SWISS PAGES (4)
“AFTER HAVING LIVED HERE FOR 40 YEARS, I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT SWISS ART OR HISTORY…”
This is unfortunately very true for many of us, international staff.
Of course, everybody knows the art and history of his or her
country of origin, and anyone who is interested in art, definitely
knows the names of epoch-making artists: such as Michelangelo or
Leonardo da Vinci… or major trends such as the Renaissance
and Impressionism… Strangely enough, although we may have lived
in Switzerland for many years and although we definitely know
about cheese, chocolate and watches. Very few of us really know much
about Swiss history and less about Swiss culture.
EVELINA RIOUKHINA, UNECE
And this is very unfortunate since despite the strong influence of neighbouring countries Switzerland has retained an art and a history that remain unique. In his preface to Pictures at an Exhibition Ambassador Blaise Godet quotes Orson Welles in the film The Third Man as saying (the full text is given in the box below) that Switzerland could boast 500 years of brotherly love, democracy and peace, but all that it managed to produce was the cuckoo clock… We now know better, or should know better.
It so happened that one day my former boss, with whom I was fortunate to work during the most fascinating and most challenging of my UNECE projects (I described this in the last UNSpecial) and who has remained a friend, as well as a most critical and sceptical reader, came one day to talk to me on my long-standing project on the Swiss pages. We usually discuss projects and interchange ideas. I knew he had recently written a book on the transition countries. We spoke about my new Swiss citizenship, of which I am proud. He asked what exactly I knew about Swiss history and art. I cheerfully said that I knew a lot and started to bombard him with names: Hodler, Erni, Anker… He gave me a thick manuscript, saying that I might be interested.
I started straight on the text, ignoring the title page. The manuscript was full of images of paintings. I was fascinated by the historical analysis and how it reflected on art. The presentation – combining art and history – was unusual. Reading the account of recent history, living through these last pages I began to have a strange suspicion. Why did it not occur to me to look earlier at the name of the author. Of course, it was him. This was my boss who had written the book… But why had this social analyst and statistician suddenly written a book on history and painting? I was greatly puzzled and invited Wolf Scott to my Swiss pages to explain what had prompted him all of a sudden:
How, as a social analyst and statistician
did you come to write a book on
history and art?
In life, says Proust, we end up doing whatever
we do second best, in my case, I suppose, social
statistics and social analysis. I am not certain
that writing a book on Swiss art and history
is my best, but it is what I best enjoyed doing.
It made a pleasant change from almost 40 years
of social statistics. Two years ago UNDP published
a book of mine on social measurement.
I am just back from Moscow where the
Russian translation was presented. I thought
enough is enough. At the age of 80 I might be
allowed to do the things I enjoy doing?
Tell me about your career with the UN
I taught at University College London, statistics
to town planning students who were interested
in nothing but architectural aesthetics,
certainly not in statistics. One day I got
a call from UNRISD in Geneva who had seen
a book of mine that seemed relevant to their
work at the time, asking if I would join them.
I came on a six-months contract and stayed
with them for 21 years. I retired at age 60 and
the next day was on the train to Rome to take
up a consultancy. I continued as a consultant
for another 18 years almost non-stop, in turn
with virtually every one of the international
agencies. Both at UNRISD and for the consultancies
almost all my work was in the developing
world, mainly in Africa and Asia until
1992; in the transition economies of eastern
Europe after 1992. I ended up first with UNICEF,
working mainly in the ex-Soviet trans-Caucasus, and finally with UNECE’s Statistical
Division, in charge of their special projects. I continued until Admin discovered
that I was seriously competing with Methusala
and, I suppose quite rightly, sacked me.
To come back to the book,
why write about history and art?
I have always been interested in the economics
of art, and how this has changed over
the centuries, also in the use of symbolism in
art. I once spent a fascinating six months in
the Witt Library in London, inspecting their
one and a half million reproductions of virtually
all works of art in the world, gathered
in dusty file boxes which I opened one after
another, looking for pictures with symbolic
dogs. I then spent a further six months in the
central reading room of the British Library,
analysing the information, sharing my seat
there with Karl Marx’s ghost.
Symbolic dogs are one thing,
Karl Marx’s ghost another.
But why Swiss art in particular?
Your title sums it up. Although I have lived
here on and off for 40 years I knew nothing of Swiss art or history. One day I asked the
owner of the bookshop in the Musée d’art et
d’histoire for a book on the history of Swiss
painting (as distinct from collections of reproductions).
He said he had none, that nothing
had been published in recent years, certainly
nothing in English. The excellent series
of Ars Helvetia was long out of print. Nor are
there any introductory texts available in English
on Swiss history (or, for that matter, in
French until very recently Joelle Kuntz’s excellent
text). That gave me the idea of writing
a book, in English, mainly for myself, but also
for others who, like me, might like to know
a little more on the subject and perhaps get
to know and appreciate Switzerland a little
better. When I started I found that I could not
write on art without reference to history, and
that in turn the images made history come
alive. And so one thing led to another.
Did you find it interesting?
Fascinating! Especially as regards the history
of the wars of independence, the Reformation
and its bloody aftermath, the provocation by
the Dukes of Savoy that terminated in the Escalade
in Geneva, or the Napoleonic interlude.
Unfortunately, about this time, from the
18th century onwards, Switzerland stopped
having a dramatic history in terms of battles
and bloody revolutions, but instead settled
down to a healthy evolution of its banking
system, cuckoo clocks and democracy.
You say “unfortunately”. For many
nations the word “history” is quickly
associated with wars and other
violence. Is it not better to have a
peaceful history? What is your
perception?
Yes, quite right. History is not only about
wars. We should consider not only the dramatic
events, but also everyday life, in the
case of Switzerland the gradual evolution of
the “national family”, to use a colloquial term,
in the course of which its 26 separate parts
achieved political unity. This entailed, if not
bloody battles, yet events of great historic
importance – the dynamics of population
growth, restructuring of the economy, the advent of the cities (and of an urban proletariat).
Also the major achievement of direct
democracy – as dramatic as any battle fought
in the wars of independence. I say “unfortunately”
merely because it was easier for me
to describe, and no doubt for the reader to
appreciate, the blow-by-blow events of the
battle of Morgarten or the retreat of the Swiss
Reisläufer (the mercenaries) from Marignano.
The emergence of the textile industry, an increase
in the number of tourist nights or changes
in the social conditions that facilitated the
growth in political consensus are less glamorous
and therefore more difficult to describe.
Art also had its ups and downs,
I believe.
Definitely. Fortunately for me, around the
middle of the 18th century, just as history becomes
a little boring there was a revival of the
visual arts. These had taken a tumble after the
Reformation in the early 16th century, despised
by the great reformers in the country,
Zwingli in Zürich and Calvin in Geneva, to
whom most pictures were a form of sacrilege.
Iconoclasm (the wanton destruction of works
of art) and laws against luxurious spending
made a misery of artists’ lives in Switzerland.
The more talented sought a livelihood elsewhere.
But by 1750, for reason described
in Pictures at an Exhibition, all this had once
more changed. It was, for example, the beginning
of a marvellous era of landscape
painting.
Incidentally, why the title Pictures
at an Exhibition?
You have to read the book for an answer, or
at least the Prologue. Besides I love Moussorgsky’s
music.
Did you find writing the book difficult?
The actual writing was the least of my troubles.
I have written several books in my life,
but always others have seen to the publication.
The two publishers I consulted wanted
to charge a high price for the book, something
between CHF 80.– and 90.–, which is
not unreasonable for a book with 185 illustrations.
However, I wanted a much lower
price, something which most people can afford,
but which would still pay the heavy
costs of reproduction rights, printing, etc.,
and so decided to go on my own. It was
quite an eye-opener. The first job was to
obtain the reproduction rights for about
150 pictures, a complex correspondence
with over 60 museums and libraries. Then
the actual production of the book, the formatting,
fitting the images into the text, getting
the captions right, constructing the index,
changing the page references about a
dozen times, designing the cover. My son
and daughter helped, finding precious time
to do so in their busy lives.
You are not a historian or an expert
on art. Did that ever worry you?
Yes, indeed. There was always the nagging
thought at the back of my mind that I might
not have done justice to the complex history
of 26 cantons and semi-cantons, which did
not become a nation until fairly recently, a
history on which there is by no means universal agreement. Take for example the story
of Wilhelm Tell, a Swiss legendary hero, but
is the story historical fact, as the more conservative-
minded believe, or is it indeed legend.
It is a question well beyond the realm of
academic discussion, which continues to this
day to arouse political passion. The Swiss
Permanent Mission was a great help here.
Ambassador Schnyder von Wartensee sent
the manuscript to be vetted (for accuracy,
rather than political views) by the Foreign
Office’s Historical Analysis section which
apparently gave a favourable response, a
response which is reflected in Ambassador
Godet’s amiable preface.
Would you say writing
is a suitable retirement job?
Although I have never properly retired (even
if I have an impressive collection of retirement
gifts obtained each time I left a consultancy)
I have always been interested in postretirement.
Most of us retire at age 60 or 62,
we die on an average at 80 or more. There is
a whole life in between which we might try
and fill with pleasure and profit, rather than
watching television. An eminent colleague of
mine at UNRISD took early retirement, became
a plumber, a profession he liked and
found highly profitable. I thought it was an
excellent idea. But this is something you
have to prepare for in early age. Anyway, I
thought in my case, when I finally retired, in
a real sense, I would see if I still had the
energy to write another book. We all want to
write books when we retire: all those stirring
reminiscences of a busy international career.
I do not usually give advice. One has to be either
very clever or very stupid to give advice
– I hope I am neither – but the one piece of
advice I give to my friends (or at least to the
few who still listen) is to write by all means,
but write for one’s personal satisfaction, not
for publication. Nobody else is really interested
in our reminiscences, not even our
own families. Write for your own pleasure,
forget about your audience.
So you wrote Pictures
at an Exhibition for yourself?
Yes, to begin with. I enjoyed writing the
book and all the travel and other research
that went with it. Publication was an afterthought.
Whether it interests anybody else remains
to be seen. I have certainly kept the
personal reminiscences out of the book.
Those in the Prologue and Epilogue are pure
fiction. Anyway, two years later and 32,000
francs less in the Bank, here I am, still alive
and hoping to recuperate some of my losses
by selling the book. If, contrary to expectation,
I make a profit I will denote it to some
good cause, such as UNICEF.
A great cause. As always, my
admiration for this thinking, and
for all you are doing. I hope the book
will be welcomed not only in the
United Nations, but also by the
authorities of the host country and
by all others who would like to
know about Swiss art and painting,
but can read only in English.
It is always difficult to predict how a book
will sell. Not all publishers are millionaires.
Publicity is all-important. You can only buy
a book if you know it exists. I am therefore
grateful to yourself and to Jean-Michel Jakobowicz,
Editor-in-Chief of UNSpecial. The
Swiss Permanent Mission also has been very
kind and helpful in this respect. I suppose
that in this time of tension between some
people in the host country and recent migrants
generally (I do not mean the international
community) any tool – even a book -
is welcome if it assists with integration.
May I wish this book a big success.
Copies of Pictures at an Exhibition can be obtained at Door 6 of the Palais des Nations, the Kiosque Culture of the Geneva Welcome Centre, Office hours: Monday to Friday 9.15 to 1700, non-stop, Telephone (+41) 022 917 11 11, at the Reception of the Geneva Welcome Centre, Domaine de la Pastorale, Route de Ferney 106 (on the Route de Ferney, just up from the Hotel Intercontinental, Bus 5 stop, parking space available), Office hours: Monday to Thursday 10 to 14 and from 16 to 17.30, Friday 10 to 12.30, Telephone (+41) 022 918 02 70, or at the Musée des Suisses dans le Monde, Domaine des Penthes, chemin de l’Impératrice, Pregny-Genève.
