Postscript: “French Painting and the 19th Century”
In London, Flechhteim collaborated with James Laver, historian and art curator at the Victorian and Albert Museum of London, in the production of French Painting and the 19th Century, a book based on an eponymous art exhibit. Laver dedicated the volume to Flechtheim posthumously in the spring of 1937, and noted that: “The final choice of the illustrations, and much of the editorial work in the book, were undertaken by the late Alfred Flechtheim, whose enthusiasm was a stimulus to all concerned in its production. His recent death has robbed the art world of one of its most vital and lovable personalities, and it is sad to feel that he did not live to see the fruits of the last of his many labours on behalf of the painters of the French nineteenth century.”78
In his book essay, Flechtheim explored the relationship between national cultures and art, aiming to answer the repeatedly asked questions in regard to the exhibit upon which the book was based: “Why French art? Why French art again and again? Why not the art of other countries?”79 He argued that a culture’s genius could, at certain historical junctures, crystallize into great expression through a particular medium, as had happened between British culture and poetry and, he alluded, between French culture and modern art (painting). Furthermore, Flechtheim noted that while great art can originate and can be found within regional and national contexts, only truly monumental art has an emotional reach that transcends into the universal. (In other words, that particular cultures generate output with universal outreach and relevance.) Further, even in an era of chauvinist and exclusionary nationalism that insisted on mythical, pure “origins,” Flechtheim did not disavow the alchemical processes wherein nations could (and should, even) “cross fertilize” one another with ideas that could elevate particularism into universalism. In his view, no other country and culture had so resounding an impact on modernism as France had, to the exclusion of all others. But even so, he noted the impact of English poetry on Delacroix and the role of English writers such as Dickens in inspiring Gustave Doré or Alice in Wonderland in impacting Surréalisme.80
That Flechtheim, as a Jewish refugee in the thick of the Nazi era, expresses an outlook wherein the particular (nationalism) and the universal are perfectly harmonized is truly a tribute to the prowess of 19th century and Weimar liberalism. Even in exile, Flechtheim was neither dissuaded nor cowed by German anti–French sentiment. He continued pointing to the trajectory of French art in Germany, noting that “in Germany, the victory of the French nineteenth century was fought and won in 1911,” and charted both the “resistance” by critics who referred to its advent as “sacrilegious mixture» while praising those who helped to pave its path, including Frederick II. According to Flechtheim, Frederick II was one of the first German collectors of French art. Flechtheim wrote all of this in the shadows, most likely aware (although not of the extent) of the dismantlement, destruction, and rabid narrowness convulsing the German art world.81
In closing his essay, Flechtheim cites the artist J. B. Manson, who declared that art “can be understood with few exceptions by the whole world. It affords a common meeting ground, and transcends all those considerations of Imperialism and politics which are the cause of international strife and ill will.”82 This simple declaration, to our eyes a bit innocent and with somewhat outdated political discourse, acquires a very moving patina when one considers Flechtheim’s personal circumstances and those of European liberalism, both crumbling under the weight of totalitarianism. These closing words were a declaration of personal conviction as well as an offering, a small secular invocation for peace at the precipice of the cataclysm that was about to engulf Europe.
El rinconcito levantino 