The works of art in The Aesthetics of Resistance are those included in Peter Weiss' novel The Aesthetics of Resistance. They form a kind of musée imaginaire (imagined museum) with more than a hundred named artists and just as many artworks, mainly of the visual arts and literature, but also of music and the performing arts. Peter Weiss wrote the three-volume novel, which runs to around 1000 pages, between 1971 and 1981. The plot is set between 1936 and 1945, and is located in Nazi Berlin, Spain during the Civil War, Paris before World War II and Stockholm as one of the places of refuge for the German exiles. The characters are based on real personalities, the main protagonists organising themselves in the resistance group known as the Red Orchestra. Representations of artists, works of art, their contexts and backgrounds are included in the plot line and form a web of mutual interconnections. The reception takes place in multi-layered reflections by the protagonists of the novel, through the reference to historical and political events, to mythological set pieces, to artists' biographies, to dream images or in critical questioning.
List of artworks The following list contains about one hundred works of art in the visual arts, literature and music that are extensively discussed, named, enumerated or included in Aesthetics of Resistance. In addition, motifs of mythology as well as events and places directly related to Peter Weiss' reception of art are included in the list. The artworks and backgrounds are largely arranged in the order in which they appear in the book. Exceptions are motifs that receive a more detailed description after a brief mention on later pages. The hundred or so artists featured in the novel can be found in the list of artists in Aesthetics of Resistance.
By clicking on the arrow in the table headings, the list can be sorted differently; a detailed description of the sorting options can be found at the end of the table.
Illustration / Chronology Artist / Origin Work / Classification Entry in the novel Ancient Pergamon Altar first half of the 2nd century BC.Berlin, Pergamon Museum
Building The Pergamon Altar is a monumental altar that was erected under Eumenes II near the Asia Minor city of Pergamon. After excavations by the German engineer Carl Humann from 1878 onwards, it was brought to Berlin and exhibited in a specially constructed museum building. The altar is a good 35 metres wide and 33 metres deep; the base is surrounded by a high relief depicting the Battle of the giants against the Olympic gods.
AedW I, pp. 7–15, 36–53, 316 f., 328; AedW III, pp. 20, 171 f., 187, 267 f.The description of the Pergamon Altar and the gigantomachy it depicts forms the introduction to the novel. The protagonists question the viewpoint of the observer: they see the victorious gods as symbols of the rulers who had the monumental work of art created by exploited people, war is stylised into a myth. They themselves identify with the defeated children of the Gaia and discuss the role of Heracles. This is followed by reflections on the significance of the Pergamon Altar in the history of Pergamon, the excavation of the altar and the transfer of the art treasures to Germany. One conclusion of the first-person narrator is
that works such as those that come from Pergamon would have to be interpreted over and over again until a reversal was won and the earth-born awoke from darkness and slavery and showed themselves in their true appearance.
Further lines of thought on the Pergamon Altar are taken up in the course of the novel and conclude the work as a whole with the last chapter, so that this motif frames the novel, as it were.Greek mythologyGigantomachy
Mythology The Gigantomachy is the battle of the giants, the children of the earth mother Ge, against the Olympian gods described in Greek mythology by Homer, Apollodor and others. With the help of the mortal hero Heracles, the gods were victorious.
AedW I, p. 7 ff.The depiction and reception of the Gigantomachy occupies a central space with the description of the Pergamon Altar in the introduction and is taken up in detail several times in the course of the novel. It stands as a symbol for the struggle of the resisters against fascism.
With stones only (...) they can defend themselves against the armoured and heavily armed, they kneel, they crawl, they break and fall into the cracked pavement, exposed to water cannons, gas grenades and machine guns. She saw the battle in our occupied city, our occupied country, and it did not help that Ge begged for mercy for her son Alkyoneus, he was in Athena's power, the killing bite of the snake in his chest was not enough for her, she wanted complete destruction. Condemned to annihilation were the weaponless, who gathered behind barricades, from the chosen ones, who had acquired imposing names and spread the word all around that they were unbeatable, that they had the highest world order in mind. Greek mythology Gaia Mythology The goddess Gaia is the earth mother or personified earth of Greek mythology.
AedW I, p. 10 ff. AedW III, p. 20 The motif of the Gaia becomes the figure of identification for the protagonists:
She had brought forth Uranus, the sky, Pontos, the sea, and all the mountains. She had given birth to the giants, Titans, Cyclopes and Erinyes. This was our race. We surveyed the history of the earthly.
The image is taken up again in Book 3, when the first-person narrator recognises the face of the Gaia on his sick mother. Greek mythology Heracles Mythology Heracles or Hercules is a hero of Greek mythology famous for his strength, who was admitted to Olympus as an immortal. The attribute depicted with him, besides his club, bow and quiver, is the skin of the Nemean lion, which according to legend he defeated in battle.
AedW I, pp. 18–25, 62, 314 ff. AedW III, pp. 169, 267 f. and others The motif of Herakles is a central, recurring simile and stands as a critically questioned symbol for the oppressed or the working class. The absence of his figure from the Pergamon Altar leads to the recurring element of the quest for Heracles, which comes to a close at the end of the novel. AncientMarket Gate of Miletus, around 120 BC Pergamon Museum,
Building The gate building is a Roman gate building from the Asia Minor city of Miletus, which has been in the possession of the Antikensammlung Berlin since 1903.
AedW I, p. 15, 324 f., 327The protagonists also visit this structure during their visit to the Pergamon Museum. The story of the city of Miletus is taken up again elsewhere in the novel in the portrayal of antiquity as a wealth-accumulating slaveholding society. AntiquityIshtar Gate 6th century BC Berlin, Pergamon Museum
Building The Ishtar Gate was one of the gates in the city wall of Babylon, one of the most important cities of antiquity, and was built under Nebuchadnezzar II. It has been in the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin in the south wing of the Pergamon Museum since 1930.
AedW I, p. 15 During the visit to the Pergamon Museum, the protagonists walk along this building, going down a few more centuries.Paul OttoWilhelm von Humboldt Monument, 1883 marble statue Unter den Linden, Berlin,
Fine arts Monument to Wilhelm von Humboldt (1765-1835), polymath who is regarded as a pioneer in cultural studies and education.
AedW I, p. 15As they walk through Berlin, the protagonists point to "the Humboldt brothers enthroned high in armchairs with griffin's feet, poring over open books". Reinhold BegasAlexander von Humboldt Monument 1883, marble statue Berlin, Unter den Linden
Fine arts Monument to Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), natural scientist, who was also called "world scientist" because of his erudition and extensive travels.
AedW I, p. 15As they walk through Berlin, the protagonists point to
the Humboldt brothers enthroned high in armchairs with griffin's feet, poring over open books Arthur Rimbaud A Season in Hell,1873 Collection of poems
Literature This collection of poems is considered a highly poetic final reckoning with Rimbaud's own philosophy at the age of 19 when it was written, but it is also linguistically dense and difficult to access. Rimbaud's work strongly influenced 20th-century literature and art, particularly Expressionism and Surrealism.
AedW I, p. 58; AedW II, p. 68 In the novel's questioning of what possibilities the poorly educated working class has to appropriate culture, the protagonists discuss the intelligibility of language in relation to its banalisation, using Rimbaud as an example:
Both are right (...), both the grip that tears the ground from under our feet and the endeavour to establish solid ground for the investigation of simple facts.
The work is mentioned once more in the second volume, when the first-person narrator seeks to get to know the city of Paris in the footsteps of various artists. Ilya Repin Barge Haulers on the Volga 1870 State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg
Fine Arts
AedW I, p. 60 Motif group: Work as an example of Russian realism: The faces of the ragged, bearded serfs, stomping barefoot or in torn sandals and straw boots through the shore sand, were extinguished, devoid of hope. Konstantin Savitsky Repairing the Railway 1874 Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Fine arts
AedW I, p. 60 Motif group: Work as an example of Russian realism: It was the year eighteen hundred seventy-four, when the road workers on the dusty embankment, watched over by soldiers, braced themselves over the fully laden carts. In the bleakness, the devaluation of their lives, they had never heard of the revolutions in France, of the Commune. Wassili Perow Troika 1866 Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Fine arts
AedW I, p. 60 Motif group: Work as an example of Russian realism: The children in front of the sleigh were emaciated, their features waxen, dull with exhaustion. Nikolai Yaroshenko The Stoker, 1878 Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Fine Arts
AedW I, p. 60 Motif group: Workas an example of Russian realism:
(...) there was Yarosenko's stoker, scorched with red embers, slumped over, locked in the low furnace room, holding the poker in his swollen thick-veined hands.Gustave CourbetThe Stone Breakers 1849-50 formerly Dresden, Picture gallery; burnt
Fine arts
AedW I, p. 60f. Motif group: Work As an example of French realism: Courbet's stone knockers were not granted relief either, but their work in the rubble was no longer marked by hopelessness.Gustave DoréLondon: a pilgrimage Illustrations in William Blanchard Jerrold's London: a Pilgrimage (1872), 180 wood engravings in all
Fine arts
AedW I, p. 61 Motif group: Workrepresentation of workers and their lives: '... they were not, however, exposed to abandonment by the wet, but toiled in a living circle.Jean-François Millet The Gleaners, 1857 Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Fine arts
AedW I, p. 61f. Motif group: WorkDescription and interpretation of the painting as well as of the motif's background in connection with remarks on realism, in which working people are depicted in works of art and their images are elevated to the salons of society:
by taking the sweaty figures, with their earthy features, their loamy weight, away from where they had hitherto persevered anonymously, and placing them among the well-groomed portraits, the nymphs and shepherdesses, he did something that was tantamount to a revolutionary cause. Jean-François Millet Man with a Hoe, circa 1860 and circa 1862
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Fine arts
AedW I, p. 62. Motif group: : Work Description and interpretation of the painting as well as of the motif's background in connection with remarks on realism, in which working people are depicted in works of art and their images are elevated to the salons of society: