Aesthetics in Ruins: Parisian Writing, Photography and Art, 1851-1892
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Apollo Aesthetics in Ruins: Parisian Writing, Photography and Art, 1851-1892 Ioana Alexandra Tranca Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Trinity College March 2017 I would like to dedicate this thesis to my parents, Mihaela and Alexandru Declaration I hereby declare that this dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. This dissertation does not exceed the prescribed word limit of 80000, excluding bibliography. Alexandra Tranca March 2017 Acknowledgements My heartfelt gratitude goes to my Supervisor, Dr Nicholas White, for his continued advice and support throughout my academic journey, for guiding and helping me find my way in this project. I also wish to thank Dr Jean Khalfa for his insights and sound advice, as well as Prof. Alison Finch, Prof. Robert Lethbridge, Dr Jann Matlock, and Prof. Maurice Samuels for reading my work in progress and offering essential feedback. To my family, Mihaela, Alexandru, and Teodor, I owe a debt of gratitude that I could not repay over several lifetimes. Without their love and care, neither I nor this thesis would be here. Above all, they are far better researchers than I could ever hope to be. Thank you for instilling in me the love for literature and art, and for nourishing my appetite and inquisitiveness to explore real and imaginary spaces. And for being there for me at all times of the day or night. A very special 'thank you' goes to my grandparents, Viorica, Elena and Mihail, for their tenderness and nurturing, for their inspiring stories, courage and strength. I am most grateful to my partner, Andrei Moarcas, for his loving enthusiasm and patience, and for his saving presence at critical moments. Finally, I wish to thank my friends and colleagues, who have offered encouragement and given me of their time: Rebecca Sugden, Véronique Samson, and Martin Vyska, Dr Mircea Iliescu, Adriana Dote, Dr Claire White and Dr Edmund Birch, to name just a few of the people whose care, kindness, and professionalism supported me throughout this journey. Abstract Ioana Alexandra Tranca Aesthetics in Ruins: Parisian Writing, Photography and Art, 1851-1892 This project explores two main lines of inquiry concerning representations of ruins in Paris. I first identify a turning point in the evolution of the ruin leitmotif beyond Romanticism in its transfer into a new context: modern Paris. The analysis demonstrates the correlation between this leitmotif and urban environment in transformation, and their influence on aesthetics, leading to the renewal of modes of representation in literary and visual discourse. Unconventional ruins, recently created by demolition during Haussmannisation (1853-70) or war (1870-71) challenge conceptions about space (inside/outside, up/down, visible/invisible), time, and the individual in relation to the city. In view of tracing the transformation of the ruin ethos in relation to modern sensibilities towards the city and its modes of representation, a chronological approach concentrates on two main periods divided into four chapters. The first interval extends from 1848 throughout the Second Empire and the second spans the 1870- 1871 conflagration and the Third Republic. An interdisciplinary and dialogic approach reveals the exchanges between different media (literature, journalism, painting, photography) aiming to convey the paradoxes of Paris's modern ruins. Moreover, close reading and comparisons of authors' and artists' depictions across media and genres nuance, correct or disprove critical appraisals, re-establishing artistic authority (e.g. photographers Charles Marville and Bruno Braquehais). The second line of inquiry posits that representations of ruins reflect on the relationship of Parisians with their city during systematisation and wartime destruction. Research reveals that individual initiatives of representing urban ruins attest to a new sensibility towards the city, preceding the Second Empire's (1853-1870) apparatus of historical and topographic documentation to preserve the appearance of spaces before intervention. Thus, during Paris's systematisation, private and artistically-minded projects become the tools of patrimonial preservation. By comparison, aesthetic approaches to ruins in 1871 mark a new appreciation of modern architecture, while engaging with war trauma. ! Table of Contents Introduction The Ruins of Modernity and Modernity in Ruins…………………………. 1 Chapter I 'Ceci tuera cela': The Rubble of Modernity and Organic Paris………… 36 Chapter II Hidden Violence and Traces of Ruins……………………………………... 71 Chapter III Whose Ruins? 'Plus d’un quartier va fondre': Haussmann and War…. 107 Chapter IV 'Ce visage balafré et marqué d'affreuses brûlures' or Paris in 1870-1871: Burning, Destruction, and Reconstruction…...………………………..... 142 Conclusion Beyond the Rubble of Paris………………………………………………. 180 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….. 189 Introduction The Ruins of Modernity and Modernity in Ruins Encore un peu de temps, et Paris deviendra un sujet d'études aussi obscur, aussi embrouillé, aussi enveloppé d'impénétrables ténèbres que Tyr et Babylone. Il n'a pas fallu à M. Flaubert plus d'imagination pour reconstruire Carthage, à M. Mariette et à M. Fiorelli plus de patience pour exhumer pierre à pierre Memphis et Pompéia, plus de science et de sagacité à Cuvier pour reconstituer le mastodonte à l'aide d'une seule dent du monstre, qu'il n'en faut aujourd'hui à qui veut retrouver le Paris de nos aïeux sous les ruines et les transformations innombrables qui l'ont bouleversé de fond en comble, et le faire revivre dans sa physionomie, dans ses mœurs, dans ses monuments et dans ses rues. On a si bien pris à tâche de trancher [...] les liens de la tradition, et de rompre violemment [...] cette chaîne d'or qui rattachait le présent au passé, que l'histoire de Paris [...] ne se révèle qu'au prix des plus laborieux efforts, et qu'il faut extraire patiemment, à travers des monceaux de décombres, les lambeaux mutilés de ce tableau rétrospectif qui devrait [...] éclater de lui-même au grand jour et s'afficher à chaque pas dans le Paris d'aujourd'hui. (Fournel 1865: 290-91) The capital of modernity during the second half of the nineteenth century stands under the sign of ruin. Reflections on the life and death of cities and civilisations would echo in Parisian writing and art throughout the century, when ruins become part of the capital's urban tissue. First, during Haussmann's renovation works, half-demolished or half-erected structures, avenues outlined by dugout trenches and shelled buildings associated Paris with vestigial landscapes, fragmentary and discordant. Ruins were omnipresent, sometimes hidden behind tarpaulins and scaffolding, at other times showcased as isolated monuments. Then, in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, other ruins inscribed on the face of Paris the stigma of external and internal conflict. ! In the context of Paris's modernisation, the ubiquity of ruins in representations constitutes a significant phenomenon, conveying anxiety about the future. In Curiosités du Vieux Paris, Paul Lacroix compared a man's life to that of a street: both are born, baptised, grow up and age (1858: 5-6). Death is the inevitable conclusion. This realisation prompts incursions into the future, where Paris's fate is appraised retrospectively, often through the prism of archaeology, for the city is conceived of as an ancient site.1 At the end of the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 The antipodal vision imagines Paris becoming a highly ordered urban configuration from which chaos is banished and where utilitarianism cancels out the aesthetic, reduced to the vapid use of architectonic orders and models. This constitutes another form of death for Paris, through monomaniacal reproduction of the same ! 1! ! ! eighteenth century, Volney's writings offered a variation on the sic transit gloria mundi motif that culminated with the projection of the fall of ancient empires onto Europe: 'qui sait si un voyageur ne s'asseoira un jour sur de muettes ruines, et ne pleurera pas solitaire sur la cendre des peuples et la mémoire de leur grandeur?' (1791: 12). The trope of civilisations révolues would recur throughout the nineteenth century, famously in Macaulay's New Zealander contemplating the ruins of St Paul's. Paris is consistently associated with ruins from the 1840s to the 1870s, from Joseph Méry's Les Ruines de Paris (1856), Arsène Houssaye's 'Paris futur' in Paris et les Parisiens au XIXe siècle (1856), and Hyppolite Mettais's L'an 5865, ou Paris dans 4000 ans (1865), to Tony Moilin's Paris en l'an 2000 (1869) and Alfred Franklin's Les Ruines