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Paul Klee’s “Angelus Novus” (1920) is the Mona Lisa of early modernism, a celebrated work whose historical past grants it a superb mystique. It was bought by Walter Benjamin, who hung it in his German research, after which in his Parisian research when he was in exile, and mentioned it in his well-known final essay “On the Idea of Historical past” (1940). Surviving the warfare when Benjamin didn’t, after being within the possession of Theodor Adorno and (per Benjamin’s will) gifted to Gershom Scholem, the portray entered the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. A fragile work on paper, it’s hardly ever on public show for lengthy.
The story instructed by Annie Bourneuf in Past the Angel of Historical past: The Angelus Novus and Its Interleaf begins in 2015 when the American artist Rebecca Quaytman made a tremendous discovery. Klee had glued his work, an oil-transfer drawing and watercolor on paper, instantly on high of an outdated engraving, recognized with a date within the 1520s and the initials LC. No earlier account mentions that hidden beneath the Klee is an engraving of Martin Luther based mostly on Lucas Cranach’s portraits. On condition that Luther’s antisemitic concepts had been adopted by the Nazis, what did Benjamin take into consideration when he mentioned this Klee in his essay on historiography? The engraving is just not straightforward to see, both in Bourneuf’s copy or, no less than in my expertise, when viewing the image itself. So it’s pure to wonder if Benjamin knew about it. However answering that query perhaps issues lower than understanding this course of by which the hidden engraving would possibly information interpretation of Benjamin’s influential essay. “On the Idea of Historical past” is suspended between Scholem’s Jewish mysticism and Adorno’s Marxism, so “Angelus Novus” could also be one key to understanding the creator’s ideas.
Bourneuf’s magisterial, amazingly lucid commentary discusses Matthias Grünewald, whose Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar, France, incorporates a determine resembling this angel. She additionally addresses debates between Benjamin and Scholem about Martin Buber’s philosophy, and the bigger implications of Benjamin’s and Scholem’s questions on Jewish cultural id. And I, too, am concerned on this interpretative course of, as a result of my very own prior publications counsel how one can prolong this difficult story. As I famous in a 2015 essay, Quaytman is the daughter of Harvey Quaytman, a Jewish painter who astonished Leo Steinberg through the use of the cruciform in a de-Christianized method in summary compositions. Right here, the evaluation of Benjamin’s Jewishness, already advanced, turns into extra sophisticated. Even when Benjamin wasn’t conscious of the presence of this engraved picture, it enters into his interpretation of “Angelus Novus” on the margins. If Benjamin didn’t see this hidden picture, what does that say about his visible acuteness. Possibly, nevertheless, he noticed it however intentionally didn’t focus on it. Or, lastly, for the reason that Klee is simply an instance, perhaps this element doesn’t matter for evaluating his historiographic argument. Some books resolve debate. This one advances however doesn’t resolve dialogue. As a substitute, it brilliantly reveals that the importance of this well-known picture should be hidden.
Past the Angel of Historical past. The Angelus Novus and Its Interleaf by Annie Bourneuf (2022) is revealed by the College of Chicago Press and is out there on-line and in bookstores.
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