The Traditional Roots of Experimental Modernism-1

Gertrude Stein & Islamic Calligraphy: The Traditional Roots of Experimental Modernism 2019 “LINES AND STARS: ​Drawing in Pure Calligraphy​ (1923)” - A drawing of Pablo Picasso’s as cited by Gertrude Stein in her 1938 book, ​Picasso. Abstract In her final section of her 1938 book,​ Picasso,​ Gertrude Stein discusses her friend and artistic compatriot Pablo Picasso’s use of "Saracen" calligraphy. While many scholars have discussed Picasso's influence on Stein, this thesis argues that Gertrude Stein’s own exploration of the relationship between Picasso and calligraphy might be applied to Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​ and the practice of calligraphy, defined as “beautiful writing” (Serikoff 10). In chapter one, I explore Islamic calligraphy in its history, practice, and application. I identify the function of words in Islamic calligraphy. Finally, I build the bridge between Islamic calligraphy and Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​ through Pablo Picasso. With this, I present specific examples of calligraphy in Picasso’s art and show how it translates into Stein’s work. In chapter two, I further demonstrate the influence of Islamic calligraphy on ​Tender Buttons​ by situating the reader in relation to ​Tender Buttons​ and then identifying the function of words in ​Tender Buttons​. Here, the identities of words in Islamic calligraphy and ​Tender Buttons both engage in a process drawing from Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory” that I term “linguistic thingification.” In chapter three, I revisit the topic of anti-idolatry (iconoclasm) exhibited in Islamic calligraphy in order to frame Stein as an iconoclast. I address the religious contexts of Islamic calligraphy and address these concerns, which may also be present in Stein’s work even though Stein’s work holds no apparent relation to religion. I will further explore the ethical dimensions of Stein’s work in order to show how anti-idolatry in Stein’s work reminds the reader/viewer of the traditional roots of experimentalism. In a sense, Stein’s experimental writing is centering and progressing the practice of anti-idolatry. Finally, I argue that by defetishizing words, readers/viewers gain more nuanced interpretations and avoid the reversion of words into symbols. In chapter four, I explore the implications of recognizing that what is new is highly inspired by what is old. I move beyond what has influenced Gertrude Stein’s work to a contemporary world that is now influenced by Stein’s work. The exploration of Gertrude Stein and Islamic Calligraphy allows us to consider the broader implications of associating experimental modernism to its traditional roots. Ultimately, by comparing these wide ranging forms of expression, the reader, I propose, will become more aware of the unfamiliar. Key words:​ Modernism, Calligraphy, Influence, Iconoclasm CONTENTS Figures..............................................................................................................................................i Introduction......................................................................................................................................1 Chapters 1. Islamic Calligraphy: Reading the Divine Word...................................................................9 2. Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​: Interpreting Literary Words.........................................20 3. Idolization: What is Being Represented?...........................................................................32 4. Experimentalism: A History and Future of Influence........................................................40 Works Consulted............................................................................................................................50 i Figures Figure 1: “LINES AND STARS: ​Drawing in Pure Calligraphy​ (1923),” (after copyright page) Figure 2: Section of Qur’an Manuscript by Umar Aqta, 12 Figure 3: Panel of Four Calligraphic Tiles, 13 Figure 4: Pages from ​Les Chant Des Morts ​(1948), 17 Figure 5: Final stage curtain from ​Mercure,​ 18 Figure 6: Photograph of scene from ​Mercure​, 18 Figure 7: ​Mother​, 44 Figure 8:​ Coffee​, 44 Figure 9: ​Oh Allah​, 44 Figure 10: ​What Subtle Methods of Oppression, ​45 Figure 11: ​The Flower Salesman​, 45 1 Introduction [Picasso’s designs for the ballet ​Mercure​] were written, so simply written, no painting, pure calligraphy. -Gertrude Stein, ​Picasso​ (1938) In 1938, Gertrude Stein published ​Picasso​, a book centered on her longtime friend and modernist artist, Pablo Picasso. In ​Picasso, ​Stein is completely in awe of Picasso. When describing Picasso, Stein contrasts the nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to the vast differences in views of the world created by the invention of the airplane. Specifically, the twentieth century saw “the earth as no one has ever seen it” through airplanes, while the nineteenth century was limited to automobiles, having not been granted this unique perspective just yet (​Picasso ​50). In Stein’s eyes, the world gained a new form from above, and what she saw was what she saw in Picasso’s cubism. While Picasso had never been on an airplane, Stein knew from this view that Picasso was ahead of the world. He was creating things that no one before his time could have ever created. This innovativeness and experimentalism excited Stein as she herself was interested in different approaches to language. Recognizably, Stein mimicked the effects of cubism to create new forms of writing.1 Cubism, a form of art that highlighted taking apart objects and recreating them, relied on multiple perspectives to achieve a greater understanding of artwork (Hilder 67-68). Cubist artists also experimented with still life artwork, a type of artwork that represents inanimate objects, typically on a two-dimensional canvas attempting to represent a three-dimensionality. Cubist artists strayed from traditional still life artwork, as artists attempted to simultaneously show different perspectives of an inanimate 1 Scholars such as (but not limited to) Jamie Hilder, Ulla Dydo, and Bob Perelman have written on this topic. 2 object on a canvas, breaking the rules of dimensionality. Not only did Stein try to decipher cubism, but she attempted to decipher Picasso’s artistic form as a whole. We see a loose reiteration of cubist experimentalism in Stein’s ​Tender Buttons a​ s she breaks from the conventions of literature and experiments with the usage of words. However, Jamie Hilder argues in “Gertrude Stein and Picasso and Cubism” that critics of Stein jump to the conclusion that Stein’s work is visual by mistaking her work for mimicking cubist processes (Hilder 67). While I agree that Stein did not aim to mimic cubism as a form of visual art, I do suggest “the effect” (68) of ​Tender Buttons​ Hilder considers does result in a type of visualization of words because of Stein’s unique application of cubism. Stein spends the latter half of ​Picasso ​both describing and praising Pablo Picasso’s interest in calligraphy, specifically, “Saracen2 calligraphy” (​Picasso 3​ 3). With Picasso’s own exploration of calligraphy and cubism, we learn​ ​Stein’s interest in Picasso’s calligraphy did not originate from her own explorations. According to Stein, it was from 1913 to 1917 and briefly in the 1920s that Picasso immersed his art in calligraphic style, and during this period, Stein had published ​Tender Buttons.​ As Stein understood it, Picasso’s “most intense moment” of calligraphy was in his collaboration with other artists in the production of ​Mercure ​(​Picasso​ 37). Before ​Mercure​, not many others realized Picasso’s affinity with calligraphy, having been branded as an innovative genius in the creation of cubism. It was in his work on the ballet, Mercure,​ that Picasso achieved recognition for his calligraphic practices. In fact, it was Picasso himself who said he would have chosen calligraphy before painting had he known about it years 2 The term “saracen” is a medieval word for Muslims that has travelled into modern times (Britannica). While the term refers to the religion, “saracen” has been very commonly used to refer to both Arabs and Muslims. Although the two populations are distinct, the conflation arises as a result of many historical and stereotypical information. For example, as Arabic is the language of the Quran, it is common to connect language to geography and culture. 3 ago (Frembgen). This affinity towards calligraphy was not separate from his work in cubism; instead, as Stein says, “they [calligraphic drawings] were really cubism” (​Picasso ​38). Essentially, Picasso molded two customarily distinct artistic styles and, once again, created something new. Stein argues that Picasso’s identity as a Spaniard allowed him to apply Islamic calligraphy into his art without becoming a part of it or losing any part of himself (​Picasso ​34). We recreate this idea through noticing how Stein, a Jewish American with no relation to Spain or the “Saracens,” is able to look back at Picasso’s work with calligraphy. Only with the retrospective perspective of ​Picasso​ does a reader uncover that Stein herself reproduced some of the effects of Islamic calligraphy into her own writing of ​Tender Buttons​. As a result, I argue that Picasso’s inclination towards “Saracen” calligraphy in his own work influenced Stein to begin to explore how she might reproduce the effect of this very foreign aesthetic tradition in her own work. Again, the influence Picasso had on Stein is not to say Stien mimicked Picasso’s methods; instead, it is to say she mimicked the effects of his methods. With this, the relationship between Stein and Islamic calligraphy represents a productive approach similar to how Stein explained the relationship between Picasso and “Saracen” calligraphy as a productive approach. To reiterate, this connection exists in recognition of Stein modeling herself after Picasso. By extension,3 she is interested in the potential of Islamic calligraphy to serve as a model for her own modernist experimentalism. 3 This argument holds true for other poets during Stein’s time, such as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound, who were interested in non-modern models to influence his form. 4 Furthermore, Stein’s path into literature was as unconventional as her actual writing. From a medical student4 at Johns Hopkins to a prominent poet in Paris, Gertrude Stein was frequently criticized for so much more than her writing. Most commented on her unusual appearance, where she dressed in unfeminine and simple clothing with slicked back short hair, which many observers linked to her sexual identity. This, however, did not dissuade the public from immersing themselves into Stein’s personality, and subsequently, her writing. While some of Stein’s words, such as, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” are now used in contemporary popular culture, it is important to note that Stein did not gain most of her recognition until the publishing of ​The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.​ Considered as her most conventional regarding literary standards, this book seemingly allowed her readers to interpret her words as windows onto the Stein’s world. In contrast, Stein was forced to self-publish ​Tender Buttons many years earlier due to a lack of interest in her highly experimental writing. In her American tour,5 Stein noted that the public’s response to her work had put her in a temporary writing block. Nevertheless, Gertrude Stein is considered as one of the most, if not the most, experimental writers of her time. In her inner writing circles, she was regarded as a mentor to writers such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. All in all, both in her own time, and in the eyes of subsequent generations of readers, Stein's work has been regarded as either brilliantly experimental or cheaply meaningless. Like many of these readers, I initially found Stein's work frustrating and unreadable. Despite this, I soon realized interpreting Stein’s writing does not particularly consist of understanding the meanings of her sentences. For Stein, it is important to consider her writing in 4 Stein had left medical school during her fourth year as she was frustrated with both her struggle with her identity and the male dominated politics and practices of medicine. 5 In 1934, Gertrude Stein travelled America visiting universities to discuss her work. 5 relation to her use of words rather than looking for a narrative structure seeking both plot and depth. This is especially true of Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons, ​which is my primary focus when discussing Stein in this thesis. Because of Gertrude Stein’s aesthetics in this piece, her writing blurs the line between reading and seeing. As Jamie Hilder argues, “It is a text that demands that the reader see what s/he is looking at” (Hilder 67). For this reason, my aim is to identify the identity of a word in Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons b​ y first identifying the identity of a word in Islamic calligraphy. In this thesis, I seek to find a new way to overcome readers’ difficulties with Stein’s writing, and the difficulty of conceiving--as I am arguing that Stein does--words as concrete things, rather than as transparent windows onto the world. In order to address these difficulties, I take an unusual, new approach of considering Stein. More so, my thesis is committed to the principle that sometimes comparing things that may seem unalike on the surface is the best way to bring new understanding of unfamiliar material. Here, I am using Stein as one of two aesthetic models in order to explore that function of words and what comes from such an exploration between modernist and traditional models. To reiterate, this thesis puts Stein’s use of words as things in ​Tender Buttons ​in conversation with a very different aesthetic model: Islamic calligraphy. Within this aesthetic model, I hope to also show, contemporary, avant-garde artists who draw on Islamic traditions and heighten our awareness of the persistence of influence through time as well as paying attention to words in calligraphic script as both the words of God and as untranslatable shapes, material objects, and things. By putting together Gertrude Stein and Islamic calligraphers, I bring into conversation two radically different aesthetic models where, I will argue, one serves as a model for the other. In essence, in this 6 thesis, I use the Islamic calligraphers as a lens that can give us a new look at Stein, and I use Stein’s avant-garde poetry as a lens that can give us a new context for understanding calligraphy. In the first chapter, I introduce Islamic calligraphy in order to build the relationship between ​Tender Buttons​ and “Saracen” calligraphy. In simple, calligraphy is defined as “beautiful writing” (Serikoff 10). Islamic calligraphy is an expression of faith through an aesthetic linguistic representation. My goal is to holistically look at Islamic calligraphy along with calligraphers and consider form, background, influence, and purpose. I explore Islamic calligraphy as one of two aesthetic models in my overall discussion on the function of words, specifically, words as things through Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory.” The importance of these pieces is that they use words in unconventional ways. This form of art presents language being used in an alternative way, in which the artist and the audience experience a new relationship with language. Finally, I build the bridge between Islamic calligraphy and Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons​ through Pablo Picasso. With this, I will present specific examples of calligraphy in Picasso’s art and its translation into Stein’s work. In the second chapter, I explore the status of readers of ​Tender Buttons​ as well as the identity of words that make up the poem. I argue that a definitive meaning of ​Tender Buttons ​is impossible for the reader to accomplish. The multitude of meanings created by various close readings of Stein’s ​Tender Buttons​ only serves to show the ambiguity of her writing. In order to illustrate the importance of these claims, I read Stein in light of the work of French theorist Maurice Blanchot and American thing theorist Bill Brown. In the third chapter, an effect of the relationship between Gertrude Stein and Islamic calligraphers is the shared practice of anti-idolatry. In simple, idolatry is the worshiping of “an 7 image of a god” (Mitchell 58). Anti-idolatry can also be defined in terms of iconoclasm, which is the destruction or forbidding of these worshipped visual representations (Mitchell 58). I will address the religious contexts, in particular the context of anti-idolatry that may have shaped both Stein’s and the Islamic artists’ views of words. In order to begin my discussion on ​Tender Buttons​ within a religious framework, I will discuss anti-idolatry in terms of Stein’s religious and ethical background. This will allow me to continue to explore how Gertrude Stein’s work is observed most saliently in the work of Islamic calligraphers. Thus, I will examine the effect of the connection between Stein and these artists. Finally, I consider the fetishization of words, in which to fetishize an object is to “attribute powers that it does not have” (Idolatry 42). In other words, I address the misattributed function of words as symbols in Islamic calligraphy and seek to dismantle this fetishization of words. As a result, I argue that by defetishizing words, readers/viewers gain more nuanced interpretative readings and avoid the reversion of words into symbols. In my final chapter, I begin to generalize what is new as being highly inspired by what is old. I move beyond influencers of Gertrude Stein’s work to a contemporary world that is now influenced by Stein. I spend time focusing on contemporary Islamic calligraphy to more clearly illustrate not only the influence between ​Tender Buttons​ and Islamic calligraphy, but the generative potential of Islamic calligraphy practices. This chapter will also explain why I am studying the use of words in literature and art, which, in other words, is to help my reader rethink language within and between different forms of expression through time. Additionally, the comparison between Gertrude Stein’s ​Tender Buttons a​ nd Islamic calligraphy is designed to illuminate how the difficulties of understanding modern experimental art can be reduced through 8 exploring traditional art. In particular, Stein’s ​Tender Buttons,​ I propose, will be shown to have fundamental premises similar to Islamic calligraphy. Correspondingly, the practice of the linguistic thingification of words in highly different forms of expression through Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory” allows the reader to gain more from the already well-established conversation on persisting influence. This exploration, ultimately, becomes a tool to reflect on past, present, and future linguistic art forms.