Art of Magic in Great Britain Between 1860S and 1910S. Artistic Expression of the Impossible
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Art of magic in Great Britain between 1860s and 1910s. Artistic expression of the impossible. Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie im Fachbereich Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität zu Frankfurt am Main vorgelegt von Alexey Pivovarov aus Moskau, Russland 2019 Table of contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 2 Historical framework .................................................................................................. 10 Modern studies of magic ............................................................................................ 14 Historical sources ....................................................................................................... 19 Research objectives and methodology ....................................................................... 20 Chapter 1. Theatre magic in the late 19th-early 20th centuries ........................................ 22 Part 1. Magic as a part of the performance scene ....................................................... 22 Location .................................................................................................................. 22 Music ...................................................................................................................... 25 Team ....................................................................................................................... 26 Stage Setting ........................................................................................................... 26 Social image of a magician ..................................................................................... 28 Gender aspects of magic performances .................................................................. 34 Publicity and management ..................................................................................... 37 Audience ................................................................................................................. 41 Competition ............................................................................................................ 43 Part 2. Magic shows and their content ........................................................................ 46 The magic play ....................................................................................................... 46 Magic tricks ............................................................................................................ 57 Chapter 2. Cultural aspects of magic .............................................................................. 68 Part 1. Magic and the natural ...................................................................................... 70 Part 2. Magic and the supernatural ............................................................................. 87 Chapter 3. Magic as an art form ..................................................................................... 96 Part 1. A theoretical approach to magic in the late 19th-early 20th centuries .............. 99 Redefining magic .................................................................................................... 99 Work of art in magic ............................................................................................. 105 Magic as an art ...................................................................................................... 111 Part 2. Magic in the context of art history ................................................................ 123 Claiming the art status .......................................................................................... 123 Pursuit of naturalness ........................................................................................... 125 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 134 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 140 1 Introduction “Magic – the very word seems to reveal a world of mysterious and unexpected possibilities!” Bronislaw Malinowsky, anthropologist This work focuses on theatrical magic - a performing art, which presents an idea of magic on stage in form of an illusion. This work analyzes performances of theatrical magic in Great Britain in the late 19th-early 20th centuries from different viewpoints. This research started as an attempt to introduce magic to the history of arts. However, in the process I came to conclusion, that this is a demanding task as the amount of material is so large and there is so much potential for various types of analysis, that every particular topic raised in this work deserves a separate research. This vast field of possibilities is a direct consequence of the fact that magic was often studied in isolation from other forms of entertainment and art. Yet, there are many connections and links between magic, photography, theatre, cinema and literature that can help us better understand the concepts of belief and disbelief, magical and supernatural, rational and irrational in culture and art. I see this work as an attempt to provide a mind map, an overview of the field and ideas that might partly be controversial and partly, I hope, inspirational. This is, at the same time, a very personal work as I have been studying and performing magic for the last fifteen years and have always been fascinated by the philosophical and cultural richness of this performing art, the qualities that very often remain hidden from the eyes of the audience. I hope that this work will help the readers to see magic from a new perspective and may serve as a helpful source of information for researchers in the field of art history and cultural studies. Magic, along with religion, art and science is an important subject for anthropology, art, and cultural studies. Magic can be studied in terms of its functions and cultural role in the society, its historical influences on science, religion or philosophy, its depictions in artworks and literature. Our world might seem to be very rational. However, we are still surrounded by magic and myth. Details might change, but the concept stays the same. The American culture of comic books and the massive pantheon of superheroes possessing supernatural powers is one example that comes to mind. The enormous popularity of Harry Potter books in the past decade, the multimillion screen versions of the “Lord of the Rings” and 2 “Hobbit” once again demonstrate the never-ending popularity of fantasy and magic in fiction. Yet it is not so easy to define the word “magic”. Especially in the English language, as one can use the word “magic” in two different contexts. For instance, there is magic as a cultural, ritual activity, mostly associated with ancient rituals or shamanism and there is performance magic – magic that is performed on stage. These two phenomena still go under the same name (although the latter can also be described by the word “conjuring”). This fact presents a need to understand the relation between these two kinds of magic in the first place. If we search in the library catalogs and do a broad search using the word “magic,” we would probably first get studies of magic that refer to early and tribal societies, where magic can still be found in its original form. These are mostly anthropological studies. From them, we can understand that the very concept of magic as an opposition to science and religion was formed during the 16th-18th centuries when Europeans started to intensively explore other continents.1 Numerous studies were written on the subject of magic by respected authors in the field of anthropology. The focus of those works by researches like Frazer, Malinowski and Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah is on the supernatural or “ritual” magic, which is usually the first image that comes to mind with the word “magic”. This type of magic may be described as a specific worldview, mode of rationality or way of thinking. It is a set of attitudes to the world and the human’s place in this world. At the same time, it is a “specific art for specific needs”2 – a set of traditions, rites, procedures, and folklore aiming at influencing and controlling the world and nature. Magic was a dominating form of understanding and interpreting the world for a long time, and had close connections with religion. It made belief in a demonstration of supernatural powers possible. Grabbing the idea is easier when it is visually represented. The historical data appear to suggest that demonstrations of supernatural powers have taken place since ancient times – probably earlier than 1700 BC.3 The descriptions of these feats, although seemingly impossible, remind us of what we call nowadays “magic tricks” or “conjuring tricks”. In fact, there can be little doubt that the supernatural 1 Randall Styers, Making Magic: Religion, Magic and Science in the Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4. 2 Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), 68. 3 Melbourne Christopher, The Illustrated History of Magic (Toronto: Fitzhenry&Whiteside Limited, 1973), 9. 3 demonstrations were nothing but illusions, which leads us to a conclusion, that magic as a type of public performance was known to people for a long time. From the early times, people managed to develop specific