon of modern art, is distinctly and deliberately “unmodern”, is fundamentally neo-primitive, because Picasso’s theme – whether he was aware of it or not – is in reactionary defiance of the “modern”.

Some critics [cf Carol Duncan, William Rubin etc] recognise this thrust and address Picasso’s old fashioned take.

 

Independent critical opinion now compromised by self interest of the global art industry.

Detached rational critical opinion on Picasso is now obscured, compromised by money, drowned by the financial interests of the global art industry: the museums and galleries and dealers.

The money involved has grown hugely in recent decades, in step with dramatic growth in disposable income from the large modern global economy, now spread to Asia.

Picasso’s large output has compounded the problem.

One only has to read the florid hagiographical language in the self serving “Lot Essays” supporting items for auction by the major houses.

This phenomenon applies to a swag of well known artists – major pre-modern artists like Rembrandt and Rubens, the modern greats, and even some contemporary artists – but the marketing enthusiasm of the auction houses is perhaps most glaring for some well known painters of abstract works, artists like the major Abstract Expressionists [cf Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, Newman etc], also Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns

 

C/ Picasso’s immediate prior work

Picasso saw Matisse’s Le Bonheur at the April 1906 Salon des Independents, understood its impact, and [some suggest] it may have jolted him to make a radical statement of his own, like Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Matisse’s Blue Nude, shown April 1907 may have been a further stimulus.

Picasso’s style shifted markedly in 1906 after his Blue Period from c1901, as he developed more stylised simplified faces, like his 1906 self portrait of that year, and his important portrait of Gertrude Stein.

Returning from Gosol August 1906 he finished The Peasants.

Matisse’s Blue Nude, shown at the April 1907 Salon was perhaps a further stimulus, right when his thoughts on Demoiselles were well underway.

 

D/ Execution, content

The painting shows 5 nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Carrer d’Avinyó (Avinyó / Avignon Street, ie the main road out north to France) in Barcelona.

Two on the right have faces transposed into African masks, and faces of the 3 on left are modelled on early BC pre-Roman Iberian busts Picasso knew from the Louvre.

He changed the work as he progressed. Initially there were 7 figures: 5 women plus a male medical student on the left [holding a notebook or a skull?] and a sailor [a textbook brothel customer], seated centre.

He erased the men. And he added the two African masks.

 

E/ Artistic sources for content.

The detailed content of Demoiselles, drew on a range of sources?

1/ His own works. Picasso’s style shifted abruptly in 1906 in his Rose Period after his Blue Period from c1901 to 1904, as he responded in particular to sculpted old [3^rd and 4^th C BC] Iberian stone heads, seen at an exhibition at the Louvre during winter 1905-06. Also by 1904 the Louvre held recently excavated Iberian reliefs from Osuna. Picasso adapted these “primitive” portraits in his faces in 1906, eg his 1906 self-portrait and his portrait of Gertrude Stein.

Then in summer of 1906 Picasso and Fernande Olivier stayed in the Catalan [Spain] city of Gósol. Here he began The Harem (1906), the composition of 5 figures which seems to anticipate les Demoiselles. And he probably saw more ancient Iberian sculpture, as well as a Romanesque Madonna and child [Virgin from Gósol], now in Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.

His group picture The Harvesters was painted by c July 1907, ie when completing Demoiselles, and bears similarities.

 

2/ Henri Matisse [1869-1954]. Matisse’s important, pioneering large [175 x 241cm] Le bonheur de vivre (Oct.1905 – March 1906) was his only painting shown at the (April) 1906 Salon des Independants, where it was generally greeted with reserve or scorn.

Then his submission to the (November) 1906 Salon d’Automne was unremarkable, 5 paintings (Marguerite reading (1906) and 3 still lives, but not either of the Young sailor.

But at the (April) 1907 Salon des Independants he shocked again – for third time, counting the late 1905 “Fauves” burst at Salon d’Automne – by showing his Blue Nude (of Biskra), triggering more controversy. The a muscular Rubenesque reclining nude referred to the Biskra oasis in Algeria [which he visited early 1906] and also to recently encountered “Primitive” African art.

Specifically the pose of the central lady, arms behind the head, clearly references a lady on the far left side, in the middle ground, of Matisse’s 1906 Bonheur.

 

3/ African art. It seems Matisse kick started Picasso’s interest in African art, in the “primitive”. Matisse in autumn 1906 bought in Paris a small African wood sculpture from the DR Congo’s Vili people. (seen in Paris). Soon after he showed it to Picasso. Also Picasso visited the Trocadero ethnographic museum June 1907, with Andre Malraux. And other times? Dealer D-H Kahnweiler reported seeing “African sculptures” in Picasso’s studio in July 1907, on his first visit.

 

4/ Nudes from earlier Western art.

Titian [Tiziano Vecelli, c1489 -1576] depicted Venus in his c1534 Venus of Urbino, which drew on Giorgione’s [Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; c. 1477–1510] Dresden Venus of c1510.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ 1814 Grande Odalisque drew direct from Titian’s work, upset the Salon crowd.

Édouard Manet’s famous Olympia of 1863 drew from the same Ttian work, with Venus now a prostitute, and also shocked the Salon in 1865.

In the Louvre Picasso would have seen both Ingres and Manet.

 

4/ Sleeping Ariadne [2^nd C BC, Hellenistic, sculpture, Vatican]. Famous antique statue discovered in Renaissance Italy.

The arms cocked behind the head – the “Ariadne pose” – appear in Matisse’s Bonheur, and in Demoiselles..

 

4/ Paul Cezanne [1839 – Oct 1906]. Like many others Picasso clearly also drew on Cezanne.

Some of his works were shown at the 1904 and 1906 Salons d’Autumne, including his large [210 x 251cm] 1906 Les Grandes Baigneuses [now at Phil. Museum of Art] shown at the 1906 Salon.

Also Picasso would have seen Matisse’s own smaller Bathers by Cezanne [now owned by the Barnes Foundation] in Matisse’s studio. Interesting is how the lady squatting lower right in the Cezanne image resembles Picasso’ lady, lower right.

Cezanne’s death in October 1906 attracted attention to the artist, then a major retrospective was held at the 1907 Salon d’Autmne, ie after Demoiselles’ completion.

 

5/ Paul Gauguin [1848-1903]. Gauguin died May 1903 and the 1903 Salon d’Automne included some works as homage. Then the 1906 Salon included a major retrospective [227 works].

Picasso first encountered Gauguin works from c1902 when in Paris he met, became acquainted with, expatriate Spanish sculptor and ceramist Paco Durrio (1875–1940), who was a friend of Gauguin’s and an unpaid agent, “tried to help his poverty-stricken friend in Tahiti by promoting his oeuvre in Paris”. So Picasso saw some of Gauguin’s stoneware, was given “a first La Plume edition of Noa Noa: The Tahiti Journal of Paul Gauguin.”.

Picasso was struck by Gauguin’s expressive large [75cm high] 1894 sculpture Oviri (literally meaning ‘savage’), first seen at the 1906 retrospective, a gruesome phallic representation of the Tahitian goddess of life and death intended for Gauguin’s grave. Relevant too was the 1893 painting, The Moon and the Earth.

John Richardson notes [making some sense], 1/ how the big 1906 show made a strong impact; 2/ Picasso would have noticed how Gauguin in one image drew on a range of disparate Western and “primitive” sources; 3/ these sources included “primitive” religious notions, human relation to gods / spirits; 4/ and the nostalgic Spaniard was even conscious of Gauguin’s Spanish ancestry, via his Peruvian grandmother.

 

6/ Andre Derain. After a spell in the army Derain returned to the French art scene late 1904 like a box of fireworks, was the creative heart of the Fauves in 1905 – not Matisse – along with good friend Maurice Vlaminck. Thus Derain was clearly painting Fauvist images late 1904 / early 1905 while living at Chatou. The older Matisse [by 11 years] visited Derain and Vlaminck there, recognised Derain’s innovation and thus later invited him down to Collioure that summer of 1905.

By 1906 Derain was close to Picasso, and better known publicly following the Fauves debut at the 1905 Salon d’Automne.

Picasso would have seen Derain’s important large [175 x 225cm] Dance of 1906 at the Salon d’Autumne, Fauvist colour now working with the exotic tropical and primitive after Derain was struck by the summer 1906 Colonial Exhibition in Marseilles, where he saw dancers from the court of Cambodia’s King Sissowath.

Picasso he may responded also to Derain’s a/ sandstone Nude sculpture of 1907 and b/ his Cezanne refering Bathers of 1907 [3 figures, 132.1 x 195 cm, MOMA], both shown early 1907 at the Salon des Independants.

 

6/ also on El Greco, especially his Opening on the Fifth Seal. Picasso’s Spanish friend Ignacio Zuloaga acquired the painting in 1897 for 1000 pesetas and Picasso saw it repeatedly at Zuloaga’s home in Paris 1907, was influenced by the size and figural subject / composition.

 

7/ Photos. Picasso worked from ethnographic photos, naked tribal women, Africa, cf large no of photos archived at Musee Picasso, reported by Anne Baldassari [book 1999].

“…she found a series of postcards in the museum archive that date from 1906 and carry photographs of African women by François-Edmond Fortier….. Do the “primitive” poses of Picasso’s wild women mirror Fortier’s photographs? Are these pictures the surprisingly simple – and colonial – source of the 20th century’s first great artistic earthquake?”

 

F/ Display and sale

Oddly for a painting now so famous it was barely seen for 30 years after its completion.

Picasso seemed aware of the painting’s radical stance but was coy in publicizing it.

So oddly for a painting now so famous it was barely seen for over 30 years after its completion. It stayed with Picasso near 10 years till shown for 2 weeks in Paris in July 1916, then was rolled up for another 8 years till sold in 1924, then again in 1929. It’s first major showing after 1916 was winter 1939 at MOMA in NY City.

The painting was not seen publicly until 16-31 July 1916, at a Parisian gallery, Salon d’Antin, in an exhibition entitled “L’Art Moderne en France”, organised by critic Andre Salmon?

Picasso had titled it Le Bordel d’Avignon but Salmon changed it to the humorously euphemistic ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon‘.

Encouraged by writer Andre Breton fashion designed Jacques Doucet bought the work direct from Picasso in 1924, having seen the d’Antin show, seems to have paid 30,000F, in instalments. It was sold on his death in 1929.

Nov 1937 a NY gallery held an exhibition “20 Years in the Evolution of Picasso, 1903–1923” that included Les Demoiselles.

MOMA immediately acquired the painting [for $24,000] then mounted a Picasso exhibition November 15, 1939 till January 7, 1940, “Picasso: 40 Years of His Art“, in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, 344 works, including Guernica and  Les Demoiselles.

 

G/ Reception

Demoiselles was a shock. It was very big (2.4 x 2.3 metres), the style new and the subject confronting, even brutal.

Braque and Derain were initially puzzled, then supportive.

The dealer D-H Kahnweiler was also impressed.

Matisse was unimpressed, was “fighting mad” at Picasso’s “hideous whores”, and also annoyed at losing the limelight to Picasso? Who then charged on by 1908 into (with Braque) full blown Cubism, and beyond.

Critic and friend of Picasso, André Salmon, was “enthusiastic”, wrote “at some length in his La Jeune Peinture française, which appeared in the autumn of 1912”, discussing its new style and its treatment of women.

Some past views by subsequent critics?

Critic John Berger. The painting helped “provoke” Cubism?

Leo Steinberg? Based on review of preparatory sketches, he claims it’s about relations between the women and [male] viewers. [But precisely what relations?]. Later he emphasized how it upended “the contrived coherences of representational art..”.

John Richardson [in Vol. 1 of his “Life of Picasso”] more or less agreed?

Carol Duncan [“Virility and Domination in Early Twentieth-Century Vanguard Painting“, 1973] brought a feminist view, saw Picasso in this image wrestling with the power of the traditional, “primitive” woman, the “femme fatale”.

In 1994 William Rubin [MOMA] / Helene Seckel / Judith Cousins – akin to Duncan – saw in it Picasso’s conflicted views on women. Rubin wrote of Picasso’s “..deep-seated fear and loathing of the female body, which existed side by side with his craving for and ecstatic idealization of it..”, unfettered desire.

 

ATTACHED

A/ Traditional roles of women

This account is adapted from Carol Duncan key ideas [1]

a/ The primary role of women in traditional societies is as the mother, the child rearer, reflecting the biologically ordained reproductive role, a role obviously vital for society’s survival and therefore one often celebrated spiritually through variations on the “mother goddess”, going far back to the paleolithic “Venuses” of last ice age.

The role is regarded largely as instintive, even animalistic and one not requiring cerebral, creative activity.

b/ Men by contrast are the “civilised” doers and thinkers, the providers and builders, the leaders and creators, the explorers and trailblazers.

c/ But some women go rogue, the Dark Women. Aware of their sexual attraction to men – and of the vulnerability, weakness of some men – some are tempted into abusive, exploitative roles, as the femme fatale, the alluring seductress, inclined to take advantage of men.

Examples of this dark sided woman include 1/ prostitutes; 2/ witches; 3/ and Eve in the Garden of Paradise.

Traditional stylisation of this role include the Gorgon in Greek mythology, and African masks.

At MOMA Willem De Kooning’s Woman I and Picasso’s Demoiselles are examples of Dark Women.

Woman I recalls “big bad mama… burlesque queen”, akin to the Gorgon, slain by Perseus.

And in Demoiselles the women are not just prostitutes in Barcelona but archetypal, in timeless traditional roles, hence importing Iberian and African faces was not as an “homage” but as the real thing.

The men were removed from the image to highlight the message, so the idealised Dark Women are engaging all men out there in viewing land.

“..  figure on the lower right… [could be] inspired by some primitive or archaic deity.. [thus is]  prominent –she is the nearest and largest of all the figures. “

d/ Man’s waiting obstacle course.

All men must navigate through, negotiate the waiting wiles of the Dark Women in their vital mundane tasks of provision and also their quest for the “higher realms”, enlightenment.

e/ Museums.

This traditional “ideology” is reflected in displays in conventional museums, which are. “not neutral… [rather are] sites for rituals of male transcendence ..”

f/ An implication here is that the role of women as creators in art inherently problematic. Women are not recognised as “creators” therefore not as authentic artists.

 

Note 1. Carol Duncan, Art Journal, Vol. 48, No. 2, Images of Rule: Issues of Interpretation (Summer, 1989), pp. 171-178, “The MoMA’s Hot Mamas”

 

B/ Evolution of Picasso’s art, 1905-09.

1905

The Rose Period.

Many figure paintings, more or less realistic faces.

Harlequins, acrobats.

Some group scenes, eg Acrobat family. Family of Saltimbanques.

1906

A lot of figures.

Faces often using simplified Iberian mask look. Like his well known Self portrait, also Gertrude Stein.

Some “sculptural” nudes [eg 2 x Two naked women”, Reclining nude}, after Cezanne.

Only a small no of figure groups, eg The Harem, Horses bath, [both Rose Period].

1907

An emphatic breakthrough year.

Strong emphasis on figures, especially women.

Famous large Demoiselles.

Bold quasi-abstract / proto-Cubist The Dance of the Veils.

Other groups of women, eg 2 x Five women, Three women under a tree.

Many single figures.

Most faces stylised, angular or pared, drawing on Iberian faces or African masks

Occasional still lives.

1908

Full early Cubism, in wake of G Braque’s pioneering late 1907 works.

Lot of figures, faces.

Some figure groups. Some like Three women near full abstract, a tangle of curved lines.

A lot more still lifes.

Odd landscapes.

1909

Cubism evolving.

Many fragmented, chiselled crystalline faces and figures, landscapes, still lives

Near full colourful abstraction, cf Woman sitting in an armchair. Colorful flat geometric shapes, mostly variations on rectangles, some with depth.

Man head also near full abstraction. Like a painted collage.

 

C/ Picasso works – by categories

a/ Paintings                                                               4530

b/ Drawings, engravings, watercolors etc          19,390

Drawings    12,936                  Engravings        3194

Lithographs 992                       Gouaches           864

Pastels         365                       Watercolors       1039

c/ Collages, sculptures, ceramics, photos etc     4845

Collages       333                       Ceramics            1685

Sculptures   843                       Photographs      324

Other           1660

d/ Total                                                                      28,765

Source: National Geographic, May 2018

Many identities, but one world.

 

The answer to Racism? Yes “Un-racism”: a primary loyalty to universal liberal values not to any subset identity.

  

FEATURED: Norman Lewis, 1965, Unknown (March on Washington), 1965 Oil on fibreboard, private

Zora Neale Hurston, c1940

 

Ah “racism”?!

A ubiquitous issue within the contemporary zeitgeist, triggering a stream of fervent opinion [Eg Note 1.], much of it aggrieved and confrontational.

Yes it’s obviously a rotten business, through history, and in countless jurisdictions.

But racism and the West? How does the “West” face it now?

And how should “non-West”, “colored” people all, cope, react?

 

The West’s report card

Yes a rotten business, the West and slavery, especially of course the Atlantic Slave Trade and the wide extent of slave employing plantations in the Americas, in South and North America and the Caribbean.

Yes we are talking industrial scale slavery, over 10m shipped west to captive servitude [and perhaps a million who died en route?], a massive money-making “business” through applying Western competitive ingenuity, labor and capital to building an economy, with blacks as a key labor input.

Starting in the 16^th C, soon after the fateful Spanish sanctioned landing by Columbus, from c1600 it became big time and yes – in an extraordinary, mind boggling final dark hurrah – it continued well into the 19^th C in the newly independent US, on a staggering scale, the slave population erupting from c600k [about 20% of total population] at independence in the 1780s to near 4m by 1860 when the North finally decided to fight, to keep the Union. But even that frightful war – apparently “won” by the slave-emancipating North – didn’t address the problem, the injustice. The racist South resurged, condoned by the North, and another century of racial oppression and violence beckoned.

And yes for most involved in slavery, directly and indirectly, it was built on racist notions of blacks, either inherently / genetically, as a separate inferior human species, or, in a softer patronising take, as primitive but salvageable, capable in time, with care and instruction, of being “civilised”.

Thus the latter understanding [encapsulated by Kipling’s phrase, c1900, the White Man’s Burden] informed most European imperialism, also in Africa and Asia.

Britain was more deeply involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade, and in slave plantations in the Americas than many realise, especially after c 1700, through the 13 Colonies until they broke free but also through Caribbean territories, which they did not emancipate till 1838.

However the issue has pervaded, dogged, informed this unique nation of the USA to this day, obviously because of the report card but also because the ruling mainstream has long dragged its heels in facing the country’s past honestly.

So, while admitting to regretful errors, much of the deeply patriotic mainstream still clings doggedly to a rose coloured picture of a nation epitomising, defined mainly by idealistic precious notions of liberty and freedom, underplaying the extent to which these heady ideals were brutally compromised, contradicted by near two centuries of its domestic history.

Yes it sacrificed some ‘best and brightest’ in two world wars centred on Europe, helping to bring obvious illiberal tyranny to heel. Then after WW2 it had to take responsibility withstanding a Soviet Russia which helped itself to “liberated” East Europe, and a Maoist China which backed N Korea in a war against the South.

But all the while, till well after WW2, its domestic treatment of blacks remained shameful.

The matter is important not just within US borders but because the US, for better or worse, remains the leading “Western” nation, behoving it to set an example.

Among other Western nations the issue is important too in Australia and Canada, in both instances, like the US, where incoming European settlers interacted with long resident indigenous or “First Nation” peoples.

 

How should the racially abused “colored” people respond now?

Above all the “afflicted” groups must face the wider truths, beyond the West’s report card.

 

A / Face the wider truth….. acknowledge the emergence of modern liberal values in the West.

First the “afflicted” groups must face the ironic if confronting reality that the same West which gorged on slavery in the Americas [and which also misbehaved “racistly” on a significant scale in Africa and Asia] also gave the world the universalist “modern liberal order”, “Western” values, a system of thought and practice which has proved historically unparalleled in delivering prosperity and meaningful freedoms to its people.

Also these values when expressed authentically are utterly “anti-racist”, are racially neutral or blind, do not formally recognise any races.

They’re called “Western” because they arose in the West [mainly from England, but with clear relevant ancestry which goes back to Classical Greece], but are now “Western”, not just Western, because the practical application of the ideas has spread beyond the original West, especially to parts of Asia, and the Americas beyond US and Canada, if less so to Africa and the Mid East.

This has happened to the extent that the “Western” liberal model – of government regulated freedom / democracy / rule of law – is now widely accepted among all major global institutions, and is opposed only by obvious illiberal antagonists like China, Russia and Iran etc.

Though of course China, c 1980, in seeking to reform, to recover from the disastrous Maoist regime, turned to “Western” economic practice, allowing private property and markets, and with great success. Though it has stayed with domestic political repression.

So the open eyed, meritocratic, competitive energy which uncovered, adumbrated universal ideas of freedom, tolerance and individual rights, and practices of democracy and rule of law, also expressed as buoyant economic growth, in rising productive agriculture, in burgeoning education, cities and industry, and then [in flagrant contradiction of its “modern” values] also expressed as large scale offshore predatory “imperialist” economic activity, including slavery, ie in a return to traditional values.

This is understandably bitter nourishment for many feeling aggrieved by illiberal Western behaviour, ie that the “answer” to racism comes from the same Western “culture” which indulged it so keenly, on such a scale.

 

B/ ….. and the non-West’s report card.

Second, it means facing that traditionally near all non-Western cultures, including black peoples in Africa, were also often / usually “racist” in their domestic and foreign affairs, many also resorting to slavery.

Indeed of course it was other African people who rounded up the slaves which the Western countries like Spain and Britain bought and on sold in the Americas.

The difference with the West is that the latter’s pronounced post 16^th C Renaissance economic success enabled it to practice “racist” economic activity on a far greater – and geographically wider – scale.

Talking conditions in today’s world we should remember that two major countries – China and Russia – remain staunchly committed to traditional non-Western values, both illiberal dictatorships, both obvious opponents of the liberal “Western” global order in their public opinions and their antagonistic behaviour.

In this antagonism they are joined by some Islamist dictatorships, like Iran.

All these countries reject liberal democracy, run oppressive domestic regimes with no meaningful freedom of expression, democracy and rule of law.

Finally although many European countries indulged in “empires”, more or less, and with mixed results, or worse, in many / most cases the independent countries born from subsequently released colonies have performed badly – sometimes very badly – in terms of economic and political outcomes, prosperity and freedom.

 

C/ ….. avoid particular “identity” overriding the “universal”.

Third, by far the best approach today for descendants of “racism”, or even those directly hurt by it, is to internalise the wider truth, including the relevance of universalist liberal values, and act accordingly.

So this indeed means – adopting Mt Kendi’s syntax – being an “anti-racist”, or “unracist”, in that one’s primary loyalty [identity] should not be to any “race” or other traditional identity – defined broadly, as any racial or ethnic or national or religious or even gender entity, which we can box up as Old Identity Values [OIV] – but rather to all fellow humankind and to liberal universalist values, to the modern liberal values [MLV] which underwrite this loyalty.

So above all this means living essentially in the present not the past, so particularly it means rising above, avoiding any primary life informing notion as a victim or descendant of victims, by not harbouring a primary affiliation with a perceived aggrieved group.

Ironically choosing to live primarily by loyalty to a traditional identity [like race] is by its nature “racist”, being based on loyalty to some subset identity above overarching humankind.

Some black US cultural figures seem to understand, have understood this matter, like writer Zora Neale Hurston [1] [1891-1960] and painter Norman Lewis [2] [1909-79].

Both [among many others?] were observers, “victims”, of racial injustice – could hardly fail to be given their chronology – and both reflected this harsh reality in some of their work, but evidently both also saw themselves as exemplars of humankind first, ahead of “black” or any other affiliation.

This “universalist” approach does not deny the validity or worth of assorted identities or loyalties defined by ethnic, nationalistic religious or gender or other associations, rather suggests that none of these identities has special rights, including a right to impose itself – one way or another – on any other.

 

Notes:

1/ Fighting Racism Even, and Especially, Where We Don’t Realize It Exists, by Jeffrey C. Stewart, NY Times, Aug. 20, 2019. [Review of HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, Ibram X. Kendi, 305 pp. One World].

Excerpts:

“For Kendi, the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, there are no nonracists; there are only racists — people who allow racist ideas to proliferate without opposition — and antiracists, those who expose and eradicate such ideas wherever they encounter them.”

AND…

“Sometimes the logic of antiracism threatens to erase some of the nuances of African-American history. Kendi quotes the 19th-century African-American thinker Alexander Crummell, who declared that the genius of black people in America was their gift at assimilating American — read white American — culture. Kendi rightly notes that such statements can advance the dominant culture’s demand that black people mimic white people in order to be recognized as equally human.

This assimilationist discourse, as wielded by such figures as W. E. B. Du Bois, who criticized both black working-class culture and the racism that deprived black communities of opportunities and respect, or C. Delores Tucker, an activist who denigrated rappers as threatening the moral foundation of black communities implies we are not good enough on our own, but must constantly emulate white people in order to be accepted.

But, buried within a racialized assimilationist rhetoric, Crummell might have been voicing an important truth: that the African-American mastery and transformation of Anglo-American culture — its language, behaviors, values and arts — is one of the greatest accomplishments in world history. Spirituals arose because enslaved Africans assimilated English hymns and made them their own. Assimilating, in this sense, is a verb, a choice, not a bow to the superiority of another culture.”

 

2/ Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was a powerful writer, but also in her younger adult life worked with important pioneering “anti-racist” German born Frank Boas [1858-1942] at Columbia University in NY, who led a pathbreaking rejection of the idea of inherent / genetic variation in the capabilities of different races or ethnic groups, thus challenging a long and pronounced, entrenched tradition of scientific racism, including eugenics, reflected both in mass slavery and the Nazi extermination program.

 

3/ Painter Norman Lewis in his works left some powerful polemical swipes at racism, US white supremacism, racial violence [including lynching, in his lifetime], particularly c1960 as the Civil Rights movement gathered momentum, but from his writings clearly he wished to be recognised as a painter first and as a black painter somewhere after that.

Much of his later work [from the mid 1940s] was abstract or quasi-abstract [thus he is recognised as part of the post WW2 New York Abstract Expressionist movement, if far less famous than Pollock and Rothko] and perhaps his shift to abstraction was a reaction to coping with race prejudice.

 

 

 

Roots of the West? Christianity’s Half Nelson on “progress” for a millennium

The roots of the “West” / “Western values”.

• Give thanks to the Channel, the Germans, and rugged radical old Greece.
• Not Christianity, which had a Half Nelson on “progress” for nigh on a millennium.

 

FEATURED. The AD Painter, c 500BC, Attica, ie near Athens. Painted hydria [black figure water vessel], showing Dionysus above, and two ‘eye-sirens’ on the side. British Museum.

 

CONTENTS

Summary

0/ Prologue

1/ Background

2/ Unravelling causality: were the Greeks enough? Did the “West” need Christianity? The Germans?

3/ The British connection? As for the Greeks, a kind geography was vital.

4/ Proto-modern aspects of ancient / Classical Greece

5/ Criticism of the Greek roots of the “West” – Christianity seen as a badly needed corrective.

6/ The Germans mattered?

7/ Christianity’s role? The inherently illiberal anti-democratic Church.

  

Summary

• The cornerstone of communities embracing liberal modernity is secular citizenship, ie
  • first, collective primary loyalty to a set of liberal values, NOT to any notion of religion, race / ethnicity or class;
  • and, second, collective understanding that this life is it, and the outcomes of this life are up to humankind applying its capabilities, not relying on any supernatural or divine agency.
• In unravelling causes, the roots of the “West”, the on the ground history is important. The key ingredients enabling the birth and eventual emergence of “Western” values, liberal modernity, liberal democracy were:
  • A loose group or groups of enterprising individuals, not yoked by proximate predatory states or in thrall to distracting religion;
  • An accommodating geographic space where unscathed they could get on with harnessing their talents.
• This happened for a time in parts of ancient Greece from about the 7^th C BC, then started again in Britain about a millennium later, some centuries after Rome’s fall, among descendants of enterprising recent German and Norse immigrants.
• Fortuitous geography played a key role in both cases, allowed constructive freedom to gain traction: Greece’s rugged isolation, and Britain’s moat, the Channel, and in both cases proximate to much larger societal action.
• Notwithstanding a diverse and sometimes violent experience, and a then finite life, the main drivers of “Western” values became evident in parts of Classical Greece for about 4 centuries, around 2.5 millennia ago, radical and eeriely proto-modern outcomes: democratic government based on citizenship (albeit a restricted franchise), practical freedoms, rule of law, respect for individuals, radical advances in philosophy / science / maths, timeless literature (drama, poetry and history), art and sport, all in the context of a thriving economy.
• Christianity and the Church are keenly promoted by some as another – or even the – vital ingredient for the “West”, highlighting its respect for the individual. This insults the facts.
• Some Church texts respected individuals, but within a doctrinal framework which demeaned flawed Man’s earthly capabilities, proclaiming that only submission to an alleged supernatural power could “save” him, and this available only through the Church.
• Second, the Church’s actions spoke / speak louder than words. They condoned slavery on an improbable scale, Catholic overseen imperial depredations in the Americas, and suppression of women.
• And once the Reformation erupted they fought reform tooth and nail in the 16^th and 17^th C in Europe, allied with sympathetic conservative secular authority, at a huge cost.
• Still today the Catholic Church response to sex abuse within their ambit remains illiberal and anything but democratic, let alone “respectful of individuals”. No opening the books to independent assessment and adjudication of charged suspects.
• Rather the Church as a typical autocratic traditional institution has been the antithesis of a liberal democratic institution, and for near 1000 years had a Half Nelson hold on Western civilisation, staunchly defending its beliefs and institutional presence, and inhibiting, fighting reform.
• The Germans matter for some, and here there seems some truth, for they, with some Norsemen, comprised much of the population in post-Roman Britain, to where modern liberal democracy can directly trace its roots. The isolated forest inhabiting German tribes were handy fans of freedom, who then took their chance in Britain.
• Finally, important thing about “Western” values is while they were “discovered’ in the West they now – like many “Western” scientific laws – have universal relevance, as a broad template for organising societal affairs, based on democratic “respect for the individual”, as citizens loyal above all to these values, not to class, clan, tribe or race.

 

Athena and her owl ……… … the Church Militant and Triumphant ….

 

 The Brygos Painter (attributed) c490–480 BC.  Athena [associated with wisdom, handicraft, and warfare], helmet and a spear, owl. Attic red-figure lekythos. Met. Museum New York. COMMENT: is the face on the dress a self portrait? Or graffiti?

Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze (active 1343-77) 1365-77, Via Veritatus (the Church Militant and Church Triumphant), Spanish Chapel, Santa Maria Novella Church, Florence. COMMENT: a useful mid 14^th C (post Black Death) Italian depiction of the Church at work, and its business story, selling Salvation. Through the Dominicans, less than happy with Jews in their community. Not much respect or tolerance there.

 

0/ Prologue

In the grand sweep of human history there aren’t many more relevant debates than about the origins of “Western” values, the heart of democratic liberal modernity, which astounding reality – finally gaining traction post WW2 – is the single biggest shift in millions of years of hominind history.

The causes of such a shift are unlikely to be complex, at least at a high level.

But the debate is heated, especially from the side defending a vital role for Christianity.

But, a priori, if “Western” values are deemed to have universal relevance, applicability, it seems odd that their origins would be crucially influenced by one religion out of countless others manifest among peoples around the globe.

 

1/ Background

David Gress (“From Plato to NATO”) works hard to downplay the Greeks, and boost especially the German tribes and Christianity, an unlikely alliance! He does this exhaustively, including Rome in the story, which swallows Greece then launches Christianity, fortuitously, allowing it to quickly spread far and wide by inhabiting the remaining still large Imperial political extent. Then it slowly converted incoming Germanic tribes.

But in probing the causality sequence ask a simple logical question, would modern secular liberal democracy have happened without Christianity? One way or another?

 

2/ Unravelling causality: were the Greeks enough? Did the “West” need Christianity? The Germans?

To answer this we need to address the specific relevant history of ‘Rise of the West’, the direct ancestry of today’s circumstances, which means focussing on the story in Britain where the West we know today was surely born.

Gress complains that in untangling the roots of the West we are not fully addressing history. In this he is right, except he then energetically chooses the “history” which suits his arguments, ie down with the Greeks and up with Christianity and the Germans!

 

When you lay out (as below) the full Greek achievement it seems hard not to argue that the main drivers of “Western” Values were indeed present in Classical Greece. The radical breakthroughs were profound, have an eerily modern resonance, an improbable 2500 years later.

So how do we connect with them.

 

Did we need the Germans? They certainly helped. But the Vikings contributed too.

What Britain – the British Petri dish – needed to nurture an eventual revival of societal open eyed scrutiny was a body of dispersed enterprising independent people, not too in thrall of religion.

 

Did we need Christianity? Did the historical sequence unfolding in Britain need or rely on Christianity? It’s hard to see how.

Many of the historical figures involved in Britain post Rome through the Middle Ages were Christian but in the hands on practical conflict over the sharing of power in Britain they were not much influenced by their Christian beliefs, except of course much later when monarchs like 17^th C Charles I spruiked the divine right of kings, looked to the Church and God to validate their absolute royal power, the antithesis of democracy.  So the barons were simply fighting for a measure of freedom, for their rights (not the mass of peasantry) as individuals against an acquisitive king.

 

So the radical Greek experience from over a millennium before presumably counted for little in the minds of William Marshall and colleagues, bit it certainly mattered later, after finally being rediscovered, especially during the Renaissance, and increasingly thereafter, alongside the 16^th C Scientific Revolution and through the Enlightenment across Europe in the 18^th C.

 

3/ The British connection? As for the Greeks, a kind geography was vital.

An essential aspect of the historic context which allowed the proto-modern Classical Greeks to suddenly and so surprisingly emerge and prosper for some centuries – which facilitated their radical inquisitive and creative democratic model – was a holiday from oppressive religiously sanctioned imperial rule, allowing comparatively free men to indulge their talents.

This happened through a combination of exogenous historic intervention – ie the climate change enforced end of the Bronze Age, c1200BC, simultaneously snuffing out civilisations around the Eastern Mediterranean – and geography, the Greeks comparative peripheral coastal isolation, and a degree of protection afforded by rugged topography.

 

In looking at the relevant history in Britain the key circumstances which arose as a vital first step on the long road to modern liberal democracy were an alliance of barons standing up to the monarch, resisting monarchical overreach, establishing a loose proto-democratic rights and obligations contractual relationship, formalised by Magna Carta in 1215.

These barons were descendants of the various German tribes, commingled with Vikings then Normans (ie other Vikings, once removed). All these antecedent peoples were free of experience of repression by imperial states, not accustomed to submission to hereditary monarchies.

Tribes had chiefs as leaders but their survival in office let alone any desire to keep the job in their family, depended on their performance. And they had little or no relevant support from tribal religious figures? So there was a seed of informal rough democracy here.

 

However, beyond Magna Carta it then took over another 700 years to reach full fledged democracy in Britain, through a long sequence of developments:

• Slow emergence of an effective Parliament, and associated courts of law.
• The 16^th C Reformation.
• Late 16^th C Elizabethan progess consolidating British power.
• The 17^th C English Civil War, bloody diminuition of the king’s role, and a victory for Parliament. However protest calling for a wider franchise was suppressed,
• 17^th C Restoration then the Glorious Revolution, removing a second recalcitrant king.
• 18^th C, the Industrial Revolution commences in England, takes hold.
• End 18^th C, England key role in subjugating Napoleon. And early 19^th C abolition of slavery.
• 20^th C, Britain finally extends a full voting franchise.
• 20^th C, Anglo-American led alliance defeats Germany in WW1 and, with Russia again, in WW2.

This was a long bruising and sometimes bloody process, a blunt contest over power with the factions in power resisting sharing it more widely, till they were forced to.

 

The geography of Britain was obviously important, then and later. Geography – peripheral location and large forests – had allowed the Vikings and the German tribes to stay out of the clutches of any large predatory state.

Rome made some inroads against the “barbarians” but were then finally overrun in the West from c400AD. Once the various strands of Germans etc had established themselves in Britain they were even more secure than on the Continent.

Then the geography – particularly the English Channel – remained important – crucial? – in protecting Britain, like in the late 16^th C resisting a Spain strengthened by looting the Americas, then resisting the rampaging Napoleon c1800, right down to May 1940.

 

4/ Proto-modern aspects of ancient / Classical Greece

The radical proto-modern group organisation / behaviour / outcomes which emerged for a time in ancient / Classical Greece is striking.

The story is now well known but this familiarity now perhaps disguises its sudden and unlikely appearance and its radical import.

The radical essence of the experience, which is now the cornerstone of communities embracing liberal modernity is secular citizenship, ie first, collective primary loyalty to a set of liberal values, NOT to any notion of religion, race / ethnicity or class; and, second, collective understanding that this life is it, and the outcomes of this life are up to humankind applying its capabilities, not relying on any supernatural or divine agency.

 

Summary

This set of precepts below was utterly radical compared especially with the preceding Bronze Age empires, or with the contemporary empires, eg especially Persia, Mesopotamia, all of which were profoundly anti-democratic, where was one-man rule, where individuals had no rights, only obligations, and they were to serve the “state” and especially its head, and moreover this head was usually not just a superior human being but semi-divine, anointed by a ruling religion, represented by a complicit self-interested cadre of priests.

 

The ancient Greek outcome was not perfect, and it was not sustained, lasted only some hundreds of years.

It was not perfect in that the degree of authentic “democratic” behaviour varied from polis to polis, and then it waxed and waned within poleis.

The most famous example is obviously Athens, prima inter pares. It undoubtedly left the strongest “modern” democratic achievement, in its development of democratic governing processes, and especially its cultural legacy.

But then fatefully Athens succumbed to overweening ambition, first – post the famous early 5^th C BC victories over Persia – by transitioning to imperial predation upon nearby other Greek cities, under the pretence of needing to be vigilant against resumed Persian incursions, then second, by allowing itself to come to blows with rival powerful city-state, the much differently organised oligarchic Sparta.

The resulting long and bloody end 5^th C BC Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BC) did not immediately destroy Athens, the economy and society recovering in the 4^th C (thus Aristotle was not born till 384BC, 20 years after the War ended), but it became inevitable prey for a rising Macedon about 70 years later, especially when by some fluke of history that Macedon was led not just by an old fashioned autocrat but by a formidably able one.

 

Five key ingredients oversaw the Greek proto-modern flourishing?

1/ Greece’s core radical breakthrough was a self-critical opening of the eyes, to scrutinise, observe, try understand and explain the world – nature and its people – without preconceptions, especially religious, to bring a ‘critical consciousness’ (VDH) to bear.

As Protagoras famously wrote 5^th C BC: Man is the measure all things. So there is no logical place for God(s).

 

2/ Acknowledgement of the private individual. Each person matters and this informed democracy, that each individual had a right to a say.

Through the Homeric celebration of the hero, going back into the “Dark Ages” (c800BC) – the superhuman achievers like Achilles and Heracles – they celebrated the striving, ambitious individual, both for himself and the community.

But a key achievement of Classical Greece was to then democratise this ideal, to allow each individual the opportunity to strive for “heroic” outcomes, in work and play.

 

3/ a meaningful freedom, for individuals, to think, say, and act, if constrained by rational obligations to the collective.

 

4/ competition among free individuals. This was a key ingredient, in daily life, especially in economic life, but also in “play”, ceremonially in sport, like the Olympics. But interesting is how it applied culturally too, like with the major playwrights facing off each year.

 

5/ no central authority. Ancient Greece was not a country but an informal federation of well over 500 diverse “city-states”, or poleis (singular polis), most small or very small, a handful much larger, led by Athens and Sparta (at two extremes, one democratic the other a near dictatorship), also Syracuse, Corinth etc. The total peak population was around 8m?

They shared a common language and heritage but individual political arrangements varied greatly

So this swarm of entities was not overseen by any ruler, rather competed among themselves, between c800BC and 300BC, co-operating when it suited.

 

These founding ingredients or themes were expressed in the radical organisation / operation of this government / community / society thus:

a/ democracy. This was a radical step by a community in organisation of its collective affairs, ie that all individuals participate as citizens in government. The Greeks gave us this word, which does not exist in other languages.

At heart was a two part “contract” / agreement between individual as citizen and “state”, the communal group:

i/ rights: recognition as individual,

• right to vote,
• right to speak free / have a say,
• right to own private property, undertake economic activity
• right to one’s own religion. Even atheism. Religious tolerance.

and ii/ responsibilities / obligations:

• Especially to vote, to participate in government, eg to serve in government offices. And – even more radical, more egalitarian – these offices were usually filled by lottery. Except for special skilled jobs. Like generals.
• And if required then an obligation to fight, and to keep fit, in case you had to fight.

An important corollary was that the “people”, civilians, would control the military, via their democratic governing procedures.

 

b/ the rule of law. In Athens in the 4^th C BC. This was a second key plank of government. “The rule of law was one of the most important cultural values in ancient Athens..” (Edward M. Harris (University of Durham), Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens, Essays on Law, Society, and Politics (edited)  Cambridge University Press, 2006, and The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens, (2013). Oxford University Press.

        

c/ citizenship. This was another radical proto-modern concept and basically the foundation of liberal modernity. Thus within a community members were defined not by i/ ethnicity, genes, ancestors, ory ii/ religion, but rather by loyalty, commitment to the group, as defined by a set of common values / rules.

 

From this framework flowed a series of dramatic outcomes:

 

a/ economic. For some centuries Classical Greece was very successful economically, achieved sustained rapid trade-based growth, among a diverse federation of keenly competing poleis, “city states”, not hobbled by any exploitative central authority. The competition allowed various city-states to innovate technically and specialise as it suited them.

This is often overlooked, but wass a key part of the context facilitating Greece’s cultural brilliance.

 

b/ cultural output. This also was utterly radical, and today still justly celebrated. It expressed in:

i/ Philosophy; a body of thought (or what survives) from a sequence of important thinkers over the course of about 300 years, from early 6^th C BC to mid 4^th C BC

ii/ Science and mathematics. The Greeks did not uncover the full scientific method but their open eyed questioning left radical scientific observations which showed the way ahead. Leucippus and Democritus speculated acutely on all matter being comprised of atoms, like Aristarchus speculating on the earth orbiting the sun, like Greeks speculating that diseases have natural not supernatural causes.

The Greeks made radical strides in mathematics, through the somewhat mysterious Pythagoras and others.

iii/ deliberations on ethics, practical guides to morally correct action, coming out of philosophy;

iv/ theatrical drama, in tragedy and comedy. These texts remain oddly modern, timeless in the themes they explore and the manner. And this is based only on the small proportion of texts which managed to survive.

v/ Art, again that which survives. Striking especially is its humanised sculpture (in stone and also bronze) and also its extraordinary (and numerous) corpus of decorated / painted pottery, from many sites in the Aegean and southern Italy. The detailed figurative images show genre scenes from daily life, and also from their myths, from the lives of their quasi-human gods. Only scarce fragments of “paintings” (frescoes) survive (eg Paestum), but surviving far older frescoes from the Bronze Age Minoan civilisation on Crete give a relevant flavour.

vi/ in recorded history. They wrote the world’s first history texts, eg Hecataeus [Fragment 1: ‚The stories of the Greeks are numerous and, in my opinion, ridiculous‘)], Herodotus and Thucydides, trying simply to “report” on events not bring an agenda.

c/ Religion. “We get the gods we deserve.” (CM Bowra). The Greeks “worshipped” gods, but accessible “humanised” gods. And generally it was voluntary.

Also their religion was not wedded functionally to a ruling elite.

Important too was their attitude to death. There was NO afterlife. This life is it, so make the most of it.

 

d/ Sport. The Greeks “invented” the Olympic Games, c776BC, celebrated athletic prowess through organised competition among individuals, precisely as the world does today on a grand scale, most of these sports originating – like “Western” democracy – in Britain.

 

Reflecting these outcomes, Classical Greek left us a string of key words.. politics (!), democracy (demos = people), aristocracy, anarchy, oligarchy, utopia, philosophy, ethics, physics (from physis = nature), history, dialogue, rhetoric, tragedy, comedy, democracy, aesthetics. But not citizen (from Anglo Norman).

 

“Western” values.

The interesting thing about “Western” values -traced back to the “Greek Enlightenment” – is while they were “discovered’ in the West – like many “Western” scientific laws – they now have universal relevance, are available to all countries as a template for organising societal affairs, based ultimately on “respect for the individual”.

Thus post WW2 we have seen many countries outside the traditional Western countries (ie Europe and offshoots) adopt / adapt “Western” values, more or less.

Japan is a striking example, and some other Asian countries have joined in

The experience varies a lot depending on the full local context.

 

5/ Criticism of the Greek roots of the “West” – Christianity seen as a badly needed corrective.

The idea of “Greek roots of the West” is often criticised today.

Eg Greece had many slaves, and denied women the vote, denied citizenship to both.

True. But all other contemporary societies were much the same.

And it was the “Greek” approach which finally “freed” slaves and women, albeit it took another c2500 years.

Which goes to show how ingrained or intractable are Traditional Values, the Old Order. As we saw in the dreadful violence accompanying the long gestation of the “West”, from 17^th through 20^th C, and given their important residual impact today, particularly through the remnants of the two major “Communist” revolutions.

 

David Gress takes a big swipe at the Greeks in “From Plato to Nato”. He sees the Greeks overdoing the out of control Narcissistic Homeric heroic individuals, leaving no room for “Christian belief in justice and in the value of human life”.

So he sees them overdoing “individualism”, such that the West required “collaboration . . the humility to recognize that achievement rested on interdependence… [and this comes only from].. the Influence of Christianity”.

Thus “The democratic pursuit of individual autonomy needed the balance of humility if it was not to degenerate into anarchy or the rule of some ideology.”

Thus the “Christian teaching of original sin [imparted “humility”, thus] made modern democracy possible.”

Throw in Christian love, compassion for thy neighbour?

So “For the West to emerge, Greece had to die”.

This is heavy stuff, so heavy that – given the total package of radical achievements of the old Greeks – you wonder if he is not bringing an agenda?

 

But is it so?

Thus the Homer in The Iliad who celebrates heroic values in the same book also criticizes the destructive consequences for others if these values are misapplied.

And in The Odyssey he writes of the humanised eponymous hero going home, to hearth, wife and dog, not accepting Calypso’s offer of immortality.

The Greeks also talked a lot about “hubris”, about the risks, dangers of excessive individual focus, of overweening pride, ambition, of flying too close to the Sun.

Then Greek philosophers like Aristotle stressed the importance of the Mean, of balance in life.

Greek playwrights in particular stressed in their tragedies the dangers of out of control individuals, like the awful consequences of needless war, of needless violence in the name of false causes promoted by certain selfish individuals.

And in comedies they satirised, morally upbraided ambitious politicians, holding them to account. But note the same politicians by and large tolerated this critical public theatre.

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (411BC) attacked misogynism, saluted the rational capacities of women.

 

The Greeks appetite for curiosity knew few bounds, so they even understood, recognised the limits of rationalism, to remain humble, that even with best efforts knowledge will never be complete, eg Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannos or O. Rex (431BC) shows the rational Oedipus tripped by not knowing all.

Similarly Euripides in the later Medea explores the dangers of irrational passions.

 

Also this stress on the mindless excessive Greek appeal forf heroic individuals, and disregard for the total old Greek achievement, seems to deliberately overlook historical outcomes, the eventual (post WW2 20^th C) historic manifestation of a near full developed Greek democratic construct, the heart of which model, when its rational implications were implemented in West Europe and beyond, through parliaments and courts and police, and particularly a full adult franchise.

Thus finally respect for the individual rights of all citizens was achieved, including slaves and women, not just “heroes”, propertied or otherwise select adult males.

And strenuous resistance by the Old Order, including the Church, ensured this process was protracted.

 

Many other critics (like Nietzsche) have famously regarded the ethical teachings of Christianity as vital, by implication seeing the relevant parts of Greek philosophy as insufficient, so that humankind in abandoning the Lord will be cast adrift, condemned to nihilistic instability, inherently incapable of managing his affairs.

 

For some / many critics this stress on Christianity however comes with an agenda – a conflict of interest – that of the Christian adherent, believer, which belief instructs that God – their God – is good, here for all, to save all, including those of all other beliefs!.

 

6/ The Germans mattered?

David Gress also spruiks the Germans. “The Germanic contribution to the West was broader, richer, more significant, and more ambiguous than the [Enlightenment] model suggested.”

Through John Adams and Thomas Jefferson: “Americans adopted the Germanic model of freedom because it seemed to suggest that their own claims to independence were rooted in history as their ethnic heritage.”

And yes the Germans avoided “divinizing rulers; Caesar found some tribes ruled by councils of warriors..”

But so did the Greeks.

So Gress sees the Germans contributing a strong sense of freedom, unwillingness to submit to imperial autocrats?

However they were also almost wholly “uncivilised”, left no written account of their life and thoughts, and were very violent, given to almost ceaseless warfare among themselves (eg refer The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence, José María Gómez, Miguel Verdú, Adela González-Megías, Marcos Méndez; Nature, October 2016.), as tribes waxed and waned, presumably depending a lot on the ambitions and capabilities of individual chiefs.

 

In the event the Germans certainly mattered because it was they – the Angles and Saxons – who took hold of Britain from about the mid 5^th C AD, shunting aside the Celts. The Norsemen then materially intervened from c800AD – not in the end displacing the then settled Germans, but certainly leaving a lasting imprint – as they did importantly in northern France, which then redounded on Britain from 1066, when the Normans arrived.

So the Germans, with a leavening of Norsemen, became the backbone of the country which in due course bore or midwifed the “West”.

 

In hindsight the forest dwelling German tribes can be seen as somewhat analogous to the ancient Greek poleis, ie as a peripheral dispersed group of semi-independent smallish bands, speaking similar languages, keen to get on with life in this world, and not bothered by proximate states.

But, they needed civilising.

 

7/ Christianity’s role? The inherently illiberal Church.

Supporters of the case for Christianity’s vital role in seeding “Western values” comb the Christian texts for words highlighting for them relevant central aspects like:

• The Church valuing, recognising the individual, each person’s “dignity”.
• Christians favoring compassion for and by individuals, and mercy, humility, and overseen by a redemptive merciful God.

 

But on the matter of recognising the “dignity” and worth of the individual it seems clear the Greeks basically got there first. Respect of “rights of the individual” drove the whole then radical notion of democracy, that everyday people had a right to be heard.

The Greeks of course predated Jesus by say 500 years. So just maybe the Greek thoughts on individual rights filtered through to the Holy Land and beyond.

 

Second, the Church, especially later, had a strange take on humanity in stressing the notion of Original Sin, thus depicting Man as an inherently flawed creature, from birth, because Adam and Eve had disobeyed God.

Then the Church as an institution stressed this construct to attract people to their business, explaining that the only escape from their squalid imperfection was through salvation by God, and that, by chance, was only available via the [monopolistic[ services of the Church.

This view of Man as a feeble beast who could only be rectified through supernatural intervention via the Church stood in flagrant contradiction to that of the Greeks, who per contra viewed Man, each individual, as capable of great achievments if they strove accordingly, and – more importantly – were given the opportunity to do so.

Yes Man was not perfect, made mistakes – as Greek drama highlighted – but the core Greek mindset was optimistic, recognising Man’s capabilities.

So the Greek notion is rational and “modern”, and hence “Western”.

The Church’s traditional view of Man, by contrast, irrational, manipulative and demeaning.

 

Also interesting in hindsight is how the later leadership of the ambitious institutional Church tweaked the ruling creed to facilitate its business objectives, ie attracting customers to its salvation machine, in particular by stressing a/ Original Sin [cf Saint Augustine], Man’s inherent inadequacy; and b/ the penalties of non-compliance, ie a long hot post-corporeal date with the Devil; and c/ the joys of compliance, ie everlasting life in the hereafter.

 

However the role of the Church and its creed – its many religious texts – needs to be assessed through actions not words, through the historical behaviour of the institution, given also that for many centuries it was close to the political levers of power.

 

Here we see first up the Church behaving as a familiar traditional institution that is fundamentally illiberal and anti-democratic, in its own internal institutional processes and operations, and externally in its actions, repeatedly, comprehensively.

We see a body which is the antithesis of rule of law based, rights respecting liberal democracy

 

Thus in terms of the rights and dignity of the individual this never applied to slaves and women, nor to non-Christians.

Slavery within Western Christian countries flourished on its watch, especially the large scale transatlantic slave trade [approx.. 10m shipped to the “New World”], in which sternly religious Catholic countries like Spain played a key role (as well as economically opportunistic Protestant leaders like Britain), culminating in the egregious economically opportunistic 19^th C US slavery experience [the Confederacy running with near 4m slaves at the outbreak of the Civil War], at a time when slavery had finally been abolished in Europe.

 

Then looking at the course of European history, when the winds of reform started to fan Europe after say the continent shattering Black Death (1348), coming to a head in the 16^th C Reformation, the Church fought democratic advances tooth and nail, culminating in the catastrophic religious wars of the late 16^th / early 17^th C.

 

In today’s times the graphic failure of the institutional Catholic Church to honor the “dignity” and rights of individuals is evident in the now chronic matter of globally widespread sex abuse by members of the Church of people under their care or supervision.

This abuse concerns not just the criminal actions, and the scale of violations, but particularly the Church’s arrogant defensive response, in keeping with its longstanding autocratic illiberal practices.

Thus the Church has tried to avoid publicising the abuse, and second, in its response to complaints it has strenuously avoided a liberal democratic approach to seeking accountability, ie opening the books to thorough independent investigation, to fully expose the facts, to identify, and bring to justice, the culprits.

The Church is here exposed as a typical traditional autocratic institution lacking any kind of effective rule of law, ie independent processes for investigating and adjudicating complaints.

Instead the current Pontiff talks about “codes of conduct” and blames the problem not on man but Satan, which would be laughable if the matter was not serious.

At a recent conference in Rome on the very matter there was not the faintest reference to real reform, starting with independent supervision of dealing with complaints.

 

Stepping back, it’s clear that the “we know it all” monotheistic mindset at the heart of the Church’s principles is simply incompatible with liberal modernity.

The same intolerant close-minded mindset is evident today in many Islamic countries, where the religion is allowed a political role.