A study in art & meaning: Xmas w/o Christ
GSNews
[picture of the painting "Weihnachtskugeln (1939), oil on
can be seen at canvas, 33x41 cm (privately owned).
http://cisar.org/991224b.htm] Photo from: Niklaus Stoecklin 1896 -
1982 by Christoph Voegele, Wiese
Verlag, Basel
[In this article, a "Christmas bulb" is a spherical Christmas
ornament which is usually hung from Christmas trees.]
Basel, Switzerland
December 24, 1999
Basler Zeitung
Christmas in the times of the blown-out Christmas candles
by Lukas Schmutz
What does Christmas mean in a time in which Christianity in the
Occident has lost its radiance, and Christmas is associated less and
less with religion? Two pictures by Basel painter Niklaus Stoecklin
from 1939 thematize this question in a manner which is still relevant
today.
In 1939, Niklaus Stoecklin painted "Christmas Bulbs" [a picture of
a box of a dozen round Christmas tree ornaments, one of which
was broken]. At that time the European lights were going out.
Hitler's regime of terror was established and his war machine was
already rolling eastward. At that time, nobody could paint the
complete horror of the following year, but the premonition was
unsettling enough.
So it surprised few people that the Basel painter used the
Christmas motif as a sign that something was broken. The candle
was blown out and a Christmas tree ornament was broken. The
fine, round glass surface of the burst bulb is splintered into small,
sharp, pointed pieces. Both of these objects completely fit in with
the atmosphere of the gray coldness of the background upon which
Stoecklin set the picture, and it contrasts conspicuously with
the bright colors of the ten other bulbs in the nearby package of
twelve. From this contrast forcefully arises Stoecklin's theme: on
Christmas in 1939, forbearance and wholeness as such -- even in a
seemingly closed system -- had become questionable.
The Stoecklin study, not unjustly, indicated that the box probably
also stood for a Switzerland -- so one would like to add in view of
the actual historical discussion - which would have liked to pull the
cover over itself. In any case, the picture's tension includes the
unanswered question of whether the broken ornament comes from
one of the two compartments in the box which are hidden by the
lid which partly covers it, perhaps it was already broken inside the
box, or whether the possibility of destruction came only from
outside and could not be imagined to have taken place internally.
Despite the burning historical context, the "Christmas Bulbs" are
not simply a political picture. By using the extinguished candle,
Stoecklin was following an ancient motif. In countless depictions of
Christian art in the Occident, the candle is one of the most
important symbols of the past. In Stoecklin's modern form of
communication, the symbol appears in a chilling nakedness. With
an exact science he detached it from the traditional context of a
picture and presented it with great objectivity. That absolutely also
goes for the Christmas bulbs. He brought out their objective
character as if doing a geometric exhibition.
Closeness and Distance to Tradition
Several years before, in "The Three Bodies" he had set a cone, a
cube and a ball in a small display case to create an icon of
fascination for pure, spatial form, which point he brought out in a
letter to Georg Reinhart: "All dead bodies which I intend to bring to
life. A modern display case for children and philosophers. It takes
time, because a virginity lives in these objects which one may not
rape." The coolness of the composition, therefore, does not just
come from the massive unease of the approaching political storm,
but from the modernness of Stoecklin's interpretation of art. In
today's view, this double access to the Christmas motif is
informative. For one, Stoecklin used Christian symbolic speech to
profoundly and cryptically present a non-religious context. In the
other, he removed himself by using his exact, scientific style. The
objective, measured look which Stoecklin cast on the symbolic
objects of Christmas anticipates the distancing from religious
content in the second half of this century in Occidental society.
There is nothing provokingly anti-religious about it; the observation
of reality is solely a result of new circumstances.
The Christmas candle has been extinguished
So Stoecklin's picture becomes two in one: an example of the
unprecedented durability and renovation of the Christian symbolic
language, so much it is almost indispensable when it comes to
sensible expression about "final" things. And at the same time it is a
clear sign of the forcing aside of religious background which any
symbolic language has produced and long born in its obligatory
position in the middle of Occidental society. It sets itself apart that
the reference to Christianity has forfeited its importance and the
reference to where it survives has become manifold, heterogeneous
and individual.
Today we have advanced a great deal further in this process. At
the end of the second millennium, Christianity -- at least in the
Occident itself -- has widely lost its radiance. The people who
maintain Christmas as a hinge point of their religious orientation are,
here at home, turning into a smaller minority. Their celebrations
which take place practically in social niches appear to the great
majority as non-contemporary obligations. Even the culturally
pessimistic warnings of the decay of values and the criticisms of
Christmas consumer orgies which were with us ten years ago have
largely faded. The Christmas candle, it appears, has now really
gone out.
Paradox of the Present time
To that extent the picture "Christmas Bulbs" - regarded from an
up-to-date viewpoint - is also very appropriate to our times. The
"new objectivity," the expression, the epoch and style reproduced
so admirably by Stoecklin and his contemporaries has since
become outdated, so much so that the picture, which was so
eminently modern in its time, could appear to one quickly glancing
in the past as a nostalgic reminiscence for the good, old Christmas
era. The paradox to today's concept of Christmas, though, is that
the objectivity which one has enthusiastically developed has not at
all influenced real-life behavior. It appears more the trend that the
glittering opulence of the holiday is inversely proportional to inner
participation.
That does not just relate to general welfare and buying power.
Much more it has to do with the symbolism and the tradition of
Christmas not just coming from Christian roots. The celebration of
Christmas arose from blending diverse traditions together. The
celebration of the birth of Christ was originally associated with the
the Roman state holiday of December 25, the birth of the sun god;
in the Germanic areas Christianity redesignated the festival of the
winter solstice. The central symbol of the Christmas tree and its
ornaments took place in the 16th century and primarily in the 19th
century. Therefore the Christian tradition continues to bear strong
underlying elements taken from natural religion.
Return to natural religion
The successively growing wave of sects, therapies and all sorts of
other adventurous spiritual offers with the upcoming turn of the
millennium shows unmistakably that new power is arising from this
archeological stratum of European cultural history. Therefore much
in today's behavior around the Christmas tree may be interpreted
more from this source and less as the appearance of decadence.
Of course anybody who -- as artist or as a generally reflective
person -- goes back into European spiritual history looking for a
reference to the world will find little. In today's necessarily
individual attempt for self-reassurance, the symbolic language of
the Christian tradition provides an instrument of inestimable value.
A second picture by Niklaus Stoecklin shows this with the author's
own precision.
For the poster of the Basel Christmas exhibition in 1939 he latterly
selected the Christmas bulb as a motif. But this time it [the ball]
was a projection surface for a reflected self portrait. Stoecklin
showed himself in his loft at work: he was painting a Christmas
bulb. The entire finesse of the presentation lies in the duplication of
the motif: Stoecklin showed that he could not exactly reproduce
the ornament, but that his observation of the distortion is what the
ornament forces him to look at.
The ball in which he reflected himself represents the entire world
which is meaningful to his artistic work. The Christian symbol
world is unmistakably a part of it. The fish and the cross over the
heat radiator leave no doubt as to their significance to the artist.
But they do not emanate meaning for him nor do they even serve
as a source of inspiration. Stoecklin imparts their meaning in that
he, as he does everything else in the picture, submerses them in a
cool blue with his palette and brush. For the self-assurance of the
modern artist they are indispensable, though solely in the sense of a
mental tool.
And Stoecklin uses them with a measured eye: the almost defiant
seriousness of Stoecklin's persistent search for meaning of the
Christmas season is as appropriate today as it was in winter 1939:
the models of Occidental origins of meaning have forfeited their
power to build reality and are, at the end of the millennium, only
going around in circles. And nowhere can a substitute for them be
recognized in the stockholder plans which are cheerfully offered
except in silhouette.
----------------------------------------------------
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Dave Bird
GSNews <german_...@hotmail.com> writes:
>[In this article, a "Christmas bulb" is a spherical Christmas
>ornament which is usually hung from Christmas trees.]
>
>by Lukas Schmutz
>
>What does Christmas mean in a time in which Christianity in the
>Occident has lost its radiance, and Christmas is associated less and
>less with religion? Two pictures by Basel painter Niklaus Stoecklin
>from 1939 thematize this question in a manner which is still relevant
>today.
>
>In 1939, Niklaus Stoecklin painted "Christmas Bulbs" [a picture of
>a box of a dozen round Christmas tree ornaments, one of which
>was broken].
I'm not sure what we call them in England but never "bulbs";
"baubles", perhaps, which is an old word for any small bright
decoration.
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