Authors: Christopher I. Beckwith
Tags: #History, #General, #Asia, #Europe, #Eastern, #Central Asia
Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (63 page)
76
"In Mongolia, the government had to retreat in 1932 due to armed insurrection, but in 1936 pressure began again and by 1939, the last functioning monasteries were closed down. GandanTegchenling was reopened in 1944” (Christopher Atwood, per. comm., 2007).
77
On forced laicization in Mongolia and neighboring regions, see endnote
96
.
78
Unfortunately, they still cannot compete, though foreign nongovernmental organizations are trying to improve things.
79
Harrison (1966: 47).
80
It is not that artists were unaware of the need for rules. The serial, dodecaphonic, or twelve-tone method of composition developed mainly by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (Schönberg, 1874–1951) prescribes formal rules to be followed in serial compositions. These rules do not, however, derive from the traditional rules, which are ultimately based on nature’s overtone system; they are an explicit rebellion against them and the natural harmony they produce.
81
The much-hyped “Postmodernism” or “Post-Modernism” by no means replaced Modernism. “In the years following World War II the term ‘Post-Modern’ became current, but no coherent ‘Post-Modern’ aesthetic ever emerged” (Teed 1992: 309). Indeed, although in some fields (particularly literature) Postmodernism has taken on other meanings, the rejection of a coherent aesthetic is one of its characteristics in general. It is in large part simply another twist of the mutating virus of Modernism, in that it is ultimately the result of an attempt by some to establish themselves as the new avant-garde in distinction to the “old” avant-garde Modernists.
82
See the extensive discussion of various aspects of this issue by Adorno (1997).
83
The success of rock music throughout society as a whole was paralelled by the revival of Baroque music among the young elite, most of whom also listened to rock and folk music. The strong rhythms and clear melodic lines of Baroque music were often compared to rock. See also endnote 101.
84
Adorno (1997) comments at great length on the shifting focus of graphic art and the relative dominance of the idea of the Ugly—an indispensible prerequisite for the idea of Beauty.
85
Adorno (1997: 61, 62, 65).
86
Botstein (1998: 255).
87
The de facto Modern view is that the artistic works with the highest price in the marketplace are the “greatest” works. Accordingly, the incredibly high prices fetched by some artworks continue to mislead people into thinking they are great works of art.
88
My view of most of Picasso’s opus is undoubtedly unpopular, as many do consider it to retain some aesthetic value; but I believe that whatever such value it may retain, it is a fundamentally historical or academic aesthetic.
Guernica
is a canonical painting—it is perhaps
the
Modern artwork of the academic art canon, and thus certainly important for art history—but that does not mean it is (or was) a great work of art,
as art.
Speaking purely of art per se rather than artists, the works of the American abstract painter Jackson Pollack (1912–1956) are perhaps more quintessentially Modern than those of Picasso, but the latter was much more successful in developing a cult of personality that identified him as
the
great Modern artist.
89
Cf. Adorno (1997: 29–30).
90
Reaction might have resulted in refinement and improvement of what had gone before.
91
Adorno (1997: 30).
92
On the loss of art itself through Modern radicalism, see endnote
97
.
93
On the loss of the connection between poetry and music in European and other Modernized traditions, see endnote
98
.
94
While many perceptive readers noticed the flaws even before the discovery and publication of Ezra Pound’s radical reworking of Eliot’s manuscript, some critics had already noted that “even
The Waste Land
is marred” (Dyson 1968: 627).
95
In view of the massive number of practicing English-language poets, surely the constraints of Modernism explain why none of them have produced great poetry. The same applies to the incredible number of composers.
96
This is true also of his first major work,
The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
(1915), which is superior to
The Waste Land
in many respects
as poetry,
but perhaps even more repulsive aesthetically.
97
The same may be said even of harmonically conservative music, such as the tone poems of Richard Strauss (1864–1949). But Strauss was otherwise different. After having composed much avant-garde art music, culminating in his opera
Elektra,
he decided that European art music was taking a wrong turn; he rejected the Modernist doctrine of “progress” in musical structure, which was already leading to anti-musical Modern academicism, and continued to write great music until his death; cf. endnote
99
.
98
This was taken to its logical extreme in the latter half of the century by the avant-garde composer John Cage, whose most famous work is
433”
(Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds), which consists only of silence. (This is comparable in painting to Kazimir Malevich’s paintings
White on White, Black Square,
and others from the mid-teens of the twentieth century.) Of other Modern approaches, the most successful was Minimalism, typified by the works of musicians such as Philip Glass, who rebelled against Serialism and composed works consisting of a small number of pitches or simple musical phrases drawn out and repeated over and over with minimal change. Note that by “natural harmony” I do not mean traditional European, Asian, or any other particular harmonic system, but simply any harmony based on the natural overtone system.
99
Some scholars consider music to be an exception to the rule, but this does not seem to be accurate; see endnote
100
.
100
Modern music “implicitly encouraged, as a result of its arcane surface, renewed enthusiasm for popular and commercial music among late twentieth-century intellectuals and artists as worthy of high status and critical attention” (Botstein 1998: 259). Botstein’s “arcane surface” is a euphemistic expression designed to draw attention away from the plain-language fact: “music” that violates the natural harmonic system of the overtones will sound harsh or even painful to most people anywhere in the world, for purely natural physical reasons, not because of theory, education, or taste.
101
The audience at the premiere of
The Rite of Spring
was outraged by the crude sexuality of the dancing as well as by the music. Both had been consciously, deliberately designed to shock the audience. On possible influences on Stravinsky’s music, see endnote
101
.
102
Stravinsky adopted Serialism for awhile after the death of Schoenberg, its pioneer, though the latter had openly satirized Stravinsky, calling him Modernsky in his
Drei Satiren für gemischten Chor,
opus 28 (
http://www.schoenberg.at/6_archiv/music/works/op/compositions_op28_texts_e.htm#Seitenanfang
).
103
Danto (2003: 17). Cf. Adorno (1997: 1), “It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident any more, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist.”
104
The market value of the works of some popular artists—notably musicians—is far greater than the most valuable works of any kind by contemporary Modern school artists, who have become increasingly academic. It is also greater than that of most works of pre-Modern art. Some popular musicians, dancers, and others are truly dedicated to their art, and deserve the name “artists". Unfortunately, the lack of elite elements (such as elegance, beauty, and striving for perfection) in most of their work continues to prevent it from rising to the level of “high” Art and finally replacing Modern art, most of which belongs in museums of curiosities.
12
Central Eurasia Reborn
We were young when we rode out on the long journey;
Now it seems those grandchildren of ours are riding horses.
We were few when we rode forth on that hard journey;
Now we’re called a Great Caravan that left tracks in the wastelands.
The tracks remain out in the wastes, in the valleys and mountain passes, and
There are very many heroes left graveless in the desert.
Do not say graveless: In the tamarisk-reddened wilderness, at
Dawn, in the spring, our graves are covered with rose-blossoms.
Our tracks remain, our dreams remain, everything remains, far away, yet
Even if the wind blows, or the sands shift, they will never be covered, our tracks.
And the caravan will never stop along the way, though our horses are very thin;
One way or another these tracks will be found someday, by our grandchildren;
Or, our great-grandchildren.
—Abdurehim Ötkur,
Tracks
1
The Fourth Regional Empire Period
Toward the end of the twentieth century, capitalism spread in China and India and the economies of those imperial states grew very rapidly, though politically very little changed in either one. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the tensions of the Cold War appeared to have eased. The former Russian Soviet Socialist Republic was reorganized as an independent Russian national-imperial state. The other former federal republics also regained their independence, including those in Western Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the former western Pontic Steppe. Suddenly and unexpectedly, much of Central Eurasia was once again independent.
One of the most striking developments of this period was the growth of the European Union in size, unity, and economic strength. By 2007 it included nearly all European states west of Russia, Belarus (Belarus’), and Ukraina (Ukraine, the Ukraine). Though often hampered by the selfish, shortsighted policies of populist politicians, the European Union and the new or reformed imperial states developed politically along with the economic growth in the Eurasian periphery, producing a new imperial world order there. All of the large polities surrounding Central Eurasia—China, India, the European Union, and Russia—grew very fast.
However, Central Eurasia itself was not so fortunate. Although more than half of the major Central Eurasian nations were once again independent, with the continued lack of a unifying Central Eurasian polity, whether a government or an economic-political bloc such as the European Union, weakness, poverty, backwardness, and foreign domination continued. Persian-speaking southern Central Asia (Afghanistan) and Southwestern Asia (Iran and Kurdistan), as well as the Near East and Pakistan, remained dominated by religious and nationalistic tyrannies. The weakness of the entire region contributed greatly to the economic and political weakness of neighboring Western Central Asia—former Soviet Central Asia.
The Russians also unfortunately did not free the remaining Central Eurasian countries under their control—including the Kalmyks, Tuvins, Altaians, Sakha, and Evenkis,
2
and the Chechens in the North Caucasus region. With the recovery of the Russian economy, a new populist autocracy began to develop that once again threatened internal and external critics with violence. At the same time, the Chinese continued their military occupation of the nations of East Turkistan, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet, enforced with the indiscriminate use of terror and violence. Both the Russians and the Chinese contributed directly to the failure of Central Eurasia as a whole to recover economically in this period.
3
