Iconology as Theme in the Early Work of R. B. Kitaj

Iconology as Theme in the Early Work of R. B. KitajAuthor(s): Marco LivingstoneSource: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 122, No. 928, Special Issue Devoted to TwentiethCentury Art (Jul., 1980), pp. 488-497Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/880055Accessed: 29/09/2009 13:40

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ROGER FRY: THE NATURE OF HIS PAINTING ROGER FRY: THE NATURE OF HIS PAINTING

a hill town, embodies these senses both of accretion, of humanity, and of the continued existence through time of a structure which rises, articulate yet unforced, from the earth from which it is derived.

These interacting directives of clarity and structure persist through all Fry's phases. In his late landscapes they become ever more natural, less superficially ap- parent, in works which, though undemonstrative and close-toned, seem by these very means to combine more fully than ever the beauty of formal relations in themselves, the materiality of the observed world, and the less tangible sense of place. In these works Fry ex- presses the integration of nature with art through a personal yet completely traditional sensibility (Fig.35). Although his means are austerity, simplicity and honesty, his achieved end is a telling celebration-of light, colour and the very fullness of nature and of life. In Fry's last years both art and life were becoming increasingly con- fused, and much art of the period rightly reflected grim realities. Fry's vision, by contrast, was of a calm, un- troubled and usually non-urban world. It is true that in his portraits, with their awkward and penetrating vitali- ty, Fry clearly reflects something of the complexity and the adversities of life (Figs.l, 25, 27, & 28). But in his landscapes, many of them animated by small figures or types (who though often generalised play a very much

a hill town, embodies these senses both of accretion, of humanity, and of the continued existence through time of a structure which rises, articulate yet unforced, from the earth from which it is derived.

These interacting directives of clarity and structure persist through all Fry's phases. In his late landscapes they become ever more natural, less superficially ap- parent, in works which, though undemonstrative and close-toned, seem by these very means to combine more fully than ever the beauty of formal relations in themselves, the materiality of the observed world, and the less tangible sense of place. In these works Fry ex- presses the integration of nature with art through a personal yet completely traditional sensibility (Fig.35). Although his means are austerity, simplicity and honesty, his achieved end is a telling celebration-of light, colour and the very fullness of nature and of life. In Fry's last years both art and life were becoming increasingly con- fused, and much art of the period rightly reflected grim realities. Fry's vision, by contrast, was of a calm, un- troubled and usually non-urban world. It is true that in his portraits, with their awkward and penetrating vitali- ty, Fry clearly reflects something of the complexity and the adversities of life (Figs.l, 25, 27, & 28). But in his landscapes, many of them animated by small figures or types (who though often generalised play a very much

fuller role than that of counters in a design), man is at one with nature, the wine is harvested, life goes on. The persistence with which Fry constructed so integrated a world was not an evasion but an assertion -of the necessi- ty of maintaining a living sense of the enduring, the natural and the resolved. It was important to him, too, that art should be accessible. His temperament as a painter and his hopes for society combined in a sincere directness of expression, an aversion from rhetoric or fashion. As the prejudices of Fry's period recede and con- sideration of his painting moves away from side issues of isms towards the exploration of content, these qualities should ensure the growing appreciation of his art.

Virginia Woolf and Frances Spalding both make clear that Fry's work as painter was not secondary to his activity as a critic. Moreover its relationship to the large proportion of his writing devoted to the sympathetic il- lumination of work he admired is neither tenuous nor remote. The two aspects of his work express a single life- enhancing vision. But the paintings express it without need of corroboration in another discipline. These in- valuable books should do much to ensure that both within his achievement as a whole and within the art of his circle and period Fry's quiet but clear and distinctive contribution as a painter is recognised in its own right, and is increasingly esteemed.

fuller role than that of counters in a design), man is at one with nature, the wine is harvested, life goes on. The persistence with which Fry constructed so integrated a world was not an evasion but an assertion -of the necessi- ty of maintaining a living sense of the enduring, the natural and the resolved. It was important to him, too, that art should be accessible. His temperament as a painter and his hopes for society combined in a sincere directness of expression, an aversion from rhetoric or fashion. As the prejudices of Fry's period recede and con- sideration of his painting moves away from side issues of isms towards the exploration of content, these qualities should ensure the growing appreciation of his art.

Virginia Woolf and Frances Spalding both make clear that Fry's work as painter was not secondary to his activity as a critic. Moreover its relationship to the large proportion of his writing devoted to the sympathetic il- lumination of work he admired is neither tenuous nor remote. The two aspects of his work express a single life- enhancing vision. But the paintings express it without need of corroboration in another discipline. These in- valuable books should do much to ensure that both within his achievement as a whole and within the art of his circle and period Fry's quiet but clear and distinctive contribution as a painter is recognised in its own right, and is increasingly esteemed.

MARCO LIVINGSTONE

Iconology as theme in the early work of R. B. Kitaj*

MARCO LIVINGSTONE

Iconology as theme in the early work of R. B. Kitaj*

In his Studies in Iconology of 1939, Erwin Panofsky defined iconography as 'that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form'. This he distinguished from iconology, which he described as the 'discovery and interpretation' of the 'intrinsic meaning or content . . . apprehended by ascertaining those underly- ing principles which reveal the basic attitude of a nation, a period, a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion -qualified by one personality and condensed into one work'.

Panofsky's definition of iconology as 'iconography turned interpretative' could be applied to the early work of R. B. Kitaj, in which iconography is taken as a starting-point around which to construct a personal view of the world in all its cultural manifestations. The concept of the work of art as a carrier of meaning far beyond the limited concerns of form alone made a deep impression on Kitaj as a young art student in the 1950s. When he came to Oxford at the beginning of 1958, aged twenty five, to study at the Ruskin School of Drawing under the terms of the American G.I. bill, he had already 'discovered' Panofsky and was well-prepared for a deeper

*This study is based on research drawn from my M.A. Report, 'Young Con- temporan'es' at the Royal College of Art, 1959-1962, Courtauld Institute [1976]. I gratefully acknowledge R. B. Kitaj's close interest and involvement in the preparation of this article. ] ERWIN PANOFSKY: Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, New York [1939], pp.3 ff.

488

In his Studies in Iconology of 1939, Erwin Panofsky defined iconography as 'that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form'. This he distinguished from iconology, which he described as the 'discovery and interpretation' of the 'intrinsic meaning or content . . . apprehended by ascertaining those underly- ing principles which reveal the basic attitude of a nation, a period, a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion -qualified by one personality and condensed into one work'.

Panofsky's definition of iconology as 'iconography turned interpretative' could be applied to the early work of R. B. Kitaj, in which iconography is taken as a starting-point around which to construct a personal view of the world in all its cultural manifestations. The concept of the work of art as a carrier of meaning far beyond the limited concerns of form alone made a deep impression on Kitaj as a young art student in the 1950s. When he came to Oxford at the beginning of 1958, aged twenty five, to study at the Ruskin School of Drawing under the terms of the American G.I. bill, he had already 'discovered' Panofsky and was well-prepared for a deeper

*This study is based on research drawn from my M.A. Report, 'Young Con- temporan'es' at the Royal College of Art, 1959-1962, Courtauld Institute [1976]. I gratefully acknowledge R. B. Kitaj's close interest and involvement in the preparation of this article. ] ERWIN PANOFSKY: Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, New York [1939], pp.3 ff.

488

immersion in iconographical studies both through the Journals of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes and through direct contact with a leading Warburg scholar, Edgar Wind.2 At a time when most progressive young artists in Britain and America were involved primarily with the extension of formal concerns typified by Abstract Ex- pressionism, Kitaj was exploring the possibility of using the inherited meanings of borrowed imagery as the raw material for his pictures.

Kitaj had embarked at an early age on a course of self- education in the history of art, and it was inevitable that his interest in diverse styles and periods would be manifested in his own work. His primary enthusiasm, however, was for Surrealism. In iconology he discovered the means to apply both his knowledge of styles and his taste for unexpected and telling juxtapositions. Kitaj recalls that in his view 'Warburg was like a Surrealist: he tried to bring odd things together like Breton did: "Magic and logic flowering on the same tree". Somehow the two strains came together'.3 There was, moreover, a direct connection between Surrealism and iconographic studies, for instance in the 'Warburg-type' material published in the American Surrealist magazine View in the 1940s:

2'Wind certainly was a tremendous encounter in my life. But it was coinciden- tal . . . I remember coming on the Warburg Journals in the Ashmolean library.' Kitaj, in conversation with the author, 11th April 1976, transcript revised by the artist December 1979. (Hereinafter referred to as 'Conversa- tion'.) 3Ibid.

immersion in iconographical studies both through the Journals of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes and through direct contact with a leading Warburg scholar, Edgar Wind.2 At a time when most progressive young artists in Britain and America were involved primarily with the extension of formal concerns typified by Abstract Ex- pressionism, Kitaj was exploring the possibility of using the inherited meanings of borrowed imagery as the raw material for his pictures.

Kitaj had embarked at an early age on a course of self- education in the history of art, and it was inevitable that his interest in diverse styles and periods would be manifested in his own work. His primary enthusiasm, however, was for Surrealism. In iconology he discovered the means to apply both his knowledge of styles and his taste for unexpected and telling juxtapositions. Kitaj recalls that in his view 'Warburg was like a Surrealist: he tried to bring odd things together like Breton did: "Magic and logic flowering on the same tree". Somehow the two strains came together'.3 There was, moreover, a direct connection between Surrealism and iconographic studies, for instance in the 'Warburg-type' material published in the American Surrealist magazine View in the 1940s:

2'Wind certainly was a tremendous encounter in my life. But it was coinciden- tal . . . I remember coming on the Warburg Journals in the Ashmolean library.' Kitaj, in conversation with the author, 11th April 1976, transcript revised by the artist December 1979. (Hereinafter referred to as 'Conversa- tion'.) 3Ibid.

38. The Red Banquet) by RB B. Kitaj. 1960. Oil arld collage, 122 by 122 cm. (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool).

37. Erasmus VaTiationsJ by R. B. Kita3. 1958. 104 by 84 cm. (Private collection, London).

ICONOLOGY AS THEME IN THE EARLY WORK OF R. B. KITAJ

'Iconological studies had caught my interest by the time I was eighteen or so in New York. I had read into Panofsky long before I heard of Wind. You see, it was the weirdness, the unfamiliar ring of so much of the "art" they would use to illustrate their theses ... If you were a young romantic like I was, having been drawn inexorably to modernist Surrealism and arcane Duchampism as a precocious teenager, these studies, with their fabulous visual models and sources in ancient engravings, broad- sheets, emblem-books, incunabula, were like buried treasurel Like a latter-day Student of Prague, stumbling into an alchemist's library . .. akin to Breton and Kafka and Borges, all of whom, in those days, danced in my brain. So--one of the first turn-ons had been purely visual ... appropriate, after all, for a painter ...

'But, of course, there were, for me, ideological discoveries in those obscure readings . . . It dawned on me that here were people who had spent their lives re- connecting pictures to the worlds from which they came.'4

The paintings which Kitaj began after his arrival at the Royal College of Art in 1959 are in many instances based directly on illustrated essays in the Journals of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. A paper by Rudolf Wittkower entitled 'Marvels of the East', concerning the monstrous races and animals invented by the Greeks as sublimations of instinctive fears, provided Kitaj with images for Pariah (1960), Welcome Every Dread Delight (1962), and Isaac Babel Riding with Budyonny (1962).5 Not only were the profuse illustrations which accom- panied this article attractively bizarre, they also provided a meeting ground between iconology and Surrealism through psychology. In another Warburg Journal article Kitaj discovered the late medieval figure of Nobody, represented as a man with padlocked mouth, a symbol of Society's over-eagerness to find a scapegoat.6 Kitaj seems to have been attracted to the idea of resurrecting an image which had finally died out after centuries of use and eldless transmutations in popular illustrations, so it emerges as the protagonist of paintings such as Yamhill (1961) and Notes towards a Definition of Nobody (1961). 7

It is not my intention in this article, however, to go on a source-hunting expedition; indeed Kitaj's habit, in the early 1960s, of identifying many of the references himself, either by writing them on the painting or by listing them in catalogue notes, makes this critical activity redundant.8 It would be helpful, on the other hand, to explore briefly the impact on Kitaj of Surrealism, of the Warburg method, of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and of

4Kitaj, letter to the author, 22ndJanuary 1980. 5See Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover, R. B. Kitaj, exh. cat. 23rd January - 22nd February 1970, Cat. Nos.107, 122, 121. In the exhibition catalogue R. B. Kitaj: Pictures with Commentary/Pictures without Conmentary, Marlborough Gallery, London, February 1963, p.9, Cat.12, the artist himself provided the reference to RUDOLF WITTKOWER: 'Marvels of the East: A Study in the History of Monsters,'Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, V [1942], pp. 159- 97. 6 In the 1963 catalogue, p.5, Cat. 3, Kitaj referred to GERTA CALMANN: The Pic- ture of Nobody: An Iconographical Study,'Journal of the Warburg and Cour- tauld Institutes, XXIII/1-2 [January -June 1960], pp.60-104. 7See 1963 Exh. Cat., p.5, Cat.3, and Cincinatti Art Museum, Dine/Kitaj, Exh. Cat., 12th April - 13th May 1973, p.13, ill.18. See also Marlborough- Gerson Gallery, New York, R. B. Kitaj, Exh. Cat. February 1965, Cat. Nos. 7 &8. 'See Kitaj's 1963 and 1965 catalogues, op.cit., and MICHAEL PODRO: 'Some Notes on Ron Kitaj,' Art International, XXII/10 [March 1979], pp. 18-23.

recent American painting, before continuing to an analysis of particular works.

A clue to Kitaj's immersion in Surrealist theory can be found in the titles of two paintings from 1961, Certain Forms of Association Neglected Before and The Disinterested Play of Thought, 9 both of which are partial quotations from Andre Breton's first Manifesto of 1924:

'ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association neglected before, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought.'

In referring on both occasions to this second definition of Surrealism, as a philosophy or frame of mind rather than as a technicial method of 'psychic automatism' as outlin- ed in the first, Kitaj demonstrates that he is a neo- Surrealist in attitude rather than a follower of Surrealist painting. The deliberate scattering of attention across the surface of Kitaj's early paintings provides an induce- ment for the mind to wander, focusing attention ran- domly on specific images just as the mind will jump sud- denly from vague reverie to an explicit idea. This urge to create a parallel for the activity of thought remains with Kitaj even today, for despite the initial impression of homogeneity Kitaj's paintings are often still composed of disjointed fragments which dispel our concentration. 10

Surrealist method did have an effect on Kitaj in the form of collage, as a means of bringing together surprising and thought-provoking conjunctions of images. Of particular interest to him were the composite engravings such as Une Semaine de Bonte (1934) by Max Ernst, which he considers to be among the best work produced by the orthodox Surrealists. Much of Kitaj's work of the past twenty years has been collage-based, either literally in the incorporation of pasted additions to the paintings and in the composition of the screenprints from various types of ready-made material, or obliquely in the translation of a number of sources onto a single surface painted or drawn entirely by hand.

Immersed in Surrealism, Kitaj was well-prepared for Warburg's method of image-tracing as the key to symbolic content. Kitaj read little of Warburg's own

9See Hannover Cat., 1970, Cat. 112. The Disinterested Play of Thought is un- published, but a photograph is on file at the Marlborough Gallery, London. '?'So one prowls forbidding streets and back in one's room the mind wanders, thoughts stray and the actual work becomes a concentrated act of will which collects experience, and in a sense, freezes the passages of time and all the wandering in a little still world, the painting on an easel.' R. B. KITAJ: 'A Return to London,' London Magazine, [February 1980], p.21. See also TIMOTHY

-HYMAN: 'R. B. Kitaj: Avatar of Ezra,' London Magazine [August/September 1977], p.57. "'The great Surrealists, for me, are not the orthodox Surrealists, who are generally lesser artists, but people like Picasso, Bacon, Balthus, and so many other people . . . Ernst certainly was the best of the orthodox Surrealists, but most of Ernst doesn't interest me. What did interest me were the great steel engraving collages: the Semaine de Bonti. I'm a bibliomaniac, I've been a bookman all my life. I remember when I was at the RCA I was chatting with a bookseller friend, and an old cockney man came in with a package under his arm and said, "This has been giving me nightmares for twenty years." It was the Semaine de Bonti, published in five parts in the 1930s. He sold it to my friend for two pounds and I bought it back for two pounds ten. I've still got it.' (Kitaj, in conversation.) 'Surrealist ideas like bringing images together in unlikely and unfamiliar conjunction (in hope of producing magic), and other such ideas, attracted me when I was young. Now I can see that what may have seemed outrageous and valuable in that practice was often only an exaggerated form of what is substantial and even life-giving in all good art ... I mean to say that so much of what I care about in art has to do with the unfamiliar, pro- digious, surprising character of what a truly original artist does in his pictures anyway.' (Kitaj, letter to the author, 22ndJanuary 1980).

491


writings, which were largely ignored in England and which he found 'too difficult' and 'idiosyncratic' in Ger- man, but his approach could be gleaned from the voluminous writings in the Journals as well as from books and essays by Fritz Saxl and Edgar Wind. 12 Saxl, the first director of the Warburg Institute, had written in his Lec- tures (1957) that after Wolfflin, whose method was based on comparison of styles, the main object of the study of art as seen by the Warburgians was to define it as more than 'a mere history of artistic vision.' It should be understood instead as one branch of the cultural history of its period, inextricably linked with history, politics, literature, religion and philosophy and undergoing mutual influence with these other fields. 3 For his part, Edgar Wind insisted in Art and Anarchy that the 'representative element' considered irrelevant by Clive Bell and by formalist critics in general was, on the con- trary, 'so relevant that whenever we ignore or misunderstand a subject, we are likely to misconstrue the image by putting the accents in the wrong places'. Only by following the thought behind a picture will the 'visual articulation' become clear. 'The eye', Wind maintained, 'focuses differently when it is intellectually guided'. 4

Wind remarked elsewhere that since much renaissance painting was deliberately oblique in the use of metaphor, its 'veil of obscurity' could be removed only through the study of iconography. 'Designed for initiates,' the greatest renaissance paintings 'require an initiation.' Once resolved, their 'residues of meaning' add im- measurably to the spectator's enjoyment: 'a great symbol is the reverse of the sphinx; it is more alive when its riddle is answered'. 5 This concept of a symbol in the form of an open-ended transmitted image was confirmed for Kitaj by 'Pound's clear demarcation between a symbol which exhausts its references and a sign or mark of something which constantly renews its reference'. 16

The work of both Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot provided Kitaj with a model for his own urge to incorporate within each picture a frame of reference that is as wide as possible. On a few occasions, as in Tarot Variations (Fig.40), explicit reference has been made to particular imagery from Eliot. 7 Kitaj is fond of quoting one of his favourite phrases from Pound-'not source material but

12 Kitaj owns a complete run of theJournals of the Warburg and Courtauld In-

stitutes and says that he still reads them 'all the time'. 13FRITZ SAXL: Lectures, London [1957], Vol.I, pp.347-56. These were published posthumously. 14

EDGAR WIND: Art and Anarchy, The Reith Lectures 1960, revised and enlarg- ed, London [1963], pp.63-64. 15EDGAR WIND: Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, London [1968 first publ. 1958], pp. 15 & 235. Kitaj echoes this in commenting on his own work: 'So often the sources were so obscure and the pictures were clouded by obscurity which came out of my Surrealist persuasion. But that's true to say of much Renaissance and pre-Surrealist Symbolist painting as well. I still say the more you get to know about any picture, your appreciation of it changes.' (Conversa- tion, op. cit.) 16KITAJ, 7th May 1974, in The Tate Gallery 1972-4 Biennial Report, p. 182. See also the Robert Creeley quotation in Kitaj's 1965 catalogue (unpaginated). "7Tarot imagery is prominent in the first section of The Waste Land, 'The Burial of the Dead,' as archetypes of the past. Tarot Variations is reproduced in the Hannover catalogue, 1970, Cat.102. Kitaj also made reference to The Waste Land in the title of Cracks and Reforms and Bursts in the Violet Air (1962), a collaged painting in which the images are organised as the lines of a poem (See 1963 Cat., Cat. No.20), and more recently in If Not, Not (1975-76), a Waste Land vision in which Kitaj explores possibilites for his mural commis- sion for the new British Library. (See Marlborough Gallery, New York, R. B. Kitaj, April 1979, Cat.I and the comments by Timothy Hyman.) For an elaboration of the parallels in technique and theory between Eliot and Kitaj, see Frederic Tuten's essay in Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, R. B. Kitaj: Pictures, Exh. Cat. February 1974.

relevant' - 18 adding that "The picture always takes over,

but you can't help being moved by the great cultural issues peripheral to the picture'. 9

As with Eliot's footnotes to The Wasteland, it is essen- tial to follow up the references (literary or visual) in Kitaj's pictures in order to understand the further ramifications of the theme, but these allusions should not interfere with a reading of the basic text. In his early work, Kitaj often used hand-written or printed material within the picture as a means of clarifying the theme, for instance in the collaged note on The Red Banquet, in the captions which accompany the images in Reflections on Violence, and in the handwritten 'bibliography' attached to the surface of Specimen Musings of a Democrat. Kitaj was particularly keen to connect his pictures with the literary material which supplied him with some of his ideas, drily noting that 'some books have pictures and some pictures have books'.20 Many of these references were listed in footnotes in the catalogues of his first two one-man shows in 1963 and 1965, a practice he later discontinued, although on occasion he still writes ex- planatory notes on specific paintings.21 Even after the paintings have left his studio they can be retitled or have further texts associated with them as a way to 'carry on his dialogue with his work' and to 'help to leave the ques- tion of "finishing" a painting open'. 22

The pictorial solutions devised by Kitaj in his early paintings reveal a strong debt to American Abstract Ex- pressionism, particularly in the adoption of the 'all-over' composition, which in Kitaj's work took the form of 'plural energies'.23 Robert Rauschenberg was particularly important as an intermediary in that he had already transferred the formal characteristics of the paintings of the older generation into a figurative context.24 Kitaj was not interested in becoming a follower of a particular style, but found that the compositional types, characteristic of the work of these American artists, were useful models for the multi-focussed imagery that he wished to mobilise in his own paintings.

Erasmus Variations (1958; Fig.37), which Kitaj considers one of his first substantial pictures, provides the first instance in his work in which both style and image are quoted for their symbolic function. The imagery and format of the painting are adapted from plate V of Huiz- inga's Erasmus of Rotterdam, which illustrates a number of doodles made by the philosopher in the margin of one

"Cincinnati Cat., Dine/Kitaj, 1973, op. cit., pp. 11-12. '9Quoted in 'Painting: Britannia's New Wave,' Time Magazine [October 1964], pp.40-45. 20KITAJ: 'On Associating Texts with Paintings,' Cambridge Opinion, 37 [un- dated; January 1964], pp.52-53. 2' Kitaj stopped this practice out of impatience with the persistent misinter- pretations of his motivations. After the 1965 catalogue, he did not write about any of his paintings nor reveal the bulk of his literary sources until about a decade later; the first painting to benefit again from an appended text was The Autumn of Central Paris (1972-73), cf. note 45. 22'On Associating Texts with Paintings,' op. cit. 23 See Kitaj's use of the term and Maurice Tuchman's analysis in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, R. B. Kitaj: Paintings and Prints, Exh. Cat. 11th August - 12th September 1965.

24'Rauschenberg and Rivers were ten years older than me. I knew their work and thought very highly of them because theirs was such an interesting alter- native to abstraction. They both left some mark on my early work as De Koon- ing had. Rauschenberg had derived from De Kooning, Cornell, Duchamp and Surrealism and that context was very interesting in my youth.' (Conversation, op. cit.)

492

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42 Specimen Musings of a DemocratJ by R. B. Kitaj. 1961. Oil and collage, 102 by 127.5 cm. (PriVate collection, London) .

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45 The Autumn of Central Paris (after Walter Benjamin), by R. B. Kitaj. 1972-73. 152.4 by 152.4 cm. (Private


of his manuscripts. 25 Some of the images, notably in the top-left, are obscured by smudging, so that clarification is achieved only through comparison with the source. These scribbles of cartoon-like simplicity seem slight and of no great formal interest, but once their identity is known they take on a talismanic quality as autographic examples revealing the workings of a great thinker's mind. We are thus presented with a historical prefigura- tion of the Surrealist method of automatic writing as the key to true thought 'in the absence of any control exercis- ed by reason', as defined by Breton in the First Surrealist Manifesto of 1924. Kitaj was aware of the persistence of this interpretation of handwriting as an agent capable of revealing personality in the Abstract Expressionist concept of 'gesture,' and makes the historical connection explicit by quoting the style and technique from De Koon- ing. Style and image thus reinforce each other in relaying the theme of picture-making as communication.

Kitaj extended this notion of images as a kind of visual writing by quoting American Indian pictographs in several paintings in 1960-62. The author of the 1893 Smithsonian Institution study from which Kitaj borrowed his material defined picture-writing as a form of notation which aims at 'expressing thoughts or noting facts which at first were confined to the portrayal of natural or ar- tificial objects'.26 In The Bells of Hell (1960; Fig.39) Kitaj quotes literally from the illustrations in the Smithsonian report in order to produce a modern version of a historical narrative picture, one which deals with an actual event--the decimation of Custer's cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn--both through the eyes of contemporary witnesses and from the perspective of an artist living a century later.

The references to pictographs tie up also with War- burg's visit to the American Indians in 1895-96, described by Fritz Saxl as 'a journey to the archetypes,' during which he formed his conclusions on the persistence of visual symbols in 'the social memory.'27 As a specific ex- ample Saxl cited the Indian representation of lightning in the form of a snake, an image which is found in Kitaj's The Red Banquet (1960; Fig.38) both in the rain-clouds and in the snake-like form of the pictograph-derived figure at the far right.28 The imagery of this painting, in fact, derives largely from illustrations to Saxl's Lectures, particularly from the discussion concerning the interrela- tionship of art and science as the meeting of two separate realms of facts, 'the world of rational experience and that of magic'.29 In Kitaj's painting, there is a deliberate dis- junction between the revolutionary mid-nineteenth- century figures and the Modernist setting of a Le Cor- busier villa in which they are contained, echoing Saxl's

2j. HUIZINGA: Erasmus of Rotterdam, London [1952]. 26GARRICK MALLERY: 'Picture-Writing of the American Indians,' Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1888-89, Washington [1893], pp.25 ff. Kitaj refers to this study, unfortunately with an erroneous date, in the 1965 Cat., Cat. 5, and on the surface of Reflections on Violence (1962). 27SAXL: 'Warburg's Visit to New Mexico,' Lectures, I, pp.326 ff. Kitaj quoted extensively from this chapter as an accompaniment to the painting Warburg's Visit to New Mexico (1960-62), on which he collaborated with Eduardo Paoloz- zi (1963 Cat., pp.7-9, Cat.9). Closely related to this is another painting, War- burg as Maenad (1962), a detail of which is reproduced in the 1963 Cat., p.8. On p.15 of this catalogue Kitaj reproduces a photograph of 'Warburg and a Pueblo Indian,' from plate 231 of Saxl's Lectures, Vol.II. 28SAXL, quoted in 1963 Cat., pp.7-8. 29SAXL: 'Science and Art in the Italian Renaissance', Lectures, I, p.117-124.

free range of references united by theme. Kitaj painted the setting from a photograph in Saxl, where it was paired with a painting by Salvador Dali as a contrast between logic and irrationality, the two primary forces of human behaviour. The relationship of figures to setting, to which our attention is directed in the Kitaj painting, is also discussed by Saxl, who explains the development of perspective in the renaissance as a method of imposing a mathematical construction of space on reality. Likewise Saxl states that the belief that 'nature is governed by rational conditions' directed the search for an abstract system of proportion to describe the human body, seen in extreme form in the goemetric figure studies of the thirteenth-century architect Villard d'Honnecourt; these are quoted by Kitaj in the diagrammatic skeleton near the centre of the picture. 30 Kitaj's intention in quoting from all these sources is not to impress or dazzle the viewer but rather to deal with a complex of themes in an economical but open-ended fashion: the urge towards a visual logic as part of a larger effort to express the har- mony of the universe, the coining of symbols, as a means of grasping difficult concepts, and the inconsistencies of human behaviour all come into play within the context of revolutionary activities, encompassing industrial and scientific evolution as well as aspirations which are fun- damentally Romantic. The handwritten note attached to the lower-left provides a lead in identifying the subject, the figures, the architecture and the literary source on which the scene is based. 3

American Indian pictographs are referred to once more in Reflections on Violence (1962; Fig.41) in the two panels along the lower-right edge, this time with the source identified in a caption above the image. Other textual material, including a newspaper cutting headed 'When nuns may use birth control', is scattered across the surface, interspersed with images of varying legibility around a number of themes suggested by Sorel's book of the same title.32 The organisation of this picture in a seemingly random scatter, a vivid instance of 'plural energies', directs the eye not to any one image but rather to their interrelationships. The effect is similar to the ac- cumulation of images in a plate in the Warburg Journals, which Kitaj appropriates as a formal system in which to insert a personal iconography.

The combination of imagery derived from iconographic studies with formal systems which themselves function iconographically is especially ap- parent in Specimen Musings of a Democrat (1961; Fig.42). The pictorial structure, although reminiscent of certain paintings by Rauschenberg,33 was in fact based on an alphabet table devised by the thirteenth-century Catalan logician Ramon Lull, which Kitaj discovered in yet another article in the Warburg Journals. Just as Lull drew up a system in which 'ten questions are to be asked

30SAXL, Lectures, II, plates 62 ff. For a further discussion of this picture see RICHARD FRANCIS: 'The Red Banquet by R. B. Kitaj,' Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Annual Reports and Bulletin, Vols. II-IV [1971-4], pp.84-87. 31E. H. CARR: The Romantic Exiles, London [1949]. 3CGEORGES SOREL: Reflections on Violence, translated by T. E. Hulme and J. Roth, New York [1961; orig. publ. 1908]. Kitaj refers to this book and iden- tifies a number of the painting's themes and images in his 1963 Cat., p.9, Cat. 16. "See, e.g., Charlene (1954) and Rebus (1955), in Whitechapel Gallery, Lon- don, Robert Rauschenberg, Exh. Cat. February-March 1964, Cat.3 & 4. There is an especially strong resemblance to Small Rebus (1956), illlustrated in MAURIZIO CALVESI: Le Due A vanguardie, Bari [1971], p1.9.

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of the "subjects" with which the Art deals', 34 Kitaj plann- ed to show the modifications of selected image-types by six influences. 35

Although Kitaj then added other image- types and changed the number of categories, the chart- like organisation was maintained and many of the subject headings listed in the 'bibliography' (three rows across, four up) were later taken up in other paintings. Conven- tional compositional methods and illusionary space were dispensed with, since the painting could support itself on its own internal logic. Form and structure themselves thus become carriers of meaning, with the implication that there exists also an iconography of abstraction. 36

Kitaj's devotion to iconography in his early work gave him an extraordinary flexibility in bringing together apparently disparate material, united by method as well as by theme. The danger of mere cleverness in adapting iconology to his working methods was short-circuited by placing the systems he devised squarely at the service of social and political concerns. Oh Lemuel (1960; Fig.43) is the first of many pictures on the theme of social respon- sibility. Its title refers both to the name of Kitaj's young son and to a biblical quotation,37 while the image is drawn from a moralising tale in the children's book Struwwelpeter, in which the anti-social intentions of a hunter bent on destruction are foiled by his own lack of vigilance or sense of duty. 38

A specific situation or image is often used in Kitaj's work as a means of drawing general conclusions on human behaviour or morality. This is especially evident in Kitaj's treatment of political themes, which are generally drawn from the past, as in the case of revolutionary heroes and martyrs such as Rosa Luxemburg, 39 and which he illuminates by means of anachronistic juxtapositions. Kennst Du das Land? (1962; Fig.44) concerns the Spanish Civil War not simply as a single historical occurrence but as an indication of general human conduct and attitude. The romantic views of foreigners towards other lands is revealed with self- conscious irony in the borrowing of the title from Goethe. 40 The quotations of style and image from Goya, however, provide both a comment on the disservice of

34 FRANCES A. YATES: 'The Art of Ramon Lull: An Approach to it through Lull's Theory of the Elements,' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XVII [1954], pp.115-73, and YATES: 'Ramon Lull and John Scotus Erigena,

Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIII January-June 1960] pp.1-44. These are listed by Kitaj in the 1963 Cat., p.5, Cat.4. The reference is from p.2 of the 1960 article. 3"1963 Cat., Cat.4. Kitaj wrote at this time that 'One of the "bibliographies" given as one of the collage (hand-written) elements in this painting could be very helpful as a key to the iconography involved. The trouble is . . . the iconography does not culminate in any logical method. The grid can't be easily read except as visual images pure and simple.' Quoted in JASIA REICHARDT: 'A return to the figurative? A new direction, indeed unforeseen: R. B. Kitaj,' Metro, 6 [1962], pp.94-97. 36'So many people fail to see that just as much iconographical spadework has to be done in truly coming to terms with an abstraction as with a picture depicting things.' KITAJ: 'R. B. Kitaj interviewed by James Faure Walker,' Artscribe, No.5 [February 1977]. "'It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink.' Proverbs 31:4. 3 HEINRICH HOFFMANN: 'The Story of the Man that Went Out Shooting,' Struwwelpeter, London [n.d.], p. 14.

39Kitaj speaks of this fascination with 'Heroic Failure' inr the catalogue of his 1965 Los Angeles exhibition, op. cit. The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg (1960) was in the 1963 exh., Cat. 1. 0"The lines from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, in Carlyle's translation, are quoted in the 1963 Cat., p.6, Cat.8.

certain Spaniards to their country and a reminder of the continual undercurrent of political rebellion as ex- emplified by one of Spain's greatest artists.41

Kitaj now says that 'the iconographical business hasn't really interested me in the past ten years or so like it used to',42 but the quotations of style and imagery characteristic of his early work have become standard features of his pictures. His awareness of the richness of meaning achieved through transmutations of context has led him to quote from the repertory of his own images, creating a personal iconography on which to draw.43 In recent works such as The Orientalist (1975-76; Fig.46) and TheJew etc. (1976-79; Fig.47) this has been extended to the creation of characters whose lives, it is implied, continue beyond the confines of the canvas.44 In addi- tion, Kitaj's involvement, since about 1968, with the writings of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), whose approach displayed a reliance on quotations and creative translation for the sake of resonance, confirmed the ad- vantages of his application of analogous methods in the visual arts. The Autumn of Central Paris (After Walter Benjamin) (1972-73; Fig.45), a 'picture-puzzle' teeming with references in its imagery and in its very form, is Kitaj's most direct homage so far to a thinker who has greatly interested him in recent years. 45

Kitaj today is reticent about his past and prone to disparaging his early work. The implications of the theme of iconology developed in the early 1960s continue, however, to play a major role in his very personal system of picture-making, in the accumulations of meaning, in the assertion of intellectual content as the generator of pictorial structure, and above all in the in- sistence on 're-connecting pictures to the worlds from which they came'.

41The drawing of a woman pulling on her stocking, collaged onto the surface in the upper register, is a copy after a study of a prostitute by Goya in preparation for plate 17 of the Caprichos. It is illustrated in ANDRE MALRAUX: Goya: Drawings from the Prado, London [1947], pl.6. Kitaj has taken over the outline but not the style of Goya's drawing. The machine-gunners below, however, are drawn in thick smudged contours apparently achieved by dabb- ing the wet paint with a rag, in imitation of the effect of Goya's sepia drawings (see, e.g. plates 68 & 72 in Malraux's book). 42Conversation, op. cit. 43This is seen, for instance, in the reappearance of the running figure from the painting Tedeum (1963) into the screenprint Go and Get Killed Comrade - We Need a Byron in the Movement (1966), or in the use of the same head in two prints made in 1967 (see the 1970 Hannover catalogue, op. cit., Cat. Nos. 9 & 25f, and 25j and 25k respectively). The collage basis of Kitaj's screenprints facilitated such transferences and may have encouraged him in this new approach. Kitaj has now stopped making prints of this kind, preferring to draw or paint directly from the human form, but the experience of making them was important to the use of images in his recent work. The early work of Manet, which not only transposes historical sources but also quotes figures from one painting to another, may also have suggested possibilities (e.g. the reappearance of The Absinthe Drinker of 1858/9 in The Old Musician of 1862). Kitaj's interest in Manet has grown in recent years, and he is now amassing a considerable collection of Manet etchings. "'I like the idea that it might be possible to invent a figure, a character, in a picture the way novelists have been able to do-a memorable character, like the people you remember out of Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy.' KITAJ, Art- scribe interview [February 1977], op. cit. See also Kitaj's statement in Artforum [November 1975] p.28. 5See Kitaj's extensive notes on this painting, published in Art International,

XXII/10 [March 1979], p.19, and his comments on Benjamin in the introduction to The Human Clay, Exh. Cat., Arts Council of Great Britain [1976], unpaginated. For Benjamin, see especially the essays 'The Task of the Translator' and 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,' as well as the introduction by Hannah Arendt, in WALTER BENJAMIN: Illuminations, New York [1968].

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46. The Orientalast, by R. B. Kitaj. 1975-76. 243.8 by 76 2 cm. (Tate Gallery).

47. TheJew etc., by R. B. KitaJ. lY76-7Y. O11 and charcoal, 15z.4 by lzl.Y cm, tUollectlon tne artlst}.

Documents

Iconology as Theme in the Early Work of R. B. Kitaj