Gradiva in Art History: Archaeology, Cinema, Music
Gradiva, Latin for "the woman who walks", is a Neo-Attica style bas-relief that became renowned as a modern mythical figure in the early 20th century. This bas-relief found during the excavations in Pompeii in the 19th century, is now exhibited in the Chiaramonti Museum in the Vatican. The figure, named as Gradiva because it depicts a walking Pompeian girl, became an icon of literature, art, and psychoanalysis primarily through Sigmund Freud. The German writer Wilhelm Jensen initiated the literary referencing of the Gradiva relief in his pioneering 1903 novella Gradiva, using the artwork as the novel's theme and introducing it to cultural history. The literary text attracted the attention of Freud, who was so interested in archaeology that he created his model of personality structure based on archaeological layers, and thus, Freud wrote a famous essay on the subject. In the 1930s, because of Freud's interpretation, Gradiva became the primary theme of surrealists whose interests were dreams and the unconscious. This theme, which numerous artists have reinterpreted in distinctive ways, has also drawn the attention of the filmmakers. Leos Carax's short film Gradiva (2014) is the most remarkable one. The cinema of Carax who is one of the founders of the Cinéma du look movement following the tradition of the situationist criticism, is about the psychological processes Gradiva signifies and it also examines the fundamental problems of modern people, for instance, identity, personality, individuation, and the self. In so doing, Carax's unique art, which successfully synthesizes the heritage of classical art, particularly rhythmic and plastic arts with the new image forms, also relates to the concepts such as Richard Wagner's gesamtkuntswerk and Guy Debord's détournement. This study discusses what Gradiva, an important figure in terms of self and identity relations, symbolizes for art history, what meanings it takes, and how it mirrors the search for the self as a psychological image, particularly in the context of Leos Carax cinema.
Sanat Tarihinde Gradiva: Arkeoloji, Sinema, Müzik
20. yüzyılın başında modern bir mitik figür olarak ün kazanan Gradiva, Latince "yürüyen kadın" anlamında, Neo-Attika üslubunda bir rölyeftir. 19. yüzyılda Pompei'deki arkeolojik kazılarda bulunan ve yürüyen Pompeili bir kızı tasvir ettiği için Gradiva adını alan bu alçak kabartma, edebiyat, sanat ve Sigmund Freud'un ele almasıyla bir psikanaliz ikonu hâline gelmiştir. Günümüzde Vatikan, Chiaramonti Müzesi koleksiyonunda sergilenen Gradiva rölyefini, yazınsal bir izlek olarak kullanıp literatüre ilk kazandıran, Alman yazar Wilhelm Jensen'dir. Jensen'in 1903'de kaleme aldığı Gradiva isimli kısa romanı, kişilik örgütlenmesi modelini arkeolojik tabakalardan ilhamla oluşturacak kadar arkeolojiyle yakından ilgilenen Freud'un dikkatini celbetmiştir ve böylece Freud, bu konudaki ünlü makalesini kaleme almıştır. 1930'larda, Freud'un yorumu ile Gradiva, bilinçdışı ve rüyalarla yakından ilgilenen sürrealistlerin başlıca teması ve ilham kaynağı olmuştur. Birçok sanatçının kendi tarzında yeniden yorumladığı bu tema, sinemacıların da ilgisini çekmiştir. Leos Carax'ın Gradiva adlı kısa filmi (2014), bunlardan en dikkate şayan olanıdır. Sitüasyonist eleştiri geleneğini takip eden Cinéma du look hareketinin kurucularından olan Carax'ın sineması zaten Gradiva'nın işaret ettiği psikolojik süreçleri konu edinen; kimlik, kişilik, bireyleşme, kendilik gibi modern insanın esaslı problemlerini irdeleyen bir sinemadır. Bunu yaparken, ritmik ve plastik sanatlar başta olmak üzere klasik sanatın mirasını yeni imaj formlarıyla başarıyla sentezleyen Carax'ın özgün sanatı, bu niteliğiyle Richard Wagner'in gesamtkuntswerk ve Guy Debord'un détournement kavramlarıyla da bağlantılıdır. Bu çalışmada, kendilik ve kimlik ilişkileri açısından önemli bir figür olan Gradiva'nın sanat tarihinde ne ifade ettiği, hangi anlamlara büründüğü, psikolojik bir imge olarak kendilik arayışına nasıl bir ayna tuttuğu, özellikle Leos Carax sineması çerçevesinde ele alınmıştır.
Gradiva, meaning "the woman who walks" in Latin, is a Neo-Attica style bas-relief that became renowned as a modern mythical figure in the early 20th century. This bas-relief, found in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii near Naples, one of the most significant centers of the archaeological excavations accelerated in the 19th century such as Crete, Troy, and Egypt, is now exhibited in the Chiaramonti Museum in the Vatican. The figure, named as Gradiva because it depicts a Pompeian girl walking with her skirts raised, became the icon of literature, art, and psychoanalysis through Sigmund Freud. The German writer Wilhelm Jensen was the first person to use Gradiva relief as a literary theme for his pioneering 1903 novella Gradiva and to introduce the artwork to cultural history. Jensen's text attracted the attention of Freud, who was so fascinated with archaeology that he created his model of personality structure based on archaeological layers, and subsequently, Freud wrote a famous essay on the subject in 1907 titled Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensens "Gradiva" (Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva). Because of the narrative of Jensen's novella open to psychological interpretation, Freud postulated his famous thesis that traumatic childhood experiences transfigure as adult dreams and cause neurotic personality structuring. Such neuroses can be cured through psychoanalysis, and the blockages between the past and the present can be removed. The widespread echoes of Gradiva and Freud's thesis are not surprising when the dominant themes of modern art and cinema are contemplated; for instance, the search for the self, the identity issue, individuation, the other, alienation, and loneliness. Gradiva's construal in such a manner intensely affected the surrealists, who represented the most influential avant-garde intellectuals at the turn of the 20th century. The surrealists were particularly interested in the unconscious and dreams in 1930s, and the female figure of Gradiva, replete with erotic connotations, became a leading source of inspiration for them. Reinterpreted by many artists such as Salvador Dalí and André Masson, Gradiva also became the name given to the art gallery André Breton opened in Paris in 1937.
Inevitably, Gradiva's long walk through the history and art encompassed cinema, one of the most powerful art branches of the 20th century. Leos Carax's 2014 short film Gradiva is one of the most striking cinematic expositions on the subject. Carax's film offers an original perspective on the present-day problems of artists, works of art, art receivers, and viewers. After all, Carax's cinema, which is already in pursuit of a new perspective and gaze, is a unique in its production of new images filled with cultural, social and political connotations within the framework of the search for human's genuine identity, from Boy Meets Girl, his first feature film in 1984 to Annette in 2021. Being one of the founders of the Cinéma du look movement, which adopts the situationist tradition of criticism and employs avant-garde methods such as détournement, it helps to elucidate his cinema and illuminate the kind of gaze he seeks.
Carax's proximity to all classical and modern branches of art as a native successor of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) and his successful use of the tools of rhythmic and plastic arts have marked him as an art-historical personality and granted intellectual merit to his cinema. Such grounding also enables to analyze his films in terms of Richard Wagner's concept of gesamtkuntswerk. Contextually, Carax's use of music must be emphasized as an exemplar: His two-minute short film Gradiva opens with Ludwig van Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (The Great Fugue), a controversial work in the history of classical music. Beethoven composed the fugue late in life and the music was deemed incomprehensible during his time and much critiqued. However, it regained its status as a pioneering and revolutionary work at the begining of the 20th century. Derived from the Italian word fuga meaning 'escape', the fugue denotes a method of composition in which discrete motifs follow each other. The Italian ricercare, an early form of the fugue, also signifies 'seeking'. Given the continuous cycle of metaphorical seeking and escape, it is remarkable that Carax begins his two minutes long but rich-in-meaning film Gradiva with the Great Fugue. Avant-garde music personalities such as David Bowie and Sparks also form part of Carax's cinematic universe. The outstanding collaboration between Sparks and Carax produced Annette, a candidate for the stature of the most extraordinary French musical film after Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1963). The 2021 production Annette is a special cinematic event with references to two cult films of cinema history, La Piscine (1969) and Raging Bull (1980) in addition to its musical and multi-layered dramatic background.
The figure of Gradiva, a notable symbol of psychology and art, indicates the dilemmas faced by the 20th century modern individual who vacillated between identity and personality (and self), as well as the self and the other. In other respects, it draws attention to the extensive range of impact of archaeology and archetypes in the collective unconscious. In recommending inquiry into the nature of memories and dreams, the Gradiva narrative essentially represents an act of self-knowledge. Michel Foucault states that the source of this act of knowing (gnothi seauton/know thyself), which is crucial to ancient thought, is the principle of take care of yourself (epimelesthai seautou), but this fact is unfortunately forgotten. The principle has become a cliché and lost its true transformative-recuperative meaning after becoming a fixed daily platitude: Take care of yourself! It is possible that Gradiva's highly meaningful gesture of carefully lifting her skirt and taking care of herself reminds the modern humanity of this knowledge again. Thus, art's attribute of presenting and introducing the self to a person as a mirror will once more be actualized. Based on all these facts, in this study, what Gradiva, an important figure for the self and identity relations, symbolizes for art history, what meanings it takes, how it mirrors the search for the self as a psychological image, are discussed especially in the context of Leos Carax cinema.
