Klee, Benjamin, and the Angelus Novus AU

paul klee drew this dancing figure with its leg raised and arms contorted over its head in a single spare, continous line, except the line changes from brown to red ink. it's called dance of horror, the german term for danse macabre, though it looks more voluminous than a skeleton would
Paul Klee, Tanzt Entsetzen (Danse Macabre), 1931, red and brown ink on paper, 19 x 12 1/2 in., in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, h/t @pg5-ish

I saw this Paul Klee drawing on Tumblr this morning with the title, Dance of Horror, and made a quick joke about Walter Benjamin that’s stuck with me since.

What world, what art, what philosophical view of history, what understanding of humanity, might have emerged if Benjamin had been fixated on a different Klee: Dance of Horror instead of Angelus Novus? What if, instead of a theory about The Angel of History with rubble piling at its feet, he spun out a theory about the apocalyptic footfalls of The Dancer of Horror?

Dance of Horror is the literal translation of the title, Tanzt Entsetzen, which is German for Danse Macabre, the Dance of Death, a 15th century European Christian allegorical convention using an array of dancing skeletons to depict the universality of death. I’d imagined Benjamin sitting in the dark in his hotel room in Portbou, muttering, “the Horror, the Horror,” like Brando’s Col. Kurtz. But maybe this danse macabre drawing would have led instead to some recognition, if not resignation, to the fate we’ll all eventually share.

Trying to find the original work—which turns out to be in the MFA Boston, the Googleverse of Paul Klee is an roiling sea of canvas print sludge—did lead me to this, though:

paul klee drawing on a yellowed sheet of plaster-soaked gauze, like a cast, mountedon a barely larger piece of paperboard, and mounted again on a sheet with the title written underneath. the drawing shows a large figure in the center, above the ground line at the bottom of the image, drawn in simple line style, with outstretched arms and a very large head, eyes, and nose, wearing a robe or tunic. below the figure, a skeleton with curly hair stands next to an upright piano or organ on which a seven-light candelabrum rests.
Paul Klee, Tanze Du Ungeheuer zu meinem sanften Lied! (Dance You Monster to My Soft Song!), 1922, oil transfer on plastered gauze and ink and paint mounted on cardboard, 14 x 11 1/2 in. mounted on 17 3/4 x 13 in., in the Guggenheim Founding Collection

This feels much closer to Angelus Novus in so many ways beyond its visual similarity. It’s around the same time, made with a similar oil transfer process, and a similar layered construction. The main figure in a tunic and headpiece floats—or dances, I guess—above the ground, where a skeleton stands next to a piano with a candelabrum, a menorah? on top. It reads as much as a sultan as a rabbi, or an Orthodox priest, which seems even less likely than a sultan, tbh. Klee wrote the magnificent title along the ground, as part of the image, though it was reinscribed as a caption on the mount. Dance, you monster, to my soft song!In a 1980 lecture Ernst Gombrich interpreted it as Klee controlling the spirits his art has drawn forth. What might Benjamin have made of it?

paul klee's angelus novus is a line drawing or print of a humanoid figure with a large head topped with wood-shaving-like curls, an open mouth, upstretched arms and three toed feet sticking out of a conical tunic. sections are tinted pale brown or pale yellow, and the surrounding paper is also stained with patches of light brown, probably a remnant of the oil print transfer process klee used. the sheet is mounted on a black bordered board, and again on a larger sheet of paper. klee's signature and dates in 1920 are notated on the bottom edge.
Paul Klee, Angelus Novus, 1920, oil transfer on Japan paper mounted on engraving on cardboard (with a print of Martin Luther sandwiched between), 31.8 x 24.2 cm, but that’s only the monoprint part

I guess I wonder what alternate art historical and critical universes might have spun out of different Klees because I am still processing the revelations by artist R.H. Quaytman and art historian Annie Bourneuf. They show, respectively, how little seen and understood Angelus Novus the artwork was, and how convoluted and precarious the development and dissemination of Benjamin’s Angel of History has been.

It remains a baffling mystery to me how Angelus Novus inspired Benjamin in the first place. If the angel flappings its inspirational wings in Germany a hundred years ago had instead been a levitating monster or a jazz hands skeleton, where might we be now?

Previously, very related: R.H. Quaytman, Paul Klee & Martin Luther Walk Into A Bar