The Arcades Project - Operi

essence of the images which the dreaming subject of history engenders. The art
that doubts its task must make novelty into its highest value . ..
The press organizes the market in spiritual values, in which initially there is a
boom. Eugene Sue becomes the first celebrity of the fiuilleton. Nonconformists
rebel against the commodity character of art. They rally round the barmer of l 'art
pour l'art. From this watehword derives the eonception of the total work of art,
whieh would seal art off from the further development of technology. The Ce­
JamtkunJiwerk is a premature synthesis, which bears the seeds of death within it.
The solenm rite with whieh it is celebrated is the pendant to the distractions
which surround the apotheosis of the commodity. In their syntheses, both abstract
from the social existence of human beings. Baudelaire succumbs to the
rage for Wagner.
VI. Hanssmann, or the Strategic Embellishment of Paris
... increased the financial risks of Haussmannization.
The world exhibition of 1867 marked the high point of the regime and of
Haussmarm's power. Paris is confimled as capital of luxury and of fashions.
Excursus on the political significance of fashion. Fashion's imlOvations
leave intact the framework of domination. For those who are ruled,
it passes the time in which those who rule luxuriate. The insights of
F. Th. Vischer.
Haussmall11 attempts to bolster his dictatorship . ..
Fais voir, en dejouant la ruse,
o republique, aces pervers
Ta grande face de Moduse
Au milieu de rouges eclairs.
-Chanson d'ouvriers vel'S 1850
The barricade returns to life during the Commune. It is stronger and better
secured than ever. It stretches across the great boulevards and shields the
trenches behind it. If the Communist Maniftsto ends the age of professional conspirators,
then the Commune puts an end to the phantasmagoria according to
which the proletariat and its republic are the fulfillment of 1789. This phantasmagoria
conditions the forty years lying between the Lyons insurrection and the
Paris Commune. The bourgeoisie did not share in this eITor . ..