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Form and Meaning in Avant-Garde Collage and Montage

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Form and Meaning in Avant-Garde Collage and Montage Form and Meaning in Avant-Garde Collage and Montage This book uses intermedial theories to study collage and montage, tracing the transformation of visual collage into photomontage in the early avant-garde period. Magda Dragu distinguishes between the concepts of collage and montage, as defined across several media (fine arts, literature, music, film, photography), based on the type of artistic meaning they generate, rather than the mechanical procedures involved. The book applies theories of intermediality to collage and montage, which is crucial for understanding collage as a form of cultural production. Throughout, the author considers the political implications, as collages and montages were often used for propagandistic purposes. This book combines research methods used in several areas of inquiry: art history, literary criticism, analytical philosophy, musicology, and aesthetics. Magda Dragu is Visiting Scholar in the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University Bloomington, USA. Cover image: László Moholy-Nagy, Liebe deinen Nächsten: Mord auf den Schienen (Love Your Neighbor: Murder on the Railway), 1925. Photomontage (pasted photo• graphs cut from newspapers, graphite on paper), 47 × 31 cm (18½ × 12⅛ in.). Hattula Moholy-Nagy Collection. © 2019 Estate of László Moholy-Nagy / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Routledge Research in Art History Routledge Research in Art History is our home for the latest scholarship in the field of art history. The series publishes research monographs and edited collections, covering areas including art history, theory, and visual culture. These high-level books focus on art and artists from around the world and from a multitude of time periods. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality art history research. For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Rout ledge-Research-in-Art-History/book-series/RRAH Landscape Painting in Revolutionary France Liberty’s Embrace Steven Adams American Pop Art in France Politics of the Transatlantic Image Liam Considine Ceramics and Modernity in Japan Edited by Meghen Jones and Louise Allison Cort Chinese-Islamic Works of Art, 1644–1912 A Study of Some Qing Dynasty Examples Emily Byrne Curtis Portuguese Artists in London Shaping Identities in Post-War Europe Leonor de Oliveira Form and Meaning in Avant-Garde Collage and Montage Magda Dragu Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange Eiren L. Shea The Embodied Imagination in Antebellum American Art and Culture Catherine Holochwost https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Art-History/book-series/RRAH Form and Meaning in Avant-Garde Collage and Montage Magda Dragu First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Magda Dragu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dragu, Magda, author. Title: Form and meaning in avant-garde collage and montage / Magda Dragu. Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge research in art history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019045072 (print) | LCCN 2019045073 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367322540 (hbk) | ISBN 9780429317552 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Collage. | Montage. | Intermediality. Classification: LCC N6494.C6 D73 2020 (print) | LCC N6494.C6 (ebook) | DDC 702.81–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045072 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045073 ISBN: 978-0-367-32254-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-31755-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India In loving memory of my grandmother Lina Bobe (1926–2018) Contents List of figures x Acknowledgments xvi Introduction xviii PART I Theories of intermediality: form and meaning 1 1 The history 3 Comparative arts, interarts studies, and intermediality 3 Word and image versus word and music 9 Word, music, and the image – conceptual/a-conceptual, spatial/temporal 13 Notes 16 2 The theory 23 Intermedial transposition or content under scrutiny 23 Intermedial reference or the primacy of form 28 Media combination as intermedia and mixed media 31 Transmediality in the narrow sense 32 Redeeming the ‘blind’ spots of a theory: the modalities of media and beyond 33 Notes 35 PART II Collage 39 3 A heterogeneous articulation of meaning: avant-garde visual and verbal collage 41 Picasso’s collages or how to “trompe l’esprit” 42 Collage in the early avant-garde movements – theme and variations 48 Les romans-collages of Max Ernst or how to subvert visual narrative 52 viii Contents Words and images: quasi-nonsensical verbal collage (Apollinaire, Marinetti, Schwitters et al.) 56 Form, heterogeneous meaning, and intermediality 63 Notes 64 4 “The whole shebang!”: musical collage and meaning 74 Formal experiments: cumulative setting and spatial arrangements in Ives 75 Back in Europe: Picasso returns and a terminological conundrum (Satie and Stravinsky) 83 Musical collage, intermediality, and memory 86 Coda: collage – the transmedial perspective 88 Notes 91 PART III From collage to montage 97 5 ‘Transparent’ replacements: visual collage and heterogeneous photomontage 99 The photograph: a ‘transparent’ medium 100 A shift in vision: heterogeneous photomontage 102 Looking forward: from heterogeneous to homogeneous photomontage 104 New wine in (not so) old glasses: the beginnings of heterogeneous photomontage (Dada and Constructivist photomontage) 110 Surrealist photomontage: ‘a dream come true’ 120 Notes 122 6 Intermedial models: film montage and homogeneous photomontage 129 Enter Eisenstein or Prospero’s cell 129 Perfected vision in Vertov’s kino-eye 134 Film montage and homogeneous photomontage 140 The films and photomontages of Moholy-Nagy and Heartfield: a firm grip on meaning 142 Klutsis, Lissitzky, and Rodchenko or when factography is not quite what it seems 154 Montage – a clear articulation of meaning 163 Notes 165 7 Chasing the ‘greased pig’ of meaning: literary and musical montage 171 John Dos Passos goes to the movies: D. W. Griffith, Eisenstein, and Dos Passos’s montage novels (Manhattan Transfer [1925] and U.S.A. trilogy [1930–1936]) 172 Contents ix What the manuscripts say: Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz: Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf (1929) – collage and montage in question 179 Sampling, sound science, and meaning in the early musical montages of Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen 188 Notes 191 Conclusion 197 Bibliography 200 Index 223 Figures 0.1 The Jackalope postcard, front. Photo: Don Moffet. Curt Teich Postcard Collection, ca. 1992 xxii 3.1 Pablo Picasso, Feuille de musique et guitare (Music Sheet and Guitar), 1912. Collage (charcoal and cut-out papers, pasted or pinned on paper), 41.5 × 48 cm (16⅓ × 18⅘ in.). Centre Pompidou, Paris 43 3.2 Pablo Picasso, Guitare, verre, bouteille de vieux marc (Guitar, Glass, and Bottle of Old Marc), spring–summer 1913, Céret. Collage (white and colored laid paper and wallpaper with floral motifs, cut-out, pasted or pinned, on blue laid paper, thick char• coal, shading, and white chalk, 47.2 × 61.8 cm [18½ × 61⅘ in.]). Musée Picasso, Paris 43 3.3 Pablo Picasso, Violon (Violin), winter 1912. Collage (charcoal and pasted paper on paper), 62 × 47 cm (24⅖ × 18½ in.). Centre Pompidou, Paris 43 3.4 Pablo Picasso, Tête (Head), spring–summer 2013. Collage (velin cal• endered packing paper, black and brown, cut-out, pasted and pinned on white laid paper filigranned “Ingres 1871,” oiled charcoal, and white chalk), 61.8 × 47 cm (24⅓ × 18½ in.). Musée Picasso, Paris 47 3.5 Kurt Schwitters, Merzbild 10A: Konstruktion für edle Frauen (Merzpicture 10 A: Construction for Noble Ladies), 1919. Collage (assemblage of wood, metal, tin funnel, leather, cork, paper, oil, and gouache on paper on wood), 108 × 83.4 cm (39¾ × 32⅞ in.). Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art 48 3.6 Carlo Carrà, Manifestatione interventista (Festa patriotica – dipinto parolibero) (Interventionist Demonstration [Patriotic Holiday – Freedom Painting]), July 1914. Collage (tempera, pen, mica powder, paper glued on cardboard), 38.5 × 30 cm 1 4 ( 15 10 × 11 5 in. ). Peggy Guggenheim Collection, collection Gianni Mattioli, Venice 50 3.7 Max Ernst, Untitled, Illustration 1, 18.8 × 15.2 cm (7½ × 6 in.), in the book Une semaine de Bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux, Premier cahier Dimanche. Élément: La Boue. Exemple: Le lion de Belfort. Paris: Editions Jeanne Bucher, 1934 54 3 1 3.8 Max Ernst, Untitled, Illustration 9, 19 × 13 cm ( 7 4× 5 3 in. ), in the book Une semaine de Bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux, Figures xi Premier cahier Dimanche. Élément: La Boue. Exemple: Le lion de Belfort. Paris: Editions Jeanne Bucher, 1934 54 1 1 3.9 Max Ernst, Untitled, Illustration 17, 19 × 13.5 cm ( 7 2 × 5 3 in. ), in the book Une semaine de Bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux, Premier cahier Dimanche. Élément: La Boue. Exemple: Le lion de Belfort. Paris: Editions Jeanne Bucher, 1934 54 3.10 Haye, “En voulez-vous des balais”; front page of L’Ouvrière: journal illustré, no. 106 (January 1, 1907) 55 3.11 Guillaume Apollinaire, “Lettre-Océan” (“Ocean Letter”) in Les Soirées de Paris, no. 25 (June 1914), spread of pages 340–41 58 3.12 Carlo Carrà, “Rapporto di un nottambulo milanese” (“The Rapport of a Noctambulist from Milan”), 1914.
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