At the Goethe-Institut over the past two or three weeks, we have been looking at German and Austrian painters. We studied the impressionist Max Liebermann, the expressionist Egon Schiele, a protégé of Gustav Klimt, and most recently George Grosz, specifically his painting of 1926, The Pillars of Society. It hangs in the Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The title is borrowed from a play by Ibsen, and its application to the German society of the 1920s is deeply sarcastic. The painting is a grotesque caricature.
Five individuals are depicted. In the foreground there is a well-dressed, monocled gentleman drinking a stein of beer and wielding a sword. He has a duelling scar on a cheek. His tie bears the emblem of the swastika. His cranium has been removed to reveal, presumably, the content of his mind. It’s quite hard to make out; at first I thought it was a battlefield cannon, but more likely it’s a lancer on a charger. At any rate it depicts an engine of war.
On his right there is a journalist holding newspapers, and a bloodstained palm branch. His hat is a chamber pot. Behind and to the left of the journalist we have a Social Democrat, said to be a caricature of the German president Friedrich Ebert, holding a flag, and a pamphlet stating “Socialism must work”. His head is open to reveal a steaming pile of excrement. Behind them is a clergyman, apparently preaching through a window which reveals, outside, a world on fire. Behind him, a helmeted soldier wielding another sword.
The overall impression is of a group of individuals who are egotistical, selfish, uncaring, and corrupt. The basic message about these pillars of society is quite clear. Their heads are all full of s***.
With the rise of National Socialism in the 1920s, Grosz knew what was coming. He got into trouble with the Nazis and had to get out. He went to America.
The Pillars of Society is a painting which will be contemporary forever. Surveying current affairs (if we must) both at home and abroad, it would be quite easy to recreate this picture in contemporary terms. I leave it to your imagination.
For myself, as I said to the class, “Kunst war mein Horrorfach. Ich hatte absolut kein Talent.” Art was my horror subject. I had absolutely no talent. Saying that, I’ve grown quite interested in painting, even if I was never an exponent, and I always enjoy a turn round the Art Galleries after my German class. Anyway, as much to lighten up the atmosphere as anything, my contribution was not a painting, but a photograph. I took along a very famous picture of the Beatles, or the precursor to the Beatles, shot in Hamburg, perhaps around 1960 or 1961, by Astrid Kirchherr (1938 – 2020). It’s a black-and-white photograph of a group of five moody young men, with four guitars, a pair of drumsticks and a side drum, sitting outside on what might be a burnt-out train, in a derelict area with, behind them, what might be a construction site newly arising out of a bombsite. The members of the group are, from left to right, Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Stuart Sutcliffe. George Harrison was 17 years old around the time this photo was taken. He was too young to get a work permit in Germany, and he got deported back to Liverpool. But somehow he returned.
Kirchherr and Sutcliffe were an item, and I also have a picture of the two of them, a portrait, again in black-and-white. Even from the perspective of today, in the picture they both look so cool. Tragically, and not so very long after this photograph was taken, Sutcliffe succumbed to a cerebral haemorrhage.
The Beatles were a very rare phenomenon. They could easily have remained in total obscurity. No doubt chance encounters with certain individuals were key, not just to their success, but to the discovery of the intangible essence of the phenomenon: Brian Epstein, George Martin and yes, Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe.
Sometimes I think history trundles along on two parallel tracks which rarely appear to converge. Conventional history is the history of wars and rumours of wars, of the struggles between elites, those with their snouts in the trough, the “pillars of society”. Meanwhile the Beatles are honing their craft. Or, while Napoleon is bombarding Vienna, Beethoven retires to a cellar, covers his ears, and composes the Emperor Concerto. (Not that the man himself would have called it that.) Of the two parallel tracks of history, I know the one I’m more interested in. And I’m sure I’m not alone. Recruiting sergeants will tell you that the hardest thing to teach a conscript is that the enemy is inhuman, such that he ought to be skewered with a bayonet. Despite the hellish state of the world, I believe that most people do not wish to attack their neighbour. How can we extricate ourselves from this mess?
As John Lennon said, “All you need is love.”
Aye right. Look what happened to him.
Sorry about that. A sour note. I just slipped from E flat major, the key of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, to E minor, the fading final desolate chord of Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony. Nuclear winter. Mustn’t do that. Never give up.
jamescalumcampbell 