Art Eyewitness Book Review: Dominion by Tom Holland

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

By Tom Holland

Basic Books/$32/612 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

As I read Tom Holland's Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, my thoughts turned to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian, philosopher and martyr. 

In Holland's powerful account of Christian history, the price paid to secure Christian values and human justice is a paramount theme. Bonhoeffer, whose most famous book is entitled The Cost of Discipleship, is but one of Christianity's many martyrs.

By extension, Bonhoeffer's death calls to mind how the sacrifice of self is of fundamental importance to Christian art.

Dominion is not a coffee-table type art book and only indirectly deals with Christian art. Holland's cogent analysis and his brilliant retelling of the life-stories of saints and sinners motivated me to select Dominion for review in Art Eyewitness. This absorbing, unsparing book has enabled me to better grasp the concepts upon which great works of Christian art, like Caravaggio's masterpiece, The Crucifixion of St. Peter, are founded. 

Caravaggio, The Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1601 

Bonhoeffer was executed in April 1945 for his opposition to Hitler's genocidal madness. The Lutheran theologian had less than four months to live when he wrote a profoundly moving poem entitled "By the Powers for Good." 

The year just past still lingers in our hearts,                                                                     And evil times on us their burden weigh,                                                                               O Lord, to shaken souls bestow your peace,                                                                      Your promised grace, your solace, this bleak day.

But should you tend your cup of sorrow,                                                                               To drink the bitter dregs at your command,                                                                       We accept with thanks and without trembling,                                                                  This offering from your gracious, loving hand.

But if joy be once again your gift bestowed,                                                                          To this our world with sunlit skies so fair,                                                                        May we always hearken to these days of old,                                                                    And commit our lives to your loving care.

As a devout Christian, Bonhoeffer seemingly contradicted himself. How could a loving God press the cup of "bitter dregs" to the lips of a person of faith and/or bestow "promised grace"?  How can arbitrary acts of divine willfulness be squared with the Sermon on the Mount?

For Bonhoeffer (1906-1944), the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth is the definitive act of martyrdom. Christians like Bonhoeffer believe that Jesus, sharing in the divinity of God, shattered the chains of sin that had bound human beings to an unpredictable wheel of fortune.

What then of Christian history, with its less than edifying incidents of bloodshed and bigotry? For Holland, the very "scandal" of Jesus' agonizing, humiliating death is proof of the singular nature of the Crucifixion's history-changing consequence. 

Over the centuries, interpretations of the life and - especially - the death of Jesus have changed, reflecting shifts in opinion. In ancient times, practicing Christians attempted to cover the shame of the Crucifixion with a more benign, reassuring image. Early Christian art showed Jesus as the young, beardless Good Shepherd, the Kriophoros. 

The Good Shepherd (Kriophoros), Third-Fourth Century, A.D. 

Courtesy of the British Museum (Image does not appear in Dominion)

Following the fall of Rome in 410, "evil times" cast the world into suffering and shadow. Christian iconography responded to the emotional torment felt by the faithful to this shocking event. In place of the Kriophoros, Jesus, nailed hands and feet, to a Roman cross became  - and remains - the absolute symbol of the Christian faith.

The Borradaile Triptych, Tenth Century A.D.

Courtesy of the British Museum (Image does not appear in Dominion)

Everywhere we look, often in very unexpected places, there are testimonials to the transforming effect of the execution of Jesus, of the sacrifice of his life for humanity. Holland, one of the most perceptive historians on the contemporary scene and a marvelous writer, follows the course of the Christian revolution and shows how it is now part of the "web and woof" of human culture throughout the world.

Belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus created a whole new sense of time. Instead of an endless cycle of war, famine and plague, presided over by fickle or indifferent gods, Christianity was different. It was dynamic and linear. Time was headed in one direction and toward a single goal: eternal life and spiritual communion with God.

The earthly conduct of those who embraced Christianity was marked by sequential steps: concern for salvation followed by virtuous deeds which testified to one's acceptance of Jesus' teaching. The onward journey of the Christian soul never stopped - prayer, reflection, faith and good works.

This progression engendered a new ideal which has since spread all over the world, in both religious and secular forms: progress. 

Holland brilliantly shows how the early Christian reordering of time was based on the belief that Time would soon come to a cosmic conclusion. Over the centuries, this led to periodic outbursts of religious fervor stemming from a conviction that the eschaton was approaching. This "end time" never arrived - at least not yet - but outbreaks of insurrection often did. Several are memorably chronicled in Dominion, notably the Taborite Revolt of 1420 against the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, ca. 1789

Later revolts followed a similar pattern. The goals might be political or economic, but the imprint of a Christian mindset was not hard to discern. Though hostile to the Catholic Church, the French Revolutionaries of 1789 proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, a grandiose document graced by a Madonna-like figure and an angel who gestures toward the "all-seeing eye' of Providence. Holland writes:

That the Declaration of Rights claimed an authority for itself more universal than that of Christianity only emphasised the degree to which, in the scale of its ambitions and the scope of its pretensions, it was profoundly Christian.

The only thing missing from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was the Cross. The centrality of the image of Jesus on the Cross is a vital concern for Holland in Dominion and for all who wish to understand Western art.

Among the pictures in Dominion's center-spread of illustrations is the gruesome image of the heel bone of a crucifixion-victim named Jehohanan. A Jew living approximately at the same time as Jesus, Jehohanan was executed by the Romans and buried in a stone tomb with a nail still embedded in his right heel. The tomb was discovered in Israel in 1968. The pierced heel bone is the only skeletal evidence from antiquity of crucifixion, a cruel form of execution which the Persians and Greeks also utilized.

The bone fragments of Jehohanan  are contrasted with a vitally important work of Christian art. This is the oldest known depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus, circa 420-430 AD. It is one of the four Maskell Passion Ivories in the collection of the British Museum. This, the second of the ivory carvings, shows two scenes, the remorseful Judas dangling from a tree and Jesus hanging from  the Cross. The book illustration only shows the detail of Jesus' Crucifixion.

Crucifixion, Panel of Maskell Passion Ivories, ca. 420-430 A.D.

In the Maskell Passion ivory, the crucified Jesus is shown as a young man like the Good Shepherd. The picture caption in Dominion astutely notes that in the Maskell Passion ivory Jesus looks "buff and ripped, Jesus boasts the the physique of a victorious athlete."

During the Victorian era, Christian artists conflated the crucified Jesus with the Good Shepherd to create the image of a tender-hearted Messiah. This persona was treated with contempt by a disparate group of critics: the Marquis de Sade, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, to name a few. Holland is particularly brilliant in his analysis of Nietzsche's baleful influence on the German artist, Otto Dix (1891-1969).

A machine-gunner in one of the German units sent to the 1916 Battle of the Somme, Dix had become enthralled with Nietzsche's man/superman theories even before 1914. This embrace of Nietzsche's controversial  philosophy was at the expense of his Lutheran religious convictions. What Dix endured during the slaughter on the Somme convinced him that Nietzsche was correct in proclaiming "God is Dead!"

Holland writes:

Dix ... refused to see Christ's suffering as having served any purpose. To imagine that it might have done so was to cling to the values of a slave... Dix, volunteering in 1914, had done so out of a desire to know the ultimate extremes of life and death: to feel what it was to stick a bayonet in an enemy's guts and to twist it around, to have a comrade suddenly fall, a bullet square between his eyes; 'the hunger, the fleas, the mud'. Only in the intoxication of such experiences could a man be more than a man, an Ubermensch.

Another German veteran of the Somme reached similar conclusions about the status of Ubermenschen and the way that Christianity degraded human society. A failed artist unlike Dix, Adolf Hitler decided to put Nietzsche's precepts into practice.

Hitler's design for a "Thousand Year Reich" perversely mirrored the millennium of Christendom. From the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, Christianity aimed to create a "total society" for the benefit of its believers until the Second Coming finally took place.  Many less-than-Christian episodes occurred, described in grim detail in Dominion. But under the auspices of Christianity, truly astonishing accomplishments took place - and still do.  

The concept of charitable work (virtually unknown in antiquity), the founding of Europe's universities, a rise in the social status of women (due in large measure to the devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus), the abolition of slavery and the creation of the glories of visual art in the West - all took place in lands where Christianity was the dominant religion and the guiding light.

In  "throwing  the baby out with the bath water," in this case the Infant Jesus, intellectuals and secular reformers like Nietzsche undermined the foundations of the Western world. Nothing of lasting merit has been set in its place, though Holland contends that praiseworthy charitable initiatives like the 1985 Live Aid rock concert reflect continuing Christian values. 

While certainly reassuring, Holland's conclusions cannot banish concern over where these good intentions will lead. Nor does it answer a very pressing question.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) Gallery photo of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and Angels, ca 1460-1490 

How long will this neutral, anonymous form of Christianity continue to function - without acknowledgement of Christ's Cross?

To expect Holland to resolve this dilemma is hardly fair. What I can say is that Dominion is a book of such critical importance that it will be joining a select group of treasured volumes on my bedside bookshelf for future - and frequent - consultation.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved   
Original Photography, Copyright of Anne Lloyd

The quoted stanzas from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "By the Powers for Good" appear in A Testament to Freedom: the Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, edited by Geoffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson (HarperOne,1990)

Introductory Image:
Book Cover of Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland. Courtesy Basic Books

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian 1571-1610) The Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1601.  Oil on Canvas: 230 cm x 175 cm (91 in x 69 in) Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

Artist unknown (Possibly Sasanian) The Good Shepherd (Kriophoros), Third-Fourth Century, A.D.  Find spot - Zubayr in South Iraq. Marble, carved: Height: 61 centimetres (cm)  Width: 39.5 cm  Thickness: 16.5 cm  Height: 74.5 cm (with stone base) Width: 35 cm (of stone base) Thickness: 25 cm(with stone base)Weight: 63 kilograms (including base) Copyright of the British Museum, # 114262

Artist unknown (Byzantine, Middle Period) The Borradaile Triptych, Tenth Century A.D. Ivory, carved: Height: 270 millimetres (mm) -  centre panel  Width: 157 mm Height: 278 mm - leaves Width: 85 mm Thickness: 10 mm. Copyright of the British Museum, # 1923,1205.1

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, ca. 1789. Oil on panel: Height: 71 cm (27.9″); Width: 56 cm (22″). Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Given by Georges Clemenceau, 1896. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Unknown Artist, Crucifixion, Panel of Maskell Passion Ivories, Circa 420-430 A.D., Carved Ivory, H: 75 mm W: 98 mm W: 106 grams, British Museum, 1856,0623.5 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019) The Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and Angels with Instruments of the Passion, ca. 1460-1490. Flemish. Painted oak: Cross: 14 feet x 9 feet 6 inches (426.7 x 289.6 cm) Base: 10 3/4 inches × 7 feet 2 1/4 inches × 12 inches (27.3 × 219.1 × 30.5 cm) Philadelphia Musuem of Art # 1945-25-86a,b Purchased with Museum funds from the George Grey Barnard Collection, 1945.  

The Self-Portrait, from Schiele to Beckmann at the Neue Galerie, New York City

The Self-Portrait, from Schiele to Beckmann

The Neue Galerie, New York City

February 28 - June  24, 2019

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Shell Shock. The Blast of War. The Thousand Yard Stare.

Today we have new, scientific names for the dreadful psychological and physiological consequences of the horrifying slaughter of World War I.

Shell shock is recognized as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  while "blast" wounds, which later appear after physical recovery has seemingly occurred, are called Heterotopic Ossification, or HO.

Hundreds of thousands of men suffered from the effects of PTSD during the First World War. So many were emotionally shattered that whole nations could be said to have been "shell shocked." And no nation experienced shell shock to such as debilitating degree as defeated Germany. You can see the effects of war in the many portraits painted by German artists following the Armistice of 1918 or in the photos taken of survivors, soldiers and civilians alike.

You can see the scars of  "Weltkreig" on the faces of the artists themselves.

The Neue Galerie, located on New York City's "museum mile", is currently presenting The Self-Portrait, from Schiele to Beckmann. This brilliant, unsettling exhibition displays self-portraits by most of the the leading German and Austrian painters of the first half of the twentieth century. Although direct references to the First World War are few, the facial expressions and eye contact depicted in these works all testify to what the great British historian, John Keegan, called "the face of battle."

The searing experience of war - and its disturbing, violent aftermath - found artistic expression in a school of new painting. This was known as Neue Sachlichkeit or the New Objectivity. It was a "warts and and all" style of visual representation which made no concessions to beauty. Indeed, the self-portraits painted under the auspices of Neue Sachlichkeit often accentuated the negative.

Lyonel Feininger, Self-Portrait, 1915

Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) was born in New York City but spent much of his adult life in Germany. He was an accomplished woodcut artist, a pioneer of comic strip art and painted mystical landscapes and seascapes. Yet in this unsparing 1915 self-portrait, Feininger turns a withering glance upon himself and the viewer. The Great War, which experts had predicted would end in victory by Christmas 1914, was still raging. The world where Feininger's abundant artistic gifts had flourished was bleeding from a million wounds.

Was the anger so manifest in Feininger's self-portrait entirely the result of the ravages of war? Or were there deeper, unseen wounds as well?

The seventy-plus paintings on view at the Neue Gallerie testify to the emotional struggle which has characterized the art of the Germanic societies throughout most of modern history. To call Germany a "nation" before 1871 would be a misnomer. After 1871, the German "nation" marched to the orders of the militaristic Prussian elite. Austria during this period should more correctly be referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thus, the dynamic cultural forces in Germany and Austria, bursting with achievements in art and science, were imprisoned by the straight-jacket of autocratic rule. 

As a result of making the talents of modern Germanic artists conform to the authoritarianism of the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, a state of psychological warfare was already under way even before 1914.

The Neue Gallerie exhibition begins with the self-portraits of Egon Schiele. This precocious and controversial artist was one of the indirect casualties of World War I. He spent the war guarding Russian POW's, only to succumb to the Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 which killed over fifty million people worldwide.

Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait in Brown Coat, 1910

Schiele painted this sepia-toned self-portrait in 1910. Here we see a brilliant evocation of the agitated state of mind which was disturbing the European (especially the German) psyche in the run-up to the war. 

Schiele's furrowed brow, unfocused eyes, gaunt face and the drab, uniform-like coat convey the image of a POW, such as he guarded during the war. But what really makes this self-portrait stand-out is the flaring nimbus of harsh, almost blinding, white light which surrounds his head. It is the halo of a martyr, or at least a premonition of martyrdom such as befell so many of Schiele's generation.

For many young Germans, this martyrdom came at the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914. Entire regiments of German students, who had volunteered only a few months before, were hurled at the British trenches and mowed down by rifle and machine gun fire. The slaughter was dubbed the "Kindermord" or "Slaughter of the Innocents." 

One of those who fell in the "Kindermord" was Peter Kollwitz. His mother, Käthe Kollwitz  (1867-1945) was one of the most talented artists of her generation. When Germany's leading painter, Adolf Menzil, recommended her for a medal, Kaiser Wilhelm promptly denied the request.

Käthe Kollwitz, Frontal Self-Portrait, ca. 1910

Kollwitz came from a family with Socialist leanings, so the Kaiser's slight probably had little effect on her. But the death of Peter haunted Kollwitz for the rest of her life.

Amazingly, this self-portrait, shadowed by a wave of black, was created in 1910. As we saw with Schiele's self-portrait of the same year, there is a palpable sense of foreboding, of dread of the unthinkable. Sadly, for Kollwitz, the unthinkable was to happen again in 1942 when her grandson, also named Peter, was killed on the Russian Front.

Unlike Peter Kollwitz, Otto Dix served on the Western Front and survived. He took part in one of the worst slaughters of the war, the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The experience transformed him from a loyal German and a good soldier into a brutally, almost sadistically, honest critic of the folly of war - and of "peace" too. 

"Peacetime" Germany was governed by the Weimar Republic. Weimar leaders like President Friedrich Ebert made an honest, if uninspired, attempt to deal with post-war Germany's many problems. The worst was the rampant inflation (at one point in 1923 a single US dollar was worth 4.6 million German marks). Dix, outraged at the catastrophic influence of Prussian militarism on German politics and society, might have been expected to extend the Weimar Republic a measure of  sympathy.

Otto Dix, Self-Portrait with Easel, 1926

Dix, however, excoriated Weimar's politics and society. He was ruthless in exposing the financial profiteers, the disregard of the vast numbers of crippled and shell-shocked veterans and the lurid sexual atmosphere of Berlin. He also depicted himself with Neue Sachlichkeit candor. 

Following the war, Dix studied Old Master techniques such as the use of tempera paint and layering techniques pioneered by Jan van Eyck in the 1400's. Fellow artist, George Grosz (1893-1959), nicknamed him "Otto Hans Baldung Dix" after the Reformation-era painter, Hans Baldung (1484-1545). Baldung's Death and the Maiden, the most notable version of which was painted in 1517, was emblematic of the collapse of Christendom. Martin Luther set forth his Ninety-five Theses, attacking Church corruption, the same year.

With that demonic look in his eye, Dix may well be painting a twentieth century version of Death and the Maiden. Or he might be peering into the soul of the person whose portrait he is painting. Or is he, the decorated machine-gunner of the Somme (Iron Cross, second-class), looking blankly on the world with a "thousand-yard" stare?"

A century later, we don't know the answers to such questions, either about Dix or Weimar-era culture. Dix's art and that of many other Weimar artists held postwar Germany up for scrutiny. What they discovered was a society adrift, without an anchor and troubled waters looming ahead. That, however, was the only answer to their many questions. In truth, Neue Sachlichkeit could just as well have been termed the New Ambiguity. 

George Scholz, Self-Portrait in Front of an Advertising Column, 1926

George Scholz (1890-1945) was another harsh critic of Weimar. In his self-portrait, he presents himself dressed as a proper business executive. in the background is an advertising column covered with samples of the inventive sales posters which were a trademark of Weimar. Scholz was a staunch Communist, later targeted as a "degenerate" artist by the Nazis. But in posing in a banker's suit and bowler hat, Scholz castigated himself as surely as the Nazis were to do.

Max Beckmann, arguably the greatest German artist of the twentieth century, portrayed himself with similar ambiguity. He often depicted himself as an urban sophisticate, in "tux and tails." Beckmann so often dipped his paint brush in "acid" in his depictions of life in Weimar Germany, that it is hard to know what his inner thoughts and motivations were - especially concerning himself. 

Max Beckmann, Self-Portrait with a Cigarette, 1923

Beckmann had served as a medic in the war, but after only a short spell at the front, he suffered a nervous collapse. Beckmann's work, equally brilliant in painting, sculpture and printmaking, showed a society which had experienced a comparable nervous breakdown.  Sometimes, Beckmann portrayed himself like a clinical psychologist observing his patient. On other occasions, as in the introductory image to this essay, Beckmann presents himself as a clownish figure or a sleazy "cad."

In 1933, the Nazis took power. The failed-artist who commanded them resolved all of the ambiguities of the Weimar Republic by abolishing it. Germany entered into a time of nightmarish certainty.

In 1919, William Butler Yeats had written in "The Second Coming" words that applied to the Weimar Republic, to the Nazi new-order and to its victims:

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The passionate intensity of the Nazis victimized all of the artists whose self-portraits we see on the walls at the Neue Galerie. All were banished from teaching jobs or driven into exile. But only one paid the ultimate price of Hitler's Final Solution. This was Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944). Originally a Surrealist painter, Nussbaum fled from Germany after Hitler and the Nazis gained power. But he did not go far enough to escape them. In 1944, Nussbaum was murdered in Auschwitz.

Felix Nussbaum, Self-Portrait with Jewish Identity Card, ca. 1943

What can one say, looking upon the self-portraits of Nussbaum on display in this staggering Neue Galerie exhibition? 

The first thing to admit is that the "ceremony of innocence" was drowned in the Communist Soviet Union at the very same time as the moral center collapsed in Nazi Germany. Totalitarianism during the 1930's and 40's flourished on both sides of the battle lines. It can take root anywhere.

The second, most important, admission must be that the "ceremony of innocence" could easily be drowned today. All it would take is for you and I to stop honestly looking 
for answers to the human dilemma. This was something which, despite their inner uncertainties, Otto Dix, Käthe Kollwitz and Max Beckmann never ceased searching for.

***
Images: Courtesy of the Neue Galerie, New York City

Introductory image:
Max Beckmann (German, 1884–1950) Self-Portrait in Front of Red Curtain, 1923.
Oil on canvas: 122.9 x 59.2 cm (48 3/8 x 23 1/4 in.) Private Collection © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Lyonel Feininger (German, American, 1871–1956) Self-Portrait, 1915. Oil on canvas:
100.3 x 80 cm (39 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.) The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Egon Schiele (Austrian,1890–1918) Self-Portrait in Brown Coat, 1910. Watercolor, gouache, and black crayon on paper: 45.6 x 32.2 cm (18 x 12 5/8 in.) Private Collection

Käthe Kollwitz (German,1867–1945) Frontal Self-Portrait, ca. 1910. Charcoal on gray-blue Ingres paper: 28.5 x 26 cm (11 1/4 x 10 1/4 in.). Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne. Photo: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Otto Dix (German, 1891–1969) Self-Portrait with Easel, 1926. Tempera on panel
80.5 x 55.5 cm (31 3/4 x 21 7/8 in.) Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren Photo: Peter Hinschläger © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

George Scholz (1890-1945) Self-Portrait in front of an Advertising Column, 1926.
Oil on canvas: 60 x 77.8 cm (23 5/8 x 30 5/8 in.) Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
Photo: bpk Bildagentur / Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe/Art Resource, NY
© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) Self-Portrait with a Cigarette, 1923. Oil on canvas:
60.2 x 40.3 cm (23 3/4 x 15 7/8 in.) The Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. F. H. Hirschland Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Felix Nussbaum (German,1904–1944) Self-Portrait with Jewish Identity Card, ca. 1943. Oil on canvas: 56 x 49 cm (22 x 19 1/4 in.) Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück, loan from the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung. Photo: Museumsquartier Osnabrück, Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York