Gradiva
Gradiva , the striding one, is a modern mythological figure. It sprang from the imagination of a novel hero. The protagonist of the novella by Wilhelm Jensen Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantastic Piece (1903), a young archaeologist, christened a fascinating, striding female figure in an ancient reliefwith the name "Gradiva"after the epithet of the god of war, Mars Gradivus . Later, in a state between waking and dreaming, he meets her again in the ruins of Pompeii . Sigmund Freud analyzed the behavior and dreams of this young archaeologist in his study Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensen's Gradiva (1907). Not only did Freud wrench the novella from oblivion, but his famous studyalso made Gradiva a modern mythological figure.
The relief actually exists and has been called Gradiva ever since . Friedrich Hauser described it in 1903 as a Neo-Attic Roman bas-relief , probably a replica of a Greek original from the 4th century BC. It depicts the three agraulids, Herse, Pandrosos and Agraulos, goddesses of the wetting dew. Hauser reconstructed the relief using fragments that are scattered across various museums; the Gradiva fragment is in the collection of the Vatican Chiaramonti Museum in Rome.
Jensen's novella and Freud's analysis
The protagonist of the Gradiva novella, the young archaeologist Norbert Hanold, finds a relief image in a collection of antiquities in Rome that depicts a young striding woman whose graceful gait captivates him. He gives her the name "Gradiva" after the epithet of the god of war, Mars Gradivus, who goes out to fight . The one who walks so gracefully is described as follows:
- “Approximately one-third of life-size, the portrait represented a complete, striding female figure, still young, but no longer in childhood, on the other hand, however, apparently not a woman, but a Roman Virgo who entered the early twenties. [...] A tall and slender figure, whose slightly wavy hair was almost completely wrapped in a wrinkled headscarf; the rather narrow face had no dazzling effect. [...] The young woman was by no means captivated by her sculptural beauty, but she possessed something rare in ancient stone figures, a natural, simple, girlish grace that gave the impression of giving him life. Mainly this probably happened through the movement in which it was represented. With her head tilted slightly forward, she held up her extraordinarily richly pleated garment with her left hand, flowing down from the neck to the ankles, so that the feet in the sandals were visible. The one on the left had stepped forward, and the one on the right, about to follow, only touched the ground loosely with the tips of his toes, while the sole and heel rose almost vertically. This movement evoked a double feeling of extremely easy agility on the part of those walking out and at the same time a feeling of secure rest. This gave it, combining a flight-like hovering with a firm demeanor, its peculiar grace. "
Sigmund Freud analyzed the novella in his 1907 study Der Wahn und die Träume in Jensen's “Gradiva” , in particular the dreams of the protagonist Hanhold. Freud interpreted them as a substitute for unfulfilled feelings that affect his childhood playmate, Zoë Bertgang . Ernest Jones - Freud's long-time collaborator - writes that Freud was made aware of Jensen's novella by Carl Gustav Jung and that he wrote this little study to make Jung happy. Freud sent his paper to Jensen, and a brief exchange of letters followed. Jensen's three letters of May 13th, 25th and December 14th, 1907, were printed in 1929. Freud's letters to Jensen were not published until 2012. In response to Freud's request, Jensen assured that he did not know Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (published in 1900). Freud later wrote: "I used this correspondence between my research and the poet's work as proof of the correctness of my dream analysis." Freud had a copy of the relief that he had acquired in 1907 in the Vatican Museum. It is currently on display on the wall of his studio in the Freud Museum in London , in the room where he died. In winter 2007/2008 the museum dedicated a special exhibition to this study by Freud with the title: Gradiva: The Cure Through Love.
Adaptations
Salvador Dalí used the name Gradiva as a nickname for his wife Gala . A number of his paintings and sculptures bear this title, for example Gradiva retrouve les ruines anthropomorphes - Fantaisie rétrospectif (Gradiva finds the anthropomorphic ruins again - Retrospective Fantasy) from 1931. Other surrealist painters also gave their works this name, for example André Masson in 1939 for Gradiva (Metamorphosis of Gradiva) . The French literary critic Maurice Nadeau described Gradiva, "the woman who walks through the wall", as a muse of surrealism.
In 1937, the surrealist writer André Breton opened an art gallery under the name Gradiva on the Rive Gauche , 31 rue de Seine, in Paris . Marcel Duchamp created the design. The door to the gallery showed an opening in the shape of a silhouette of two people standing close together. Breton wrote regarding the name "Gradiva" that it also meant seeing the beauty of tomorrow, which most people would still hide. According to Breton's vision, entering the gallery with surrealist art should bring the visitor closer to this beauty and - as in Jensen's work - make a contribution to uncovering what is mentally hidden in the viewer.
In 1970 the Italian film Gradiva , directed by Giorgio Albertazzi with the main actors Laura Antonelli and Peter Chatel, based on Wilhelm Jensen's novella, premiered. The erotic drama C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle (The Call of Gradiva) followed in 2006, directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet . Slides showing missing drawings by the French painter Eugène Delacroix are leaked to the orientalist John Locke, played by James Wilby , in Marrakech . They allegedly represent the slave girl Gradiva, Delacroix's Moroccan lover, who was executed for the offense by her master. Since then, John Gradiva (played by Arielle Dombasle ) has been meeting again and again in the streets of Marrakech. Eugène Delacroix created eight sketchbooks in Morocco in 1832 . Six have survived; they are considered to be the forerunners of orientalism in 19th century art. Robbe-Grillet sees his film as an homage to this art movement and to the erotic myth of the Orient, in which women act as prisoners, victims and seductive sex slaves.
The short film Gradiva Sketch 1 (1978, camera: Bruno Nuytten ) by the French film artist Raymonde Carasco was described as a “poetic formulation of fetishistic desire that seems to go against Freud's interpretation”: “The graceful movement of her foot not only points to the male Desire, but is its object. ",
The French writer Michel Leiris founded Gradhiva magazine together with Jean Jamin in 1986 . Revue d'anthropologie et d'histoire des arts published by the Musée du quai Branly .
literature
- Wilhelm Jensen: Gradiva. A Pompeian fantasy piece . Reissner, Dresden and Leipzig (1903) facsimile transcription
- Sigmund Freud: The madness and dreams in W. Jensen's Gradiva , first edition: Leipzig and Vienna, Heller (1907); Collected Works, Vol. VII pp. 29–125, Frankfurt am Main, S. Fischer, 1999.
- Anna Sophia Hofmeister: Beyond Reason. The unconscious in Wilhelm Jensen's story Gradiva (PDF; 547 kB). In: Helikon. A Multidisciplinary Online Journal , 2, 2012, pp. 211-221
- Friedrich Hauser: Disiecta membra neo-Attic reliefs. Annual books of the Österr. Archaeol. Institutes Vol. VI (1903) 79-107.
Web links
- Gradiva in the Chiaramonti Museum, Rome
- Gradiva in the Freud Museum, London
- Raymonde Carasco: Gradiva Sketch 1 (1978)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inv. No. 1284
- ^ W. Jensen: Gradiva (1903) p. 4
- ↑ W. Jensen: Gradiva (1903) pp. 1-3
- ↑ Ernest Jones: The life and work of Sigmund Freud, Bern and Stuttgart, 1962. Vol. 2, p. 402
- ^ 3 letters by Jensen to Freud (May 13th, 25th, December 14th, 1907) First published in: Die Psychoanalytische Bewegungs, 1st year, Issue 1 207-211 International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Vienna (1929); also in: Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Jensen: The madness and dreams in W. Jensen's "Gradiva" : With the text of the story by Wilhelm Jensen and Sigmund Freud's marginal notes. Edited by Bernd Urban. Frankfurt am Main, Fischer, 1995. Jensen's letter of May 25, 1907: online , accessed on September 14, 2013.
- ↑ in: Klaus Schlagmann: Gradiva. True poetry and delusional interpretation. The complete correspondence between Wilhelm Jensen and Sigmund ... Saarbrücken, The family tree and the seven branches, 2012. Originals in Jensen's estate, Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek , Kiel
- ↑ Dream Interpretation, later note: Ges. Werke, Vol. II / III p. 101
- ↑ Freud Museum Exhibition Archive: Gradiva: The Cure Through Love ( Memento of August 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Illustration from Dalí's painting , salvador-dali.org
- ^ Maurice Nadeau: A History of Surrealism , 1965
- ^ Auction of Masson's painting with illustration , faz.net, accessed on February 14, 2011
- ^ The Question of the Showcase , toutfait.com, accessed February 12, 2011
- ↑ Gradiva , imdb.de, accessed on February 15, 2011
- ↑ Der Ruf der Gradiva , tvspielfilm.de, accessed on February 15, 2011
- ↑ Eye of Sound - UbuWeb Film
- ↑ Gradhiva , gradhiva.revues.org, accessed 15 February 2011