The Arabesque from Kant to Comics The Arabesque from Kant to Comics tracks the life and afterlife of the arabesque in its surprising transformation from an iconoclastic literary theory of early German Romanticism to aesthetic experimentation in both avant-garde art and popular culture. Its explosive growth in popularity was followed by an inevitable taming as arabesques became staples in book illustration, poetry publications, and even the decoration of printed scores. The subversive potential of the arabesque was preserved in one of its most surprising offspring, the comic strip: born at the moment when the cholera pandemic first swept through Europe, the comic translated the arabesque’s rank growth into unnerving lawlessness and sequences of contagious visual slapstick. Focusing roughly on the period between 1780 and 1880, this book illuminates the intersecting histories of avant-garde theories of writing, visual culture, and even the disciplinary origins of art history. In the process, it explores media history and intermediality, social networks and cultural transfer, as well as the rise of new and nontraditional art forms. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of art history, intellectual history, European art, aesthetics, book illustration, material culture, reproduction, comics, and German history. Cordula Grewe is Professor of Art History at Indiana University Bloomington, USA. Cover: Adolph Schroedter, Humorous Arabesque with Don Quixote Attacking a Flock of Sheep, 1839. Etching (proof before letters); 18.7 × 20.9 cm (plate). From Album deutscher K nstler in Original-Radirungen, vol. 1, part 1 (D sseldorf: Julius Buddeus, 1839). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. © The Muriel and Philip Berman Gift, acquired from the John S. Phillips bequest of 1876 to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1985-52-18975. Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies This series is our home for innovative research in the fields of art and visual studies. It includes monographs and targeted edited collections that provide new insights into visual culture and art practice, theory, and research. Contemporary Art, Photography, and the Politics of Citizenship Vered Maimon Contemporary Art and Capitalist Modernization A Transregional Perspective Edited by Octavian Esanu Art and Merchandise in Keith Haring’s Pop Shop Amy Raffel Art and Nature in the Anthropocene Planetary Aesthetics Susan Ballard Imaging and Mapping Eastern Europe Sarmatia Europea to Post-Communist Bloc Katazyna Murawska-Muthesius Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research Edited by Tiina Seppälä, Melanie Sarantou and Satu Miettinen Olfactory Art and the Political in an Age of Resistance Edited by Gwenn-Aël Lynn and Debra Riley Parr A History of Solar Power Art and Design Alex Nathanson The Arabesque from Kant to Comics Cordula Grewe For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge- Advances-in-Art-and-Visual-Studies/book-series/RAVS The Arabesque from Kant to Comics Cordula Grewe First published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Cordula Grewe 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: Grewe, Cordula, author. Title: The arabesque from Kant to comics / Cordula Grewe. Description: New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021004626 (print) | LCCN 2021004627 (ebook) | ISBN 9780815383581 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032043708 (paperback) | ISBN 9781351187350 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Arabesques. Classification: LCC NK1575 .G74 2021 (print) | LCC NK1575 (ebook) | DDC 745.4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004626 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004627 ISBN: 978-0-8153-8358-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-04370-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-18735-0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781351187350 Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Cover: Adolph Schroedter, Humorous Arabesque with Don Quixote Attacking a Flock of Sheep, 1839. Etching (proof before letters); 18.7 x 20.9 cm (plate). From Album deutscher K nstler in Original-Radirungen , vol. 1, part 1 (D sseldorf: Julius Buddeus, 1839). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. © The Muriel and Philip Berman Gift, acquired from the John S. Phillips bequest of 1876 to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1985–52–18975. Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments x PART 1 Three Beginnings 1 1 Prologue 3 2 Forays into a Form Grown Wild: Setting the Stage 8 3 An Outline (of Things to Come) 19 P ART 2 The Arabesque Revolution: Image, Script, and the Crisis of Representation 27 4 Metaphysics and Media Crisis 29 5 The Ornament of the Gaze: On Albrecht Drer 39 6 The Divine (as) Parergon 52 7 Ornament, Allegory, Autonomy: Winckelmann, Lessing, Goethe, Karl Philipp Moritz 64 8 The Disappearance of a Goddess: On Immanuel Kant’s Parergonality 75 PART 3 The Writing on the Wall 85 9 Art History Painted: Peter Cornelius’s Murals for Munich’s First Picture Gallery, 1827–1840 87 10 History as Nationalist Vision: Wilhelm Kaulbach’s Murals for Berlin’s Neue Museum, 1847–1865 102 vi Contents PART 4 Turning the Page 117 11 Philipp Otto Runge’s Flypaper: On Intimacy 119 12 The Poet’s Pencil: On Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim 135 13 Turning the Page: On Eugen Napoleon Neureuther 145 PART 5 Taming the Arabesque 167 14 The Artist as Arabesque: Wilhelm Schadow as the Modern Vasari 169 15 The Humorous Arabesque: From Wilhelm Schadow to Karl Leberecht Immermann and Back, via Johann Baptist Sonderland 180 16 The Arabesque’s Kingdom: Adolph Schroedter and Theodor Mintrop 194 17 Illustration as Intervention and Parody: On Julius Hbner 209 PART 6 A Symphonic Intermezzo 223 18 Beethoven, or the Call for Freedom in Composition: On Moritz von Schwind 225 19 The Laws of Form: On Seriality and Pictures’ Stories 235 PART 7 A Satirical Finale 245 20 Contagious Laughter: On Pandemics, the Comics’ Birth, and Rodolphe Tpffer 247 21 “Ach! Poor Venus Is Perdue”: On Wilhelm Busch 257 22 The Last Act’s Final Flourish 271 Bibliography 279 Index 296 Illustrations 1.1 Hugo Brkner, after Julius Hbner, The Old Man, 1853 2 1.2 Hugo B rkner, after Julius H bner, title vignette, 1853 4 2.1 Giovanni Ottaviani, after drawings by Pietro Camporesi and Gaetano Savorelli, after Raphael and his circle, Pilaster VII (The Bird Catcher), ca. 1770/1772 9 3.1 Tommaso Piroli, after John Flaxman Jr., Thetis and Eurynome Receiving the Infant Vulcan, 1793–1805 20 4.1 Albrecht Drer, Marginal Drawings to the Prayer De Sancta Apollonia, 1515 34 4.2 Johann Nepomuk Strixner, after Albrecht Drer, Sancta Apollonia with Various Arabesques, among Them a Stork and a Large Mask, 1808 35 5.1 Albrecht Drer, Erasmus of Rotterdam , 1526 40 5.2 Albrecht Drer, Marginal Drawings to Psalm 92/93 (“Laudes”), incl. the Sudarium Held by Two Putti , 1515 44 5.3 Johann Nepomuk Strixner, after Albrecht Drer, Peasant Woman with a Basket of Eggs Standing on a Pomegranate , 1808 49 6.1 Johann Gottlieb Seyfert, after Philipp Otto Runge, Morning, 1803–5 53 6.2 Albrecht Drer, Marginal Drawings to the Benediction (“Matutin”), 1515 56 6.3 Wilhelm von Kgelgen, God’s Creation, 1831 60 8.1 Eugen Napoleon Neureuther, Tyrolean Hunter’s Song, 1830 76 8.2 Anonymous, after Sandro Botticelli, Scallop (Variation on the Birth of Venus) , 2004 78 9.1 Ferdinand Ruscheweyh, after Peter Cornelius, The High Points of Goethe’s “Faust” Arranged in an Arabesque Design , 1816 (published 1826) 90 9.2 Peter Cornelius, Religion’s Union with the Arts, designed in 1827 92 9.3 Peter Cornelius, The Founding of the Campo Santo in Pisa, 1828 96 9.4 Peter Cornelius, The Crusades, 1828 98 10.1 [Hans] Rudolf Rahn and Adrian Schleich, after Wilhelm von Kaulbach, title vignette of The Sixth Canto, 1846 103 10.2 Wilhelm Kaulbach, The Struggle against Pedantry of Artists and Scientists under the Protection of Minerva, ca. 1851 104 10.3 Wilhelm Kaulbach, The Destruction of the Tower of Babel (with an Arabesque of the Indians ), 1848 108 viii Illustrations 10.4 Wilhelm Kaulbach, The Age of Reformation (with an Arabesque of German Culture ), 1864 109 10.5 Albert Teichel, after Wilhelm Kaulbach, Putti Frieze, 1868 111 10.6 Wilhelm Kaulbach, Children’s Frieze (segment above the Allegory of Painting) 113 11.1 Erwin Speckter, Arabesques , 1830 120 11.2a Johann Gottlieb Seyfert, after Philipp Otto Runge, Morning, 1803–5 122 11.2b Ephraim Gottlieb Krger and Johann Adolph Darnstedt, after Philipp Otto Runge, Day, 1803–5 123 11.2c Johann Gottlieb Seyfert, after Philipp Otto Runge, Evening, 1803–5 124 11.2d Ephraim Gottlieb Krger and Johann Adolph Darnstedt, after Philipp Otto Runge, Night, 1803–5 125 11.3 Philipp Otto Runge, Small Morning, 1808 132 12.1 Ludwig Emil Grimm, after