MYTHS OF ANTIQUITY
Herman Lackner
©1971
As,
halting step by painful squirm, our remotest ancestors emerged from the
urschleim to face the unaccustomed and unpolluted air, did they bring with them
any mementos of the twilit ooze which had been their ancestral home?
Alas, the
concept of possessions was still in the future and, with it, the concept of
security or superiority attaching to them. Since then few have travelled
as
light. The refugee so desperate, the foot soldier so lame or cumbered,
the
savage so nomadic that he expends not a little tittle of his failing energy to
carry a tangible reminder of hearth and home is as rare as the layer of corner-
stones, the discoverer of continents or the walker on the moon who plants no
artifact to confound future archaeologists.
Man's
need for the sense of stability and continuity imparted by permanent
and familiar household objects is stated as eloquently by the potsherds of
coffee table. A Melanesian tribesman, who had walked through all but impene-
trable Jungle for five days to take part in the
Goroka Sing-Sing, told me that
one of the great blessings of civilization was saran-wrap which enabled him to
preserve his Bird-of-Paradise feather ornaments from one festival to the next,
or even from one generation to the next. Presumably the bone or tusk
gewgaws
which pierced his nose required less tender care. In assembling the
current ex-
citing exhibit of the "Art of the
Wardwell has found nothing older than a hundred and fifty years because of the
deterioration of materials available to stone-age men in a tropical climate.
Yet
he could not show the modern examples because of the deterioration of crafts-
manship and design brought about by commercialism
with Its steel tools and synthetic
paints and its reliance on copying traditional designs. It may also be
that an
artist when first learning about contraception doesn't pack quite the same
wallop
with fertility figures.
With the Inexorable march of
civilization, household objects and ornaments
acquired an aura of importance and even sanctity. As Lares
and Penates, Toko-no-ma,
or Icons, their very age - apart from beauty or utility - made them venerable.
Only when hard times required their sale did they acquire a commercial as well
as a
sentimental or artistic value and thus become antiques.
"Antique" is defined by
Webster as "a relic or object of ancient times or of an earlier period
than the
present." The United States Customs defines it as made before
1830. In local
parlance it is a piece of furniture or bric-a-brac, often uncomfortable (people
were smaller when antiques were new) inherited or purchased or
"discovered" (in
which case it may be expensive and in need of repair). After resale it
becomes
secondhand and, after its third or fourth donation to rummage sales, it may
become
junk. As junk its grotesque design plus its survival as the fittest may
entitle it
to be considered antic. From antic to antique is merely a matter of
shifting the
decimal point but from antique to antiquity is a shift of millennia. A
student of
antiquities is an antiquary (and probably sits in an endowed chair) while an
antiquarian has a dilettante interest in old things (and probably sits in a
wheel
chair). The only antiquities known to be in current process of
manufacture are
used radio-active materials being stored in the salt-mines of
Government has engaged to monitor them for the next 1500 years. 1500
years ago
Attila made less definitive commitments.
The antiquity of the
concept of antiquities is in itself formidable. On the
ocean floor near
from the great age of Pericles never delivered to the antique shops of the
roman
forum. Picture, if you will, the dismay of the roman
insurance adjusters who had to
file inventories and claims on quadruplicate clay tablets. Even
greater must have
been the anguish of the taste-makers of the Capitoline (with branch show rooms
In
reproductions of Whistler's Mother could not be more affecting.
The renaissance, of course, brought
the antique mystique to its finest flower.
Hardly had the burghers of Sienna, under cover of darkness, burled their
antique
Venus in Florentine territory, in the pious hope of transferring the curse of
heathenism to their enemies, than a study of classical antiquities began to
recover
a consciousness of intellectual liberty. John Addington
Symonds put it all in a
two thousand page nutshell which includes this kernel: “Through the
instrumentality
of art, the Renaissance wrought for the modern world a resurrection of the body
which,
since the destruction of antique civilization, had lain swathed in hair-shirts
and
cerements within the tomb of the mediaeval cloister." Michelet is more succinct in
saying: "The great achievements of the Renaissance were the
discovery of the world
and the discovery of man." Note that neither writer suggests that
antiquities were
copied or that antiques themselves added to the glory of the renaissance other
than
as tools of scholarship and training.
When Lorenzo de Medici commissioned Michelangelo to copy a classical
fragment
was it to add a forgery to his distinguished collection or to encourage a young
artist to study the lessons of the past in order to build upon them?
From
what classical models could the David or the Pieta have been copied? And
yet how could they have been achieved without a thorough study of the classics?
While they studied Vitruvius, the renaissance
architects built St. Peter's, just
as Justinian, surrounded by the greatest of Greek and Roman models, built the
Hagia Sophia and, when the dome fell, had the faith
and courage to build it again.
Formation of the great collections to certify and display the owners’ taste did
not make the Renaissance as dynamic an epoch as did the artistic, scientific,
or
philosophical achievements which they stimulated.
There appears, however, to be a
marked difference between the motivation of
Florentine collectors and later zealots. When Catherine the Great built
and
stocked the Hermitage, she relied, not on her own taste and scholarship, but on
that of the encyclopaedist, Diderot.
Thus Russian cultural pretensions were
demonstrated to the, quote, "civilized world” at the expense of developing
an
indigenous
art, and the fashion of collecting only foreign art became ingrained
among the wealthy patrons. Similarly Henry Clay Frick formed his
magnificent
collection by buying whatever Duveen could have
authenticated by Berenson and
establish as a costly, and therefore valuable, work of art. Samuel Butler's
comments are pithy In "The Way of All Flesh." He says:
"Not long ago a much
esteemed writer informed the world that he felt 'disposed to cry out with
delight'
before a figure by Michael Angelo. I wonder whether he would feel
disposed to
cry out before a real Michael Angelo, if the critics had decided that it was
not
genuine, or before a reputed Michael Angelo which was really by someone else.
But I suppose that a prig with more money than brains was much the same sixty
or seventy years ago as he is now.
Look at
Mendelssohn again about this same Tribune in the Uffizi on
which
Mr. Pontifex felt so safe in staking his
reputation as a man of taste and culture,
he
feels no less safe and writes, ‘I then went to the Tribune. This room is
so
delightfully small you can traverse it in fifteen paces, yet it contains a
world
of art. I again sought out my favorite armchair which stands under the
statue of
”The Slave Whetting His Knife", and taking possession of it I enjoyed
myself for a
couple of hours; for here at one glance I had the Modonna
del Cardellino, Pope
Julius II, a female portrait by Raphael, and above it a lovely Holy Family by
Perugino and so close to me that I could have touched
it with my hand the Venus
de Medici beyond, that of Titian. This is a spot where
man feels his own insig-
nificance and may well learn to be humble.’ The
Tribune is a slippery place for
people like Mendelssohn to study humility in. They generally take two
steps away
from it for one they take toward it. I wonder how many chalks Mendelssohn
gave
himself for having sat two hours on that chair. I wonder how often he
looked at
his watch to see if his two hours were up. I wonder how often he told
himself
that he was quite as big a gun, if the truth were known, as any of the men
whose
works he saw before him, how often he wondered whether any of the visitors were
recognizing him and admiring him for sitting such a long time in the same chair,
and how often he was vexed at seeing them pass him by and take no notice of
him.
But perhaps, if the truth were known, his two jours
was not quite two hours.’
Antiques perform the useful function of awakening interest and clarifying
taste, so that the independent and creative thinker will be moved to formulate
his own standards and criteria. Even In
tradition-oriented seventeenth century
not for his achievements in copying, when he produced an album imitating
painters
of the twelfth century. Except for patina and mellowness, antiquity alone
does
not make anything either beautiful or useful. There are no lost arts to
make a
thing unique, though arts have been abandoned when their utility was
questioned.
Nor
was craftsmanship superior in "the good old days'* before unions and
creeping
socialism were presumed to have corrupted the innocent artisan. The
artisan has
not lost his cunning but has added new skills, new tools and new
materials. The
same or more units of energy are expended to produce a thing of beauty now,
though
more of it may be done by machine than in those halcyon days when labor was
cheap
and buying power limited. The talent to design a work of art is another
matter
for where is genius nurtured? In the gilded ostentation
of
land's dark satanic mills"?
Had Thomas Chippendale been born a
century earlier he would have designed
Jacobean carved oak chairs and been forgotten. Had he been born a century
later
he might have produced the bentwood rocker and been the darling of the jet set.
Had he been born two centuries later he could have designed the tubular
chromium
chair and been rich. Being born in 17l8, he created brilliantly
imaginative new
designs responding to the excitements of the eighteenth century - the newly
awakened interest in Chinese porcelains and lacquers, the swan - song of French
rococo, and Wa1po1e’s romantic whimsies at Strawberry Hill. Though never sacri-
ficing quality to flash, he was probably dismissed as
"modernistic" by his more
entrenched contemporaries.
Nowhere is antiquity less prized
than in the oldest profession for, as Max
Beerbohm observed "Women are not so young as they are painted." However, in the
rough and tumble of the newer and less inhibited professions, antiques are synon-
imous with profits - profits too often without honour
- and they are described in
circumlocutions as artful as an undertakers’. A dealer can run down a
"mahogany
chair with serpentine crest, shell, fluted terminals, pierced splat, cabriole
legs and claw-and-bal1 feet" with the singleness of purpose of a pig
unearthing
a truffle, but is he as certain of its authenticity? Reproductions are
customarily
advertised as such and are usually identifiable by
experts. Restorations are
another matter for, in the course of repairs, a true antique table may become
six,
each having one authentic part (a leg, a top, or a stretcher) and, hence, an
authentic pedigree. These tables, complete with
prostheses, may then be stored in
a damp basement next to rotten timbers until the worms have completed their
cosmetic
work, or they may be "distressed" by flagellation with tire chains,
or they may be
"improved" by carving or the addition of elaborate hardware.
Finally they may be
"planted" in the house of a patron of more substantial pedigree than
fortune, there
to acquire respectability by association with collectors items, and finally to
be
"discovered" by wealthy period buffs who, in the words of Talleyrand,
have
"learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”
I lick my lips as I think of these
innocent little diversions for I, too,
have dabbled in such rustic enterprise or, before a move is made to impeach me
as an officer of this club, may I say that I too, have struck out boldly to
make
the American dream a reality. In 1943 the best grass skirts in the Solomons
were made by Platoon B of Headquarters company, 63rd U.S.
Naval Construction
Battalion. The materials and workmanship were the finest, the
production schedule
was geared to the arrival of fresh troops, and they were retailed by betel nut-
chewing natives in their own abbreviated mufti whose only English was "one
dollar."
An allied cottage industry provided efficient packaging in hollow sections of
bamboo stalks. My particular piece of the action was to address these
packages
in India ink and (for an additional quarter) decorate them with palm trees and
lactating mermaids. This not only dispatched the souvenir from the hero
to his
girl-back-home, it removed any possible glut from the market - a market limited
only by the breadth of acquaintance of the G.I.s.
Naturally, diversification followed
and assembly line techniques were applied to the manufacture of beads, combs,
and
bracelets to spare the natives the pain of parting with their primitive
heirlooms
and keepsakes while enabling our mates to cajole and bargain
for, and finally to
send home a bauble fashioned of the traditional local materials by White hands
that were learning a new skill. Perhaps some of these souvenirs still
cause a
thigh to be slapped, another drink to be poured, and the same old stories to be
newly adorned and embellished. Have the missionaries done better?
When the
same
men made the necessaries of life for themselves - hunting knives, chairs,
beer-coolers, even a washing machine activated by a rocking chair - the designs
were clean, functional, and uncluttered, but for business the way was clear -
follow tradition!
Concern, whether authentic or
spurious, for antiques, whether authentic or
spurious, is by no means limited to the home-furnishings and housewares industry.
It is shared to some degree by every businessman, professional or individual
who
can draw profit or inspiration or lessons from the achievements of the past.
Builders and Architects have, with
varying degrees of taste, plagiarized
every available design to win for their clients the approbation of their peer
groups. The results range from the suburban chateaux, manor-houses, or
villas
which bespeak unquestioned taste, inculcated in surroundings of beauty and
ease,
to the architectural taxidermy of the banks of fifty years ago which could find
no other way of suggesting solidity than a display of the classical orders.
Could the unceasing use of the Baths of Caracalla as
a model for banks and rail-
road stations have pointed to complexes hitherto unexplored by the muck-rakers?
Besides imprinting for all to admire the seal of sound judgement
and popular
approval, the application of full-blown classical mouldings
can cover very bad
workmanship just as carriage-lanterns, hex signs, or American eagles can
distract
the eye from the worst proportions. When a new interpretation of the
American
eagle was conceived by Eero Saarinen
to complete the design of the American
Embassy in London
and to symbolize both the building's function and the protection
to be found under its wing, it brought down the wrath of the honest,
God-fearing
tourists who know nothing about art but know what they like. And what they like
is tradition and prior approval, not recent innovation nor integral design.
Viollet le Duc's embalming
of Carcassone survives, his
inspired creation of Les
Halle has been demolished. When the building of the
Hay-Adams Hotel necessitated
the demolition of the John Hay and Henry Adams houses the loss of Henry Hobson
Richardson's imaginative adaptation of Romanesque architecture was assuaged by
the
reappearance of its fragments in a nearby subdivision. A builder purchased the
entrance arch of the
built in the style of the Cotswolds. Match that, if
you can, for prior approval -
London Bridge In Arizona to sell lots to the antique
migrants to
Forty
years ago one of the finest Georgian houses in
furnished to a man who, by his own industry and invention, had risen from the
most abject poverty to a position of affluence and importance in the business
world. When the owner, looking forward to retirement in his own home and to
the enjoyment of his books and pictures, declined to renew the lease, the
tenant
insisted on buying the house with everything in it - at any price. In vain did
the owner protest that the crest on the old silver, the engraved book-plates.
the monogrammed linen, or the family portraits would
be of no use to a stranger.
The adamant tenant only added more zeros to his offer. The owner tearfully
salivated. The tenant ogled the antiques and entered a state of musth. The
affair was consummated. In heaving a sigh of relief the new owner explained his
acquisitive compulsion thus - "I have no family. I come from nowhere that
I want
to remember. When I could finally afford a back-ground and ancestors I rented
yours - Now that I
have constructed a family tree, complete with intimate anecdotes
and family jokes, to give it up would be not only to disappoint my sycophants
but
to kill my unborn antecedents." Were the plunderings of Napoleon, Hermann Goring
'•
and Elsie De Wolff not also motivated by a desire to establish an unassailable
background rather than, like
i
The greatest myth of antiquity is
that its espousal enhances security.
Isabella Stewart Gardner had an innate and individual taste deftly channelled by
Berenson but, even with the choicest of collections
charmingly housed, she never
felt secure in
Eye and
Henry Ford's place in history is more positively assured by the flivver,
certainly
not copied from an earlier example, than by the vast and indiscriminate
collections
at
shaken or strengthened by "Jesus Christ, Superstar" or Bernstein's
for the most questionable myth of all marks the metamorphosis of a politician
into a statesman in the best tradition of Clausewitz.
And yet, as Clemenceau heard
a child crying the night, do we not hear the stumblings
and gropings of searchers
for an alternative to the concept of war as a solution to the problems of
peace?
Of what, then, can our security blanket consist? Where shall we hide from
the slings and arrows of the categorizers when they issue from the media or
from
the fastnesses of suburbia? If, like the creatures of Picasso, we could look
ourselves straight in the eye would we have pursued pure science to discover
the
Mendellian law or profitably mocked it to invent the
Aryan race? Would we dare to
create a masterpiece such as the Chicago Stock Exchange building, the "Sacre du
Printemps". the "Nude Descending the Stairs", - and keep
refining the art without
waiting for critical acclaim - or would we play it safe with the
"Let Me Call
You Sweetheart", or Joyce Kilmer's "Trees"? Who has such
strength
that requires no security, such fortitude that requires no refuge? Only those
without time to ponder the question, whose lives are complicated merely by the
"sturm und drang"
of creation. When the young Brahms was playing the piano in
a sporting house do you suppose that he confined himself to Mozart and Bach lik
a symphony orchestra ensuring bequests? In similar circumstances did
Toulouse-
Lautrec paint insurance calendars? In fact, had the innovators among our
fore-
bears sought the sanctuary of traditional approbation, would we be here now or
would we be chasing mastodons over cliffs to provide our collation?
As
long as there are creaking floor boards in country houses and weekend
guests with round heels, ghosts will be the only irreplaceable myths of
antiquity.