11Story

22 January 2010

A broken head

 

A broken head – and heart. Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935). London, 1917 Photograph. Original book illustration: Anna Alice Chapin, The Everyday Fairy Book … With illustrations … by Jessie Willcox Smith. London, Harrap, 1917. H. 30.5 cm (book) © British Library 082097

For modernism, ‘animist’ practices – behaving as if objects were animate or non-human subjects were persons – disconcert because they seem to undermine rational thought. Three routine responses contain the embarrassment without addressing the challenge it poses to modernist attitudes.   One response is to marginalise animist practice to gender (usually girls, for whom – as in the image shown here – the approach is often strongly sentimentalised) , age (the very young or the very old), educational level, nationality, or ethnicity. Another response marginalises animism differently by fictionalising it: a furtive acknowledgement allowing vicarious indulgence at a safe remove (see the illustration from The Picture of Dorian Gray).   The third response is to joke about it. As fictionalised humour more likely to appeal to nerdish than to sophisticated taste, the model car ensemble shown in the display case to the RIGHT combines all three responses in one.

 
 
 

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