Phantasmatic Horror of Modernism

Reg No. 33282419

The modern is unforgiving, melancholic and perhaps

selfish too. It’s madness carefully measured on an

example of uncanny1. If the modern would step aside from

it’s pedestrian into a form of human being it would not

have a heart, nor sorrow; instead it would feed the

atmosphere with enough hope to make one take him or her

as a figure capable of starting a revolution. Her?

Putting female as the character of the modern changes the

perspective, sets the scene. This essay will emphasize

the role of female as the modern, as the devilish one,

one who carelessly ruins and builds at the same time. Or

from the perspective of uncanny one who is so familiar,

yet unpredictable. Just like the figure of a women we

always knew – the mother.

1 ‘But he who, not being inspired and having no touch of my madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks thathe will get into the temple by the help of the art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.’ John Perry in ‘The Far Side of Madness’. (1974) United States of America: Prentice-Hall

Looking at her as blind femme fatale2, exactly how

Camille Roqueplan has painted her creates a dozen of

questions about her innocence and clear intentions. For

centuries women were considered a fragile creatures,

which in a physiological sense they are, however in a

broader context of the power of the mind women contain

power equally comparable to those men posses.

Where there is a sunrise there is a sunset, where

there is a woman there is a man. And Roqueplan could not

paint these relationships of opposites better. It seems

as if the opposites would attract, the unknown would pull

the known. How does the pair of two poles create an

immense strength? Lion in Love, 18363 meets all the

demands for an artwork, which could best hold up together

the meaning of a female figure in a modern society; in

this essay the meaning of a female is the modern itself.

Calmness of the main female figure is almost hypnotizing,

especially when accompanied by a lion, with his mouth

2 Almost like Freida Kahlo, powerful in the knowledge of her independence and reassurance of who she is and what does she represent as a woman. 3 Camille Roqueplan, The Lion in Love 1836, The Wallace Collection

wide open revealing the sharpness of his teeth. Both of

which are just constructions, visions design to confuse

and create assumptions.

The fundamental description of Roqueplan’s painting

reminds me of descriptions of the bourgeoisie in Marx’s

4eyes. To touch more upon it, the initial theory isn’t as

relevant. Working hard to achieve a goal, yet reaching a

fiasco, because of naivety and belief that manipulation

can result in greater success – in Marx’s words:

‘everything that bourgeois society builds is built to be

torn down5’. In a mythological example Sisyphus tediously

carrying a stone up the hill to then be pushed back to

where he has started. It’s an endless fight, which has

now turned into a routine considered peaceful.

The beauty and horror of ‘Lion in Love’ lies in the

title itself; how can a human mind even process such

title without reaching out of the bounds of sanity? Here 4 Marshall Berman, ‘Ch 2. All That is Solid Melts Into Air” Marx, Modernism and Modernization’, All That is Solid Melts into Air” The Experience of Modernity (LondonNew York: Verso 1982)5 Ibid, p.99

a lion fell in love with a shepherdess, who, being

carelessly contented around her admirer, blindly follows

instructions of her father to strip the lion out of all

protection he has been given by nature, those being his

claws and teeth; all to follow the charm of the scene

with hideous act of manipulation. It’s what one is

prepared to do just to reach the state of mellow content.

The continuation of the scene lies in the spectator’s

mind; looking at the darkness of the left hand side of

the painting we can smell the painfully lingering scent

of death and conspiracy coming from assassins sent by

shepherdess’ father to end the life of her lover for once

and all. Roqueplan has included not just heaven in the

form of an extremely candid female figure, but has also

placed hell in a corner creeping on her innocence like

modernism does every time society and nature is tried to

be mixed in the same metaphysical blender. The biggest

meaning lies in the unseen, unexpected and unpredicted

fate of justice.

We have previously christened our main female figure

as the modern, and that’s how from now on I will be

referring to her6. Does modernity’s nudity, hastily worn

robe, which revealed her perfectly round breast, make her

appear even more angelic? Terry Castle argued, in a

brilliantly ironic book titled The Female Thermometer,

(and I couldn’t agree with more) ‘The eroticized female

body – in life and death, in relation to other bodies, in

relation to the phantasmatic – has been a recurrent

motif7.’ The whole masquerade in Roqueplan’s painting

would be best described by the phrase ‘incipient horror’:

incipient, because it had just begun: horror, because it

represents the commitment of what one who loves or feels

is capable of doing just to keep what they consider as

common, known or safe. In other words accustomed actions

being equivalent to the sensation of secureness. Today’s

society treats the modern, as something so obvious,

easily seen something everyone feels and choses to keep,

not to quit the ‘oh so familiar’ routine.

6 All in attempt to create more intimacy between the subject and the object. 7 Terry Castle, The Female Thermometer 18th- Century Culture And The Invention Of The Uncanny, Oxford University Press, 1995 p.19

I’d like to now move on onto the subject, the theme

of the uncanny (always keeping the image of modern behind

your eyesballs8). What is the uncanny and how does it

relate? Everyone who has at least dipped their heels into

the ocean of modernity has their own meaning of uncanny -

Freud however has said it all: ‘What makes the uncanny is

precisely the way they subvert the distinction between

the real and the phantasmatic…9’ Uncanny depends upon

each individual’s own experiences, therefore as many

humans counts to as many definitions of uncanny. In a

very simplified sense; uncanny is what one holds close

and familiar to him yet is aware of the incredibility

therefore is also frightened. Freud’s words positioned

in front of Roqueplan’s painting create a whole new

dimension of the image and it’s meaning in relation to

the modern and what it means to be modern. The

juxtaposition in the painting is wildly uncanny. Now the

horror is joined with fantasy, black magic, sorcery,

8 It is important to remain focused on the painting, as itis the foundations on which I lay all my theories and thesis. 9 Ibid, p.5

animism and superstition. Phantasmatic horror. How

shocking, the lion’s unconditional belief in modernism?

It is the newest, least tested, freshest way of

breathing. The soothing expression of modern like

camomile brew fulfilled with arsenic softly and calmly

creating the uncanny, something so angelic and devilish

at the same time. A prime example of this could be the

birth of Doctor Frankenstein’s monster. 10

Whilst one thinker tries to fight the modern, others

surrender. In this case Descartes is the one who doubts

in everything as an attempt to not get fooled. In his

text Mediation on First Philosophy11 he argues that there 10 Marry Shelly’s most recognizable creation Frankenstein’s Monster. In this particular case the example is used to reflect upon the very hopeful and promising process of creating another human. In the storyDoctor Frankenstein is fascinated by life and death, and he commits his life into finding out the answer for bringing back the life. And so he collects the parts of deceased in order to create an answer for immortality. Inresult the monster is born, with a mind and power of his own, completely unaware of common sense and life with others goes out to the world not realizing the differencebetween right and wrong. Something with such beautiful and immense intentions resulting in death of the creator.11 René Descartes, ‘First and Second Meditations’ from Meditations on First Philosophy [1641]. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach, Descartes; PhilosophicalWritings (London: Nelson University Paperbacks, 1954)

is no spiritual authorities such as God, nor is he

willing to accept the belief in anything that his senses

are unable to detect – ‘Finally, it is I who have

sensations or who perceive corporeal objects as if they

were senses. Thus, I am now seeing light, hearing a

noise, feeling heat12.’ His senses are therefore the only

trustworthy sources to keep his mind sane and

independent. Does that mean that one who worships higher

authority has lost or is losing his senses? Believing in

what decides on one’s sanity? Terry Castle has wrapped

this question in a very informative quote: “The “new”

eighteen century is not so much an age of reason, but one

of paranoia, repression, and the incipient madness, for

which Jeremy Bentham’s malign, all-seeing Panopticon,

grimly refurbished by Foucault, might stand as a fitting,

nightmarish emblem13’, although it might not be a bright

answer at first sight paranoia and madness of Panopticon

have a lot in common with the painting we all should

still have in our mind’s - Lion in Love. They both

12 Ibid, p. 7113 Terry Castle, The Female Thermometer 18th- Century Culture And The Invention Of The Uncanny, Oxford University Press, 1995 p.7

represent the paranoia of being exposed in one case trust

and other fate. At this point of horror, madness in the

18th century and the role of female in modern society is

always being pushed in front of the line, but behind a

male figure. I’m going to bring another extremely

relevant artwork The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

painted by Goya14. In theory consciousness goes to sleep

at the same time as the living being does, opening the

gates of imaginations, through which monsters and

creations of horror can fly in (of which no one has

control of). What happens to our modern beliefs or

disbeliefs then? When control is not an option,

imagination kicks in, or, as in the modern’s case faith.

Men could potentially use horror in their favour, but

females (by theory are fragile creatures), either pushed

or dismissed behind their demon lovers. More organically

speaking – ‘In the shadow of the name of the father, the

figure of the mother exists only as silenced or absent,

14 Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters 1799, The British Museum

the less significant other15. It’s the actions that speak

for the individual or the life that he leads.

Regardless whether one would choose to support,

dismiss or partially participate in the development or

life of modernism, the choice has already been made. Fear

of being left out or pushed aside is bigger than

willingness to fight what we don’t understand. The

problem is in following a political or social

construction, which we might not agree with yet we feel

hopeless to stand against of. Is modern something that

has happened before? Has it happened yet? Is it happening

right now? How could one detect the effect of the

modern, and what is holds in the future. Modernism – in

21st century considered another word for ‘new’ by masses,

for me is a difficult relationship of phantasmatic horror

of society and non-human made objects/ nature. It’s the

attempt of combining the two that causes shock and fear.

The aim to connect everything to each other often leads

to a unnecessary confusion. Modernism is a part of

15 D.S.Brewer; First Edition, Romanticism & Gender, Editedby Anne Janowitz, 1998

everything, so is blind faith – the kind of faith we

choose, because even though we know it will end with

devil’s laugh we choose to worship. Roqueplan’s heroine

made that decision by ripping all her lover had to

protect himself. End came in red, flooded in blood. Death

once and for all took the life away, life which will not

be returned.

I have now fed my readers with horror, fear,

confusion and possibly some form of engagement towards

modernism and its danger. Perhaps now the beauty of mind

can reveal it’s highest power. As previously mentioned

uncanny is dependant on each and different circumstances

of one who happened to be questioning it. In theory the

only true and real critic of uncanny could only be a

child, as its mind is pure and unaffected by hate or

love. Therefore enabling mind to consider the one and

true meaning of uncanny.

At such corner one of Freud’s theories strikes to my

mind, the theory of young girls treating their dolls like

living beings, by looking at them in certain way. By

opening the eyes of their imagination to almost like

Doctor Frankenstein give the dolls a soul, which in adult

world they aren’t supposed to have. Children’s careless

attitude leads to creation of imaginative friends, dolls

coming alive and monsters from underneath the bed.

Modernism, caught in an uncanny light by the young girls’

gaze, is the doll. The young girls become the society

itself if we look at it in a certain way; modernism will

become true and suddenly we’ll feel as if it was with us

from the day we were born. Or was it? Perhaps those now

grown-up women are still looking at their dolls the same

way; perhaps their gaze is as powerful as it was decades

ago. Potent enough to make their dolls immortal. It’s

the experiences and life events they have stumbled upon

along their life journey, which slowly rubs off the

innocence and clearness of the mind.

Addressing the main theory of this essay, what does

the relationship of modern with uncanny represent? In a

primary sense new means change, it stands for evolution

and development. Does that depend upon the brainwash done

by media or hopeful belief in the new, which with its

promising name cover the old and bad. Where has the new

become the life and the old death? Phantasmatic Horror of

Modernism argues that opposites attract, but not

necessary fight.

Bibliography

Books:Brewer D.S. 1998 First Edition, Romanticism & Gender, Anne Janowitz, The English Association 1998, Cambridge

Castle T. 1995, The Female Thermometer 18th-Century Culture And The Invention Of The Uncanny, Oxford University Press, New York

Descartes R. 1954, ‘First and Second Meditations’ from Meditations on First Philosophy’, Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach, London: Nelson University Paperbacks, London

Foucault M. 1984, ‘What is Enlightenment’ The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought’, Paul Rainbow, Penguin Books, London and New York

Latour B. 1991, ‘Crisis’, We have Never Been Modern, Mass: Harvard UP, Cambridge

Mellor, 1998, Romanticism and Feminism, Anne K. Mellor, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis

Perry J. 1974 ‘The Far Side of Madness’. United States of America: Prentice-Hall

Websites:

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Camille Roqueplan, The Lion in Love 1836, The Wallace

Collection

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

1799, The British Museum