Works of Art in the Novel From the Road by Izidor Cankar

Abstract

The circumstances of the creation of the essayistic novel From the Road (1913) imply the great importance of works of art for its content and form. Izidor Cankar wrote it at the end of 1912, when he came back from long Italian journey and when he was finishing his art historical doctoral dissertation on the Italian baroque painter Quaglio. In that period he was also engaged in writing about the question of beauty in art. Also, the novel is written in the form of an Italian travel diary. Contrary to expectations, the extent of the mentioned subjects is seemingly modest. The main part of the novel is composed of the dialogic and monologic ruminations of the main protagonists (“the narrator” and his friend Fritz), which illustrate ideological, philosophical and aesthetic dilemmas of the fin de siècle. However, the importance of works of art is greater than it seems at first sight. The author used them in basically three different ways. – Some of them are described only as elements of the story’s background. The author only mentions artists (Donatello) and works of art (the mosaics at Aquileia), or briefly outlines individual historical monuments and places (the Grand Canal in Venice). Sometimes the Italian masterpieces become either the cause for a dialogue (supposedly Leonardo’s Christ in the Brera Gallery), either important part of allegories and comparisons (Michelangelo’s David, ancient Venus de’ Medici, the leaning tower of Pisa). But even on this simpler level they are connected to the main themes of the novel: in some cases they reveal the features of Fritz’ capricious and narcissistic character (Christ, the tower of Pisa), or become symbols of old, traditional art (David, Venus), usually criticised by the same protagonist. – On the next level, the works of art are openly linked with a denial of the aesthetic and cognitive value of Classical art. It is Fritz who most frequently takes this provocative point of view. He suggests that all artistic and cultural institutions should be abolished; he jokes about the Aquileia’s basilica and the bronze doors of Saint Zeno’s in Verona; he doubts the present aesthetic value of Titian’s Assunta and Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, and he denies the present cognitive value of the paintings in the Brera Gallery. But even the narrator, who has allegedly a more conservative and balanced character, is twice in doubt about his beloved Classical Italian art: in Venice he admits, that Italy cannot answer his aesthetic questions, and in Verona he melancholically contemplates the vanity of human life, while observing the old palaces adorned with frescoes around the Piazza delle Erbe. (Isn’t that in Padua? Or is there another in Verona?) – Finally, Cankar used two Renaissance masterpieces – Titian’s Assunta and Leonardo’s Last Supper – as motifs which essentially define one of the most important themes in the novel, i.e. the polemic between the narrator and Fritz about the absoluteness (objectivity) or relativity (subjectivity) of artistic beauty, closely connected with the conflict between scientific and personal approaches to art and also with the controversy about free (modern) or conventional (Classical) composition in painting and sculpture. On this level, works of art reflect the polarized world represented in the novel. The dialogues provoked by Titian’s and Leonardo’s paintings reveal two contrary groups of aesthetic and existential principles, characteristic of Izidor Cankar. In the novel From the Road this spiritual polarization is not distinctive only of the relation between Fritz and the narrator, but also of the personality of each of them. The capricious Fritz hesitates between affirmation and negation of Classical art. And even the personality of the narrator begins to disintegrate in moments of solitude (in Venice and in the Piazza delle Erbe), as he seems to accept the positions of his friend’s usual relativism.