Introduction

Gcbroo:.:henaufdcm Bodeo liegen rings

Portale, Giebeldikher mi,Skulpturen,
Wo IV'en",h und Tier vcrmisch., Cen,aur und Sphinx,
Satyr,Chimii,.., - Fabduitngu,cn
IBrohnonthegroundlicroundaboUlll'ortals,gabler<Xlf,with
.culpturos,/Wh.rr men and animaisare mixed, cent.ur and
icgcnJ"ypaSl .j
Hcinc, "Fiir dicMouchc"
Fora longtime,writingthisbook,l hada wa)' ofbcginning it in mind.
1 wamcd to imagine modernism unearthed by some fmure archaeologist, in the
form of a handful of left over from a holocaust that had
ullcriy wipt;d om the pi,,,.,' -their hiswry, t!, c family of languages they
belonged 10, all IraCe, of a built environment, I wanted Adnlph Menzel'.
Moltk e' Binoculars (fig. 2) to have survived; and John Heartlicld'. A Neul Man
- Master of a New World (lig. 3); and Picasso's Italian Woman llig. 4); and
Ka,i mir Complex Pre.entiment (Half-figure in Yd/oUl Shirt) (hg . .\).
The questions that followed from the thought-experiment were these. What
forms of life wo"ld f"wre from this muterial? What idea of
the world's availabi lity to knowledge wo"ld they rcxkon the ,'anished image
makers had operated with? What imagining, of pa't and future? Or 01 part and
whole? Would it be j"'t the that the surviving images had
ruin, void, and fragmcntarincssalready written into them, as counterpoint to
their hardness and brightness? Th. rCpl"lition of ncuer and neuen in the
Heartficld might strike the interpreters a, Keys to all this, hut the words
themselves would mean nothing. Lihwisc the writing nn the hack of the

ologi,ts would not know it read: "The compo.ition ou' nl dements of
th ..,nsati on of emptiness, 01 loneli ne .. , of the exi tlc.,ness Ibesvy khndno.tijof
life."' And even il by some fluke they it. how far wnuld ,hat get them
in making SenSe of Malevich', (moderni,m's) tone? The painting is ostensibly
jaunty, almost flippant. Its man, housc:, and landscape have the look of toy '.But
in what SOrt of game? Played by which waUlOn chi ldren? Was it the same game
as Hcartfield's(or even Moltkc',)?
I find it hard to imagine any human viewer. even on the other , ide of
Armagcddon,notrespondingtothctendernessandpunctilinusne .. J El Liss il"lky:De,ai loi
modeling in Italian Woman -lhe shading ofe)"cs and mouth, the different fig.147(1argerthan
sheens and textures of what the woman is wearing, the p,essurcolh and on lap actual .i,<)
Adolph :\lonzd,
Moltko',
,,"ocil .ndgouacheon
paper, ,6 )( 40,
IKupf.",ichk. bi noJt,
5ua!lich.Mu>ccn,
Ilerhnl
- and understanding the)' Were offerings of love. BUI beyond Ihal, this world of
I"'rsons and sexualitie, would be (Would fUlure viewers sense thaI
Picasso's woman i, wearing fancy dress? Would Ihey take thcir ",e from the
douds in lhesky?) I, Ihe ma le in Complex r,esefllime,,/ being leased for hi,
phalli,dlllifulne5S-tho!'eIWolil1lcbullons!tnatdrawstringalthcwaiSI!-or
are Ihese hisla'l 'hred, of humanity? I ha"cno more idea Ihan the archaeol
ogists. Arc Field Marshal Mollk,'s binocular, wooderful or silly? Her. they are,
'nug in Incir carrying case! And here is Inecas.: emply, with magenta lining
,isihle. And here il is shUl tight and buckled. And this is now Ihe locltsscrcw
works. "Isthereanobject for whkh the nineteenth century did not in "ent a CaS<:
or a holder? It had them for watches, slippcrs,eggcups, thermomclC rs ,playing
cards. And il nol cases and holders, il invented envelopes, housings, loose
e",'ers, dust sheets."' It i, as if an ohject did nO! properly exist lor this
unti l it sal light in inown interior; and one is hard PUI wS<ly - certai nlyonthe
evidence of Men>cl',gouachc-whether thi. wa,because theohj"'t was fel\1O
need protection from Ihogenetal whirl of exchange lor bulletsl,or whether it
was thought 10 be .0 wonderful in ils own righl Ihat a separale small world
should be provided for it, like a 'hell or calyx. Heallfield'snew man, photo
graphieallygrimy,issimilarlyeneased-touehedontwo,ide,byhlaSlfurnaces,
cooperative "parrmem bl""ks, tractors,truch full of soldiers, the new Ii.Iku
Palace of the Vress. He look. 10 the fUlOre, eyes airbrushed full of teaTS.
Now Ihat I sit down 10 write my introduction, I realize thaI what I had
taken for a conveniem opening ploy-the fragments,lhe puzzlingsch olars,Ihe
inte"'ening hoiocauSJ - 'peaks to tnc book'. dcepe,tconviclion.thala Ireadyth.
modernist past i. a ruin. the logic of whose archittXture we do not remotely
grasp. This has not happened, in my view, becaltse we have entered a newage.
Th., is nO! what my book title mcans. On the contrary, it is just because the
"modernity" which modnnism prophe.ied has fina lly arrived thaI the form, of
repres.entalion it originally ga"e ri,e to are now unreadable. (Or read able only
under wme dismissive famas)' rubric - of "opricaliry," "formalism,"
"el ir ism," ere.) Th. intervening land interminable) holocaust waS modcrniza
rion. Modernism is unintelligible now because ir had truck wirh a modernity nor
yer fu lly in place. Posrmodernism misrakeslhe ruins of those previous rcpresen
ralions, or rhe facrrhar from where wesrand rheYsei'm ruinous. forr he ruin of
modernity irself - nor sei'ing Ihat whar we are living Ihrough is modcrnity"s
triumph.
Modernism is our amiquity, in other word" rhe onlyone ..... e ha,. ; and no
doublthe Baku f'alace of rhe Press, ifit survi,''', or the Molrkc Mu scum,ifir
has not bttn scrubbed and tweaked into post -modern rccepti"iry Icoffec and
biscotti and intcraCli"evideQ), is as owrgrown and labyrinthine as Shelley's
dream of Rome.
J John Heartfield; "A
New - Masu. of
New World, ' photo
monug., j8 x
(Ahclemie Jer KunS!.
Berlin)
j K.,;mi r ,\b lev"h, P "nUment '" YdJuw Shirt). oil on co,''''. 99 >< 79.
Rui.n Mu""um. St. PNorshu'!!i
6 Tin, Moooni;M",
"I
pnotograpn,17 lx2J_5,
(Privot< (:ollectionl
This Poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the R,ths of
among the flow .. y glades, and uf oduriferous blos<oming
trees, which are extended in ever winding labyrinths upon i!. immense
platlorm. aod diny arches suspended in the air. The bright blucskyo IRome,
and the elfect of the vigorousawahning spring in that divincSl dima !e,and
!he new lile with which i[ drenches the ,pirits even to were the
inspiration 01 this drama.'
The lears in lhe eyes of Heartl1eld's new man will soon be as incomp .. hensihle
as scratoheson Mousterian bone. And a. lor Menzel's passion forbinocu lars!
His "are lui measurements in inches, hi. depthl." swivelli ng of lhings to reveal
Ih.ir"isual truth, hisd .. amingoistale-Iormation in t"rmsofa gadge! in a
battl .wurncase ... Thi,isaworl d,anda visionofhistory,morclosllOusthan
Uxmal or Annaradapurah or Neuilly-en-Donjon. W. warm mOte readily 10 the
Romanesque puppets on God's string, or the kings ripping bloud-saedfi cefrom
Iheir IOngues, than to workers being read to from or EJ Machcre
Il1g.6).'
T h .. e are the reasons I could not escape in writing thi, book from the
dangerous (and no doub! absurd) idea !hat it was addressed to posterity. Of
course this was famasy, nut it was n way of writing, or dreaming of
.. and
arbitrarine,., and !he accompanying effort a! compleleness of knowledge, al
least in the fewt.,t ca .. s I do pre .. ",. I !hink of them as core samples, or
preliminary tolalil.alions. The moderni.t arrogance of thaI ambition is precisely
why I could nO! let it go. (Not !ha! r am claiming lhat this is how lh. book
proceeds all !hrough. Ch"p!ers vary in !eng!h and laClics. "Completene.," i,
not the ,arne as comprehensiveness. flUl !he chapter, and moments lhe book
hinge'S On - Pissarro in [89[, UNOVIS in David in Year I, in lhe
fiLL'" of Cubism _ . u .....! in tho- I u as Mottke's
n .. y art r ... m a modt. ni" dig.)
Add .... ",,, to po<' c.i. y,lhen - bu' J>O .. meaning u.
No On" book. On Dada, or lh. Rc""I".
fion '" "p with definitions of thei, Why hu
bct nthe nc""p';(>n .... s.ory in i"own r; !;hl. I sha ll opc,","witn .Inose


p"nio:ular mode of repreS<'1lt 3lion (maybe we $huuld uU i. a family of m"dn)
.
" l imi.s
n
in,hi<uw dotS not mtancd!\'-'S_I thinking of n..-.d
ern;.m in 'pa,ial term" even in \<, m. of coner pll,. 1 SpOKt. r wan. t<.>
.. diinc.ive pallerning of men .. 1 and fe<: hni.:al po,,;bi!i,i. Limit
Pis'"rt(, in or in 1910 0r rol l,..: k f",m 1947 W
stem ." me by " thidcning or nf {hoS<' P"ttOrn< - by
kind, of . impiinc"inn <lr stabs at fal ..: imm<diacy or mut e
ness, ilka. of b"g,inning aSJin 0 < putting 10 ""yb"
nloving finally from
to or '0 .igns whose mr. nlng. only wlligrdspj.
II< for tho: word it '00 will "" u$ed in a 1= way, in
hup ... thai mo,1 know;, wt..,n t .... )' \.t( il. "Modelnity mean<conlin:-
I
geIKy. Ir po;>ims 10 a soci.l l oro:lrr whieh ha, t"rned fmm ,he worship "f
and pa .. amnorities to Inc pursuit of a (Uhl' t - of good" ple3.tltes,
f,do ms, forlll< of c"hlml ovor haturc, or "f informati on. This
pro<. " goo. along wi.h g'Oat cmp.ying and " nili ,.i nS "f the in" ginat ion
Wirhuu. anu' ro .... wors hip, i, in . hon supply - - oneaning" he re
mtlIning3grd ... n.nd in>IIIu.Mf,, 'm; ofv.I . .... nd unde ... 'anding,implici'
0Iders.S1O<ic'andin'agfiin which aculrUK Cryslall{ztsi"..,,,,,,u( , he""'ggle
will> , .... ..,alm of ncc,-ui,y aod .t.., of pain and dealh. The phra.., Mu
Wet .. 00"-'-''''''') from Schill.r. -,h. di .. nchan. mnIl of Iht wOIkl.n ",ill
.0 ",., to , urn up Ihi, side of m..,de, nily ""'I. Or Ihr . h. ow. way aphori, m of
Paul Valery: "Th. modem com. m. ;t.dl wi,h li,tie [u ",ode"," SO COI1Unl( de
lAnd of COl". ' it il no argum.nt against ,he,i. !O s.,y .hd. "we
livcinlhc middle ofa,ei igious revival, - tho< Morxi. nIOecam. ag(islySl.'Cular
in (he twr n.i", h cen,ur)" i. ; 1,11 pcrmuI.d by the
of and w on. di,. . .'ncl!antnlt'n{ of II,., world ho rr;blr,
Any mOV<1hCO, or cuk .har prom;S<."S way 0'" 01 it will
b" dun!; ' 0 grIm ,xa.h. 1I.'lItr (VCn fa", .. m .han .hno.:racy: ,h..''''
so.:,.1 id in ru.,.. of U5 g ..... "S un heing remP'M by dUE proposi, ion.l
ila Ihnie. 1 word for tni. .. It mean. '1""", 1;.
abmaClion; wei, ) lile Jriv,"" by cakultlS of I .. atiSl i.:a1
chance>, with eve"Yonc acce pt ing (or r"",mins ) hi gh of risk; time and
sr 3Ce fllrn<di nwvoriablesi n lh", ,", m,, ca lculus, both " fthcm .... mrat. d by
"in formatinn" "nd playcJ with .. ly, mon'"onoul ly, on 1I 0t. and sueell s;
!h.de-d: ill ing ofc,' ..
fnOn' of tht miCfO<tnlC"'. t of .elf), avail.blt, h"uming upt'rt;"":
.. raighr
aWOlY that rhi. elltS'er Ilf feot u.n '!r'flIIS lu me lIed '0, and propdlo:d by,
One cen",.1 proeM" accumulation of 0ri."., and Ihe "f ""pllali.1
m .. kef< into more and mOre ol 'he world and I .... reXlurc of h""", n I
"al, >;c .his nnw a mi nor ill' vie w, and will "" .<un hy many .. a vC<1igr
of the early tw. ntiet h,,:cnfury I just t,ied ' 0 put at a distance. If 1
cannOt havetneprole1ariata. my chosen people any longer, at least capitalism
,..,mains my Satan.
r ut me try to slrike a bargain with lhe reader over this. Could we agree on Ihe
followi ng, wnich Ilhink .. ,ary,oratleasthelpful, hypolhe.i.if
wh'l we are trying to do is understand why moderniry and modernism go
to!:"tn .. ? leaving the word
new, and disorieming, cnaracter of modernilY i. il. s..,mingly bdng dri.'en by
merdy m.rerial, <{.ri.tical, tendemial, "economic" consid .. ations? We know
we are living a new form of life, in which all previous notions of helid and
sociabililY have scrambled, And lhe true terror of tni. new order has to do

profil and I""s, bids and borgains: lnal is, ny a system withoUl any focusing
purp<JSC to il,or any compelling image or ri tualizalion of thaI purpose. I l islhe
blindn .. , of modernity Ihal >eems to me fundamemal, and 10 which modernism
is a response: Ihe greal fac'!, 10 go back 10 Adam Smilh's insight, i. the
hiddennesooflhe "hidden hand"; or ralher, Ihe visihililY oflha Ihiddenness-
Ihe auilabililY 10 individual con""iousn .. s of more and more (a
ludicrous, lobolomizing barrage of samel pointing 10 Ihe purposelessness of
.ocialaclion
Blindness, purposelessness, randomness, blankne .. ; picture. built out of
Slal islical accumulalions of Ihtown marks, or touch aner louch of pu,..,
surfaceness,pure sensal ion; bUlequally, pictures clinging ro a d,..,am of mar
Iyrdom, or peasam leisu,.." or naked imensity in th. woods: and pictures
fama.izing Ihemsdves lhe voice - Ihe image, Ihe plan - of a post-human
calculus in Ihe making. "I decla,.., Economy 10 be rhe new fifth dimension, Ihe
leS! and meas ure of all C,..,.live and anislic work." "THE FACTO!! BENCHEs AilE
WAITING FOil YOU. LET US MOVE PRODUCTION Modernism i.
caughl interminably horror and elarion at rhe driving il -
belwcen "less Is Mo,..," and "NO CHAOS DAMN It lake, ils own lechnicalily

qualities are polemially smug and phi listine, always th,..,ateninglo turn inloa
Bauhaus or Ecole deParisorthodoxy. Modernism's disdain for lhe worl dand
wish for a truly gratuilOus gesture in the face of il are more lhan jUSl alliludes:
Ihey are Ihe Irue (Ihal is, agoni zed) form of ilS so-called purism. Wilde and
Nielzsche are Ihis agony's spokesmcn, Rimbaud's its exemplary li fe . And yel Ihe'
Ihought of belonging and serviceabililY (of Economy asan ideal) haunts mod
ernism, all Ihe more so
modernilY's Irue opposiles - Ihe dimensions to experience it mosl ruthlessly
outl aws or trncsties. These antinomies of modern an, and Iheir relal ion to a
history it invents and resislsand misrecognires, are whal Ihis book ism,inly
aboul. .J
T he book was writlen after Ihe Fall of Ihe Wall. Thar is, at, moment
when there was general agreemcnt, on the part of masse< and elites in mosl of
Inc world,tnat the project called sociali,m had come to an end -al rough IYlhe
same lime. il seems, as Ihe projecl called modernism. Whether Ihose prediclions
turn Oul to be true, only time willlell. BUI dearly somelhing of socialism and
moderni,mnasdicd,in bOlh cases deservedly; and my book is pardy wri lIen 10
r'J:nswer Ihe question: Iflneydied 10gClher,doc:s Ihal mean Ihal in some sense

Socialism, 10 remind you. waS Ihe idea of"lhc polilical ,economic and social
emancipation of rhe whole people, men 'nd women, by Ihe establ ishment of a
democralic commonwealrh in which Ihe community shall own Ihe land and

to oor cost , does nor n""essarily mean mUlual aid or agreemen! on much.
Modernism w", regu13r1youlSpokenaooutthebarrenn ... sofrheworking-<13ss
movemenr _ lIs polil;cs of pi,)", ilS dreary materialism, the taste of the ma,,,,s.
the Idea ofrrogr ..... tc. Butthis may have heen bause it sensed s<xiali 'm wa s
insh.dow-thati"oowasengagedin.desperare,andprobablyfutile,struggle
10 imagine mooerni,y OTherwise. And maybe it is tnat there could and can
he no modernism without the practical po .. ibiliry of an end to .apitalism
existing, in wha'evermons'rousorpi,iful form.
Monstrous or pitiful. We are back in Heardield territory. You will S<:e in what
follows ,ha, t interpret the 'erms "sociali,m" and "working .. dass mO\'ement"
broadly. Two of my main cas .. are Jacobinism and the sans-culo"es in 179),
and anarchism in ,he early 1 890S. Even my third 'CS' ,"se, War Communism in
Russia io 1919 .nd 19LO. is delilx-rate\yextr.me: it is maybc as dose as any
modern socirty has come to a whol ... le disman,ling 01 the moneyonom)", but
of ,ourse the dismantling was largely involuntary - and where deliberate,
doctrinaire and foolhardy - with results tha, were truly horribk I make nO
apology for my strange trio.TheJacobin momtnt is foundational (sadlyl for ,he
imagining. of mass politics that followed. Anarchism i, an aspect of s<xi.li,m
lamong many OThers ) that those of uS wishing sociali,m. Or SOme ,,,mparable
form of resistance, to survive will b.veto think about again, ,his timew ithout
a prearranged Sneer. W .. Communism was utopia as wdl as horror and aby .. ;"'
and it l. av .. us with ,he which we should nOl allow the enemies of
.nti-capitalism to monopolize, whether a utopian form olopposi'ion [() thc
pr...,ntisalwaysinpracti""infemal."Modernity,thetimeofhell." reads on.
of Walter Benjamin's jottings.' There WaS' kind of socialism ,hat wirh.
and in the end realized"hepossibilityofmaking that hell actual. In hopes of the
fire being purgative .. This ha, " gbastiy arrra,tiv.ness for mooemis,s,w, shall
see. UNOVIS tried to get on the bandwagonltumbril. Modernism joins'
hands with !O(:ialism when socialism is in That is ano,her reason fos.
my choice of examples.
Socialism was One of the forces, the fo"e, that made for th" falsely
polarized choice which modemi.m belined it had before it - between ideali,m
and materialism, Or Oberme"s(h and lumpen, or esoteric and popular. Between
,h.cul,ic and Ih. urr.rlydisenchan,ed. Betw,""n the last rxacerbation of indi_
viduality and irs magical disappearance inro pure pr."icc or .vant .. gard.
coll<'Ctivity. I sense tha, what be,ween thosr mad ahematives waS above aIr
s<xialism-.gain.broadlyconst,ued.IRevolut;on.orth.,uhofdass,on.clous .. -
ness, would Ix- other word' for much ,be same duster of imag ... and acrions.)
Socialism occupied th. real grouod on which modernity could be described and
opposed; bur itsO<."Cupation was already seen at the time (on the whole. rightly)
to be compromised - complicit with what it claimed 10 hate. Thi' is nor mean,
as rxcuse for fhr ,hinness and sh,illness of most of moJernism's occupati on of
the ,mr. al ground. There could have been (there ought to have been) an
imagining o,herwise which h.d more of ,h. sruff of ,he world to it. But I am
saying that modernism's weightl ... sn.ss and extremism had causes, and tha,
.mong the main oneS was re"ulsion from the working .. d.ss movement 's
modera,y. from the it perf<'Cttd a rhetoric of extremism that grew the more

great wishes. h wanted its to be ltd toward -;;1
recognition of rh. social reali,yofthe 'ign (away from the mmforts 0 fnaTrat iv.
and illu,ionism, was the daim), but equally if dreamed of turning the sign back
fro of
capitalismhadallburdestroyro.lwouldbcthelasttodenythatmodernismi.
ultimately 10 be iudgro by the passion with whkh, at certain moments, it
imagined what thi, new signing would be like. Cc'zannc and Cubism are my
touchswnes, and Pollock in the world of hi. drip paintin!,"l. Bur at the sa me time
I want to say thar what they do;sonly imagining, and fitlul imagining at that
-3 desperate. marvdlousshunling hetween a fantasy of cold arril1.:eand an
an.wering one of immediacy and beinginthc-world. Modernism lackro the
hasis, and epistemological, on which its twO wishes mi ght be
The muntl"tfeit natme of its dream of is written into the drum's
realization: this isan argument that crops up,",veral times in the book. The
chapter on l)NOvtS rna)' .how the link between counlt'rfeit and the modern
artisl'. social i,olation mOre SJ'C"cifically than Ihe on Cubi,m But
the link i.cssentially the same. Some avant gardfS believe Iheycan forge a place
for themsrlv .. in revolution, and have real truck with langua!tes i nthemaking:
others believe that artists can bescienti'ts, and new descriptions oft he world be
forged under laboratory condition., purting aside the question of wi derintell i
gibility forlhe time bei ng. I do not see that either belidi,n...:e:o;.aril y(logicallyl
misguided. It is JUSt that in the actual circumstan"". of modernism - in mode,..
nity, that is - they have so far proved to be ..J
A bo<.>k about ninet""nrh'and twentielhcentuljl culture will inevitably
turn on the quesrion of money and the markel,and theireffeclon anmaking.
This book d""s SO times: in its dealing. with the Terror and War Commu-
nism, and with Pi"arro in 1891. Again, two of the thr"" cases are extr. me. In
t79) in France and t920 in Russia the very relation belween markets and
money seemed. for a while, to be coming to an end. We shall sec that ,enain""
Bolsheviks looked 10 Year 2 explicitly, and exulted in the notion of the
socialist stare's being able now ro drown itsenemiesinaAoodofpaper.ltwa.
a fanrasy, but not an entirely empty one. Money is Ihe root form of represe ma
tion in bourgeoi oeieIY. Threats to monetary value are threats tosignific ation
in general. "Confidence in the sign" wasac stake, to quote one historian of
Jacobinism, talking of inAation in t79J and the role of new banknot cs." In Iheir
different ways David and Malevich confromed that crisis ofconfidcn c lthink,
and tried to give form 10 its enormity. In coming ro with money. or witlt,
money seemingly aboul ro evaporate as a (centrall form of life, modernism at
moments 3ttained to true lucidity aoout the sign in general. -'
I did.ay "at I am not forgetting the a priori empliness of most of
moderni.m', pronouncement. On mal1er and the production of meaning. Of
course modernism usually vacil13ted between a crude voluntarism and an
equallycrudepositivity("inthenatureofmaterials"andsoonl.BuI again. limit
ca .... refle<:t back on normal ones. What modernism thoughl was possible when
Ihe whole signifying basis of capitalism went into flow - whal it thought it
might do with the opportunity - may tell us about where the crude
voluntarism and positivism were always meant to be going. even when moder
nit y was a, ",lid asa rock.
-,
A word tha. hh come up already, and will do so again, is "con tin
gency."lt points w the featurcsof moderniljlI began wilh: the turning from
pa<l toforure, the acceptance of risk. the omnipresen,'e of change, the malle
ability of time and .pace. What it d"". not mean, 1 .hould .tress, is Ihat modern.-
life is characterized ny an absol ute, quantitati ve increase in uncontroll edand
unpredictablee".nt Tell that tosocietics still in the thrall of Nature, meaning
/loods, famine and Tdl it w parents copinS wilh pre_mockrn levels
of infantile mortality. Obviously modem so..:ioly offer> the majority of ilS
'itil.ens-wecould argue about the pre,ise .i,eoflhat majority-saf er and more
humdrum lives. Bu' i, i. ,hi, very fa't, and the ,t .. " pur on thea"kievemem
in modern so<iety\ endicss sel fapology, tha, makes 'he and
oxpanding areas of ulKerlainty the harder 10 bear. Again,lhec'pil.1 iSlmarket


if playe .. are willing to ""'pt Ihalconduct ;scakulus and ,[><"Culation, and
In.rdoreinoomefundamen,al,,,,nse hi,or miss. Marke,s are predic,ab Ie and
ri,ky.Humanbeing,.renotu,odtolivinglhoirlive. un"!ertho signofl>OIh. (Or
of either, ina sense. Pr.-modcrn social ordering, were not -predictable." They
wererh. vety ground of experience as.w:h - of having and understanding.
world - confirmed and reconfirmed in the riluals of overyday lifo." Pr. -modem
n.lural disaslers were not as ri,k. They were fury or fate. The very
idea ofn.tural disasterisa modern one, an invomion of actuaries, aiming to
obj e.;tit)apreviou.congeriesofterro ... l
This is wha, "c'On,ingency" mean . It is an issue of represenration, not
empiri<;allif._cha,,,es. And usi ng th,' word is not meant to imply that modern
soc;'ti ... lack plau,ible lcaptivaling) orde .. myths of
tn.m""lves - how could anyone living the triumph of late-l"-'enl;elh-century
consumerism. or watching ten-yoar-olds play c'Omputer games. have any illu-
sion,onth.tscore? Contingencyi,good businrss.1r maye.en IUrn ou'tO be
goo..! religion. lit remains to be seen if the tenyear-old. grow up and gel born
again. Whon [said a few pages agolhat modern societi .. were ruled "by
a sy'te1ll without any focusing to it, or any im.ge
1 knew my vocabulary ,,""Ould sccmold-
.. rhingshumanbeings
can do wirhoul. Maybe nOI. 1 All [want winsist on is the novdlyof ourcurreni"'
ways of understanding <elf and others, and the fact that for moderni.m, risk and
predictahilitywerefeltro!x-endlesslyirresolvableaspectsofe"perience (a ndof

atoms, Or Pollock's greal walls of and ncssity - were meant to be

regiSi<'r a udl . Sit in th. roolll full of Pollock's piclures at MoMA,and I isren
to vi.itors protest against both ,id... "Kisk" here, in vi ow,
is randomness and incompetence, and "predictahili'y" lack of incide n"lackof
individualing structure. A child of five could do il. Ora painting machine
s..uratand Pollock are unfair exampl .. , of course. Theyare.sclosea.
modernism comes to embracing contingency and making it painting's struClural
principle. By and large modernism', relalion rothe forces thatdeterm;nffl it
more uneasy, U 1 said !x-forc, antagonistKo. Contingency was a f.,e
to be sufferffl,and partly to be laken advantage of,but only in order 10 con jure
backoutufit-outufrn. blse regulaririesand ,he iodiscriminate free /low - a
new pKolOrial unity. Out of the flux of vi ' Llal partide. would cume the body
again ( .. ys Cc'zanne)-naked,in Nature, carrying the fiXffl weaponry of .. ..,.
Out of the shiflS and transparenc;'sof virtLlal space (says Picasoo) w ouldcome
lhe violin and the mandolin player. Token, of art and lif.. Moderni.tpainlers
knew the market wastheirclement - wesh.lI scc I'iss .. ro in ,89' half_railing,
half-revelling in ils twist. and ,urns-but by and large they could n
,ke nmion ,hal an would a]'solve Or transfigure its ciKUm'!:lnces, and find a

Unconscious. the Party, the Pbn. Call il Art itself. Even those moments of
modernism seem to me to have understood t he implications of the I\CW
symoolic order lor lack of ill mOst unblinkingly-Malevicnand Polloc karemy
chief - are rorn berw..,n and despair 31th. prospect. I
",11 nihilism, and tne despair unhappy con",iousness. But I do
nul pretend they are easy to tell apart
O ne further ,oncessinn. I realiz. that my view of modernism as best
under"ood from its limils mahs for some nOlabl, silences in the book, or for
hinl$ at a t...,atment J do not provide. Matisse is a flagrant Above all
there is an ominous leap in what follows from 1793 to r891. Partly thi s is
aecident: I have had my say in previous writings on aspeCIS of nineteenth
century arl Inat wou ld connect most vividly to the story lamtelling(Cour bet's
'!lemp'tosei .. the opporrunily of poli tics in for example, or Ihe pat1ctn

I SJw noway to return ro Ihem properly here. Inanyc.loe. I want Pissarroand
anarchism to stand for the nineteenth century's bestthoughrs ,msuch lOp i..s. 1
bdieverheydoslandfor them.Therruerepresentativenessofl89 l andPissarro
is one of my books main claims. But I know full wei l lh. daim is disputable,
and that so"",readers will see my kap over the nintteenth century as the due
10 what my argument as a whole has Idt oul. I cannot bear to face, Ihey will say,
the Iruequiet-the true orderline .. and ,ontidence-of bourgeois we ietyin itl;
heyday. and Ihe easy ne .. ingof Ihe avant garde in that positivity. I willnollook
again a, Maner because I do not wanr 10 recognize in him Ihe enOrmOus
distance of modem arl from its circumstances, and Ihe avant gardes willi ngness
to seize On the side of secularization - Ihe cull of and technicali,y-
Ihat =med to offer il a mnso]ing mYlh of il$ own selfabsorp,ion.
Of course [bringon thissl:epncal voice because one side of me recognizes
anyone looking at Manet lail ro?
But equally, I am sure IhisviewofManeland the ninctecnth cen,ur) is wrong.
I have no qUMrei with the words distance and "sdfabsorplion-
wi,h rderence to Mane!"s achievemen,. What I should want to insin on.
Ihough,istheterrible.inconsolable affect whichg".,. wilh the look Itomatar.
In general I think we havr barely begun to discover the true Slrangeness a nd
rension of ninet..,nrhcenturyarl, lurking behind itsexrroversion. Michael
Frie<l's books have way." And do not make the mistake of believing
that exrremism il Mane!"s and Courber"s properly ex.lusive\y, with maybe
SeUtal and van Gogh a.,o,owners.lngres is more rmhl,,",sand preposterous
rhananyofthem.Cizannearound ,87oexistsal,and epitomizes. Ihecentury\
mad hear!. hen Cnrot is a monSler 01 inrensily, pushing innocem:e and srraight
forwardness "'th. point where Ihey declare themselves as srrategies, or magic
again .. modemiry in general. His gray paslorab grapple head on (nOI even
defiantly] wilh Ihe disenchantmenl "f the world. They aim 10 includ, the
disenchantmen, in themse!v"", , and Ihus make it bearable. Sometimes they
succeed. (I'issarro in r89J i. stililrying oUI variants On his m.ster Coror's
tactic.j Ev.n Monels art is dr;ven not so much bya version ofp<>siti visma<by
a cult of art as immolation. with more of the flavor of Nerval and Gericaul t to
illhan of Zola and Claude Bernard. "I plunge back into rhe of my
of my torlurCs. Oh, ifFlaubert had
been a painter, wha' would he ever written, for God's sake!"" All of the
nineteenthcen'Ulyishere
F rit ..... book in advanc:f I.;>,d.!tt-y found i. "",b n.
havt Itifd ubr possible. which In II .. .... ts
nUl lit b r. i. anyway an effn:t of wming; \ ... hich i. to say,
this panicular practict of writing - word apptd nurly sound
imo Krtt n spact al fin dc siecit. Tht reaSOn J writ. history is that I am
intertsted in other pra.,,,ts, I",scu' off and absrrac., whic h oncc n iSlcd and
mi,hl!liI1l>ckarnedfrom,loope.hisprovtsltucofPi".rroand ElLi ssilzky,
MO<krnism may ofttn havf bttn ""&,,.ivc; it waS ",,,,Iy morose, h i he c . ..
Ihal many, may""' moS!. of my ChaplfrS ""t 10 a bad cnd. Trust lhe btgin
nmgs, .hm; lru" the cpO,,,,,,,, . Trust F...,od, and SlrVfl>S, and Frank O'Hua.
So cold "primiS!ic. motkmllm. So i. WIll gt"t .he..., eventually.