Benjamin’s Historical Materialism
In the 20th century, a new generation of thinkers began to understand Marx’s ideas in a new way and transform them. Historical materialism is designed to show the true essence of an event, clearing it from the interpretation of bourgeois historiography. That is why historical materialism is also the most important instrument of the struggle, primarily for social consciousness. Thus, history is not a continuous development, but on the contrary, an indispensable break, which is its main content. Benjamin perceives the present not as an eternal transition, but as a stop in time (Benjamin 262). The philosopher is trying to develop a concept of history that would correspond to the rule: any state of emergency experienced by an oppressed class is not an exception, but a natural tradition.
Walter Benjamin discovers that “cultural values are not free from barbarism,” since the legacy they form “owes its existence not only to the efforts of the great geniuses who created it, but also to the forced labor of their nameless contemporaries” (Benjamin 256). The task of the historical materialist, according to Benjamin, is to break the historical continuum, to free the image of the past, to “retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger” (Benjamin 255). For Benjamin, the study of history focuses on truly material things — children’s toys, boxes, markets, squares. Thus, through the description, a study of a material thing, the true history is revealed.
Unlike physical time, which has a uniform duration, historical time has a characteristic inherent only in it — variability. In an era of stagnation and stability, time stretches out so much that one might think it freezes; but in an era of revolutionary events, time shrinks as much as possible, and people experiencing this begin to think that all distant ideals, considered unrealizable, become available. Such a generation has faith — or rather, the expectation that something great is about to happen. The era of accomplishment dates back to the 1920s. Communist ideas were sympathized with in different countries of the world, but it was “red” Moscow that became a pilgrimage for philosophers of the Marxist persuasion. Among others, Walter Benjamin visited the capital of the Soviet state.
Formal analysis of the “Hunt in the Forest” (1470) by Paolo Uccello
“The Hunt in the Forest”, or “The Hunt”, is one of the most famous paintings of the early Italian Renaissance, located in Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Being an exemplar of linear perspective mastery, Uccello expertly employs it to create the feeling of excitement of the chase. At the same time, the depth of the painting is achieved through the highlighted darkness of the forest. The foreground, consisting of the four trees, divides the painting into three similar spaces, thus creating a balance and centering a viewer’s attention towards an undefined vanishing point. The huntsmen’s tools and the dogs’ postures help to achieve this effect.
Uccello’s distinctive feature is the Late Gothic tradition, i.e., emphasis on color and grandeur. Although his paintings did not fall into the traditional Florence Renaissance, he used a color palette inherent to this style: red, green, and now faded accents of gold. The Gothic tradition is recognizable through the similarities in facial proportions and vermillion colors of the stylized patterns. The derogation from Christian traditions towards more secular one is visible through the horses’ trappings: the crescent moons on it symbolize Diana, the goddess of the hunt.
If one looks at this piece of art from Benjamin’s perspective, one could argue that this painting represents a material thing through which historical materialism reveals itself. The time seems to be not as fast and hectic as in revolutionary times, it is still peacefully changing the ideas and visions, yet it precipitates this change. The perspective in an undefined vanishing point leads a viewer into the future which is both unknown and dark yet exciting. Through the little symbols which compound overall rich symbolism of the painting, one can observe real changes in vision and ideology for a Western human being.
Work Cited
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations: Edited and with an Introd. by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. Schocken Books, 1968.