NYT: Form Follows Fascism
sufaud
January 31, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Form Follows Fascism
By MARK STEVENS
Illus:
http://tinyurl.com/5usg6
THE death last week of Philip Johnson, the nonagenarian enfant terrible,
brought 20th-century architecture to a symbolic close. Even Mr. Johnson's
friends sometimes doubted that he was an architect of the first rank, but
friend and foe alike agreed that he was an emblematic figure of his time.
But emblematic of what? In death, his role in American culture will come
into sharper focus, and it's a darker picture than many have thought.
Traditionally, Mr. Johnson is presented as the great champion of modern
architecture - organizer of the landmark 1932 Museum of Modern Art show on
the International Style, and architect of the Glass House on his Connecticut
estate, which quickly came to symbolize American modernism. He is equally
celebrated for abandoning classical modernism in the late 50's and adopting
in the decades that followed a succession of styles that mirrored the
changing taste of the time.
It hardly mattered that many of his skyscrapers were corporate schmaltz; he
was an enlivening, generous figure, a man who charmingly described himself
as a "whore" as he picked the corporate pocket. Always ready to challenge
the earnest, Mr. Johnson, who understood Warhol as well as Mies, became both
an icon and an iconoclast.
Only one aspect marred this picture: His embrace of fascism during the
1930's, which was mentioned only in passing in most obituaries. He later
called his ideological infatuation "stupidity" and apologized whenever
pressed on the matter; as a form of atonement, he designed a synagogue for
no fee. With a few exceptions, critics typically had little interest in the
details, granting Mr. Johnson a pass for a youthful indiscretion.
Then, in 1994, Franz Schulze's biography presented this period of Mr.
Johnson's life in some depth. Mr. Schulze's account was as sympathetic as
possible - and many reviews of the book still played down the importance of
Mr. Johnson's politics - but it was clear that views of Mr. Johnson's import
for American culture would change significantly.
Philip Johnson did not just flirt with fascism. He spent several years in
his late 20's and early 30's - years when an artist's imagination usually
begins to jell - consumed by fascist ideology. He tried to start a fascist
party in the United States. He worked for Huey Long and Father Coughlin,
writing essays on their behalf. He tried to buy the magazine American
Mercury, then complained in a letter, "The Jews bought the magazine and are
ruining it, naturally." He traveled several times to Germany. He thrilled to
the Nuremberg rally of 1938 and, after the invasion of Poland, he visited
the front at the invitation of the Nazis.
He approved of what he saw. "The German green uniforms made the place look
gay and happy," he wrote in a letter. "There were not many Jews to be seen.
We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle." As
late as 1940, Mr. Johnson was defending Hitler to the American public. It
seems that only an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation - and,
presumably, the prospect of being labeled a traitor if America entered the
war - led him to withdraw completely from politics.
Today, any debate over an important figure with a fascist or Communist
background easily becomes an occasion for blame games between right and
left. Mr. Johnson is no exception. Morally serious people can have different
views of his personal culpability.
But what's essential is to let the shadow fall - to acknowledge that fascism
touched something important in his sensibility. Throughout his life, he was
an ardent admirer of Nietzsche. His understanding of the great philosopher
was surely deeper than that of the Nazis, but he was overly enchanted by the
idea of "a superior being," "the will to power" and Nietzsche's view of art.
And he loved the monumental.
In an interview published in 1973, long after he renounced fascism, Mr.
Johnson said: "The only thing I really regret about dictatorships isn't the
dictatorship, because I recognize that in Julius's time and in Justinian's
time and Caesar's time they had to have dictators. I mean I'm not interested
in politics at all. I don't see any sense to it. About Hitler - if he'd only
been a good architect!" In discussing Rome, he contrasted the poor artistic
achievements of the democratically elected Republic with those of earlier
regimes. "So let's not be so fancy-pants about who runs the country," he
concluded. "Let's talk about whether it's good or not."
Mr. Johnson's observation was refreshingly hard-nosed about art's relation
to politics: good politics is not now and never will be a prerequisite for
good art. But his emphasis on the aesthetic as the only important value in
art was remarkably cold-blooded. His main regret seems to be that
contemporary republics have failed to create monuments that ravish the
senses.
He never became a fascist architect. But he was probably one of those
artists - among them many Communists - whose philosophical sensibilities
were gutted by the experience of the 30's and World War II. Afterward, he
lived more than ever for the stylish surface, appearing uncomfortable with
large-minded ideas even when his buildings reached for the sky.
Perhaps as a consequence, his imagination developed no particular center.
Nothing was intractable or non-negotiable. He was remarkably free. He could
toy, sometimes beautifully, with history. He liked a splash. He was a
playful cynic, cultivating success even as he winked at its vulgarity. If
someone should complain, well, the problem lay not in the artist but in the
fallen world.
Philip Johnson now seems like an emblematic figure partly because he appears
to have been happily, marvelously, provocatively, disturbingly hollow. It is
an underlying fear of Western culture, one that has lasted since World War
II, that there is no larger or ennobling content to mine. Mr. Johnson's main
flaws as an artist - his tastes for razzle-dazzle and overweening scale -
are equally the weaknesses of American secular culture. His main strengths -
his openness to change, playfulness and urbane rejection of the Miss Grundys
of the world - are equally it strengths.
The beautiful Glass House will remain Mr. Johnson's signature work. It is
the transparent heart of a collection of eclectic buildings in New Canaan,
Conn. It's a dream house, a stylish stage set. It floats upon the land,
eliding boundaries between inside and outside. It seems full of emptiness.
It's not really a place to live, but was still Mr. Johnson's essential home.
That uneasy stylishness deserves emphasis. Philip Johnson lived in a glass
house. He threw stones, too.
Mark Stevens is the art critic of New York magazine and the co-author of "De
Kooning: An American Master."