Michael Fried. Menzel's : Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. 320 pp. $55.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-09219-6.

Reviewed by Carolyn Kay

Published on H-German (October, 2004)

Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of this dense, exhilarating, and complex book, of Humanities and director of the Humanities Fried makes clear his central purpose: "one of my Center at John Hopkins University, has written a tasks in this book will be to establish the terms of brilliant book on Adolph Menzel, Germany's pre- an approach to Menzel that will not be captive to eminent artist of the nineteenth century. Fried ar‐ a 'French' model of pictorial accomplishment, in gues persuasively that Menzel possessed a unique the light of which he can only appear eccentric and masterful talent and that his works rank him and, for all his prodigious output, less than the as one of the most signifcant realist painters of major and exemplary modern painter-draftsman the period, alongside Gustave Courbet and I believe him to be" (pp. 11-12). Thomas Eakins (the subjects of earlier writings by To Fried, Menzel's magnifcence as a modern Fried).[1] Art historians have tended to assess European artist arises from two accomplish‐ Menzel's enormous oeuvre of oil paintings, ments: frstly, what Fried calls the process of em‐ gouaches, and drawings--diverse in style, tech‐ bodiment in his art; secondly, Menzel's explo‐ nique and subject matter--by holding these up to ration of the everyday in his works, particularly the standards of French modernism and its em‐ in his drawings. "Embodiment," which might oth‐ phasis upon a consistent style. As a result, Men‐ erwise be described as empathy, is a process zel's art has not been featured in European art whereby Menzel projected himself imaginatively histories and is certainly not well known outside onto the canvas or page, ofering fgures, objects, of Germany. Fried sets out to change all this. He and scenes that give a powerful physical sense to rejects the assumption that the French model is the viewer. Within this process, both artist and superior or indeed crucial for an analysis of Men‐ viewer place themselves bodily within the art, zel's art; he also dismisses the idea that realism in and are able to hear, see, and/or feel objects con‐ art--heavily criticized by the French modernists-- tained therein. A telling example of this transfor‐ was inferior, particularly in the works of Menzel, mation is found in Menzel's drawing Unmade Bed Courbet, or Eakins. In one of the opening sections H-Net Reviews

(1845) which shows an unkempt bed, devoid of its ick would not have given the impression of Fred‐ owner; we see part of the exposed mattress, cov‐ erick's centrality in this historical event. But the ered over by rumpled sheets, and topped by a painting succeeds, nonetheless, argues Fried, be‐ thick, twisted duvet, and several plump pillows. cause of its "untrammeled corporeality" (p. 45). We look down on this bed from only a short dis‐ Yet another example of "embodiment" in Menzel's tance away. What is remarkable about this draw‐ work is his famous painting of Frederick the ing is the physical sense it projects: the pillows Great, in Flute Concert of at and duvet ofer a suggestive imprint of a body Sanssouci, (1850-52) where the viewer looks upon only recently removed. The scene, too, expresses the German leader playing the fute in a beautiful comfort, softness (in the lush pillows and duvet), hall, but also "sees" lights in the candles and chan‐ and movement (the body that had once thrown delier, and "hears" the sound of the fute. Several aside the duvet). Fried also highlights what he senses are aroused in this painting, and reveal calls the "aliveness" of the scene in the intersec‐ Menzel's eforts to awaken more than just the vis‐ tions of the bed and the duvet and the sensual na‐ ual attention of the viewer. ture of the duvet "nuzzling" the pillows. As Fried In presenting this theory of embodiment in notes, "Unmade Bed is as strong an expression of Menzel's work, Fried ofers some compelling evi‐ bodily feeling as we could hope to fnd, and my dence. Next to his own original analysis he places suggestion is that its special vividness and anima‐ Menzel's art within the context of nineteenth-cen‐ tion are grounded in the artist's bodily memory of tury German ideas on aesthetics--notably the aes‐ what it felt like to lay himself down in the original thetics of empathy or Einfuehlung--as elaborated of that bed" (p. 42). by Robert Vischer, Heinrich Woelfin, and August Another work by Menzel that expresses a Schmarsow. In these authors' theories of aesthetic strong corporeality is Frederick the Great's Ad‐ empathy, both the viewer and the artist are por‐ dress to His Generals Before the Battle of Leuthen trayed as having the ability to imaginatively posi‐ (1859-61). This history painting refers to Freder‐ tion themselves bodily within art or architecture-- ick's speech to his generals in December 1757, an argument that parallels Fried's point about during the Seven Years' War, in advance of the fa‐ Menzel. Woelfin (in Prolegomena to a Psycholo‐ mous battle in against the Austrians. Men‐ gy of Architecture) notes that "as human beings zel did not fnish the work, but Fried still hails this with a body ... we gather the experience that en‐ painting as monumental, comparing it to Geri‐ ables us to identify with the conditions of other cault's The Raft of the Medusa. Why? The reason forms.... We read our image into all phenomena" is that in this work Menzel gives an intense physi‐ (pp. 35-36). Vischer (in On the Optical Sense of cal sense of Frederick's generals--bear-like men, Form) argues that "every work of art reveals itself stocky, strong--standing against the cold, pulling to us as a person harmoniously feeling himself coats and pelisses over their shoulders, listening into a kindred object" (p. 39). Fried sees such intently to Frederick (whom Menzel did not fn‐ ideas as giving historical weight to his argument, ish; he is a blank fgure). Fried argues that Menzel and, indeed, they are convincing. had sought to show the hardiness of these gener‐ The other important aspect of Menzel's art, als, who stand about Frederick in a semi-circle, as his exploration of the everyday, also receives high he wanted to highlight their physical battle praise from Fried. "It may be," argues Fried, "that against the cold and the enemy. But his eforts Menzel's relation to the everyday represents the went in a direction he did not anticipate. He likely deepest stratum of his art; I know of nothing like chose not to fnish the work because the contrast it in the work of any other nineteenth-century between these feshy men and the slender Freder‐

2 H-Net Reviews painter, which alone would be a reason for re‐ ters and instead ofers ffteen sections that help to garding Menzel as a unique fgure in the culture build the analysis smoothly. Several of these sec‐ of his time" (p. 15). In his drawings Menzel stud‐ tions focus upon close and careful scrutiny of in‐ ied ordinary objects in great detail (contempo‐ dividual works, such as Rear Courtyard and raries noted that Menzel was always sketching House (1844); Balcony Room (1845); Iron Rolling something at hand), whether these were docu‐ Mill (1872-75); and Crown Prince Frederick Pays a ments in a chest, a pile of furniture tossed into a Visit to the Painter Pesne on his Scafold at street, a maid's comb, his own foot or hand, binoc‐ Rheinsberg (1861). Fried also analyzes Menzel's ulars, bicycles, or musical instruments. Further‐ fascinating self-portraits. In other sections, Fried more, Fried is struck by Menzel's recurrent use of contexualizes the art by considering philosophy, brickwork and bricklaying in such works as the literature and art criticism, both from Menzel's gouache Bricklayers on a Building Site (1875) or day and from the twentieth century. Among the the pencil sketch Bricklayers at Work on a Scaf‐ many authors cited by Fried are (alongside those fold (1875). Connecting Menzel's approach with noted above) Fontane, Simmel, Weber, Ruskin, ideas of the everyday in Kierkegaard's Either/Or Helmholtz, Duranty, Marx, Kant, Meier-Graefe, (1944), Fried suggests that the process of bricklay‐ Kafka, and Benjamin. Contemporary scholars in‐ ing involves the repetitive act of laying brick after clude Jonathan Crary, T. J. Clark, Werner Hof‐ identical brick, in a manner that "in principle has mann, and Claude Keisch. In a fnal coda to the no necessary terminus" (p. 153) and no one mo‐ book, Fried ofers excerpts from Kafka's Amerika ment of intensity. In life, such repetitive tasks-- and W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, which he even the smallest--have their signifcance, what sees as representative of certain ideas (embodi‐ Kierkegaard defnes as "a matter of inner history, ment, the allegory of bricklaying) within Menzel's [where] every single little moment is of utmost art. Admittedly, I found this last section less help‐ importance" (p. 144). Fried wonders whether ful than the rest of the book, since the connections Menzel, as an artist and especially as a draftsman, Fried sought to highlight were not apparent to me imagined himself as a bricklayer of sorts, since he in these literary excerpts. regularly drew images in his sketchbook with a For historians of modern Germany, Fried's consistent and repetitive efort on a daily basis. book on Menzel will ofer engaging analysis of the This is an intriguing notion. Overall, Menzel's ex‐ artist and his unique talents, and will show how ploration of the everyday, in the ordinary objects and why Menzel must be considered one of the captured in his art, seems to Fried to be foremost German and indeed European artists of quintessentially modern, in the sense that Menzel the modern era. Still, it should be noted that Fried did not attempt to derive meaning from these ob‐ says very little about the historical conditions in jects, but simply presented them as aspects of Berlin, or Germany, during Menzel's era, or about modern human life he found aesthetically inter‐ the connections between Menzel's art and politics esting and which he invested with "vital feeling" in nineteenth-century Germany. He also refrains (p. 255). from comparing Menzel's work to other German Along with Fried's innovative interpretations artists of the period. Since Fried's focus is upon a in this book, the work itself is organized in a sustained analysis of Menzel's art, with the aim of unique way; and the enormous number of showing its uniqueness and signifcance within sources used--English and German works in art modern European art and thought, this gap is not history, art criticism, biography, philosophy, litera‐ perhaps surprising. Nonetheless, readers will fnd ture, and history--cross many disciplinary bound‐ much more historical context in Peter Paret's su‐ aries. The book's structure dispenses with chap‐ perb Art as History: Episodes in Culture and Poli‐

3 H-Net Reviews tics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (1998) and in [1]. Some of Fried's books include Courbet's the 1996-97 exhibition catalogue Adolph Menzel Realism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1815-1945: Between Romanticism and Impression‐ 1990); Realism, Writing, Disfguration: On ism.[2] Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane (Chicago: Uni‐ Despite the absence of historical context, versity of Chicago Press, 1987); Art and Object‐ Fried's analysis of Menzel's art held me enthralled hood: Essays and Reviews (Chicago: University of throughout this book. Still, in a few places I felt Chicago Press, 1998); and Manet's Modernism the work faltered or needed correction. Firstly, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). the argument is at times too dense and overload‐ [2]. Peter Paret, Art as History: Episodes in ed with information. For example, Fried has a ten‐ Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Ger‐ dency to write long sentences, which include many (Princeton: Princeton University Press, lengthy add-ons of information packed into 1998); and, Claude Keisch and Marie Ursula Rie‐ parentheses. He also quotes authors, such as mann-Reyher, eds., Adolph Menzel, 1815-1905: Be‐ Kierkegaard, at great length--in some cases over tween Romanticism and (New several pages. His endnotes, too, are often very Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). This exhibi‐ detailed discussions of separate points that go on tion catalogue accompanied the retrospective ex‐ for more than half of a page. And certain sections hibition of Menzel's art in Washington's National of the book contain additional points in asterisked Gallery, in 1997. See also the fne study by Christo‐ sections under the main text. In general, I think pher Becker With, "Adolph von Menzel: A Study in some of this information could be edited because the Relationship between Art and Politics in Nine‐ so many of Fried's ideas are quite complex and re‐ teenth-Century Germany," (Ph.D. diss., University quire careful and specifc explanation. When he of California, Los Angeles, 1975); and C. With, includes other points or diverts the main discus‐ "Adolph von Menzel and the German Revolution sion to additional considerations, the reader is of‐ of 1848," Zeitschrift fuer Kunstgeschichte 42 ten left confused. Secondly, certain philosophical (1979): pp. 195-214. and theoretical concepts in this book are hard to follow, and need clearer elaboration by the au‐ thor--especially the idea of the autonomization of sight (in section 6), Kierkegaard's notion of the ev‐ eryday in Either/Or (in section 7), and T. J. Clark's description of modernity's "disenchantment of the world" (in section 14). What I love about this book is the sheer joy and deep appreciation Fried expresses in examin‐ ing Menzel's art, the breadth of Fried's perspec‐ tive in the work (encompassing art, literature, and philosophy of the nineteenth century) and the many provocative, rich, and illuminating inter‐ pretations of Menzel's work that fll this book. Fried breathes new life into scholarship on Men‐ zel, an artist whose acclaim is long overdue. Notes

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Citation: Carolyn Kay. Review of Fried, Michael. Menzel's Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth- Century Berlin. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2004.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9877

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