I'm cheating a bit with this post. I was asked to write a book review for the
Art Libraries Journal. I wasn't sure I'd be able to read it by November, because I have so many more things to read, however, I found this to be one of the best books I've read and actually very relevant for my research into the time period
I'm studying. So I include it here. This is what I turned into the ALJ. Obviously it may be edited when published in the journal.
In the 2006 film, The Illusionist, Edward Norton plays a
nineteenth century magician, Eisenheim, who is challenged to reveal secrets of
his craft by Crown Prince Leopold, played by Rufus Sewell. Prince Leopold is a clever, highly
learned man with a scientific bent—he embodies what Adamson describes as ‘modernity.’ Until I had read Adamson’s book, The Invention of Craft, I had no idea
that Eisenheim was based on an actual historical magician, Robert-Hodin. Robert-Hodin was so well regarded that
later illusionist, Erik Weisz chose the stage name ‘Harry
Houdini’ to honor him. Several of
the illusions the audience sees in the film – an orange tree growing before
their eyes, apparent ghosts walking among the living, and the trick that puts
Eisenheim a odds with Leopold: taking the prince’s sword on stage and
challenging anyone to lift it as King Arthur lifted Excalibur from the stone—are
all based on the crafty performances of Robert-Hodin. “He is trying to trick
you,” Leopold says, demanding that the lights are switched on during Eisenheim’s
command performance at the prince’s palace. “I am trying to enlighten you. Who has the more noble pursuit?”
Robert-Hodin is an artisan, states
Adamson. Artisans have been around for centuries. Artisans have different creative practices and diverse
skills, from cabinetmakers to weavers of lace, from locksmiths to performers on
stage. The artisans traditionally
belonged to guilds that regulated how craft knowledge was disseminated through
personal networks, following stages of apprenticeship, to journeyman and
finally after years of dedicated hard work, to master. Going through each stage,
one gained experience of the craft.
The guilds protected artisan mysteries, allowing artisans to set the
price on their own work. The guild
system allowed artisans to be independent from outside control.
The guild system and this artisan
process of slow emersion into life-long careers started breaking down prior to
the Industrial Revolution, asserts Adamson. He shows how different trade shops and enterprises began
dividing up labor, creating specialists in certain specific tasks so that large
jobs that were commissioned could be done faster, and more efficiently. What happened then (Adamson shows how this
happened at different times in different trades) was that rather than
apprentices being fully knowledgeable about the whole process of making something
like a cabinet or a wood engraving, or the details of each trick in performance,
people became specialists. Adamson
points out that the problem with this process was that someone from outside
(like the encyclopaedist Denis Diderot, or a captain of industry, or a
political figure), someone with a lot of influence and often power, gets the
impression there is no actual skill or talent going into the craft process. And what’s worse, promote this idea
widely.
Adamson alludes to our awareness
that at some point between 1750s to the 1850s the concept of a division between
the ‘fine arts’ and the ‘craft arts’ occurred, with the fine art emerging as
the superior of the two. Adamson
strongly argues that the whole notion of ‘craft’ was invented in order to: first,
control artisans that were operating within their own economic and social
communities; and second, to provide something in opposition to the concept of ‘progress’
in the narrative of the Industrial Revolution, that was effectively peddled by
emerging entrepreneurs, industrialists and capitalists. Many professions and new jobs emerged
during the Victorian era. Natural philosophers became physicists and
chemists. Natural history
practitioners were transformed into geologists and biologists. And with some slight of hand,
traditional artisans were rechristened as architects, designers, and engineers,
or ‘mere’ practitioners of craft such as draughtsman or mechanics. The actual magic being performed was
through rhetoric, and Adamson shows how skills that were once admired and well paid
for were either relegated into the lower ranks of society, or cleverly made
invisible. For example, it was said that performers, like Robert-Hodin, used
their creativity and skill to ‘merely’ make money, so they were considered ‘base’
because they didn’t contribute to something ‘more useful’. Designers on the other hand, who did
much useful work to plan, produce, and then finish products, like rifles or
cabinets were obscured by talk of wondrous machines that ‘did everything.’ No credit or extra compensation was
provided for laborers who worked with the machines; who were told they only had
so-called mechanical and unthinking tasks to perform.
The Invention of Craft is actually a cultural and social history, that
challenges readers in an compelling way to ask questions like, why did the
nineteenth century belief in progress and self-improvement lead to
exploitation, not just of workers in Great Britain, but of raw materials and
other cultures on distant shores? How has craft knowledge, which has been hidden,
or belittled, or ignored since the nineteenth century, actually remained an
empowering force with potential to change the world? This well-researched book is worth getting just for the
references alone—it’s a bonus to find the text so engaging.
Adamson defines many common beliefs
that are still held today, about craft and ‘traditional arts’. He explains
craft ‘creation stories’ in the eighteenth - nineteenth centuries, and
challenges different myths in four very dense, yet enlightening chapters. Each
chapter starts with a historical figure that is seamlessly woven into a greater
narrative. By the end of each
section, which builds on the last, he offers different understandings of
modernity. Explanations by Ruskin
or Morris or Marx may be too simple, he thinks. Perhaps modernity is actually
just a fantasy of control.
In The Illusionist, the character Eisenheim, started out as a cabinetmaker’s
son, who has to flee as a young man because the authorities were trying to
control his life. When the movie
begins we know this character has changed his name to Eisenheim and reinvented
himself. The craft skills of cabinetmaker
are used to create ‘magical’ artisan props, props that transform him into a
very successful illusionist, a performer outside direct control of the
authorities. Eisenheim practices ‘mysteries’
which he will not explain to outsiders.
People come to his shows to experience wonder. Prince Leopold, the
embodiment of nineteenth-century, authoritarian, ‘scientific’ thinking doesn’t
like wonder. Wonder to Leopold equals trickery. Wonder is something that should captivate for a few
moments. The real thrill of
viewing any craft skill for him comes from understanding how something is
actually done. Prince Leopold asks which of them has the more noble
pursuit. It is well worth reading
Glenn Adamson’s book for enlightening and nuanced answers.
