MICROSTORY OF ART

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

Dedicated to Historians of Light

Historians of Light

(Picture: DS)

(Picture: DS)

(19.-28.10.2022) ›And in the beginning there was light…‹? Oh, well, this is not a way to begin a history of light. Because Aristotle might ask you: ›And what if there was never a beginning?‹ And with a ›Yes, yes, there was one‹, a modern physicist might join our conversation. But we are not doing a history of light anyway. What I would like to do here, is to gather some perspectives on a history of light, because our history of the blue hour would be embedded in such a history, whose scope, of course, would be infinitely more broad than the one of our more modest undertaking, which is to follow (or to reconstruct, step by step, by way of fragments) the (primarily cultural) history of one particular phase at dusk and dawning, called the blue hour.
Still we have to deal with and to reflect on perspectives on the history of light. And our choice to begin with is with Kant; and I am willing to combine this reflection with a more personal visual reflection – by means of a visual essay, embedding also my own photographs.

(Picture: DS)

Yes, Kant. One of these boring and annoying individuals who do know everything better, as it may seem. But it is not about Kant, Immanuel Kant, (or about such boring individuals) either (and one does know that Kant had also wit). It is about the fact that the Kant-dictionary (Kant-Lexikon; edited by Marcus Willaschek et al., and summing up all of Kant’s thoughts in a beautiful and handy manner) has an article on ›light‹. And I am referring to this not mainly because of Kant’s own thoughts, but rather to highlight that also Kant, the philosopher of enlightenment, was thrown into a particular situation within the history of light, a situation without much clarity (see from the perspective of a modern physicist, perhaps), what light, in physical terms, actually was at all, while at the same time it was serving as a symbol (of philosophical enlightenment, that was also much influenced by Kant). So one might say that Kant, as a philosopher, was heavily influencing the (cultural) history of light (while he was also part of it, being influenced by it), while at the same time, the author of the article on light within the Kant-dictionary (Giovanni Pietro Basile), is to be called a historian of light, due to reflecting on the historical situation within the history of physics and due to summing up Kant’s own contribution (and not on the general cultural history with its metaphors; for this one may consult other articles within the Lexikon).

The dictionary has also an article on Vorstellung, klare/dunkle, and one may note this, taking into account that also the iconography of thinking, of philosophy per se, is to be associated with dusk, and thus with a particular situation of light, in which things may (or may not) become much clearer than at pure daylight. A beautiful example of this particular iconography – a philosopher musing (it is Armen Avanessian) in view of Brooklyn Bridge and in view of Manhattan at dusk – is to be found in a recent documentary inspired by Kant and hosted by Avanessian. (But Aristotle might now intervene by saying that this particular iconography is rather inspired by Hegel’s saying on the flight of the owl of Minerva at dusk… and that this particular ›blue hour‹ was rather grey, thus belonging into the history of grey… But be it as it may – all this is part of the history of light, and thus the subject matter historians of light have to deal with).

(Picture: youtube.com / ARTE)

Perspectives on the History of Light

Compared to the number of historians who have been dedicating their time to the genre of national history, few historians (or better: writers, authors) have been dedicating their time to the history of light. But are nations so much more interesting than light, radiation, color? Has this disproportion something to do with the fact that it might be more easy to establish oneself within the academe with conventional, seemingly more respected subjects. Is this what society at large does expect historians to do – to transcribe, recall, rewrite the history of nations, or usually of one nation, of one’s own nation, or of nations fighting?
And it turns out that among these relatively few historians who have been working on light (or color, or the history of artificial lighting), most historians have actually done social history, and thus taken an inner perspective to national history. And a history of light (which, as far as I can see, does not yet exist) could also be, or also comprise social history: who has (the) light (at night)? Who does decide about lanterns being installed or not? And who decides on to what degree the night is supposed to be lit (today)? One might imagine a synthetic history of light, which would encompass natural and cultural history, the history of the arts, the history of science and technology, but also the history of animals (interacting with natural, but also with artifical light), and it is obvious that such history does not yet exist, and perhaps never will (despite one recent book by Bruce Watson, published in 2016: Light. A Radiant History from Creation to the Quantum Age; it does include one chapter on ›Light and dark on canvas; and despite another book, a volume by Serge Haroche, being dedicated to the history of science).

The attempt I have chose with my history of the blue hour takes into account that it might be impossible to write a history of light. But I am convinced that it is possible to follow one thread (the phenomena of the blue hour through times and spaces), and I am organizing my history from bottom to top: which means that I am offering short essays, for example on the blue hour in 1956 (see my upcoming The Twilight of Thaw), and the sum of these essays (that have their own history of being developed one after another) will in the end result in a structure that allows to sense/to imagine, perhaps: to dream the history of light that only can be imagined. The fragment, being organized in a network of fragments, offers something that allows to imagine a whole that never can really exist as a whole. In other words: we work with examples, with fragments (often taken from the history of the arts as well as from the history of literature), and every fragment allows us to take into account various aspects of the history of light: the aspect of color, for example (the blue hour has much to do also with purple skies, various greys, and all the colors offered by fire, artifical lighting as well as by certain animals), the aspect of technology, the aspect of ecology, the aspect of social history and so on. Certain essays have already been dedicated or will be dedicated to the task of synthesizing, of taking the broader view, or of looking back.

The Current Situation

Currently we face a situation in which it makes sense to stroll around and to take pictures of our situation: it makes sense (to me) to photograph combinations of natural and artificial light, as well as to photograph the energy that is being wasted, for example because parking lots are being lit by neon lights, while daylight is actually shining into these parking lots. From the viewpoint of social history it might be a phenomenon that has to do with rules: parking lots, for reasons of safety, are probably to be lit. But one does fear lack of energy during the coming winter, and it might not be self-evident that every parking lot is to be lit by myriads of neon lights, given such situation.
We might have arrived, within a history of light, at a point, where one does ask also for the aforementioned interaction of nocturnal animals with artificial light (especially at dusk), and one indeed has asked, recently, for the effect the relatively new technology of LED lamps (with a different color spectrum) might have on animals. The history of light, if we take a broader view – and humans can take this broader view – is in the end also about humans’ place in the cosmos: we produce light, and reflect on light (especially during dusk and dawn), and if we embark on a history of light, we look into a deep, deep mirror: it is us – we do produce the light – but much light is also being produced without us, shed on us. From somewhere.

(Picture: DS)

(Picture: DS)

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
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