Luzi Ermelinda 201711 Phd T
“The Chiaroscuro Technique in the Works of W. G. Sebald”
by Ermelinda Luzi
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures University of Toronto
© Copyright by Ermelinda Luzi 2017 “The Chiaroscuro Technique in the Works of W. G. Sebald” Ermelinda Luzi Doctor of Philosophy Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures University of Toronto 2017
Abstract
W. G. Sebald’s writing has often been observed to have a unique quality, a “Sebald effect”. But what is this effect? In asking about it, I was struck by the fact that, even though chiaroscuro (Italian for light and dark) is widely used in the visual arts an appreciated by many due to its mysterious quality, it is also present in Sebald’s work. Yet, it is ignored by all the literary criticism on him. Because of this discrepancy, in my dissertation I explore this artistic technique which is a key concept in creating a peculiar atmosphere because personal and historical aspects are illuminated or hidden in a similar fashion as those in a chiaroscuro composition. In fact, the latter is not only an effect of the visual arts but also of prose. In the same way as the Dutch master, Rembrandt, Sebald has placed black and white in conversation while adjusting the shades of grey to the desired density for form, texture and substance. In my thesis I argue that a deeper meaning behind this technique is not produced by a strong black and white distinction, but by observing how one gradually blends with the other. This blend gives the composition a symbolic quality as it allows the artist to set up patters of both showing and hiding and makes any symbolism of light/white and dark/black complex. The viewer is, thus, compelled to look in- between those tonal shades to find the deeper meaning behind the work. Since the Dutch painter was important to the German author he stands as a significant model for all his oeuvre.
In my dissertation I begin by explaining chiaroscuro in art, then I show how it can be applied to photography. After that, I analyze chiaroscuro in Sebald’s photographs, then in his prose. In conclusion, I argue that it is this technique which holds the fabric of his works intact through an invisible thread and gives his prose “a Sebald effect.” With this study I have given an analytical theory for future research and have contributed to the larger body of literature scholarship.
ii Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor John K. Noyes who was my supervisor for eight years and has been a source of inspiration, encouragement and support throughout the writing of my dissertation. I would also like to thank my committee members Professor John Zilcosky and Professor Stefan Soldovieri who consistently reviewed every chapter of the dissertation and gave their valuable feedback.
I would also like to thank my family: my husband and my two children for their constant support, love and affection throughout this challenging long period.
iii Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ...... (iii)
Table of Contents ...... (iv-v)
Introduction
1. Chiaroscuro Elements of Rembrandt’s Paintings in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ringe des Saturn ...... (1-4)
2. The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaus Tulp and the Chiaroscuro Technique History in the Visual Arts . . . . .(5-19)
3. The Chiaroscuro Technique in the Works of Jan Peter Tripp ...... (19-23)
Chapter 1 Chiaroscuro in Photographs, Theatre/Plays and Literary Texts
1. Chiaroscuro Technique in Photographs ...... (24-32)
2. Application of the Chiaroscuro Concept to Theatre/Plays ...... (33-40)
3. Application of the Chiaroscuro Concept to Literary Texts ...... (41-61)
Chapter 2 Light and Dark in Sebald’s Photographs
1. The Concept of Chiaroscuro to W. G. Sebald Photographs in his Quartet Prose ...... (62-86)
2. Sebald’s Text and Image ...... (86-105)
3. Chiaroscuro in Die Ringe des Saturn (and Austerlitz)...... (105-124)
4. Chiaroscuro in Austerlitz ...... (124-151)
Chapter 3 Light and Dark in Sebald’s Prose
1. Chiaroscuro in Schwindel. Gefühle...... (152-174)
2. Chiaroscuro in Die Ausgewanderten ...... (174-178)
3. Dr. Selwyn’s Story ...... (178-187)
4. The Story of Ambros Adelwarth ...... (187-193)
Chapter 4 Sebald’s Gray Shades
1. Grey Shades in Schwindel. Gefühle. Images ...... (194-203)
2. Grey in “Il Ritorno in Patria” ...... (204-211)
iv 3. Dark Manchester and Gloomy London in Austerlitz ...... (211-227)
4. Sebald’s Own Exile and His “Underpainting” Technique ...... (227-230)
Conclusion
Conclusion ...... (231-235)
Bibliography ...... (236-244)
v Introduction
“. . . and painting, what is it, anyway, if not a kind of dissection procedure in the face of black death and white eternity?” - Sebald: As Day and Night
1 Chiaroscuro Elements of Rembrandt’s Painting in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ringe des Saturn
Why is the study of chiaroscuro important in W. G. Sebald’s works? Chiaroscuro technique is a key concept in his texts because it is used to illuminate personal and historical aspects which have been forgotten in the dark corners of history. These moments the author choses to illuminate during his (nocturnal) travels are indeed ‘grey areas’ because they refer to a place and history of human suffering and destruction which is present and absent. Choosing unconventional paths of travel he is in search of the unpredictable and the unseen, yet, despite trying to escape the familiar by visiting foreign landscapes, the familiar is still there in one form or another be it place, architectural structure, historical or literary figure or other.
The chiaroscuro technique becomes a crucial visual tool when the narrator visits numerous places containing murals and paintings. Looking at them and analyzing them mentally enables him to say, indirectly, that in history hidden and revealed aspects are like light and dark areas of a (chiaroscuro - Italian for light and dark) painting. Notable artworks where the technique of the chiaroscuro is relevant to Sebald’s prose are those of the Dutch master Rembrandt in The Rings of Saturn, those of the Italian painter
Tiepolo in Schwindel. Gefühle., and Jan Peter Tripp. In this sense, the paintings help him map place, time and history in space. Again, this particular place and history in
Sebald refer to a liminal area; an in-betweenness of there and not there. Home and
Heimat are considered to be the epitome of the ‘gray area’ and in-betweenness because the familiar and the unfamiliar are blended just like dark and light elements.
2 The Sebaldian Effect
In all of his works Sebald explores and excavates the horrible disasters of the
20th century in a way that he creates a unique Sebaldian effect or atmosphere. But what is this effect? Some critics have tried to solve this issue. Many of them have dealt also with Sebald’s use of black and white images incorporated in his texts. For instance, J. J.
Long explores the black and white photography in Sebald, which, he argues, serves as a way to preserve and bring back the memory of the dead.1 Anne Fuchs explores the world of painters and painting and argues that Sebald used these artworks to remind the reader that they stand as a symbol of painful memory.2 Mark M. Anderson explores the
‘edge of darkness’ in Sebald’s works.3 He argues that photography serves as a way to preserve the past and remember the dead. He also talks about the horrific nature of destruction of the world wars yet he does not explore the Sebaldian effect and does not deal with chiaroscuro element in black and white images. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren deals with the trauma and memory in his “Charcoal: The Phantom Traces of W. G. Sebald’s
Novel Memoir.”4 He explores the use of darkness in Sebald’s memoir works as a way of shedding light upon death and destruction. Stefanie Harris deals with the function of fine
1 Long, J. J. “W. G. Sebald: The Anti-Tourist.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald !and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (New York: Camden House 2010), 63-91.
2 Fuchs, Anne. “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works.” In The Modern Language Review. Vol. 101, No. 1 (January, 2006), 167-183.
3 Anderson, Mark. M. “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald.” In The MIT Press: October. Vol. 106 (Autumn, 2003), 102-121.
4 Kochhar-Lindgren, Gray. “Charcoal: The Phantom Traces of W.G. Sebald’s Novel Memoirs.” In Monatshefte. Vol. 94, No. 3 (Fall, 2002), 368-80.
3 art in his prose and the representation of Heimatkunst.5 In a similar fashion as J. J.
Long she argues that photography serves as a symbol of memory and preserving the past. Yet the problem remains unsolved as to how Sebald creates the Sebaldian effect. I will argue that the mastery of the use of light and dark elements (chiaroscuro) is used to give shape and depth to memory, pain, trauma and loss. The chiaroscuro technique in
Sebald’s texts is used in a similar fashion as that of Rembrandt in his paintings; this unique artistic technique helps create the also called “Sebaldian/Rembrandt effect”, that is why I venture to say that I consider Sebald to be the Rembrandt of the 20th century.
In my thesis I will take a further step to explore how Sebald has unfolded in a new and innovative way the horrible disasters of the 20th century as well as the horrific nature of (human) destruction. Due to his mastery of the chiaroscuro elements in his prose Sebald, like Rembrandt, uses this technique to shed light upon the missing element: the darkness about the hidden past and also to give depth and dimension to loss, pain, trauma and memory. Since Rembrandt is important for Sebald, The Anatomy
Lesson of Dr. Tulp’s painting in Die Ringe des Saturn stands as an essential model for all of his quartet works as it reveals, through the mastery of dark and light elements, what the Sebaldian effect is and what message the author wants to transmit to the viewer/reader.
5 Harris, Stefanie. “The Return of the Dead: Memory and Photography in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten.” In The German Quarterly. Vol. 74, No. 4 (Autumn, 2001), 379-391.
4 Rembrandt’s The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaus Tulp and The Chiaroscuro Technique
In Die Ringe des Saturn Sebald’s careful analysis of Rembrandt’s painting The
Rembrandt’s The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaus Tulp, 1632 (RS pg. 22-3)
Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaus Tulp reveals in a visual fashion the essential idea behind
Sebald’s writing. In the painting the corpse of a thief named “Adriaan Adriaanszoon alias
Aris Kindt” (RS 20) who was executed for his ‘criminalities‘ stands as the focus of the work. This black and white reproduction of the original colored painting is spread on a
5 double-page. It is inserted in the text without any caption. The image’s intrusion mid- sentence divides the text abruptly and disrupts its fluidity. The attention is directed to the painting since text is sacrificed for the visual image. Sebald explains that the reason he incorporates this artwork in his book is due to Thomas Browne, the famous English author of scientific, medicinal and religious works (born on the 19th of October 1605 in
London), who came across the dissecting of Kindt’s body “im Januar 1632 während des
Aufenthalts in Holland” because he wanted to learn more about “die Geheimnisse des menschlichen Körper” (RS 20) Why would the guild members conduct such a lesson?
As Sebald explains, Dr. Tulp’s anatomy lecture was conducted “in der Tiefe des
Winters . . . nicht nur für einen angehenden Mediziner von grösstem Interesse, sondern darüber hinaus auch ein bedeutendes Datum im Kalender der damaligen, aus dem
Dunkel, wie sie meinte, ins Licht hinaustretenden Gesellschaft gewesen ist.” (RS 20)
Sebald explains that at the time of the anatomy lesson Humanism signified the shift from the darkness of the Medieval times to the light of the scientific thought.
Chiaroscuro History in the Visual Arts
Before having an analysis of the painting let us have a look at the artistic techniques used. The Dutch master uses a unique technique called “chiaroscuro” which in Italian is a compound word: “chiaro” meaning “clear, light” and “scuro” meaning “dark, obscure”. In visual arts this term is used “to refer to the distribution of light and dark tones with which the painter, engraver or draughtsman imitates light and shadow; by
6 extension it refers to the variation of light and shade on sculpture and architecture resulting from illumination.” 6 Up to now chiaroscuro has four usages:
1. the gradation in light and dark values of color on a figure or object, which produce illusion of volume and relief as well as the illusion of light.
2. the distribution of light and dark over the surface of the whole picture, which serves to unify the composition and creates an expressive quality.
3. monochrome pictures including Grisaille paintings (in grey, black and white, usually in imitation of sculpture), painting en camaieu (painting in a single color in imitation of cameos on pottery) and graphics in a uniform color with light and shadow indicated by hatching and stippling.
4. woodcuts in three or more tones made from successive blocks, a technique popularized in the 16th century by Lucas Cranach the elder (1472- 1553), Ugo da Capri (fl c. 1502-32), Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) . . . and others. 7
The technique of chiaroscuro goes back to the 13th century when the gradations of light and dark were used to model form by “supplanting the medieval techniques (called incidendo and matizando) of laying white and brown or black linear patterns over a uniformly colored surface to mark the protrusions and recessions of a relief.” 8 Yet, the concept of chiaroscuro “originated in Italian art theory in the 15th century. Cennino
Cennini (c. 1370-c. 1440) described the way that painters use gradations of light and dark tones to create the illusion of relief.” 9 Later on, Gothic painters such as Cimabue
(fl 1272; d before 1302) and Giotto (1267/75-1337) achieved gradations of light and dark by mixing greater amounts of white with pigment to create a range between four to six
Ward, Gerald, ed. The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 104.
7 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
8 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
9 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
7 gradations of a given color; these then were applied using lighter tones to indicate projections and the darker tones to indicate receding parts of figures. In fresco paintings
(Pietro Cavallini c. 1240 - c. 1330) a technique of modeling from underneath was employed; in this an underpainting of a dark color would indicate the shadows, leaving the white of the paint to indicate the lights; when semi-transparent layers of colored pigments were then superimposed, the chiaroscuro underpainting would affect the luminosity of the final picture. This particular technique became famous in the works of
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) who used tones of dark and grey in his underpainting.
For him modeling in chiaroscuro contrasts refers to “the use of black in the shadows, and ‘modeling in color’, referring to systems that use darker hues of color to indicate shadow as in Cangianti modeling.” 10 Until the late 19th century then the Renaissance, the use of chiaroscuro in Western art was used to produce volume and relief. The technique began to imply the imitation of light and shadow in the setting of the picture.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) stated that a painter should use the color white to represent light and black to represent shadow. Leonardo associated the binary oppositions of chiaro and scuro with light and shadow. In his notebook he indicated: “il chiaro e lo scuro, cioé il lume et le ombre” 11 (the light and dark, which is the illumination and the shadow). In his Il libro del cortegiano (1528) Baldassare Castiglione wrote that an artist “imitates light and shadow with light and dark ‘col chiaro, & scuro’” Leonardo also indicated that chiaroscuro is “a single entity rather than a dichotomy: ‘the chiaro scuro of the shadows’ and ‘the chiaro scuro of a tree.’” 12
10 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
11 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
12 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
8 During the 16th century, chiaroscuro also referred to “the works in monochrome and to prints in three colors.” 13 Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) used the dark/light elements of chiaroscuro to describe the black and white mosaics at Siena Cathedral by Domenico
Beccafumi (1484-1551), grisaille14 paintings, the woodcuts of Ugo da Carpi and last but not least the shaded drawings of Raphael (1483-1520). In the 17th century the chiaroscuro included the distribution of both light and shadow in the overall picture. The use of dark subjects pictured as dramatically lit by a single source was used by
Caravaggio (1573-1610) and Charles-Alphonse Du Fresnoy (1611-68) suggested that the artist should achieve unity by “creating one principal area of light and one principal mass of shadow, with all other lights and shadows subordinate to them in size and intensity,” Roger de Piles (1635-1709) made “the massing of light and shadow as the principal precept of chiaroscuro . . . in which a painting was likened to a bunch of grapes: while each individual grape has its own particular light and shadow, all the grapes taken together present a general mass of light sustained by a broad mass of shadow.” 15 De Piles suggested that the figures in a painting should be put into “areas of illumination, full shadow and partial shadow, instead of treating the chiaroscuro of each independently.” 16
During the 18th century Denis Diderot (1713-84) suggested that chiaroscuro was to be “based on the imagination of the painter, while light and shadow depended on
13 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
14 Paintings which are done in monochrome colors are usually in the shades of gray.
15 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
16 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 105.
9 scientific principles.” 17 Diderot opened new doors to the usage of chiaroscuro in writings by Thomas Couture (1815-79), Charles Blanc (1813-82), John Ruskin (1819-1900) and many others “where the selection of lighting conditions as well as the exaggeration of natural effects were understood as artifices to heighten sentiment.” 18 Throughout the history of chiaroscuro painting many artists have used it for dramatic contrasts and large areas of shadow. Among these artists are: Leonardo, Titian, Tintoretto, Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69), Jacques-Louis David
(1748-1825) and so on. Lighter and natural chiaroscuro belongs with Correggio
(1489-1534), Paolo Veronese (1528-88), Nicolas Poussin (1594-1664) and
Domenichino (1581-1641). 19
The Impressionists and the Symbolists rejected the idea of chiaroscuro “in order to preserve the beauty of unmixed color and capture the brilliance of sunlight.” 20 On the other hand, the Cubists used chiaroscuro randomly “dislocating it from line and form; in their paintings, it ceases to function as an illusionistic device but rather creates a decorative pattern of light and dark over the picture surface.” 21 According to The Grove
Encyclopaedia a variety of concepts have been associated with chiaroscuro: 1.
“Sfumato” (It.) is the rendition of blurred, transparent shadows along the contours and edges of interior details, which give the appearance of a veil of smoke. 2. “Unione” (It.) refers to the gradual, imperceptible transition at the point where light and shadow come
17 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 105.
18 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 105.
19 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
20 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 105.
21 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 105.
10 together. 3. “Sweetness” (It. dolcezza), “softness” (It. morbidezza) and “tenderness” (It. tenerezza) have been regarded as ideal qualities in the practice of chiaroscuro and refer in various contexts to the transparency of shadows, gradual or soft transitions from light to shadow, blurred edges of shadow and the absence of strong contrasts of light and dark. 4. “Passage” (Fr.) describes the placement of a light shadow or half-tone between masses of light, which, instead of separating them, unites them by serving as a smooth passage for the eye. 22
Since the early days of the Renaissance chiaroscuro has been used for dramatic contrast of light and dark affecting the composition as a whole. The term has come to refer to a strong opposition of light and shade which results in an outstanding visual effect. Rembrandt used chiaroscuro to produce outstanding visual effects, dramatic intensity, contrast and psychological profundity as we are going to see in the analysis of his famous painting, The Anatomy Lesson. Rembrandt’s masterpiece is a pure work of chiaroscuro. Adapted by Sebald for his Die Ringe des Saturn it stands as a key layout for his book(s) because of its hidden messages within the layers of light and shadow.
Chiaroscuro in Sebald’s Analysis of The Anatomy Lesson
Knowing what chiaroscuro is used for, let us analyze this technique in
Rembrandt/Sebald. In Die Ringe des Saturn, when we look at the painting our attention is drawn to the foreground where drenched in light we ‘see’23 “den grünlichen . . .
22 Ward, The Grove Encyclopaedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, 104.
23 Since the painting is in black and white, Sebald makes us visualize the color green of Kindt’s body.
11 daliegenden Leib Aris Kindts mit dem gebrochenen Nacken und der in der Todesstarre furchtbar hervorgewölbten Brust” (RS 21) Whereas the men encircle the corpse in dark attire, the dead body lays radiant against the darkness. In her “Rembrandt’s The
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp: a Sinner among the Righteous” Dolores Mitchell asks:
“What is the effect of representing the corpse in such a visually privileged manner, so flooded with light and so dominant in the foreground?” 24 Rembrandt’s mastery of the light and dark elements which compose the painting are used to achieve a sense of volume in three-dimensional figures composing his work. As Mitchell explains in detail:
Light from a high, unseen source illuminates the corpse which is painted a white mixed with ochre and gray. Despite the white collars and ruffs that set off their faces, Tulp and the guild members are predominantly dark in value. Since light in the Netherlandish tradition connotes sanctity and enlightenment, and darkness is associated with evil and spiritual blindness, it is curious that the corpse is so conspicuously light, and members of an Amsterdam elite so very dark. Such an effect might have been avoided through different positioning of the men or the book, more cast shadows on the corpse, or by draping the body more. 25
Yet, Rembrandt did not drape the dead body of the victim in order to make it a focal point of his work. According to Mitchell: “Although one man is seated in front of the dissecting table, his dark clothing causes him to recede and the corpse to project visually, so that the dead man seems very close to the viewer.”26 She argues that “the verticality of the living figures, two seated, the others standing, contrasts with the near horizontality of the corpse, setting up an opposition of active forces versus passivity.”27
These contrastive elements denote the role of the victim/passive as opposed to the
24 Mitchell, Dolores. “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp: a Sinner among the Righteous.” In Atribus et Historiae. Vol. 15, No. 30 (1994), 147.
25 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
26 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
27 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
12 powerful/active. As Mieke Bal states, “the painting represents the social theater of mastery."28
Opposed to the pale and naked body of Kindt are the dark clothed bodies of the guild members. The men wear black and brownish clothing adorned with well-seamed frills. Dr. Tulp in particular is differentiated from the rest of the men by his large hat and his considerable hair. He is wearing a dark cloak which is decorated with white cuffs and a white collar. As Mitchell points out in more detail: “[Dr. Tulp’s] mustache and pointed beard are well - groomed, as are those of the other guild members. Any physical imperfections these men might possess are concealed by voluminous clothing.”29
Indeed: “They appear overdressed, protected-almost armored. Such clothing and grooming signifies that these men have stable careers and settled existences, with wives and servants to tend to their needs.30 Opposed to the powerful well-dressed men, the dead body possesses no clothing, except for a little white loin cloth. Mitchell explains: “Aris Kindt no longer even "owns" his body, which is the property of the state and is being dismembered. It is ironic that the thief's crime against private property has resulted in his loss of body ownership, and has allowed Tulp and the guild members to acquire it.”31 Whereas the guild members are well-dressed and intact, the body of the victim has become ready to be dissected. Indeed, as Mitchell explains: “Tulp and the guild members merge into a large dark shape because of their black and brown clothing
28 Bal, Mieke. Reading “Rembrandt” : Beyond the Word-Image Opposition. (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 390, quoted in Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
29 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
30 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
31 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
13 and the shadowy background. Their visual linkage into a many headed body signifies shared interests. The corpse, by contrast is one of a kind-truly solitary.”32 Drenching the victim’s body in light reinforces the victimized position of Kindt among the dark members.
Yet, the pivotal element in Rembrandt’s painting is Dr.Tulp’s manipulation of the victim’s left hand with forceps. Sebald has incorporated a close-up image apart from a two-page spread concentrating on the violated hand. Most of the men and Dr. Tulp are cropped out from this close up. We are channeled to see the two active hands of Dr.
Tulp violating the passive forearm of the corpse. For Sebald and the viewer it is strange to notice that the procedure has started with the arm being violated first. The author notes: “Entgegen jeder Gepflogenheit nämlich beginnt die hier dargestellte Prosektur nicht mit der Öffnung des Unterleibs und der Entfernung der am ehesten in den
Verwendungszustand übergehenden Eingeweide, sondern mit der Sezierung der straffälligen Hand” (RS 24) which he calls an act of retaliation.
RS pg. 24
32 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 147.
14 Sebald’s criticism of this peculiar autopsy procedure is accurate especially when he brings to light another strange element. He explains: “Und mit dieser Hand hat es eine eigenartige Bewandniss. Nicht nur ist sie, verglichen mit der dem Beschauer näheren, geradezu grotesk disproportioniert, sie ist auch anatomisch gänzlich verkehrt.” (RS 25)
In a more anatomical detail he reveals:
Die offengelegten Sehnen, die, nach der Stellung des Daumens, die der Handfläche der Linken sein sollten, sind die des Rücken des Rechten. Es handelt sich also um eine rein schulmäßige, offenbar ohne weiteres dem anatomischen Atlas entonommene Aufsetzung, durch die das sonst, wenn man so sagen kann, nach dem Leben gemalte Bild genau in seinem Bedeutungszentrum, dort, wo die Einschnitte schon gemacht sind, umkippt in die krasseste Fehlkonstruktion. (RS 25)
This ‘blatant misconstruction’ that the narrator questions could be nothing but a deliberate intent of the Dutch painter himself. Sebald says: “Vorsätzlich erscheint mir vielmehr die Durchbrechung der Komposition. Die unformige Hand is das Zeichen der
über Aris Kindt hinweggegangenen Gewalt. Mit ihm, dem Opfer, und nicht mit dem
Gilde, die ihm den Auftrag gab, setzt der Maler sich gleich.” (RS 25) This understanding of the deliberate ‘flaw’ in the painting comes with even further details on the corpse.
Sebald continues “[Rembrandt] allein hat nicht den starren cartesischen Blick, er allein nimmt ihn wahr, den ausgelöschten, grünlichen Leib, sieht den Schatten in dem halboffenen Mund und über dem Auge des Toten.” (RS 25) Rembrandt, says Sebald, identifies with the victim and not the guild members. It is the artist who sees the greenish color upon the corpse and the shadows encircling Kindt’s mouth and eyes. In an impressionistic fashion Rembrandt visually represents what he would like to transmit to the viewer - what is essential to him and with whom he identifies. To reinforce
Sebald’s understanding of Rembrandt’s unique point of view he says “Aus welcher
Perspektive Thomas Browne, wenn er sich, wie ich glaube, tatsächlich unter den
15 Zuschauern in dem Amsterdamer Anatomietheater befand, den Seziervorgang mitverfolgt und was er gesehen hat, dafür gibt es keinen Anhaltspunkt.” (RS 25) Thomas
Browne watched the dissection in person since he might have been in the audience at the anatomy theatre in Amsterdam at the time. Yet, what Browne himself has seen and from what angle is different from what Rembrandt represents: the corpse as the focal point and the absence of the actual audience of January 1632. The Dutch painter has opened space for insight and criticism for his intended audience.
If we go back to Rembrandt’s painting and have a closer look at details depicted in certain areas of the work we can prove Sebald’s criticism and his conclusion accurate. For instance, opposed to the violated hand of Kindt, Dr. Tulp’s left hand is raised above the corpse; so is the hand of the man who who holds a list of (medical) writings. As the eye travels around the painting it is noticeable that the other men’s hands are down and not visible as to avoid contact with the deceased. Not only physical contact but visual contact is also absent. Ironically, none of the guild members looks at the dead body. Mitchell questions the absence of visual contact. She says:
But with what philosophical serenity ... are those gazes able not to perceive the violent act of domination upon which this painting, almost despite itself, predicates their tranquillity? It would perhaps be too humanistic now to refer this blindness to the status of a joke on Rembrandt's part (although as a painter who was so frequently condemned by other artists for associating with the lower orders, who mixed with Jews, who went bankrupt in an age of accumulation, he was located somewhat ironically, shall we say, within the social order he depicts), but the fact remains: no eye within the painting sees the body. 33
Whereas the guild members seem to look at different directions, Dr. Tulp, the only man turned to the corpse, seems to be looking at a larger audience. Some argue that the
33 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 148
16 students are looking at the textbook on anatomy. As Mitchell reveals: “None of these characters see the corpse as a whole - but, from a high vantage point, the viewer of the painting does.”34 Rembrandt, trained as a history painter, Mitchell continues, introduced narrative elements by having the six guild members react with varying expressions and movements to Tulp's actions, and by heightening the drama with light and dark elements
(a.k.a. the chiaroscuro which I am going to explain in detail in the subsequent subchapter). Such dramatic effects give a general impression of a public anatomy, as do the gazes of those guild members which seem to focus on an audience. In general, the dark attired men appear aware they are "onstage."35
Tortured Body
The (almost) naked body of Kindt drenched in light and the radiant presence of the deceased seems to inspire the viewer’s insight. It is this body that attracts the initial attention as it lies down lifeless and helpless; it lies at the centre of the painting with an area left for the viewer to access in thought and vision. The grey skin left on the palm and shadows around the eyes of the dead can stand as a symbol of sadness and melancholy. This sadness comes as a result of assault and torture against the body. The left arm is being dismembered while all the guild members watch around without any concern for the body’s violation. The men dressed in dark attire do not look at the corpse nor do they look at each other which can be read as “guilt” for conducting such acts of torture and violence against the powerless. So what does the painting celebrate?
Mitchell explains in detail:
34 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 148
35 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 151.
17 To summarize, in The Anatomy of Dr. Tulp the history painting discourse of an anatomy lesson celebrates science's secular values which permit violation of the body of an executed criminal for the general good to increase human knowledge. The group portrait discourse extols ambition,achievement and status. However, these discourses contend and even clash with religious discourses that carry messages of healing, compassion, reverence for the dead, and suspicion of pride. The blend in the painting is an uneasy one, resulting in an image more suggestive of alienation than of psychological unity. 36
Like Sebald, she comes to the conclusion that Rembrandt’s painting portrays different levels of division such as: power vs. powerless and life and death and he uses light and darkness in this specific order:
light = Aris Kindt - victim - passive/dead - powerless darkness = Dr. Tulp - torturer - active/alive - powerful
I argue that Rembrandt associates Humanism with cruelty and barbarism of science and the experiments conducted upon the powerless. In the same fashion as Rembrandt identifies himself with the victim(s) in his works, Sebald, too, identifies himself with the victims of history (whether German or not) who have been touched by deadly historical and or personal events and are trapped in an in-between zone of life/light and death/ dark. For this reason the German author was very fond of the Dutch painter, examined his works carefully and tried to work with a similar artistic strategy. Rembrandt’s The
Anatomy Lesson demonstrates the cruelty between humans, as Sebald notes that the
“unshapely hand signifies the violence that has been done to Aris Kindt” (RS 17). Sebald implies that the incorrect anatomical proportions of the left hand and Kindt’s “greenish annihilated body” are used to highlight the act of his unjust dissection. In the painting, the dissected hand is placed at the centre of attention because it is drenched in light
(compared to the other shaded areas of the painting). Like the Dutch master of
36 Mitchell, “Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson,” 152.
18 chiaroscuro, Sebald is a writerly painter who uses his ‘chiaro’ and “scuro” elements to explore life and death as well as power versus powerlessness.
The Chiaroscuro Technique in the Works of Jan Peter Tripp
Through the analysis of The Anatomy Lesson in Die Ringe des Saturn Sebald shows that his reader/viewer has to immerse him/herself in a work of art and explore more through the repeated acts of looking. Sebald learned this strategy from his close
German school friend, Jan Peter Tripp, when he stated that “man [muss] weit in die
Tiefe hineinschauen, dass die Kunst ohne das Handwerk nicht auskommt and dass man mit vielen Schwerigkeiten zu rechnen hat beim Aufzählen der Dinge.”37 Both the artist and the writer shared a same past as they both went to the elementary and secondary school in Oberstdorf in Bavaria just after the war. As post-war children they understood what destruction and loss brought to the people and their native Germany. Sebald and
Tripp had a profound friendship until Sebald’s death in 2001.
A crucial artwork where Tripp’s similarities to Sebald’s black and white images are visible, is the painter’s Belgian Billiard from Tongeren. Sebald explains that the extreme contrast of the chessboard floor pattern is carefully represented because “one false move can easily ruin everything”38
37 Sebald, W. G. Logis in einem Landhaus. (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1998), 89.
38 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 89.
19 Tripp’s Bodenmuster des belgischen Billardbildes aus Tongeren
In one of the earlier pictures the ball rolls “towards a night-side vanishing point, and in all the later pictures the most complicated chess gambits and evasions are enacted, to and fro between life and death.”39 The verses taken from Edward Fitzgerald go: “Tis all a
Chequer-board of Nights and Days/ Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:/ Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,/ And one by one back in the Closet lays.”40 It seems that “Days” or the white/light squares are associated with life and “Nights” or the black/dark squares are associated with death. The chiaroscuro here has not only visual value but also symbolic value. As Sebald explains: “Bound up with the theme of death is that of passing past and lost time, which is suspended in the works of Jan Peter
Tripp . . . in that ephemeral moments and configurations are taken out of their
39 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 89.
40 In 1859, FitzGerald authorized four editions and had a fifth posthumous edition of his translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of which three (the first, second, and fifth) differ significantly; the second and third are almost identical, as are the fourth and fifth. The verses that are quoted above are from stanza XLIX. Cit. Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 89.
20 sequence.”41 Things such as “a red glove, a burnt-out matchstick, a pearl onion on a chopping board, then contain the whole of time: are salvaged, as it were, for ever by the painter’s impassioned and patient work”42 As a result of such work “the aura of remembrance that surrounds them lends them the character of mementoes in which melancholy crystalizes itself.”43 The last statement is key in Sebald’s quartet works because the ‘aura’ of recollection which surrounds the salvaged objects by the artist does lend them the ‘character of mementoes’ around which melancholy takes shape.
Apart from Belgian Billiard from Tongeren painting which depicts in gray tones the borderline between life and death through the technique of the chiaroscuro is Tripp’s
The Grapes. Initially this composition seems to be a simple painting of a bowl of grapes on a white draped table against a dark background. Yet, as Sebald explains: “the longer
I look at the pictures of Jan Peter Tripp, the better I understand that behind the illusions of the surface a dread-inspiring depth is concealed.”44 The green grapes indeed are the
“last sign of life [and] a peculiarly ceremonial, emblematic style determines the arrangement.”45 A careful look at the painting makes the viewer understand that what might look (initially) like a ‘wedding table’ actually is not. The space upon which the bowl of grapes stands looks more like a ‘coffin-rest.’46 Sebald asks: “and painting, what is it, anyway, if not a kind of dissection procedure in the face of black death and white
41 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 89.
42 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 89.
43 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 89.
44 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 87-8.
45 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 88.
46 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 88.
21 eternity?”47 Indeed, if we analyze the painting, we learn that on a closer look a horizontal line between the upper black wall and the lower white table cloth dissects these two contrastive spaces: black/death and white/eternity. The grapes on the other hand, which Sebald notes are the only sign of life, are captured in their solidity and roundness through light, shade, and color. Yet, it is this centerpiece that reminds the viewer of the fragility of human life, inevitability of change with passing of time, mortality and eventual death. Thus, while both the dark wall and the white tablecloth will remain unchanged during the course of time, the perishable fruit will not. Visually speaking the grapes are trespassing the line of life and death. The green color of the grapes set against two contrastive chiaroscuro elements is similar to the green dead body of Aris
Kindt. Sebald, Rembrandt and Tripp’s methods of creating their work leads to similar paths of approach where a “dread-inspiring depth is concealed.”48 The silent message is transmitted to the viewer due to the masterful manipulation of light and dark elements as well as ambiguity and hidden flaws. For instance, the twisted left hand of Aris Kindt in
The Anatomy Lesson (mentioned earlier) is made to look like the deceased has two right hands. This initially hidden flaw is the key to understanding the violence acted upon the victim by the powerful. This important element, once found is the secret to the overall message that Rembrandt wants to transmit to the viewer. In a similar fashion,
Sebald and Tripp’s use of light and dark technique creates meaning and feeling by hiding some elements and showing others in the same fashion as Rembrandt did in his paintings. Moreover the use of the binary opposition of white and black within the
47 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 88.
48 Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, 88.
22 chiaroscuro technique reveals how deeply the three artists are engaged in the ‘life and death’ theme as we are going to explore in the subsequent chapter(s).
23
Chapter 1
Chiaroscuro in Photographs, Theatre/Plays and
Literary Texts
“...the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white - I like the abstraction of it.” (Mary Ellen Mark, American Photojournalist)
24 Chiaroscuro Technique in Photographs
I have discussed chiaroscuro in the history of visual arts and Rembrandt’s painting The Anatomy Lesson, now I will explore it in depth in the black and white photographs. In his prose quartet Sebald has chosen those particular images where light and shadow play upon each other in order to create a psychological aura associated with obscurity and gloom. In this sense the chiaroscuro elements in portraits, landscape and architecture photography bear a great significance. In fact, even nowadays, despite the advanced technology of the color photography, there is still an obsession with monochrome tones. The question here is: what is so attractive or unique about black and white photography? According to American photojournalist Walker
Evans: “color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely” and as such “color photography is vulgar. ”49 In contrast, “black and white photos tell the truth.”50 Historically speaking, monochrome images are associated with the genre of documentary and art photography because they “culturally connote authority and seriousness,”51 thus, authenticity. For this reason “black-and-white photography seems more suitable to depict war or natural disaster because of its connotation of history,
49 Walker, Evans. Black and White Photography: 40 Famous Black and White Photography Quotes. Compiled and published by Leslie Chua. Sep 16, 2015.
50 Sekula, Allan. Black and White Photography: 40 Famous Black and White Photography Quotes. Compiled and published by Leslie Chua. Sep 16, 2015.
51 Nojima, Yuka. “Black and White Photography.” MA diss., in Communications Studies, Leeds University, (Sep. 1, 2003), 2.
25 while vivid color photography conveys immediacy of the events.”52 And there has always been a need to report wars and publicize famines around the globe: “in order to gain more concern from people, and in some cases naturalistic color photographs may be considered too sanguine.”53 According to Rudolf Arnheim’s theories based on Gestalt psychology, the absence of color contributes to the focus on shapes and forms 54 and adds depth to the whole composition. Nojima reinforces Arnheim’s theory when she states: “black-and-white photography tends to generalize and conceptualize the subject- matter because of its detachment from reality due to its absence of color, and thus is more suitable for documentary.”55 Therefore, the historical significance of monochrome comes through the interplay of these two contrastive elements.
L’Operator, le Spectator, and le Spectrum
Roland Barthes, in La Chambre Claire, observes that photography can be the object of three practices, and he names these three l’Operator, le Spectator, and le
Spectrum.56 He explains that l’Operator is a photographer, le Spectator is those who
(look at photographs, and “le Spectrum” is what is photographed, the referent. Nojima
52 Nojima, Yuka. “Black and White Photography.” MA diss., in Communications Studies, Leeds University, (Sep. 1, 2003), 2.
53 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 2.
54 Arnheim, Rudolf. Art and Visual Perception. London: Faber and Faber, 1969, quoted in Nojima, Yuka. “Black and White Photography,” 2. Arnheim, Rudolf. Film as Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957; quoted in Nojima, Yuka. “Black and White Photography,” 2.
55 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 2.
56 Barthes, Roland. La Chambre Claire: Note sur la Photographie. Paris: Gallimard, 1980, 22; quoted in Nojima, Yuka. “Black and White Photography,” 4.
26 argues that Barthes’s division of photographic intentions, offers a closer look at the functions of photography in three practices: the functions as we take photographs, the functions as we look at photographs, and functions that photography compels us to see.
L’operator - In Photography: A Middle-brow Art, Pierre Bourdieu emphasizes the social function of photography and sees the significant correspondence between the introduction of photographs into the ritual of the grand ceremonies of family life and the rise of the social importance of those ceremonies. Photographic practices internalize the social function and it solemnizes and immortalizes the high points of family life, thus reinforces the integration of the family group.57 Nojima argues that despite “a difference of photographic activities between rural areas and urban areas, the function conferred upon the photographic image remains the same: the emphasis is on the picture produced rather than on the means of producing it, and the photographic images are not of individuals but of their social roles.”58 Photography captures the moment that will soon be non-existent in the future while preserving memories.
In addition to Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag,59 explores the psychology in the process of producing photographs as well as the intention of capturing the moment to serve social roles. Photography, she states, is practiced as a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power. Sontag examines why people take more photographs when traveling in foreign lands, and reveals that photographs certify the
57 Bourdieu, Pierre. Photography: A Middle-brow Art, trans. Shaun Whiteside. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996; quoted in Nojima, Yuka, “Black and White Photography,” 4.
58 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 5.
59 Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 1979; quoted in Nojima, Yuka “Black and White Photography,” 4.
27 experience offering evidence that the trip was made, but also a way of refusing it at the same time, by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. 60 Nojima argues that the act of taking photographs “eases the feelings of disorientation experienced during travels by giving shape to experience.” 61 Sontag argues that photography gives tourists something to do
“like a friendly imitation of work.” 62 As Nojima argues, that the camera transforms one person into something active while the others remain passive in front of events. The photographer both looks and preserves, and uses the camera to take possession of the places they visit.63 In The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, Daniel J.
Boorstin states: “Using a camera, every man can feel somehow that what he has made is “his” image, even though it has almost nothing of him in it.”64 In his Camera Culture,
Halla Beloff argues that, as one’s social life becomes more fragmented there is a bigger need to express ourselves in photographs and reinforce our fragile identity “to show that we exist” and “to show that we can create something in photograph.”65 Beloff also indicates that “photography comes in three kinds: art photography, documentary photography, personal photography.” 66 He also states that the photographer is an agent who looks at the world and captures “some residue of their looking” and that “their look
60 Sontag, Susan. On Photography, 10; quoted in Nojima, Yuka, “Black and White Photography,” 6.
61 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 6.
62 Sontag, On Photography, 10; quoted in Nojima, Yuka, “Black and White Photography,” 6.
63 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 6.
64 Boorstin. Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. (New York: Vintage Book, 1992), 170-1.
65 Beloff, Halla. Camera Culture. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 22.
66 Beloff, Camera Culture, 1.
28 depends on their temperament and personal experience, but more importantly on the purpose for which they take the picture.” 67 The act of taking photographs is to preserve the past on space and use them as reminders in the future.
Le Spectator - As a second step to the study of photography, the spectator what is photographed is crucial. Boorstin explains what we expect from photography: “to give a narrative symbolism, and as a sign or, more precisely, an allegory”. 68 Nojima argues that the main standard to judge the value of photography is the fulfillment of the social function and this social function is directed by the genres of each photograph. 69 “Le
Spectrum”, or the object photographed - the third step of the study has its origins from
“spectacle” and adds what all the photographs have: the return of the dead. 70 Susan
Sontag indicates that photography itself is “the inventory of mortality: it shows the vulnerability of lives heading toward their own destruction, and this link between photography and death haunts all photographs of people.” 71 Sontag also explains the relation of photos with the past: “Photographs turn the past into an object of tender regard, scrambling moral distinctions and disarming historical judgements by the generalized pathos of looking at time past.”72 They serve as reminders of the past and
67 Beloff, Camera Culture, 45.
68 Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. (New York: Vintage Book, 1992), 91.
69 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 7.
70 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 8.
71 Sontag, On Photography, 71; quoted in Nojima, Yuka, “Black and White Photography,” 8.
72 Sontag, On Photography, 71; quoted in Nojima, Yuka, “Black and White Photography,” 8.
29 preserve what has become non-existent while proving that the object or subject was existent somewhere in time and space.
On the other hand, Graham Clark argues that “the ‘realism’ of photography is part of a structure of illusion to which we accede,” and says that, especially in the traditional documentary, “we equate black-and-white photographs with ‘realism’ and the authentic” and “the presence of color lessens the sense of the photograph’s veracity as an image and witness.” 73 Black and white photography increases the viewer’s interpretation.
More importantly, as Nojima explains on the key importance of the monochrome colors of chiaroscuro: “black-and-white photography has the stamp of history and therefore it offers temporal remoteness and sense of authority as well as emotional distancing.” She continues: “This alienation from immediate sensation allows black-and-white photography to give sense of abstraction and neutralization, which, combined with sense of authority and authenticity, confer scientific and intellectual tone on black-and- white photography.” 74 Indeed, the latter focuses on form and shape through the representation of shades and all the gradation of grey. André Kertész says that grey is the color in which all the colors reassembled into one, and that grey is the only photographic subject. 75
73 Clark, Graham. The Photography. (Oxford University Press, 1997), 23.
74 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 30.
75 For instance, André Kertész says that grey is the color in which all the colors reassembled into one, and that grey is the only photographic subject. see Kertész, André. La Tour Eiffel, Paris, 1929, (photograph in monochrome)
30 Seeing in Monochrome
When the American photographer Ansel Adams photographed landscape he preferred “the more abstract qualities of black and white, which, he felt, emphasized the photographer’s interpretive vision,”76 as the color photographs seemed ‘too saccharine and looked the kind of “super postcards.” Colored photography is associated more with the world of tourism or travel brochures. Thus, black and white photography is abstract and as such allows for an intellectual examination since one needs to develop the ability to see in black and white and understand the relationships of monochrome tones within a scene.77 Indeed, this thoughtful examination that Adams refers to is shaped by history, the past as well as culture and society. Some notable monochrome photographs belong with Peter Henry Emerson “Gathering Water Lilies” (1886) and Julia Margaret
Cameron’s works which have been appreciated for its nostalgic pre-Raphael character
Mary Hiller (1872). Other monochrome photographers include Garry Winogrand Portrait of Marilyn during filming of The Seven Year Itch (1954) and “New York” (1968). While monochrome colors in paintings are used for a strong dramatic effect as dark and light elements play upon each other for depth and dimensionality, in photography they are associated with: “masterpiece from the past, with [a] sense of intellectual and artistic process” which are “more suitable for art photography than color, for its focus on shape, form, perspective, texture and light and shade.” 78 The latter statement, in particular,
76 Spaulding, Jonathan. Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography. (Berkeley, LA and London: University of California Press, 1995), 275.
77 Spaulding, Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography, 275.
78 Nojima, “Black and White Photography,” 35.
31 seems to have the perfect answer to the question of why black and white photography is still high in demand.
* * *
Knowing about the historical and cultural significance of the chiaroscuro in photography, I will further explore how this technique is a key element in those literary texts specifically using it. In chapter two I will apply the chiaroscuro to Sebald’s images whereas in chapter three I am going to analyze his use of light/dark elements in his prose. I will explain how Sebald himself plays with the chiaroscuro in order to create visual intensity and depth. Yet, prior to doing that I will next explain how the concept can be applied in general to theatre and a variety of texts in order to have a deeper understanding how this technique works. The study of the chiaroscuro lighting in theatre is in particular interesting and offers a better understanding of how the use of one solitary light source produces stark visual contrasts between light and shadow. This minimal lighting may seem insufficient yet it gives dramatic results since it creates three dimensional depths especially if the subject chosen is a human body. Indeed, in theatre, as we are going to see in the subsequent chapter, it is crucial to rely on one-lighting source (like in Rembrandt) in order to achieve the chiaroscuro effect and to produce different emotions while on stage.
32 Application of the Chiaroscuro Concept to Theater/plays.
Previously we discussed the significance of chiaroscuro or monochrome tones in paintings and (black and white) photography. Now we are going to explore how this play of light and shadow is represented in theatre. So why chiaroscuro and theatre? While analyzing Rembrandt’s painting “The Anatomy Lesson”, the great master creates a theatrical visual imagery and heightens the drama with chiaroscuro. As I mentioned earlier, such dramatic effects give the painting a general impression of a public anatomy, as do the gazes of those guild members which seem to focus on an audience. The atmosphere created with the members and Dr. Tulp surrounding the dead body of Aris
Kindt appear as if they are onstage. The viewer is left with an impression that the dark attired men are ‘puppets’ (if I may label them so) and Rembrandt is the master of these puppets. And this is true for Rembrandt has drenched the body of the victim (with whom he identifies) in light by placing him at the centre of attention. This interplay of light and dark adds to the theatrical quality of the painting. In theatre the chiaroscuro technique helps highlight what needs to be at the centre of attention and what needs to stay in the dark and to what purpose. In his Lectures on Art, and Poems (1850) and The Course of
Empire, Voyage of Life, and Other Pictures of Thomas Cole (1853) Washington Allston and Louis L. Noble have considered chiaroscuro an important part of the language of art. 79 In her “Light and Darkness in Usigli’s Corona de sombra” (1988) which is an "anti- historical" 80 account of the brief reign of Maximilian and Carlota in Mexico, Kirsten Nigro
79 Allston, Washington. Lectures on Art, and Poems. (New York, 1850), 152, 154; and Noble, Louis L. The Course of Empire, Voyage of Life, and Other Pictures of Thomas Cole. (New York, 1853), 116, quoted in Ringe, Donald A. “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper’s Fiction”. In PMLA. Vol. 78, No. 4 (Sep. 1963), 349.
80 Usigli discusses the question of “anti-history” in his “Prólogo después de la ombra,” Corona de sombra. (Mexico: Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos, 1947), 228-31.
33 explores the significance of the use of chiaroscuro in theatre. She explains that “Usigli's main concern is not with what happened but rather why it happened.” 81 In fact, “as an artist and not an historian, Usigli has considerable leeway in answering such a question and thus, he focuses the action on the royal couple and lets them tell their own story, which is factual in its broad outline but fictitious in many of its smaller, more intimate details.” 82 The playwright creates an imaginary character, the Mexican historian,
Ramirez who visits the queen hours before her death in 1927. The purpose of his visit is for both of them to travel back in time and space in order to better understand the present state by visiting the past. Nigro explains that in addition to being bound together by “certain historical events and personages, the various dimensions in time and space overlap and intertwine by virtue of the constant reiteration of one motif -- that of light and darkness.” 83 As Nigro suggests, the play of light and shadow is implied by the play’s title:
the antithesis between Carlota's insanity (signified by the crown of shadows she wears during the six decades following Maximilian's execution) and the sanity she regains shortly before her death. This certainly is an important meaning attached to light and darkness, and is the one on which critics have focused most attention. But this motif assumes other meanings vital to the play's overall design and import. The dichotomy between light and darkness functions as a multivalent sign whose meanings develop, shift, and finally coalesce as the dramatic action comes to a close. 84
The interplay of light and shadow in the play is transmitted to the reader/viewer through the play's action, together with visual effects and stage directions/properties. Light and
81 Nigro, Kirsten. “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra.” In Chasqui. Vol. 17, No. 2 (Nov. 1988), 27.
82 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra.” 27.
83 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 27.
84 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 28.
34 darkness are both a graduated sign and also what Tadeusz Kowzan has called a compound sign, composed of signifiers from two or more of the sign systems that operate in a theatrical performance.85 Nigro explains that “an often recurring combination is one between lighting effects (visual sign system) and the spoken word
(linguistic sign system, along with its accompanying or distinguishing paralinguistic and kinetic sign systems). 86 For instance, in the first scenes where the play's historical flashback happens both the present and the past are contrasted:
Darkness: Past/ Europe/ Darkness/ Monarchism (Power)
Light: Future/ Mexico/ Sun/ Maximilian/ Democracy (Power) 87
This contrast of light and darkness is established when Maximilian and Carlota discuss what lies ahead for them and the fate of Mexico. Both of them “see Europe as a dark and frustrating chapter in their lives, they hardly agree as to why. Carlota's dissatisfaction is born of the position she has sought and been denied in Europe, whereas Maximilian has never even aspired to it.” 88
In another scene, the light and dark elements are used to indicate intimacy between husband and wife as it is nighttime and they are talking by candlelight.
Maximilian has told his wife that mutual love should guide their action in ruling Mexico.
Nigro explains that it is the darkness which:
85 Kowzan, Tadeusz. “El signo en el teatro -- introducción a la semiología del arte del espectáculo.” In El teatro y su crisis actual. (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1969), 25-60; quoted in Nigro, Kristen. “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 28.
86 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 28.
87 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 28.
88 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 28.
35 brings husband and wife together, yet although they may join together physically, they are worlds apart spiritually and ideologically. The initial polarity between light (future- Mexico) and darkness (past Europe) now assumes other connotations that will develop further as the dramatic action progresses; more specifically, those that oppose unity/separation and sight/blindness, connotations that will be communicated repeatedly by the use of light on stage, particularly by the candles that are ever-present throughout the play's staging. 89
Maximilian is a European emperor in Mexico and the Mexicans themselves view his role in terms totally different from his own. Although “they hope Maximilian will bring peace to their long troubled country, they expect him to do so by maintaining the status quo.
For them progress means the cultural, economic and political elitism of monarchical
Europe.” and “for the Mexican oligarchy, their future (light) depends on upholding the old order (darkness in Maximilian's estimation), for any significant breakdown in it would plunge them into what they consider darkness” 90 as no change or no reform is expected. Yet, in Mexico, as in Europe, “the same dark forces defeat him, although
Maximilian never totally despairs. His one ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak political panorama.” 91 Carlota on the other hand, despite her thirst for power is scared of losing her husband even though she accuses him of being blind to the political situation. Thus, the contrast between the ending of this scene and the previous one is significant. The light of the candles are put out in haste whereas before Maximilian had put them out one by one in a peaceful manner. They are not sure of what awaits them and their empire in the future. “Their exit into the night and the sudden total darkness that engulfs the empty stage foreshadow the eventual separation between Carlota and Maximilian, as well as
89 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 29.
90 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 29.
91 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 30.
36 the inevitable failure of their Empire.” 92 Later in the play it is indicated that the Empire is in danger of collapsing as both Maximilian and Carlota are distancing themselves more from each other with the passing of time.
Maximilian and Carlota's impotence and separation are brought to light when the royal couple is seated on their respective thrones in the Castle's Council Chamber and rise to receive the politicians and military advisers. During their discussion, it becomes clear that the Empire is powerless and Carlota has urged her husband to save the
Empire even if it means killing mercilessly. At this time both Maximilian and Carlota are at the foot of their thrones embracing one another as the husband collapses. The slow extinguishing of the candles, Nigro explains, creates a somber, nearly funereal mood, anticipating the total and final darkening of their hopes for the future.93
Light: Sight/Truth/Sanity
Darkness: Blindness/Falsity/Insanity 94
In the course of the play Carlota believes her husband to be “sightless, unable to grasp the reality of their situation. Yet it is obvious to Maximilian and to those observing her, both on and off stage, that Carlota is so blinded by her quest for power that she sees little, if anything, of the truth.”95 When Maximilian sends her to Europe it is to protect her from a certain death, not that she would be successful in defending their
Empire in Mexico. During her trip to Europe Carlota's undergoes a crisis and is finally
92 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 30.
93 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 30.
94 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 31.
95 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 31.
37 able to understand who has been blind and in the darkness. Napoleon refuses to help her and in Vatican Pope Pius IX tries to stay away from any responsibility. As Nigro explains: “once all the European powers have left Maximilian to fend for himself, Carlota learns, albeit too late, what he had known all along -- that the Old World political system itself is corrupt, and not just inequitable in the way that it delegates power, as Carlota had once claimed.” and finally “for the first time Carlota sees very clearly the truth about herself, about Europe and about her husband. She undergoes a triple illumination of sorts and in this way, the association between light/sight/truth/ and darkness/blindness/ falsity is firmly established.”96 After realizing that she is the queen who has worn the crown of shadows, Carlota realizes that she cannot save Maximilian from his death. She regains her sight but the light blinds her and she falls into the darkness of insanity.
Carlota is not completely lost in those shadows but her “vision has focused inwardly, which explains her obsession with the candles that must at all times surround her” and it is “clear that from Carlota's frame of reference these lighted candles have a more important correlation and are inextricably bound up with her memory of Maximilian and her realization that all along he was the light that should have guided her.”97 As Nigro explains later “the doctor has diagnosed the exact cause of Carlota's prolonged insanity
-- the eye-opening and blinding truths revealed to her in Europe in 1866.”98 Carlota’s vision is clearer than it had been decades ago and she understands that she had been the one in the darkness. Her dark past in Mexico “is still a horrifying memory for her.”99
96 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 31.
97 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 31-2.
98 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 32.
99 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 32.
38 By traveling back into the past, Carlota is supposed to comprehend what has happened and why and regain her sight and sanity.
Light: Sanity/Epiphany/Historical truth Darkness: Insanity/Ignorance/Historical falsity 100 Carlota has finally removed her crown of shadows and now sees Maximilian's prophetic vision of the decline and fall of Europe's monarchies.
Maximilian's execution is the only scene in the play's flashback that takes place in daylight. With sixty years' hindsight it becomes clear that Maximilian was indeed a torchbearer (as Carlota last saw him) in Mexico's historical process” 101 Only in death can Carlota share her insight with Maximilian. In the end of the play, “the candles have been extinguished one by one; a brilliant sunshine then cascades through the balcony doors, enveloping Carlota in a halo of light.”102 It is interesting to know what Herbert
Lindenberger has noted when he states: "The powerful effect that a drama on a people's own national history can exert is often lost when it is presented in a foreign environment, for this effect is predicated on the audience's awareness that it is witnessing the enactment of its own past."103 Mexican audience will react to “Corona de sombra in a particular way and their responses necessarily will be conditioned by the historical period to which they belong, thereby adding yet another temporal dimension to the
100 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 33.
101 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 34.
102 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 34.
103 Lindenberger, Herbert. Historical Drama. The Relation of Literature and Reality. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 7.
39 play.”104 Corona de sombra is not so much a play about specific historical personages and events as it is about history itself -- how it is forged, and how in each past moment is contained a nation’s present and its future. 105 The latter message is transmitted to the viewer through the play's action and the interplay of light and shadow which, according to Nigro, are a graduated sign composed of signifiers from two or more of the sign systems that operate in a theatrical performance. In the play, for instance, the present and the past are contrasted through darkness/past/monarchy and light/future/ democracy. The chiaroscuro technique used in this play is not about the clear-cut images of dark and light but about the shades of grey in-between. As I will argue more in depth in the next chapter, the meaning behind the chiaroscuro is not created by a stark black and white distinction, but by writing how one gradually merges with the other.
104 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 34.
105 Nigro, “Light and Darkness in Usigli's Corona de Sombra,” 34.
40 Application of the Chiaroscuro Concept to Literary Texts
In the previous section, while Nigro explores the interplay of light and shadow in theatre/play has a strong visual effect, Joel Hancock explains what it means to apply the chiaroscuro concept to literary text in his article on “Animalization and Chiaroscuro
Techniques: Descriptive Language in “La ciudad y los perros” (”The City and the
Dogs.”)106 In his article he analyzes two main themes of animalization and the chiaroscuro techniques of a once-controversial classic novel by Mario Vargas Llosa The
City of Dogs (1962). The novel portrays the brutal living conditions in Lima, Peru which is considered the most corrupt city in the world.107
Most of the action takes place at Leoncio Prado military school where cruelty and violence are at its core together with cheating, contraband and murder. Leoncio Prado wants to transform the boys into disciplined men to defend the nation. Yet, the cadets are named dogs, Jaguar, Boa, Rooster, Monkey and so on.108 Hancock explains that apart from the descriptions of people and animals, are “the depictions of the settings, particularly the environment of the military school and the immediate atmosphere which absorbs each character as he participates in a specific act.”109 The specific technique that “predominates in the numerous descriptions of the locale is based on the
106 Hancock, Joel. “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros" ("The City and the Dogs"). In Latin American Literary Review. Vol. 4, No. 7 (Fall - Winter, 1975), 37-47.
107 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 38.
108 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 38.
109 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 43.
41 contrastive use of light and darkness. It is the impressionistic chiaroscuro technique of the plastic arts applied in writing: the interplay of marked light and shade contrasts employed for dramatic or symbolic effect.”110 Hancock explains that he is not the first critic to write on the chiaroscuro effects of Llosa’s novel. José Miguel Oviedo111 “was the first to single out this stylistic device utilized in the portrayal of the milieu, saying it served as a contrast to the flashy narration of the explosive events.” 112 According to
Hancock, the chiaroscuro effect is used to contribute to the intensity of key scenes in
Llosa’s novel. In fact, this technique achieves more than just a contrastive effect. 113 For instance, in the first pages of The City and the Dogs, the military school appears to be engulfed in a fog and and as a result: “objects are undiscernible -- everything is seen as sombras [shadows!, manchones [dark spots], tinieblas [darkness], and described with adjectives like borroso [blurred], descolorido [discolored], disimulado [dissimulated].” 114
As a result, the “sensorial stimuli are changed; they are blurred and muted by the haze.
A mood is established. The place is cloaked in an aura of unreality and mystery. 115
Hancock explains that such a description is offered in the opening scenes of the novel
110 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 43.
111 Llosa, Mario Vargas. La invención de una realidad [Mario Vargas Llosa; The Invention of a Reality] (Barcelona: Barrai Editores, 1970), 104-5. Oviedo also identifies light as a symbol of the untenable, the world of others (e.g. power and social harmony).
112 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 43.
113 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 43.
114 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 43.
115 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 43.
42 when cadet Cava is stalking across the campus on his way to steal a copy of the chemistry exam:
Upon reaching the end, he stared with anxiety; the track looked interminable and mysterious, framed by the symmetric lamp-posts around which fog agglomerated. Out of the light's reach, he guessed, from the mass of shadows, the location of the open areas covered with grass...He walked at a fast pace, hidden in the shadows of the buildings on the left, eluding the spots of light. The explosion of the waves and the undertow of the sea which extended at the foot of the school, at the end of the cliffs, muffled the noise of the boots. When he arrived at the officer's quarters, he shuddered and hastened his step. Later, he cut across the track becoming buried in the darkness of the open field.116 There is a mysterious feeling created by the contrasts of lights and shadows which surround the cadet on his mission. Hancock explains how the chiaroscuro technique in literature is also used effectively in a spotlighting function. He states: “The illumination of light on a person or object can have one of many results: as in the theater, it attracts the viewers' attention; it can soften or harden; or it can attribute some type of emotional meaning to the object.” 117 In an example which highlights the spotlighting function,
Hancock explains that the cadets are gathered in a circle shooting dice to determine who will carry out the theft. The light shining on them is ironic because “their faces are softened as they perform a "hard' 'deed; the white dice contrast not only with the dirty floor, but with the "black" plan as well.”118
In his article, Hancock discusses how the “dark hues and shades are used effectively in descriptions created by what might be labeled a reverse-spotlight
116 Llosa, Mario Vargas. La Ciudad Y Los Perros. (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1983), 13.
117 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 44.
118 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 44.
43 technique.”119 He explains the following example, where Teresa, one of the characters of the novel, passes under a street light which shines on the ribbon in her hair. Her walking is portrayed in terms of light and dark. She is devoured by darkness after she moves away from the light: "The blue ribbon seemed black and it blended with her hair; it grew prominent as she passed under the street lamp, then it was devoured by the darkness."120 Yet, the most widespread and interesting use of the chiaroscuro is its function as a symbol, Hancock explains, because “there are moments when the varied shades of light and darkness carry a connotative value.” 121 This forces the reader to study the text carefully in order to be able to interpret it. The following passage of the
Leoncio Prado has a deeper meaning than the cadets’ activity at twilight. It is a strong criticism of the place and its people:
It was the ambiguous, indecisive hour when the afternoon and the evening balance out and neutralize each other. A half shadow destroyed the appearance of the barracks, respected the profiles of the cadets covered with thick coats, but erased their features, gave an ashen color to the patio which was light gray, the walls, the track for parades which was almost white and the open and deserted fields. The hypocritical light likewise falsified movement and sound: everyone seemed to walk faster or slower in the dying light, and speak through their teeth, mumbling or whining, and when two bodies were together, they seemed to caress each other, fight.122
Hancock explains that initially “this paragraph would appear to be a curiously lyrical description of life at the military school” yet, “after careful study, however, we see that
119 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 45.
120 Llosa, La Ciudad Y Los Perros/The City and the Dogs, 91.
121 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 45.
122 Llosa, Mario Vargas. La Ciudad Y Los Perros/The City and the Dogs, 317.
44 the description has a peculiar twist with a devastating effect.”123 He argues that there is a sense of “the very distinct message concerning the falseness of the place and the lack of individuality of the students. These ideas are communicated by the special use of lights and shadows contained in the description.”124 Hancock argues that “the light is qualified with adjectives like ambiguous, indecisive, false, dying” and the “darkness strikes a blow as it erases the features of the young men.”125 This portrayal is a critique of their character. As “an ashen shadow is cast on the buildings, the true nature of the
Leoncio Prado is expressed in the paragraph. This is the chiaroscuro technique at its best.” 126 Hancock argues that “darkness and light can often express the thought, deeds, or the personality of an individual. Subtly, the contrasts in light represent more than visual depictions.” 127 For instance, in The City and The Dogs, Teresa, one of the characters in the novel is presented as sweet and innocent, but she has evil thoughts:
"A new element, still unprecise, appears in her eyes: a malicious light."128
The technique of chiaroscuro is also effectively used to describe nature together with its phenomena which “have the power to presage the outcome or result of an
123 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 46.
124 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 46.
125 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 46.
126 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 46.
127 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 46.
128 Llosa, La Ciudad Y Los Perros/The City and the Dogs. 318.
45 action. Events are foreshadowed and even evaluated.” 129 For instance, the morning of one of the character’s (Arana's) tragic assassination is overcast and and looks dark. The officer in charge of his death awakens when it is pitch black outside: "Lieutenant
Gamboa opened his eyes : at the window of his room only the uncertain light of the lamps peered in ; the sky was black!"130 Juxtaposed to the dark skies on the day of the assassination another dawn in the life of Gamboa is described: “From the patio he noticed that the morning had cleared up: the sky displayed its cleanness, in the horizon one could make out some white clouds, immobile over the flashing sea."131 The dark sky from the morning of the assassination is sharply contrasted with the clear one in the latter example.
Another instance of the powers of light and dark technique is when Ricardo Arana recalls his childhood days in Chiclayo but is soon awakened to the present time in Lima:
“He evoked the sun, the white light that every year bathed the streets of the city and kept them warm and hospitable, the excitement of Sundays, the outings to Eten, the yellow sand that scorched, the very pure blue sky” but now “he gazed upward: gray clouds everywhere, not a clear spot. He returned to his home, walking slowly, dragging his feet like an old man.”132 Hancock explains that the contrast here has an obvious effect: Arana's memories of his childhood in Chiclayo bring him happiness. On this day, however, he finds Lima dark and dreary, reflecting his feeling for the situation at the
129 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 46.
130 Llosa, La Ciudad Y Los Perros/The City and the Dogs, 153.
131 Llosa, La Ciudad Y Los Perros/The City and the Dogs, 295.
132 Llosa, La Ciudad Y Los Perros/The City and the Dogs, 152.
46 moment. The two pictures correspond to his emotions.133 On a last note, he explains the significance of light/dark elements in literature: “The chiaroscuro technique thus employs its interplay of light and darkness to create moods, highlight certain features for special attention, sketch grotesque caricatures, and represent a concept in symbolic terms.”134
Whereas the “use of animalization - the description of people and their behavior - this impressionistic style of writing communicates with similar power the basic views and themes of the novel.”135 The interplay of light and shadow and the use of personification give The City and the Dogs a symbolic value.
In a similar fashion as Joel Hancock, Donald A. Ringe explains in his
“Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction” how the light and dark elements of the chiaroscuro technique are used as an artistic spectacle in James Fenimore
Cooper’s fiction. Ringe has attempted to explain chiaroscuro, light, dark, and shade in the fictional texts of the American author. He states:
One important painterly technique used by the novelist, however, has yet to be treated in detail: the chiaroscuro,136 or arrangement of light and shadow, that he, like the painters, included in his delineation of the natural scene. Many readers of Cooper, no doubt, have perceived the effectiveness of Cooper's carefully lighted descriptions and comment upon
133 Hancock, Joel. “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 47.
134 Hancock, Joel. “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 47.
135 Hancock, “Animalization and Chiaroscuro Techniques: Descriptive Language in "La ciudad y los perros," 47.
136 Ringe explains that although chiaroscuro is, strictly speaking, a term most appropriately used in the discussion of painting, so many words in the vocabulary of criticism may be equally applied to both the graphic and literary arts that this one may perhaps be used in the discussion of literature A writer, after all, delineates a scene and draws a character, and the Hudson River painters discussed the "poetry" of painting.
47 them has, indeed, appeared in print. The technique, however, is [very] important in Cooper's art.137
The arrangement of the monochrome colors is considered crucial in landscape paintings and in literature depicting landscape. Ringe explains how in his "Letters on Landscape
Painting," Asher B. Durand, a member of the Hudson River group, advises the beginning painter to "look at all objects more with reference to light and dark than color," pointing out that" a fine engraving gives us all the greatest essentials of a fine picture,"even though it lacks the final reinforcement of color.138 Ringe reinforces that it is “the arrangement of light and dark, in other words, that expresses the fundamental meaning.”139
Ringe explains that Cooper was familiar with Hudson River painting and its
European tradition therefore chiaroscuro was understood as an important principle.
Cooper himself describes his lighted scenes in a way which show that he was aware of their parallels in painting. Ringe comments how in his The Deerslayer (1841), Cooper writes of the "dark Rembrandt looking hemlocks" that contrast sharply with the mirror- like brightness of the Glimmerglass and describes the camp of the Hurons, in which
Rivenoak's features are illumined by the fire light as, "a picture that Salvator Rosa would have delighted to draw."140 In The Headsman (1833), the outlines of the mountain summits dark and distinct against a pearly sky, are "drawn in those waving lines
137 Ringe, Donald A. “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction”. In PMLA. Vol. 78, No. 4 (Sep. 1963), 349.
138 Durand, Asher B. "Letters on Landscape Painting," In The Crayon, I. (New York: Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1885), 66-67.
139 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 349.
140 Cooper, James Fenimore. The Deerslayer. With illustrations by F. O. C. Darley. (New York: W.A. Townsend and Company, 1861), 33 & 300.
48 that the pencil of Raphael would have loved to sketch."141 Indeed, in the same book, he describes a scene as if it were literally a painting:
A vast hill-side lay basking in the sun, which illuminated on its rounded swells a hundred long stripes of grain in every stage of verdure ,resembling so much delicate velvet that was thrown in a variety of accidental faces to the light while the shadows ran away, to speak technically from this foyer de lumiere of the picture in gradations of dusky russet and brown until the colonne de vigueur was obtained in the deep black cast from the overhanging branches of a wood of larch in the depths of some ravine in to which the sight with difficulty penetrated. 142
Ringe argues here that intended is the parallel between the author’s use of light and dark and the chiaroscuro of the artists that he sometimes describes his views as
"pictures" that he has actually "painted." Cooper’s other works in which the interplay of light and shadow is at the core include: The Pathfinder (1840), Home as Found (1838),
The Pioneers (1823), The Two Admirals (1842) The Sea Lions (1849), Homeward
Bound (1838). In these books the reader finds long and descriptive passages of landscape in which light and dark reinforce the beauty of the scenery.
Ringe explains that the “purely aesthetic purpose, however, was not the only one that these elements [of chiaroscuro] were designed to fulfill” he continues “[f]or both painters and writers, the external scene was pregnant with meaning, which they, through faithful delineation of the landscape, hoped to convey to the viewer or reader. Such elements as light and shadow, therefore, were often included in both paintings and descriptive writing to serve a symbolic function.143 Another example where the
141 Cooper, James Fenimore. The Headsman or The Abbaye des Vignerons: A Tale. With Illustrations by F.O.C. Darley. (New York: W.A. Townsend, 1859), 83.
142 Cooper, James Fenimore. The Headsman or The Abbaye des Vignerons: A Tale, 338.
143 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 351.
49 chiaroscuro elements have a symbolic function are in The Spy (1821).144 Ringe explains that as Harper (Washington) watches the sudden clearing of an autumnal storm, the bright sun breaking through in the west while in the east the clouds "hung around the horizon in awful and increasing darkness, "he sees in the sublime scene an emblem of hope that the "struggle in which [his] country is engaged" will soon be succeeded by a period of peace.145 Ringe states that “the symbol, of course, is a trite one, and its use in the characterization of Harper rather heavy - handed. But it does illustrate Cooper's early use of a painterly technique that he was later to handle more subtly.”146 Another example of light and dark elements are from the Homeward Bound (1838) where the
“dull light" gleaming amid the “gloomy and driving clouds,” give “an appearance of infinite space” to a seascape. 147
One of the most significant uses of chiaroscuro in Cooper’s fiction is in The Bravo
(1831)148 which is a social and political novel about Venice. Ringe explains that “the fundamental pattern of light and dark is as broad as that which reinforces the structure of the later book, but the various elements function much more intimately in the action of the tale.” 149 As Ringe explains, that “the general pattern of light and dark is easily discerned, for Cooper arranges his bright and shadowy scenes for maximum pictorial
144 Cooper, James Fenimore. The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. Hurd & Houghton, 1870.
145 Cooper, The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground, 57-8.
146 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 351.
147 Cooper, James Fenimore. Homeward Bound or The Chase: a Tale of the Sea. With illustrations by F.O.C. Darley. (New York : W.A. Townsend, 1860), 95.
148 Cooper, James Fenimore. The Bravo: a Tale. With illustrations by F. O. C. Darley. Hurd and Houghton, 1872.
149 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 353.
50 effect. The first seven chapters of The Bravo, for example, take place at night, and
Cooper carefully paints his scenes in subdued tones, the shadowy courts and squares of Venice lit by torches and bathed in the soft glow of the moon.” 150 Yet, chapter eight, begins with a passage that is intended to impress: "A brighter day than that which succeeded the night last mentioned never dawned upon the massive domes, the gorgeous palaces, and the glittering canals of Venice." 151 Cooper goes on in this path for the subsequent three chapters. Ringo explains that Cooper describes the bright and colorful public ceremonies-the marriage with the Adriatic, and the various regattas- only to return in chapter eleven to the dark and subdued tones with which he began the novel. The writer repeats this contrast several times in the novel to bring about the major pattern of light and dark elements which dominates his work.
Out of the chiaroscuro elements, the primary tone of The Bravo, however, is the darkness. Ringe explains:
Twenty-five of the thirty-one chapters take place at night; the remaining six provide the highlights that intensify the prevailing gloom. Within the darkened chapters, moreover, Cooper introduces only dim or fitful light, the description of Venice in the first paragraphs of the book. As the story opens, just after sunset, the moon has already risen and bathes the tops of the public buildings - the Ducal Palace and the Cathedral of St. Mark-with a "solemn and appropriate light."152 Tall columns are silhouetted against the evening sky, while their bases lie in shadow. Beneath the arches of the buildings that face the piazza, lamps and torches cast a brilliant glare that contrast sharply with the mellow glow of the moon. Hundreds of masked people hurry to and fro in the light of the torches - a strange and motley multitude bent on gaiety and pleasure.153
150 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 354.
151 Cooper, Homeward Bound or The Chase: a Tale of the Sea, 114.
152 Cooper, The Bravo, 11.
153 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 354.
51 This description recalled at intervals throughout the book - the critic explains - (and repeated at the conclusion) establishes the tone for the chapters that follow and suggests the symbolic values of each of the elements presented. For instance, “the darkness and silence of night are most frequently associated with the buildings of the state, the homes of the senators, and the workings of Venetian policy.”154 Quite early in his book Cooper describes the doge's palace as “dark and silent but for the rays of the moon and the footfall of sentinels it becomes" a fit emblem of that mysterious power which was known to preside over the fortunes of Venice and her citizens."155 Ringe comments how the palace court itself in contrast to the bright and colorful piazza, is in contrast described as dark and sinister. Even the homes of important politicians and senators take part in this darkness. For instance - as Ringe explains - the palace of
Signor Gradenigo, who is a member of the secret Council of Three, depicts "more than common gloom," and, like the Palazzo Ducale (doge's palace), represents the Venetian state. Within its walls, Cooper writes,"the noiseless steps and the air of silent distrust among the domestics, added to the gloomy grandeur of the apartments, rendered the abode no bad type of the Republic itself."156 Ringe comments that official Venice lives and acts in symbolic darkness.
In The Bravo Cooper describes the secret tribunal as the real power in the state.
Ringe explains how twice in the novel characters are summoned before the Council of
Three and each time the dimness of the scene suggests the "gloomy and secret
154 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 354.
155 Cooper, The Bravo, 46.
156 Cooper, The Bravo, 67.
52 duties"157 that the council itself conducts. In one passage, Ringe recalls how the questioning of old Antonio is significant because Cooper plays with the light and dark images especially when the scene darkens as Antonio is brought to the council. He is led through the "dimmer and broken light of the court," along the "gloomy gallery,"and
"through many dimly lighted and obscure passages," until he arrives at an apartment" of a dusky color, which the feeble light rendered still more gloomy"158 Ringe describes how Antonio, admitted to the council chamber, finds himself in a room draped in black and lighted by a single lamp. All the doors are concealed by the somber hangings which give ''one general and chilling aspect of gloom to the whole scene."159 Ringe explains that the masked council members who are sitting across the room, are dressed one in robes of black, and the other in a robe of crimson.160
These men hold indeed the power of life and death and they are the supreme power in Venice, whom even the doge cannot disobey. Since they act in secret, they only pretend in public to believe in justice. They are concerned only with the protection of the senatorial class and as a result, they do kill to maintain their power. Ringe comments that it is truly appropriate, to associate the color black with these men and their institutions. Thus, as Ringe argues: “their homes as well as the public buildings of
Venice should suggest the ugly truth that lies concealed behind the imposing facades which these men and their state present to the world.”161
157 Cooper, The Bravo, 409.
158 Cooper, The Bravo, 161-163.
159 Cooper, The Bravo, 172.
160 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 354.
161 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 355.
53 Because of Venice’s unscrupulous corruption acted “under the cover of darkness” the innocent old Antonio must be drowned in the Lagunes late at night, therefore, “for the truth of Venice, Cooper clearly implies, is unremitted gloom.”162 Cooper uses also the full light of day to depict the public ceremonies of Venice. Ringe explains how the author describes “the glittering canals, the brilliant spectacles, and the magnificent pageantry with obvious relish, but the careful reader perceives the symbolic value of the sunlight.”163 The ceremony of the marriage with the Adriatic, (a symbolic act of the doge to express the Venetian rule of the seas) is ironic because the Venetian power had already started to decline and the glory of the celebration is only a pretense. Thus, as
Ringe argues: “the reader soon comes to realize, therefore, that the Venice which greets his eye in the full light of day is an utterly false one, an empty show which hides the truth that the state cannot afford to reveal... Venice by daylight must therefore be equated with falsehood and hypocrisy, and interpretation well borne out by all the sunlight passages.”164 It is in day light when the state of Venice give Antonio a great funeral in order to cover for his innocence and to silence those who protested over his murder.
Two other light elements that Cooper uses to contrast with the darkness of the state are “the brilliant lamp of the piazza and the mellow glow of the moon”165 The first one represents the falsity “of the Venetian festa, the means that the bulk of the people use to escape, if only for a little while, the prying eyes and ruthless power of the ruthless
162 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 355.
163 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 355.
164 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 355.
165 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 355.
54 state” 166 The moonlight on the other hand is contrasted with the torchlight of the piazza.
Cooper writes: “While all beneath the arches was gay and brilliant with a flare of torch and lamp” the great buildings of the city were “slumbering in the more mellow glow of the moon.” The base of the campanile lay in the shadow, but a hundred feet of its grey summit received the full rays of the moon along its eastern face.” 167 And the light and
“mellow glow can penetrate even the gloomy shadows of the palace court” 168 The light and dark tones are further explained when he continues: “Occasionally the front of a palace received the rays on its heavy cornices and labored columns, the gloomy stillness of the interior of the edifice furnishing, in every such instance, a striking contrast to the richness and architectural beauty without.” 169 Thus, as Ringe argues, the light of the moon contrasts greatly with the darkness of the state of Venice and the false happiness of the piazza. The moonlight suggests the “existence of a moral order that transcends the corrupt social order of Venice.” 170 The light and darkness create a complex pattern which contribute to the whole meaning of the novel and as Ringe states “the arrangement of light and shadow plays a significant role in expressing the fundamental theme and heightening the effect of the work as a whole.” 171
Indeed, the deeper meaning behind the chiaroscuro is not produced by a strong black and white distinction, but by observing how one gradually blends with the other.
166 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 355.
167 Cooper, The Bravo, 10-11.
168 Cooper, The Bravo, 47.
169 Cooper, The Bravo, 56.
170 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 356.
171 Ringe, “Chiaroscuro as an Artistic Device in Cooper's Fiction,” 357.
55 The shades of gray create a sense of three dimensions as they give figures and landscapes shape and substance. Through the nuances of grey the subject becomes solid, not just a mere flat picture. The use of chiaroscuro in photography uses light and dark in a non-binary way, meaning that people, landscape and objects are not just black and white, but shades of grey. For instance, Rembrandt placed his figures against extremely complex shades of gray, made up of many (monochrome) tones and hues to highlight the face in the center. The use of grey shades in both painting and photography gives the artwork a symbolic quality as it allows the photographer to set up patters of both showing and hiding people, landscapes and objects, or parts of people, parts of landscapes and objects. The use of the shades of grey allows any symbolism of white/light = good, black /dark = evil to be made complex by the artist/photographer.
Notable Works of Chiaroscuro Art
Many artists of the 19th century used the monochrome colors and the shades of grey to produce memorable works of art. Notable painters include Jean Baptiste-Camille
Corot who used shades of grey to give harmony to his landscape and James McNeill
Whistler who created a unique grey for the background of his mother’s portrait.
James McNeill Whistler Portrait of his Mother
56 Whistler's arrangement of distinctive hues of grey had not only an impact on literature but also on music. The French composer Claude Debussy was heavily influenced by
Whistle’s technique of grisaille paintings when he composed his Nocturnes (an orchestral composition in three movements in 1899) which he describes as “an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color – what a study in grey would be in painting.”172 The complexity of his compositions is shaped through light and darkness as well as the variety of the tones of gray. In Five Great
French Composers: Berlioz, César Franck, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel, Debussy explains that the “title Nocturnes is to be interpreted ... in a decorative sense” because
“it is not meant to designate the usual form of the Nocturne, but rather all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word suggests.”173 For instance,
“'Nuages' (clouds) renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white.”174 Moreover,
“'Fêtes' (festivals) gives us the vibrating, dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with sudden flashes of light. There is also the episode of the procession (a dazzling fantastic vision), which passes through the festive scene and becomes merged in it.” 175 Yet the scenery background “remains resistantly the same: the festival with its blending of music and luminous dust participating in the cosmic rhythm.” In addition, “'Sirènes' (sirens) depicts the sea and its countless rhythms and presently, amongst the waves silvered by the
172 Weintraub, Stanley. Whistler: A Biography. (New York: Da Capo Press, 2001), 351.
173 Brook, Donald. Five Great French Composers: Berlioz, César Franck, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel: Their Lives and Works. (Ayer Publishing, 1977), 168.
174 Brook, Five Great French Composers, 168.
175 Brook, Five Great French Composers, 168.
57 moonlight, is heard the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on." 176
(Italics mine) The musician is describing his Nocturnes as a an interplay of light against the darkness with emphasis on the nuances of grey. It is through the arrangements of the latter that the complexity and the intricacy of his musical piece flourishes. It is said that Debussy “struggled especially with the women’s chorus included in the movement, tweaking the music to achieve a smoother blend of voices and orchestra” because
“Sirènes” is one of the most haunting uses of female voices to conclude a work, a radiant thread added to a gorgeous tapestry of sound.”177 The haunting element from the sirens’ song and the theme of “Clouds” which are gradually fading away gives value to his use of grisaille as well as the movements in-between these shades.
Just like in chiaroscuro paintings and black and white photography, in music chiaroscuro and grisaille are used for a similar purpose: to give a body of artwork substance and symbolic quality. The light/dark elements allow the artist to show
(through light) or hide (through shadow) different elements of the composition.
Rembrandt played with the light and shadow in the sense that he placed both the white and black in conversation while adjusting the shades of grey to the desired density for shape, form and texture as well as to increase or decrease emotional feelings around the subject. The viewer is compelled to look at the shades of grey to find the deeper meaning behind the composition.
176 Brook, Five Great French Composers, 168.
177 Disney, Walt. Concert Hall, 2014-15.
58 In black and white photography the idea of producing the same conversation between black and white is to make the viewer look closely in-between the shades of grey for meaning and mood. One of the most notable black and white photographers of our era is the German Alfred Eisenstaedt 178 who took the iconic picture of Joseph
Goebbels in Geneva, 1933.
Portrait of Joseph Goebbels 1933
This black and white photograph is considered to be “one of the most unflattering— portraits ever made of any high-ranking Nazi figure. In the photo, Goebbels’s bony hands grip the arms of his chair. His tense posture transmits an almost palpable enmity.
178 Cosgrove, Ben. “Behind the Picture: Joseph Goebbels Glares at the Camera, Geneva, 1933.” In Time Magazine, August 2, 2014.
59 Hunched, wary, Goebbels resembles a seething homunculus.”179 In his book entitled
Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt: A Self-Portrait, the photographer discusses how the
Goebbels picture came about:
In 1933, I traveled to Lausanne and Geneva for the fifteenth session of the League of Nations. There, sitting in the hotel garden, was Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda. He smiles, but not at me. He was looking at someone to my left. . . . Suddenly he spotted me and I snapped him. His expression changed. Here are the eyes of hate. Was I an enemy? Behind him is his private secretary, Walter Naumann, with the goatee, and Hitler’s interpreter, Dr. Paul Schmidt. . . . I have been asked how I felt photographing these men. Naturally, not so good, but when I have a camera in my hand I know no fear. 180
Eisenstaedt’s black and white photograph of the Third Reich’s minister has captured the essence of Germany’s dark past. Goebbles’ face and piercing dark sunken eyes are placed at the centre of the photograph as the other two men are not even looking into the camera. The man standing behind the minister, Goebbles’ private secretary, Walter
Naumann, attracts secondary attention even though his frowned gaze is downwards as it adds a sense of tension to the photograph. The sense of secrecy and mystery is further highlighted when the eye travels down to the minister’s face which seems to be appearing from a deep darkness created by the dark costumes of the two men surrounding him including here his dark attire as well. His hands holding tight the chair complete the triangle created by his head + hand + hand. The coldness and the haunting image of the Third Reich’s minister could not been better illustrated than in a black and white photograph. The background and the dark costumes of the three men are just solid black or crisp white which pose no visual complexity. It is the use of
179 Cosgrove, “Behind the Picture: Joseph Goebbels Glares at the Camera, Geneva, 1933.”
180 Eisenstaedt, Alfred. Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt: A Self-Portrait. London: British Broadcasting Corporation,1985, quoted in Cosgrove, Ben. “Behind the Picture: Joseph Goebbels Glares at the Camera, Geneva. 1933.” In Time Magazine, August 2, 2014.
60 chiaroscuro elements in the faces of the two men which reinforces an eerie and memorable feeling. Indeed, interplay of light and shadow enhances the haunting element in the minister’s eyes and his bony face and hands which are accentuated through the shades of gray. The standing man’s frowned gaze is etched through the chiaroscuro to highlight further the dreary element of the photograph. “Here are the eyes of hate” - Eisenstaedt says above - but “when I have a camera in my hand I know no fear” 181 to document this historical moment. Indeed, the lack of colors increases the viewer’s interpretation. As Jonathan Spaulding explains that black-and-white photography “emphasize[s] the photographer’s interpretative vision” 182 and allows for a
“critical interpretation of the viewers, for it is different from what we see in color” because the monochrome image is virtually abstract. And this abstraction requires a careful and intellectual viewing from the targeted audience. With this in mind, I am going to discuss in more detail in chapter two, how the mastery of the chiaroscuro plays a crucial role in giving the subject of the artwork shape, form and a sense of three dimensions (sculpture). I will also discuss how the light and dark elements allow the artist/Sebald to show through the light and hide through the shadow in his chosen black and white images.
181 Eisenstaedt, Alfred. Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt: A Self-Portrait. London: British Broadcasting Corporation,1985, quoted in Cosgrove, “Behind the Picture: Joseph Goebbels Glares at the Camera, Geneva. 1933.”
182 Spaulding, Jonathan. Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography. (Berkeley, LA and London: University of California Press, 1995), 275.
61 Chapter 2
Light and Dark in Sebald’s Photographs
“In black and white there are more colors than color photography, because you can use your experiences, your knowledge, and your fantasy, to put colors into black and white.” - (Anders Petersen, Swedish documentary photographer)
62 The Concept of Chiaroscuro as Applied to Sebald’s Photographs
In chapter one, I talked about the chiaroscuro in black and white photographs. In this chapter we are going to analyze this technique in Sebald’s images which are the most prominent visual feature in his prose. So the questions raised here are: why did
Sebald pepper his works with images? How did he get inspired? Historically “literature has drawn on the resources of the photographs since the inception of the latter medium” starting with “the photographic activities of Emile Zola and Lewis Carroll, through the ninetenth century fashion for photographically illustrated books” and continuing with
“more genuinely integrated text-image composites in the works of Georges Rodenbach,
André Breton, Kurt Tucholsky, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Alexander Kluge and Javier
Marías among others.”183 Sebald himself has been an admirer of Javier Marías’ remarkable fiction - J. J. Long writes - and has provided an endorsement for the cover of the English edition of the Dark Back of Time.184 Thus, for the German author the
Spanish writer has clearly been an inspiration. As a result, since Sebald’s publication of
Schwindel. Gefühle. the “German book market has experienced a sudden glut of books that incorporate photographic images.”185 Some of these authors and their work include:
Monika Maron’s Pawel’s Briefe (Pawel’s Letters, 1999), Stephan Wackwitz’s Ein
Unsichtbares Land (An Invisible Country, 2003), Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (Children of the ‘Zone’ - i.e. East Germany, 2002), the reissue of Peter Henisch’s 1975 novel Die
183 Long, J. J. “The Photograph.” In W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 46.
184 Long, “The Photograph,” 67. (Javier Marías incorporates black and white images in his prose in a similar fashion as that of Sebald.)
185 Long, “The Photograph,” 46.
63 Kleine Figur meines Vaters (The Diminutive Figure of my Father) and a series of fiction by Peter Finkelgrün.186
Photography, Authenticity and Memory
In an interview with Maya Jaggi Sebald confesses as to why he is obsessed with old photographs when he declares that: 1. they serve “as an aide-mémoire”187 and 2. they document the truth. Sebald himself has claimed that the grainy images chosen for
Die Ausgewanderten are “about ninety percent authentic.” 188 Whether this is a valid statement is questionable. Scholz explains: “the written word does not constitute an authentic document [wahres Dokument]. (Black and white) photography is the authentic document par excellence.”189 Reinforcing the idea of validity, apart from Yuka Nojima,
Walker Evans and Allan Sekula, Long argues that “the notion that a photograph is a mode of technological rather than human witnessing is taken to imply that it also possesses a greater claim to truth: the apparatus is merely a non-human recording agent that cannot lie” (48) In addition to their validity, photographs carry memories because they are a “trace of past reality that confirms the existence of a certain thing,
186 Long, “The Photograph,” 46.
187 Scholz, Erhard. “Hermann Weyl on the concept of continuum.” In Proof Theory: History and Philosophical Significance, ed. V. Hendricks; S.A. Pedersen. K.F. Jørgensen. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 195–220. 2000 quoted in Long, J. J. “The Photograph”. W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 47.
188 Angier, Carole. “Wer ist W. G. Sebald - Ein Besuch beim Autor der Ausgewanderten.’ In W. G. Sebald: Porträt. Ed. Franz Loquai. (Eggingen: Isele, 1997), 43-50; quoted in Long, J. J. “The Photograph,” 47.
189 Scholz, Erhard. “Hermann Weyl on the concept of continuum.” In Proof Theory: History and Philosophical Significance, ed. V. Hendricks; S.A. Pedersen. K.F. Jørgensen. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 195–220. 2000 quoted in Long “The Photograph,” 48.
64 person or event.” 190 Thus “every image, every ‘reality scrap’ is precious and must be conserved as a memorial to what has disappeared” because “it can serve as a corrective to the unreliability of human memory.”191 As Mark M. Anderson states: “in a country thoroughly decimated by war, where the past was ruthlessly denied, forgotten, or covered over, the surviving remnants of history provide the only possible means of gaining access to this past.”192 To reinforce Anderson’s statement, Zilcosky explains:
Sebald claims that black-and-white war pictures from around his 1944 birth year repeatedly give him a Heimatgefühl, a sense of "coming home." When he sees these images, he has "the completely clear feeling: This is where you come from. This is your territory." He thus always returns to the war's atrocities-the bombings and the Holocaust - with a sense of gloomy homecoming: as if he were the war's "child, so to speak" [als stammte ich, sozusagen, von ihm ab].193
Sebald was obsessed with old monochrome images because they had their roots deep in the ‘atrocities’ of the wars, ‘the Holocaust’ and death. Thus, not feeling at home neither in his native Germany (which he refers to as the land of the perpetrators) nor in
England (where he resided until his death), Sebald adapted ‘der Krieg’ as his ‘home’ with him being ‘ein Kriegskind.’ That is why in his prose Sebald goes to “great lengths to recover life stories that otherwise would have disappeared in family albums and obscure archives.”194 Thus, to use Malebranche’s expression, Sebald is considered to be the
190 Long, “The Photograph,” 48.
191 Anderson, Mark. M. “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald.” In The MIT Press. Vol. 106, (October, 2003), 109.
192 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 109
193 Zilcosky, John. “Disorientation, Nostalgia, and Holocaust Melodrama in Sebald’s “Austerlitz.”’ In MLN German Issue. Vol. 121, No. 3 (Apr., 2006), 696, footnote 43.
194 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 106.
65 “natural prayer of the soul” 195 due to his preference for black and white images over the colored ones. As Ted Grant states: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” 196 And this is precisely what Sebald’s grainy images capture as we are going to explore in the subsequent section.
Black and White Photography in Sebald’s Works
In Sebald’s quartet novels the incorporation of people’s black and white portraits are examples of the tracing of the past reality which are confirming the presence of an absent person or object. Let us start with some images from Die Ausgewanderten. The novel revolves around four German-Jews living in exile: Dr. Henry Selwyn, Paul
Bereyter - a teacher, Ambros Adelwarth - the narrator’s Great Uncle and Max Ferber - a painter. In the third section of the book, Adelwarth, a passionate globetrotter, embarks on a journey to explore the world together with his counterpart, Cosmo, the son of a wealthy Jewish entrepreneur living in the United States. During a visit to Constantinople they encounter a dervish boy of around twelve years of age. The boy is portrayed as
195 Malebranche, Nicolas quoted in Benjamin, Walter. “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of his Death.” In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt. (New York: Schoken Books, 1968), 134; quoted also in Anderson, Mark M. “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 106.
196 Grant, Ted. “Ted Grant Quotes.” In AZ Quotes. 2014.
66 extremely beautiful which makes Adelwarth return later that day with a photographer in order to take a photograph of the boy and preserve his memory. (Die Ausg. 199-200)
The Dervish Boy Die Ausgewanderten pg. 199
In this photograph the play of shadow and light is significant because it gives the figure substance and allows the photographer to set up patterns of showing and hiding parts of the background and the face of the subject. This black and white image uses a strong opposition of light and shade which results in an striking visual effect. For instance, the wall behind the boy is hidden under the shadows whereas his (bright) attire is placed in the centre due to full illumination from the natural light of the sun. The only part of the yard that is drenched in light are the cobbles and grass. In the photograph, the boy’s face remains half hidden and obscured within the darker shades of grey. On the other hand, the boy himself seems tense, or even perplexed, with his arms tight to his body and hands half clenched while he looks into the camera inexpressively. He is not close to the camera but distanced leaving thus more room for the background which is half drenched in sunlight and the rest is plunged in shadow. J.J. Long says: “the part
67 of the yard behind him is in shadow, as is the stuccoed dwelling that forms the upper half of the background. Because the sun is falling over the boy’s left shoulder, his face is in partial shadow.”197 The grey shades upon the twelve-year old dervish boy’s face become problematic to the viewing eye especially when Sebald writes: “Er trug ein sehr weites, bis auf den Boden reichendes Kleid und ein enganliegendes, ebenso wie das
Kleid aus feinstem Leinen geschneidertes Jäckchen. Auf dem Kopf hatte der ausserordentlich schöne Knabe eine hohe, randlose Haube aus Kamelhaar.” (Die Ausg.
199-200) Sebald briefly indicates that the boy is of extraordinary beauty but goes on to describe in detail his dervish costume instead including the fabric and texture of his fine linen and his camel-hair toque. With such a short description of the boy’s beauty Sebald seems to direct the viewer to the photograph for confirmation since beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yet, the shades of grey upon the boy’s face and the partial shadows hiding almost half of it leave the viewer unsatisfied. As J. J. Long states “the play of light and shadow combined with the small format of the reproduced image, prevents the viewer from judging the beauty of which this photograph was intended to be a souvenir.”198 And what remains, J. J. Long continues, “is an image that encodes the power relationship between the tourist and the indigenous populace.” 199 He explains that the boy’s “smallness relative to the image as a whole combines with his position in the very centre of the frame to emphasize the fact that he is exposed in more than just the photographic sense: he has nowhere to run or hide, but has to yield to the photographer’s gaze, offering himself up for later visual consumption.” Yet: “While the
197 Long, “The Photograph,” 52-3.
198 Long, “The Photograph,” 53.
199 Long, “The Photograph,” 53.
68 text strives to prevent this kind of reading by casting the image as a harmless token of the familiar and benign Western ritual of tourism, it also foregrounds the desire for possession.” 200 I believe that the latter statement can be true if we take into consideration Thomas Mann’s novel Death in Venice, where one of the main themes is the desire for possession of beauty. In Mann’s novel, Gustav von Aschenbach, a
German artist who travels from Bavaria to Venice on vacation encounters on location
Tadzio, a young Polish boy whose beauty is extraordinary. Unlike Sebald’s almost absent description of the dervish boy’s beauty, Mann’s portrayal of Tadzio is unfolded in minute detail:
Es war eine Gruppe halb und kaum Erwachsener . . . und ein langhaariger Knabe von vielleicht vierzehn Jahren. . . der Knabe [war] vollkommen schön. Sein Antlitz,--bleich und anmutig verschlossen, von honigfarbenem Haar umringelt, mit der gerade abfallenden Nase, dem lieblichen Munde, dem Ausdruck von holdem und göttlichem Ernst, erinnerte an griechische Bildwerke aus edelster Zeit, und bei reinster Vollendung der Form war es von so einmalig-persönlichem Reiz, daß der Schauende weder in Natur noch bildender Kunst etwas ähnlich Geglücktes angetroffen zu haben glaubte. . . . Weichheit und Zärtlichkeit bestimmten ersichtlich seine Existenz. Man hatte sich gehütet, die Scheere an sein schönes Haar zu legen; wie beim Dornauszieher lockte es sich in die Stirn, über die Ohren und tiefer noch in den Nacken. Ein englisches Matrosenkostüm, dessen bauschige Ärmel sich nach unten verengerten und die feinen Gelenke seiner noch kindlichen, aber schmalen Hände knapp umspannten, verlieh mit seinen Schnüren, Maschen und Stickereien der zarten Gestalt etwas Reiches und Verwöhntes. Er saß, im Halbprofil gegen den Betrachtenden, einen Fuß im schwarzen Lackschuh vor den andern gestellt, einen Ellenbogen auf die Armlehne seines Korbsessels gestützt, die Wange an die geschlossene Hand geschmiegt, in einer Haltung von lässigem Anstand und ganz ohne die fast untergeordnete Steifheit, an die seine weiblichen Geschwister gewöhnt schienen. War er leidend? Denn die Haut seines Gesichtes stach weiß wie Elfenbein gegen das goldige Dunkel der umrahmenden Locken ab. Oder war er einfach ein verzärteltes Vorzugskind, von parteilicher und launischer Liebe getragen? Aschenbach war geneigt, dies zu glauben. (Der Tod in Venedig 201)
Mann does not incorporate any images in his texts, yet he etches Tadzio beauty with a chisel. The reader is able to fully picture the young Polish boy in his/her mind. In
200 Long, “The Photograph,” 53.
201 Mann, Thomas. Der Tod in Venedig. (S. Fisher Verlag, Berlin, 1922), 51-2.
69 Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten, even though the reader is provided with a photograph of the yound dervish boy, the chiaroscuro effects upon his face make is impossible to have a clear vision of his face and thus determine the beauty the author praises rather abruptly in his prose. Whereas Sebald talks about Uncle Ambrose and Cosmo’s encounter with the dervish boy and ends unexpectedly, in Death in Venice the German artist becomes fataly attracted to the young Polish boy. According to Gary Johnson,
“Aschenbach’s response to Tadzio is predominately aesthetic, in both senses of that term: Tadzio is an object of beauty and the cause of a sensual response on the part of a perceiving subject.”202 Yet, Johnson continues, “in Death in Venice, however, these two aspects of aesthetics are intimately related and often indistinguishable because
Aschenbach functions as both the artist behind Tadzio and the observer facing and responding to him.”203 In a similar fashion as Tadzio, whom we never hear speak and who has no verbal interaction with Aschenbach, the dervish boy in Sebald’s novel remains silent (and nameless) when Adelwarth addresses a few Turkish words to him prior to their leave. J. J. long calls this absence of interaction “lack of reciprocity in the encounter” with the other.
All in all, what is the main significance of the dervish boy’s photograph? J. J. Long explains that “the way in which the verbal text foregrounds the boy’s beauty and his close-fitting garments implies that the photograph functions as a surrogate for sexual possession of the body.” 204 I disagree with Long’s statement mainly because it seems
202 Johnson, Gary. ““Death in Venice” and the Aesthetic Correlative.” In Journal of Modern Literature: Writing LIfe/Writing Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 3 (Winter 2004), 84.
203 Johnson, ““Death in Venice” and the Aesthetic Correlative,” 85.
204 Long, “The Photograph,” 53.
70 to diminish the message of the image. Again, I would say that the latter part of the quote can be true for Aschenbach and his ‘sexual desires to possess’ Tadzio in Der Tod in Venedig. In Die Ausgewanderten, the reader is left unsatisfied since the boy’s
‘exquisite beauty’ cannot be witnessed visually as claimed by Sebald. In my opinion, the essential purpose of the image is to etch the shape and form of the costume through the interplay of light and shadow. Because the background is plunged into darkness the white/bright costume, together with its protruding asymmetrical lines of the cone-shaped gown, stands in dramatic contrast with the background. In other words, it is not the face but the striking white costume which ‘steals’ the show. Traditionally the dervish dancers are captured as a group at the height of their spiritual dance in order for the viewer to experience the vigorous spinning, the bell shaped gowns and their arms above their heads in the name of God.205 Yet, the Sebaldian viewer/reader is still mesmerized by the image of the boy’s attire even though the ritual trans dance is absent. It seems that the
‘beauty’ Sebald is describing refers indirectly to the culture and heritage of the Oriental country.
The dervish boy’s photograph relies on a contrastive rapport to Adelwarth’s photograph in Arab attire (Die Ausg. 137), which Aunt Fini shows to the narrator while telling him about his Great uncle and Cosmo’s world travelings. Unlike the dervish boy’s photograph, Uncle Ambrose’s is a black and white portrait. If the main purpose of the photo is to expose an Oriental costume worn by a non-native why is Uncle Ambrose sitting? Why not a full exposure of the traditional attire? Why a portrait? J. J. Long
205 Barber, Theodore. “Four Interpretations of Mevlevi Dervish Dance, 1920-1929.” In Dance Chronicle. Vol. 9, No. 3 (1986), 330-1.
71 explains that honorific portrait photography “borrowed heavily from the compositional conventions of eighteenth century paintings in its drive to democratise the traditional function of portraiture, namely the ceremonial representation of the self” and “this involved photographers’ and their bourgeois clients’ adopting the cultivated asymmetries that typified aristocratic posture.”206
Ambros Adelwarth (Die Ausg. pg. 137)
Unlike the dervish boy’s photo which is taken outdoors, the black and white photography of the image of Adelwarth is taken indoors in a studio “which already signals that the image is the result of a collaboration between the photographer and sitter. The three-quarter profile, furthermore, is a formal sign of bourgeois self-
206 Long, “The Photograph,” 53.
72 representation, as is the emphsis on the face and hands.”207 Indeed Ambrose’s posture and his confident glare at the camera lens signifies personality. The hands, one relaxed upon the lap and the other embracing a hookah bring to light the bourgeois notion which becomes central to this photograph. The interplay of light and shadow (especially on his face) again serves as tools which record the shape and form of the central figure and his bourgeois posture. In this photograph the viewer is drawn immediatley to Ambrose’s face, his stare at the camera and his posture. The shades of grey upon his face enhance his personality and confidentiality and this “photography comes to signify not merely the qualities of the individual, but also that individual’s position on the scale of socio-economic priviledge. It is a gauge of social power” 208 Unlike the dervish boy’s photograph, in Ambrose’s there is also “a moment of performance” 209 an artistic collaboration between Adelwarth and the photographer in the studio, who according to this photo, is Chalil Raad, the first Arab photographer active in Palestine, and one of the most important of the Arab photographers who travelled and photographed in the Middle
East. 210 Born in 1869 in Lebanon, Raad studied photography with Garabed Krikorian, one of the first local Armenian photographers, and also studied in Basel. He was also the official Turkish photographer and documented local events of the First World War. 211
Indeed, the core of Raad’s work was dedicated to portraying the rich life of the
Palestinian community.
207 Long, “The Photograph,” 53.
208 Long, “The Photograph,” 55.
209 Long, “The Photograph,” 55.
210 Sela, Rona. “Chalil Raad, Photographs 1891-1948.” In Jerusalem Post Magazine, July 9, 2010.
211 Sela, “Chalil Raad, Photographs 1891-1948.”
73 Chalil Raad, A Bethlehem Girl
He gave the Palestinians a presence and visibility rarely seen in foreign photographs of the country in the late 19th century. 212 His work provides a comprehensive description of Palestinian life in the country in all its urban, cultural, economic and political abundance. Raad loved the country, its history, its illustrious past, its wild scenery and landscapes, its strength and spiritual richness, its geography, its cultural and social history, all of which he expressed in his work.213 From this black and white photograph it is clear that the Arab photographer takes pride in displaying the Arab costume worn by
Ambrose which is a representation of the culture and heritage of the Middle East. Thus,
J. J. Long reveals why Ambros has chosen to perfom in this monochrome toned photograph while displaying the Oriental attire:
By dressing in Arab costume and holding a hookah, Adelwarth interrogates to himself the right to usurp the identity of the colonized other in a way that is congruent with the appropriation implied in the act of photographing the dervish. Though Sebald has rightly been praised for the pervasive critique of colonialism in his work, we should not be blind to moments where his critical distance collapses, giving way to a more affirmative representation of colonial desire. 214
212 Sela, “Chalil Raad, Photographs 1891-1948.”
213 Sela, “Chalil Raad, Photographs 1891-1948.”
214 Long, “The Photograph,” 55.
74 It is true that this black and white photograph gives way to a positive “representation of colonial desire” despite Sebald’s critical approach to colonialism in his literary works.
Yet, even though J. J. Long analyzes in detail the oriental attire of the uncle and places it at the centre of the image, I venture to disagree here with Long. For me, it is the face of the Great Uncle and his hands that are given life through the elements of chiaroscuro and thus are placed at the centre of the photograph. For instance, the simple attire is based on a combination of black and white elements including here the striped part in the middle. The hat he is wearing is also built upon a distinctive combination of light and dark just as the background is, without any particular blending of the chiaroscuro. The complexity of the image is, indeed, located at the uncle’s face and his hands which are the only ones to be portrayed in chiaroscuro elements. The uncle’s facial features are etched through the gradual shift of light and shade from right to left (the latter side almost in full shade). His gaze is fixed into the camera lens with a steady confidence. I would argue here that from this black and white portrait, the face of the uncle is indeed his identity, not his oriental costume. His hands and their regal position add to his identity as a traveller of the world and a man of worldly experience. Indeed, some of
Uncle Ambrose’s travel destinations before the war broke out in Europe include:
“Deauville, Paris, Venedig, Konstantinopel und Jerusalem.” (Die Ausg. 136-7) He is the epitome of a globetrotter and this black and white image reveals it through the use of the chiaroscuro elements which highlight his most prominent features: eyes, straight nose and most importantly his moustache, which in Arab tradition and culture is a sign of virility, pride and honour.215 Thus, the light/dark element-blend add depth and
215 Khalil, Ashraf. “Decoding Facial Hair in the Arab World.” In BBC News Magazine. Feb. 1, 2013.
75 dimensionality to the uncle’s wealth and identity. In the dervish boy’s story Sebald draws our attention to the boy’s beauty in the text, yet the image tells a different tale: this beauty is indeed the portrayal of the oriental culture the dervish boy represents through his bright traditional costume which catches the viewer’s attention immediately.
In Uncle Ambrose’s case Sebald draws our attention to the beauty of the oriental attire, yet again, the image tells another story: the centre of attention is the uncle’s head and hands, not his costume. It is through the use of chiaroscuro that life is given to the uncle’s face and hands while the rest of the image lays flat.
On this note of the black and white photographic images in Sebald I would like to incorporate another crucial image of the gypsy woman hoding a baby behind a barbed wire in Schwindel. Gefühle.
The Gypsy Woman (SG pg. 201)
The unnamed narrator returns to his homeland from exile in “Il ritorno in patria” the last chapter in Schwindel. Gefühle. In the blackness of the night, he sees a waste
76 land and remembers that a gypsy camp had been located there after the war. In his childhood years his mother would take him to the swimming pool which was built in
1936 and on their way they would pass the camp. The pool was built “zur Förderung der
Volksgesundheit” (SG 200). Yet, “given the year of its construction, it is clear that the
Volk that was the target of this particular measure was the ‘Aryan’ people of
Germany.”216 Long explains how and why it was important to promote this public heath in the 1930s: “Nazi social policy encouraged improvement of one’s bodily strength and fitness through various physical activities, of which the mass rhythmic gymnastics familiar from Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda films are emblematic.” 217 Indeed, ‘the pool endures into the post-war years as a reminder of the legacy of Nazism” but “there was no congress between the gypsies and the villagers (V 184/200), testifying to the persisence of an irrationally phobic attitude on the part of the Germans towards what was by 1945 a persecuted and decimated people... the gypsies themselves.” 218 Sebald himself incorporates a black and white image of a smiling gypsy woman holding a baby asking rhetorical questions: “Wo sie her waren, wie es ihnen gelungen war, den Krieg zu
überstehen, und warum sie sich ausgerechnet den öden Platz and der Achbrücke zu ihrem Sommeraufenthalt gewählt hatten” (SG 201) These photographs, the narrator claims, are from “das Fotoalbum..., das der Vater zur ersten sogennanten
Kriegsweihnacht der Mutter als Geschenk mitgebracht hat” which “enthält Bilder von dem sogennanten Polenfeldzug, sämtliche säuberlich mit weisser Tinte beschriftet. Auf einigen der Bilder sind Zegeuner zu sehen, die man zusammengefangen hat” (SG
216 Long, “The Photograph,” 55.
217 Long, “The Photograph,” 55.
218 Long, “The Photograph,” 55.
77 201-2). Interestingly enough they are smiling and looking out “durch den Staheldracht, irgendwo weit hinten in der Slowakei, wo der Vater mit seinem Werkstattzug Wochen vor dem sogenannten Ausbruch des Krieges schon gelegen war” (SG 201-2). After laying out the historical facts about this photograph the topic is changed abruptly and no other information is provided. Yet, as Mark Anderson says: “the reader cannot help asking in the son’s/Sebald’s place: what was the father’s relation to a people destined for extermination by the Nazis? And what is the picture doing, decades after the war, in a book of family memories?219 Anderson notes that Sebald discovered the album from which the gypsy photograph is taken while visiting his parents in Sonthofen in the early
1980s. It also included various images of war, including villages that had been completely destroyed moments before. Of course, the gypsy’s image brings to light the story of the survival of war which is an indirect reference to the Holocaust.
Let us go back to the black and white photograph of the gypsy woman holding a baby and smiling behind a barbed wire for a detailed analysis of light and dark elements.
The subject of this photograph is the gyspy woman but the drama of the picture is the baby she is holding in her arms. Folded in bright linen the baby’s miniature body is drenched in full sunlight. In this photo, the negative space, (the area surrounding the main subject) defines and emphasises the positive space (the subject) because it draws the viewer’s eye to it (the baby). According to Zdanėk Kočib, this quasi-negative space (negative and positive space) adds up to a more engaging composition.220
Indeed, during the time this photograph is taken, infants and children were very
219 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 109.
220 Kočib, Zdanėk. “Quasi-Negative Space in Painting”. In Leonardo. Vol. 19, No. 2, (1986), 141-144.
78 vulnerable in the era of the Holocaust. The Nazis mercilessly killed the offsprings of the so-called non-Aryan race in mass murder because the “Other” was considered dangerous to the German nation. Thus, the mother holding the baby denotes a vulnerable aspect which is central to the photograph. If the baby was absent the photograph would have been seen differently; perhaps in the same light as that of the dervish boy: a gypsy woman posing in her gypsy attire. Yet, as the eye travels back and forth within the frame of the image, the baby gradually fades away and the centre of the photograph is occupied by the woman’s face who has come to represent the absent
‘other’.
The light and dark elements of the negative space in the gypgy photograph play also an important role in the overall visual imagery of the composition. For example, on the background a side of a building is drenched in full sunlight while part of the woman’s body on the right side of the image is plunged into shadow. On the far right side there is a darker presence of possibly another woman’s body as we are able to see a right arm, shoulder and part of her head. On the left side of the image there is a protruding folded arm of possibly a man. Like the background this man is drenched in light as opposed to the gyspy woman on the right side of the image. J. J. Long says that this protruding elbow indicates that the person seems to be taking a photograph, too. He argues that this inclusion of another possible photographer turns the image into what W. J. T.
Mitchell terms a ‘metapicture’: it is an image that reflects on the nature and production of the image. 221 He continues: “in particular, it foregrounds the fact that representation is inseparable from questions of power: who has the right and the means to represent
221 Long, “The Photograph,” 57.
79 whom under what circumstances and to what ends.” 222 Like the dervish boy, the gyspy woman is compelled to look at the camera and has nowhere to hide or run but to submit to the photographer’s or photographers’ gaze. J. J. Long explains why these photographs of the ‘other’ were taken during the Nazi regime:
As the German army swarmed over Europe in 1939 and 1940, it became widespread practice for Wehrmacht soldiers to take photographs of the inhabitants of occupied territories. For soldiers on the Eastern Front, the evidence furnished by these photographs confirmed racial stereotypes that were already well-established by the end of the First World War in Germany, and had been reinforced by six years of Nazi rule: Eastern European peoples were backward, uncivilized, primitive and worthy of nothing but contempt. 223 This is a radicalised Nazi variant of the ethnographic gaze that assumed the inferiority of a racialised other. 224
This supposed inferiority of a racialized other is clearly represented by the gypsy woman in the photograph “as the simplicity of her dress and headscarf, and her ostensible lack of teeth, are made to signify a level of cultural backwardness that served to affirm
German superiority.” 225 A further element of this gaze becomes the white inscription of the word “Zigeuner” over the black page of the photoalbum. I argue here that this inscription could be seen as ironic because on the black page of the German photoalbum the word gypsy is written in white. In visual terms, the non-white are associated with the color white whereas the Germannes is soaked in darkness. As the roles are reversed the question of identity, race and ethnicity are problematized. Was the “Other” really a threat to the Germans? Historically one would think otherwise.
222 Long, “The Photograph,” 57.
223 Schmiegelt, Ulrike and Peter Jahn eds. Foto-Feldpost: Geknipste Kriegserlebnisse 1939-1945. (Berlin: Museum Berlin-Karlshorst e. V. and Elephanten Press, 2000), 23-3; quoted in Long, J. J. “The Photograph.” In W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 57.
224 Long, “The Photograph,” 57.
225 Long, “The Photograph,” 57.
80 In addition to the chiaroscuro elements, the masculine gender of white inscription of “Zigeuner” over the feminine shows that the gender of these women is omitted. J. J.
Long says that the smiling woman in the photograph “is not seen as an individual with her own biography and interiority, nor as an inhabitant of a specific place.” 226 Mark M.
Anderson argues that the gypsy woman’s “unwitting smile” in the black and white photograph “bears the signs of her people’s persecution and murder, and of her own erasure from history”227 Thus, even though, as we mentioned earlier, the drama of the photograph is the baby, the gypsy woman’s face is at the centre of attention. The gradual shift of light and dark elments give life to her facial features in a similar fashion as I discussed in Uncle Ambrose’s portrait. As it is the case with Sebald, in his carefully chosen black and white images, his goal is to give life to people’s faces through the chiaroscuro element. Their faces tell stories.
Last but not least on the gypsy woman’s image, another crucial element is also the presence of the barbed wire which divides the space between the gypsy women and the photographer. According to J. J. Long “this separation constitutes a visible sign of the gypsy woman’s fundamental disempowerment; she and the photographer cannot occupy the same discursive terrain.” 228 Long explains about the importance of this image in Sebald’s narrative prose: “The photograph is reproduced at a point in the text in which the narrator seeks to reconstruct past events by reading the material traces that
226 Long, “The Photograph,” 57.
227 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 109.
228 Long, “The Photograph,” 58.
81 they left behind.” 229 Eva Juhl230 expresses puzzlement that Sebald should see himself as personally involved in collective repression in spite of the Gnade der späten Geburt - the assumption that being born too late to have been involved in Nazism is a guarantee of absolution. The notion that the Gnade der späten Geburt could somehow render one immune to such repression, however, is based on the faulty supposition that the relationship between the Nazi past and ‘those born later’ ceases to be characterized by any sense of emotional investment. Sebald himself demonstrates a much more differentiated understanding of this highly problematic aspect of
Vergangenheitsbewältigung or coming to terms with the Nazi past.231
Anne Fuchs is another critic who offers her view on Sebald’s black and white photography. In her “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose
Works” she analyzes Sebald’s use of reproduction images of fine art paintings, murals and frescoes. In her introduction she questions their role in his prose when she asks:
“What precisely is the relationship between text and image in Sebald’s oeuvre?”232 To this question she replies:
As many readers have noticed, the answer to this question is far from simple since the various images fall into different categories: while there are many emotionally charged images, such as family photographs or portraits which often depict lost family members or loved ones, a second range of images does not appear to bear any relationship to the text. Other photographs are simply banal in that they reproduce everyday objects which are mentioned in the narrative, such as the narrator’s ticket, passport, or restaurant bill;
229 Long, “The Photograph,” 58.
230 Juhl, Eva quoted in Long, J. J. “The Photograph.” In W. G. Sebald: Image, Archive, Modernity. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 69, note 22.
231 Long, “The Photograph,” 69, note 22.
232 Fuchs, Anne. “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works.” In The Modern Language Review. Vol. 101, No. 1 (January, 2006), 167.
82 and a fourth category appears to be deliberately poor in quality, depicting stark buildings or empty landscapes which exude an uncanny and hostile atmosphere. 233
She explains that in his prose narrative the “use of photography shows that Sebald employs the text-image relationship to disturb the binary opposition between life and death, remembering and forgetting, authenticity and fiction, or absence and presence.”234
A very unsettling image in Sebald’s prose is the black and white double-page photograph of a library in Theresienstadt from Austerlitz where both of Austerlitz’s parents marched towards their deaths. As Fuchs states, “the room is an enigma that triggers the kind of cultural memory that points to the ghostly presence of the absent other.” 235 And this presence of the absent other is visually represented by the objects which “appear to be leftover traces of their former users. Although there are no people in the room, the position of the various objects seems to indicate that it has been used until recently” and “these objects appear to be traces of a former presence; for instance, the door is left open, three of the chairs are moved away from the table, and the hands of the clock are approaching six.”236 Again, Sebald’s incorporation of this image
“emanates a sense of stillness which has ghostly quality and which situates this image in our post-Holocaust world.”237 I would like to take Fuchs’s brief analysis further by adding that the black and white technique of the image enhances the ghostly quality of
233 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 167.
234 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 168.
235 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 182.
236 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 182.
237 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 183.
83 the room. The window which seems to be outside the frame brings in a large illumination from the left side of the image. The deep, dark squares of the grid-like massive shelves stand in contrast with the well-lit prisoners’ dossiers inside them. Each square has white labels attached for identifying those who died in the concentration camps. The photograph evokes a sense of a mural cemetery.
Theresienstadt Library (Austerlitz pg. 284-5)
Indeed, the image of the grid-like bookshelves recall the structure of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin designed by architect Peter Eisenman.
84 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin 238 The museum consists of a large site covered with numerous grey concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern that resemble a massive graveyard. All the names of the
Holocaust victims are obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem and written on “Ort der Information,” Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff claimed the memorial "is able to convey the scope of the Holocaust's horrors without stooping to sentimentality - showing how abstraction can be the most powerful tool for conveying the complexities of human emotion."239 On this note, Sebald’s monochromatic photography has the signature of history since the overall image of the Theresienstadt Library conveys a similar feeling of looking at a mass-graveyard. In addition to the historical aspect, the black and white photography focuses on form and shape yet, in the Library image the representation of shades and all the gradation of grey seems to be absent as the contrast between dark and light is sharp and drastic. In Sebald’s images, it is the human “face” and the “hands” which are given life through the chiaroscuro element-blends. Since this is the library of
238 “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: The Holocaust memorial at the Brandenburg Gate/ Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas – © BerlinPartnerGmbH / Scholvien.” http://www.visitberlin.de/en/spot/memorial-to-the-murdered-jews-of-europe
239 Ouroussoff, Nicolai. “A Forest of Pillars, Recalling the Unimaginable.” In New York Times, May 9, 2005.
85 the dead, the shades of grey and their gradation in hue and value are absent just as people are.
Sebald’s Text and Image
Sebald’s quartet prose is full of photographs, paintings, maps, travel journals and diaries which are reproductions of black and white images. Again, like Anne Fuchs,
Lynn L. Wolff in her “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century”” sheds light upon the significance of the correlation between the text and image in Sebald. She says: [his] complex use of images does not follow one consistent strategy, and the relationship between the text and its images is not static, but rather it shifts and changes as we read, creating multiple layers to the story and thus requiring multiple levels of analysis.”240 For a deeper understanding of Sebald she suggests that “the text-image relationship must be read intra-textually: the relationship of the image to the story, extra- textually: the relationship of the images to an extra-textual reality, and intertextually: the images and text in relation to other texts, be they literary or documentary.” 241 Wolff implies that the incorporation of photography activates the imagination of the characters and the readers as well. Moreover “a photograph is never neutral because there is already an interpretation implicit in the act of taking the photograph.” 242 In Austerlitz, for example, the photographs seem to be more deceptive than revealing and more fictitious than factual. Wolff argues how “Sebald’s fiction lays claim to a certain kind of truth that is
240 Wolff, L. Lynn. “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century.” Diss., Center for German and European Studies. (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2011), 198.
241 Wolff, “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century,” 198.
242 Wolff, “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century,” 198.
86 only possible through literature. [His] writing reveals the potentiality of fiction and offers a rewriting of German history and the Holocaust in particular with an emphasis on individual experience, memory and imagination.”243 While in exile, Sebald’s goal was to shed light upon his country’s dark past. The incorporation of the black and white images, the muted colors and the intensity of the motifs portrayed in Sebald’s prose produce similar psychological moods and emotions as in Usigli’s La Corona de Sombra
(discussed in chapter one) because both authors accelerate the trauma and loss of an erased people and culture.
The Edge of Darkness
In “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald” Mark M. Anderson explores
Sebald’s dark and light elements in his prose. Anderson starts his analysis with a painting by Casper David Friedrich entitled Monk by the Sea (1809-10). He says:
You know the picture. A lone figure dressed in a black cloak stands at the edge of an empty shore and looks out onto a dark, windswept sea, which merges imperceptibly with the inky sky. Because his back is turned to us, and because we cannot quite tell if he is wearing a monk's habit or a traveler's cape, the figure remains a cipher to us, a mysterious presence inviting identification. What are his thoughts as he gazes into the infinite vertiginous theater before him? What has led him to seek out this forsaken spot at the edge of human habitation, with only the natural, cosmic order before him? (emphasis mine) 244
243 Wolff, “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century,” 198.
244 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 102.
87 Caspar David Friedrich. Monk by the Sea. 1809-10. Berlin.245
As Anderson continues “Nothing in the world can be as lonely and as unsettling as this place," Heinrich von Kleist wrote in a contemporary review, "the only spark of life in the wide realm of death, the lonely midpoint of a lonely circle." 246 I agree with
Anderson when he argues that although Sebald has never mentioned this painting from
Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea, he might have “claimed him as the emblem for his recent prose writings, all of which trace the journey of solitary wanderers who make their way to the very edge of the human world and gaze into the void.” Indeed, this silhouetted figure in the Friedrich’s painting, dressed in a long garment, is turned completely from the viewer and looks in the distance at the dark sea and a gray sky that seems endless. On the surface of the sea there are some white traces of seemingly high waves or white seagulls. The portrayal of the vastness of sea and sky minimize the figure of the monk against nature. I would like to add here that unlike Sebald’s images where the face and the hands of the people are given life through the chiaroscuro
245 The black and white image is taken from: Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 103.
246 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 102.
88 technique, in Friedrich’s painting the monk’s face is gone and his body is just a flat image half submerged within the darkness of the sea. The overwhelming sky and the dunes of sand are given life through the gradation of the hues and values of grisaille.
Indeed, the wife of painter Gerhard von Kügelgen, an acquaintance of Friedrich, was put off by the loneliness of the setting and the lack of consolation that movement or narrative might provide the "unending space of air."247 This vast space of sky gives the painting a sense of mystery and enigma in chiaroscuro tones.
Like the silhouetted subject in Friedrich’s chiaroscuro painting, one of the
Sebald’s German characters from Die Ausgewanderten is portrayed and represented in the similar fashion: a silhouetted body against a grisaille background: “Onkel Kasimir blieb stehen und schaute auf das Meer hinaus. Das ist der Rand der Finsternis, sagte er.” (Die Ausg. 129; emphasis mine) “This is the edge of the darkness” the narrator’s uncle says “while standing on the New Jersey shore and reflecting on the forty years he has spent in America, far from their native village in Bavaria.” 248And in truth “schien es, als sei hinter uns das Festland versunken und als ragte nichts mehr aus der
Wasserwüste heraus ausser diesem schmalen, nach Norden hinauf und nach Süden hinunter sich erstreckenden Streifen Sand.” (Die Ausg. 129) Anderson calls this relative a “dislocated German emigrant” who speaks to his German nephew in English: "I often come out here, sagte Onkel Kasimir, it makes me feel that I am a long way away, though
I never quite know from where." (Die Ausg. 129). Like the characters in his prose, W. G.
Sebald himself wrote from a similar position of “self-imposed exile and marginality,
247 Siegel, Linda. Caspar David Friedrich and the age of German Romanticism. Boston: Branden Press, 1978.
248 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 102.
89 between languages and national identities.” 249 As a child of the post-war, Sebald grew up in his native Wertach amidst silence about the Holocaust and felt that the dark past brought shame upon the German nation. And in Die Ausgewanderten Sebald plays with light and shadow in order to bring to light the exile and marginality of the German-Jews who left their native homeland due to discrimination, racism and mass murder.
In the chapter entitled “Ambros Adelwarth” the Sebaldian narrator (barely) has a memory of his great uncle, Adelwarth, whom he saw “nur ein einziges Mal, im Sommer des Jahres 1951” when he came to visit W. for several weeks from the United States together “mit der Lina und der Flossie, die Tante Fini mit dem Theo und den
Zwillingskindern und die ledige Tante Theres” (Die Ausg. 97) Luckily, during this time
“die angeheirateten Schwiegerleute aus Kempten und Lechbruck - die Auswanderer” came to W, too, for a few days “und es war bei dem so zustande gekommenen, an die sechzig Personen umfassenden Familientreffen, daß ich den Großonkel Adelwarth zum ersten- und, wie ich meine, letzenmal gesehen habe.” (97) The narrator connects his great uncle’s memory with the happiness of the family reunion; unfortunately, with the passing of time these heart-felt family gatherings decreased due to long distance, loss of life and homesickness. The narrator explains:
Von seinem zwei Jahre später erfolgten Tod, geschwiege den von den damit verbundenen Umständen, ist mir während meiner ganzen Kindheit nichts zu Ohren gekommen, wahrscheinlich, weil das plötzliche Ende des Onkels Theo, der um dieselbe Zeit eines Morgens beim Zeitunglesen vom Schlag getroffen wurde, die Tante Fini mit den Zwillingskindern in eine äußerst schwierige Lage gebracht hatte, der gegenüber das Ableben eines alleinstehenden älteren Verwandten kaum Beachtung fand. (Die Ausg. 99)
249 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 102.
90 As emigrants, Aunt Fini and her husband had to work hard in order to raise their children. Yet, the death of uncle Theo makes Aunt Fini work “Tag und Nacht um sich und die Zwillinge halbwegs durchzubringen” (Die Ausg. 99) Due to familial and financial reasons she was the first one to stop visiting W. Uncle Kasimir visited less with the passing of time but Aunt Theres was the only one to revisit her hometown regularly “weil sie als ledige Person bei weitem am besten gestellt war, und zum anderen, weil sie zeit ihres Lebens an einem unstillbaren Heimweh litt.” (99) The dark side of travelling is explained when the narrator says: “Drei Wochen nach ihrer jeweiligen Ankunft weinte sie noch aus Wiedersehensfreude, und bereits drei Wochen vor der Abreise weinte sie vor Trennungsschmerz.” (Die Ausg. 99-100) The longer Aunt Theres would stay in W., the calmer the visit would be as she would fill her time “meist mit Handarbeiten” (100) an activity which symbolises her old way of life. Yet, if the visit was short: “dann wußte man manches Mal wirklich nicht, ob sie in Tränen aufgelöst war, weil sie endlich wieder zu
Hause sein durfte oder weil es ihr schon wieder vor dem Fortfahren grauste.” (Die Ausg.
100) Aunt Theres separation from her family is painted with a dark and gloomy brush.
With an even darker brush is painted her last visit which the narrator describes as: “eine wahre Katastrophe. Sie hat still vor sich hin geweint beim Morgenkaffee und beim Nachtessen, beim Spazierengehen in den Feldern und beim Einkaufen.” (100)
This familial separation is also highlighted by the chiaroscuro elements for a strong dramatic effect. For instance, when Aunt Theres is accompanied to Munich, the narrator recollects how she sat “tränenüberströmt zwischen uns Kindern im Fond des neuen
Opel Kapitäns des Taxiunternehmers Schreck” as the trees in the roadside sped past them in-between “Kempten und Kaufbeuren und zwischen Kaufbeuren und Buchloe in
91 der Morgendämmerung” (Die Ausg. 100) The inner world of the familial togetherness is shattered as soon as the separation process is about to happen. “Die
Morgendämmerung” denotes a temporal moment of the transition of night/darkness into day/light which denotes the approaching separation of the family members from each other. The light of the dawn signifies the time when the joy of reunion is to be interrupted as soon as dawn has arrived. Sebald uses the element of ‘light’ against the darkness of the night to give a clear description of the separation. A dualistic image in which aspects of night and day, dark and light can be intertwined or extricated from one another, dawn stands as a visible representation of both the union and separation of family members in
Sebald’s description. Dawn and its metaphorical movements (from night to day) mimes the actions and psychological experiences of the German-Jewish emigrants in America.
Sebald plays with the temporal dichotomy of night and day to denote that Aunt Theres’ battle against time/dawn is about to be lost soon. With the approaching of dawn the time is coming closer thus she has to board “die silbrige Maschine über das Flugfield in
Riem” crying continuously. As a result, “[mußte sie] mit ihrem Taschentuch sich die
Augen trocknen” and without looking back once: “ist sie die Treppe hinaufgestiegen und durch die dunkle Öffnung im Bauch des Flugzeugs verschwunden, man könnte sagen -- auf immer.” (Die Ausg. 100-1; emphasis mine) Her final good-bye is depicted as a scene full of gloom. Because of this temporal (from night to day/darkness to light) shift the acts of union and separation are inseparable and it is in fact only through suffering that the reunion achieves its pinnacle of intensity. Aunt Theres’ range of emotions from happiness to suffering at the time of separation is highlighted through
“Trennungsschmerz” and “Tränen.” Despite her attempts to escape the approach of
92 dawn/separation, she is unfortunately subject to it because she is caught in the web of time. And this ordeal is as agonizing as it is painful.
The narrator learns that Aunt Theres stopped coming to her hometown after an illness took her life in New York. The narrator’s desire to fly overseas to Newark in 1981 was prompted by a photograph that he found in his mother’s family album which contained relatives who emigrated to the New World during the Weimar Period.
Family Gathering (Die Ausg. pg. 104)
According to the narrator, this black and white photograph is taken in the Bronx in
March 1939 and the family members are: “Ganz links sitzt die Lina neben dem Kasimir.
Ganz rechts sitzt die Tante Theres. Die anderen Leute auf dem Kanapee kenne ich nicht, bis auf das kleine Kind mit der Brille. Das ist die Flossie” (103-4) This familial gathering emphasizes their domestic togetherness while in exile. In fact, the present life in New York and the past in Germany are juxtaposed through an oil painting shown against a well-lit wall:
93 Das Ölgemälde an der Wand stellt unseren Heimatort W. dar. Es gilt inzwischen, soviel ich herauszufinden vermochte, als verschollen. Nicht einmal der Onkel Kasimir, der es als ein Abschiedsgeschenk der Eltern zusammengerollt in einer Pappdeckelrolle mit nach New York gebracht hat, weiß, wo es hingekommen sein kann.” (Die Ausg. 104)
The painting of Wertach is a farewell gift from the old world and it stand in the photograph as a reminder of the bygone era in Germany. The well-lit dining table and the wall stand in stark opposition with the people and the painting. The grainy black and white photograph shows how these German-Jewish immigrants are a blend of the present and the past just like the night and day are at dawn of “Morgendämmerung”.
A striking moment of the use of chiaroscuro elements is revealed when the narrator visits the old Aunt Fini at her home in Newark. He says: “Die Tante Fini saß in ihrem Lehnstuhl in dem dunklen Wohnzimmer, als ich am Abend wieder antrat bei ihr.
Nur der Widerschein der Straßenbeleuchtung lag auf ihrem Gesicht.” Surprisingly, “[sie] schaltete die kleine Leselampe an, behielt aber die Augen geschlossen.” (Die Ausg.
130-1) The dark room where both the Aunt and the narrator are sitting creates a sombre atmosphere. The only light that illuminates her face comes from the street. Yet, when she switches on the lamp she keeps her eyes closed which indicates her complete plunge into darkness and her state of mind. In this context, it is important to think about
Goethe’s Faust whose opening scene also takes place at “Nacht: In einem hochgewölbten, engen gotischen Zimmer Faust, unruhig auf seinem Sessel am Pulte”250
The room reveals the roots of Faust’s turbulent situation. Indeed, Goethe, like Sebald, uses a combination of dark and light elements in the study room in order to create a gloomy atmosphere which adds to the scholar’s crisis. The only dim light that
250 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust I. (Basel, Switzerland: Zbinden Druck und Verlang AG, 1982), Scene I, 1-3.
94 illuminates the dark space comes in from the celestial objects such as moon and stars as revealed from Dr. Faust himself in his soliloquy:
O sähst du, voller Mondenschein,/ Zum letzenmal auf meine Pein,/ Den ich so manche Mitternacht/ An diesem Pult herangewacht:/ Dann über Büchern und Papier,/ Trübsel'ger Freund, erschienst du mir!/ Ach! könnt ich doch auf Bergeshöhn/ In deinem lieben Lichte gehn,/ Um Bergeshöhle mit Geistern schweben,/ Auf Wiesen in deinem/Dämmer weben,/ Von allem Wissensqualm entladen,/ In deinem Tau gesund mich baden! 251
Goethe uses light and dark elements in order to create a strong visual effect because contrasts of such elements open “a qualitative approach to optical phenomena.”252 Thus, in the opening scene, Goethe like an artist forces the reader to see in the darkness of the Gothic study by minimal moonlight which penetrates through the window. In a similar fashion, Sebald compels the reader to see in the darkness the face of Aunt Fini which is lit by the dim street lights penetrating through the window. Yet, while Faust is caught between blindness/ignorance and insight/enlightenment as represented through dark/light elements, Aunt Fini’s darkness denotes solitude and emptiness whereas the illumination on her face brings to light her state of pain, trauma and loss. In a similar manner, in Faust the crisis of the scholar is painted with a dark brush when he expresses: “Es wölkt sich über mir-/ Der Mond verbirgt sein Licht-/ Die
Lampe schwindet! Es dampft! Es zucken rote Strahlen/ Mir um das Haupt.”253 The
‘cloud’ over his head is seen as a symbol of his troubled state. The effective combination of dark, dim light and crimson rays are essential because they set the background for the scholar’s state and foreshadow his subsequent connection with the devil (red flame of Hell). In a similar fashion as Faust, the sombre mood of the old Aunt in Die
251 Goethe, Faust I, scene I, 386-97.
252 Holtsmark, Torger ed. Zur Farbenlehre: Goethes Farvelære. (Oslo: Ad Notam Gylendal, 1994), 2.
253 Goethe, Faust I, scene I, 468-72.
95 Ausgewanderten is painted with even a darker brush as she even refuses the minimal light from the lamp by keeping her eyes closed. The scene foreshadows her willingness to slowly succumb to darkness and death.
In Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten and Goethe’s Faust darkness is used to visually symbolize the presence of depression. However, as Astrida Orle Tortillo explains in her
“The Subjective Eye: Goethe’s Farbenlehre and Faust” “Finsternis” is closely tied to
“Licht” as darkness is meaningless without “light” and vice-versa.254 In fact, the absence of light in enclosed spaces produces darkness. On the other hand, the light of the moon
(Faust) and the lamp (Aunt Fini) would be meaningless without the gloom of the rooms.
In a similar fashion as Rembrandt, both Goethe and Sebald play with light in order to emphasize those specific aspects that are important while leaving the rest in the shadow. The author’s “optical phenomena” in regards to the audience’s/reader’s ‘eye’ has been fruitfully incorporated in Goethe and Sebald. According to Tantillo Die
Farbenlehre “describes colors as the “Taten und Leiden” of light.”255 She explains that
“at the heart of Goethe’s explanation of polar colors (light and dark) is the organ of the eye… as it operates as both passive recipient and an active creator. It is described as both object and subject.” Indeed, “throughout the whole process, [the eye] creates the polar opposite of the phenomenon presented to it as a means of creating a new whole, harmony or balance opposites.” 256 In Die Ausgewanderten, the interiority of enclosed
254 Tantillo, Astrida Orle. “The Subjective Eye: Goethe’s Farbenlehre and Faust.” In The Enlightened Eye Goethe and Visual Culture, eds. Patricia Anne Simpson and Evelyn K. Moore. (Amsterdam; New York, NY: Rodopi, 2007), 267.
255 Tantillo, “The Subjective Eye: Goethe’s Farbenlehre and Faust,” 268.
256 Tantillo, “The Subjective Eye: Goethe’s Farbenlehre and Faust,” 268 & 271.
96 spaces/rooms is crucial because on a psychological level the dark room is seen as a symbol of the characters’ mind and present state of gloom, despair and loss.
All in all, Sebald uses the interplay of light and shadow in a similar way as that of a chiaroscuro painter. This interplay allows his writing to flourish. Sebald is the writer of shadows of the past which he brings into the light of the present. As a child of the post- war German silence about the terrors of the Holocaust Sebald was always in search of retrieving the dark past and placing it in the present. It is this interplay of light and dark which is key in Sebald’s prose as it allows him to be creative while producing powerful optical effects for the reader. The theory of light and dark in combination with space helps emphasize the gloomy and somber state of the emigrants who have left their homes behind in Europe and started a new life in the New World. The relationship between light and darkness and the architectural space of the characters reveals their mental state as well as their life crisis denoted by the darkness. The polarities of two major and continuous metaphors of “light” versus “darkness” are crucial because they assemble the whole fabric of the emigrants’ tragedies.
In her “The Shadow Only: Shadow and Silhouette in Late Nineteenth-Century
Paris” Nancy Forgione states: “Credited with the ability to externalize the intrinsic essence of things, shadow and silhouette constituted a crucial pictorial strategy for making visible the artists’ apprehension of the internal.” 257 In a letter to Bernard Gaugin
“accurately summed up the new attitude when he went on the say, “put in shadows if you consider them useful, or don’t put them in . . . it is, as it were, the shadow that is at
257 Forgione, Nancy. “The Shadow Only: Shadow and Silhouette in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris.” In The Art Bulletin. Vol. 81, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), 493-4.
97 your service.” 258 Like Gaugin suggests, Sebald who is a writer of shadows, darkness, mystery and death has considered shadows useful and has put them “at [his] service”.
The element of light shines because of his clever use of the darkness in his prose.
Sebald’s Artistic Maturity
Sebald’s artistic maturity took shape in exile where he found the opportunity to voice his critical opinion. At an early age Sebald was concerned with the questions surrounding Germany’s past. In an interview with Maya Jaggi he explains:
I was born in May 1944 in a place the war didn't get to. . . then you find out it was the same month when Kafka's sister was deported to Auschwitz. It's bizarre; you're pushed in a pram through the flowering meadows, and a few hundred miles to the east these horrendous things are happening. It's the chronological contiguity that makes you think it is something to do with you." 259
Jaggi explains why Sebald needed to leave Germany: "Sebald's generation weren't involved in the war, but they've had to look at their own parents with horror. They're a wandering, lost generation that felt they had no right to speak. He's started speaking painfully out of that silence."260 Sebald’s approach to German history while in exile was to break the silence of his generation. His strength as an author stands in the fact that he became the voice of this particular group who had no right to speak. In terms of the historical past pre- and post WWII Germany and the sense of guilt, he states. "I don't
258 Forgione, “The Shadow Only: Shadow and Silhouette in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris,” 493-4.
259 Jaggi, Maya. “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald” The Guardian, Saturday 22 September 2001.
260 Jaggi, “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
98 think you can focus on the horror of the Holocaust. It's like the head of the Medusa: you carry it with you in a sack, but if you looked at it you'd be petrified.”261
In her “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century” Lynn L. Wolff talks about Sebald as a ‘Grenzgänger’ in a sense of the border he “crossed, challenged and broke down. . . because of his “self- imposed/voluntary exile” in England.”262
Sebald always raised questions surrounding Germany’s past and felt “the silence surrounding the Nazis’ crimes and the complicity of ordinary people that dominated postwar Germany, often describing this as “a conspiracy of silence.” 263 As a student in
Wertach he experienced this silence when people did not have the right to question the horrors of the Holocaust. In the 1960s, while still a student Sebald’s disappointment grew higher as he experienced an unresolved historical past. This situation drove
Sebald outside of his ‘home’ to England at 22, where he remained until his death. Yet, he never referred to living in England as fascinating or as his permanent home. He states: “In England nur gastweise zuhause, schwanke ich auch hier zwischen Gefühlen der Vertrautheit und der Dislokation.”264 Even though not at home in England, Sebald did not feel at home in Germany either, yet, while in England, was he able to crystalize his ideas of his “Heimat” as the land of the perpetrators.
261 Jaggi, Maya. “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
262 Wolff, “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century,” 191.
263 Wolff, “W.G. Sebald: A “Grenzgänger” of the 20th/21st Century,” 191.
264 Sebald, W. G. “Antrittsrede vor dem Kollegium der Deutschen Akademie.” In Campo !Santo, ed. Sven Meyer. (München, Wien: Hanser, 2003), 250.
99 Unlike some authors in exile, for instance, Yoko Tawada 265 who writes both in
German and Japanese, Sebald wrote his prose in German even though he was fluent in
English. Sebald did not consider English a language which would have made him feel at home, rather, it would highlight the notion of alienation. Gerhard Fischer explains:
“Sebald, after all, despite being an expatriate writer living in England for the better part of his life, wrote only in German [...]. His reputation rests primarily on his consummate mastery of the German language and the German literary tradition, which is quite unparalleled in contemporary writing.”266 One of Sebald’s PhD students at the
University of East Anglia, Florian Radvan, remembers Sebald as “a ‘Grenzgänger,’ who not only crossed but blurred and dissolved borders between literary criticism and literature, English and German, words and images, fiction and reality, biography and autobiography.” 267 In all of his prose works Sebald accelerates the sense of loss and trauma by bringing to light the “details of an annihilated culture,” 268 a culture that has already become non-existent. In his interview with Maya Joggi, Grant269 says "It's full of an ache for the past, something destroyed, not just for Jews but for Germans. . . As a
265 Yoko Tawada came to Hamburg from Tokyo as a university student. She lives in Berlin and writes her literary books in German (and Japanese). Some of her books include: Tawada, Yoko. Das Nackte Auge. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2004. Tawada, Talisman. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 1996. Tawada, Überseezungen. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2002. Tawada, Wo Europa Anfängt. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 1991.
266 Fischer, Gerhard ed. “Introduction: W.G. Sebald’s Expatriate Experience and His Literary Beginnings.” In W.G. Sebald. Schreiben ex patria / Expatriate Writing. (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2009), 12.
267 Radvan, Florian. “W.G. Sebald—Schriftsteller und Scholar. Erinnerungen an einen Grenzgänger zwischen Literatur und Wissenschaft.” In Kritische Ausgabe 13, 18 (2010), 58.
268 Jaggi, Maya. “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
269 Grant, Linda quoted in Jaggi, Maya. “Recovered Memories.” In The Guardian. Saturday 22 September, 2001
100 consequence of persecution, the country is much poorer," he adds "it's more homogeneous than other European nations."270
After a quarter century in exile, Sebald returned to Wertach but as he explains:
"[g]oing home is not necessarily a wonderful experience," because "[it] always comes with a sense of loss, and makes you so conscious of the inexorable passage of time. . .
If you're based in two places, on a bad day you see only the disadvantages everywhere.
On a bad day, returning to Germany brings back all kinds of specters from the past." 271
During his residence in England, Sebald had offers from the German universities but he turned them down because even though a native of Allgäu, he did not feel at home in
Germany. Sebald reveals: "The longer I've stayed here, the less I feel at home. In
Germany, they think I'm a native but I feel at least as distant there. My ideal station", he half smiles, "is possibly a hotel in Switzerland."272 Sebald’s hatred towards his native
Germany stems from its dark historical past. In his interview “Recovered Memories”
Sebald explains the aftermath of WWII when he says:
The country was reduced to rubble, and people were scavengers in the ruins - the same people who were 'sanitising' Europe were all of a sudden among the rats. There is still resentment that it remains a taboo, says Sebald, but we should know where it came from: we bombed Warsaw and Stalingrad before the US came to bomb us. When Dresden was bombed and there were countless corpses, special commanders were brought in from Treblinka because they knew how to burn bodies.273
Sebald casts a dark shadow over Germany’s historical past and in his prose he becomes obsessed with the “unearthing” process as part of post-memory. For example,
270 Jaggi, “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
271 Jaggi, “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
272 Jaggi, “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
273 Jaggi, “Recovered Memories: The Guardian Profile: W. G. Sebald.”
101 in Austerlitz, the village of Llanwddyn in Wales was completely submerged underneath the Vyrnwy Dam at the end of the 19th century. Yet, the narrator imagines that the old village is still active below in the dark depths of the earth. He also imagines Austerlitz’s foster “Eltern”, “Geschwister” “Anverwandten”, “Nachbarsleute” “Dorfbewohner drunten in der Tiefe” still running their daily activities “aber ohne sprechen zu können und mit viel zu weit offenen Augen” (Austerlitz 76). He recollects also how: “Nachts vor dem
Einschlafen in meinem kalten Zimmer war es mir oft, als sei auch ich untergegangen in dem dunklen Wasser, als müsste ich, nicht anders als die armen Seelen von Vyrnwy, die
Augen weit offen halten” in order to catch “einen schwachen Lichtschein” far above.
(Austerlitz 78) Through the use of the chiaroscuro technique here the narrator’s free movement between the past/dark and the present/light is highlighted. As both Gregory
Guider274 and Moser275 explain, Sebald creates an in-between traffic in order to penetrate through these transitional and fleeting spaces. Indeed, this traffic between the past and present is further depicted in Austerlitz, when the protagonist says that sometimes he even imagines “Photofiguren aus dem Album” walking down the road “in
Bala, oder draußen auf dem Feld, besonders an heißen Sommertagen um die
Mittagszeit, wenn niemand sonst um die Wege war und die Luft etwas flimmerte.” (Austerlitz 78) The narrator revives the past in the sense that the people from the dark depths of the past come alive and start walking in the present. As Gregory
Guider explains: “The many peripatetic journeys of Austerlitz and the narrator are
274 Gregory-Guider, Christopher C. “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald.” In Contemporary Literature. Vol. 46, No. 3, (Autumn, 2005), 422-49.
275 Moser, Christian. “Peripatetic Liminality: Sebald and the Tradition of the Literary Walk”. In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 37-62.
102 attempts . . . to adumbrate an afterimage of a now vanished past or origin amidst the encroaching oblivion of the contemporary landscape” (italics mine).276 These movements from past to present can be presented as:
Past/ Dark/ Death Present/ Light/ Life Sebald is known for trespassing the boundaries of these binary oppositions for symbolic value.
Sebald and Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark
As a “post-Holocaust writer” in exile, Sebald’s artistic formation recalls Willa
Cather’s The Song of the Lark.277 Like Sebald, Cather uses black/dark and white/light elements in her novel in order to bring to light the protagonist’s maturity as an artist. Like
Sebald, Thea Kronborg’s artistic awareness does not take place in her native Chicago, where she works hard at her voice lessons, but in a deserted canyon in Arizona. There she loses herself in the prehistoric ruins and spends time alone on the “sunbaked rock ledges and in the shade of ancient pueblo rooms.”278 It will be at this canyon that she will undergo a psychological transformation while contemplating the dark ancient rooms at night and bathing and diving in the stream at its base during the day. Thea comes to recognize the spiritual connection with the “shards of ancient Indian pottery”279 she finds
276 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 428.
277 Cather, Willa. The Song of the Lark. Massachusetts: The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1943.
278 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 379.
279 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 379.
103 in a stream, “vessels designed to bear life-giving water,” 280 as she explains. She finally understands that her “own throat is a vessel designed to carry song.”281 Thea reveals:
“What is any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment, the shining, elusive element which is life itself? . . . In singing one made a vessel of one’s throat and nostrils and held it on one’s breath, caught a stream in a scale of natural intervals.” 282 Thea’s attempt to collect shards of pottery become a symbol of her trying to rebuild her new identity as an artist out of the fragmented vessels
(putting pieces of the puzzle together). She finds out that in the process of re-building the pottery she is able to identify the painting in it: “Some part of it was decorated in black and white. . . a broad band of white [Indian] cliff-houses painted on a black ground.”283 In The Song of the Lark, it is only when attempting to collect the shards that
Thea identifies the Indian culture and history behind the pottery which is reinforced by the use of the chiaroscuro technique. The Indian cliff houses stand in stark contrast against the dark background; they are placed in the centre through the chosen color of white and light.
In the process of observing and identifying the pottery’s message, Thea comes to the conclusion that only “stupid women carried water for most of their lives; the clever ones made the vessels to hold it” 284 Fragmented, the pottery cannot hold the water of life. In order to create a solid identity, one loses himself/herself in order to discover a
280 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 377.
281 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 378.
282 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 378.
283 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 379-80.
284 Cather, The Song of the Lark, 377.
104 new self out of the fragments. In a similar way as Thea Kronborg, Sebald finds the opportunity to voice his opinion outside Germany. As a writer, he revivifies the dark past of the Nazi Germany in an effort to capture for a moment the fragmentation of history during the Holocaust. Like Thea, he understood that his pen was designed to write the untold stories of his Heimat and to bring voice to the silenced. Let us explore and discover how Sebald achieved this goal in his notable works.
Chiaroscuro in Die Ringe des Saturn (and Austerlitz)
In Die Ringe des Saturn and Austerlitz, like in Die Ausgewanderten, the interplay of light and shadow plays a crucial role in allowing Sebald to show through light and hide through the darkness. This technique is also used to give the novels texture and symbolic value. Let us explore them in order to find out how Sebald plays with light and shade as well as liminal spaces. In the opening paragraph the narrator of Die Rings des
Saturn prepares the reader for a journey on foot to be taken with the aging and melancholy narrator through the vast English countryside. This time the walking is undertaken as a way to escape the dark and gloomy emptiness created by work. The narrator explains: “Im August 1992, als die Hundstage ihrem Ende zugingen, machte ich mich auf eine Fußreise durch die ostenglische Grafschaft Suffolk in der Hoffnung, der nach dem Abschluß einer größeren Arbeit in mir sich ausbreitenden Leere entkommen zu können. (RS 9) In vain, the narrator hopes that the emptiness will disappear because the journey awakens thoughts that are embedded in the dark past. He reveals:
“Jedenfalls beschäftige mich in der nachfolgenden Zeit sowohl die Erinnerung an die
105 schöne Freizügigkeit als auch die and das lähmende Grauen, das mich verschiedentlich
überfallen hatte” considering that “der selbst in dieser entlegenen Gegend bis weit in die
Vergangenheit zurückgehenden Spuren der Zerstörung. (RS 9)
At the opening section the narrator is placed in a liminal zone because the journey brings to him not only a sense of freedom but also a paralyzing terror when confronted with the dark traces of the past. In Austerlitz, Jacques Austerlitz is engulfed with a similar paralyzing terror when walking upon the London cemetery. He states:
“doch so sehr mich die Spaziergänge in Tower Hamlets untertags auch beruhigten, so sehr bin ich am Abend heimgesucht worden von den grauenvollsten, manchmal
Stunden um Stunden anhaltenden und immer weiter sich steigernden
Angstzuständen.” (Austerlitz 326) Yet, as the narrator explains, it had been of little use that he had discovered “die Quellen [s]einer Verstörung” and looking in retrospect he now could see “mit größter Deutlichkeit. . . als das von seinem vertrauen Leben von einem Tag auf den anderen abgesonderte Kind” (326) This discovery makes him conclude: “die Vernunft kam nicht an gegen das seit jeher von mir unterdrückte und jetzt gewaltsam aus mir hervorbrechende Gefühl des Verstoßen- und
Ausgelöschtseins” (Austerlitz 326). The horrifying anxiety produced during the
“grauenvollsten Stunden” that Austerlitz experiences sheds light upon his identity crisis; that is why for him “alles was [er] anblickte, [war] verschleiert von einer schwarzen
Schraffur” (Austerlitz 327). ‘The veil of the black hatching’ brings to light another aspect of the chiaroscuro which I have explained in my introductory chapter under the history of the technique. Hatching creates shading effects by drawing closely fine parallel lines.
The essential idea behind this technique is that the thickness and spacing of the lines
106 affects the brightness, emphasizes form and creates a three dimensional volume. The mastery of this chiaroscuro technique is that the lines should work around the form. In
Sebald this hatching technique seems to have been drawn without any intention of emphasizing form or creating a visual depth and volume; indeed, it is experienced as a sensation, a kind of injury since modeling has become wounding. The absence of light becomes crucial since Austerlitz’s sight is veiled with a black hatching which allows no visual penetration. Later he even envisages himself being broken from within and “Teile
[des] Körpers über eine finstere und ferne Gegend verstreut [sind]” (Austerlitz 327). No other passage in the book paints a better picture of the fragmentation of the soul than the latter one. More importantly, the dark element adds to the trauma and despair caused by dislocation and uprootedness. According to the narrator, Austerlitz had suffered many previous attacks but the last one sends him to hospital due to his collapsing and mental absence. Ironically, the hospital window where he stayed for three weeks was facing the same cemetery that had caused him the paralyzing terror. He reveals: “[ich] blickte stundenlang durch eines der trüben Fenster in den Friedhof, . . . hinab und spürte in meinem Kopf nicht als die vier ausgebrannten Wände meines
Gehirns” (Austerlitz 328). The “burning” of the four walls of Jacques’ brains refers to his elevating trauma, terror and identity crisis. Thus, in both Austerlitz and Die Ringe des
Saturn the traces of destruction 1. contour the physical landscape of the narrators’ wanderings and the mental landscape of their thoughts and 2. are thus responsible for their paralyzing terror which leads to hospitalization because they cannot come to terms with the past. As a result both men suffer incurable melancholia as they are eternally mourning what has been destroyed.
107 In Die Ringe des Saturn, like in Austerlitz, the grieving process and the sense of gloominess is highlighted in the opening chapter through the incorporation of an image of a black netted hospital window. The narrator explains:
Genau entsinne ich mich noch, wie ich, gleich nach der Einlieferung, in meinem achten Stockwerk des Krankenhauses gelegenen Zimmer überwältigt wurde von der Vorstellung, die in Suffolk im Vorsommer durchwanderten Weiten seien nun endgüldig zusammengeschrumpft auf einen einzigen blinden und tauben Punkt. Tatsächlich war von meiner Bettstatt aus von der Welt nichts anderes mehr sichtbar als das farblose Stück Himmel im Rahmen
des Fensters. (RS 10)
RS pg. 10
This grainy photograph, located at the bottom of the left page of the text, is introduced by the central one-word line “des Fensters”. Since the text continues on the top of the facing page the reader is left to look at the colorless patch of the sky framed in the black netted window of the eight floor hospital room. The space between the cloudy sky, made up of varying shades light and dark elements, and the room is divided by the grid of the net (which is reminiscent of the grid in the Theresienstadt Library image). While the net dissects the space between the inner and outer world, the image dissects the text in a
108 similar fashion. The cloudy sky versus the black lines of the grid sheds light upon
Sebald’s use of light and dark of the “graue Einöde” (RS 11) in order to meditate on clarity/light and obscurity/dark of visual perception. Rosanne Kennedy describes this image as the one invoking a “funeral mood”285 created by the “schwarz[es] Netz” which
“wurde bei Einbruch der Dämmerung so stark” (RS 11) “suggest[ing thus] the precariousness of survival - not just individual human survival, but the survival of a familiar ‘reality’”286 This survival of the familiar is depicted when the then-hospitalized narrator tries to look outside of the window “die vertraute Stadt” turns out to look
“vollkommen fremd.” (RS 11) He says:
Ich konnte mir nicht denken, daß in dem ineinanderverschobenen Gemäuer dort unten noch irgend etwas sich regte, sondern glaubte, von einer Klippe aus hinabzublicken auf ein steinernes Meer oder ein Schotterfeld, aus dem wie riesige Findlingsblöcke die finsteren Massen der Parkhäuser herausragten. (RS 11-2)
Looking down from the cliff upon a field of rubble appeals to historical catastrophes such as post-war Germany where Berlin, in particular, was drowned in wreckage. The catastrophic traces that the narrator confronts seem to be implied in the chosen title Die
Ringe des Saturn which refer to the celestial and circular forces of destruction. In his
“Saturn and the Jews” Eric Zafran recalls what Raymond Klibansky explains about the malevolent planet: “He is bad, masculine, in daytime cold, dry, melancholy, presides over fathers. . . over old age, and dotage. . . the worried, the low born, the heavy, the dead, magicians, demons, devils, and people of ill-fame-all this when his condition is
285 Kennedy, Rosanne. “Humanity’s Footprint: Reading “Rings of Saturn” and Palestinian Walks” in an Anthropocene Era.” In Biography: (Post)Human Lives. Vol. 35, No. 1 (Winter 2012), 178.
286 Kennedy, “Humanity’s Footprint: Reading “Rings of Saturn” and Palestinian Walks” in an Anthropocene Era,” 178.
109 good.” Yet, “when he is evil he presides over hatred, obstinacy, care, grief, lamenting, evil opinion, suspicion.” This malevolent planet “presides over miserly gains, over old and impossible things, far travels, long absence, great poverty, avarice. To him belong . . . everything whatsoever that is black ” 287 In his quote Raymond Klibansky sheds light upon the sense of annihilation and loss when he implies that “everything that is black” belongs to Saturn; in fact its rings, which encircle this planet have been scientifically proven to be bigger and even more violent than Jupiter, Uranus and
Neptune’s rings. Scientifically speaking, Saturn has about 24 moons orbiting it. A variety of asteroids and meteoroids would sometimes crash into these moons and break into ice crystals hence Saturn’s rings. These rings do not sit still; they circle around Saturn at incredibly high speeds.288 It is interesting to notice that in his third epigraph in Die Ringe des Saturn, Sebald explains: “Die Ringe des Saturn bestehen aus Eiskristallen und vermutlich meteoritischen Staubteilchen, die den Planeten in dessen Äquatorebene in kreisförmigen Bahnen umlaufen.” He continues “Wahrscheinlich handelt es sich um die
Bruchstücke eines früheren Mondes, der, dem Planeten zu nahe, von dessen
Gezeitenwirkung zerstört wurde (Roch’sche Grenze).289 The destruction of the former meteorites sheds light upon the violent tidal effect of Saturn’s moons. The rings of the planet, which give Sebald’s book its title, refer to the destruction that celestial bodies
287 Klibansky, Raymond, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl. Saturn and Melancholy, London: Nelson, 1964, quoted in Zafran, Eric. “Saturn and the Jews.” In Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 42 (1979), 16.
288 Information taken from: Thiel, Hans Peter and Marcus Würmli. Sternhimmel und Planeten. (Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, Mannheim: 1994), 19-20.
289 Sebald, W. G. Die Ringe des Saturn, Eine Englische Wallfahrt. Frankfurt am Main: Vito von Eichborn GmbH & Co Verlag KG, 1995. (Sebald has taken the information from Brockhaus Enzyklopädie)
110 inflict upon other celestial bodies. Thus, these rings are pivotal since they denote the borderline between life and death:
meteorites = life/ light
Saturn’s moons = death/ darkness, reinforcing again Sebald’s fascination with ‘ashes’, ‘dust’ and loss of life. Taking a planetary aspect he uses these celestial forces to indirectly shed light upon the violence that humans/species/ inflict upon other humans/species; more importantly the mass destruction of European modernity during the 19th century.
The Dutch Herring Industry
Die Ringe des Saturn is tangibly written under the shadow of the Holocaust since both the text and images hint upon mass deaths such as that of the Belgian Congo and the battle of Waterloo. Symbolically the Dutch herring industry in 1770 where the estimated number of the fish caught within a year reached about sixty billion is also written under a similar shadow.290 The narrator explains:
Angesichts dieser kaum vorstellbaren Mengen beruhigten sich die Naturhistoriker bei dem Gedanken, dass der Mensch bloß für einen Bruchteil der im Kreislauf des Lebens andauernd sich fortsetzenden Vernichtung verantwortlich ist, und im übrigen auch mit der Annahme, daß die besondere physiologische Organisation der Fische sie schützte vor Empfindung der Angst und der Schmerzen, die beim Todeskampf durch die Körper und die Seelen der höher ausgebildeten Tiere gehen. (RS 77)
Sebald states that according to historians humanity was responsible for only a fraction of this endless destruction wrought in the life cycle. Upon an initial look the victimized
290 Reference in RS.
111 animals, encircled by dark attired fishermen, attract immediate attention in a similar fashion as the dead body of Aris Kindt does in Rembrandt. Whereas the fish occupy a central position in the image, the abusers, dressed mainly in dark jackets and trousers are placed at the margin. Again, like Dutch painter, the German author identifies with the marginalized figures by shifting the order of placement. What the narrator claims to be
‘fruitfulness of hunting’ in “A Morning Catch of Herring” is clearly deconstructed by the image which brings to light the brutality and mass killings. The vertical standing position of the men contrasts with the horizontal position of the fish, denoting the role of the powerful as active and the victim as passive. These fishermen do not look at the dead herring nor do they seem to look at each other which can be read as guilt of operating such acts of violence against the nature.
On the herrings’ natural habitat, life cycle and the intrusion of humans the narrator says:
... in einer 1857 in Wien erschienenen Naturgeschichte der Nord-
RS pg. 73
see lese ich, daß der Hering während der Frühlings- und Sommermonate in ungeahnten Millionen aus den dunklen steige, um in den Küstengewässern und
112 seichten Meeresgründen schichtenweise übereinandergelagert zu laichen. (RS 73)
Those in pursuit of herring have tried a traditional nautical knowledge such as the careful observing of fish swimming in a way as to reflect a glow when the sun falls at a given angle. Another sign “für die Anwesenheit des Herrings gelten auch die an der
Oberfläche des Wassers treibenden Myriaden von abgeriebenen Schuppen, die am Tag flimmern wie Silberplätchen und im Abenddämmer manchmal aussehen wie Schnee oder Asche” (RS 75). These tiny shimmering silver-grey bodies by day resemble snow or ashes by the sunset. Again, Sebald indirectly identifies with the victims of the North
Sea which upon capture by the black nets of the fishermen will face loss of life. Their desperate attempt to escape those nets make their “Kiemen in den Maschen [zu] verfangen” (RS 75) and they are “erdrosselt” during the eight-hour process of hauling
(RS 75). Because of this inhuman process most of the herring are “bereits tot, wenn sie aus dem Wasser gehievt werden” (RS 75). Thus, the “Morning Catch of Herring” clearly shows the dark side of the human violence and abuse of the environment through overfishing. Yet, the story does not end here. Sebald goes into detail to explain how the herring looks like after death. He says: “. . . sie haben jedoch in ihrer Gesamtheit einen reinweißen metallischen Glanz. Gegen das Licht gehalten, scheinen die hinteren Partien auf in einem Dunkelgrün von solcher schönheit, wie man es sonst nirgendwo sieht.” (RS
77) A similar after-death glow of the herring possesses the body of Aris Kindt as a corpse “mit grünlichen Leib” (RS 25). On the herring’s beauty, Sebald continues: “...sein toter Körper [beginnt] und der Luft zu leuchten. Diese eigenartige, der Phosphoreszenz
ähnliche und doch von ihr grundverschiedene Leuchtkraft erreicht wenige Tage nah dem
Eintritt des Todes ihren Höhepunkt” (RS 78). This glowing of the dead herring remains
113 unexplainable, states the narrator. Yet, a project of two scientists named Herrington and
Lightbown in 1870 investigated the luminous substance of the herring in hope to create a formula for an organic source of light. The failure of this project regarding “die
Geschichte des künstlichen Lichts. . . [war] ein Rückschlag in der sonst unaufhaltsamen
Verdrängung der Finsternis” (RS 78-9). With sadness the narrator states how the failing of the ‘light’ experiment has lost its battle against the prevailing ‘darkness’. The outcome of this experiment paints a gloomy picture since the forces of the darkness are stronger.
The symbolic value of the experiment sheds light upon the damaging effect or setbacks encountered in the never-ending conquest to conquer the darkness.
Belsen Concentration Camp
While the herring section concludes on a strong statement of the human violence upon the environment, the story of the Belsen Concentration camp which follows uses a similar technique to reveal this time the violence of humans upon humans. The narrator starts his new story by telling the reader that his continuous walking has brought him to
Benacre Broad, a lake between Lowestoft and Southwold. This lake, he tells us, was encircled by dying trees; the shore on the other hand was so serene so that he felt like he would gaze “hinein in die Ewigkeit” (RS 79). This tranquility and the feeling of looking into eternity is haunting especially when the narrator continues to explain further his surrounding landscape: “das Himmelsgewölbe war leer und blau, kein Hauch regte sich in der Luft, wie gemalt standen die Bäume, und nicht ein einziger Vogel flog über das samtbraune Wasser” (RS 79). These decaying and painted-looking trees create a
114 gloomy mood around the local seascape: “Es war, als sei die Welt unter einen Glassturz gerückt, bis aus dem Westen mächtige Quellwolken heraufkamen und langsam einen grauen Schatten über die Erde zogen.” (RS 79) It is this grey shadow over the world and the “Verdüsterung” which brings memories from an article the narrator had read from the
Eastern Daily Press “über den Tod des Majors George Wyndham Le Strange.” (RS 79)
The Major had served “in dem Panzerabwehrregiment” (RS 79) that freed the Bergen
Belsen Camp on April 14, 1945. For this story, Sebald has included a double-page spread showing an enormous pile of dead bodies without any further comment and no captions. Since the reader/viewer is left to analyze the images by him/herself, upon initial look the dead bodies look like black and white waves of a raging sea that has invaded the forested land. On a closer look, the viewer starts to identify scattered dead human bodies which lay tragically on the ground semi-covered.
RS pg. 80-81
115 These figures have similar visual resemblances to the piles of dead herring from the previous image. The dark, silent and tall trees which seem to be looking down at the dead resemble the dark attired fishermen. The men and the trees are represented not only as witnesses but also as agents of destruction. The victims, (dead herring and human bodies) are mainly drenched in light and occupy thus a central position in their artistic/photographic image. Like the Dutch master of chiaroscuro who identifies himself with Aris Kindt in The Anatomy Lesson, the German writer identifies himself with and mourns silently the piles of dead bodies lying at Belsen Camp. Sebald uses the method of chiaroscuro to achieve his goal because the sea of the dead bodies at the Bergen-
Belsen slaughter reveal indirectly the human violence upon other humans (similar to the violence done to Aris Kindt by Dr. Tulp). He uses this photograph to unfold in space the tragic time of this gruesome violence which has clearly references to mass killings during the Nazi era. To quote André Aciman again “Sebald never brings up the
Holocaust. The reader meanwhile thinks of nothing else.”291 Maybe this thinking of nothing else but the Holocaust is provoked by the grainy images that the author deliberately choses to channel the viewer’s thoughts into such direction. For instance, when I initially came across the Belsen Concentration camp photograph I thought that the dead bodies laying on the ground were waves of the brackish water the narrator was describing in the previous page. When I came to realize the mass killings the image turned out to be haunting, especially when thinking that these bodies are left abandoned without any proper burial. Since Sebald incorporates the image on a two-page spread, I
291 Aciman, André, quoted in Pearl, Monika B. “The Peripatetic Paragraph: Walking with W. G. Sebald.” In Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies, eds. Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Janet Wolff. Supplementary Vol. No. 2 (2012), 23.
116 was left alone contemplating it for sometime. The textual thread that was cut two pages earlier was lost. In the process I came to think of nothing else but the Holocaust, despite the absence of the term. What Sebald does not put in writing is invoked visually. For instance, he uses the chiaroscuro elements to inflict emotion. The main light in the image is shed upon the landscape of the covered bodies bringing them to the centre of attention. The trees are placed in the darkness and invoke a sense of foreboding, mystery and even evil. The chiaroscuro allows Sebald to give his image substance and symbolic quality, in the similar fashion we have seen in Rembrandt.
Silk Industry
Continuing on the idea of natural and historical disasters, (without mentioning the
Holocaust, yet thinking of nothing else but) is the book’s last section entitled “X” of the silkworm industry in Germany. The narrator chronicles in depth the adoption, development and production of silk in Europe in the late 18th century and how the first eggs of the “Seidenraupe” (RS 340) were brought from China by two Persian friars into the Western world. He explains:
Der in den weißen Maulbeerbäumen lebende sogennante Seidenvogel, Bombyx mori, zählt zu den Bombycidae oder Spinnern, einer Unterart der Lepidoptera, die einige der schönsten aller Nachtfalter aufweist - den großen Hermelin, Harpya vinula, den Pfauenspiegel, Bombyx Atlas, die Nonne, Laparis Monacha und den Prozessions- oder Hainbuchenspinner Saturnia carpini. (RS 340)
These moths, also called the spinners, are depicted in a black and white image without any caption or name tags associated with the description. Yet, in the image incorporated the main attention is given to the top moth, labelled as number 13, since it is the biggest
117 and the most beautiful looking. Its wings are decorated with four large spots while the rest seem to have an interesting and intricate pattern of black, white and grey combination.
RS pg 341
This moth comes to symbolise visually the beauty of symmetrical balance, pattern,
(chiaroscuro) colour and shape. One of the most intricate and intimidating designs of the wings are the circles which create space for a variety of interpretations. For instance, upon initial observance these round patterns could refer to the ‘circular’ activity of the silk production embedded in their names “Spinnern”. Upon a more careful look they do resemble the ‘rings of Saturn’ or its icy moons while the rest of the intricate wing design in grisaille hues could refer to the universe. Last but not least, these circle designs resemble eyes and instil a sense of fear since we, as readers feel double-observed by the double pairs of spots. The complex background of light and dark hue infusion
118 increases the intimidation since our eyes meet a chaotic and violent looking universe within an orderly and symmetric balance of the moth’s four wings. Within the Saturnia carpini moth, which Sebald states to be the most beautiful of all, the beauty and precise symmetry of the wings’ design are indeed highlighted because of the chiaroscuro technique. Form and shape are visually etched for the viewer.
So what is the purpose of these hauntingly beautiful moths? The narrator explains further:
Der voll ausgebildete Seidenvogel (Taf. 29, Fig. 23) selbst ist jedoch eine unscheinbare Motte, die bei ausgebreiteten Flügeln kaum anderthalb Zoll querwärts und einen Zoll der Länge nach mißt. Die Flügelfärbung ist aschweiß mit blaßbrauner Streifung und einem mondförmigen, öfters kaum kennbaren Fleck. Das einzige Geschäft dieses Schmetterlings ist die Fortplanzung. (RS 340-1)
Since the female moth’s only purpose it to multiply, then the round black and white round shapes upon her ashen white wings could also symbolize the circle of life and death since after laying three- to five hundred eggs she then dies, just several days after the male. These pale and almost transparent insects sacrifice themselves to bring to life a new generation of silk-makers, completing thus the circle of life and death.
Since the eggs refer to continuation of life (after death), the narrator describes the hatching process and the transformation of the caterpillars into moths as an emergence from the darkness into light because initially the cocoon is covered “mit einem schwarzen, sammetartigen Pelz” (RS 342) but after six to seven weeks they shed their old skin and emerge “weißer, glatter und größer, also schöner bildend, und endlich beinahe ganz durchsichtig machend” (RS 342) Reaching maturity is described as a period of glory and beauty. The narrator paints this stage with bright white colors to signify the pinnacle of the moths’ lives. Indeed, the white color of the moths’ wings
119 seems to be an extension of their domestic environment of the white mulberry trees upon which they feed and grow. Centuries ago, the narrator tells us, these moths enjoyed their freedom in their native lands in Asia until man found them and (ab)used them to gain wealth. When the silkworm industry entered the Western world, more importantly Germany, what started as an industrial and fiscal opportunity ended up unfortunately as totalitarian and domineering control:
In Preußen hatte Friedrich versucht, mit hilfe der französischen Eingewanderten eine staatliche Seidenkultur ins Leben zu rufen, indem er die Anlage von Plantagen verordnete, Seidenwürmer gratis verteilen und für die, welche mit der Seidenzucht nutzbringend sich beschäftigen, beträchtliche Preise aussetzen ließ. (RS 354)
One of the main factors why silk cultivation in Germany failed to last was due to “[die] despotische Weise, in der die deutschen Landesherren, koste es, was es wolle, sie voranzubringen suchten.” (RS 356) At the beginning of 19th century Germany, the administration of the culture was dictatorial because the farmers from the Rhineland
Palatine who owned more than an acre of land were compelled to grow about six mulberry trees per acre. The rest of the farmers were obliged to plant two. This forced cultivation sheds light upon the tyrannical methods used by National Socialists to achieve considerable wealth through domination. Indeed, as Sebald explains, the
“Reichminister für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, vom Reichsforstmeister und vom
Reichsminister für Luftfahrt” had launched “Seidenbau-Aufbauprogramms” inaugurating
“eine neue Anbauperiode in Deutschland” (RS 362), which had also instructions on the
“Auslese und Ausmerzung zur Vermeidung rassicher Entartung” by placing them over
“eingemauerten Waschkessel” (RS 364). Then the brutal killing follows: “Drei Stunden müssen die in flachen Körben ausgebreiteten Kokons über dem aus dem Schaff
120 aufsteigenden Wasserdampf liegenbleiben, und wenn man mit einer Menge fertig ist, so fährt man mit der nächsten fort, so lange, bis das ganze Tötungsgeschäft vollendet ist” (RS 364). Sebald seems to conclude the silk story with this last statement without any further explanation. Yet he continues:
Indem ich jetzt, dies niederschreibe, noch einmal unsere beinahe nur aus Kalamitäten bestehende Geschichte überdenke, kommt es nir in den Sinn, daß einst für die Damen der gehobenen Stände das Tragen schwerer Roben aus schwarzem Seidentaft oder schwarzer Crêpe de Chine als der einzige angemessene Ausdruck der tiefsten Trauer gegolten hat. (RS 370)
Indeed, the mass killings of the silkworms does not conclude the story of the sericulture in Europe. Sebald challenges the reader to always read between the lines and find a deeper meaning behind every section of his prose. As we continue to read along, a sombre and dark mood envelopes the final page of the last chapter. The black colored
“Seidentaft” or “Crêpe de Chine” worn by ladies in mourning refer to Sebald’s own expression of profound grief due to death and loss. Using an example of a concrete funeral he says: “bei dem Leichenbegängnis der Königin Victoria die Herzogin von Teck” she made her appearance “in einem, wie es in den zeitgenössischen Modejournalen hieß, wahrhaft atemberaubenden, von dichten Schleichern umwogten Kleid aus schwarzer Mantuaseide.” (RS 370) This gown of an exquisite quality of black silk was created by “die Seidenweberei Willett & Nephew in Norwich unmittelbar vor ihrer entgültigen Schließung, zu diesem einzigen Zweck und zur Demonstration ihrer auf den
Gebiet der Trauerseide.” (RS 370) In a dark, sombre but powerful tone Sebald concludes his last chapter on sericulture. The breathtaking gown and the veil of black
Mantua silk worn by the Duchess of Teck stand as a celebration of the silk moths who sacrifice themselves to produce the precious thread. The narrator uses Queen Victoria’s
121 funeral to bring to light not only the mastery, artistry and legacy of the sericulture but also the tragic end of these minute victims due to genocide.
Another tragic end of the moths is also explained in a brief detail in Austerlitz.
When the narrator visits Jacques in his London home in Alderney Street he spends the night under the roof of this ‘grey’ painted domain. In one of the unfurnished rooms the narrator discovers some Bakelite jars which composed a small collection of dead moths.
Austerlitz informs the narrator that one of these moths in particular “ein gewichtloses, elfenbeinfarbenes Wesen mit zusammengefalteten Flügeln” with “Silberschuppen bedeckten Rumpf” (Austerlitz 237) had met its end in that house. Adding more detail to the moth’s story the narrator continues:
Deutlich hingegen war das starrschwarze, ein wenig aus dem Kopf hervortretende Auge, das ich lange studierte, ehe ich den möglicherweise vor Jahren schon verstorbenen, aber von keinem Zeichen der Zerstörung berührten Nachtgeist wieder versenkte in sein enges Grab. (Austerlitz 237)
The chiaroscuro elements used to describe the moth add to the sombre mood of the moth’s death. There is a gradual shift of light/ivory element to grey/silver and dark/ starrschwarz which can refer to the trespassing of life/light and death/death with the grey in-between to denote this transition. The narrator retrieves this nightly apparition from its grave, observes it by placing it on the palm of his bare hand and later lays it again in its narrow tomb. Since the moth had strangely no signs of decay, the narrator seems to celebrate its after-life beauty. Like Rembrandt, the Sebaldian narrator identifies himself with the victims by bringing them out of the darkness/oblivion into the light and by acknowledging their tragic end.
122 The White Color
In Die Ringe des Saturn the dark hues of the moths’ funeral stand in stark contrast to the white ones used two pages earlier on a film in sericulture. The narrator says: “... der Saidenbaufilm [war] erfüllt von einer wahrhaft blendenden Helligkeit” because “Männer und Frauen in weißen Laborantenkitteln hantiertten da in lichtdurchfluteten, frischgeweißelten Räumen mit schneeweißen Papierbögen, schneeweißer Abdeckgaze, schneeweißen Kokons und schneeweißen leinenen
Versandsäkken.” (RS 361) Moreover, he explains, the film “hatte einen die beste und sauberste aller Welten versprechenden Charakter, ein Eindruck, der sich durch die
Lektüre des wohl in erster Linie für die Lehrer gedachten Beihefts noch verstärkte.” (RS
361) The excessive use of “schneeweiß” color is used deliberately to paint one of the whitest and the cleanest of all the worlds through the propaganda film. Yet, this whiteness is visually blinding and becomes flat since there is no sense of color, contrast, contour, depth, or volume. This ‘white on white’ world relates indirectly to Germany’s concept of racial superiority and idealism during the National Socialism. But this false shining world is deconstructed by Sebald who uses the darkest brush at the end of the final chapter to mourn the genocide of these commercial moths. Indeed, the funeral mood with which the author finalizes his book brings us back at the beginning of the first chapter where he sets off upon his solitary walk along Suffolk and is sent to the hospital in Norwich in a state of immobility later. Thus, we have come full circle to:
life/light and death/darkness
123 fulfilling what Sebald has incorporated in the books title: the rings of Saturn. Once trapped within a celestial orbit there is no way out; one is stuck in the vertiginous pathways.
Chiaroscuro in Austerlitz
! Like in Die Ringe des Saturn, where Sebald uses chiaroscuro to allow himself to reveal through light and hide through darkness, in Austerlitz he extends this artistic technique, this time though, emphasizing more on the ‘scuro/hiding’ element. Let us analyze this novel in order to find out how Sebald plays with the darker value of the chiaroscuro. In the opening pages Jacques Austerlitz meets our narrator who seems to be both Sebald (bearing close biographical resemblance to the German author) and not
Sebald (being an active listener and a passive speaker). Both the protagonist and the narrator are intertwined to retell the story of Austerlitz, a Czech Jew in search of his roots and his shattered family. The aged protagonist, now a lecturer of the history of
European architecture of the 19th century, is set to go through an eternal journey across
Europe which according to John Zilcosky “begins as an instinctual - almost pigeon-like journey toward Prague”292 to find out what happened to his mother and father during the
Holocaust and more importantly to “discover that he was one of the Jewish children sent to England on the Kindertransport following the 1939 Nazi invasion.”293 Prior to arriving in Theresienstadt in Bohemia (his easternmost station in Central Europe), Austerlitz’s
292 Zilcosky, John. “Disorientation, Nostalgia, and Holocaust Melodrama in Sebald’s “Austerlitz.”’ In MLN German Issue. Vol. 121, No. 3 (April, 2006), 691.
293 Zilcosky, “Disorientation, Nostalgia, and Holocaust Melodrama in Sebald’s “Austerlitz,”’ 691.
124 5wanderings take him from one (train) station to the other, from Liverpool Street to
Antwerp Centraal Station, from Wilson Station in Prague to the Gare d’Austerlitz in Paris where he either has some recollection of his childhood memories or he is transported to another place in the past. Indeed, in his “Kindertransport, Camps and the Holocaust”
Jean-Marc Dreyfus argues that “Antwerp Centraal Station, for instance, immediately makes him think of Lucerne station in Switzerland, destroyed in a fire - illustrated by a photograph in the book - which,” Dreyfus hints “has clear echoes of Kristallnacht, the night of 9 November 1938 during which the members of the SA systematically burned down the synagogues in German towns. Yet the “Night of the Broken Glass” is not referred to specifically in the book.” 294 I agree with Dreyfus here and support his idea of the echoes of “Kristallnacht” which are brought up in the text through indirectness of the
fire element and its destructive component. Jacques recollects that by looking through some notes he remembers that on the February 1971, during a short visit in
Switzerland, he had a chance to visit Lucerne. After seeing the “Gletschermuseum” he decides to spend a long time “auf der Seebrücke” because “beim Anblick der Kuppel des Bahnhofsgebäudes und des schneeweiss hinter ihr in den klaren Winterhimmel aufragenden Pilatusmassivs” had reminded him “an die viereinhalb Jahre zuvor in der
Antwerper Centraal Station von Austerlitz gemachten Bemerkungen.” (Austerlitz 14-16)
Continuing on this footnote then he explains that a few hours later, “in der Nacht auf den 5. Februar” long after he falls in deep sleep in his “Züricher Hotelzimmer, ist dann in dem Luzerner Bahnhof ein mit grosser Geschwindigkeit sich ausbreitendes und den Kuppelbau gänzlich zerstörendes Feuer ausgebrochen.” (Austerlitz 14-16) The
294 Dreyfus, Jean-Marc. “Kindertransport, Camps and the Holocaust.” In Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies, eds. Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Janet Wolff. Supplementary Vol, No. 2 (2012), 17.
125 pictures he sees the next day in the newspaper and on television are fixated on his head for weeks and he is unable to escape their memory. They give him a feeling “dass [er] der Schuldige oder zumindest einer der Mitschuldigen sei an dem Luzerner Brand. Noch viele Jahre später [hat er] manchmal in [s]einem Träumen gesehen, wie die Flammen aus dem Kuppeldach schlugen und das gesamte Panorama der Schneealpen illuminierten.” (Austerlitz 14-16) The echoes of the “Kristallnacht” are indirectly described here by referring to Zurich (located South of the German border but in a neutral state) and the Luzerne Station in 1971 (avoiding the actual year when the terror attack happened). This historical event of the crystal night is described in chiaroscuro pictorial elements, for instance, it is night and the fire breaks out to destroy the domed building.
In the protagonist’s dreams these massive flames light up the entire background of the snow-covered Alps. The illumination of the Alps by the firelight refers indirectly to that geographical natural beauty which belongs to Germany, too, which is the culprit country.
In this footnote, the protagonist/narrator throws hints that Germans are responsible for this fatality, yet shedding light upon how the Jews were used as scapegoats when
Austerlitz feels that he is to be blamed about the “Luzerner Brand”.
The indirect echoes of the Kristallnacht produced by the interplay of light/fire and shadow/night serve as a foreshadowing element in the journeys of Austerlitz as the protagonist’s stations are also from one fortress to the other, which he thinks of as imprisoning and fearful masses of architectural body. It is interesting to discover that these fortresses once built to protect against the enemies, turned out to serve as prisons and concentration camps during the Holocaust. Upon visiting Breendonck and the fortress of Terezin, Austerlitz tells the narrator, that these imposing structures became
126 concentration camps. Yet, as Dreyfus argues295, Sebald does not allow himself to go into the Nazi camps or to visit the main sites of destruction, the death pits of Eastern
Europe containing the 1.5 million victims of the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing squads; the extermination camps; Birkenau. In an interview with Michael Silverblatt
Sebald explains why:
I’ve always felt that it was necessary above all to write about the history of persecution, of vilification of minorities, the attempt, well-achieved, to eradicate a whole people. And I was, in pursuing these ideas, at the same time conscious that it’s practically impossible to do this; to write about concentration camps in my view is practically impossible (...) So the only way in which one can approach these things, in my view, is obliquely, tangentially, by reference rather than by direct confrontation.296
Thus, in Austerlitz, the protagonist reveals about the camps by “constantly shifting the subject” but not “by avoiding them.” 297 As Dreyfus argues further, “it is possible to read
Austerlitz as a metaphor for the impossible memory of Auschwitz, (the book’s title, the name of its protagonist, and the final destination of his wanderings, the gare d’Austerlitz in Paris, all begin and end with the same letters and sounds as Auschwitz)”298 On the other hand, as Mark Anderson has argued: “the roads in Sebald’s work do not all lead to Theresienstadt, despite the forceful application of that reading of Sebald’s work particularly by commentators in the USA and UK.”299 Indeed as many critics have pointed out, Sebald’s concern are far wider: with exile and the history of the mass
295 Dreyfus, Jean-Marc. “Kindertrasport, Camps and the Holocaust.” In Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies, eds. Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Janet Wolff. Supplementary Vol, No. 2 (2012), 17.
296 Silverblatt, Michael. “A Poem of an Invisible Subject.” In The Emergence of Memory: Conversation with W.G. (Interview) in Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Sebald (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007), 80.
297 Dreyfus, “Kindertrasport, Camps and the Holocaust,” 17.
298 Dreyfus, “Kindertrasport, Camps and the Holocaust,” 17.
299 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 120.
127 killings in 19th and 20th century European history; he also spans across the European history from the Renaissance to the present time. As Anderson states: “The view of human devastation and darkness is much larger, at once geophysical and metaphysical, though their roots lie in a profound meditation on the violence of European modernity.”300 It is this relationship between the presence and loss that confine him: “Auf jeder neuen Form liegt schon der Schatten der Zerstörung.” (RS 33) Indeed, this shadow of annihilation is “die Geschichte jedes einzelnen, die jedes Gemeinwesens und der ganzen Welt nicht auf einem stets weiter und schöner sich aufschwingenden Bogen, sondern auf einer Bahn, die, nachdem der Meridian erreicht ist, hinunterführt in die
Dunkelheit.” (RS 33-4) Unfortunately, the history of every individual and every social order leads into the doom of darkness once the meridian is reached. All in all, Sebald speaks about the universal forces of darkness.
While in The Rings of Saturn Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson deals with the dark forces of the Dutch Golden Age, in Austerlitz these dark forces are formed around the violence and horrors of 19th century European history. For instance, like the
Rembrandt’s painting, which displays the violence of the powerful upon the powerless in chiaroscuro elements, in Austerlitz, the image of the glass case containing dead butterflies could be seen as a microcosm of The Anatomy Lesson. To start with, Helen
Hills argues:
The photo is forced into the text mid-sentence, such that the whole, the text and image taken together, implies that the text itself enters the logic of collecting, figured here as a collection of captured, dead creatures, not readily seen, imprisoned behind cracked
300 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 120.
128 glass. Multiple delicate painstaking violence have already taken place and the text is part of them.301
Austerlitz pg. 122.
This image is inserted in the text without any caption and divides the text abruptly.
Helen Hills’ comments on the dead butterflies fall short and I would like to expand here with a further analysis of chiaroscuro elements which compose this grainy image. Thus, one of the most visible rows is the middle one upon which the biggest moths are placed.
The third butterfly, which is the biggest and the darkest attracts the initial attention. It can be compared to Aris Kindt’s bright light dead body set against the dark attired men, yet with a contrast: the moth’s body is depicted as the darkest against the bright background. The cracked glass just below the central moth and the second from the bottom cuts like a knife, an incision that brings to mind the violence conducted upon the left hand of Aris Kindt. With the inclusion of the imprisoned moths’ photograph, Sebald has been able to reveal the ‘assault’ in two steps: first the image cuts the text abruptly
301 Hills, Helen. “The Uses of Images.” In Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies, eds. Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Janet Wolff. Supplementary Vol, No. 2 (2012), 63.
129 but then the cracked glass cuts the image itself in half. Again this double-incision sheds light upon the deliberate brutality upon the powerless. For instance: these nocturnal creatures are doubly imprisoned after their deaths, first by being locked up in a room with a large window (the latter’s reflection can be seen upon the cracked glass), then again behind the glass case where they are captured carefully as if in their winding
flight. Yet, when comparing these moths to Rembrandt’s painting there are differences that need some attention. First, the violence upon the moths has already taken place whereas Kindt’s hand is actually and visibly being violated. Second, in the moth’s image, there is a large group of insects displayed behind the glass case as in mass-killing which has happened sometime in the past. In Rembrandt’s painting the atmosphere created is that of dark vultures preying on a dead corpse. Last but not least, the image of the dead moths can stand as a microcosm of the mass murder of the Holocaust which Sebald hints almost at all times (but not always)302. Supporting Mark Anderson’s remark that Sebald cannot be solely confined as a Holocaust writer, in Rembrandt’s painting, for example, the tortured body can be seen as a victim of the scientific era during the Dutch Golden Age.
Seeing, Knowing and Claiming in Sebald’s Austerlitz
It is interesting to notice that in the opening pages of Austerlitz four sets of grainy photographs containing staring eyes of animals (from the Antwerp Nocturama Zoo in
Belgium) and those of humans whom he identifies as “bestimmten Malern und
Philosophen” (Austerlitz 7) are integrated. To start with, Sebald has incorporated the
302 Mark Anderson has stated that in Sebald not all the paths lead to Theresienstadt in his “Edge of Darkness.”
130 eyes of a lemur303 and an owl, yet he speaks of a “Waschbär, den [er] lange beobachtete” and which is absent from the images; in addition, the raccoon also lacks the ability of the two former animals of seeing in the darkness. Second, he does not identify the second pair of eyes as the painter Jan Peter Tripp and the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein. As Helen Hills explains these images: “suggest questions about the relationships between animal and human, between text and image, and between looking and interpreting; and about the connections between all three.”304 Contrary to scientific knowledge, the narrator of Austerlitz states that there is a resemblance between the eyes of these nocturnal animals as compared to the eyes of
Austerlitz pg. 11
303 Both lemurs and owls come out only at night and have an eerie stare. The name “lemur” means ‘ghost’ in Latin because the animal hunts for its food at night. In addition, the owl’s eyes are the most striking feature and give the animal a wise appearance.
304 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 65.
131 the humans. Yet as Hills argues: “The photographs occupy a position of disturbance in relation to the text since the animals’ eyes do not resemble those of the humans...” because “while the nocturnal animals can see in the dark, humans cannot; instead humans have a remarkable capacity to see what they are told is there. Thus, paradoxically, through the sight of the organs of sight the problem of ‘the darkness that surrounds us’ is subtly set in motion.” 305 I agree with Hills when she argues that through these images the problem of ‘the darkness which surrounds us’ is ‘set in motion’. What she implies is that Sebald’s images question the “difference between seeing and knowing, sight and seeing, and between claim and evidence.” 306 Indeed, the black and white composition of the animal versus human eyes seems initially to be a simple set juxtaposed to prove the truth of the textual claim. Yet, the longer the viewer looks at the images, the better s/he understands that behind these two monochrome illustrations the textual claim is not valid. For instance, these nocturnal animals have an ability to see in the darkness, as Hills notes, a quality that is absent in the human world.
Thus, contrary to the textual claim, a careful observation of the images reveals:
nocturnal animals / ability to visually penetrate the darkness
humans / inability to visually penetrate the darkness
Sebald works with the light/day versus darkness/night elements in a subtle way since these chiaroscuro elements are embedded within the organ of sight. Contrary to animals, people, as Hills states, ‘see what they are told is there‘ - a theory which Sebald is trying to deconstruct by compelling his readers to be careful observers. Indeed, he
305 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 65 & 67.
306 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 67.
132 wants his readers to challenge the textual claim because his black and white images always tell a different story. As Hills states: “Sebald deploys photographs like guns.
They disrupt and knock off course. Even as they suggest the authentication and truth, they undermine that assumption.” And “the photographic medium does not impose a sense of mediation. There is, rather, an invitation to mediate.” 307 And Sebald encourages this mediation by choosing monochrome images which fail to support the text. Another example of this is the image of two billiard balls at Iver Grove, a country house in Iver in Buckinghamshire on the verge of deterioration. When Austerlitz and his teacher visit the site it seemed to them as they were “erfasst von einem stummen
Entsetzen über das ihm bald bevorstehende, schandbare Ende” (Austerlitz 151). Upon visiting Austerlitz learns that the ancestors who built Iver Grove withdrew to the observatory after developing insomnia. There he spent time to “verschiedenen astronomischen Studien, insbesondere der sogenannten Selenographie oder
Vermessung des Mondes” (Austerlitz 152). The ancestor had also been in close contact with the “berühmten Miniaturisten und Pastellzeichner John Russell in Guilford” who was working on a “Mondkarte” which surpassed the earlier works of Ricciolis and
Casinis due to the representation of the earth’s satellite in its “Genauigkeit und
Schönheit” (152) Austerlitz reveals that when the actual moon could rise or not been seen because it was covered by the clouds, the owner of Iver Grove showed them the billiard room. Sadly, after the ancestor’s death this room had remained abandoned for about a hundred and fifty years. Austerlitz explains:
307 Muldoon, P. Plan B. (London: Enitharmon Press, 2009), 7; quoted in Hills, Helen. “The Uses of Images,” 65.
133 Die Innenläden waren immer verschlossen geblieben, das Licht des Tages nie eingedrungen. So abgesagt, sagte Austerlitz, sei dieser Raum von dem Rest des Hauses offenbar stets gewesen, dass sich im Verlauf von eineinhalb Jahrhunderten kaum eine hauchdünne Staubsicht habe ablagern können auf den Gesimsen, auf den schwarzweissquadrierten Steinfliesen und dem grüngespannten, einem separaten Universum gleichenden Tuch. (Austerlitz 156)
The chiaroscuro elements embedded within the ‘black and white squared stone tiles” are reminiscent of Tripp’s painting of checkered floor where the light squares symbolize life and the dark ones death. The light/dark elements enrich the passage with visual and symbolic value. Furthermore, upon looking at the image that Sebald has chosen and reading what the text has to explain one has to make an assumption that the photograph depicts, as Helen Hills explains, “planet and satellite, billiard table and balls, and a dust-covered ‘self-contained universe’ that is a neglected memorial to the ancestor.”308
Austerlitz pg. 154-5
308 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 68.
134 Helen Hill’s analysis of the image falls short of further explanation to the image, though. It is true, as she argues, that upon initial observation the billiard table visually resembles the self-contained universe especially when the text reinforces this idea. Yet, this astronomical thread in Austerlitz seems to draw its roots from the title of Die Ringe des Saturn. In the latter novel Sebald uses celestial elements to shed light upon the violence and the shadow of utter destruction when he clearly states that the history of every social order and of the human beings of the world leads into darkness once the meridian is reached. (RS 23-4) Are these celestial elements used in Austerlitz similar to those used in Die Ringe des Saturn? Let us analyze the billiard image in depth. Sebald allows us to enter the abandoned room when the moon is absent from the night sky. A two-page grainy image of a pool table with two balls (one white and one black) is inserted in-between the sentence when the narrator tells us that “der
Mondforscher” (Austerlitz 153) had played against himself in the so-called “selber gewonnen oder verlorenen Spiele” (156) which he had recorded on a book “mit seiner schön geschwungenen Schrift” (Austerlitz 156).309 Since this room has not seen the light of the day we enter an ever darker enclosed space. The grey-looking billiard table stands as a site of ‘battlefield’ since the actual game’s goal is to pocket all the balls and clear the field while celebrating the victory of the white ball. The ‘black/victim’ ball as shown in the image is the last to be eliminated. In Austerlitz the grainy image catches the games at its very tense moment, because the black ball, which is kept hostage until
309 The narrator’s words shed light upon the destructive effect of the wars in general which could also hint to WWI and II as self-won and self-lost because Germany itself declared war to eliminate the ‘Other’ which ironically at the same time served to destroy Germany and Germans as well. These wars were self- played like Ashman’s billiard games. The writing of his victories and loses in his book refer to the war’s records of triumph for status but to the account of mass human loss. The name of Ash-man itself sheds light upon ‘ashes’ and ‘dust’ which refers indirectly to the Holocaust.
135 the right moment of assimilation, is caught moments before its termination. Sebald deliberately has decided to keep the balls in two different dominions; he has placed the image in a two-page spread creating a visual and physical gap, as to reveal that if the white ball is to make the (iconic) move it will be considered an intrusion to the other side as it will cause death. This division of the image serves as an incision or a borderline which denotes life/light and death/darkness. The grey billiard field serves as a liminal space where the transition (loss of life) is waiting to happen with the passing of time.
Again, Sebald’s deliberate manipulation of text and image creates a unique effect since the technique of the chiaroscuro allows him to give his body of work substance and a symbolic quality.
Visiting Theresienstadt
! The image of the billiard game brings to mind another important photograph in
Austerlitz: the one of Theresienstadt. The narrator, who escaped the Holocaust on a
Kindertransport returns to Terezin in hope to find any trace of his long-lost mother helped by Vera, his nanny when he was a little child. The first impression that Terezin leaves on Austerlitz is incomprehensible. Austerlitz says: “Als ich in Lovosice ausgestiegen war nach ungefähr einer Stunde, glaubte ich, wochenlang unterwegs gewesen zu sein, immer weiter ostwärts und immer weiter zurück in der Zeit.” (266)
Travelling eastward is not only physical but mental as one moves in space and time.
Continuing his journey on the train he recollects:
... nach Norden [eröffnet sich] ein weites Panorama im Vordergrund ein giftgrünes Feld, dahinter ein vom Rost zur Hälfte schon zerfressenes petrochemisches Kombinat, aus
136 dessen Kühltürmen und Schloten weiße Rauchwolken aufsteigen, wahrscheinlich ohne Unterlaß seit einer langen Reihe von Jahren. (Austerlitz 267-8)
The greenish field in the foreground stand in opposition to the white clouds of smoke produced ceaselessly from the chimney, one of the tallest structure standing against the
“kaltgrau” (Austerlitz 268) morning sky. The toxic green color in combination with chiaroscuro elements such as the white clouds of burning furnace against the cold grey sky create an image of a deadly and venomous landscape. Thus, upon the initial encounter with the town Austerlitz says: “Auch sind auf dem ehemaligen Glacis und den grasüberwachsenen Wällen im Laufe der Zeit allerhand Büsche und Stauden aufgeschlossen” giving the impression that “Terezín sei weniger eine befestigte als eine getarnte, großenteils schon in den sumpfingen Boden des Inundationsgebietes gesunkene Stadt.” (270) Austerlitz’s description of Terezín reveals that the town is in fact not fortified (as it is claimed) but hidden and sunken below the marshy ground. Upon the journey's end the narrator’s view is obstructed by “ein paar regenschwarze Ahorne und
Kastanien” and finds himself in front of “die ehemaligen Garnisonshäuser.” (270) A few more steps bring the narrator to the central square which was encircled “von einer doppelten Baumreihe. . . Das Auffälligste und mir bis heute Unbegreifliche an diesem
Ort war für mich von Anfang an seine Leere.” (270) The city centre becomes a site of desolation because the narrator is engulfed by the deepest sense of emptiness.
The images that Sebald has chosen to incorporate for Terezín deconstruct the idea of the town that Vera has presented as “eine regulare Kommune” (Austerlitz 270).
Almost devoid of human beings and represented in the most desolate aspect under a rainy sky the town seems to be quite the contrary of an ordinary community. During his
137 visit there, the narrator encounters two strange humans: the first one is “eine vornübergebeugte Gestalt, die sich unendlich langsam an einem Stock voranbewegte, als ich einen Moment nur mein Auge von ihr abwandte, auf einmal verschwunden war.” (Austerlitz 270) The second encounter is by a mentally disturbed man who spoke
“in einer Art von gestammeltem Deutsch” who then “wurde vom Erdboden verschluckt” (Austerlitz 270-1). These figures that the narrator encounters seem to be the ghosts of the past.
Austerlitz pg. 271
On this note, a deeper sense of emptiness and uncanniness envelops Austerlitz while walking around the town. In the text, one of the most important photographs of the town’s centre is the one bearing a dark sign indicating “IDEAL” in bright white letters.
The sign stands as an iconic and ironic element in a similar fashion as “Arbeit Macht
Frei” stands. According to Helen Hills, this image “distances and makes ironic what it
138 seems to lay before us, Theresienstadt, the city that Hitler gave the Jews, the ‘ideal’ city that was anything but.” 310
In this town the sense of abandonment is extremely oppressive as noted by the narrator; and Sebald seems to draw our attention to this oppressiveness when he deliberately cuts ‘nieder - drückend” in half by the incorporation of the image. Terezín is represented in its utmost darkness, emptiness and abandonment. Austerlitz reveals:
War schon die Verlassenheit der gleich dem idealen Sonnenstaatswesen Campanellas nach einem strengen geometrischen Raster angelegten Festungsstadt ungemein nieder-/drückend, so war es mehr noch das Abweisende der stummen Häuserfronten, hinten deren blinden Fenstern, sooft ich auch an ihnen hinaufblickte, nirgends ein einziger Vorhang sich rührte.” (Austerlitz 271)
The silent facades, the blind windows and ruinous doors highlight the sense of gloominess in Terezin. In the next pages the reader is left to experience the town through a set of black and white haunting photographs which Sebald incorporates without a caption. On the first page we see only a two-line thread of text which seems to be an explanation for the other subsequent images. The initial word “entlang” sandwiched between the two images seems to complement the long row of dustbins shown in the upper photograph and serves to connect the sentence from the previous page. The narrator questions himself whether this town is inhabited by any human beings yet the sight of some dustbins make him think otherwise. He says “Ich konnte mir nicht denken, wer oder ob überhaupt irgend jemand in diesen öden Gebäuden noch wohnte, trotzdem mir andererseits aufgefallen war, in welch grosser Zahl in den
Hinterhöfen mit roter Farbe grob numerierte Aschenkübel der Wand / entlang aufgereiht
310 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 77.
139 waren” (Austerlitz 271-2). Due to the monochrome hues in his images, Sebald explains that the writing upon the bins is done with a red color. Visually absent but mentally inflicted within the chiaroscuro values the red paint stands out as the color of blood and violence, thus compelling us to see Terezín as a horror town. To use Mark M.
Anderson’s statement Sebald’s fiction “is everywhere and nowhere, at once metonymy and allegory of the darkness in all of modern European history” 311 as one is presented with a “Holocaust-in-absence.” 312 Even though Sebald never mentions the word
‘Holocaust’ the reader seems to be held ransom by what is not said. The latter statement is key to creating a Sebaldian atmosphere. Sebald is known to be indirect just like the master of light and darkness, Rembrandt, through his interplay of light and shadow which gives his work a symbolic quality.
Continuing on the dark and light masterful interplay, the next lines reveal the narrator’s mood while in this town, when he says: “Am unheimlichen aber schienen mir die Türen und Tore von Terezín, die” he continues the sentence four pages later,
311 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 105.
312 Eder, Richard; quoted in Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 105.
140 “sämtlich, wie ich zu spüren meinte, den Zugang versperrten zu einem nie noch durchdrungenen Dunkel, in welchem, so dachte ich” - said Austerlitz - “nichts mehr sich regte als der von den Wänden abblätternde Kalk und die Spinnen, die ihre Fäden ziehen, mit ihren hastig trippelnden Beinen über die Dielen laufen oder erwartungsvoll in ihren Geweben hängen.” (Austerlitz 272 & 274) The dark elements from the chiaroscuro technique in this passage reinforce the sense of mystery since the narrator feels that the gates and doorways of Terezin obstruct access to a darkness that is never yet penetrated by light. Indeed, these dark dead entrances are set in contrast to the white- washed walls which are deteriorating. The only movement in this silent town seems to be the peeling off the white walls and the gradual progression of the spider webs. This decadence, which Sebald clearly places into visible daylight through the interplay of light and darkness, reinforces the element of abandonment and the absence of human life and care.
Even though the narrator hints from time to time that Terezín might be inhabited by people the images sabotage this statement. The domestic areas inside these obscure structures are touched by eternal darkness. Even in dreams, as the narrator explains later, when he finally finds a way to peek inside the barracks of Terezín, he
finds himself “wie im Halbschlaf” trying in vain to hold fast to “das pulvergraue
Traumbild” in order to discover what it concealed “aber er löste sich immer mehr auf” (Austerlitz 276-7). As I analyzed in chapter one, human faces are where Sebald has his most subtle integrity of grey. Since those faces are absent here, what remains is black and white contrast. The mastery of the chiaroscuro in this passage allows Sebald to show through light and hide through darkness. Since light cannot enter these dark
141 spaces they just become flat surfaces against the gloomy facades. This lack of penetration is further reinforced by a visit to the Antikos Bazaar around midday.
Austerlitz pg. 276-7
This store which occupied the entire facade of one of the largest structures in Terezín,
“geht auch weit in die Tiefe” indicates Austerlitz. The idea of “depth” though is deconstructed when the narrator says: “Sehen konnte ich freilich nur, was in den
Auslagen zur Schau gestellt war und gewiß nicht mehr als einen geringen Teil des im
Inneren des Bazars angehäften Trödels ausmachte.” (Austerlitz 278) Since the sense of depth is shattered, the dark windows and doors reinforce the idea of flat surfaces and thus a sense of impenetration. Painting the scenery with the darkest shades of the
‘scuro‘ element he reveals that the secrets behind these showcase windows are sealed off due to the absence of light. In these grainy photographs Sebald has represented
Terezín as a ghost town where previous human life has left just its footprints. Like in
Rembrandt the viewer has to look carefully into an image in order to find the true meaning behind the interplay of the light and darkness.
142 As if to zoom in these dark showcase windows Sebald incorporates two other images of objects which lie disorganized and for unknown reasons “ [hatten] ihre ehemaligen Besitzer überlebt und den Prozeß der Zerstörung überdauert” (Austerlitz
281). The list of objects mentioned include: three brass mortars, glass bowls, ceramic vases, earthenware jugs, a tin with Theresienstädter Wasser imprint, box of seashells, model ship, jacket, Russian officer’s cap and olive green uniform, a fishing rod, a
Japanese fan, lampshade, a stuffed squirrel already moth-eaten etc. More importantly and incorporated in a separate image is “[eine] elfenbeinfarbene Porzellankomposition, die einen reitenden Helden darstellte, der sich auf seinem soeben auf der Hinterhand sich erhebenden Roß nach rückwärts wendet” and “um mit dem linken Arm ein unschuldiges, von der letzten Hoffnung verlassenes weibliches Wessen zu sich emporzuziehen und aus einem dem Beschauer nicht offenbarten, aber ohne Zweifel grauenvollen Unglück zu retten.” (Austerlitz 280-1)
Austerlitz pg. 280
The cutting off the sentence just before “Helden” by the incorporation of the image makes the moment of “reitenden” eternal but at the same time just continuing. Indeed,
143 the ivory colored composition stands in the spotlight of the vitrine since the rest of the background is mainly drenched in grisaille and dark tones. Sebald, like Rembrandt, creates meaning and feeling by hiding some things and showing others. For instance, on the lower right side of the image we see probably the lampshade that the narrator lists under the objects he sees behind the showcased window, upon which a landscape is painted with elegant brushstrokes showing a river running through either Bohemia or
Brazil. The bright landscape seems to complement the figurine of the hero on the white horse and his endless journey (which is also symbolic for Austerlitz’s never-ending travels to find his familial roots). The outlines of this artwork stand in stark opposition to the dark background thus creating a three-dimensional figure. Unlike the doors and windows whose appearances denote flat surfaces, this composition through the help of chiaroscuro denotes depth (especially when it evokes the absent faces).
From the narrator we learn that the objects from the Antikos Bazaar, including the riding hero figurine are objects which have survived the process of destruction. Now they are preserved and protected behind the glass-cased window. Helen Hills says:
“Superimposed on it and barely perceptible, the reflection of the narrator-photographer himself forms another survival from a destroyed past, for which his narrative is both search and record of loss, in a moment that occupies an entirely fixable relation to time.”
313 Later she adds:
. . . Sebald’s encounters are open and fluid. Movement and transience run through the work, echoes by an apparent openness in the narrative that follows distractions or coincidences, that traverse, ignore, or transgress boundaries, in order to ‘walk after’ (‘nachgehen’) the stories that cross his path, following the vanishing traces of
313 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 79.
144 people, objects, ideas and memories, in order to save them from oblivion. In this task he is inspired, assisted, and thwarted by photos and other images which he allows to have more memory and more future than the beings who contemplate them. 314
I agree with Helen Hills especially on the latter part of her statement. Sebald does allow photographs and images to have more memory than humans. Within their dark and impenetrable corners they hide secrets we cannot decipher as they are buried in the past. Those aspects or elements we are allowed to decipher are drenched in light. In a way, photographs share memories with us, yet some aspects are still hidden and remain mysterious in a similar fashion as the interplay of light and shadow in the chiaroscuro technique.
Trying to Find Agáta, the Long Lost Mother
Austerlitz, whose name gives the book its title, is a solitary man in search of his long lost mother and father. In 1939 he was sent to England on Kindertransport to live with a Welsh family in order to escape the process of elimination. Years later, after having fleeting memories of his parents in Germany, Austerlitz finds himself caught in an eternal journey to salvage his legacy from oblivion. His goal is to be able to unearth the past and find those dark secrets that have been kept from him since his childhood. His initial search concerns his mother, Agáta, whom he remembers vaguely. Upon his visit to grey and gloomy Theresienstadt he is able to locate a film entitled (ironically) Der
Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt, in which he thinks, sees his mother before she is sent to the gas chambers. He says: “Im Verlauf der Aufführung sucht die Kamera in
Nahaufnahmen einzelne Personen heraus, unter anderen auch einen alten Herrn,
314 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 79-80.
145 dessen kurz geschorenes graues Haupt die rechte Hälfte” (Austerlitz 353-5) Yet, on the upper left side “das Gesicht einer jüngeren Frau erscheint, fast ununterschieden von dem schwarzen Schatten, der es umgibt, weshalb ich es auch zunächst gar nicht bemerkte.” (353) While the text tries to explain the fluidity of the film, the image represents its fixation in space and time. This image indeed cuts the text in half at the point where Agáta is described as a “junge Frau” who seems to emerge /“erscheint” from the darkness. This incision makes the ‘emerging’ element more ghost-like. The narrator paints her in light and dark elements when he describes her: “Sie trägt eine in drei feinen Bogenlinien von ihrem dunklen, hochgeschlossenen Kleid kaum sich abhebende Kette um den Hals und eine weiße Blumenblüte seitlich in ihrem
Haar.” (Austerlitz 353-5) The use of chiaroscuro that runs through this passage is used to give depth and meaning; for instance, there are two members in the audience, a man with grey hair whose sight catches immediate attention, yet the enigmatic woman who seems to appear from the darkness requires a careful observation.
Austerlitz pg. 354
146 Set further back at the upper left side of image she emerges from black shadows and is difficult to identify. We learn from the text that she is wearing a black dress and has a white flower on her hair, which initially cannot be identified as a (seemingly daisy) floral decoration. It is ironic to observe that she is dressed completely in a dark attire, her hair is dark and her face is depicted in dark shades of grey; it is only her white flower, a symbol of innocence, which stands out. Sebald uses the chiaroscuro technique to achieve this symbolic quality of innocence: 1. he drowns Agáta’s body into darkness where even her dark grey necklace is barely visible and cannot be identified as a three- stringed as claimed by the narrator since it is drowned within the dark dress, 2. he allows light to shine upon her bright flower against her dark hair making it a focal point of his description. Apart from the white flower some white numbers block the upper part of
Agáta’s face and eyes. Both the gray-haired man and the white numbers blocking her face encircle Agáta’s dark appearance making the viewer focus on her as to decipher her ‘lost’ identity. For Austerlitz this mysterious woman in the audience is similar-looking to what he remembers from his “schwachen Erinnerungen” and from “den wenigen
übrigen Anhaltspunkten” (Austerlitz 354-5) to be his mother, which correlates to what he has found from his research. He explains: “die Schauspielerin Agáta mir vorstellte, gerade so, denke ich, sieht sie aus, und ich schaue wieder und wieder in dieses mir gleichermassen fremde und vertraute Gesicht” (355). Agáta’s appearance creates an unexplainable sense of uncanniness when Austerlitz gazes at her face which is familiar and strange at the same time. Because of this confusion, Austerlitz confesses:
[Ich] lasse das Band zurücklaufen, Mal für Mal, und sehe den Zeitanzeiger in der oberen linken Ecke des Bildschirms, die Zahlen, die einen Teil ihrer Stirn verdecken, die Minuten und die Sekunden, von 10:53 bis 10:57, und die Hundertstelsekunden, die sich
147 davondrechen, so geschwind, daß man sie nicht ertziffern und festhalten kann. (Austerlitz 355)
The numbers indicating the time create a sense of dilemma which, as Mark Anderson says: “[is] posed by all the “documents” in Sebald’s texts, which point not so much to the reality of their representations as to the limintations of the human subjects looking at them across an unbridgeable temporal divide.” 315 For Austerlitz, even when he finds an image of an actress which Vera, his childhood governess identifies “sogleich und zweifelfrei, wie sie sagte, Agáta erkannte, so wie sie damals gewesen war” (Austerlitz
357), the photograph shows a face which seems to have been emerged from the deep shadows. The latter sentence is the last describing the image and seems to be cut short of its explanations. Sebald seems to leave the interpretation to the viewer since captions are also absent.
Agáta Austerlitz pg. 357
So, let us analyze this haunting photograph to find meaning. To start with, the dark background which occupies more than half of the photograph stands in stark opposition to the partially lit face. In the image the dark and the light spaces have an
315 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 111.
148 odd way of exposure creating thus a Sebaldian effect. For instance, only Agáta’s left side of her face is mostly lit but her left eye is shadowed; yet we can see that she is looking down. The right side of her face, on the other hand, seems soaked in darkness.
Only a small area of her cheekbone is highlighted. It is interesting to observe that within the darkness created around the right eye just a flicker of light shines. This minute detail is key because the viewer senses that s/he is being watched by the right eye becoming thus the object of the viewing. In this image Agáta appears calm in the sense that she seems to have accepted her tragic fate. Yet her intense (right) eye gaze is haunting. In the story, Austerlitz gains some comfort from the found image of his mother, but the search for his parents does not cease here. To quote Mark Anderson: “For the photograph is, ... a kind of death warrant stipulating what has died and cannot be recovered: “This will be and has been . . . every photograph is this catastrophe.” 316 It is true that the image/photograph is the finding of a death that can never be reclaimed.
Later by the end of the novel Austerlitz is set upon a journey to find his father.
Around this time the narrator is reading a book by Dan Jacobson, which Jacques has given him. Its story revolves around the author’s search for his long lost grandfather.
This search leads him ironically to Fort IX in Kaunas, Lithuania, the same place where
Wehrmacht military posts were located in the year 1941 “wo in den folgenden drei
Jahren mehr als dreißigtausend Menschen ums Leben gebracht wurden” (Austerlitz
417) Until May 1944 “als der Krieg längst verloren war, kamen Transporte aus dem
Westen nach Kaunas. Die letzten Nachrichten der in die Verliese der Festung
Gesperrten bezeugen es” (417) writes Jacobson. Amongst others who left only a date
316 Anderson, “The Edge of Darkness: On W. G. Sebald,” 111.
149 and a place of origin with their names “Max Stern, Paris 18.5. 44” (Austerlitz 417) indirectly hints at W. G. “Max” Sebald who was born on the 18th of May 1944. In the words of Helen Hills “Sebald’s and the narrator’s identities are intertextually affiliated and transnationally ranged and dispersed.” 317 These intertextually affiliated identities have been persisent in Austerlitz as the reader is challenged to keep up with who is really telling the story. In the concluding sentence of the novel Austerlitz says: “Ich lass am Wassergraben der Festung von Breendonk das fünfzehnte Kapitel von Hershel’s
Kingdom zu Ende, und machte mich dann auf den Rückweg nach Mechelen, wo ich anlangte, als es Abend wurde” (Austerlitz 417). In a Kafkaesque manner of Jacques arriving in town as the evening/darkness begins to fall, Sebald ends his novel on a gloomy note. The search of Austerlitz for his father remains eternal, in a similar fashion as the grandson is set upon an eternal journey to find his grandfather in Hershel’s
Kindgom. Yet, the narrator explains what Jacobson’s image of the vanished past of his family looks like:
Der Abgrund, in den kein Lichtstrahl hinabreicht, ist Jacobsons Bild für die untergegangene Vorzeit seiner Familie und seines Volks, die sich, wie er weiß, von dort drunten nicht mehr heraufholen läßt. Kaum irgendwo findet Jacobson auf seiner litauischen Reise eine Spur seiner Vorfahren, überall nur die Zeichen der Vernichtung. . . (Austerlitz 416)
Hinting indirectly at Austerlitz’s lifestory, Sebald’s interplay of chiaroscuro elements plays a crucial role in painting the darkest picture of Jacobson and Austerlitz’s futility in trying to find the traces of the long lost past. The abyss where no light is able to penetrate sheds light upon the sad fact that those familial roots cannot be retrieved
317 Hills, “The Uses of Images,” 59.
150 from those dark depths. Indeed, the ending of Austerlitz seems to be the beginning of a dark journey which is painted with the darkest element of the chiaroscuro technique.
Since the darkness prevails in the end of the novel, Sebald allows no accessibility to this past. In a similar fashion as Jacobson, Austerlitz, too, is left on top of the abyss trying to
figure out what is hiding underneath the absolute darkness: the restoration of his shattered identity? the continuation of his lineage embedded in his last name? Probably yes, but Sebald does not allow him to do so, ‘gestur[ing]’ instead “toward the ultimate unrecoverability of history.”318 A master of the chiaroscuro technique, he finishes
Austerlitz on the darkest shade of the ‘scuro’ scale.
318 Zilcosky, “Disorientation, Nostalgia, and Holocaust Melodrama in Sebald’s “Austerlitz,”’ 692.
151 Chapter 3
Light and Dark in Sebald’s Prose
“So also kehrten sie wieder, die Toten.” - Sebald (Die Ausgewanderten)
152 In chapter one I discussed how and to what purpose chiaroscuro technique was used in paintings and black and white photography. In chapter two I examined the use of black and white photography in Sebald’s texts. Now I will explain how Sebald uses chiaroscuro in his prose. I start this chapter by examinining the technique of chiaroscuro in Schwindel. Gefühle, his first travelogue, and how he uses it to create the Sebaldian effect through the mastery of the use of light and dark elements. The novel we are analyzing is divided into four sections: the first is dedicated to the biography of Henry
Beyle/Stendhal, the French novelist, under the title “Beyle oder das Merckwürdige
Faktum der Liebe”. Like the Sebaldian narrator, Stendhal is depicted as a perennial traveler. The second is entitled “All’ estero” (Italian for “Abroad”) records the narrator’s journey from Venice to Verona as well as his strange encounters with literary and historical figures such as Grillparzer, King Ludwig of Bavaria and Franz Kafka. The third section is a vignette of Kafka in Italy which ends with the mythical death of Kafka’s friend. The final chapter is entitled “Il Ritorno in Patria” translating from italian “The
Return to Homeland” yet not “Il Ritorno a Casa” (a return to a four-walled space). The first story of Schwindel. Gefühle. is the only one to unfold the journeys of Stendhal
(narrated in the third-person perspective). “All’ estero” (second section) and “Il ritorno in patria” (fourth section) depict the narrator’s personal journeys from England to Austria and Italy which are interrupted by a seven year period in-between the first and the second journey to Italy. In the last section the narrator returns to his hometown W. in
Allgäu, Germany. These two sections are separated by the third chapter “Dr. K.s
Badereise nach Riva”. Through these journeys Sebald creates a bitter-sweet counterpart of the narrator as a perennial wanderer, one who gathers stories, memories
153 and history as he goes across the land and landscape, sea and seascape, city and cityscape.
“All’ estero”
In “All’ estero” Sebald leaves England where he has lived for twenty-five years and is headed for Vienna. What triggers the journey? In the opening paragraph of
Schwindel. Gefühle. the narrator explains the reason for leaving England in October
1980: “Ich war damals von England aus, wo ich nun seit nahezu fünfundzwanzig Jahren in einer meist grau überwölkten Grafschaft lebe, nach Wien gefahren, in der Hoffnung, durch eine Ortsveränderung über eine besonders ungute Zeit hinwegzukommen. (SG
39) The narrator embarks on a journey to visit Vienna in autumn in order to escape the grey and overcast county of England and to overcome a difficult time in his life. His excuse for traveling is ironic when the question raised here is: why would the narrator visit Vienna in autumn? Isn’t he trying the escape the gloominess of England’s skies?
Since Fall denotes the transition from summer to winter the arrival of night becomes visibly earlier; and the disappearing sunlight is associated with darkness. Yet, despite the grayness of the season, why is movement important for a troubled individual?
Because “whoever puts himself in motion is not far from thinking. Philosophizing with our feet, with the constant movement that they communicate with the rest of our body; my active limbs make me think.” 319 The Sebaldian narrator of Schwindel. Gefühle. contemplates while going on foot. Walking helps him think and thinking helps him write.
319 Grivel, Charles. “Travel Writing.” In Materialities of Communication, eds. Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, trans. William Whobrey. (California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 250.
154 Thus, walking through the maze of Vienna streets without any purpose might solve everything. He explains:
Jeden Morgen früh machte ich mich auf und legte in der Leopoldstadt, in der inneren Stadt und in der Josefstadt anscheinend end-und ziellose Wege zurück, von denen keiner, wie sich zu meinem Erstaunen bei einem späteren Blick auf den Plan zeigte, über einen genau umrissen, sichel-bis halbmondförmigen Bereich hinausführte, dessen äußerste Spitzen in der Venediger Au hinter dem Praterstern beziehungsweise bei den großen Spitälern des Alsergrunds lagen.” (SG 39)
The iconic openings of Sebald prepare the reader for a journey to be taken with the narrator who is a wanderer with no goal or destination. The initial feeling is that the narrator will follow in the path of the Romantics in search of the ‘blue flower’. John
Zilcosky,320 J. J. Long321 and Christian Moser322 argue that even though the Sebaldian narrator starts off as a Romantic wanderer, “this typically Romantic plan of reinvigoration through wandering falters when the narrator ends up not seeing the thrillingly strange but rather only familiar visions from a history he has tried to repress.” 323 For instance, alone in the streets of Vienna at night, the narrator thinks he encounters the famous poet, Dante when he explains: “Einmal, in der Gonzagastrasse, glaubte ich sogar, den bei Feuertod aus seiner Heimatstadt verbrannten Dichter Dante zu erkennen” (SG 41).
Yet, as the narrator tries to approach the ‘poet’, the dark silhouette disappears around the corner of Heinrichsgasse (SG 42) and is nowhere to be seen. Sebald plays with the
320 Zilcosky, John. “Sebald’s Uncanny Travels.” In W.G. Sebald: A Critical Companion, ed. Jonathan Long and Anne Whitehead. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2004), 102-20.
321 Long J. J. “W. G. Sebald: The Anti-Tourist.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (New York: Camden House 2010), 63-91.
322 Moser Christian. “Peripatetic Liminality: Sebald and the Tradition of the Literary Walk.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (New York: Camden House 2010), 37-62.
323 Zilcosky, “Sebald’s Uncanny Travels,” 109.
155 reaction of the eye appearing to see human phantoms while briefly reliving and illuminating such moments of history and noble figures which are already gone.324 As
Zilcosky argues, exploring and “getting lost suggests, for the narrator, a traditionally
Romantic possibility of rebirth: it will, he hopes, both dissolve his psychological difficulties and free him from the literary ghosts - Dante, Casanova, Grillparzer and
Kafka - that continue to haunt him.”325 Yet, the narrator cannot escape these literary figures, as Zilcosky also argues, just as he “cannot escape Vienna’s centre.”326 The
Sebaldian narrator himself explains:
Hätte man die Wege, die ich damals gegangen bin, nachgezeichnet, es wäre der Eindruck entstanden, es habe hier einer auf vorgegebenen Fläche immer wieder neue Traversen und Winkelzüge versucht, um aufs neue stets am Rand seiner Vernunft, Vorstellungs- oder Willenskraft anzugelangen und zum Umkehren gezwungen zu werden. (SG 40)
During his nocturnal walkings in Vienna the narrator has no verbal communication with anyone, except for the waiters and waitresses in the restaurants and cafes. The only verbal interaction of the narrator is “mit den Dohlen” and “mit einer weißköpfigen Amsel” (42). Jackdaws and blackbirds, both black-feathered birds, can be seen as a symbol of secrecy and mystery (like the night itself). Both birds set upon the autumn landscape are the narrator’s only communication and serve as a thread for his subsequent nocturnal departure “mit dem Abendzug” (SG 44) from Vienna and
(nocturnal) arrival “nach Venedig” (44). During the trip the narrator falls asleep: “Und es ist im Schlafen gewesen, während draußen alles längst in die Dunkelheit eingetaucht
324 Sebald encounters also the figures of King Ludwig II and Franz Kafka in Italy.
325 Zilcosky, “Sebald’s Uncanny Travels,” 105.
326 Zilcosky, “Sebald’s Uncanny Travels,” 105.
156 war, daß ich ein mir seither unvergeßliches Landschaftsbild gesehen habe.” He recollects how: “Über den Dächern erhoben sich dunkel bewaldete Kogel, die schwarzgezackte Höhenlinie wie ausgeschnitten aus dem Gegenschein des
Abendlichts.” The narrator retells how he, in his dream, has visions of dark mountains against the evening light of the sky. Yet, the highest summit (Klosterwappen) is that of the Schneeberg in Austria which is glorified as the grandiose one, because its tip is glowing and shooting sparks against the diminishing brightness of the sky. He says:
“Zuoberst aber glühend, transparent, feuerspeiend und funkenstiebend die Spitze des
Schneebergs, hineinragend in die letzte Helligkeit des Himmels, an dem die seltsamsten graurosafarbenen Wolkengebilde trieben und zwischen diesen die Winterplaneten und die Sichel des Mondes.” (SG 57-58) The glowing element against the darkened sky is further depicted in the winter planets and the crescent moon. The use of the chiaroscuro technique creates a strong visual phenomena through the element of the dream. The narrator leaves Austria behind physically as the train moves eastward to Italy, yet the dream confirms that Austria continues to haunt him, just like literary and historical figures of the past. That is why on his way to Venice, the narrator says: “Die Bahnfahrt von Wien nach Venedig hat kaum eine Spur in meinem Gedächtnis hinterlassen” (SG
57).
When the narrator wakes up from his sleep on the train to Venice he looks outside the window through the darkened landscape. He narrates: “Dunkle schmale, zerrissene Täler öffneten sich, Bergbäche und Wasserfälle, weiß stäubend in der kaum gebrochenen Nacht, waren so nah, daß der Hauch ihrer Kühle das Gesicht erschauern machte.” (SG 58) Like in his dream, the outside landscape is painted with dark and light
157 elements. There are dark valleys and white waterfalls against the edge of dawn; the latter revolving around this temporal moment of the transition of night into day. The
Sebaldian narrator feels so close to nature’s touch that the cold spray of the white falls through the train window makes him realize that he is in Friaul:
Das Friaulische, ging es mir durch den Kopf, und damit dachte ich natürlich sogleich an die Zerstörung, die im Friaulischen vor wenigen Monaten erst sich zugetragen hatte. Nach und nach brachte das Morgengrauen verschobenes Erdreich, Felsbrocken, in sich zusammengesunkenes Bauwerk, Schutt- und Schotterhalden und hier und da kleine Zeltdörfer schemenhaft an den Tag. Es brannte fast nirgends ein Licht in der ganzen Gegend. (SG 59)
Again, memory is strongly tied to history and trauma. The chiaroscuro technique helps visualize this destruction of Friaul, through illumination as the daybreak reveals landslides, collapsed structures and wreckage that were hidden in the darkness of the night. The single torch burning in the area was the only source of fire against the darkened background.
After these experiences nocturnal experiences the train arrives in Venice. The narrator finds himself in the railway station of Ferrovia Santa Lucia where he reports:
“die Feuchtigkeit des Herbstmorgens [hing] dicht zwischen den Häusern und über dem
Großen Kanal. Schwer beladen, bis zur Bordkante im Wasser, zogen die Kähne voerbei.” He continues “Rauschend tauchten sie aus dem Nebel auf, durchpflügten die aspikgrüne Flut und verschwanden wieder in den weißen Schwaden der Luft.” (SG 60)
The solitary traveler leaves the dark and damp skies of Vienna to find similar ones in
Venice. The autumn morning in the Grand Canal offers no visibility as the white fog allows no visual penetration (which is central to a visitor’s eye). The narrator prepares the reader that Venice is, indeed, the city of the unknown and mystery when he further
158 says: “Wer hineingeht in das Innere dieser Stadt, weiß nie, was er als nächstes sieht oder von wem er im nächsten Augenblick gesehen wird,” (SG 60) The reader is prepared (like the narrator) to find the unpredictable and ‘see’ the ‘unseen’. Thus, as soon as he boards a vaporetto, he ‘encounters’ King Ludwig II of Bavaria who seemed to have grown “älter und hagerer und unterhielt sich seltsamerweise mit einer zwergenhaften Dame in dem stark nasalierten Englisch der gehobenen Klassen” but otherwise everything else about the King was right: “die kränkliche Blässe des
Angesichts, die weit offenen Kinderaugen, das wellige Haupthaar, die fauligen Zähne. Il re Lodovico, kein Zweifel. Wahrscheinlich, dachte ich mir, durch das Wasser hierhergekommen, in die città inquinata Venezia merda.” (SG 61) Historical ghosts continue to haunt the Sebaldian narrator again as the drowned King, he thought, must have arrived in the dirty and polluted city of Venice through water. This nautical journey might have been the cause that the King was wearing his “Wetterfleck” (SG 62).
Surprisingly, the narrator does not follow the disappearing figure of Ludwig which was becoming smaller not only because of the distance but because he was bending deeper and deeper.
Deciding not to follow King’s shadow-ghost, the narrator is soon encountered by another one: the Austrian writer, Grillparzer. In one of the cafes in Riva, he goes through the writer’s “Tagebuch auf der Reise nach Italien aus dem Jahr 1819” (SG 62), which he bought in Vienna because in his travels the narrator feels just like Grillparzer.
He explains why he would have preferred to stay home rather than having to experience
“Sehenswürdigkeiten” that he finds “enttäusch[en]”: “Grillparzer zollt selbst dem
Dogenpalast nur eine sehr bedingte Hochachtung. Trotz aller Zierlichkeit der Kunst in
159 seinen Arkaden und Zinnen habe, so schreibt er, der Dogenpalast einen unförmlichen
Körper und erinnere ihn an ein Krokodil.” (SG 62) The solitary traveler experiences a similar sense of mystery and uncanniness as the Austrian writer. The Doge’s Palace, which is one of the most elegant and one of the most iconic landmarks of Venice, is viewed by Grillparzer as mysterious and also as a predatory animal. For Grillparzer the palace is an enigma in grey: “Geheimnisvoll, unerschütterlich und hart müsse sein, was hier beschlossen wird, meint er und nennt den Palast ein steinernes Rätsel. Die Natur dieses Rätsels ist anscheinend das Grauen, denn solang er in Venedig ist, kommt
Grillparzer von dem Gehühl des Unheimlichen nicht mehr los.” (SG 62-3) Indeed, the dark tones surrounding the massive structure add to the dreadfulness of this mystery in stone. Like Grillparzer, Sebald’s traveling experiences are build around mystery, history and darkness.
Nocturnal Travels in Venice
As a nocturnal traveller, the Sebaldian narrator visits new and unseen places at night. During his roaming in Venice he meets random strangers, one of them includes a
Venetian man named “Malachio, der in Cambridge Astrophysik studiert hatte und alles, wie sich bald herausstellte, aus der größten Entfernung sah, nicht nur die Sterne” (SG
70). Malachio is described as one who can see beyond ‘the light of the stars’ against the darkness. After finding a great visionary, the narrator takes Malachio’s boat for a nocturnal trip from the Grand Canal to the open waters: “von wo aus man auf die jenseits meilenweit sich erstreckende Lichterfront der Raffinerien von Mestre hinübersieht” (SG
160 70). Yet, as the narrator explains: “Vor uns lag der verglimmende Glanz unserer Welt, an dem wir, wie an einer Himmelstadt, uns nicht sattschauen können. (SG 70) Sebald works with chiaroscuro technique and brief illumination against the darkness because contrasts of such elements open “a qualitative approach to optical phenomena.”327 For instance, the lights of the Mestre refineries stretching along the shore become visible due to the presence of the darkness of the night. Yet, those lights are slowly fading away in the night sky and the narrator and his companion are left with dying luster of their world.
After leaving the city lights of Mestre behind, both men continue their tour to the
Canale della Giudecca. The narrator explains: “Wortloss deutete mein Führer hinüber zu dem Inceneritore Comunale auf der der Giudecca westwärts vorgelagerten namenlosen
Insel. Ein totenstilles Betongehäuse unter einer weissen Rauchfahne.” (SG 70) To the question “ob denn hier auch mitten in der Nacht noch gefeuert würde, antwortete
Malachio: Sì, di continuo. Brucia continuamente. Fortwährend wird hier verbrannt.” (SG
70) In this passage, the narrator is able to witness a white cloud of smoke coming out of the Municipal Incinerator which, as Malachio would confirm in Italian, is eternal as it never goes out. In this passage, Sebald creates an optical phenomenon through the chiaroscuro technique because even though the bright flames are not visible, the smoke against the darkness serve as tools that imply the burning process. By visiting the isolated island of Giudecca, also knows as “Spinalunga” (long spine or fishbone),
Sebald might also refer indirectly to the Holocaust in a similar fashion he referred to in
Austerlitz: for instance, while traveling on a train to Terezin Austerlitz is able to locate
327 Holtsmark, Torger ed. Zur Farbenlehre: Goethes Farvelære. (Oslo: Ad Notam Gylendal, 1994), 2.
161 some white clouds of smoke produced from a chimney of an enormous building which stood in stark opposition to the cold grey morning sky. The settings of both the chimney in Austerlitz, and the incinerator in a remotely isolated island in Schwindel. Gefühle., become symbolic to the one in Auschwitz built to cremate the bodies of concentration camp victims. In fact, Sebald’s visit of the Giudecca and the Incinerator are reminiscent of the poem “O die Schornsteine”328 by Nelly Sachs which is a meditation on the Nazi killing machine that destroyed six million Jews during the Holocaust:
O die Schornsteine
Auf den sinnreich erdachten Wohnungen des Todes, Als Israels Leib zog aufgelöst in Rauch Durch die Luft - Als Essenkehrer ihn ein Stern empfing Der schwarz wurde Oder war es ein Sonnenstrahl? O die Schornsteine! Freiheitswege für Jeremias und Hiobs Staub - Wer erdachte euch und baute Stein auf Stein Den Weg für Flüchtlinge aus Rauch? O die Wohnungen des Todes, Einladend hergerichtet Für den Wirt des Hauses, der sonst Gast war - O ihr Finger, Die Eingangsschwelle legend Wie ein Messer zwischen Leben und Tod - O ihr Schornsteine, O ihr Finger, Und Israels Leib im Rauch durch die Luft!
328 Sachs, Nelly. “O die Schornsteine”. In O the chimneys: Selected Poems, Including the Verse Play, Eli, trans. Michael Hamburger [and others]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967.
162 In a similar fashion as Sebald, Sachs works with dark and light elements for historical illumination. She calls the black chimneys ‘planned dwellings of death’ because ‘Israel’s body was dissolved in smoke’. Sebald’s use of chimneys and white smoke dissolving in the night sky seem to imply the same: incinerators are dwellings of death as life goes up in flames. While Nelly Sachs depicts the absence of life which is taken abruptly by the claws of fire in an elegy, Sebald, lays it out for the reader in an indirect way: the white cloud of smoke against the night sky implies unseen flames that are burning endlessly.
Again, like the other critics I have quoted in chapter two, Daniel Kehlmann notes:
“Sebald hat über den Holocaust geschrieben, ohne das Wort Holocaust zu benutzen.
Diese Methode des Indirekten, des unter der Oberfläche Miterzählten - das ist seine
Leistung.”329 It is through the ‘unsaid’ that Sebald achieves his highest point of transmitting to the reader what he intends.
La Giudecca
On the search of unseen and abandoned historical places, the narrator and his nocturnal companion visit Giudecca, Venice’s most isolated island through its Canal.
The map clearly shows how La Giudecca is alienated from the rest of the main islands, which are hot targets for tourism.
329 Kehlmann, Daniel; is quoted in Zisselsberger, Markus. “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 26.
163 Map of Venice 330
In Knopf Guides, Giudecca’s history is described in detail: “Originally called Vigano, this island owes its present sobriquet to the word giudicato,” which “refers to a 9th-century judgement passed on dissident families, banishing them from Venice and assigning them certain part of the “Giudecca” in which to live.”331 Indeed, “for several centuries, the Giudecca was a resort for wealthy patricians, who maintained villas and gardens there.”332 During the 19th century, “various industries were established on the Giudecca with a view to the resuscitating the Venetian economy. Factories were set up; some moved into the surviving religious buildings. Little trace remains today of all this activity.”333 With Malachio’s help, the Sebaldian narrator is able to witness these dark and abandoned historical islands which in the 20th century have “remained on the fringes of Venice” and “to some extent ignored by the worlds of industry and commerce.”334 These isolated islands have become grey zones where life/light has entered the domain of darkness/death and the aftermath is ashes and dust. Christian
330 “The Other Side of Venice.” Giudecca.
331 Knopf, Alfred A. Venice, Italy. Knopf Guides. (New York: October 1993), 336.
332 Knopf, Venice, Italy. Knopf Guides, 336.
333 Knopf, Venice, Italy. Knopf Guides, 337.
334 Knopf, Venice, Italy. Knopf Guides, 337.
164 Moser explains why Sebald has precisely chosen to be a solitary traveller and not a tourist:
Whereas the pilgrim seriously contemplates the objects of adoration, the monuments and relics of the history of suffering and salvation, in order to tap a mine of spiritual meaning, the tourist is given to the fugitive consumption of commercialized sights and souvenirs - superficial signifiers that refer to nothing substantial beyond their own semiotic status as touristic “markers.”” 335
I agree with Moser who warns us that “the relics into which Sebald’s pilgrim becomes absorbed are no longer part of an overarching salvific structure devised by a Christian
God; they do not attest to salvation, but on the contrary, to the omnipresence of destruction.” 336 This latter statement is true for Sebald because the Incinerator on the nameless island of the Giudecca Canal, for instance, hints indirectly to the omnipresence of destruction.
The Stucky Flour Mill
Following up on the nocturnal journey in La Canale della Giudecca, as soon as the Incinerator dissolves in the darkness, another structure appears, the Stucky flour mill. The narrator explains: “So ungeheuer groß ist dieses Gebäude, daß der Palast der
Dogen gewiß ein paarmal in es hineingehen würde und daß man sich fragt, ob es denn tatsächlich nur Korn gewesen ist, was hier gemahlen wurde.” (SG 71) The monstrous building leaves the narrator in doubt whether in there only grain is milled. Yet, as the
335 Moser, Christian. “Peripatetic Liminality: Sebald and the Tradition of the Literary Walk.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 37.
336 Moser, “Peripatetic Liminality: Sebald and the Tradition of the Literary Walk,” 37.
165 narrator and Malachio were passing by its facade, emerging above from the dark sky was “der Mond hinter den Wolken hervor” whose “Schein leuchtete das unter dem linken Gebiel angebrachte, goldene Mosaik auf, das eine Schnitterin mit einem
Ährenbündel vorstellt, eine in dieser Stein- und Wasserlandschaft äußerst befremdliche
Gestalt.” (SG 71) The use of dark and light elements in this passage is used as a way of illuminating those aspects which are important on a personal level and historical level as well. For instance, the moon which is hidden behind the clouds suddenly throws a glow from a golden mosaic under from the left dome. It is the moonlight which makes the image of a female reaper holding a bundle of wheat visible in the midst of the darkness.
To the narrator this image is the most alarming in this scenery of water and stone. It is the interplay of chiaroscuro which helps Sebald build a mystery around the mosaic artwork which is very unsettling (just as the reaper woman portrayed in Hengge’s murals in Wertach discussed in chapter 2). Sebald drenches the mighty structure of the flour mill in darkness, yet he choses to give light to a little detail which brings a more chilling effect due to the image of the “Schnitterin”. In this passage the narrator forces the reader to see in the darkness of the mosaic of the reaper woman by minimal moonlight over the flour mill cupola. Yet the image is fleeting because the boat continues to navigate the waters of the Canale della Giudecca. In the process the mill “verschwamm in der Dunkelheit” (SG 71). The narrator returns to his hotel room but Malachio disappears with his boat in the dark waters of Venice saying “Ci vediamo a
Gerusalemme” (SG 72). Traditionally Jerusalem has been the focus of longing for
Diaspora Jews who were forced from their land and the Temple of their God. Jerusalem
166 in Sebald’s text refers to a ‘liminal zone’ as it represents home and exile at the same time where both the familiar and unfamiliar are blended.
The Kafka-like Twins in Italy
After a three-day stay in “d[er] graue Lagune” (SG 75) the narrator boards the train, in early November 1980, for Milan but decides to stop in Verona to see Pisanello’s paintings. After a short stay in Verona the narrator takes the night train to Innsbruck,
Austria to finish the circle of his journeys. The 1980s trip ends just at the beginning of winter when rain turns into snow. The second journey takes takes place in 1987 and concerns the same places visited seven years earlier: Vienna, Venice and Verona.
Again the arrival in Venice is nocturnal as the narrator looks outside of the train window to see the lagoon stretching out on either side in the gleam of the night. Yet the stay in
Venice this time is abrupt and seems to have been cut short because the narrator witnesses “eine große Ratte die Bordkante entlang lief und sich kopfüber ins Wasser stürzte” (SG 95). Rats are symbols of decay and disease; they are nocturnal animals that occasionally surface from their hidden dwellings to feast on waste. Rats have appeared in popular culture as loathsome and as symbols of disease. Here he probably experiences the familiar within the unfamiliar: a recollection of zero hour in post-war
Germany where rats were feasting upon waste underneath the wreckage. Thus, upon the sight of this sly and night animal, the narrator decides to escape this scenery by leaving for Desenzano to visit the artwork of Giotto’s frescoes. After having a short stop there, the narrator takes a bus to Riva. As is well-known with the Sebaldian narrator,
167 ghosts from the past follow him almost everywhere, or it seems he likes to encounter them to briefly retell their stories; for instance in this bus he ‘sees’ Franz Kafka. He explains how this confrontation happened: “Kurz vor der Abfahrt um fünf vor halb zwei stieg ein Junge von etwa fünfzehn Jahren ein, der auf did unheimlichste Weise, die man sich denken kann, denn Bildern glich, die Kafka als heranwachsenden Schüler zeigen” (SG 101). As if this was not good enough, the narrator says: “hatte er zudem noch einen Zwillingsbruder, der sich von ihm, soweit ich in meinem Entsetzen feststellen konnte, nicht im geringsten unterschied” who had surprisingly “dieselben dunklen Augen und dichten Brauen. (SG 101) Mesmerized by the boys’ uncanny resemblance to Kafka, the narrator approaches the parents to tell them about the story of the “scrittore ebreo” (SG 102) from Prague who came to Riva in September 1913. This time the
Kafka-like twins represent a doppelgänger (a double spirit) or a shadow he cannot escape.
In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" may refer to an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself.337 In contrast to a Freudian definition of shadow, the Jungian shadow can incorporate everything outside the light of consciousness, and may be positive or negative. Jung writes: “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”338 Jung also believed that despite its connotation for human darkness, the shadow is the seat of imagination and creativity so that for some, it may be, “the dark side of his being, his sinister
337 Young-Eisendrath, P. and Dawson, T. The Cambridge Companion to Jung. (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 319.
338 Jung, C. G. Psychology and Religion: West and East. Vol. 11 (Yale University Press: 1938), 131.
168 shadow...represents the true spirit of life as against the arid scholar.”339 This shadow, though, depends heavily on the living experience of the individual, because it develops in the individual's mind. Yet, “the shadow contains, besides the personal shadow, the shadow of society ... fed by the neglected and repressed collective values.”340 As Jung explains further: “the shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself" and represents "a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well.”341 In fact, the ghostly appearances in Schwindel. Gefühle. reflect upon personal shadows and the shadows of the society which come as a result of the repressed collective values.
Reaching W. at Night
After visiting Italy, the narrator returns home to his South German village of W. in the Bavarian Alps after 25 years of absense. As the narrator approaches his hometown on foot the last of the daylight starts to fade away. Darkness starts to descend upon the path he is wandering. It is around this time that the narrator remembers with nostalgia the road which he had not trodden since his childhood days. He describes what the path looks like in the middle of the darkness: “Das Dunkel senkte sich jetzt auch über die
Straße. Früher, als sie nur mit feinem weißem Kalkschotter befestigt war, ist auf ihr leichter gehen gewesen, ging es mir durch den Kopf.” (SG 200) The chiaroscuro technique used in this passage creates a strong visual effect as it helps shed light upon
339 Jung. C. G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. (London: 1983), 262.
340 Fordham, Michael. Jungian Psychotherapy. (Avon: 1978), 5.
341 Jung. C. G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. (London: 1996), 284 & 21.
169 personal emotions. For instance, the road, which brings so many memories from childhood, seems to shine like a luminous (almost white) ribbon, against full darkness.
He reveals: “Ein helles Band, hat sie sich damals selbst in der Dunkelheit einer sternlosen Nacht vor einem erstreckt, dachte ich mir und merkte auf einmal, daß ich vor
Müdigkeit kaum mehr die Füße heben konnte” (SG 200). This path stretches out before one even on starless or moonless nights. The end of the ‘illuminated ribbon’ is at a bridge just before Wertach. After a long journey on foot through the serpentine path, the narrator takes a long pause on the bridge. It is nighttime. He says: “Auf der steinernen
Brücke kurz vor den ersten Häusern von W. blieb ich lange stehen, horchte auf das gleichmäßige Rauschen der Ach und schaute in die nun alles umgebende Finsternis hinein.” (SG 200) In this passage the acoustic element takes over the optical one as the narrator hears the murmur of the steady rives flowing under the bridge as he looks
(blindly) out in the darkness of W. Since this bridge connects the wandering forest path with the village of Wertach, it is a liminal space or a grey zone. In fact, Sebald’s nocturnal arrival in Wertach resembles the same arrival of Kafka’s protagonist, K., in
Das Schloss. Before entering the village, K. stands for a long time (like the Sebaldian narrator) upon a wooden bridge just to look up into complete darkness in an attempt to locate the castle, which would assign him as a land surveyor. The darkness which encircles K. denotes mystery, obscurity and the unknown. Kafka builds an enigma around the castle: for instance, even though there are allusions to the physical existence of the structure, there is no indication about its actual shape and form:
Es war spät abend als K. ankam. Das Dorf lag in tiefem Schnee. Vom Schlossberg war nicht zu sehen, Nebel und Finsternis umgaben ihn, auch nicht der schwächste Lichtstein
170 deutete das grosse Schloss an. Lange stand K. auf der Holzbrücke die von der Landstrasse zum Dorf führt und blickte in die scheinbare Leere empor.342
This passage does not only depict the Castle’s presence to be K.’s projection, but also K.’s strong desire to see the Castle as he keeps looking up in the void. However, the Castle remains elusive and hidden at the end of the darkened road. The Sebaldian narrator seems to be treading under the same footsteps as K. After all, the luminous and serpentine path leads him to his hometown/patria W. yet, to the reader’s anticipation, not to his home/casa. Markus Zisselsberger explains that many authors including
Chatwin343 “tried to negotiate the need to travel with the desire to be at home, “Sebald complicated this dichotomy, suggesting instead that travel and homecoming are essentially illusions.”344
Charles Grivel implies that a ‘ritorno in patria’ is in fact “travel[ing] around backward. Forward is backward, tomorrow is more like yesterday. Flaubert writes:
“While my body moves forward, my thoughts move backward, engrossed in the past.”345
This backward move of thoughts rooted in the past causes the narrator to “descend into a state of absent-mindedness.”346 When the narrator arrives in W. he checks in at the
342 Kafka, Franz. Das Schloß. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. 2003), 9.
343 Bruce Chatwin is quoted in Zisselsberger, Markus. “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 22.
344 Zisselsberger, Markus. “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 22.
345 Grivel, Charles. “Travel Writing.” In Materialities of Communication, eds. Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, trans. William Whobrey. (California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 256. (Axiom 11)
346 Duttlinger, Carolin. “A Wrong Turn of the Wheel”: Sebald’s Journeys of (In)Attention.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 103.
171 Engelwirt, the house in which he had lived with his parents on the first floor (without revealing who he really is or the real reason for his visit), the receptionist there contemplates him “mit unverhohlener Mißbilligung . . ., sei es wegen meiner von der langen Wanderung in Mitleidenschaft gezogenen Erscheinung, sei es wegen meiner ihr unerklärlichen Geistesabwesendheit” (SG 208). During his stay in W. the narrator becomes a prisoner to this absent-mindedness. This November guest arrives in W. to visit his home/Engelwirt, a familiar space which is strange at the same time due to some fundamental transformations done throughout the years he had been absent. Because
“der November der Totenmonat ist” (SG 209) he rents the room on the first floor for an indefinite period of stay. The room in which the narrator stays serves as a pinnacle of the ‘grey zone’ due to the ‘heimlich’ and ‘unheimlich’ effect. This area he is now occupying used to be his home, a place where both his parents lived and raised him.
This stay at Engelwirt is loaded with memories and recollection from the past thus making ‘home’ a cause of displacement, and a home which is “weiter für mich in der
Fremde als jeder andere denkbare Ort” (SG 202). Why would the Sebaldian narrator feel more distant at his home while at home? Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada explains that living in exile has allowed her to understand how ambiguous ‘home’ is. She reveals: “In the 1990s I increasingly heard the word Heimat. Migrants were often pitied for their so-called Heimatlosigkeit, even though the idea of uprootedness expresses more yearning of the Germans for their Heimat than it described the situation of the people from some other background living in Germany.”347 Sebald, left Germany
347 Banoun, Bernard. “Words and Roots: The Loss of the Familiar in the Works of Yoko Tawada.” In Yoko Tawada. Voices from Everywhere. (United Kindgom: Lexington Books, 2007), 133.
172 because ‘as a young boy (he) felt ill at ease in this country.”348 And his early emigration to Manchester came as a result of his unhappiness regarding the Holocaust. In his writing the biographical elements and his uprootedness emerge “as a watermark throughout the pages of his works. For example, the abbreviation “W” recurs like a wandering, Kafkaesque signature of both the author (“W” for “Winfried”) and his renounced home (“W” for “Wertach im Allgau.”349 And these examples become iconic because “past places are everywhere discernible in the Sebaldian landscape, creating a constant undulation between here and there, home and abroad.”350
In Undiscover’d Country, Zisselsberger explains Sebald’s ambiguity around
‘Heimat’. For instance, for Sebald England was never considered to be his “home” even though he resided there until his death in 2001. Yet, “his relationship to the country of origins remained fundamentally ambivalent, marked, on the one hand, by disdain for the failure of Germans to actively confront their own violent past.” 351 In fact, Sebald had “a strange sense that he remained the child of the destruction of German cities during the
Allied aerial bombings and that the post memory of the landscapes of ruin had somehow become a kind of Heimat, as he would note in Luftkrieg und Literatur. 352 In addition,
Daniel Kehlmann writes: “Vom Glänzen der Heringe”: “Das Problem war einfach: Sebald war nicht da, er war in Norwich. Die deutschen Autoren und die Kritiker treffen sich
348 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 425.
349 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 426.
350 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 426.
351 Zisselsberger, “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country,” 10.
352 Zisselsberger, “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country,” 10.
173 ständig untereinander.”353 He continues: “Und die ganze literarische Szene funktioniert weitgehend über Bekanntschaften. Und Sebald lebte als Hochschulprofessor in
England. Er stand aussen vor.”354 Indeed, Sebald’s exile enabled him to develop a unique writing perspective in his prose. For instance, the notion of “Heimat/home” for
Sebald denotes a liminal space where both the familiar and the unfamiliar are blended in a similar fashion that light/life and dark/death are gradually blended to create a ‘grey’ domain. The themes of presence/absence; life/death; light and darkness (through chiaroscuro) are essential in Sebald’s works.
Chiaroscuro in Die Ausgewanderten
The other novel where I explore this artistic technique is Die Ausgewanderten.
Here Sebald uses chiaroscuro to show that the light of the description can never penetrate the mystery and evil of human life completely. Like Schwindel. Gefühle. this novel is divided into four sections and retells the lives of four German-Jewish people in exile. The first story is dedicated to Dr. Henry Selwyn, a Jewish doctor who emigrated to
London from Lithuania in 1899. The second section is dedicated to Paul Bereyter, a school teacher who is forced to leave his home due to his Jewish roots. The third chapter retells the story of the Great Uncle Ambrose and his companion Cosmo who are globetrotters. The last section is dedicated to Max Aurach, a painter who lives in
353 Kehlmann, Daniel is quoted in Zisselsberger, Markus. “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 26.
354 Kehlmann, Daniel; is quoted in Zisselsberger, “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country,” 26.
174 Manchester. The section dedicated to Dr. Henry Selwyn is the most unsettling because a black and white photograph of a graveyard attracts immediate attention.
The graveyard Die Ausgewanderten pg. 7
The enormous dark tree and its shadow over the the cemetery occupies more than half of the image. A seemingly cloudy autumn sky stands in the background. The gravestones are slanted and the grass untended. The sight reveals signs of neglect and abandonment. Thus, on the initial thought the reader prepares to expect that the graveyard would be the main setting of the story. Yet, the opening lines state: “Ende
September 1970, kurz vor Antritt meiner Stellung in der ostenglischen Stadt Norwich, fuhr ich mit Clara auf Wohnungssuche nach Hingham hinaus.” (Die Ausg. 7) The graveyard site, though, is only briefly mentioned when the narrator explains that he and his un-introduced companion, Clara, are traveling to search for a place to live:
Der weite, von schweigenten Fassaden umringte Marktplatz war leer, doch brauchten wir nicht lang, um das Haus zu finden, das die Agentur angegeben hatte. Es war eines der größten am Ort; unweit der in einem Rasenfriedhof mit schottischen Pinien und Eiben stehenden Kirche lag es in einer stillen Straße verborgen hinter einer mannshohen Mauer und einem dicht ineinandergewachsenen Gebüsch aus Strechholder und lusitanischem Lorbeer. (Die Ausg. 8)
175 The house that the agents had described to both the narrator and Clara stands near the church’s graveyard depicted in the image. It is clear that the cemetery will not be the setting of the narration, but indirectly will stand as the main theme of the book: the retelling of the forgotten stories of four dead men who were forced into exile from their homelands due to persecution and discrimination. Stefanie Harris argues that
Sebald “include[s] visual images not because they underscore the written narrative but because they present the reader with that which the text alone cannot.”355 And this is true for the first photograph of the cemetery serves as a thread which connects the four stories of these dead men. This is a journey to visit the realm of the dead in order to learn about their lives. Thus, the traveling to Hingham in 1970 is in fact a travel into the past to meet Dr. Selwyn personally. This encounter is unfolded through the chiaroscuro technique and the shades of grey. For instance, the neoclassical house both he and
Clara are trying to visit is located in a hidden and obscure place; yet what is more mysterious are its impenetrable dark windows and the sense of emptiness. The narrator writes: “ das Haustor [war] schwarz lackiert. Mehrmals betätigten wir den Türklopfer, einen messingnen, geschwungenen Fischleib, ohne daß sich im Innern des Hauses etwas gerührt hätte.” (Die Ausg. 8) The use of the “dunkel” elements in depicting the location and the house itself create a sense of obscurity and even a sense of absence of life (just like the nearby cemetery). There is no visual penetration through the dark- mirrored windows of the structure. The narrator explains: “Die Scheiben der zwölffach unterteilten Fenster schienen alle aus dunklem Spiegelglass. Es war nicht, als ob irgend
355 Harris, Stefanie. “The Return of the Dead: Memory and Photography in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten.” In The German Quarterly. Vol. 74, No. 4 (Autumn, 2001), 379.
176 jemand hier wohnte.” (Die Ausg. 8-9) There seems to be no sound around and the black entrance door remains tightly shut.
As the narrator and Clara walk around the house, on the north side they discover
“ein moosiger Weg” which “führte am Dienstboteneingang und an den Schuppen für das
Feuerholz vorbei durch tiefe Schatten” only to emerge onto a terrace full of
“Blumenbeeten, Buschwerk und Bäumen” (Die Ausg. 9). Soon after this discovery, on the west side, a beautiful landscape full of “Linden, Ulmen und immgergrünnen
Eichen” (9) opens up followed by “die sanften Wellen der Äcker und das weiße
Wolkengebirge am Horizont” (Die Ausg. 10). When the narrator and his companion believe they are alone they notice “in dem Halbschatten, der von einer hohen Zeder in der südwestlichen Ecke des Gartens auf den Rasen gebreitet wurde, eine regungslose
Gestalt liegen.” (Die Ausg. 10) The man in “weiß[es] Haar” introduces himself as Dr
Henry Selwyn. Through the dark and light elements Sebald lays out slowly how the narrator ‘finds’ Henry Selwyn as the white-haired doctor is finally spotted laying under the half-shade of a cedar. He is referred to as “a kind of ornamental hermit” (Die Ausg.
11) in his own garden. The discovery of this secluded individual under the shades of the cedar tree brings to mind the graveyard photograph at the opening of the story. Sebald seems to be retrieving the deceased doctor from the shadows of the forgotten past in order to give him voice.
In the story, the garden is unfolded as an idyllic place where trees and flowers bloom in addition to fruits and vegetables; according to the narrator “Kraut, Spargel,
Artischocke, Äpfel, rotgelbe Früchte, Märchenäpfel [und] Rhabarber” (Die Ausg. 14) provide a cornucopia in Dr Selwyn’s kitchen. This ideal garden-scape is juxtaposed with
177 the dark interior of the house. The narrator explains: “der Anblick von den hohen
Fenstern auf den Garten, den Park und die Wolkenbänke am Himmel war weit mehr als nur ein Ausgleich für das düstere Interieur.” (Die Ausg. 15) He continues “man brauchte nur hinauszuschauen” and the gloom of “die finstere Küche” (Die Ausg. 16) and
“Häßlichkeit” (Die Ausg. 15) of the interior would dissolve and disappear into thin air.
The dark interior of the house, as opposed to the beautiful garden, reveals the roots of
Dr Selwyn’s turbulent past as a Jewish in exile and stands as a metaphor for the doctor’s mind. The window can be referred as a liminal space where the transition of dark and light happens:
Garden: Light/ Fruitfulness/ Idyllic but Isolated Space Interior: Dark/ Gloomy (Kitchen, Halls, Stairwell) Window: Gray Area/ Gradual Transition from dark to light356
To make things more complex the narrator goes deeper into the past when he imagines how the previous occupants and “die Schatten der Dienerschaft” (Die Ausg. 17) have been flitting past this house’s walls. He calls them “gespentische Wesen” (Die Ausg. 17).
In Schwindel. Gefühle. the Sebaldian narrator cannot escape the ghosts from the past whereas in Die Ausgewanderten and Austerlitz he is following them. After all, the narrator is inviting the reader into the city of the dead.
Dr. Selwyn’s Lifestory
Dr Selwyn’s life story is unfolded when the narrator and Selwyn talk about homesickness. For years the images of his childhood and his exile from Lithuania to
356 I will analyze the “grey areas” in chapter four.
178 London in the autumn of 1899 had escaped his memory just to return recently at old age. Selwyn can still envision the empty rooms of the home left behind in Lithuania and the Grodno train station waiting room full of “Auswandererfamilien” (Die Ausg. 31) He also remembers the journey to the New World, namely New York:
Ich sehe die auf-und niedersteigenden Telegrafendrähte vor den Fenstern des Zuges, sehe die Häuserfronten von Riga, das Schiff im Hafen und die dunkle Ecke des Decks, in der wir, soweit es anging under den gedrängten Verhältnissen, häuslich uns erichteten. Die hohe See, die Fahne des Rauchs, die graue Ferne, das Sichheben und Sichsenken des Schiffs, die Angst und die Hoffnung, die wir trugen in uns, all das, sagte mir Dr. Selwyn, weiß ich nun wieder, als sei es erst gestern gewesen. (Die Ausg. 31)
The passage is drenched in darkness and gloom as it deals with the pain, loss and uprootedness that the forced exile brings. The dark corners of the deck, the gloominess of the distance and the traveling into the unknown places young Selwyn into a liminal zone as he is torn between home and homelessness, past and present, fear and hope.
To the land of the unknown, upon which the emigrants set foot, is indeed London,
England and not the Promised City of New York. In London, Selwyn and his family adjust to the new life. Then he changes his name from Hersch Seweryn to Henry
Selwyn while in medical school at Cambridge, an act which denotes an absence of revelation of his true identity. During his marriage to Hedi, his non-Jewish wife, he did not reveal his “Geheimnis [s]einer Abstammung” (Die Ausg. 35), yet he seemingly blames this revelation to her for their divorce years later. In 1960 the doctor gives up his practice and lives in seclusion in his garden. The last time the narrator and Clara visit
Selwyn, the latter gives Clara “einen weißen Rosenstrauß . . . mit Geißblattranken” (Die
Ausg. 35). The white roses are a fitting way to honor a friend in recognition of a new
179 beginning or a farewell.357 Traditionally white roses are associated with marriages and new beginnings, but their quiet beauty has also made them a gesture of remembrance.358 The bouquet of the white roses serves as a way of remembering Dr.
Selwyn who “wenige Wochen darauf, im Spätsommer, nahm er sich mit einer Kugel aus seinem schweren Jagdgewehr das Leben.” (Die Ausg. 35) The gun Selwyn had bought in India refers to the hunting element of the victim and the hunter. Dr. Selwyn’s real name “Hersch” sounds like the German word “Hirsch” meaning “deer” in English. The gun has finally hunted the stag down. Dr. Selwyn commits suicide because the trauma of the past becomes unbearable. He cannot fill the void in his life and becomes a secluded lost spirit from the rest of the world. In July 1986 the narrator remembers Dr.
Selwyn long after his death while traveling through the Swiss landscape saying: “So also kehren sie wieder, die Toten.” (Die Ausg. 36)
Paul Bereyter Lifestory
The section dedicated to Paul Bereyter is also unsettling because of a black and white photograph of train tracks.
357 “History and Meaning of White Roses.” In ProFlowers. August 23, 2014.
358 “Rose Colors and Meanings.” In ProFlowers. August 23, 2014.
180 Die Ausgewanderten pg. 41.
The most highlighted area of the image is the enlarged left track, which apparently was very close to the camera lens at the time the photograph was taken. This gives the reader a rare view of the track as it is clearly not taken in a standing position or a bird’s eye view but from a worm’s eye perspective. As the eye moves upward from the bending tracks one notices that the place looks desolate. The dark hill in the foreground is encircled by dark trees and their shadows. The sky appears to be light grey and the reader wonders whether it is either early in the morning at dawn, or late afternoon at dusk, or maybe it is just a gloomy day. It is clear that if someone is laying down on the tracks and waiting for the train to arrive, the consequences look grim. And this is true because in this section the Sebaldian narrator starts on a bitter note of revealing that the railway track is the site where Paul Bereyter, his previous school teacher, ended his life.
He explains:
Im Januar 1984 erreichte mich aus S. die Nachricht, Paul Bereyter, bei dem ich in der Volksschule gewesen war, habe am Abend des 30. Dezember, also eine Woche nach seinem 74. Geburtstag, seinem Leben ein Ende gemacht, in dem er sich, eine kleine Strecke außerhalb von S., dort, wo die Bahnlinie in einem Bogen aud dem kleinen Weidengehölz herausführt und das offene Feld gewinnt, vor der Zug legte. (Die Ausg. 41)
181 In the obituary of the local newspaper it was indicated “Trauer um einen beliebten
Mitbürger” (Die Ausg. 41) but it was never mentioned about the tragic and brutal circumstances of his death and moreover his own free will to end his life. The obituary added without further explanation that during the Era of National Socialism Paul
Bereyter could not practice his profession as a teacher. It is the remembrance of this story which makes the narrator investigate the past. The reader is transported back in time to learn about the life of the narrator’s school teacher.
The narrator retells the story of how he knew Paul from his childhood. In
December 1952 he moved with his family from the village of W. to the small town of S.
(Die Ausg. 45) In S. the narrator starts grade three taught by Paul Bereyter. On his first day of class there he remembers: “In meinem dunkelgrünen Pullover mit dem springenden Hirsch stand ich vor den einundfünfzig mich mit der größtmöglichen
Neugier anstarrenden Altersgenossen” (46) but the awkward situation seemed to have been saved by the teacher who said “ich sei eben zur rechten Zeit gekommen, weil er gestern die Hirschsprungsage erzählt habe und nun das Schema eines Hirschsprungs von meinem Hirschpullover auf die Tafel übertragen könne. (Die Ausg. 46) The
“scurogreen” color of the pullover refers to the color of the forest the stag inhabits. The forest is indeed seen as a grey zone because it is a ‘home’ and also a predatory land.
The deer, one of the most hunted animals of the forest, refers to its victimized position within the animal kingdom. In the first story Dr. Selwyn’s real name points directly at this position as a victim/Jewish when his gun hunts him down. In Paul’s story, the hunting element of the ‘stag’ is symbolically and visually presented upon the narrator’s shirt.
182 Paul Bereyter as a Teacher
The Sebaldian narrator remembers his schoolteacher as a man of well-structured sentences whose timbre of speech and sound came from somewhere near the heart.
He recollects Paul’s favorite spot in the classroom: “an einem der in tiefe Mauerischen eingelassenen Südfenster, vor denen aus dem Astwerk des Apfelgartens der
Schnapsbrennerei Frey Starenkästen auf hohen Holzstangen hineintragen in den
Himmel” which “in der Entfernung begrenzt war von der nahezu das ganze Schuljahr schneeweißen Zackenlinie der Lechtaler Alpen.” (Die Ausg. 51) Through the use of
“chiaro” the alpine landscape is portrayed in full beauty. The jagged line of the Lech
Valley Alps glimmer with white snow all year round. Ironically, the teacher who proceeded Paul had indeed prevented the students from seeing this natural beauty by having “die Fenster zur Hälfte mit Kalkfarbe weißen lassen.” (51) The old teacher is seen as a fearful element who inflicted terror upon his students as part of the Nazi strategy. In other words, he could be seen as a microcosm of the National Socialist regime which allowed no political transparency and used merciless torture upon humans. Paul on the other hand, is portrayed as a friend, a loving teacher and also a visionary, one who allowed transparency and taught his students through his heart-felt lectures. The narrator recollects:
Es war Pauls erste Amtshandlung nach seiner Einstellung im Jahr 1946 gewesen, daß er an diesen Anstrich mit einer Rasierklinge in eigenhändiger, mühevoller Arbeit wieder entfernte, was im Grunde so nicht gewesen wäre, weil der Paul ohnehin die Gewohnheit hatte, die Fenster, sogar bei schlechtem Wetter, ja selbst im Winter bei strenger Kälte, sperrangelweit aufzureißen . . . (Die Ausg. 51-2)
183 The whitewash upon the windows is removed patiently by Paul. The breaking of this visual barrier denotes a trespassing of previous laws set by an unscrupulous teacher.
The window, as discussed in Dr. Selwyn’s story, refers to a liminal space, a border between inside and outside upon which Paul’s vision moves freely. This window passage is reminiscent to the hospital window in Austerlitz (which serves as a liminal space). The narrator remembers him “mit Vorliebe also stand er beim Unterrichten in einer der vorderen Fensternichen, halb der Klasse, halb dem Draußen zugewandt” where “das Gesicht meist leicht nach oben gekehrt, die Augengläser im Sonnenlicht blinkend, redete er von dieser peripheren Position aus zu uns herüber” (Die Ausg. 52)
Even though in a peripheral position, Paul’s face is placed in the sun where his glasses are glinting. Sebald deliberately places his teacher into the spotlight to give voice to his sad and silenced story. Despite the gloom and despair inflicted upon him by the society he is depicted as a man of high morals.
Indeed Paul’s character is painted with rainbow colors: he is a free thinker, and a universal human being, one who loved and appreciated music and art in general dearly; however, when alone this bright mind would succumb to loneliness and desolation. With the passing of time Paul would plunge into darker states of mind. Being three quarters
Aryan but one quarter Jewish consumes him for years. He felt German to the marrow and was strongly attached to the Alps, but he loathed his hometown because he felt on the edge of the darkness. At some point in his life he felt that he belonged with the exiles not with the people of his town S. His exile in France makes one understand that
Germany and the Germans placed him in a liminal state of being. The last years of his life in France he spent in his garden, just like Dr. Selwyn. Apart from growing plants and
184 vegetables, he would regularly read: “Altenberg, Trakl, Wittgenstein, Friedell,
Hasenclever, Toller, Tucholsky, Klaus Mann, Ossietzky, Benjamin, Koestler and Zweig, in erster Linie also Schriftsteller, die sich das Leben genommen hatten oder nahe daran waren, es zu tun” (Die Ausg. 86). Reading these writers who have taken their own lives serve as an omen about Paul’s upcoming death. Through the words of Madame
Landau we learn that prior to his death he was contemplating the “mausgrauen
Prospekt” (Die Ausg. 88) before him. In his words, the world he was about to enter would give him the comfort that the one he was about to leave behind never did. So it was “irgendwann im Herbst” (Die Ausg. 89) that he told Mdm Landau to sell his flat in S.
During the journey Mdm Landau recollects the grey landscape of Southern Germany:
“Die Tannenwälder standen schwarz in den Bergen, bleiern glänzten die
Fensterscheiben, und der Himmel hind so tief und so dunkel herunter, als müßte eine tintige Flüssigkeit gleich herauslaufen aus ihm.” (90). The “scuro” element used in this passage paints the atmosphere with gloom and despair. The element of darkness is used to foreshadow the upcoming tragedy. As Mdm Landau recalls: “hinter meinen
Lidern zwei seltsame unheilvolle Flekken lauernd bewegten sich” (Die Ausg. 90). As soon as he experiences these two obscure patches behind her eyelids she wakes up “in der Abenddämmerung” (90) to notice that Paul’s “Windjacke fehlte”, the same jacket
“daß bald vierzig Jahre schon an der Garderobe hängte” (90). At that moment she knew that she would never see him alive. She says “Nur die Todesart, dieses mir unvorstellbare Ende, brachte mich zunächst völlig aus der Fassung, wenn sie auch, wie ich bald schon begriff, durchaus folgerichtig gewesen ist.” She continues: “Die
Eisenbahn hatte für Paul eine tiefere Bedeutung. Wahrscheinlich schien es ihm immer,
185 als führte sie in den Tod.” (Die Ausg. 90) Indeed directions and timetables had at times become “eine Obsession” (91), “a kind of a distorted love affair, which in fact, become the instrument of his death.”359 Paul’s tragic death allows him to join the world of the absent others because as Zilcosky argues “trains symbolize a return to the dead (they are ‘headed for death’); and the railway’s emblematic relation to Auschwitz revisits
German-Jewish history - it becomes the ‘very image and symbol of Paul’s German tragedy.” 360(E: 60-3/A:89-92) All he could see were shattered images of his life that he was not able to put together in order to heal the wounds. As Gray Kochhar-Lindgren explains “Sebald is still at it, drafting images of those networks, as he rides trains across the European landscape, always shadowed by the image of the deportation trains that carried people to Riga, Auschwitz, or Theresienstadt.”361
The comment of Paul’s uncle that he is going to end up on the railways came as a dark premonition to Mdm Landau years ago. She says “heute ist es mir manchmal, als hätte ich damals wirklich ein Todesbild gesehen -- war aber nur von der kürzesten
Dauer und ging über mich hinweg wie der Schatten eines Vogels im Flug” (Die Ausg.
93). The shadow of a fleeting bird gives a glimpse of the liminal space between life and death. Paul was approaching this in-between area when the narrator imagines him, at his old age, to look with his short-sighted eyes “in der Dämmerung” and all he saw was only “ein dunkel Grau” and “das schneeweiße Nachbild des Kratzers, der trettach und
359 Kochhar-Lindgren, Gray. “Charcoal: The Phantom Traces of W.G. Sebald’s Novel Memoirs.” In Monatshefte. Vol. 94. No. 3 (Fall, 2002), 372.
360 Zilcosky, John. “Sebald’s Uncanny Travels.” In W.G. Sebald: A Critical Companion, ed. Jonathan Long and Anne Whitehead. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2004), 113.
361 Kochhar-Lindgren. “Charcoal: The Phantom Traces of W.G. Sebald’s Novel Memoirs,” 372.
186 des Himmelsschrofens” (Die Ausg. 44) The dusk and the dark gray add to the gruesome element of Paul’s tragedy. The white silhouettes of the three mountains reveal his
‘Sehnsucht’ of a Heimat that never welcomed him as a true German son.
The Story of Ambros Adelwarth
The third story of Ambros Adelwarth centers around the narrator’s Great Uncle and his companion Cosmo Solomon. I have discussed some crucial moments of this story in chapter two. In this chapter I am going to concentrate on those aspects I have not covered. In Ambros Adelwarth’s story his countless travels around the world are chronicled together with his companion/lover, Cosmo Solomon. The narrator recalls his
Great Uncle’s story when he visits Aunt Fini and Uncle Kasimir in New Jersey. The complicated web of journeys leaves one with the impression that these two globetrotters are in endless transit. For instance, Ambros, who takes up a position as a butler at the
Solomons, accompanies Cosmo to a myriad places such as: “Monte Carlo, Deauville,
Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Heliopolis, Ramleh, Boston, Halifax, Banff, the
Adirondacks, Kerkyra, Ithaca (Greece and New York),” and “Patras, Eyeup, Adana,
Aleppo, Beirut, Lebanon, Jaffa, Jericho, the mountains of Judaea, the Dead Sea, the
Jeshimon Mountains, Ain Jidy, Gomorrah, Ruma, Sedom, Seadeh, Seboah, and the mountains of Moab.362 In fact, Gregory-Guider argues that while some of the places are visited imaginatively, most of them are genuine checkpoints. While Gregory-Guider talks about visited places I would like to draw attention to the places they journey through water only. For instance, places like the “kroatische Küste” (Die Ausg. 189) and the
362 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 431.
187 Albanian one are conducted on a steam yacht. Ambros paints these passing places in the shades of dark and light: “Baumlose Berge. Nachmittags um drei so gut wie finster.
Unwetter. . . Jenseits der Wasserstraße, hinter den schwarzblauen albanischen Bergen, kommt der Tag herauf, breitet seinen Flammenschein über die noch lichtlose Welt.” (Die
Ausg. 189-90) The darkness of the Croatian’s bad weather in the afternoon is followed by the night sleep “an Deck” (189). The arrival of the dawn the next day makes the summit of the black-blue Albanian mountains visible. The first rays are depicted as a flame blazing all over the lightless world. As fleeting as the Albanian coast and country itself may seem in Sebald’s description, twelve thousand Albanians suffered the fate of the Jews in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. This dark historical past is captured and beautifully depicted by the well-known award winning Albanian author
Diana Çuli in her prose entitled Rrethi i Kujtesës (1986).363 This book is later adopted for film in 1987 under the same title. Çuli’s method of writing resembles Sebald’s in the sense that they both write about post-memory,364 gloominess and darkness.
The Circle of Memory Film
“The Circle! Take away the circle!” a woman inside the emergency van screams.
To the doctor of the psychiatric ward she is a unique case. Margarita Begolli, the
363 Çuli, Diana. Rrethi i Kujtesës. (The Circle of Memory.) Tiranë: Shtëpia Botuese Naim Frashëri, 1986.
364 As a definition ‘postmemory’ is best explained by: Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Columbia University Press, 2012. In her abstract section she writes that “postmemory describes the relationship of the second generation to powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their births but that were nevertheless transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right.” (103)
188 protagonist of the film is back in Albania after twenty-five years in exile with a lost memory. She is an enigma. What is this circle she is so terrified of? Her story starts to unfold after she is admitted to the hospital where a variety of people visit her and recollect the past. At a very young age Margarita fought against the German occupation in Albania. Towards the end of the WWII she, and other women, were sent to concentration camps by the Germans, only because they had helped shelter some
Jews. During the time in the camps Margarita underwent one of the Nazi’s most severe experiments. After an intensive medical research on the period during WWII, the psychiatric doctor in Albania discovers that the head Nazi psychiatrist doctor Klaus
Webber was allowed to conduct a dangerous scientific experiment on the human memory. The film is built upon myriad flashbacks (in concentration camps) which are visually presented in black and white film whereas her present-day situation in Albania is presented in faded colors. The chiaroscuro effect of the flashbacks gives a ghostly and haunting quality to the scenes in an attempt to illuminate the evil that lurked beneath the dark shadows of Germany’s past. For instance, in a flashback scene Dr. Weber explains to his medical assistant about his inhuman methods: “Ekperimenti im do the bëhet mbi kujtesën e njeriut. Ate që shumë shkencetarë në botë kanë frikë ta përmendin. ... të supozojmë se kufinjtë e shteteve, malet, lumenjtë, rrugët, qytetet janë korja e trurit. Unë dua që të funksionojnë ato pjesë qe na interesojnë ne, ndërsa pjesa tjetër te fshihet.”365
(My experiment is going to be conducted on the humans’ memory. Many scientists have great fears upon this kind of experiment. . . Let’s suppose that the countries’ borders, mountains, rivers, roads and cities are the brain’s crust. I would like to see only those
365 Dr. Klaus Weber. Rrethi i Kujtesës Film. (The Circle of Memory Film). Tiranë: Kinostudio Shqipëria e Re, 1987.
189 parts of the brain functioning that we are interested, the other to be erased from memory. Translation mine.) He continues: “Kujtesa është baza e veprimtarisë mendore ... domethënë, nga tre kohët e foljeve duhet të mbajmë mend vetëm një: të tashmen. Te kaluarën dhe të ardhmen ta fshijmë ose ta frenojmë.”366 (The memory is the basis of the mental function . . . so let’s say, from the three verb tenses only one should be remembered: the present. The past and the future should be eliminated or prevented.) He then concludes: “Që të mbash të nënshtruar një komb duhet ta asgjesosh; që të mbash të nënshtruar njeriun duhet ti asgjesosh kujtesën. Dhe këtë do ta bëjmë pa ndërhyrje kirurgjikale.”367 (In order to keep one nation submissive you should eliminate it; and in order to keep someone submissive his or her memory should be terminated. And this is going to be done without any surgical intervention.)
Dr. Klaus Weber (right) and his assistant (Footage from the film, Kinostudio Shqipëria e Re, 1987).
Unfortunately, Margarita became a victim of Dr. Weber’s insane medical experiments. Everyday she was placed into a dark room full of round lights with electromagnetic radiation consisting of microwave, infrared and ultraviolet rays. Dr.
Weber hoped that after enough radiation, Margarita’s memory will be lost. The
366 Çuli, Diana. The Circle of Memory Film.
367 Çuli, Diana. The Circle of Memory Film.
190 hypothesis proved to be true and she finds herself trapped within a circle of darkness, silence and desolation. In the present-day concluding speech of the Albanian psychiatrist doctor, he says “Se ç’tortura i kane bere mjeket Naziste Margarites [ajo] i mban te kyçura ne kujtesen e saj te demtuar” 368 (“What tortures the Nazi doctors have inflicted upon Margarita, she keeps them locked in her damaged memory” translation mine). Will she ever be able to break this circle of darkness? Towards the end of the film, there is a lapse of two or three years before we see Margarita, again out of the hospital. Her ‘ghostly’ physique has not changed but she has finally learned how to write her own name in black pen upon a large white paper. In the novel, Diana Çuli brings to light the reality of one of the darkest eras in the European history, when the Nazis used and abused their power to the fullest. Like Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson or Sebald’s works which demonstrates the cruelty between humans, the rings of memory in the film demonstrates the repeated circles of violence, just like the saturnine rings of Saturn Die
Ringe des Saturn.
Margarita’s Circle of Memory 369
368 Çuli, Diana. The Circle of Memory Film.
369 Margarita’s life-line is visually represented in oval photographs when she was young (top right), when she was taken prisoner in the concentration camp (top middle in stripped black and white outfit) and when her memory was lost after extensive experiments with electromagnetic waves (top left dark circle). The front photo depicts her after 25 years when she comes home, in Albania. (Collage from the film footage, Kinostudio Shqipëria e Re, 1987.)
191 Moving from the film The Circle of Memory which deals with memory loss and partial insanity, in Ambros Adelwarth story, a German film about a gambler in New York, accelerates Cosmo’s plunge into madness, especially an episode at the end “ wo ein einarmiger Schausteller und Hypnotiseur namens Sandor Weltmann eine Art von kollektiver Halluzination unter seinem Publikum hervorruft.” (Die Ausg. 141) As Cosmo would repeatedly describe to Ambrose “aus dem Bühnenhintergrund tauchte,... das
Trugbild einer Oase auf.” (Die Ausg. 141) Out of this scenery: “Eine Karawane kam aus einem Palmenhain hervor auf die Bühne und von dort in den Saal herunter, um mitten durch die voller Erstaunen ihre Köpfe werdenden Zuschauer hindurchzuziehen und so spukhaft, wie sie erschienen war, wieder zu verschwinden.” (Die Ausg. 141) The most explosive aspect of the passage is the removal of the fourth wall of the stage as depicted in the film that Cosmo is viewing. The caravan that emerges from the dark corners of the palms crosses the stage line, passes the spectators and disappears mysteriously. Yet, “das furchtbare sei, so habe Cosmo hinfort behauptet, daß er mit dieser Karawane den Saal verlassen habe und jetzt nicht mehr sagen könne, wo er sich befinde. (Die Ausg. 141) Cosmo feels he has vanished in the darkness with the passing caravan which becomes a symbol of his eternal journey. Due to the absence of light he has no sense of orientation and does not know where he is (headed). This plunge into darkness brings his plunge into madness. Gregory-Guider explains why Cosmo was driven to madness:
The expulsive force exerted on Cosmo by his journey finally removes the ground from beneath his feet. His status as a Jew living in the years immediately proceeding to Holocaust lends to this passage a dark foreshadowing of the forthcoming mass emigration, deportation and destruction of European Jewry during the National
192 Socialists’ reign of power, as well as the profound loss of orientation felt by the survivors. 370
Just before Cosmo’s death, in mid October, Aunt Fini says, he would look outside
“auf die ungeheuren ringsherum sich ausdehnenden Tannenwälder und den gleichmäßig aus unvorstellbare Höhe niedertaumelnden Schnee” (Die Ausg. 143) But
“als es finster wurde draußen, legte er sich auf den Boden, zog die Beine an den Leib und verbarg das Gesicht in den Händen.” (143) The immense and obscure pine trees reflect upon Cosmo’s dark mental state. He is consumed with despair and grief. Weeks later Ambros takes him home and then to the Sanatorium at Ithaca, New York, where he dies. A similar fate follows Ambros. Before he checks himself into the sanatorium, he leaves behind a note to Aunt Fini: “Have gone to Ithaca. Yours ever - Ambrose” (Die
Ausg. 150) As Gregory-Guider explains “[t]he obvious reference to the Odyssey indicates that, like Cosmo, Ambros has been banished to wander through the ashen landscapes of his memories and ailing mind, a journey whose conclusion he ultimately hastens by subjecting himself to horrific, prolonged sessions of electroshock therapy.”371
Indeed, these eternal wanderings of Ambros are painted with the darkest brush out of the chiaroscuro scale. In a similar fashion as Austerlitz, Ambrose, too, is left alone to
figure out what is hiding under the surrounding darkness: the restoration of a shattered
Jewish identity? As in the case of Austerlitz Sebald does not allow Ambros to do so, that is why he succumbs to macabre electroshock therapies.
370 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 432.
371 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 432.
193 Chapter 4
Sebald’s Grey Shades
“Life isn’t black and white. It’s a million gray areas, don’t you find?” - (Ridley Scott, English film director and producer)
194 Sebald’s quartet novels have attracted a number of controversial interpretations due the incorporation of grainy black and white images. The muted tones and the intensity of the motifs portrayed in these photographs are fundamental to the devastating tragedies of the human society. As a post-war generation writer he felt obligated to re-cover and retell the stories of the dead and barbarity of the wars. Thus,
Sebald is obsessed with ‘ashes’ and ‘dust’ as an aftermath of the devastation and loss of life; in an interview with Sarah Kafatou he quotes the Swiss writer Robert Walser when he says: “I admire ash very much: it is the most humble substance there is! The very last product of combustion, with no resistance in it. Not like a twig, which you can feel through the sole of your shoe. The borderline between being and nothingness. Ash is a redeemed substance, like dust.”372 Sebald explains that it is ‘ash’ which denotes the borderline between life and death. Again, as in the case with Sebald’s prose, the deeper meaning behind the chiaroscuro is not produced by a strong black and white contrastive division, but by observing how one gradually blends with the other in a “kind of metamorphosis: something living becomes dead or nearly as dead.”373 As Tantillo states, light and darkness “may seem about separation and division. But for [Goethe in his Farbenlehre], the primary relationship is a dynamic one that illustrates the indivisibility of one side of the pair from the other [as] light is meaningless without darkness.”374 In a similar fashion that light and darkness are inseparable, humans are caught in-between black and white, good and evil, between birth and death, knowledge
372 Kafatou, Sarah. “An Interview with W. G. Sebald.” In Harvard Review. No. 15 (Fall, 1998), 31-35.
373 Kafatou, “An Interview with W. G. Sebald,” 31-35.
374 Tantillo, “The Subjective Eye: Goethe’s Farbenlehre and Faust,” 267.
195 and ignorance and so on. In other words, to be human is to live in this liminal space.
That is why grey is essential in Sebald because through the lens of this monochromatic hue he sees the subtlety of human life (as we are going to explore more in this chapter).
For Sebald grey and “ash” refer to the after-effect of the metamorphosis which denote that the threshold of life/light has been passed. A sense of loss/death/darkness is eternally inevitable. As Maya Jaggi says:
Sebald's fiction is an innovative hybrid of memoir, travelogue and history, its text scattered with grainy, black-and-white photographs without captions which lend an unsettling feel of documentary. He often uses real names, in an endless journeying saturated with European cultural allusions and metaphysical meditations on loss, exile and death. (italics mine) 375
Bryan Cheyette,376 sees Sebald as a "post-Holocaust writer", obliquely exploring the long aftermath of the Third Reich. His prose has an overall gloomy tone and it is etched with the monochrome hues of the chiaroscuro technique.
Gray Shades in Schwindel. Gefühle. Images
In the last section of Schwindel. Gefühle. Sebald incorporates three black and white photograph of paintings by the local German artist Hengge. These colorful artworks which are located at the author’s hometown in Wertach, Allgäu, are “a representative of the Heimatkunst of the 1930s” because “these serialized paintings and murals of woodcutters, peasants, and hunters give iconographic expression to the völkisch ideology of Heimat.” 377 It is true that all of mural paintings in Wertach in
375 Jaggi, “Recovered Memories.”
376 Bryan Cheyette is quoted in Jaggi, Maya. “Recovered Memories.” In The Guardian, Saturday 22 September, 2001.
377 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 174.
196 Schwindel. Gefühle. are considered to be Nationalist Art as Sebald's homeland of
Germany is central to his texts. Yet, as Sebald suggests, these murals are to be seen as primarily war paintings because they offer a visual account of the devastating and chaotic impact of war on the German nation. Anne Fuchs in addition argues how these paintings portrayed in Sebald’s prose through black and white photography are symbolic in regards to the depiction of work and war itself. For instance, the woman holding a sickle is seen by the narrator as “the figure of the Grim Reaper, harvesting death.”378
The Sebaldian narrator explains why:
Vor einem besonderen aber, vor dem an der Raiffeisenkasse angebrachten Fresko einer hochaufgerichteten Schnitterin, die dasteht, vor einem Feld zur Ernte, das mir immer wie ein entsetzliches Schlachtengemälde vorgekommen ist, habe ich mich jedesmal, wenn ich daran vorbeiging, derart geängstigt, dass ich die Augen abwenden musste. (SG 235)
Fuchs argues that Sebald’s glorification of the Heimat is shattered by the images of the post-war era together with its representation of death. She argues that the effect these paintings have on the narrator visiting his hometown have devastating effect upon him as they used to in the past that is why he has to avert his eyes every time he passes by.
The battle scene imagery produced by the painting is still overwhelming.
378 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 174.
197 Woman with sickle SG pg. 226
Let us analyze why this painting is overwhelming for the narrator. In this image the black and white elements create a strong dramatic effect. The subject’s head and face draws initial attention because the light/dark contrast is the strongest. Her dark hair and dark headscarf stand in stark opposition to the negative space, the grey sky. The predominant "hue" of the woman’s head is deep dark grey and black, reminiscent perhaps of death itself. As the viewer’s eyes travel down the gaze is fixed at her laid- back shoulders and then to her right hand with which she is carrying a sickle. A strong dark-grey line contours the crescent shape of the sickle associated with lighter shade of
198 grey for shape and form. This sickle is perhaps not only a symbol of the agriculture but seen in a different light also a symbol of harvesting of the human life.
Another important aspect of the painting is the shape and posture of the woman’s body against the background which is contrasted by the interplay of light, shadow and gray tones. For instance, her costume stands in stark opposition to the dark hues of her hair and face, which in fact have the deepest shades of grey-black. Her gaze is stern and distant as she stands strong and powerful above all and everybody in the field. As discussed earlier, the shade of grey upon the woman’s head is the most complex and places it at the centre of the images. Her face is almost in the dark shades of deep grey, her eyes are almost drowned into darkness and the left side of her face is peppered with light shades of soft grey for shape and form. Her almost black headscarf creates a vulture-like shape which is reminiscent of the animal’s predatory nature. As the centre of the image, the dark head against the light grey sky create the most dramatic visual effect. The hands, like her head, are important to her identity as the trio “ head + hand + hand” create a triangle of death imagery.
The third crucial aspect of the painting are the lowered people’s heads on the right and left low sides of the composition. Their position stand in stark opposition to the woman’s body which is portrayed as larger than life. The working people add to the mystery of the painting as one can view this black, white and grey background as a battlefield rather than a harvest field in part also to the deliberate use of the monochrome hues and shades. Thus, the woman holding this “weapon” in the mural, according to Sebaldian narrator, is not seen as a vital force behind the agriculture of her
199 Heimat, but as Death herself. ‘Die weibliche Heimat’ is personified through the mighty woman who destroys with the sickle of terror. The harvesting tool becomes a symbol of destruction: fields are emptied from their harvest, the country is emptied by selective groups (Jews, Gypsies). Sebald deliberately has muted the colors of the original version of the painting, in order to make the viewer experience a feeling of terror of the war through the grey hues and values. It is interplay of chiaroscuro and the shades of grey which helps the reader visualize what Sebald sees in Hengge’s painting and why he finds it very unsettling.
Another example where Sebald uses grisaille tones to create mood and feeling is his analysis of Tiepolo’s painting. For him, memory is strongly tied to history and trauma.
Thus, upon his train journey to Venice, Italy, the narrator views the drifting clouds from the Alpine valleys across the vast landscape “[ein] Bild Tiepolos, dass [er] oft betrachtet ha[t]” (SG 59) comes to his memory. In this painting the plague-devastated town of Este is unfolded in detail. The narrator starts describing the landscape first by indicating that in the distance there are mountains (which in the actual painting are shaded in a light grey hue) and only one summit is smoking. He says: “Den Hintergrund bildet ein
Gebirgszug mit einem qualmenden Gipfel. Das über das Bild ausgebreitete Licht ist gemalt, so scheint es, durch einen Schleier von Asche.” (SG 59) This ash-dust is painted in deeper shades of grey. The light which is spread out to the whole artwork seems to have been painted through a veil of ashes. This dust-light, the narrator implies, could have been the one to drive the people out in the fields of death: “Fast glaubt man, es sei dieses Licht, das die Menschen hinausgetrieben hat aus der Stadt auf das freie
200 Feld, wo sie, nach einer Zeit des Herumtaumelns, von der aus ihrem Inwendigen hervordrängenden Seuche vollends niedergestreckt wurden.” (SG 59) At the centre foreground of the painting “liegt eine pesttote Mutter, das lebende Kind noch am Arm” whereas on the left side “knieend, die heilige Thekla, in ihrer Fürbitte für die Bewoher der Stadt, das Gesicht aufwärts gekehrt, wo die himmlischen Heerscharen durch die
Luft fahren ...” (SG 59-60) The grey tone that the narrator associates with the painting adds depth and dimensionality to the whole composition he is reminiscing as part of the natural history of destruction, human suffering and trauma.
"St. Thecla Liberating the City of Este from the Plague 1759" oil on Canvas.379
Death and loss of human life is depicted at the low-centre elements of the painting where a mother lies dead with her child still alive in her arms. The pale-faced woman on the low-left, St. Thecla, is praying for mercy. Her upward gaze shows that she
379 Tiepolo, Gianbattista. “St. Thecla Liberating the City of Este from the Plague.” In Eastpainting.
201 is asking for heavenly help. Yet, the skies are painted with a variety of deep gray tones.
Ash clouds are smoking heavily just like the summit on the background, which denote an apocalypse on earth and an even a more fatal one transversing the sky. In his prose,
Sebald uses this form of art to discuss the ‘ash clouds’ in relation to the concept of post- memory. The description of paintings in terms of light and dark as well as grey areas, serve as entities whose purpose is to map the space and time on canvass. Grey in particular becomes a site where the reality of life becomes visible with all its conflicts and discrepancies.
Goethe’s Italian Journey and Grey Areas
In Schwindel. Gefühle. the Sebaldian narrator is given the opportunity to visit
Venice, a worldly city known to be beautiful and romantic. Yet, the narrator sees Venice through a grey veil of obscurity and mystery. Contrary to Sebald, the great German poet, novelist and dramatist, J. W. Goethe sees Venice in a different light after he travels from
Weimar to Italy in September 1876. In his Italian Journey he paints the lagoons of
Venice with rainbow colors. He describes how under the sunshine “the figures of the gondoliers in their motley costume, as they rowed, lightly moving above the sides of the gondola, stood out from the bright green surface and against the blue sky.”380 Goethe reveals how the “sunshine brought out the local colors with dazzling brilliancy, and the shades even were so luminous, that, comparatively, they in their turn might serve as lights.”381 Even more vivid is painted “the reflection of the sea-green water.” Indeed, he
380 Goethe, J. W. Italienische Reise. quoted in Knopf, Alfred A. “A City on the Water: Venice Through the Eyes of an Artist.” In Venice, Italy: Knopf Guides. (New York: October 1993), 115.
381 Goethe, Italienische Reise. quoted in Knopf, “A City on the Water: Venice Through the Eyes of an Artist,” 115.
202 explains “all was painted ‘chiaro nell’chiaro’, so that foamy waves and lightning flashes were necessary to give it a grand finish.”382 The transparent water against the blue sky, the local hues and the luminous shades seem to drench Venice into full sunlight. The sense of mystery, secrecy, gloom and grey is absent in Goethe’s description as all is painted ‘light on light’. The bright foamy waves serve as a ‘grand finish’ to the whole composition. While Goethe describes Venice as the city of love, colors and beauty,
Sebald and the Austrian author Grillparzer deconstruct the previous fairy-tale image in a similar fashion as Thomas Mann in Death in Venice. In his Italian Journey Goethe explains the artists’ ways of seeing: “It is evident that the eye forms itself by the objects, which from youth up, it is accustomed to look upon, and so the Venetian artist must see all things in a clearer and brighter light than other men.”383 Thus, whereas Goethe makes us see Venice through a variety of colorful hues, other artists compel us to see it through the hues of ash and dust which produce a sense of gloom and uncanniness.
Sebald is an artist who sees through the shades of grey and he foreshadows it at the opening paragraphs when explains that all of his travels have taken place in late autumn
(or in winter) when the blue skies are absent.
382 Goethe, Italienische Reise. quoted in Knopf, “A City on the Water: Venice Through the Eyes of an Artist,” 115.
383 Goethe, Italienische Reise. quoted in Knopf, “A City on the Water: Venice Through the Eyes of an Artist,” 115.
203 “Il Ritorno in Patria”
In the last section of Schwindel. Gefühle., the journey to the unknown in
“All’estero” (section two) leads the narrator to his hometown Wertach in the Bavarian
Alps in “Il Ritorno in Patria” (last section). The second journey in Verona, for working purposes, comes to an end in November 1987, the grey month of the autumn. The narrator recollects what prompted his ‘ritorno in patria’. He says: [ich] faßte eines
Nachmittags, als der Großvenediger auf eine besonders geheimnisvolle Weise aus einer grauen Schneewolke auftauchte, den Entschluß, nach England zurückzukehren” but before that ”noch auf eine gewisse Zeit nach W. zu fahren, wo ich seit meiner
Kindheit nicht mehr gewesen war.” (SG 187) The grey color used to describe the cloud from which Großvenediger emerges, (the main peak of the Tyrol-Salzburg mountain chain), paints the whole scenery in grisaille. These nuances reinforce the autumn-winter weather and foreshadow again the gloomy journey that the narrator is undertaking to return to his native land of his early childhood which is familiar and strange at the same time. Again, the solitary traveller takes the “Nachtexpreß” (SG 187) across the Brenner which he associates with unpleasant memories. Upon the arrival at Innsbruck the narrator witnesses an even more grey atmosphere: “In Innsbruck herrschte wie jedesmal... das grauenvollste Wetter. ...und die Wolken hingen so tief herunter, daß die
Häuser in ihnen verschwanden und die Morgendämmerung nicht aufkommen konnte.”
He colors the scenery with a darker brush when he continues: “Zudem regnete es ohne
Unterlaß. . . Ab und zu bewegte sich langsam irgendein Fahrzeug über die schwarz glänzenden Straßen. (SG 187-8) The Innsbruck landscape is clearly painted with grey tones. Heavy rainy clouds create a fog which hides the rooftops. The dawn cannot break
204 through this gloomy and grey scenery. The only gleam comes from the black roads upon which a random car drives. The place looks deserted. As soon as the narrator leaves behind the dark and gloomy weather of Innsbruck he starts to feel better. When he boards the bus towards his hometown, he encounters some Tyrolean women, whose dialect is strange and familiar to him from his childhood days (creating thus a linguistic grey zone). As the women continue to talk about the constant grey and gloomy weather of the area, suddenly, even to the surprise of the narrator, there is a penetration of the sunlight which brightens the scenery. As the result “man konnte den Inn sehen, seine durch weite Steinfelder mäandernden Wasser, und bald schon sah man auch schöne grüne Wiesen” (SG 191). The sunlight which breaks off the gloomy and dark skies of
Tyrol seems to be a miracle because suddenly the entire landscape becomes radiant:
“Die Sonne trat hervor, die ganze Landschaft erglänzte, die Tirolerinnen verstummten eine nach der anderen und schauten bloß noch hinaus auf das, was da draußen vorbeizog wie ein Wunder” (SG 191). The monochrome hues of gray are replaced by the colors of the rainbow: the meadows and forests became green and the skies blue.
The darkness diminishes for a period of time which allows not only the local women to witness a sudden beauty of the landscape but also the narrator. He states: “es war selbst für mich, der ich aus dem Süden heraufkam und die Tiroler Dunkelheit ein paar
Stunden land bloß hatte aushalten müssen, wie eine Offenbarung. (SG 191-2) Because of this brief illumination he is able to notice “ein paar Hühner auf mitten in einem grünen
Feld, die sich, obschon es doch noch gar nicht lang zu regnen aufgehört hatte, ein für die winzigen weißen Tiere, wie mir schien, endloses Stück von dem Haus entfernt hatten, zu dem sie gehörten.” (SG 192) The flock of hen upon the green field reflects
205 upon the narrator’s sense of home and exile. Duttlinger explains: “The beautiful mountain scenery that so enraptured the narrator turns into a site of disorientation and loss, the backdrop for a journey into the unknown.”384 In fact, she continues “this journey is projected onto the animals, but the suddenly altered mood reflects the narrator’s own displacement with regard to his former Heimat and childhood, a feeling that grows stronger the nearer he gets to his former hometown.”385 The idea behind home and
Heimat become a site of a grey, complex area, a space where both the familiar and the strange are blended in similar fashion as black and white are blended to produce grey.
Indeed, the hues of gray prove to be the most complex and difficult areas to understand, just as the sense of the uncanny proves to be the most complicated due to the blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar. That is why the narrator concludes: “Aus einem mir nach wie vor nicht ganz erfindlichen Grund ist mir der Anblick dieser so weit ins offene Feld sich hinauswagenden kleinen Hühnerschar damals sehr ans Herz gegangen.” Yet, he continues, “weiß ich nicht, was es ist an bestimmten Dingen oder
Wesen, das mich manchmal so rührt.” (SG 192) These ‘hens’ foreshadow the narrator’s own experience of returning home. In fact, his journey is painted with light and dark elements in order to create mood and feeling. For instance, as long as the sunlight continues to shine upon the Tyrolean valley and across the Fernpass, the narrator is able to witness “die dunkeltürkisgrünen Flächen des Fernstein-Sees und des
Samaranger Sees” which even when he was a child had seemed as the pinnacle of
384 Duttlinger, Carolin. “A Wrong Turn of the Wheel”: Sebald’s Journeys of (In)Attention.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 102.
385 Duttlinger, “A Wrong Turn of the Wheel”: Sebald’s Journeys of (In)Attention,” 102.
206 natural beauty. But as soon as the women get off the bus the bright skies turn dark as
“eine dunkle, ins Schwarzfarbene übergehende Wolkendecke lag über dem ganzen
Tannheimer Tal, das einen niedergedrückten, lichtlosen und gottverlassenen Eindruck machte.”(SG 193) After disembarking from the German bus at the border, the narrator sets off as a solitary traveler to reach W. on foot through the dark forest which reminds him of an underworld walk: “In zunehmendem Maße verspürte ich ein Gefühl der
Beklemmung in meiner Brust, und es war mir auch, als ob es, je weiter ich hinunterkam, desto kälter und finsterer werde.” (SG 194) The sense of perplexity becomes apparent when the narrator visits a small chapel (Krummenbach) after seeking shelter against the
“weißgraue Schneien” (195). He says: “Draußen vor dem winzigen Fenster treiben die
Schneeflocken vorbei, und bald kam es mir vor, als befände ich mich in einem Kahn auf der Fahrt und überquerte ein großes Wasser.” (SG 195) He continues: “Der feuchte
Kalkgeruch verwandelte sich in Seeluft; ich spürte den Zug des Fartwindes an der Stirn und das Schwanken des Bodens unter meinen Füßen und überließ mich der Vorstellung einer Schiffsreise aus dem überschwemmten Gebirge hinaus. (SG 195) The blanket of the white-greyish snow against the dark winter skies creates a vision of vast waters at sea. The narrator envisions himself as voyaging upon the flooded mountains which highlights his “disempowerment, his sense of being passively swept along.”386 And for the Sebaldian traveler “this sentiment is associated not with distant countries but with home, the place of his childhood, which evokes the memories of mysterious events and
386 Duttlinger, “A Wrong Turn of the Wheel: Sebald’s Journeys of (In)Attention,” 103.
207 uncanny encounters.” 387 Home here is associated with liminal spaces because a sense of ‘heim’ and ‘unheimlich’ is invoked.
Leaving Heimat
In the final section of Schwindel. Gefühle. the narrator leaves his hometown in early grey days of December 1987. While traveling with Holland Express through the
German landscape he expresses how his Heimat has always been alien to him. He looks out of the window train and contemplates how the monochrome colors of grey and white have indeed become symbolic to the German nation.388 Upon the narrator’s return to England, he feels tired and stays for a long time at the threshold of an underground train station. The threshold becomes a grey zone where the familiar and unfamiliar scents of the underworld mingle with floral perfumes sold at the platform. As the train moves out of the Liverpool Street station the narrator sees “d[ie] rußigen
Ziegelmauern” (284) and the rain fell “wie eine ungeheure Trauerfahne” from “die blauschwarze Wolkendecke” (SG 285) which hung over the whole city. For the narrator, the journey with the train makes him more tired as the night is approaching; he falls asleep (just like K. in Das Schloß when he ironically finally is invited into the castle). He has a dream which is colored by chiaroscuro elements and grisaille tones as he dreams of walking through mountains followed by a white serpentine road covered “mit feinem weißem Schotter” (SG 286). This path penetrates through the deep forests and finally leads to the top of the Alps. And from the summit, he says “alles, was ich von dort oven aus sah, war einerlei kalkfarben, ein helles, gleißendes Grau, in dem Myriaden von
387 Duttlinger, “A Wrong Turn of the Wheel: Sebald’s Journeys of (In)Attention,” 103.
388 Reference in SG 277.
208 Quartzsplittern schimmerten” (SG 286). The narrator paints a magical landscape full of shimmering bright grey light from the fragments of glimmering quarts. Yet, soon after this elevation the narrator dreams of another road which goes downward, a path that he cannot cross. On the other side of the road there went “eine wahrhaft schwindelerregende Tiefe” (SG 286). After the vertiginous depths, the narrator observes
“die Schatten der Wolken” moving quickly and experiences “die äußerste Stille” and then “die atemlose Leere” (286). Sebald’s ends the final section of the novel in a surreal nightmarish dream where the power of an enormous fire destroys life. The narrator explains: “Zu Hunderten die toten Tauben auf dem Pflaster, das Federkleid versengt. . .Die Kirchen, Häuser, Holz und Mauersteine, alles brennt zugleich. Am
Gottersacker die immergrünen Bäume fangen Feuer . . . Das Pulverhaus fliegt auf” (SG
287). The aftermath of the gruesome fire against the “Himmelsdunkel” (287) is “ein stiller
Aschenregen” (SG 287). Sebald uses the chiaroscuro elements in an intricate manner in order to create a picture of a great chaos, terror and horror of the great flames against the great dark clouds.
While the fire is active the light and dark element paint a horrific picture of fatal destruction where life is radically destroyed. A day after the terror a silent rain of grey ashes paints the deadly scenery. It is ironic how the section of the narrator’s returning home ends on such a sad note where the elements of the chiaroscuro are used in such a masterful manner in order to invoke a great emotional feeling. The grey shades and the ‘ash’ element become pivotal since they denote an in-between space where the dissection between life/light and death/darkness happens. Thus, having in mind the
209 complexity of the grey zones Sebald explains what he considers his style of writing to be when he says:
I visit the attic in the old house in my home village. There’s a wasp’s nest there. Do you know what a wasp’s nest is like? It’s made of something much much thinner than airmail paper: gray and as thin as possible. This gets wrapped around and around like pastry, like millefeuille, and can get as big as two feet across. It weights nothing. For me the wasp’s nest is a kind of ideal version: an object that is extremely complicated and intricate, made out of something that hardly exists.389
Sebald’s response in regards to the wasp’s nest as being a complicated grey entity refers to his style of creating liminal spaces in his prose. Kafatou explains: “Sebald’s prose rhythm and syntactic structure ... is extraordinary complex, very periodic, with extended parallelisms and long adjectival phrases.”390 And this complexity makes his writings attractive. This unique perspective in his writing has come as a result of his position as an outsider in his homeland. The sense of the uncanny of being at home and at the same time an outsider in his native Allgäu makes him view the “Heimat” through the lens of chiaroscuro and within the shades of grey since he is placed in a liminal space.
On a different note, adding to the uniqueness of Sebald’s writing, Markus
Zisselsberger explains that Sebald’s achievements as a writer “are linked to his ability to approach the catastrophes of the twentieth century history from the margins and in a language that conveys the horrors of the individual suffering without appropriating or mitigating them. The peripheral” he continues “is a reminder of the fact that he lived and wrote in the United Kingdom and was not a presence in the German Kulturbetrieb, the
389 Kafatou, Sarah. “An Interview with W. G. Sebald.” In Harvard Review. No. 15 (Fall, 1998), 32.
390 Kafatou, “An Interview with W. G. Sebald,” 33.
210 culture industry.”391 Sebald was fond of writing about absent places because he himself was absent from his homeland. Thus, as Zisselsberger emphasizes: “the belated emergence of Sebald on the literary scene of the country of his birth, then, seems to have marked the return of the kind of the storyteller - or rather a storywriter - ... who has come from afar and whose experiences of travel and border-crossings form the basis of his ability to tell and write stories.” 392 The exile has enabled Sebald to view his homeland from outside as opposed to native German writers in Germany. In most of his interviews393 “Heimat” for Sebald came to represent an in-between space where both the familiar and the unfamiliar were blended in a similar fashion that both life/light/white and death/darkness/black are gradually blended to create a ‘grey’ domain. In fact, for
Sebald grey was where reality of life became visible with all its contradictions.
From the Dark Manchester to the Gloomy London: Grey Shades in Max Aurach and Jacques Austerlitz
The last story of Die Ausgewanderten is dedicated to Max Aurach, a Jewish painter who emigrated to Manchester. The story opens with the narrator’s recollection of his own immigration to England in the autumn of 1966 at a young age. Upon his stay at
Arosa, a deserted hotel in Manchester city, he remembers how every Sunday he would aimlessly go out for a walk: “wo [er] dann allerdings planlos herumwanderte zwischen
391 Zisselsberger, “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country,” 10-11.
392 Zisselsberger, “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country,” 11.
393 Jaggi, Maya. “Recovered Memories.” Kafatou, Sarah. “An Interview with W. G. Sebald.”
211 den im Verlauf der Zeit ganz und gar schwarz gewordenen Monumentalbauten aus dem vorigen Jahrhundert.” (Die Ausg. 230) Dark industrial buildings from the nineteenth century make Manchester what the narrator calls “die anthrazitfarbene Stadt”, a color which displays “Verarmung und Degradiertheit” (Die Ausg. 230) The charcoal colors paint the city with gloom and a sense of decay. Manchester, like Venice in Schwindel.
Gefühle. is presented as a city in terminal decline since the cityscape is composed of ruins, dust, debris, dark alleys and deserted streets. Especially dark and grey are the
“dünsteren Dezembertagen” (Die Ausg. 231). where the “Sing-und Zugvögel” descend upon the city “in dunklen Wolken” and nestle together on the ledges of the warehouses
“für die Nacht” (231) These migratory songbirds are seen as microcosm of the
Manchester’s (Jewish) migration during WWII. The narrator is also referred as a migratory bird due to his displacement from his Heimat in autumn (season for migration).
Whereas Aurach used to wander aimlessly in the streets of Manchester,
Austerlitz started his “Nachtwanderungen durch London . . . [um die] plagenden
Schlaflosigkeit zu entkommen” (Austerlitz 182). The insomnia seems to have stemmed from his unrelieved despair of the past. That is why he is driven to his nocturnal wandering. He explains: “Mehr als ein Jahr lang, glaube ich, sagte Austerlitz, bin ich bei
Einbruch der Dunkelheit außer Haus gegangen, immer fort und fort. . . “ only to find that his company during these solitary walks are “nur einzelnen Nachtgespenstern” (182) which can refer to the ghosts he cannot escape. Nocturnal wanderings of Austerlitz bring to mind similar ones of the narrator of the Schwindel. Gefühle. where he, in the streets of Vienna or Venice, he cannot escape the shadows from the past.
212 The narrator of Die Ausgewanderten loves nocturnal walking just like Aurach and
Austerlitz does. In Manchester his wanderings beyond the city centre lead to new discoveries such as new neighborhoods and the Jewish quarter, the city’s largest community. At Trafford Park, not far from the docks, the narrator comes across a sign
“TO THE STUDIOS” (236) which was painted “mit groben Pinselstrichen” (Die Ausg.
236). The narrator finds the studio “in einem dieser anscheinend verlassenen
Gebäude” (236) which he visits often in hope to meet with “der Maler, der dort seit Ende der vierziger Jahre arbeitete, Tag für Tag zehn Stunden, den siebten Tag nicht ausgenommen.” (Die Ausg. 236) The narrator describes the studio in all the spectrum that chiaroscuro offers emphasizing mainly how the eye perceives color and more importantly the shades of grey:
Das in den Ecken angesammelte Dunkel, der salzfleckige aufgequollene Kalkputz und der abblätternde Anstrich der Wände, die mit Büchern und Stapeln von Zeitungen überfrachteten Stellagen, die Kästen, Werkbänke und Beidtelltische, der Ohrensessel, der Gasherd, das Matratzenlager, die ineinander verschobenen Papier-, Geschirr- und Materialberge, die karminrot, blattgrün und bleiweißin der Düsterkeit glänzenden Farbtöpfe, die blauen Flammen der beiden Paraffinöfen, das gesamte Mobiliar bewegt sich Millimeter um Millimeter auf den zentralen Bereich zu, wo Aurach in dem grauen Schein, der durch das hohe, mit dem Staub von Jahrzehenten überzogene Nordfenster einfällt, seine Staffelei aufgestellt hat. (Die Ausg. 237)
The optical phenomena of the eye adjusting to light and darkness is drastic. The dark corners are highlighted by the grey light which penetrates through the old windows of the studio. Moreover, the dusty landscape of books and piles of newspapers, boxes, furniture and paint pots of red, green and lead white seemed to be approaching the grey centre where the painter’s easel is fixed. The easel refers to the liminal space; the grey zone of creating and destroying at the same time. Aurach had the tendency to apply the paint thickly but then “sie im Fortgang der Arbeit immer wieder von der Leinwand
213 herunterkratzt,” and as a result “ist der Bodenbelag bedeckt von einer im Zentrum mehrere Zoll dicken, nach außen allmählich flacher werdenden, mit Kohlstaub untermischten, weitgehend bereits verhärteten und verkrusteten Masse, eine stellenweise einem Lavaausfluß gleicht” and as Aurach claims to be “das wahre
Ergebnis seiner fortwährenden Bemühung und den ofenkundigsten Beweis für sein
Scheitern.” (Die Ausg. 237-8) This passage is painted with a ‘scuro’ brush and is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes where the color grey reigns. Aurach’s process of creating and destroying has come to symbolize the proof of this artistic and spiritual failure. Despite this, it has remained essential to him that “nichts an seinem Arbeitsplatz sich verändere” and that “alles so bleibe, wie es vordem war, wie er es sich eingerichtet habe, wie es jetzt sei” and “nichts hinzukomme als der Unrat, der anfalle bei der
Verfertigung der Bilder, und der Staub der sich unablässig herniedersenke und der ihm, wie er langsam begreifen lerne, so ziemlich das Liebste sei auf der Welt.” Aurach has come to love dust more than anything in the world and that is why he states that “[d]er
Staub, sei ihm viel näher als das Licht, die Luft und das Wasser.” (Die Ausg. 237-8) The spiritual artist has come to feel at home within a grey and dusty space where things remain silenced. The narrator says: “Nichts sei ihm so unerträglich wie ein Haus, an dem abgestaubt wird” and he never felt “wohler als dort, wo die Dinge ungestört und gedämpft daliegen dürfen unter dem grausamtenen Sinter, der entsteht, wenn die
Materie, Hauch um Hauch, sich auflöst in nichts.” (238) The dissolving of matter into nothingness is a dominant element which ties Sebald’s works with a silver thread. Thus, in this story, Aurach is a visual artist who works through a continual removal of paint on his canvas in order to increase dust while the rest of the studio remains untouched.
214 Another aspect where the narrator witnesses Aurach’s continual destruction of his work is explained in detail when he says: “Es wunderte mich immer wieder, wie Aurach gegen Ende Arbeitstages aus den wenigen der Vernichtung entgangenen Linien und
Schatten ein Bildnis von großer Unmittelbarkeit zusammenbrachte” (Die Ausg. 239).
This drawing technique of his painting helps emphasize his melancholic view of history due to familial loss. Indeed, the ‘erasing’ of his artwork reveals the painter’s crisis:
Entschloß sich Aurach, nachdem er vielleicht vierzig Varianten verworfen beziehungsweise in das Papier zurückgerieben und durch weitere Entwürfe überdeckt hatte, das Bild weniger aus Überzeugung, es fertiggestellt zu haben, als aus einem Gefühl der Ermattung, endlich aus der Hand zu geben, so hatte es für den Betrachter den Anschein, als sei es hervorgegangen aus einer langen Ahnenreihe grauer, eingeäscherter, in dem zerschundenen Papier nach wie vor herumgeisternder Gesichter. (Die Ausg. 239-40)
The overdrawing of the ancestral portraits on paper gives them a quality of ghostly presences. It seems that the trauma of familial loss is portrayed by Aurach’s attempts at drawing in charcoal sticks faces which appear as ghosts. This unique technique within the shades of grey resembles the same technique used by the American painter, Austin
Fraser, from Jane Urquhart’s novel The Underpainter.394 Urquhart contemplates
Fraser’s artistic life and explores the sphere of human gloom and despair in a similar fashion as Sebald. Austin, an artist in his later years, is hunted by the past and the memories of those close to him and those who deeply affected his work. A Canadian soldier, a beautiful model and a china painter are faces of his artwork which, after a highly detailed painting he systematically "erases". In the novel, Fraser's friend, George
Kearns, the china painter, and Augusta, his lover commit suicide in 1937 because of the trauma experienced in WWI. Fraser is the one to find the couple dead in their home and
394 Urquhart, Jane. The Underpainter. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc. 1997.
215 tries afterwards to cope with his own trauma of seeing this tragedy. Desperately he tries to find comfort in Sara, his model girlfriend, but rejects her at the last moment.
The metaphoric element indicated by the book’s title “the underpainter” comes to have a complex importance. On a simple level, underpainting is a term which refers to what is placed on canvas. But Fraser embarks on a new painting style of overpainting, a method of adding layer after layer to cover up the previous work. Indeed Fraser’s fear was that his underpainting method would be discovered so he made sure that the shapes he deliberately obscured never rose up to the surface. In the novel, the painter reveals that the pattern of his life is exactly like that of his under-painting. He intention as an artist is to blank out reality. The 'erasures' he creates in his art are part of his life which is scraped back and hidden beneath the multiple layers. For both Fraser and Max
Aurach, life becomes disturbing only when previous fragments of their art seep through.
Yet, there are not these fragments of life which disturb us as readers, but the absences, the emotions and connections which they try to ignore but which grow in the reader's mind. Although absent from Max Aurach's life, trauma, loss and suffering for long-lost ones are at core. Anne Fuchs explains: “Aurach’s procedural painting technique thus understands art as a form of displaced and highly painful memory of work.” 395 While
Aurach uses his painting technique as a tool that etches his trauma, Jacques Austerlitz uses another technique to etch his loss. (191-195) We learn about the latter’s technique when the narrator of Austerlitz visits Jacques in his Alderney Street home. He describes the street as “ziemlich weit draußen im East End von London” yet “eine auffallende stille
Gasse parallel zu der breiten Ausfallstraße.” (Austerlitz 170) The interior of the house is
395 Fuchs, “W. G. Sebald’s Painters: The Function of Fine Art in His Prose Works,” 180.
216 painted with a grey brush as the narrator recollects: “Die Wände waren in einem hellen, die Dielen in einem dunkleren Mattgrau gestrichen.” He continues: “In dem
Vorderzimmer, stand . . . einzig ein großer, gleichfalls mattgrau lasierter Tisch, auf dem in geraden Reihen und genauen Abständen voneinander ein paar Duzend
Photographien lagen die meisten älteren Datums und etwas abgegriffen an den
Rändern.” (Austerlitz 171) The color grey paints the interior of Austerlitz home and in a psychological level his mind with a sense of gloom, melancholy and sorrow. The old and torn photographs resting upon the varnished grey matt table revealing empty European landscapes and train stations have come to play a pivotal role in Austerlitz’s life. He would sit for hours laying out “diese Photographien, oder andere, die er aus seinen
Beständen hervorhole, mit der rückwärtigen Seite nach oben auslege, ähnlich wie bei einer Partie Patience” (Austerlitz 171). In this game of patience, he would turn these images over and push them back and forth looking at them “erstaunt” of what he would see after rearranging them “in eine aus Familienähnlichkeiten sich ergebene Ordnung, oder auch aus dem Spiel ziehe, bis nichts mehr übrig sei als die graue Fläche des
Tischs. . . (Austerlitz 171-2). These photographs, that Jacques reconstructs in hope of new configurations, shed light upon the trauma he had to experience as a child when he had to depart from his parents in the Kindertransport. Thus, this play of constructing and de-constructing the collaged landscapes until “die graue Fläche des Tischs” appears, is similar to the artistic method used by Max Aurach. Whereas Austerlitz uses the table as a liminal space of creating and destroying, Aurach uses his canvas. In both cases the ‘erasure’ of the (art)work and the revelation of ‘grey’ surfaces reveal internal chaos. To extend on the grey color aspect, the interior of Austerlitz’s home resembles
217 the abandoned walls of Aurach’s studio. For instance, while Jacques invites the narrator to another room of his home the narrator experiences another empty domestic space with “nur die grauen Bodenbretter und Wände” (Austerlitz 172) Furniture seems to be absent in many of Austerlitz’s rooms creating thus a mental picture of a studio with dividing panels. In a psychological level these bare grey spaces can be seen as the representation of Jacques’ mind and his identity crisis due to familial loss.
Max Aurach and the Silver Metallic Gloss
In the course of Aurach’s story in Die Ausgewanderten we learn that the painter used to spend the mornings before work at the transport café Wadi Halfa near Trafford
Park in Manchester. Upon his visit to this unique café, the narrator himself, recollects how its interior was lit by a neon bright light that allowed no visual room for
“Schatten” (Die Ausg. 243). He sees Aurach sitting all the time in front of fresco painted by an anonymous artist which showed a caravan coming out from a remote part of the painting. The desert and caravan passage is similar to what Cosmo encounters previously in a German film in New York and drives him insane. In Aurach’s case, the imagery leaves a deep visual impression with distinct patterns of black and white on the narrator. He reveals how he sees Aurach sitting in the same place in front of a “gemalten
Fresko” from an unknown artist “das eine Karawane zeigte, die aus der fernsten Tiefe des Bildes heraus und über ein Wellengebirge von Dünen hinweg direkt auf den
Betrachter zu sich bewegte.” (Die Ausg. 243) According to the narrator, this painter had chosen a difficult perspective of representation thus in his work “die menschlichen
Figuren [wirkten] sowohl als die Lasttiere in ihren Umrissen leicht verzerrt, so daß es,
218 wenn man die Lieder halb senkte, tatsächlich war, ar erblicke man eine in der Helligkeit und Hitze zitternde Fata Morgana.” (243) The latter statement is painted with a ‘chiaro’ brush in order to elevate the power of “Hitze”. Thus, the “Helligkeit” element in this passage makes the heat which glows from the dunes, the main subject of the work. Yet, it is interesting to notice how the narrator makes Aurach part of this artwork when the latter sits against the desert landscape. He reveals: “Und insbesondere an Tagen, an denen Aurach mit Kohle gearbeitet und der pudrig feine Staub seine Haut mit einem metallischen Glanz imprägniert hatte, schien es mir, als sei er soeben aus dem
Wüstenbild herausgetreten oder als gehöre er in es hinein. (243) Against this mirage of light and heat stands Aurach covered in a fine powder dust which gives his skin a kind of a silver-metallic gloss. In the eyes of the narrator the painter looks like someone who has just come out of the desert or one who inhabits it.
The light, dark and grey elements used in this passage allow for dramatic visual effect: Aurach is portrayed as a perpetual traveller, one who “durch sämtliche Stein- und
Sandwüsten der Erde bereits gezogen sei” (Die Ausg. 244). The caravan in the desert refers to the exiles who are traveling eternally as home is lost. Max flees Germany to come home in Manchester. John Zilcosky notes: “As Aurach remarks at the end of the story, he, like the narrator, had always ‘intended to move in the opposite direction’ away from his German-Jewish Heimat, but that he had returned against his will: in
Manchester, his new home, ‘the German and Jewish influence was stronger’ than in
‘any other European city.’“396 As the painter says to the narrator “I am here, as they used to say, to serve under the chimney” (Die Ausg. 287), which refers not only to the
396 Zilcosky, “Sebald’s Uncanny Travels,” 116.
219 neglected factory at the industrial district in Manchester where his workshop is but also
“to the crematorium he escaped but which his studio disturbingly resembles.”397
Aurach’s statement refers to the darkest era in the German history. The ‘ash’ or ‘ashes’ element that derives from the word ‘crematorium/studio’ refers, indirectly, to the
Holocaust era.
“Die grauen Damen” of Aurach and Austerlitz
In a conversation with Aurach, the narrator learns that the painter is haunted by fragmentary scenes from his Heimat. The latter reveals: “Wenn ich an Deutschland denke, kommt es mir vor wie etwas Wahnsinniges in meinem Kopf. Und wahrscheinlich aus der Befürchtung, daß ich dieses Wahnsinnige würde bestätigt finden, bin ich nie mehr in Deutschland gewesen.” (Die Ausg. 270) For Aurach, Germany “erscheint als ein zurückgebliebenes, zerstörtes, irgendwie extraterritoriales Land, bevölkert von
Menschen, deren Gesichter wunderschön sowohl als furchtbar verbacken sind” (270)
He sees Germany and Germans as unheimlich: wonderful and dreadful at the same time. Yet, what haunts the artist the most is the daily ‘visit’ from a ‘lady’. The optical illusion of the shades of grey in this passage are beautifully interwoven. Aurach explains:
So erscheint bei mir fast täglich eine elegante Dame in einem Ballkleid aus grauer Fallschirmseide und mit einem breitkempigen, mit grauen Rosen besteckten Hut. Kaum setze ich mich, von der Arbeit ermüdet, in meinem Sessel, höre ich ihre Schritte draußen auf dem Pflaster der Gasse. Sie rauscht beim Hoftor herein, an dem Mandelbäumchen vorbei und steht auch schon auf der Schwelle zur Werkstatt. (Die Ausg. 270-1)
397 Gregory-Guider, “The “Sixth Emigrant”: Traveling Places in the Works of W. G. Sebald,” 441.
220 The lady in a grey ballgown and in a hat with grey roses seems to be a regular visitor at the studio. Whenever she comes she stands at the threshold of the workshop: not outside but also not inside. The temporal hesitation on the threshold denotes a liminal zone; a grey zone inhabited by this mysterious lady. But who is she? What does she want? According to the artist she appears as a doctor trying to save a patient. As soon as she approaches Aurach she bends down towards him in hope to communicate something, yet, as the artist explains how “Wörter werden jedenfalls niemals gewechselt. Es ist immer eine stumme Szene.” (Die Ausg. 271) Since visual communication is shut out as soon as the artist closes his eyes, one is left to think that the communication would be oral. Ironically, the union between Aurach and the lady is a muted one as no word is exchanged. He believes that the reason for this silence is that
“die graue Dame versteht nur ihre Muttersprache, das Deutsche, das ich seit 1939, seit dem Abschied von den Eltern auf dem Münchener Flughafen Oberwiesenfeld, nicht ein einziges Malmehr gesprochen habe und von dem nur ein Nachhall, ein dumpfes, unverständliches Murmeln und Raunen noch da ist in mir.” (271) In fact, German falls familiar and foreign to the ears of the painter, a language which is long buried since the departure of his parents in 1939 from München to the Auschwitz camps. Thus, ‘die graue Dame’ is the personification of the German language itself which refers to the sense of the uncanny as both heimlich and unheimlich. The grey color denotes the loss of the language, oblivion and identity crisis. So, Germany, Germans and the German language appear as grey ghosts from the past which haunt the artist. The further he tries to run away from his past, the closer he gets. He cannot escape the ghosts from the past. As the two-lined epigraph under the section entitled “Max Aurach” states: “Im
221 Abenddämmer kommen sie und suchen nach dem Leben.” (Die Ausg. 217) Indeed, the dead return to search for life at the precise moment when the day is slowly transitioning to night. This liminal or grey space and time of “Abenddämmerung” denotes the shift of light/life into dark/death and vice-versa. The living cannot escape the past because the dead return over and again is search for life.
In a similar fashion Austerlitz cannot escape the phantom traces from his childhood. In the course of the story the narrator of Austerlitz learns that Jacques is haunted by fragmentary scenes from his long lost roots. When meeting up with Vera in
Prague he recollects how he had to wait late at night for his mother to return from the theatre. He remembers the scent her mother brought which was “umhüllt von einem seltsamen, aus verwehtem Parfum und Staub gemischten Theatergeruch” (233) Later he continues: [Agáta] trägt ein vorne geschnürtes, aschgraues Seidenmieder, aber ihr
Gesicht kann ich nicht erkennen, sondern nur einen irisierenden, niedrig über der Haut schwebenden Schleier von weißlich getrübter Milchfarbe” then Austerlitz recollects how
“ihr der Schal von der rechten Schulter gleitet, als sie mir mit der Hand über die Stirne streicht.” (Austerlitz 233) Like in Max Aurach’s encounter with die graue Dame where the illusion of grey shades paint the whole picture, in Austerlitz Jacques is made to eternally wander his ashen landscape of his painful childhood memories. Agáta’s ashen- grey silk attire and her whitish-creamy veil resemble the outfit of the grey lady that visits
Aurach in his studio. The communication of mother and son is a muted one: no words are exchanged yet, Jacques remembers how he always waited for his mother’s hand to strike his forehead. A sense of the uncanny envelopes Jacques since he cannot make the face of his mother, yet, the hand that caresses is so familiar. That is why the use of
222 the grey shades in the passage are interwoven to shed light upon the son’s familial loss, oblivion and her erasure from history.
The absence of oral communication with his mother sheds light upon the death of his native tongue. On these terms Austerlitz’s story is very similar to Aurach’s since the mother language has been erased from memory. While Aurach’s perceives German as a grey lady hidden under the thick layers of dust and oblivion, Austerlitz finds himself in similar circumstances when he remembers how he felt when adopted by the Welsh family when he says:
. . . ich erahnte noch etwas vom Absterben der Muttersprache, von ihrem von Monat leiser werdenden Rumoren, von dem ich denke, daß es eine Zeitlang zumindest noch in mir gewesen ist wie eine Art Schnarren oder Pochen von etwas Eingesperrtem, das immer, wenn man auf es achthaben will, vor Schrecken stillhält und schweigt. Und gewiß wären die von mir in kurzer Frist ganz vergessenen Wörter mit allem, was zu ihnen gehörte, im Abgrund meines Gedächtnisses verschüttet geblieben. . . (Austerlitz 199)
The dying away of the mother tongue refers to identity and familial loss. The adoptive parents do not speak the language of Jacques parents thus this language is buried in the dark depths of memory.
Grey Shades Upon Theresienstadt Sky
While in Terezin Austerlitz visits the Ghetto Museum in hope of finding any trace of his parents, more importantly of his mother. After spending a long time there in the dark rooms of the exhibition observing documents of the Jewish prisoners’ persecution he comes out of the museum thinking what he read about the effect of “Mitte Dezember
1942, zu dem Zeitpunkt also, zu dem Agáta nach Terezin gekommen ist, in dem Ghetto,
223 auf dem bebauten Grundfläche von höchstens einem Quadratkilometer, an die sechzigtausend Personen zusammengesperrt gewesen sind.” (Austerlitz 285) With a clear picture of about 60,000 people collected in an enclosed area Austerlitz departs the museum and finds himself out “auf dem verlassenen Stadtplatz” where it suddenly comes to him “mit der größten Deutlichkeit” that these people “wären nicht forgebracht worden, sondern lebten, nach wie vor, dichtgedrängt in den Häusern, in den Souterrains und auf den Dachböden, als gingen sie pausenlos sie Stiegen auf und ab, schauten bei den Fenstern heraus.” (285) He envisions this vast ghost-population as a silent assembly filling the grey space of Terezin air by the fine rain. He writes “[sie] bewegten sich in großer Zahl durch die Straßen und Gassen und erfüllten sogar in stummer
Versammlung den gesamten, grau von dem feinen Regen schraffierten Raum der
Luft.” (Austerlitz 285) For me, the grey element in this passage has never been so translucent and elusive yet so powerful. The use of this monochrome tone to paint the
Terezin air becomes, apart from its use in Max Aurach’s studio, one of the most beautiful in Sebald’s quartet. This gloomy color sheds light upon that part of history which has remained as mysterious and dark and as inconceivable and unimaginable. That is why
Austerlitz, when leaving Terezin behind, notes: “Mit diesem Bild vor Augen bin ich in den altertümlichen Omnibus eingestiegen, der, aus dem Nirgendwo aufgetaucht, unmittelbar vor mir an der Bordkante gehalten hatte, ein paar Schritte nur von dem Eingang des
Museums.” (Austerlitz 285) It seems that he has boarded a ghostly bus which appears out of nowhere in the midst of the grey shades. Indeed, Austerlitz’s journey from Terezin to Prague presents him with a continuation of gloom because of the dark weather and empty landscape of “immer dunkler werdenden bömischen Felder, kahles
224 Hopfengestänge, tiefbraune Äcker” which are altogether “leer.” (Austerlitz 286) Sebald is a writer, who in a similar fashion as Rembrandt, uses gray tones to convey meaning which, in this case, is less optimistic since terror and brutality still reign over the
Europe’s dark past.
Chiaroscuro and Grey Areas in Somerleyton Hall
Like the eternal wanderer of Austerlitz, the narrator of In Die Ringe des Saturn leaves behind closed spaces of urban civilization in order to visit Somerleyton Hall in
England. He first takes the train and then walks to the destination. The benefits of walking to the manor are the (sight)seeing of the hall’s rearview and experiencing the estate at the very brink of perishing. Moser explains: “. . . the pedestrian who must transgress a liminal space of waste and wilderness before reaching his goal is enabled to place the estate within the historical framework of creaturely suffering, martial violence, and dissolution.”398 This dissolution of the English estate is crucial to Sebald’s theme of life and death. Using the technique of chiaroscuro as well as ‘ash’ and ‘dust’ elements the narrator explains how with the passing of time the past and the present are juxtaposed to reveal the actual changes of the estate. He states: “Auf den heutigen
Besucher macht Somerleyton nicht mehr den Eindruck eines morgenländischen
Märchenpalasts.” (RS 48) In detail he explains the reasons why Somerleyton does not strike one as an oriental palace with fairy-tale elements: “Die gläsernen Wandelgänge und das Palmenhaus, dessen hoher Dom einst die Nächte illuminierte, sind schon 1913
398 Moser, Christian. “Peripatetic Liminality: Sebald and the Tradition of the Literary Walk.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 38.
225 nach einer Gasexplosion ausgebrannt und anschließend abgerissen worden” and the servants such as “die Butler, Kutscher, Chauffeure, Gärtner, Köchinnen, Nähmädchen und Kammerfrauen seit langem entlassen.” (RS 48) In this passage Sebald brings to the centre of attention the palm house whose dome was used to illuminate the dark nights.
Unfortunately this source of light/life was burned down in 1913 through a gas explosion signifying death through destruction and aftermath ashes.
On this note, Somerleyton is described as empty (devoid of previous workers), covered in dust “verstaubt” due to abandonment and as a result on the verge of dissolving. The narrator explains: “Die Samtvorhänge und die weinroten Lichtblenden sind verschlossen, die Polstermöbel durchgesessen, die Stiegenhäuser und Korridore, durch die man geführt wird, vollgestellt mit zwecklosem, aus der Zirkulation geratenem
Kram.” (RS 48) Somerleyton’s current deteriorating state is further highlighted when the narrator explains: “In der Eingangshalle steht ein mehr als drei Meter großer ausgestopfter Eisbär. Wie ein gramgebeugtes Gespenst schaut er aus in seinem gelblichen, von den Motten zerfressenen Fell.” (RS 49) Every detail that the narrator observes at the estate is on the borderline of life/light and death/dark; for instance, the ghost-like image of the bear whose ‘yellowish/light’ moth-eaten felt is reminiscent of the slow progression towards death. The narrator continues to explain how this sense of deterioration of Somerleyton brings him into a confusing state since he does not know where he is: in a “Landsitz in Suffolk. . . [oder] quasi extraterritorialen Ort, an der Küste des Nordmeeres oder im Herzen des schwarzen Kontinents.” (RS 49) Apart from other places mentioned, the narrator feels he is in a no-man’s land or in the heart of a dark continent. What is this unnamed dark continent? Before I analyze this I would like to go
226 back to the estate’s burning dome that the narrator claims happened in 1913. In fact there is no historical evidence that Somerleyton’s Palm House dome was destroyed in a fire. Based on actual facts (and not fiction) one might ask: Is Sebald referring here to the historical arson attack of the Reichstag fire in 1933 instead? Is he again indirectly making references to the Nazi Era and its darkest past? Is he maybe referring to Europe during the wars when he says “the dark continent” instead of Conrad’s The Heart of
Darkness which refers to Africa? Maybe he is. Sebald is known to be indirect, especially when referring to Holocaust. Life/light and death/darkness, ashes and dust enable him to make those indirect references. Where there is a burning fire, there are always ashes and dust (indirect references to the Holocaust), the two elements that Sebald is obsessed with since they denote the borderline of ‘being and nothingness.’ The dissolution of the English estate and the fictional fire are a perfect example of the borderline of life and death and emphasize once more Sebald’s obsession with ashes as the aftermath of the loss of life.
Sebald’s own Exile and His “Underpainting” Technique
In an interview with Michael Silverblatt, “Sebald once described his departure from Germany as the premise for his discovery of the kind of life stories that would become the stuff of Die Ausdewanderten” and other novels. Sebald explains: “I would never have encountered these witnesses if I hadn’t left my native country at the age of twenty, because the people who could tell you the truth ... did not exist in that country
227 anymore. But one could find them in Manchester and in Leeds or in North London.”399
Sebald’s conversation exposes how his dislocation from Germany has helped him find the long lost Jewish community who carried the truth of the country left behind. Thus, asked by Eleanor Watchel if he would consider himself as a type of “ghost hunter,” he responded by commenting on the “odd presence” the dead had for him and characterized his pursuits as the “occup[ation] of this person’s territory,” as a journey through a personal and cultural space in order “to look around there and feel, after a while, quite at home.”400 In terms of Sebald’s style of writing Gray Kochhar-Lindgren reveals that it is similar to Max Aurach’s artwork. He explains:
As a visual artist, [Aurach] works through excavations of paint on the canvas, deep abrasions, the thickness of impasto, and through superimpositions of images, times, figures. Sebald’s writing is much the same: layers within layers, scraping words down to the bareness of the bones of the loss effected by time, remolding a flat surface so that it will cast distinct patterns of light and shadow. 401
Kochhar-Lindgren reflects upon Sebald’s oeuvre where the distinct arrangement of the chiaroscuro elements and the grey nuances thrive due to his artistic “underpainting” technique in his prose which is peppered with unique black and white images.
Indeed, photographs in Sebald’s quartet help solidify an already distinct dark and melancholy tone because they are inhabited by the shadows of the past. The (historical
399 Sebald in conversation with Silverblatt quoted in Zisselsberger, Markus. “Introduction: Fluchtträume/ Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country.” In The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger. (Camden House: New York, 2010), 11.
400 Watchel, Eleanor. “Ghost Hunter.” In The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald. (Interview) in Lynne S. Schwartz. (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007), 37-62; quoted in Zisselsberger, Markus. “Introduction: Fluchtträume/Traumfluchten. Journeys to the Undiscover’d Country,” 42.
401 Kochhar-Lindgren, Gray. “Charcoal: The Phantom Traces of W.G. Sebald’s Novel Memoirs.” In Monatshefte. Vol. 94. No. 3 (Fall, 2002), 371.
228 and personal) spaces that the images offer are dominated by ghosts and phantasms because they shed light on the human cruelty upon humans and natural environment. In his works Sebald deliberately uses photographs which are “exceptionally poor quality when judged according to conventional criteria concerning composition, focus, contrast, and so on.”402 In all these images there are many de-centred structures with either under or over-exposure in order to obscure or highlight certain details within the photograph. This unique monochrome visual technique is used out of the “narrator’s desire to find the invisible within the visible - evidence of a historical metaphysics or traces of the past within the physical landscape - [which] . . . forms part of the discourse of history and memory. . .”403 Like Rembrandt Sebald used the chiaroscuro technique to make mute things that he identified himself with speak. In Austerlitz, for instance,
Jacques hear Vera, his childhood nanny speak of “solchen aus der Vergangenheit aufgetauchten Photographien zu eigen sei.” (Austerlitz 262) She later extends: “Man habe den Eindruck es rühre sich etwas in ihnen, als vernehme man kleine
Verzweiflungsseufer” as if “hätten die Bilder selbst ein Gedächtnis und erinnern sich an uns, daran, wie wir die Überlebenden, und diejenigen, die nie mehr unter uns weilen, vordem gewesen sind. (262) Vera’s words reveal precisely what Sebald intends to do with his images by retrieving them from the dark corners of the past and in order to give them voice. Sebald’s incorporation of photographs has attracted a number of
(controversial) interpretations due to the fact that most of them are of poor quality and mostly monochromatic where the dominant hues are chromatic grey, associated with
402 Long, “The Photograph,” 83.
403 Long, “The Photograph,” 83.
229 ashes, gloom, trauma and even death. Sebald uses grey to refer to secrecy and shadows since this color is the mediation of black and white, the gradation in hue and value. In his works grey is the place where he looks at people’s appearance and sees the nuances of life; and where reality of life becomes visible with all the contradictions it entails. To be human means to inhabit this grey space. That's why Sebald is so interested in grey, in chiaroscuro. Like Rembrandt he adjusts those values in order to expose or hide what he intends for his targeted audience. As a post-war child, Sebald learned that WWII in particular (apart from other wars) did decimate Germany and the
European continent as a whole. Thus, his private life and the post-war political events affecting his generation are fused together in the motifs of his prose quartet which are regarded as one of the most representative and outspoken works of German literature written in exile.
230 Conclusion
231 In my dissertation I have explored and explained the chiaroscuro technique which is a key concept in Sebald’s prose because personal and historical aspects are illuminated or hidden in a similar fashion as those in a chiaroscuro artwork. Sebald explores the disasters of the 19th century prose through the language of light and dark in order to give depth to memory, trauma and loss. Like Rembrandt, he has placed black and white in conversation while adjusting the shades of grey to the desired density for form and texture. The viewer is, thus, compelled to look in-between those shades to find the deeper meaning behind the composition. It is this artistry which has allowed me to consider Sebald as the Rembrandt of the 20th century. Moreover, the use of the binary opposition of light and dark reveals how deep Sebald was engaged in the ‘life and death’ theme. Since Rembrandt was important to him, due to the latter theme, The
Anatomy Lesson painting stands as a significant layout for all his oeuvre as it reveals what ‘Sebaldian effect’ is and what message the artist wants to transmit to the viewer/ reader. For this reason, I have argued that Sebald had chosen those particular paintings or photographs where light and shadow are used as tools to etch grayness and gloom.
Swiss-born American photographer Robert Frank states that since: “black and white are the colors of photography. ... they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected”404 and as such “death haunts all photographs of
404 Frank, Robert. Black and White Photography: 40 Famous Black and White Photography Quotes. Compiled and published by Leslie Chua. Sep 16, 2015.
232 people.”405 In fact the theme of hope/life and despair/death is embedded in (almost) all of Sebald’s images.
* * *
Apart from studying the light and dark elements within the chiaroscuro in the photographs, I have explained how it it possible to speak of light and dark elements in
Sebald’s prose. I have discovered that the deeper meaning behind the technique is not produced by a strong black and white distinction, but by observing how one gradually blends with the other. Thus, the use of grey in painting, photography and prose gives the artwork a symbolic quality as it allows the artist to set up patters of both showing and hiding people, objects and landscapes. The use of tonal grey allows any symbolism of
white/light = good black /dark = evil to be made complex. Thus, human faces are where Sebald has his most subtle integrity of grey and when those faces are absent, what remains is black and white contrast.
Thus, the grey color becomes the reality of life with all the challenges it entails. In his prose too, I have argued that the human being is where binary opposites become complex. And that is the core of why Sebald is so obsessed with chiaroscuro and the shades of grey. French poet and novelist Louis Aragon states: “It is these mingled opposites which people our life. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where
405 Sontag, On Photography, 70; quoted in Nojima, “Black and White Photography.” Diss. MA in Communications Studies. (Sep. 1, 2003), 8.
233 black and white clash” 406 and we are subjected to inhabit the grey zone forever. In this respect, I consider Sebald’s prose to be of the most symbolic and emblematic works of literature written in diaspora.
* * *
On a last note: The reason I wrote my thesis on the chiaroscuro technique in
Sebald’s works was because I became fascinated by the light/white and dark/black elements which he masterfully incorporates in his images and his prose. I came to understand that if I worked on the chiaroscuro I would be able to discover the ‘Sebaldian effect’ that is as elusive and mysterious as it is dark and gloomy. Due to vast research I found out that no critic had touched upon the elements of light and dark, which for me are the foundation of all his work. What I found interesting during my research was that even though the chiaroscuro is widely used in the visual arts and appreciated by many due to its unique quality and so present in Sebald’s prose, it was absent in all of the literary criticism on Sebald. This discrepancy became a fruitful ground for me to explore the mysteries of the chiaroscuro elements which hold the fabric of his works intact through an invisible thread. Indeed, Sebald cannot be the only writer to be read under the light of the chiaroscuro.
I believe that Goethe, (Faust I and II) can also be read with an eye to chiaroscuro; for instance, the famous monologue in Faust II where he claims that “am farbigen Abglanz haben wir das Leben” he refers to the complexity of life. Faust realizes
406 Aragon, Louis. Black and White Photography: 40 Famous Black and White Photography Quotes. Compiled and published by Leslie Chua. Sep 16, 2015
234 that he does not have to look directly at the sun to see the light, in fact, he has to turn his back in order to grasp life’s colorful reflection. In the end he understands that the success in life lies not in the fulfillment of the absolute universal knowledge but when the limited knowledge is used to help humankind. Apart from Goethe, I also believe that
Thomas Mann (Der Tod in Venedig407 and Der Zauberberg), Franz Grillparzer (König
Ottokars Glück und Ende and other works), Franz Kafka (Das Schloss)408, Nelly Sachs
(O die Schornsteine)409, Paul Celan (Todesfuge)410 and many more can be read similarly. With the study of the chiaroscuro technique in Sebald I believe I have given a new perspective of how to read his works. I hope I have given an analytical theory for future research and I also hope to have contributed to the larger body of literature scholarship.
407 I have discussed how Thomas Mann and Franz Grillparzer have portrayed Venice as gloomy, grey and on the verge of decay in chapter 4. Like Sebald they both have deconstructed its fairy-tale image (portrayed by Goethe in his Italienische Reise).
408 I have discussed Kafka’s opening of Das Schloss in chapter 3 and have talked about the significance of the scuro/dark elements in his novel.
409 I have analyzed Nelly Sachs’ poem in detail in chapter 3 in terms of chiaroscuro.
410 In Celan’s iconic Holocaust poem the light and particularly the dark elements are pivotal to the theme of death and human tragedies of the 19th century. The opening lines are painted with the darkest brush: “Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken sie abends/ wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts/ wir trinken und trinken” (Todesfuge1-3)
235 Primary Literature
Sebald, W. G. “Antrittsrede vor dem Kollegium der Deutschen Akademie.” In Campo !Santo, ed. Sven Meyer. (München, Wien: Hanser, 2003), 250.
Sebald. W. G. “As Day and Night, Chalk and Cheese: On the Pictures of Jan Peter Tripp.” In Unrecounted: W.G. Sebald and Jan Peter Tripp, transl. Michael Hamburger. (Hamish Hamilton Penguin Books, 2004), 79-94.
Sebald, W. G. Die Ausgewanderten. Frankfurt am Main: Vito von Eichborn GmbH & Co Verlag KG, 1992.
Sebald, W. G. Austerlitz. Frankfurt am Main: Vito von Eichborn GmbH & Co Verlag KG, 2001.
Sebald, W. G. Logis in einem Landhaus. Carl Hanser Verlag, München, 1998. 7G.
Sebald, W. G. Die Ringe des Saturn, Eine Englische Wallfahrt. Frankfurt am Main: Vito von Eichborn GmbH & Co Verlag KG, 1995.
Sebald, W. G. Schwindel. Gefühle. Frankfurt am Main: Vito von Eichborn GmbH & Co Verlag KG, 1990.
Tawada, Yoko. Das Nackte Auge. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2004.
Tawada, Yoko. Talisman. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 1996.
Tawada, Yoko. Überseezungen. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 2002.
Tawada, Yoko. Wo Europa Anfängt. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 1991.
Abbreviations
RS - Die Ringe des Saturn Die Ausg. - Die Ausgewanderten SG - Schwindel. Gefühle.
236 Bibliography
Aciman, André, quoted in Schwartz, Lynne Sharon ed. “Introduction.” In The Emergence !of Memory: Conversations !with W. G. Sebald. (London: Seven Stories Press, 2007), 12.
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