A Picturesque Stroll around "Clara-Clara"
Author(s): Yve-Alain Bois and John Shepley
Source: October, Vol. 29 (Summer, 1984), pp. 32-62
Published by: The MIT Press
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A Picturesque Stroll
around Clara-Clara*
YVE-ALAIN
BOIS
translatedby JOHN SHEPLEY
"When Smithson went to see Shift,"Serra tells us, "he spoke of its picturesque quality, and I wasn't sure what he was talkingabout" (p. 181).' This incomprehensionis quite comprehensible,at least ifone sticksto earlydefinitions
of the picturesque, all of which go back to the etymologicaloriginof thisword,
that is to say, the sphere of painting. For the pictorialis one of the qualities that
Serra would like to banish completely fromhis sculpture. In speaking of his
firstPropPieces,he criticizesthemforretainingpictorialconcerns(the use of the
wall as background), since such a reminderdetractsfromtheirmeaning (which
is prescribedby the way theyare made) (p. 142). In speaking of the numerous
works created by laying out materials on the floor,works that appeared in the
late 1960s as a criticismof minimalism, in which he himselfhad participated,
Serra severelyjudges theirdebt to paintingin thisrespect:"Lateral extensionin
this case allows sculptureto be viewed pictorially- that is, as if the floorwere
the canvas plane. It is no coincidence that most earth worksare photographed
fromthe air" (p. 16). Which takes us back to Smithson: "What most people
know of Smithson'sSpiralJetty,forexample, is an image shot froma helicopter.
When you actually see the work, it has none of that purely graphic character.
... But ifyou reduce sculptureto the flatplane of the photograph ... [y]ou're
denying the temporal experience of the work. You're not only reducing the
scale forthe purposes of consumption,but you're denysculptureto a different
of
the work"(p. 170). Far be it fromSerra, of course, to
the
real
content
ing
Smithson
had
that
approved such a reductionof his work to the planisuggest
*
This essay was firstpublished as "Promenade
autourde Clara-Clara," in the Richard
pittoresque
Serracatalogue published by Centre Georges Pompidou, 1983. The author thanks Mirka Beneg,
Jacques Lucan, Monique Mosser, Baldine Saint-Girons, and Bruno Reichlin forthe advice and
informationthat they so generously gave.
1.
Most of the quotations from Serra given here are taken from the collection of his texts
and interviewspublished in 1980 by the Hudson River Museum (Richard Serra:Interviews,
Etc.
1970-1980). Reference will be made to it in the text by a simple page number; note numbers
will only appear fortexts by Serra later than the publication of this collection, or fortexts other
than his.
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RichardSerra.Clara-Clara. 1983.
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OCTOBER
34
metricsurfaceof a snapshot (we know thathe foundthe movie camera, because
it involves motion, to be a more suitable means forconveyingthe SpiralJetty),
but this animositytoward aerial photographyplunges us into the veryheart of
the experience of the picturesque. Why this animosity?Because aerial photographyproduces a "Gestalt reading"of the operation, and reconstructsthe work
as the indifferent
realization of a compositional a priori(Serra goes so far as to
is
a
kind
of professionaldistortionpeculiar to photography:"Most
that
it
say
take
their
cues fromadvertising,where the priorityis high image
photographs
contentforan easy Gestaltreading"[p. 170]). Now all of Serra'soeuvre signals a
desire to escape fromthe theoryof "good form"(and fromthe opposition, on
which it plays, between figureand background). Notice what he says about the
RotaryArc: no one who circumnavigatesthis sculpture,whetheron footor by
car, "can ascribe the multiplicityof views to a Gestalt reading of the Arc. Its
formremains ambiguous, indeterminable,unknowable as an entity"(p. 161).
The multiplicityof views is what is destroyedby aerial photography(a theoofviews is the question
logical pointof view par excellence), and the multiplicity
opened by the picturesque, its knot of contradiction.
"I wasn'tsure what he was talkingabout. He wasn't talkingabout the form
of the work. But I guess he meant thatone experiencedthe landscape as picturesque throughthe work"(p. 181). Serra's interpretationof Smithson'sremarks
is based on one of the commonplaces of the theoryof the picturesque garden:
not to forcenature, but to reveal the "capacities" of the site, while magnifying
theirvarietyand singularity.This is exactlywhat Serra does: "The site is redefined not re-presented.. .. The placement of all structuralelements in the
open fielddraws the viewer'sattentionto the topographyofthe landscape as the
landscape is walked."2 As early as Shift,and then in connection with all his
landscape sculptures, Serra has insisted on the discovery by the spectator,
while walking within the sculpture, of the formlessnature of the terrain: the
sculptures"pointto the indeterminacyof the landscape. The sculpturalelements
act as barometersforreading the landscape." 3 Or again: "The dialecticofwalking and lookingintothe landscape establishesthe sculpturalexperience"(p. 72).
I believe, however,thatthereis more than thatin Smithson'sremark,and
that this remark clarifiesall of Serra's work since 1970, that is, ever since he
took an interest,startingwith a trip to Japan where forsix weeks he admired
the Zen gardens of Myoshin-ji, in deambulatory space and peripateticvision.
All of Serra's sculpture,meaning not only his landscape sculptures,but also the
sculptureserected in an urban settingand those he executes in an architectural
interior.Indeed, althoughSerra himselfmakes a veryclear distinctionbetween
these three types of sculpture- noting, for example, that while in his urban
No. 19, Cambridge,The M.I.T.
RichardSerra,"NotesfromSightPointRoad," Perspecta
2.
Press, 1982,p. 180.
RichardSerra and PeterEisenman,"Interview,"
3.
April1983,p. 16.
Skyline,
RichardSerra.Shift. 1970-72.
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36
OCTOBER
worksthe internalstructurerespondsto externalconditions,as in his landscape
works,"ultimatelythe attentionis refocusedon the sculptureitself' (p. 181)all his workis based on the destructionof notionsof identityand causality, and
all of it can be read as an extension of what Smithson says about the picturesque: "The picturesque, far frombeing an inner movement of the mind, is
based on real land; it precedes the mind in its material externalexistence. We
cannot take a one-sided view of the landscape withinthis dialectic. A park can
but ratheras a process of ongoing relano longer be seen as 'a thing-in-itself,'
tionships existing in a physical region-the park becomes a 'thing-for-us.'"'4
Despite what he says about it, all of Serra's workis based on the deconstruction
of such a notion as "sculptureitself."This is how Rosalind Krauss describesthe
relations between Serra's oeuvre and Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology
ofPerception;5in order to describe in a differentway the "identitycrisis"operating in
Serra's sculpture,I should like to stickto the notion of the picturesque, which,
I might add, could only have been developed (in the eighteenthcentury,in
England) afterthe critique of the relation of causality formulatedby Hume,
that forefatherof modern phenomenology.
What does Smithson say? That the picturesque park is not the transcription on the land of a compositionalpatternpreviouslyfixedin the mind, thatits
effectscannot be determineda priori,that it presupposes a stroller,someone
who trustsmore in the real movementof his legs than in the fictivemovement
of his gaze. This notion would seem to contradictthe pictorialoriginofthe picturesque, as set forthby a large number of theoreticaland practical treatises
(the garden conceived as a pictureseenfromthe house or as a sequence of small
arranged along the path where one strolls). Even further,it
views--pausesa
break with pictorialismis put in place, most often
that
fundamental
implies
unbeknown to its theoreticians,and in my opinion, Serra's art, more than two
centurieslater, furnishesthe most strikingmanifestationof this break.
How does Serra work?
The site determineshow I think about what I am going to build,
whetherit be an urban or landscape site, a room or other architectural enclosure. Some works are realized from their inception to
theircompletion totallyat the site. Other pieces are worked out in
the studio. Having a definitenotion of the actual site, I experiment
with steel models in a large sandbox. The sand, functioningas a
ground plane or as a surrogate elevation, enables me to shiftthe
building elementsso as to understand theirsculpturalcapacity. The
Robert Smithson, "Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape," in The Writ4.
ingsofRobertSmithson,ed. Nancy Holt, New York, New York University Press, 1979, p. 119.
5.
Rosalind Krauss, "Abaisser, etendre, contracter,comprimer,tourner: regarderl'oeuvre de
Richard Serra," RichardSerra,Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1983, pp. 29-35.
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
37
building method is based on hand manipulation. A continuous
hands-on procedure both in the studio and at the site, using fullscale mock-ups, models, etc., allows me to perceive structuresI
could not imagine.6
Or again: "I never make sketchesor drawings forsculptures.I don't workfrom
an a priori concept or image" (p. 146).
In short,Serradoesnotstartwitha plan, he does not draw on a sheet ofpaper
the geometricfigureto be delineated by the aerial view of his sculpture. This
does not mean that there are no drawings: they are done later (the KrollerMiiller museum owns a very "pictorial"drawing done by Serra fromSpin Out
and afterSpin Outhad been executed). It does not mean thatthereare no plans:
these are the business of the engineers and of the firmthat will carry out the
material execution of the sculpture;theyare the translation,a posteriori
and into
theirown codes, of the elevation projected by Serra: "When you are building a
100-tonpiece [the approximateweightof the piece commissionedby the Centre
Georges Pompidou], you have to meet codes" (p. 121). Serra does not start
fromthe plan, but ratherfromthe elevation: "Even in pieces low to the ground,
I am interestedin the specificityof elevation" (p. 50). Now this is precisely
where Serra comes togetherwith the theoryof the picturesque and where in a
certain sense his work is closer to it than Smithson's(whose drawings are often
ground plans of his sculptures). For the picturesque is above all a struggle
against the reduction"of all terrainsto the flatnessof a sheet of paper."7
It may seem triteto say that a fundamentalshift(fromplan to elevation)
should appear in an art of gardens based, at least in the beginning,on the imitation of the painting of Claude Lorrain or Salvatore Rosa. Indeed, painting,
at least until recently,has never confrontedthe spectatoras a horizontalplane8
(one might suppose that an art wishing to imitate painting, the verticalityof
painting,would stressthe elevation). It was not, however, somethingthathappened by itself,and one only findsit expressed ratherlate in the theoryof picturesque gardens. It was the Marquis de Girardin, patron of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, who firstformulatedit directly:"What has hithertomost retarded
the progressof taste, in buildings as well as in gardens, is the bad practice of
catching the effectof the picture in the ground plan instead of catching the
ground plan in the effectof the picture."9The artificialarrangementsof French
6.
Serra, "Notes from Sight Point Road," p. 174.
7.
despaysages(1777), Editions du Champ urbain,
Ren&-Louis de Girardin, De la composition
1979, p. 19.
8.
The rupture performed,according to Leo Steinberg, by Rauschenberg (passage fromthe
vertical plane of the painting to the horizontal plane of the "flatbed") preciselymatches the one I
analyze here, throughthe picturesque, as performedby Serra in the fieldof sculpture. As I will
shortlydo, Steinberg analyzes this pictorial turningpoint in Rauschenberg as a response to the
modernisttheoriesof Clement Greenberg. Cf. Leo Steinberg, OtherCriteria,Oxford, Oxford UniversityPress, 1972, pp. 82-91.
9.
Girardin, p. 83.
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38
OCTOBER
gardens are condemned because theyproduce the effect"ofa geometricplan, a
dessert tray, or a sheet of cut-outs,"10as is symmetrybecause it "is probably
born of laziness and vanity. Of vanityin thatone has claimed to subject nature
to one's house, instead of subjecting one's house to nature; and of laziness in
that one has been satisfiedto work only on paper, which tolerateseverything,
in order to spare oneself the trouble of seeing and carefullycontrivingon the
terrain,which toleratesonly what suits it.""
But the point is that Girardin is not contentwiththese declarations of intention: he advises apprentice landscape gardeners to place on the site itself
full-sizedmodels of the various elements that theywish to include in it, "poles
stretchedwith white cloth" forthe masses of plants and facades of buildings,
and whitecloth spread on the ground to representsurfacesofwater,"according
to the outlines, extent,and position needed to produce the same effectin nature
as in your picture."12 In speaking of the architectureof constructions(but this
also applies to the other elements), Girardin adds: "In this way, long before
building, you will be able to contriveand guarantee the success of your constructionsin relationto the various points where theyought to appear, and in
relationto theirform,theirelevation. .. ; by thismeans you will be able to take
into consideration all theirrelations and theirharmony with the surrounding
objects."'3
Of course, thereis no question here of reducing Serra's art to the contrivances of an eighteenth-century
gentleman farmer,since Girardin's whole voa
that
he
to
shows
clung
cabulary
scenographicview of the role of thelandscape
gardener(forhim, grovesof treesare stage flats,the surroundingcountrysidea
backdrop). And, of course, no work by Serra seeks to create a picture(the idea
of representationis foreignto him). But even thoughGirardin is contentwitha
pictorial conception of the picturesque (his book is entitledDe la composition
despaysages),and even thoughthe elevation of Girardin'sconstructionsactually
remains an illusion, his recommendationto use full-sizedmodels testifiesto a
veryearlyunderstandingofwhat distinguishessize fromscale, and thisdistinction lies at the heart of Serra's interestin the "specificityof elevation."
We have long been aware of Serra's aversion forthe monumentalworksof
most contemporarysculptors,as well as his wish to make a sharp distinction
between his own work and the production of monuments: "When we look at
these pieces, are we asked to give any credence to the notion of a monument?
They do not relate to the historyof monuments. They do not memorialize anything"(p. 178); finally,we know he is irritatedby architectswho take only a
utilitarian interestin sculpture (to adorn their buildings, to add something
10.
11.
12.
13.
Ibid.,p. 17.
Ibid.,p. 19.
Ibid.,p. 31.
Ibid.
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
39
soulfulto theircentral banks and multinationalheadquarters). Serra calls this
mediocre urban art, which has invaded our old as well as our modern cities,
"piazza art." That he has no fondnessforarchitectsis certainlyhis right:he has
oftenhad a bone to pick with them, including one of the Beaubourg architects
who suppressedhis work.'4 But thechiefreproachhe directsat themdeservesto
be noted, forit is the same one thathe directsat othercreatorsof monuments,
whetherthey be Moore, Calder, or Noguchi (their works do not have scale,
since scale depends on context; only the size of these sculptures is imposing:
they are small models enlarged). "Architectssufferfromthe same studio syndrome. They work out of their offices,terrace the landscape and place their
building into the carved-out site. As a result the studio-designed then siteadjusted buildings look like blown-up cardboard models."'5 One can imagine
the laughterand disdain of architectsfora sculptorwho presumes to tell them
that they should make full-sizedmodels of their buildings. There was a time
when Mondrian, who cared much more forthe process than forthe plan, wondered how architectscould avoid doing so ("how can theysolve each new problem a priori?"'16). One more differencebetween our period and Mondrian's lies
in the fact that such a propositionwould not then have seemed incongruous,
and that it was even carried out directlyby architects:in 1912, Mies van der
Rohe, on the site chosen in The Hague, built a full-sizedmodel (in wood and
canvas) fromhis designs fora large villa forMme Kraller-Miiller; and in Paris
in 1922, before Mondrian's very eyes a few months afterhe had writtenhis
text, Mallet-Stevens took the opportunityto erect at the Salon d'Automne at
full scale a design foran "Aero-Club Pavilion." One can only say that Serra's
sculpture, among other things,is a reminderto architects(a "rappelaiMM. les
in Le Corbusier's words) of some forgottentruths.The relationship
architectes,"
between architectureand Serra's sculpture is one of conflict:he says of his
BerlinBlockfor CharlieChaplin,placed in Mies van der Rohe's National Galerie
in Berlin, that it was all done "so that it would contradict the architecture"
(p. 127). Furthermore,ever since his firstwritings,he has insistedon the need
to distinguishsculptural problems fromarchitecturalones (pp. 16, 55, 128).
And when, having enumerated different
qualities of space operatingin a number of his sculptures,he is asked where he has found "these concepts of space"
(perceptive, behaviorist, psychological, cognitive, etc.), Serra replies: "They
were the result of workingthroughvarious sculptural problems. Some of my
concerns may be related to architectonicprinciples- geometry,engineering,
the use of lightto definea volume - but the pieces themselveshave no utilitar14.
On this point, see Serra's interviewwith Douglas Crimp, Interviews,
Etc., pp. 172-173.
15.
Serra and Eisenman, p. 15.
Piet Mondrian, "De realiseeringvan het neo-plasticismein verre toekomsten in de huidige
16.
architectuur,"2nd part, De Stifl,vol. V, no. 5 (May 1922), p. 67. On this point and what it implies in Mondrian's thought,see Yve-Alain Bois, "Du projet au proces," in L'Atelierde Mondrian,
Paris, Editions Macula, 1982, pp. 34-35.
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40
OCTOBER
ian or pragmatic value" (p. 73). In this sentence I read a denial. Not only be- does not always limit itselfto its "utilitarian
cause architecture- fortunately
or pragmaticvalue," but especiallybecause thearchitectonicprinciplesto which
Serra refershave nothing,or verylittle,to do withhis work(he even acknowledges his surprise,a fewpages earlier in this same interview,at the role played
by lightinside SightPointin Amsterdam[p. 66]). Serra, therefore,does notwish
to be mistakenforan architect.Which does not keep his sculpturefrombeing a
lesson in architecture,or a criticismof architecture- somethingthat he ended
by admittingwhen an architect,to be exact, put him on the defensive:
When sculpture . . . leaves the gallery or museum to occupy the
same space and place as architecture,when it redefinesthe space and
place in termsof sculpturalnecessities, architectsbecome annoyed.
Not only is theirconcept of space being changed, but for the most
part it is being criticized. The criticismcan come into effectonly
when architecturalscale, methods, materialsand procedures are being used. Comparisons are provoked. Every language has a structure about which nothingcritical in that language can be said. To
criticizea language, theremust be a second language available dealing with the structureof the firstbut possessing a new structure."7
This is exactlythe position in which Serra's sculpturefindsitselfin the presence
of modern architecture:the formermaintains a connection that allows it to
criticizethe latter. Both have a common denominatorthatallows themto communicate.
What is thiscommon element? Serra doesn't say, althoughall his remarks
about his workspeak of it implicitly:thiselementis the play of parallax. "Parallax, fromGreek parallaxis,'change,' displacement of the apparent position of a
body, due to a change of position of the observer"(Petit Robert dictionary).
Serra uses the word only once (about Spin Out,forBob Smithson)(p. 36), but all
his descriptionstake it into account. See, forexample, how SightPointseems at
first"to fallrightto left,make an X, and straightenitselfout to a truncatedpyramid. That would occur threetimes as you walked around" (p. 66). Or again,
see how the upper edge of the RotaryArcseems sometimesto curve toward the
sky, sometimes toward the ground, how its concavity is curtailed before the
moving spectatordiscoversa convexitywhose end he cannot see, how thisconvexityis then flattenedto the point of becoming a barely rounded wall, until
this regularityis suddenly broken and in some way turned inside out like a
glove when the spectatorascends a flightof steps (pp. 155-161). Other examples could be given; I preferforthe moment to go back to architecture.
Peter Collins sees the new interest
In Changing
Ideals inModernArchitecture,
in parallax, in the middle of the eighteenthcentury,as one of the prime sources
17.
Serra and Eisenman, p. 15.
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
41
forthe establishmentof modern architecturalspace. People were interestedat
firstin the illusionisticeffectsof parallax, hence the proliferationof large mirrorsin Rococo salons, and later in architecturaleffectsthemselves:these effects
did not occur frequentlyin existing architecture("Before the mid-eighteenth
century,the interiorof a building was essentiallya kind of box-likeenclosure,"
Collins notes'8), but
theywere invariablyto be seen in ruins, and this may be one of the
reasons why ruins became so popular in that period. Robert Wood,
when visitingthe ruins of Palmyra in 1751, was as much impressed
by theiraestheticas by theirarchaeological qualities, and remarked
that "so great a number of Corinthian columns, mixed with so little
wall or solid building, affordeda most romanticvarietyof prospect."
. . The fondnessat thistime formultiplyingfree-standingClassical
colonnades inside buildings, as well as outside buildings, may also
be explained by the new delight in parallax. Boullee's most grandiose projects were to show many variations on this theme, but it had
been exploited as early as 1757 by Soufflotin his greatchurchof Ste.
Genevieve. . . . Soufflothad noticed that in the cathedral of NotreDame, "the spectator,as he advances, and as he moves away, distinguishes in the distance a thousand objects, at one moment found, at
him delightfulspectacles."'9 He therefore
anotherlost again, offering
the
same
effectinside of Ste. Genevieve.20
to
attempted produce
And in a text that Collins mentions without quoting, Soufflot'ssuccessor as
master builder at Sainte-Genevieve was to say that the chiefobject of that architect"in building his church, was to combine in one of the most beautiful
formsthe lightness of constructionof Gothic buildings with the purity and
magnificenceof Greek architecture."'21
At firstsight the interestof a neoclassical architectin Gothic buildings
would seem impossiblyremote fromour subject. The very strangenessof this
interest,however, leads directlyto it, since, as Collins notes, it is the resultof
thisnew taste forparallax thatdevelops in thisperiod. Collins's intuitionis confirmedby a supplementaryelement: on September 6, 1764, on the occasion of
the laying of the firststone forSainte-Genevieve,Julien David Leroy, famous
18.
Peter Collins, ChangingIdeals in Moden Architecture,
Montreal, McGill-Queen's University
Press, 1965, p. 26.
19. Jacques-Germain Soufflot,"Memoire sur l'architecture gothique" (1741), reprinted in
Michael Petzet, Soufflots
Sainte-Genevieve
und derfranzisischeKirchenbaudes 18. Jahrhunderts,
Berlin,
1961, p. 138.
Peter Collins, pp. 27-28.
20.
'
21.
M. le Comte de la Billarderie d'Angiviller" (1780), reprinted in
Brebion, "Memoire
Petzet, p. 147. This synthesisof Greek and Gothic was to be exactly the program expounded by
Boulle in his famous Essai sur l'art.
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42
OCTOBER
for Les ruinesdesplus beauxmonuments
de la Grece,a work he had published in
1758 and which marked the beginningof the Greek revival, presenteda small
pamphlet to the king. Now this little book, which ends with a panegyric on
Soufflot'sfuturechurch,is probablythe firstarchitecturaltreatisethat"relieson
an experimentalknowledgeof movementin space - thatmetaphysical
partofarchias Leroy calls it in his letters."22The hymnto the varied effectsproduced
tecture,
by a peristyleis even more vibrantin thispamphlet than in his book on ruins,
where Leroy had already addressed the question. But I would ratherquote a
less effusivepassage in which Leroy, in orderto explain his rejectionof pilasters
and engaged columns,thena greatsubjectofdebate among Frencharchitectural
theoreticians,brings up the art of gardens. His demonstrationis very simple:
If you walk in a garden, at some distance from& along a row of regularlyplanted trees,all of whose trunkstouch a wall pierced witharcades [as engaged columns do], the position of the treeswithrespect
to these arcades will only seem to you to change veryimperceptibly,
& your soul will experience no new sensation. ... But ifthis row of
trees stands away fromthe wall [like a peristyle],while you walk in
the same way as before,you will enjoy a new spectacle, because the
different
spaces in the wall will seem successivelyto be blocked up by
the trees with every step you take.
And Leroy's description becomes surprisinglyprecise--as precise as the account given by Serra ofone of the possible readings ofthe Rotary
Arc- forone of
the routeshe suggestsin his promenade: "You will soon see the treesdivide the
arcades into two equal parts, and a momentlater cut them unequally, or leave
thementirelyexposed & conceal only theirintervals;finally,ifyou approach or
move away fromthese trees, the wall will seem to you to rise up to where their
branches begin, or cut theirtrunksat verydifferent
heights."In short,despite
the regular arrangementin both cases of tree and wall, "thefirstof the decorations will seem immobile, while the other,on the contrary,being in some way
enlivened by the movement of the spectator, will show him a series of much
varied views, which will resultfromthe endless combinationthathe obtains of
the simple objects that produce these views."23
Of course, the garden described by Leroy has nothingpicturesque about
it; what is picturesque is the importanceaccorded to the movementof the spectator, since it correspondsto that fundamentalrule that Uvedale Price, one of
the theoreticianscited by Smithson, called "intricacy."Indeed, for Price, the
22.
Richard Etlin, "Grandeur et decadence d'un module: 1'eglise Sainte-Genevieve et les
etl'architecture
deslumieres,
proceedchangements de valeur esthetique au XVIIIe sibcle,"in Soufflot
Archiings of a conferenceheld in Lyons in 1980, supplement to nos. 6-7 of Cahiersde la Recherche
tecturale,
1980, p. 30. I am wholly indebted to this text for having put me on Leroy's track.
a
etdesformes
23. Julien David Leroy, Histoirede la disposition
ontdonnees
que les chritiens
diffrentes
le Grand,jusqu'& nous,Paris, 1764, pp. 56-57.
leurstemples,depuisle rignede Constantin
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
43
firstso-called English gardens were not picturesque enough, fortheyneglected
... [and] intri"two of the most fruitfulsources of human pleasures: . . . variety
a
distinct
from
is
so
connected
and blended
variety,
cacy, quality which, though
withit thatone can hardlyexist withoutthe other. Accordingto the idea I have
formedof it," Price adds, "intricacyin landscape mightbe defined,that disposition of objects which, by a partial and uncertain concealment, excites and
nourishes curiosity."24
To be sure, as Collins points out, theoreticiansof the picturesque have
never been able to extricatethemselvesfroma veritablemalaise engenderedby
a contradictionin their theory,by their stubborn determinationto treat the
scenic garden (promenade, temporal experience) and landscape painting as
thoughtheywere one and the same thing.25Some, however, were aware ofthis
contradiction,and it even became a stumblingblock in their polemics. See
Repton, responding to Price: "The spot fromwhence the view is taken is in a
fixed state to the painter, but the gardener surveys his scenery while in
motion."'26Now it was the discoveryof the play of parallax that made them
specifythe terms of the contradiction(static optical view/peripateticview).
Furthermore,it is in connection with architecture,the perceptionof architecture, that it appears most acutely in theirtexts:
Avoid a straightavenue directed upon a dwelling-house; betterfor
an oblique approach is a waving line. . . . In a directapproach,,the
firstappearance is continuedto the end. . . . In an oblique approach,
the interposedobjects put the house seeminglyin motion: it moves
with the passenger . . . seen successivelyin different
directions,[it]
assumes at each step a new figure.27
In short,despite the"pictorial"bias, it is necessaryto break the assurance ofthe
organ of vision, eliminatethe presumptionof"Gestalt,"and recall to the spectator's body, its indolence and weight, its material existence: "The foot should
never travel to [the object] by the same path which the eye has travelledover
before. Lose the object, and draw nigh obliquely."28This is the great innovation contained in embryo in the picturesque garden:
The Classical notion of design, whetherin gardens or buildings, regarded the totalityof such schemes as forminga single unifiedand
immediately intelligiblecomposition, of which the elements were
as compared
Uvedale Price, Essays on thePicturesque,
24.
withthesublimeand thebeautiful,
London,
J. Mawman, 1810. Quoted and translated in the anthologyentitledArtetNatureen Grand-Bretagne
au XVIIP sizcle,by Marie-Madeleine Martinet, Paris, Aubier, 1980, p. 249.
25.
Peter Collins, p. 54.
26.
Humphry Repton, TheArtofLandscapeGardening
(1794), Boston and New York, Houghton
Mifflin,1907. Quoted in Martinet, p. 243.
27.
Henry Kames, Elementsof Criticism(1762), quoted in Martinet, p. 171.
28.
Shenstone, Unconnected
Thoughtson Gardening
(1764), quoted in Martinet, p. 12.
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44
OCTOBER
subdivisionsconstitutingsmallerbut stillharmoniouslyrelatedparts,
[the picturesque garden was] on the contrary,designed in accordance with a diametricallyopposite intention,for here the overall
concept was carefullyhidden.29
Now if I said beforethat Serra's sculpturewas a "reminderto architects,"
it is preciselybecause modern architecturewas born of this rupture(analyzed
by Collins in connection with gardens)- a rupturethat architectsthemselves,
perhaps under the influenceof certain theoreticians,have almost completely
repressed. In his shortbook on modern architecture,Vincent Scully raises at
the outset (but one swallow doesn't make a summer) the question of the rupture: it is firstof all necessary, he says, to "travel backward in time until we
reach a chronologicalpoint where we can no longer identifythe architectureas
an image of the modern world."30And this point of ruptureis situated in the
middle of the eighteenthcentury(it is surelynot by chance that it exactlycoincides with the war conducted by the English garden against the symmetryof
the garden a lafranfaise):taking issue with SigfriedGiedion, Scully shows that
Baroque space (i.e., the architecturalspace that comes prior to this point of
rupture)is in no way the antecedentof modern space, and thatmodern space is
its negation. In the Baroque,
order
S is absolutelyfirm,but against it an illusionoffreedomis played.
It
. .is thereforean architecturethat is intended to enclose and
shelterhuman beings in a psychicsense, to order them absolutelyso
that theycan always finda known conclusion at the end of any journey, but finallyto let them play at freedomand action all the while.
Everythingworks out; the play seems tumultuous but nobody gets
hurt and everyonewins. It is . . . a maternal architecture,and creates a world with which, today, only children, if they are lucky,
could identify.31
Who broughtabout the rupture?asks Scully. It was Piranesi in his Carceri:
"In them, the symmetry,hierarchy,climax, and emotional release of Baroque
architecturalspace . .. were cast aside in favorof a complex spatial wandering,
in whichthe objectivesofthejourney were not revealed and thereforecould not
be known."'32Althoughone of the sources of the picturesque, Piranesi's art participatesin the rupturethat goes well beyond the picturesque that succeeds it.
And if Serra, because of the connotationsof delicacy attached to this termpicbalked at its use to characterizehis sculpture,I would say thatin a certuresque,
tain sense he was right,forhis art is the firstresponse in sculpturalspace to the
29.
30.
31.
32.
PeterCollins,p. 53.
New York, Braziller,1965,p. 10.
VincentScullyJr.,Modern
Architecture,
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid.,p. 12.
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
45
questions raised about representationalspace more than two centuriesago by
Piranesi.
The firstpoint in common between the Venetian's engravingsand Serra's
work: space in them is not maternal, that is to say, it is not oriented,not centered.33There are indeed someaxes in Piranesi's engravings,but as Ulya VogtGiSknilhas remarked,theyare always multipleand eitherrun parallel or mutually exclude each other.34Serra: "The work is not goal-oriented."35Or again,
"the center,or the question of centering,is dislocated fromthe physical center
of the work and found in a moving center"(p. 33). Or finally:"The expanse of
the work allows one to perceive and locate a multiplicityof centers"(ibid.).
Another featurein common, which, as we have seen, was contained in
embryo in the picturesque: both Piranesi's work and Serra's are based on the
abolition of the prerogativeof the plan. Let us dwell fora moment on the fae Prospettive,
and look at plate 11 ofthatwork,enmous PrimaPartedi Architettura
le quali stannodispostein modo
titled"Gruppodi Scale ornatodi magnifica
Architettura,
ad una Rotondacheserveper rappresentanze
a variipiani, e specialmente
checonducano
Who of us, having been shown this image (elevation) and its title(isn't
teatrali."
a rotunda circular, and doesn't it presuppose a completed geometricalspace?),
could have imagined that the floor plan, as patiently reconstitutedby Ulya
Vogt-Gdiknil,would turn out to be so architecturallyformless,an apology for
the fragmentrightthere on the plan. It is as though Piranesi had not simply
been content to break existing architecturalrules (by the eccentricpoints of
view adopted in his vedute),but had surreptitiouslydestroyed,in theveryelevations,the identityof the plan. Now thisis one of the essential strengthsof Serra's
a sculpturethatstands
sculpture.Clara Weyergrafhas remarkedabout Terminal,
in
and
in
Bochum
is
related
to
the
one
that
Serra is in theprocess
today
principle
of constructingin La Defense, that "the informationgathered fromthe constructiondrawings . . . cannot be verifiedin the experience of the sculpture."36
And indeed the square opening oflightthatthe spectatorfindsabove him when
he enters the sculpturecannot be inferredfromhis previous walk around the
work (just as it is impossible forhim to know, at any particularmoment, that
"Terminalis made of four trapezoidal slabs of steel of the same size" [ibid.],
somethingspecificallyrevealed by the constructiondrawings). The elevation
cannot provide the plan, foras one walks around it, one findsno element that
33.
"The child's visual space is centered, inhabited by the body charged with libidinal interest
fromthe mother. This space may be 'depopulated' and the boundaries where it loses itselfbecome
fascinatingwith their insecurity,theirflow,theirlack of guideposts, theirboundless opening for
the view, by a sort of extrusion of the gaze." Guy Rosolato, "Destinations du corps," Nouvelle
Revuede Psychanalyse,
Spring 1971, p. 12.
34.
Ulya Vogt-G6knil, GiovanniBattistaPiranesi: Carceri,Zurich, Origo Verlag, p. 21.
35.
Serra, "Notes from Sight Point Road," p. 173.
36.
Clara Weyergraf, "From 'Trough Pieces' to 'Terminal,' Study of a Development," in
RichardSerra,catalogue published by the museums of Tiibingen and Baden-Baden, 1978, p. 214.
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46
OCTOBER
Piranesi.PrimaPartedi Architettura
e Prospettive,
plate11.
Reconstruction
byUlyaVogt-Giknil
ofplate11.
has maintained a relation of identitywith the others: "The decision to break
withthe expectationsabout the sequentialnessoflike elementsmake [sic] a dialecticalrelationshipbetweeninside and outside"(p. 86). Terminalis in some way
a critique of the "narrative"space developed by SightPoint(three times three
consecutive"views"when one walks around the sculpture), forthe number of
views of itcannot be counted. But Piranesi'sprincipleofdisjunctionwas already
at work in SightPoint:even though this sculptureis constructedon a series of
similar elements, nothing acts to forewarnthe observer that it is, in Serra's
words, a "truncatedpyramid"delineatingan equilateral triangleat its top. Or
again, when Serra, with some reluctance, describes the placing of the three
steel slabs of Spin Outin geometricterms,he says nothingabout what the spectator'sexperiencewill be: he pretendsto give a keyto thatexperience,and this
key is not the rightone: "The plates were laid out at twelve, four and eight
o'clock in an ellipticalvalley, and the space in between themformsan isosceles
triangle"(p. 36). I have spent some time surveyingSpin Out,tryingin particular to determinewhethersome sort of geometrywas at work there,and never
was I able to come to thatconclusion (on the contrary,it seemed to me thatany
a priorigeometrywas absent and that the work,like Shift,was a functionof the
topography).And Serra is rightto express his reservationsand preferto speak
of the work in termsof parallax and the progressof the spectator,since in no
way does he work with a view to the recognitionof a geometricformin his
sculpture--he does not work, as he puts it, "forthe sake of anythingin that
way" (p. 36).
The elevation does not provide the plan, and the plan cannot provide the
elevation. Had it been erectedin the place forwhichit was conceived, the piece
commissioned by the Centre Georges Pompidou would have been the radical
confirmationof this fundamentaldivision. Because the workwould have been
placed in the pit of the Centre's entrance hall, the spectatorswould have had
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RichardSerra.Spin Out (forRobert Smithson). 1973.
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48
OCTOBER
fromthe outsetan inklingof the plan in its symmetry(two equal arcs of a circle
arranged as an X, one opposite the other): theywould have firstseen the work
fromabove, and even if theirview would not have been exactly aerial, let us
say thattheirfirstapprehensionof Clara-Clarawould have been a "Gestalt"one.
But thisview would have been false. And it is fortunatethatin the site actually
occupied by the work at the time of its exhibition, between the Musee du
Jeu de Paume and the Orangerie, somethingof thisinitialfalseimpressioncan
continue to exist, thanks to the sloping partitionsthat overhang the sculpture
on each side. So at the Tuileries, as would have been the case at the Centre
Georges Pompidou, the spectatorof Clara-Clarahad knowledge of the overall
plan of the sculpturebefore going up to look at it more closely.
Geometrically,the two arcs of a circleare two identicalsegmentsof a section of a cone(and not of a cylinder),whichmeans thatthe curved walls ofthese
arcs are not vertical- the firstfactthat the plan doesn't tell us. Since the arcs
Serra.Clara-Clara. 1983.
Richard
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49
A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
Richard
Serra.Clara-Clara. 1983.
are placed not parallel but opposite to each other(theirconvexityalmost meeting in the middle), one logical conclusion would be to have the walls each lean
in the opposite direction,each toward the inside of its own curve. But Serra's
invention- the second element not apparent from the plan - lies in having
broken this symmetryby using what formsthe top of one of these arcs as the
base forthe other- in other words, in having put one of them upside down.
Thanks to thisreversal,thetwo walls lean in thesame direction(one towardthe
inside of its curve, the othertoward the outside), and thiswill increase, as one
can imagine, the play of parallax. In walking inside Clara-Clara,going toward
the bottleneckthatthese two arcs format theirmiddle, the spectatorconstantly
has the strangeimpressionthat one wall goes "faster"than the other, that the
rightand leftsides of his body are not synchronized.Having passed through
thebottleneck,whichrevealsto him the reason forhis strangefeeling- although
theslantof the walls is actuallyratherslight- he thensees thelateral differences
reversed: the symmetryof this effectis foreseeable, but not the surprisethat
accompanies it.
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50
OCTOBER
To get back to Piranesi: William Chambers, one of the firsttheoreticians
of the English garden and a criticof Price, reportsthat "when the studentsat
the Academie de France in Rome accused [Piranesi] of being ignorantof the
art of plans, he produced one of extreme complexity.""' This Pianta di ampio
magnifico
Collegio,the only plan in Piranesi'soeuvre, is firstof all a critiqueof the
Baroque tradition."The most singular feature,"writesMonique Mosser, "may
be the effortmade by Piranesi to develop at the same time two ideas that are
to reconcile [ I would say mutuallyexclusive]: that of a building witha
difficult
central plan and that of the staircase as the dominant motif."38What Piranesi
actually does in response to the students'accusation is to compose, to be sure, a
centered plan, but this center, on the one hand, is considerably smaller than
the rooms at the periphery(especially those at the fourcorners); on the other
its sole functionis to provide access to eight
buta thoroughfare:
hand, it is nothing
staircases. From such a plan, swarmingwith useless and redundant stairways,
which are conceived as elevation sectionsleading nowhere,fromthisfalselycircular structure(going up/down/up),one can infernothingbut an endless rotary
and vertical circulation. The center is a thoroughfare:as Ulya Vogt-G6knil
had seen, this is the essential nature of Piranesi's architecturalspace- whether
he provided of the Roman
it be the space representedin the Carceri,of the vedute
architecturehe had beforehis eyes, or again of this school design."9The center
is a thoroughfare,i.e., an indifferent
place, withno other identitythan the one
conferredon it by the passersby, a nonplace that exists only by the experience
of time and motion that the strollermay make of it. In a certainway, Piranesi
can be understood to foreshadownot only the space of Serra's sculpture,but
that of all modern sculptureas well. For, as Rosalind Krauss has shown, this
space, fromRodin to Serra, is one ofpassage and displacementfromthe center,
a space interruptedby thediscontinuoustimeof involuntarymemory,a slender
space whose divergences it is up to the spectatorto explore, while eventually
connectingits threads forhimself.40
In speaking of Shift,Krauss compares Serra's sculptureto Kuleshov's famous experimentsin montage. In these experiments,the montage was revealed
as an "index of differenceor separateness withina prevailing matrixof sameness."4' Kuleshov's montage demonstratedthe perceptive primacy of spatial
continuity,but at the same time expressed the factthatthiscontinuitywas pro-
37.
Quoted by Monique Mosser in the catalogue of the exhibition Piraneseetles FranGais(Villa
Medicis, Rome, and H6tel de Sully, Paris), 1976, p. 287.
38.
Ibid., p. 288.
39.
Vogt-G6knil, pp. 22-23.
New York, Viking Press, 1977, passim. See
Rosalind Krauss, Passagesin ModernSculpture,
40.
especially pp. 280-287, where the question of the "passage" in Serra is directlyexamined. See also
my review of this book, "Opacites de la sculpture," Critique,no. 381 (February 1979).
41.
Krauss, "Richard Serra: Sculpture Redrawn," Artforum,
May 1972, p. 38.
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CW:
?
All4'
Xki-iiiiii
3K--i_
ii
~ i
gjiii
zzsa~~~iii
ii
-iiiiiii
ii
.:_::--::
~ IN
--ii
--~:-
-INS:i,--
Piranesi.Opere Varie, plate22: Pianta di ampio
magnificoCollegio.
ducedby means ofdiscontinuity.This is exactlywhat Serra accomplishesin Shift
and in many other sculpturesas well.
One has only to reread the pages Serra has writtenon the RotaryArcto be
convinced that filmfragmentationis an apt metaphorby which to describe his
work:"Drivingaround the Rotary,both theArc's convexityand concavityforeshorten,thencompress,overlap, and elongate. The abrupt but continuoussuccession of views is highlytransitive,akin to a cinematic experience"(pp. 155to which Serra here refersis the notion that he triedto
156). The "transitivity"
workout his firstfilms(an action perpetuatedon an object, withno conclusion),
Series(1969), and which he expressed in the
in the sculpturesin the Skullcracker
simplestway of all by inscribinga list of verbs on the invitationannouncement
was discovered by
forone of his firstexhibitions.42Now this very transitivity
Eisensteinin Piranesi when to thespace in the Carcerihe compared thesequence
in which "oneand thesamepiece showing the ascent of the head of
fromOctober
state up the marble staircase of the Winter Palace has been cemented together
but in the course
in succession'ad infinitum.'Of course, not really'ad infinitum,'
42.
pp. 272-276.
Sculpture,
On thissubject,see Krauss, PassagesinModern
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OCTOBER
52
of the fouror fivevariants in which this same scene was shot, which duringthe
actual shooting was intended to be a very luxurious . . . episode."43 Naturally the filmmaker'sintentionwas ironical (to show that Kerensky'sirresistible rise to power was built on sand), but thatis not importanthere, since montage can express whateverit likes with"one and the same shot." What matters,
on the one hand, is that this descriptionof an almost endless repetitionof the
same gesture with no conclusion (climbing stairs forno other reason than to
climb stairs) exactlymatches the repetitivenonevent of Serra's firstfilm,Hand
Lead (a hand triesto catch some fallingpieces of lead, sometimesdoes
Catching
catch one, and immediatelylets it go: thereis no "climax,"no orgiasticrelease,
as thereis in the Baroque).44 What matters,on the otherhand, is thatEisenstein
discoversthis transitivityin Piranesi's work. Not only throughthe theme of an
endless climbingof stairs(a romanticinterpretationof the Carceri,and one that
is a commonplace since the famous passage in De Quincey, quoted by the
Soviet director45),but especially because in his opinion Piranesi works like a
master of montage and bases his spatial continuitieson discontinuity:
Nowhere in the Carcerido we finda view in depth in continuous perspective. Everywherethe movementbegun by a perspectivein depth
findsitselfinterruptedby a bridge, a pillar, an arch, a passageway.
Each time, beyond the pillar or the semicircleof the arch, the movement of the perspectiveis once more resumed. . . . [But while] the
eye expects to see behind the arch the continuationof the architectural theme preceding the arch normallyreduced by perspective,[it
is, in fact] another architecturalmotifthat appears behind the arch,
and moreover,in a reductionof perspectivealmost double what the
eye had supposed. . . . Hence an unexpected qualitative leap from
the space and the grand scale. And the series of planes in depth, cut
offfromeach otherby pillars and arches, is constructedin independent portionsof autonomous spaces, being connected not by a single
continuityof perspective,but as in the successive shocks of spaces of
a qualitative intensitydifferingin depth.
This, says Eisenstein, is exactly the way montage operates in the cinema:
This effect[in Piranesi] is constructedon the capacity of our eye to
continue by inertia a movementonce it has been given. The collision
withanother
for it also
pathsubstituted
pathof movement
of this"suggested"
S. M. Eisenstein, "Piranesi, or the Fluidity of Forms," trans. Roberta Reeder, in Opposi43.
tions11 (Winter 1977), p. 103.
Cf. Krauss, Passagesin ModernSculpture,pp. 243-244. The analysis of Hand CatchingLead
44.
opens the chapter on the development of sculpture since the late 1960s.
devoted to Piranesi and his influ45.
On the passage in the Confessions
ofan EnglishOpium-Eater
des escaliersen
ence on romanticism, cf. Luzius Keller, Piraniseet les romantiques
franCais:Le mythe
spirale,Jose Corti, 1966, passim.
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
53
theeffect
ofa jolt. It is on the analogous abilityof retainingimproduces
a
of
visual
prints
impression that the phenomenon of cinematic
movement is built.46
Serra says somewhere (I have been unable to locate the exact wording)
that he is interestedin abrupt discontinuities: no doubt "the experience of
shock,"elsewheredescribedby Walter Benjamin as theexperiencepar excellence
of modernism,is what givesrise to his sculpture.As thoughechoing Eisenstein,
he speaks of"memoryand anticipation"as "vehiclesofperception"forhis sculptures,47both of them being dialectically opposed in order to prevent "good
form,"a "Gestalt"image, or a patternof identityfromtakingover. One might
say a good deal more about the relationsbetween Eisenstein'smontage and the
art of Serra. We know that Eisenstein disagreed with Kuleshov (and others) on
one fundamentalpoint: he did not want montage, the experience of shock, to
to ininvolve only "theelementbetween shots,"but wanted it to be "transferred
- so thatthe
sidethe fragment,into the elementsincluded in the image itself"48
dissociation between the shots would end by operating in the very interiorof
the shot,just as Piranesi's disjunctionof plan and elevation surreptitiouslydestroyedthe identityof the ground plan and its traditionaldomination over traditional space. Serra shares withEisenstein thiswish to introducediscontinuity
into discontinuityitself,and thistakes us back forone last timeto the question
of the picturesque. We have seen that Terminalconstituteda sortof deconstruction of the narrativespace created by SightPoint.Now the problem of narration
unquestionablylies at the heart of Serra's enterprise:in his filmsas in his sculptures, he seeks to destroythatwhich has been the age-old foundationof narration, namely its conclusion. Hand CatchingLead is almost endless, "not actually
endless, of course," as Eisenstein would say, but almost. And the descriptive
account ofhis walk or drive around the RotaryArcdescribes a completecircle: it
begins and ends at an arbitrarilychosen- almost arbitrarilychosen- point,
and could perpetuate itselfindefinitely.When Peter Eisenman spoke of his
sculptures as "framingthe landscape," Serra bridled:
If you use the word "frame"in referringto the landscape, you imply
a notion of the picturesque. I have never really found the notion of
framingparts of the landscape particularlyinterestingin termsof its
potential forsculpture. Smithson was interestedin the picturesque.
... That's an interestingnotion in termsof its relation to the narrative of seeing but it's not of particular concern to me.49
46. Eisenstein,pp. 105-106.
47. Serra,"NotesfromSightPointRoad," p. 180.
48. Quoted by Roland Barthesin "The Third Meaning,"Image-MusicText,trans.Stephen
Heath, New York,Hill and Wang, 1977,p. 67.
49. Serra and Eisenman,pp. 16-17.
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54
OCTOBER
I noted above this pictorial limitationof the theoryof the picturesque,
which made gardenersdevelop in theirparks a series of small picturesto be discovered while walking. It is to this narrativeconception of discontinuitythat
Serra is opposed, and it is this, more than anythingelse, that separates him
fromthe picturesque. In December 1782, Hannah More reportedto her sisters
a conversationshe had had withCapability Brown, the firstgreat masterof the
English picturesque garden:
He told me he compared his art to literarycomposition:"Now there,"
said he, pointinghis finger,"I make a comma, and there,"pointing
to another spot, "where a more decided turn is needed, I make a
colon; at another part, where an interruptionis desirable to break
the view, a parenthesis; now a full stop, and then I begin another
subject."50
This, among other things,is what distinguishesSerra's art fromthat of landscape gardeners: he has no full stop. His art is not an art of punctuation (althoughoften,while speaking of one ofhis sculptures,he draws on paper, at the
rate of ten drawingsa minute,a storyboardof itsvarious aspects). It is an artof
montage, an art that is not satisfiedto interruptcontinuitytemporarily,but
produces continuityby a double negation, by destroyingthe pictorialrecovery
of continuitythroughdiscontinuity,dissociation,and the loss of identitywithin
the fragment.
Now what? This whole additional excursion into the eighteenthcentury
be able to say that Serra and the picturesque are completelydifferent?
to
just
They're not completelydifferent,although the use made by Serra of ideas developed two centuries ago could hardly be identical with what was done with
them then, in that cult of rationalityrepresentedby the Enlightenment.One
mightthereforewonder why I have insistedon circumscribingmy interpretation of his work in a vocabulary and a debate two centuriesold. There are two
fundamentalreasons.
The firsthas to do with Serra's manifesthostilityto architects.If thishostilityis, in my opinion, whollyjustified,ifSerra can rightlysay of Terminalthat
this sculpturereduces almost all the architecturesurroundingit to the mediocrityof its"cardboard-modelinventiveness"(p. 129), it is because he once again
bringsto bear on his worknotions thatappeared in the architecturaldebates of
the eighteenthcentury,and which architectshave since repressed. The history
of thisrepression,which I have triedto trace here, has seemed to me indispensable ifwe are to understandthe singular nature of Serra's work. It was never a
question to my mind of unearthingsources forhim, of seekingconnectionsand
Gardenin France,Princeton, Princeton Uni50.
Quoted by Dora Wiebenson, The Picturesque
versityPress, 1978, note 86, p. 74.
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RichardSerra.Terminal. 1977.
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OCTOBER
56
influences.Quite the opposite, it was a matterof showing that the strengthof
his innovation was the raw one of the returnof the repressed. Let us take anotherlook at this aspect of architecture.AfterLeroy, the only theoreticianwho
conceives architectureanew in termsof the effectit will produce on the moving
spectatoris Boullke. He does so in exactlythe same way as Leroy, but he adds
a word to his predecessor's vocabulary, a word to which I will come back:
sublime.(I mightadd thata whole parallel could be traced between the idea formulated by Boullee of a buriedarchitectureand Serra's sculpturesthat are sunk
in the ground.) Following Boullie, but a centurylater, the historianAuguste
,Choisy was to be the firstto reexamine this question of the peripateticview.
He did so in connectionwith a discoveryverymuch his own (trulyunheard-of
and incomprehensibleto architectstrained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, forit
pointed directlyat somethingtheyhad obscured at the veryheart of the example they wanted to imitate), that of "Greek picturesque" (namely, the asymmetricalarrangementof Greek temples, depending on the site).51Then came
Le Corbusier, one of the few architectsspared by Serra in his general anathema. Leaving aside the issue of whetherthe architecturalconcept of "promenade" invented by Le Corbusier is stronglyinfluencedby Choisy's fantastic
discovery- the importantthinghere is that, forthe firsttime since Boullie, an
architectspeaks of the play of parallax forhis architecture,ifnecessaryborrowing fromother cultures, as the cubists did fromprimitiveart.
that accompanies his
We know the textin Le Corbusier's Oeuvrescomplktes
the
Villa
Savoye:
designs for
Arab architecturehas much to teach us. It is appreciated whileon the
move,with one's feet; it is while walking, moving fromone place to
another, that one sees how the arrangements of the architecture
develop. This is a principlecontraryto Baroque architecture.... In
thishouse [the Villa Savoye], we are dealing witha truearchitectural
promenade, offeringconstantlyvaried, unexpected, sometimes astonishingaspects. It is interestingto obtain so much diversitywhen
one has, forexample, allowed fromthe standpointofconstructionan
absolutely rigorous patternof posts and beams.52
Now here two thingsshould be stressed.On the one hand, this"patternof
"The Greeks do not imagine a building independently of the site that frames it and the
51.
buildings that surround it. The idea of leveling the vicinityis absolutely foreignto them. They
accept, while scarcelyregularizingit, the location as nature has created it, and theironly concern
is to harmonize the architecturewiththe landscape; Greek temples are as worthyforthe choice of
theirsite as forthe art withwhichtheyare built." There followsa descriptionof the various groups
of temples, especially the Acropolis in Athens, according to the effectproduced on a moving specvol. I (1899). My thanks to Jacques
tator. "Le pittoresque dans l'art grec,"Histoirede l'Architecture,
Lucan for having pointed out this text to me.
Le Corbusier, Oeuvrescompltes,vol. II, Zurich, Editions d'architecture, 1964 p. 24.
52.
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Le Corbusier.
Villa Savoye. 1929-31.
posts"is certainlynot absolutelyrigorous(contraryto what Le Corbusier says a
littlelater, the posts are not "equidistant"). On the otherhand, thisdisturbance
of the plan has been made necessaryby the firstverticalbreach constitutedby
the ramp, then furthercomplicatedby the displacement,in the planning stage,
of the staircase (which became on this occasion a spiral one) - that is to say,
It has sometimes been asked why Le
in two differentways, by thoroughfares.
Corbusier kept thistroublesomeramp (he who claimed thatthe plan generated
the architecture)when a simple staircase (especially a spiral one) would have
posed fewerproblems. Now the verysubjectof the Villa Savoye is the penetration of a verticalsectioninto a horizontalgrid(the "Do-mi-no"griddating from
1914 and triedout in the designs forthe Citrohan houses of 1920-22, in which
the staircase was always conceived as exteriorto the grid). It is this vertical
penetrationby the passageway into the arrangementof the plan, this disturbance of the plan by the elevation and by the movementof the stroller,that
of the Villa Savoye (and in a certainway one
creates the richnessand intricacy
could say that the aim of the freeplan corresponds in Le Corbusier, despite
what he says about it, to a wish to freehis architecturefromthe generating
tyrannyofthe plan). Le Corbusier, as his vocabulary shows, again takes up the
idea of the picturesque, and tries to imagine what a picturesque architecture
mightbe. But withhim, as withSerra, it is a question of a modernpicturesque,
and not one of narrative and pictoriality.Hence the necessity,in the Villa
Savoye, of a division oflabor and a duplication("one ascends imperceptiblyby
a ramp, which is a totallydifferent
feelingfromthe one providedby a staircase
A
staircase
formedby steps.
separates one floorfromanother,a ramp connects
them""5). It is fromthis unequal duplication, this conflictbetween continuity
53.
Ibid., p. 25.
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58
OCTOBER
and discontinuity,that the experience of shock is born: quite late in the development of the project Le Corbusier pierced the stairwell,which had been
conceived at the beginningas a semi-cylindricalblind box, and bored openings
in it that are like the displaced projectiononto the cylinderof the trianglesdelineated by the ramp. Why this give-and-take?Because the machine is not inhabited by a hermit:"It is most exhilaratingwhen we can sense our movement
in relationto anotherperson on anotherpath, catchingand losing sense of that
person, playingcurve offstraightand step offstride.Then we are acutely aware
of our own movementby its periodic relation to that of anotherparticipant."54
The factthat these remarksare by a present-dayarchitectand criticin no way
detractsfrommy general thesis (that architectstoday have much to learn not
only fromLe Corbusier but also fromSerra), forjust as Le Corbusier's kinetic
intelligencewas something exceptional, so the understandingof that intelligence among architectstoday remains the thingleast shared in the world. Now
it is just this,thisattentionto the effectsof a dual movement,thatmakes Serra's
sculpturea lesson in architecture.At the time he was developing his ideas for
Shift,Serra spent fivedays walking about the site withJoan Jonas: the "boundaries" of the work were determinedby the maximum distance that two people
could cover withoutlosing sightof each other. "The horizon of the work,"says
Serra, "was established by the possibilitiesof maintaining this mutual viewpoint"(p. 25). Or again: "My open works[those thatone can pass through]are
not concerned with internalrelationships.They have to do with looking from
where they are into space, or fromwhere they are to where the other one is
placed" (p. 51). Whetherthis"otherone" is anotherelementof the sculpture(as
in OpenField Vertical/Horizontal
Elevations,ten steel cubes scattered in a seemor
another
spectatorcomes to the same thing,forhere we are
inglyhuge park)
of
with
an
experience reciprocity,of mutuality.
dealing
It is over this fractureof identity,this division of one into two, that the
historyof parallax and of the picturesquepromenade entersinto Le Corbusier's
architectureand Serra's sculpture. Hence the necessityI feel to trace back the
discontinuousthreads of this history,even though it mightmean a temporary
retreatinto the eighteenthcentury.
The second reason forthis backward look in time is less directbut no less
essential.
Anyone concerned with the historyof sculptureduring these last twenty
years will recall the fundamental and vehement attack on minimalism published by Michael Fried at the end of the 1960s. In a certainway, all of Serra's
oeuvre is an implicitreplyto Michael Fried's text. Here it is not a question of
going back over the termsof the discussion or even of summarizing"Art and
54. RobertJ. Yudell,"BodyMovement,"in Kent C. Bloomerand CharlesW. Moore, Body,
New Haven, Yale University
andArchitecture,
Press, 1977, p. 68.
Memory,
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
59
Objecthood."55 Let us merelysay that, according to Fried, minimalistart sinks
into "theater"(understood as the identificationof the space of art with that of
the spectator,daily life, and the world of objects), while forhim the essential
goal of modernistart, and of sculpturein particular,has been to affirmits autonomyin relationto thisreal space. More thanjust an attackon the confusion
between two kinds of space--which would simply have repeated Adolf von
Hildebrand's criticismof panoramas and Canova's tombs at the end of the last
century56-Fried's textdenounced in the minimalistwork its implicationof the
of the spectator'sexperience. To Tony Smith'senthusiasticaccount of a
duration
drive on an unfinishedturnpike(an account of a journey conceived as a model
of the minimalist experience), Fried opposed the atemporalityand instantly
moment
thework
intelligibleperceptionof the sculptorshe was defending("at every
Fried opted fora pictorialconception of sculpture(folitselfis whollymanifest"57).
lowing in this an idea of Greenberg's: sculptureis doomed to exist in the world
of objects, and should thereforebe as two-dimensionalas possible in order to
escape this condition of existence as much as it can58). "Pictoriality,"on the
contrary,seemed to Smith too narrow a frameworkto be able to produce experiences similar to the one he had had on the turnpike. The position termed
modernist(both Greenberg'sand Fried's, despite theirdifferences)reliesopenly
on Kant: an absolute distinctionbetween the world of art and thatof artifacts,
to the object's material
immediacyofjudgment about the beautiful,indifference
existence (Greenberg never speaks of texture,forexample, or does so only in
general terms). Furthermore,for Kant, the beautiful "is connected with the
formof the object, which consistsin having [definite]boundaries,'"59and Fried
tellsus thatit is the absence of a priorideterminationof theirlimitsthatradically
distinguishesminimalist sculptures frommodernistworks of art. Indeed, in
speakingofSpin Out,Serra states:"thereisn'tany definitionofboundary"(p. 37).
Finally, forKant (as forFried), "in the case of the beautifultaste presupposes
and maintains the mind in restful
contemplation."60 Kant makes no reference,
in his "Analyticof the Beautiful,"to the duration of the spectator'sexperience
(even when it is a question of music), nor to the movementof his body (especially when it is a question of architecture).
55. MichaelFried,"Artand Objecthood"(1967), reprinted
inMinimal
Art:A Critical
Anthology,
ed. GregoryBattcock,New York,Dutton,1968, pp. 116-147.
56.
Adolf von Hildebrand, Das ProblemderFormin derBildendenKunst, 1903. For Hildebrand,
Canova's funerary
unlikethoseof Michelangelo,are to be condemnedbecause in
monuments,
themthereis no "boundaryestablishedbetweenthemonumentand thepublic."
57. Fried,p. 145.
58. Cf. ClementGreenberg,"The New Sculpture,"reprintedin Artand Culture,
Boston,
Beacon Press, 1965, pp. 143.
59. EmmanuelKant, TheCritique
trans.J. H. Bernard,New York,Hafner,1951,
ofJudgment,
S 23, p. 82.
60. Ibid., S 24, p. 85.
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OCTOBER
60
That the modernistaestheticis Kantian throughand through,no one will
deny, nor that Fried's or Greenberg'sinterpretationof the firstbook of the first
is well founded. It is simply
section of the firstpart of the CritiqueofJudgment
that this interpretationis singularlypartial, in both senses of the word. It is as
though modernism had obliterated that whole other side of the Kantian aesthetic,book II of the same portionof this work, entitled"Analyticof the Sublime." For although"thebeautifuland the sublime agree in thisthatboth please
in themselves"(i.e., withoutconclusion), "thereare also remarkabledifferences
between the two."61While the beautiful,forexample, concerns the formof the
object, and thus itslimitation,"the sublime, on the otherhand, can be foundin
is representedin
a formlessobject, so faras in it or by occasion of it boundlessness
it, and yet its totalityis also presentto thought."62And while in the beautiful
totalityis immediatelyapprehended, the feelingof the sublime comes fromthe
and comcontradictionbetween apprehension (which "can go on ad infinitum")
which
the
a
reaches
maximum, beyond
imagination
prehension(which quickly
cannot go63). In other words, the feelingof the sublime lies in the separation
between the idea of totalityand the perceived impossibilityof understanding
that totality.The amazement of someone enteringSaint Peter's in Rome for
the firsttime is forKant a sublime experience par excellence (it was notsublime
enough,I might add, for a Leroy or a Boullie, for whom the church seemed
much smaller than it actually was, due to the lack of attentionpaid to the play
of parallax). Here is what Kant says about this virginspectatorpenetratingto
the heart of the papacy: "For there is here a feelingof the inadequacy of his
imaginationforpresentingthe idea of a whole, whereinthe imaginationreaches
itsmaximum, and, in strivingto surpass it, sinksinto itself,by which,however,
a kind of emotional satisfactionis produced."64(The pleasure I feltwhile walking in Spin Outdid not occur in spite of my inabilityto grasp its geometricform,
but because of thatinability.) In a word, Kant, in his "Analyticof the Sublime,"
fromthe one he
is forcedto imagine a mechanism of perceptionquite different
assumes in his theoryof judgment about the beautiful. In particular, he is
obliged to introducethe temporalityof the aestheticexperience. Of course, for
him, it is stilla question, as Smithsonremarksabout all idealist theoriesof art,
of a movementof the mind, but thismovementis induced by the characteristics
of the object ("the feelingof the sublime brings with it as its characteristicfeaof the mind bound up withthejudging of the object"65). Why?
ture a movement
Because the feeling of the sublime can only come from the grandeur of the
object and the impossibilityof controllingor understandingthis grandeur by
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
Ibid., S 23, p.
Ibid.
Ibid., S 26, p.
Ibid., S 26, p.
Ibid., S 24, p.
82.
90.
91.
85.
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A Picturesque
StrollaroundClara-Clara
61
thought.From the impossibility,as Serra would say, of having a "Gestalt"view
of it.
For when apprehension has gone so far that the partial representationsof sensuous intuitionat firstapprehended begin to vanish in the
imagination,while this ever proceeds to the apprehension of others,
then it loses as much on one side as it gains on the other; and in comprehension there is a maximum beyond which it cannot go.66
So far as I know, this is the only passage in the whole CritiqueofJudgment
where Kant speaks in temporal terms("begin," "goes forward,""next") of the
mechanism of the aestheticimagination, and one could call it a paraphrase of
Serra's commentsabout his RotaryArc. That it is a question of the "Analyticof
the Sublime" and not thatofthe beautifulsimplyshows thatthe Kantian criteria
applied by Greenberg and Fried in theircondemnationof minimalismwere inappropriate,since one cannotjudge the sublimeby thecriteriaofthebeautiful.67
I can imagine Serra's negative reaction to Fried's indictmentinterspersed
with Kant (since his work, even more than minimalism, falls under the hammer of this neo-Kantian diatribe). But it seemed to me that a briefreturnto
Kant, by way of the sublime, was called forhere. Not only because ifthe rupture of modernityactually took place in the eighteenthcentury,it is necessary
forus today to go back over thatpast (that is, incidentally,what Michael Fried
has done, endeavoring to describe, in order to shore up his position, what was
produced at the time of this rupture,i.e., "in the age of Diderot"68). But also
because the picturesque, as Smithson observed, flowsfromthe sublime:
Price extended Edmund Burke's InquiryintotheOriginofourideasofthe
SublimeandtheBeautiful
(1757) to a point thattriedto freelandscaping
fromthe "picture"gardens of Italy into a more physical sense of the
temporal landscape. . . . Burke's notion of "beautiful"and "sublime"
functionsas a thesisof smoothness,gentlecurves, and delicacy of nature, and as an antithesisof terror,solitude, and vastness of nature,
both of which are rooted in the real world, ratherthan in a Hegelian
66. Ibid., S 26, p. 90.
67. I findbychancean unexpectedallyin theissueofPerspecta
containingthearticleby Serra
thatI have quoted severaltimes,in thepersonof KarstenHarries,who teachesphilosophyat
Yale University.In an articleentitled"Buildingand the Terrorof Time," Harries refersto
Michael Fried'stextand to an essay by the sculptorRobertMorris("The PresentTense of
betweentheartofthe
Space,"ArtinAmerica,
January/February
1978). Althoughthedifferences
twosculptors
are striking,
I couldhave mentionedMorris'stextoften,foritbrilliantly
articulates
certainideas expressedaphoristically
bySerra,and speaksin particularofSaintPeter'sin Rome
and ofruins.Harriesconcludesthepassage in histextdevotedto Morriswiththesewords:"Just
as Friedcan referto Kant to supporthis understanding
ofmodernism,
in thesame way Morris
can referto the Critique
but it is anothersectionofthebook thatis appropriate,the
ofJudgment,
'Analyticof the Sublime'"(p. 68).
68.
Michael Fried, Absorption
and Theatricality:
Painting& Beholderin theAgeofDiderot,Berkeley,
of CaliforniaPress, 1980.
University
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62
OCTOBER
ideal [it is this empirical basis of Burke's text that Kant criticized].
Price and Gilpin provide a synthesis
withtheirformulationof the"picturesque," which is on close examination related to chance and
change in the material order of nature.69
For Burke, the beautifuland the sublime were irreconcilable;theyremained so
forPrice and Gilpin. But as Price wrote: "thepicturesque appeared halfwaybetween the beautifuland the sublime; and this may be why it allies itselfmore
often and more happily with both than they do with each other."'" There is
thus a beautifulpicturesque and a sublime picturesque: it is to thissecond category, if you like, that Serra's art belongs.
The word picturesque,
says Smithson, is itselflike a sublime tree struckby
lightningin a picturesque English garden ofthe eighteenthcentury:"This word
in its own way has been struckby lightningover the centuries. Words, like
trees,can be suddenlydeformedor wrecked,but such deformationor wreckage
cannot be dismissed by timid academics."" It has taken all the support of
Serra's work fora timid academic like myselfto attemptto repair the damage.
69. Smithson,pp. 118-119.On Gilpin,in quiteanothercontext,see also Krauss,"The Origi18 (Autumn1981),pp. 45-66.
October,
Repetition,"
nalityoftheAvant-Garde:A Postmodernist
70. Quoted byJean-ClaudeLebensztejn,"En blanc et noir,"Macula,1 (1976), p. 13.
71. Smithson,p. 118.
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