Approach to Venice

Approach to Venice (1844) by JMW Turner.
Ruskin:- "The most perfectly beautiful piece of colour of all that I have seen produced by human hands".

Hitler's Private Library

The latest issue of BBC History Magazine features a review of new book; 'Hitler's Private Library' (It was full of rubbish apparently, adventure stories, etc). The book compares Hitler (unfavourably) with Benjamin, also famous for his book collection. "Benjamin loved books, where Hitler used books as armaments for his campaigns - political and military."

Leeds' Egyptian Temple

Whistler v. Ruskin

In 1887, Whistler displayed several paintings at the opening of Grosvenor Gallery. John Ruskin, the Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford and the leading art critic of his day, attacked Whistler's The Nocturne in Black and Gold [The Falling Rocket] in a review of the show. Ruskin wrote, "I have seen and heard much of Cockney impudence before now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler was incensed, and sued Ruskin for libel. Although Whistler argued that the issue of the case was not the merit of his art but Ruskin's personal attack, the art itself was at the center of the trial. Whistler won his case, but was awarded only a farthing in damages. Ruskin resigned his professorship, arguing that a critic who cannot criticize is useless. Whistler may have been morally vindicated bythe trial, but he was financially devastated. This pamphlet was his failedattempt to recoup his losses. It was not well-received by the art world, who sympathized with the fallen Ruskin..

Ruskin - Wilde - Pater. Pt1

The Aesthetic Movement encompassed the visual arts, the decorative arts, and literature. At Oxford, Wilde studied under the two great art critics of the Victorian age, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. Pater's injunction "to know one's impression as it really is" underlies Aestheticism's guiding principle: the sole function of art is to inspire an emotion or create a mood. Pater's influence on Wilde's art criticism is strong; "All art is quite useless," Wilde asserts in the Preface to Dorian Gray. The Aesthetic Movement sought an art that exists for beauty alone. Arguments raged for and against the amorality of art, with every major thinker and artist of the day jumping into the fray. The highly publicized court battle between James McNeill Whistler and John Ruskin over Whistler's aesthetic art set an early precedent in the battle over the function of art in society. Later, for a time, Whistler and Wilde were interchangeable figures to the public. They battled in the newspapers and lecture halls for prominence, and Wilde won. He became the most visible symbol of Aestheticism in the 1880s; he would become the scapegoat for its excesses, both real and imagined, in the 1890s.

Ruskin Square, Croyden

Just as Benjamin has his own square, so does Ruskin. Here's what the project managers have to say about it:-

Ruskin believed passionately in improving the lives of ordinary people, and was an early champion of causes like a national health service, retraining for the unemployed, and public galleries and libraries.

He also had close connections with Croydon. His mother was born there, and he visited the area throughout his life, growing to love the River Wandel. His parents are buried in Shirley, and he erected a fountain in Carshalton, dedicated to his mother.

Ruskin saw architecture as the most public of the arts. A civilization,
he believed, could be judged on the quality of its public spaces.
Today, that same belief has inspired the creation of Ruskin Square.

Designed by Foster + Partners with FaulknerBrowns, Ruskin Square bears all the hallmarks of 21st Century style and technology. But the ideas behind it are influenced by one of the Victorian era’s greatest thinkers: John Ruskin.

Ruskin believed architecture and well-designed space is critical to the quality of our lives; that it “proposes an effect on the human mind, not merely a service to the human frame.”

With 560 contemporary apartments, 900,000 square feet of Grade ‘A’ office space, a 4.5 acre open space, as well as cafés, brasseries and restaurants, Ruskin Square offers social spaces, public spaces, spaces to relax and a 21st century work environment to rival any other.

Love

The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
Walter Benjamin

More Suicide

The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.
Walter Benjamin

Books

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.
Walter Benjamin

Public opinion

It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.
Walter Benjamin

Gifts

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
Walter Benjamin

Morrissey

The lyrics to Morrissey's latest single, 'I'm throwing my arms around Paris' sound like something Benjamin would have written, had he been so inclined.

In the absence of your love
And in the absence of human touch
I have decided I’m throwing my arms
around all of paris because only stone and steel
accept my love

In the absence of your smiling face
I traveled all over the place
and I have decided
I’m throwing my arms around
all of paris because only stone and steel
accept my love
I’m throwing my arms around
all of Paris because only stone and steel
accept my love

I’m throwing my arms around
Paris because nobody wants my love
Nobody wants my love
Nobody needs my love
Nobody wants my love
Yes you made yourself plain
Yes you made yourself very plain

Visa documents

Walt

Walter Benjamin Smith

Artist Walter Benjamin Smith. What's going on here?

Angel of History

Angel of History Masks; "pretend you're watching the accumulated debris of history exploding you into the future, from the comfort of your own room."

Somehow unpleasant 'Benjamin'

Walter Benjamin Platz

Walter Benjamin Platz in Berlin, has some (rather ugly) modern arcades, but no one way street.

Walter Benjamin Platz

Thornton's City Varieties

Leeds' City Varieties has featured here many times before. Opened by Charles Thornton of Thornton's Arcade it is perhaps the premier variety hall in the UK. A few highlights of its history:-
Charlie Chaplin, Houdini, Laurel and Hardy all played here.
Prostitutes were openly encouraged to do business here (it increased bar sales).
Thornton originally opened the Varieties so he could put on Mr and Mrs Stephens' performing Gorillas.
Edward VII saw Lillie Langtry (his mistress) here.
Houdini was paid £150 for a weeks work here, at the time a huge amount.

Flesheaters

Writers of the Leeds Arcades Projects movie soundtrack, Flesheaters, now have a myspace.

Check out their latest Gothic Baroque sounds here:-

http://www.myspace.com/eatersflesh

Leeds' Egyptian Mill

As well as its famous arcades LEEDS boasts a number of other impressive buildings that are recognised far and wide.

The Town Hall, Corn Exchange and Leeds University's Parkinson Building are all celebrated landmarks.

However, anyone who has been stopped in their tracks by the less well-known Temple Mill will attest to its status as one of the city's greatest hidden gems.

Designed by Egyptologist and architect Joseph Bonomi Jnr, it is modelled on Edfu Temple and was once a central part of the city's thriving flax industry.

It was hoped the mill would be a centrepiece of the Holbeck Urban Village but it now needs a great deal of work to safeguard even its short-term future.

Its owners have asked engineers to put a figure on the repairs and they are not expected to be cheap.

But the money to preserve this remarkable building must be found. It is an important and unique piece of Leeds's industrial heritage. One we cannot afford to lose – at any cost.

Also Available

Also available, Benjamin's friend and supporter, Hannah Arendt.

Benjamin Doll

Now available from The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, the Walter Benjamin Doll

Benjamin in the Future

Preface to Benjamin in the Future, No 4:-

Program news board 07.30 Feb 2, 2022

Morning weather: The wide range rains today, tonight, tomorrow morning, oh, and some non-cloud spots. Tomorrow, sunny…mumble, Yes, we said that!

Later today Dave announces that because the International bank prediction is for further recovery, expect high-level brand diversification in the coming months.

Famous socialite, Lilycroft has just wogged that she watched a major accident in the past half hour. 100 million hits, in 1 minute. Congratulations Lilycroft, you almost beat your own record.

Ministers announced that they met the consideration subscriber plan for the European pound enterprise, last year.

The Formosan mutant has died from pneumonia. The strip, the land and the sea were all in mourning. Lafayette and other regions held an air bombardment in her honour. Dave said some kind words.

In the past a half hour tube breakage surpassed all previous records. China Energy, is striving to restore the air feed. The payment in South East Europe for the several thousand people living there, is said to be forthcoming. John Paul III has said the feed will not be restored until the payment is made.

The Sipson gang have adopted the domain village Greenpeace. Sipson’s previous business ventures have included selling children’s used underwear online. The government is looking into a new legal plan aiming to halt further ventures by the Sipson gang.

This news is happily sponsored for you by the most delicious thing possible, “You Love Food”

Versuche, Nevers

Benjamin was imprisoned in Versuche Concentration Camp, near Nevers. We spent a whole half an hour researching Nevers using Google and could find no reference to its concentration camp past atall.

French Concentration Camps

There had been concentration camps in France as early as WWI. But as soon as 1939, the existing camps were undiscriminately filled with German anti-Nazis (Communists, German Jews, etc.) or pro-Nazi Germans or also Nazi prisoners of war. Following the 1940 defeat, and the July 10, 1940 vote of full powers to Marshall Pétain, who abolished the Republic on the following day and proclaimed the regime of the "French state" (aka Vichy regime), these camps would be filled with Jews, first with foreign Jews, then indifferently with foreign and French Jews. The Vichy government would progressively hand them up to the Gestapo, and they would all transit by Drancy internment camp, the last stop before concentration camps in the Third Reich and in Eastern Europe and the extermination camps.

Beside Jews, Germans and Austrians were immediately rounded-up in camps, as well as Spanish refugees, who were later deported. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp [8]. The French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans on French territory, instead of being deported [8].

The Third Republic and the Vichy regime would successively call these places "reception camps" ("camps d'accueil"), "internment camps" ("camps d'internement"), "sojourn camps" ("camps de séjour"), "guarded sojourn camps" ("camps de séjour surveillés"), "prisoner camps" ("camps de prisonniers"), etc. Another category was invented by Pétain's regime: the "transit camps" ("camps de transit"), referring by that the detainees were to be deported to Germany. Such "transit camps" include Drancy, Pithiviers, etc.

During the 1943 "Battle of Marseille" and urban scaping operations in the center of town, 20,000 people were expelled from their homes and interned during several months in military camps nearby Fréjus (La Lègue, Caïs and Puget) [9].

There were no extermination camps in France. However, the camp of Struthof, or Natzweiler-Struthof, in Alsace, which is the only concentration camp created by Nazis on French territory (annexed by the Third Reich) did include a gas chamber which was use to exterminate at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) in the aim of constituting a collection of preserved skeletons (as this mode of execution did no damage to the skeletons themselves) for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.

Benjamin's Travels

In 1932, during the turmoil preceding Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor, Walter Benjamin left Germany to spend a few months on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Then he moved to Nice, where he considered committing suicide. With the Reichstag fire, in 1933, as Hitler assumed power and started the persecution of the Jews, Benjamin sought shelter in Svendborg, at Bertold Brecht's, and Sanremo, where his ex-wife lived, before moving to Paris.
In 1938 he paid a last visit to Bertolt Brecht, now in Danish exile. Within a few months, Hitler stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and Benjamin, now stateless, was incarcerated by the French authorities for three months in a camp near Nevers.