''Angelus Novus'' (New Angel) is a 1920
monoprint
Monoprinting is a type of printmaking where the intent is to make unique prints, that may explore an image serially. Other methods of printmaking create editioned multiples, the monoprint is editioned as 1 of 1. There are many techniques of mono-pr ...
by the Swiss-German artist
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
, using the oil transfer method he invented. It is now in the collection of the
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum ( he, מוזיאון ישראל, ''Muze'on Yisrael'') is an art and archaeological museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world’s leading encyclopa ...
in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
.
History
The artist's friend
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
, a noted German critic and philosopher, purchased the print in 1921. In September 1940 Benjamin committed suicide during an attempt to flee the Nazi regime. After World War II, Benjamin's friend
Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mystici ...
, a distinguished scholar of Jewish mysticism, inherited the drawing. According to Scholem, Benjamin felt a mystical identification with the ''Angelus Novus'' and incorporated it in his theory of the “angel of history,” a melancholy view of historical process as an unceasing cycle of despair.
In the ninth thesis of his 1940 essay “
Theses on the Philosophy of History
"Theses on the Philosophy of History" or "On the Concept of History" (german: Über den Begriff der Geschichte) is an essay written in early 1940 by German philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin. It is one of Benjamin's best-known, and most contr ...
”, Benjamin describes ''Angelus Novus'' as an image of the angel of history:
A Klee painting named ''Angelus Novus'' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
In 2015, in conjunction with her solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, American artist
R. H. Quaytman discovered that the monoprint had become adhered to an 1838
copperplate engraving
Intaglio ( ; ) is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print where the parts of the matrix that ...
by Friedrich Müller after a portrait of
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
by
Lucas Cranach Cranach is a German-language surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Augustin Cranach (1554–1595), German painter
*Hans Cranach (c. 1513–1537), German painter
*Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472–1553), German artist
*Lucas Cranach th ...
.
Legacy
The name and concept of Klee's "New Angel" has inspired works by other artists, filmmakers, writers and musicians, including
John Akomfrah,
Ariella Azoulay
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay ( he, אריאלה עאישה אזולאי; born Tel Aviv, 1962) is an author, art curator, filmmaker, and theorist of photography and visual culture. She is a professor of Modern Culture and Media and the Department of ...
,
Carolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché (born April 28, 1950) is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work.
Biography
Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louis ...
,
Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine ( ar, ربيع علم الدين; born 1959) is a Lebanese-American painter and writer. His 2021 novel ''The Wrong End of the Telescope'' won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Early life
Alameddine was born in Amman, Jor ...
, and
Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels '' My Year of Meats'' (1998), '' All Over Creation'' (2003), '' A Tale for the Time Being'' (2013), and '' The Book of Form ...
.
In 1997, German art historian Otto Karl Werckmeister included Klee's "New Angel" image among his selection of "icons of the
left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right
* L ...
." He discussed Benjamin's use of the painting as an important contribution to its iconic status.
[Werkmeister, ''Icons of the Left: Benjamin and Einstein, Picasso and Kafka After the Fall.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997: 9.]
See also
*
List of works by Paul Klee
This is an incomplete list of works by Paul Klee (18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940), a Swiss-born German artist and draftsman. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism.
Li ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Angelus Novus
1920 paintings
Paintings by Paul Klee
Walter Benjamin
Angels in art