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Nikolaus Pevsner: Art History, Nation, and Exile Iain Boyd Whyte

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Nikolaus Pevsner: Art History, Nation, and Exile Iain Boyd Whyte RIHA Journal 0075 | 23 October 2013 Nikolaus Pevsner: art history, nation, and exile Iain Boyd Whyte Editing and peer review managed by: Regina Wenninger, Zentralinstitut f r !unstgeschic"te, #unich Reviewers: $"ristian Fu"r&eister, 'olker Welter bstra!t Shortly after losing his teaching position at Göttingen University in September 1933, Nikolaus Pevsner 19!"#19$3% travelle& to 'nglan& as a refugee from National Socialist Germany( )hanks to his pro&igious energy an& ambition, his career flourishe&, an& at the time of his &eath in 19$3 he had become a national institution an& the preeminent e*pert on +ritish architecture( )he emotional an& scholarly transition from ,&olf -itler.s Germany to 193!s 'nglan& /as by no means easy for Pevsner, ho/ever, an& this article investigates Pevsner.s continuing &ebt at this time to German art history Kunstgeschichte% in general, an& to his &octoral supervisor, 0ilhelm Pin&er, in particular( )he &iscussion, set /ithin the broader conte*t of 1migr1 stu&ies, ad&resses the contrasting practice of art history in the t/o countries at that time an& the essential &ifferences bet/een conservatism, nationalism, an& fascism( * * * * * 213 ,t the very en& of her magisterial biography, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life, Susie -arries conclu&es that 4he /as not 'nglish, let alone .more 'nglish than the 'nglish., an& never /ante& to be(41 Nikolaus Pevsner 19!"#19$3, 5ig( 1% /as German an& his /orking life /as &etermine& by his e&ucation in German Kunstgeschichte, the scholarly stu&y of art that barely e*iste& in +ritain before the mi&#t/entieth century( Its intro&uction into +ritish universities /as, of course, one of the great achievements of the generation of 1migr1 scholars that had been force& out of National Socialist Germany in the 193!s, le& by '&gar 0in&, 'rnst Gombrich, an& Pevsner himself( 7et his relationship to his ne/ country /as al/ays ambivalent8 46 am 293 never one hun&re& per cent sure4, he once note&, 4either ho/ far 6 am not a foreigner an& ho/ far I am(4" 2"3 Pevsner emigrate& to +ritain in :ctober 1933, less than t/enty years after the outbreak of 0orl& 0ar 6( )he scars left by this fearsome encounter an& the resulting reinforcement of national archetypes /ere still very present( Strong echoes survive& into the 193!s of mutual belligerence of 191;, /hich sa/ -( G( 0ells &amning Germany as a 1 Susie -arries, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life <ondon: =hatto > Windus, "!11%, p( $!1( " Ibid(, p( ;91( England /as not inevitably Pevsner.s first choice for his force& emigration. 6n ?ay 1933, he /as still consi&ering 6taly as an option, arguing that 4293 the art historians there themselves feel that they have too little e*perience of northern art( So 6 /oul& have 2in 6taly3 a /onderful task of cultural propaganda 293(4 293 &ie &ortigen @unsthistoriker empfinden selbst, &aß sie von &er nor&ischen @unst Bu /enig erfahren. -ier hätte ich also eine schöne ,ufgabe &er @ulturpropaganda 293(% Pevsner, letter to @arl +rand, 3! ?ay 1933, Duote& Ulrike 0ollenhaupt# Schmi&t, 4.-itler hat &ie +Cume geschüttelt und ,merika hat &ie 5rüchte geerntet.8 Fur Geschichte &es @unstgeschichtlichen Seminars /ährend &es NationsoBialismus4, in -einrich +ecker e&(%, Die Universität Göttingen unter de Nationalso!ialis us ?ünchen: Saur, 199$%, p( ;G3( H Unless other/ise indicate&, all translations from German are by the author( License: The text of this article is provided under the ter&s of the Creative Co&mons License CC-BY0NC-ND 3.05 RIHA Journal 0075 | 23 October 2013 nation 4obsesse& by pri&e, by the cant of cynicism an& the vanity of violence( 293 :n the back of it, spurring it on, are the i&ea-mongers, the base#spirite& /riting men, pretentious little professors in frocks, scribbling colonels.43 In similar vein, the German poet, Iichar& Jehmel, countere& a fe/ /eeks later8 4=ol& as fish are these islan&#folk8 cunning, circumspect, conspiratorial, smart, an& possesse& of an insatiable appetite for booty( 0ith hypocritical in&ifference they permit all /arm#bloo&e& virtues to &ecay( )he sole motive of their policies is an uncompromising &esire for profit(4; -einrich -eine had famously insiste&, back in the 1$3!s, that one shoul&n.t sen& a German poet to <on&onKL the prospects had not improve& marke&ly by 1933 for a German art historian boun& for +irmingham( 1 Nikolaus Pevsner, 1929 (Photo: Genja Jonas. Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothe( Göttingen, Sa&mlung 'oit) 233 If there is a scholarly consensus on the state of e*ile, it is that there is no single an& share& e*perience of e*ile( Instead, there are multiple in&ivi&ual biographies, each /ith /il&ly varying contours, forme& by uniDue combinations of foresight an& haplessness, goo& an& bad planning, influential contacts an& their absence, benign fortune an& /retche& bad luck( )he results of this game of roulette, in /hich a human life is the ball that spins capriciously to/ar&s its final resting place, are pre&ictably &iverse( 3 -( G( 0ells, 4)he 0ar of the ?ind4, The Nation, "9 ,ugust 191;( ; Iichar& Jehmel, 4,n meine @inder4, "erliner Tageblatt, 9 :ctober 191; 5ischblütig ist &ieses 6nselvolk, klug, umsichtig, ge/andt, verschwiegen und von unersättlicher +eutegierK alle /armblütigen )ugenden lCAt es mit heuchlerischem Gleichmut verkümmern. Iücksichtslose Ge/innsucht ist &ie )riebfe&er seiner ganzen Politik(%( L 4,ber schickt keine Poeten nach <ondon!4 -einrich -eine, 4Englische 5ragmente4 1$"$%, #eisebilder 5rankfurt am ?ain: 6nsel Nerlag, 19$!%, p( L!G( License: The text of this article is provided under the ter&s of the Creative Co&mons License CC-BY0NC-ND 3.05 RIHA Journal 0075 | 23 October 2013 5or the least fortunate, e*ile means the loss of all that /as of valueK for the most fortunate, it heral&s the start of a ne/ adventure that offers boun&less re/ar&s. )heo&or 0( ,&orno characteriBe& the former position /ith his pessimistic assertion, made in $ini a $oralia, that the 1migr1 intellectual 4lives in an environment that must remain incomprehensible to him, ho/ever flawless his kno/le&ge of tra&e#union organisations or the motor traffic may beK he is al/ays astray( 293 )he share of the social pro&uct that falls to aliens is insufficient, an& forces them into a hopeless secon& struggle /ith the general competition amongst themselves. ,ll this leaves no in&ivi&ual unmarke&(4O In contrast, Nil1m 5lusser has insiste& on a more positive reading of the e*ile con&ition8 )he e*ile is the other of the other( )hat means, he is &ifferent for the others, an& the others are &ifferent for him( -e himself is nothing but the other of the others, an& only in this /ay can he .i&entify. himself( ,n& his arrival in e*ile allo/s the natives to &iscover that they can only .i&entify. themselves in relationship to him( 293 5or the e*ile threatens the .particularity. of the native an& Duestions it in his alienness. 7et even this polemical &ialogue is creative, as it leads to the synthesis of ne/ information( '*ile, in /hatever form, is the bree&ing groun& for creative action, for the ne/(G 2;3 ,s a German of Pe/ish &escent, /ho had no great &esire to be Pe/ish, /ho felt isolate& by the anti#Semitism he had e*perience& in his youth, an& /ho had converte& to <utheranism in ,pril 19"1, imme&iately before commencing his university stu&ies in ?unich, Pevsner /as in a particularly complicate& an& vulnerable position( Intentionally rootless at home, he /as &oubly rootless /hen he foun& himself in 'nglan& in 1933, an& his response to the historical an& political forces that had &riven him into e*ile is riven /ith complications an& para&o*es. ?ost para&o*ical of all, for a scholar /ho in September 1933 had lost his position at Göttingen University on racial groun&s, /as the continuing sympathy that he e*presse& in 1933 an& 193; for the politics of his oppressors, ,&olf -itler.s National Socialist German 0orkers' Party NSJ,P%( 2L3 Stephen Games first broache& this topic in his intro&uction to a collection of Pevsner.s ra&io talks, publishe& in "!!"( Games recounts here a conversation that took place in Göttingen in ?ay 1933, bet/een Pevsner an& a +irmingham schoolteacher in O )heo&or 0( ,&orno, $ini a $oralia: #eflections fro Damaged Life, trans( '( 5( N( Pephcott <ondon: Nerso, 19G$%, p( 33 2German: ,&orno, $ini a $oralia: #efle%ionen aus de beschädigten Leben +erlin and 5rankfurtQ?ain: Suhrkamp, 19L1%, p( ;L Pe&er 6ntellektuelle in &er 'migration 293 lebt in einer Um/elt, &ie ihm unverständlich bleiben muA, auch /enn er sich in &en Ge/erkschaftsorganisationen o&er &em ,utoverkehr noch so gut auskenntK immerBu ist er in &er 6rre( 293 Jer ,nteil &es SoBialpro&ukts, &er auf &ie 5rem&en entfällt, /ill nicht ausreichen und treibt sie Bur hoffnungslosen B/eiten @onkurrenz untereinander inmitten &er allgemeinen. ,ll &as hinterlCAt ?ale in je&em Einzelnen.%3( G Nil1m 5lusser, &on der 'reiheit des $igranten: Eins)rüche gegen Nationalis us +ensheim8 +ollmann Nerlag, 199;%, p( 1!9 Jer Nertriebene ist &er andere &er anderen. Jas heiAt, er ist für &ie anderen anders, und &ie anderen sind anders für ihn. Er selbst ist nichts als &er andere &er anderen, und nur so kann er sich .i&entifiBieren'( Und seine ,nkunft im '*il lCAt &ie Urein/ohner ent&ecken, &aß auch sie sich nur in +eBug auf ihn .i&entifiBieren' können.
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