THE PETITES-BOURGEOISIES AS HEROES OF MODERNITY
The avant-garde artists conveyed in their works the view that modernity was not characterised by a class system and control, but by mixture, ambiguity and transgression. The petites-bourgeoisies embodied, if only for a fleeting moment in history, the concepts of the avant-garde. Ironically, once these subjects became an established part of the bourgeoisie, they were no longer available as heroes of modern life.—Diana Guber
Édouard Manet, “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère,” 1882. Oil on canvas. The Courtauld Gallery in London, UK.
Liminality: Musing on the Function of Art Museums
Cultural anthropologists have discovered that every culture, western or non-western, demonstrates some symbolic attempt to challenge the irreversibility of time. The ubiquitous themes of rebirth, rejuvenation, and the spiritual renewal of the past consistently negate the fact of death by symbolising an illusion of time and affirming the perpetuation of life with repeating cycles of seasons and generations. Ritual usually involves an aspect of performance, taking place on a specific site designed for the enactment or re-enactment of a myth. The Swedish writer Goran Schildt has emphasized that museums are settings in which we seek a state of “detached, timeless and exalted” contemplation that “grants us a kind of release from life’s struggle… and captivity in our own ego.” Art museums therefore serve as ritual sites, in which visitors strive to resuscitate profoundly insightful glimpses into the past through splendid symbolic representations. —Diana Guber, “Liminality: Musing on the Function of Art Museums,” 2016.
Duccio di Buoninsegna, “Maestà (Madonna with Angels and Saints),” 1308-1311. Tempera and gold leaf on wood panel. Altarpiece at Siena Cathedral.