Past and Present No. 7: Wuppertal

 

A recent trip to Germany with a pocketful of ancient postcards produced a few comparisons of things past and present of which this is one. Allied bombing and subsequent reconstruction has obliterated many of the landmarks and street profiles in the Wuppertal area and this example was a rare success – perhaps assisted by the fact that the postcard looks to be of post-war origin. The location is on Tannenbergstrasse, just outside Robert-Daum-Platz station on the much photographed Schwebebahn monorail. The distant view appears much changed but the foreground buildings seem to have survived the last half century or so unscathed. As for the Schwebebahn – it is such a miraculous survivor from a distant age of engineering experimentation that we shall return to it for a more detailed look.

Past and Present No. 6: Charonne

This little exercise in comparison is located in Charonne in north-east Paris, described in loving detail in parisinvisible as the last authentic village in Paris. The church of Saint-Germain de Charonne has retained all its character as a village parish church and almost uniquely in Paris still stands in its own burial ground. The postcard and photograph are separated by a century and apart from the removal of the cast iron vespasienne almost nothing has changed. The church is on rue de Bagnolet, almost opposite the former Gare de Charonne (now a nightclub) served by the long defunct Petite Ceinture orbital railway. The photograph below shows the tracks of la Petite Ceinture disappearing into the gloom of the tunnel in the direction of Ménilmontant.

Sense and Sexibility

Visual culture documentaries are few and far between so it seems churlish to complain, unless of course, Waldemar Januszczak is involved. Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau (BBC4) had its moments (which we shall return to) and was never less than beautifully photographed but the presentation, while avoiding the routine excesses of BBC presenters (foaming at the mouth über-enthusiasm, shouting and staring madly over the shoulders while marching away from the viewer) did little to inform and interpret.

Presenter Stephen Smith was rarely out of shot and tried a little too hard to impress with a poker-faced air of nonchalant flippancy. It would be ungenerous to imply that his commentary was devoid of all interest but the suspicion remained that the over-riding concern was self-promotion, polishing up the brand. Jonathan Meades remains the undisputed master of this territory over which he presides with an armoury of aphoristic excess that Mr Smith could never aspire to.

The idea put forward that Art Nouveau exploded into existence out of a clear blue sky is seriously misleading. Notwithstanding the need for a simple narrative where television is concerned, the links with Seurat and Signac, with Jules Cheret and Toulouse-Lautrec, with Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, with La Revue Blanche deserve acknowledgement. What makes Art Nouveau so fascinating is the speed with which it travelled from city to city via the media of print and photogravure, becoming a trans-national style more rapidly than anything that preceded it. Even as it peaked, below the radar Braque and Picasso were developing Cubism and when its brief time was up, it crashed and burned with equal velocity. And in that sense it seems to be the first art movement of the Twentieth Century, and the rise of the ephemeral rather than, as claimed, the last art movement of the Nineteenth Century.

So – the good bits. Émile Gallée and his struggle to reconcile his socialism with his reliance upon a wealthy clientele for his exquisite ornamental glass made an interesting case-study. There’s a parallel with William Morris although Morris would never share Gallée’s enthusiasm for mass production. The tale of Mary Watts and her extraordinary architectural tribute (the Watts Chapel) to her lugubrious and less talented spouse, the original Man Who Came to Dinner, G F Watts, was a useful corrective. In a similar way Margaret MacDonald was given her due as an equal partner of her husband, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. But the real highlights resulted in the ability of television cameras to explore architectural forms and amplify the hidden detail, especially Olbrich’s Vienna Secession Building. Even better was the cherry-picker aerial examination of the forbidden Palais Stoclet, inside which the co-owners remain insolubly locked in dispute with one another and the Belgian authorities for whom it is the most enormous conservation headache.

Berlin Panorama

It’s easy to assume that vintage postcards can be relied on as a rich and detailed source of documentary evidence of how things used to look. The apparent lack of artifice is highly deceptive when we realise the dark arts of image manipulation go back a very long way. An exercise like this one from Berlin defies analysis – it might be a single image chopped up to provide two new ones or it could be three images in permutation - postcard publishers were experts in extracting maximum value from every image that fell on their desks. The panoramic view shown below may be yet another visual fiction. The colour printed card has featured here before on its own merits and a friend whose mother was a child in pre-war Berlin told me that it was the height of fashion among wealthy families to employ wet-nurses clad in traditional regional costume like these examples here.

The Lost Counties of Merrie England

About a week ago the Environment Agency announced restrictions on the use of water in the south of England. The television news displayed a map of the areas affected – Anglia, Thames, Southern, Veolia Central and Veolia South East. Some of my close relatives live in Veolia Central and they seem to be in complete denial on this point, clinging desperately to the mistaken belief that they live in Hertfordshire or Buckinghamshire. In what used to be known as Kent there is little recognition of the fact that they now reside in Veolia South East. This must be what the Prime Minister means when he speaks of transformational change – the ancient, obsolete and economically unproductive county names can safely be retired and in their place will be the illustrious names of our finest businesses. It’s another win-win, publicity for business (and recognition of their enterprise and achievement) and a handsome contribution to the local exchequer in return – more good news for the hard-pressed taxpayer. This is only a draft of what might result but we have tried to recognise some of the hidden hands that drive our economy whose innate modesty is reflected in their choice of names that entirely conceal their activities. There’s a place for the consultocracy – the companies that selflessly advise our great institutions on how to improve their performance by dismissing their employees, in return for a nominal sum. Some of the more obscure names belong to a new breed of companies (unkindly known to some as outsourcing vultures) bringing the disciplines of the private sector to tasks that used to be carried out at great expense by feather-bedded public sector timeservers with gold-plated pensions. Of course there are massive implications in terms of mapping, signage and postcodes but all too often this country has been held back by the special pleading of vested interests – this is a time for putting economic interests first and foremost going forward. Traditionalists can be expected to resist but their views can be disregarded as victims of false consciousness.

Painted Ladies

A select group of handmaidens of persuasion from the distant days between the wars when illustrators were the first recourse of advertisers. An effective illustrator had to be a master of expression as well as match the face to the client’s wishes and the product. The target audience is female and the images designed to reflect prevailing norms of femininity. The pursuit of the female smoker was especially profitable to tobacco companies for whom this sector of the market remains the largest. While the smoker of State Express still seems to be seeking permission, the Craven “A” smoker exhibits unusual composure and a sense of self-assurance. The most alarming figure is the boarding-school fantasy matron whose command to imbibe your Wincarnis is not to be defied.

Main Street

Traditional small town values - enterprise, thrift, hard work, respect for property and good neighbourliness – all reside on Main Street. Friendly local traders cater to the material needs of the community – the drugstore, lunch counter and soda fountain provide a social hub. The artist-in-residence is Norman Rockwell who left no corner unrecorded in his sentimental taxonomy of Main Street from bootblack to barber-shop. Rockwell’s Arcadian images became deeply embedded in the American collective consciousness and stood for an unlikely world of universal human fellowship, business acumen and unlimited optimism. Main Street would typically present a variety of building types and styles, a refuge from the monotony of suburbia. These postcards have another thing in common – they each feature a branch of F W Woolworth. Almost 600 Woolworth stores were open for business by 1912 and the process of eliminating independent traders from Main Street was already underway.