The Vertigo Years Read online

  Table of Contents

  By the same author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 - 1900: The Dynamo and the Virgin

  A Nation Vanishes

  Dreyfus and the Spectre of Decline

  The Dynamo and the Virgin

  Chapter 2 - 1901: The Changing of the Guard

  Steam Turbines and the Defeat of the Nobility

  Rates of Dissolution

  New Titles, New Wealth

  Chapter 3 - 1902: Oedipus Rex

  The Great Cover-up

  The Ethics of Style

  Chapter 4 - 1903: A Strange Luminescence

  The Nobel Prize

  The Dissolution of Certainty

  Nervous Currents

  Chapter 5 - 1904: His Majesty and Mister Morel

  Unfair Trade

  The Shame of Empires

  Media Wars

  The Costs of Power

  Chapter 6 - 1905: In All Fury

  There Is No God!

  Borrowed from the Village

  The Pugilist at Court

  Dangerous Ideas

  A Victorious Little War

  A Useful Priest

  Into Chaos

  Seizing Control

  Everyone Feared Something

  Chapter 7 - 1906: Dreadnought and Anxiety

  Ruling the Waves

  Manly Strength

  Military Virtue, Military Vice

  William the Sudden

  Phili’s Fall

  Being Uranist

  Sandow the Magnificent

  Madmen and Muscle Jews

  Anxious Virility

  Chapter 8 - 1907: Dreams and Visions

  A Strange Champion for Peace

  Dionysus in the Tower

  Bohemians and Barefoot Prophets

  The Voice of the Blood

  Troubling Visions

  Isis Unveiled

  The School of Life

  Chapter 9 - 1908: Ladies with Rocks

  The Vote and Working Women

  Violence

  Between Tolstoy and Autocracy

  Outrageous Women

  Backlash

  Chapter 10 - 1909: The Cult of the Fast Machine

  Those Magnificent Men

  At the Races

  Capturing the Moving World

  American Nervousness

  Sex, Lies, and Early Cinema

  Germany and Nervous Tension

  Chapter 11 - 1910: Human Nature Changed

  Talking of Copulation

  Ritual, Myths and Masks

  Searching Far and Near

  The God of Ecstasy

  Chapter 12 - 1911: People’s Palaces

  Starstruck

  The Beauty of the Masses

  Palaces of the People?

  New Tribes

  Communities of Consumption

  Chapter 13 - 1912: Questions of Breeding

  Superior Stock

  A New Manliness?

  At Home with the Kallikaks

  New Men, New Women

  Racists and Mystics

  Chapter 14 - 1913: Wagner’s Crime

  The Inverted Judge

  The Influencing Machine

  Apaches and Other Hooligans

  The Science of Crime

  Popular Heroes

  Chapter 15 - 1914: Murder Most Foul

  The Vortex of Infinite Forces

  The Dynamo ...

  ... and the Virgin

  Lost in Space-Time

  The Cult of Unreason

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Copyright Page

  By the same author

  Encyclopédie: The Triumph of Reason

  in an Unreasonable Age

  To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History

  of Collectors and Collecting

  For Cecil

  and for Chelsea, Samantha, André, Pierce, Aidan,

  Martine and Lukas

  List of Illustrations

  Text Illustrations

  p. 6 Porte monumentale, World Fair Paris, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Getty)

  p. 9 A view of the World Fair from the Alexandre III bridge, Paris, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Getty)

  p. 19 The hall of dynamos,World Fair Paris, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  p. 28 Edward VII (Corbis)

  p. 37 Ernst, Duke of Saxony-Altenburg with his family (Schlossmuseum, Altenburg)

  p. 41 Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1901 (Topfoto)

  p. 53 Sigmund Freud with his grandchildren, 1922 (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  p. 65 AEG turbine factory, Berlin, by Peter Behrens (AKG images) © DACS 2008

  p. 66 Fagus works, Alfeld by Walter Gropius (AKG images) © DACS 2008

  p. 67 Gustav Klimt, Judith, 1901, Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna (Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 68 Gustav Klimt, Cover of Ver Sacrum, the journal of the Viennese Secession, 1898, Historisches Museum der Stadt, Vienna (Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 72 Marie and Pierre Curie, 1904 (Getty)

  p. 81 Albert Einstein (Topfoto)

  p. 95 Leopold II of Belgium (Corbis)

  p. 96 Edward Dene Morel (Anti-Slavery International)

  p. 100 Father with his daughter’s severed hand, Congo (Anti-Slavery International)

  p. 118 Ludwig Deutsch, The Nubian Guard, Fine Art Society, London (Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 125 Russian peasants, c.1900 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson Archive)

  p. 139 Father Gapon surrounded by supporters (AKG images)

  p. 162 Admiral Jackie Fisher, c.1913 (TopFoto)

  p. 165 Duel Landau-Maurras, 7 December 1909 (Roger-Viollet/Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 191 Bertha von Suttner (AKG images)

  p. 201 Gusto Gräser (Gusto Gräser Archive)

  p. 205 Young Wandervogel activists, 1914 (AKG images)

  p. 209 Elena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, 1908 (Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 213 Rudolf Steiner, 1913 (AKG images)

  p. 225 Mary Gawthorpe, January 1909 (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  p. 228 Emmeline Pankhurst arrested outside Buckingham Palace, January 1914 (Getty images)

  p. 230 Leonora Cohen (Leeds Museum and Galleries, City Art Gallery)

  p. 231 Lillian Lenton, police identity photograph, c.1910 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

  p. 250 Louis Blériot flying over the Channel, July 1909 (Topfoto)

  p. 292 Mikhail Larionov, Autumn, c.1910-12, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris (Bridgeman Art Library) © AGAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008

  p. 294 Georges Braque, Still Life with a Violin and a Pitcher, 1910, Kunstmuseum, Basel (Bridgeman Art Library) © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008

  p. 295 Photograph by Thomas Eakins (Weidenfeld & Nicolson Archive)

  p. 296 Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art Pennsylvania (Bridgman Art Library) © Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008

  p. 303 Oskar Kokoschka, The Dreaming Boys, 1908, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (Bridgeman Art Library) © Foundation Oskar Kokoschka/DACS 2008

  p. 304 Alfred Kubin, War, c 1903, Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden © Everhard Spangenberg/DACS 2008

  p. 309 Postal Strike in front of the Cinema Palace-Gaumont, 1909 (Roger-Viollet /Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 313 Max Linder in a film still, c.1907-8 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  p. 314 Sarah Bernhardt (Topfoto)

  p. 316 Enrico Caruso (Alinari/Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 318 Photographs by Jacques Henri Lartigue, Donation
Lartigue © Ministère de la Culture, France/AAJHL

  p. 324 Kellogg’s corn flakes magazine advert, c.1910 (Advertising Archives, London)

  p. 331 Women cyclists (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  p. 342 Ernst Haeckel, Ascidiae, plate 85 from Kunstformen der Natur, 1899-1904 (Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 378 Cesare Lombroso, Specimen of Criminals, from L’Homme Criminel, published by Felix Alcan, 1887 (Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 381 Alfred Kubin, Salto Mortale, c.1903, Albertina, Vienna © Everhard Spangenberg/DACS 2008

  p. 385 Marius Jacob dir Escande (Roger-Viollet/Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 392 Henriette Caillaux arriving at the Courts of Justice, 1914 (Roger-Viollet /Bridgeman Art Library)

  p. 397 Jean Metzinger, The cycle-racing track, 1914, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (The Art Archive) © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008

  p. 407 Photograph by Eugène Atget (private collection)

  Colour Plate Section

  Egon Schiele, Nude Self-Portrait, 1910, Leopold Collection, Vienna (AKG images)

  Carlo Carrà, Interventionist Manifesto, 1914, Mattioli Collection, Milan (Bridgeman Art Library)

  Luigi Russolo, The Dynamism of an Automobile, 1911, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris (Bridgeman Art Library)

  Robert Delaunay, Champs de Mars, Art Institute of Chicago (Scala)

  Umberto Boccioni, The Street Enters the House, 1911, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover (Bridgeman Art Library)

  Henri Matisse, Le Bonheur de Vivre, 1905-6, The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania (Bridgeman Art Library) © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2008

  Kazimir Malevich, Taking in the Rye, 1912, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Bridgeman Art Library)

  Kazimir Malevich, An Englishman in Moscow, 1913-14, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Bridgeman Art Library)

  Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, Museum of Modern Art, New York (Bridgeman Art Library) © Succession Picasso/DACS 2008

  Gustav Klimt, Mäda Primavesi, 1912, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Corbis)

  Giorgio de Chirico, The Uncertainty of the Poet, 1913 Tate Gallery, London © DACS 2008

  André Derain, At the Suresnes Ball, 1903, St Louis Art Museum © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2008

  Unless otherwise credited all photographs were loaned from private

  collections. While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, if any

  have inadvertently been overlooked the publishers will be happy to

  acknowledge them in future editions.

  Acknowledgements

  No book can come to life without conversations and discussions, and a project as ambitious as the present one is particularly dependent on friends and colleagues who help give ideas a first airing, to try them out, refine them, or occasionly drop them. In the initial stages, my agent Bill Hamilton provided a wonderful foil for shaping the conception as a whole and my publisher Alan Samson wholeheartedly supported my almost suicidal ambition.

  At different stages my discussion partners who helped me focus and interlink my observations and who opened my eyes to new connections were Dr Thomas Angerer, Anne Buckley, Prof. John Burrow, Prof. Christophe Charle, Prof. Tony Judt, Dr Stephen Paterson, Dr Ulrich Raulff, Dr David Rechter, Froukje Slofstra, Prof. Jon Stallworthy and Dr Magnus Walter, as well as Victoria Hobbs, Sebastian Ritscher, Sara Fisher and George Lucas, whose tireless support is of inestimable value.

  Elise Allen and Simon Kasper kindly helped me with some of my research, and the staff of the British Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Bibliothèque de la Geneviève, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Literaturarchiv Marbach, the libraries of the universities of Leiden, the Sorbonne, Oxford, Vienna, and New York University, the Wellcome Institute, London, and the Musée de la ville de Paris were to hand with assistance and advice above and beyond the call of duty.

  My particular admiration and gratefulness go to Prof. Ulrich Sieg, whose depth of historical knowledge and humanity are always crucial for my understanding of my own ideas. Once the text was finished in draft, Bernadette Buckley proved a wonderfully attentive reader and made valuable suggestions.

  Last, but by no means least, there is my wife, Veronica Buckley, who has supported me with her love, an unfailingly open ear for my many overenthusiastic soliloquies and occasional writing obstacles, and endless cups of tea provided to my desk, late at night and with infinite kindness.

  Nothing is less ethical than so-called sexual ‘morality’; which rests entirely on social convenience…perhaps the most important psychological fact of our time is the tension between ethics and social rules, which is growing slowly and being more and more acutely felt. On this Procrustean bed the modern soul is so overstretched, so wrenched apart in its innermost fibres and made oversensitive, that it is hard to see a parallel in all of intellectual history …

  Second problem: that of modernity, how to reconcile with the soul the enormous mass of the new. The particular character of today lies in the fact that no other time had to conquer such a multitude of new elements.

  - Count Harry Kessler, Diary, 7 April 1903

  Introduction

  They are standing on the side of a tree-lined country road; men and boys mostly, full of anticipation. The heat of the summer bears down on them. They look down the road stretching out ahead, as far as they can see. A faint humming sound becomes audible. A car appears on the straight line between the streets, small and surrounded by a cloud of dust, and growing, growing with every passing second. It hurtles towards the spectators, its powerful engine speeding it on, roaring ever more loudly, a vision of concentrated power.

  One of the onlookers, a young man of eighteen, readies his camera to take the shot he has been waiting for. The vehicle is coming closer, roaring, pulsing with energy. Now it is almost there. The teenage photographer is looking intently through his lens. He can see clearly the driver and his passenger behind the huge bonnet, sees the number six painted on the petrol tank, feels the shockwave of noise and power as the engine speeds past him. He has released the shutter that very moment. Now, as the dust settles around him, he must wait to see how the photo will be.

  When he sees the picture he has taken on that 26 June 1912 at the French Grand Prix, the young photographer is disappointed. The number six car is only half in the frame, the background smudged and strangely distended. He puts the photo away. He is Jacques Henri Lartigue. The image he considers a failure will be exhibited forty years later and will make him famous, showing all the rush, the energy, the velocity that were so important during the years between the turn of the century and the autumn of 1914.

  Today, the period before the outbreak of the First World War is often regarded as idyllic: the time before the fall, the good old days, a belle époque celebrated in lavishly decorated films, a beautiful, intact society about to be shattered by the forces driving it inexorably towards disaster. After 1918, according to this reading of events, the phoenix of modernity arose from the ashes of the old world.

  To most people who lived around 1900 this nostalgic view with its emphasis on solidity and grace would have come as a surprise. Their experience of this period was as yet unembellished by reminiscence. It was more raw, and marked by fascinations and fears much closer to our own time. Then as now, rapid changes in technology, globalization, communication technologies and changes in the social fabric dominated conversations and newspaper articles; then as now, cultures of mass consumption stamped their mark on the time; then as now, the feeling of living in an accelerating world, of speeding into the unknown, was overwhelming. This is why Lartigue’s photo is so fitting as an emblem for its time. A boy in love with fast cars and velocity, his preoccupations mirrored those of a time during which racing drivers were popular heroes, new speed records were established and broken every week, and mass production, here in the shape of hand-held cameras, was changing everybody’s lives.

  Velocity
can be frightening as well as deeply exhilarating, and it is this fear and rejection of change that also echoes across the century. In 1900 the most profound change of all was that in the relationship between men and women, and many indications point towards a deep anxiety on the part of men whose position seemed no longer secure. For the first time in European history women were being educated en masse, earning their own money, demanding the vote and, crucially, suggesting that in an industrial age physical strength and martial virtues were becoming useless. Men reacted with an aggressive restatement of the old values; never before had so many uniforms been seen on the street or so many duels fought, never before had there been so many classified advertisements for treatments allegedly curing ‘male maladies’ and ‘weak nerves’; and never before had so many men complained of exhaustion and nervousness, and found themselves admitted to sanatoriums and even mental hospitals.

  Today, identities are questioned in different ways and anxieties are articulated differently, but they still emerge along sexual lines, often as questioned manliness. Resentment at a perceived emasculation by the former colonial powers or the ‘arrogant West’ have led young Muslim men to assert themselves by taking up arms or becoming suicide bombers - another echo of that earlier time, when anarchist terrorists were blowing themselves up by the dozen in attacks on members of the Russian government.

  Around 1900, men worrying about not being manly enough found evidence for their deficiency in the decline of fertility in Europe, particularly among the middle classes, while according to the polemicists of the day, the ‘lower’ classes and the peoples in the colonies were rapidly outbreeding ‘civilized’ whites. We hear echoes of this debate today in the hysterical polemics about birth rates among Muslim immigrants to Europe, much-debated forecasts about the growth of the world’s population, and the decline of numbers in Europe and the USA, not to mention biological research indicating the decline of fertility among Western men.