R. Bruce Elder argues that the authors of many of the manifestoes that announced in such lively ways the appearance of yet another artistic movement shared a common aspiration: they proposed to reformulate the visual, literary, and performing arts so that they might take on attributes of the cinema. The cinema, Elder argues, became, in the early decades of the twentieth century, a pivotal artistic force around which a remarkable variety and number of aesthetic forms took shape. To demonstrate this, Elder begins with a wide-ranging discussion that opens up some broad topics concerning modernity's cognitive (and perceptual) regime, with a view to establishing that a crisis within that regime engendered some peculiar, and highly questionable, epistemological beliefs and enthusiasms. Through this discussion, Elder advances the startling claim that a crisis of cognition precipitated by modernity engendered, by way of response, a peculiar sort of ""pneumatic (spiritual) epistemology."" Elder then shows that early ideas of the cinema were strongly influenced by this pneumatic epistemology and uses this conception of the cinema to explain its pivotal role in shaping two key moments in early-twentieth-century art: the quest to bring forth a pure, ""objectless"" (non-representational) art and Russian Suprematism, Constructivism, and Productivism.

Table of Contents:
Harmony and Dissent: Film and Avant-garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century by R. Bruce Elder Preface PART 1: Modernism and the Absolute Film The Overcoming of Representation 1. The Philosophical and Occult Background to the Absolute Film Photography, Modernity, and the Crisis of Vision The Analogy to Music Absolute Film and Visibility: The Theories of Conrad Fiedler Bergson and Intuition Abstraction and the Occult The Extraordinary Influence of Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater's Thought Forms Vibratory Modernism: Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and Synaesthesia 2. Modernism and the Absolute Film The Absolute Film: Precursors and Parallels Precursors of the Absolute Cinema: Light Sculpture Precursors of the Absolute Film: The Scroll Precursors of the Absolute Cinema: The Colour Organ and the Lichtspiel More on Vibratory Modernism: The Esoteric Background to the Absolute Film Abstract Film and Its Earlier Occult Predecessors A Possible Egyptian Connection for Kircher's Steganographic Mirror Huygens, Robertson, and Their Colleagues: Popular Magic Spiritualism and the New Technology Léopold Survage and the Origins of the Absolute Film Walther Ruttmann and the Origins of the Absolute Film Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling: The Absolute Film as the Fulfillment of Modern Art Movements The Language of Art: Constructivism, Reason, and Magic Eggeling's Integrity Towards a Generalbaß der Malerei Goethe as Precursor Kandinsky, Eggeling, and Richter: Colour as Feeling, Rhythm as Form Rhythmus 21 and the Generalbaß der Malerei The End of the Absolute Film PART 2: Modernism and Revolution Constructivism Between Marxism and Theology 3. Spiritual Interests in Late-Nineteenth-Century and Early-Twentieth-Century Russia Symbolism, Theology, and Occultism Solovyov's Influence 4. Symbolism and Its Legacies Symbolism, the Spiritual Ideal, and the Avant-garde Symbolism: The Crucible of the Russian Avant-garde Malevich, or the Persistence of the Symbolist Ideal Symbolism and Its Descendents: Suprematism Zaum and Perlocutionary Poetics Malevich and Higher Reality Malevich, Suprematism, and Schopenhauer Symbolism and Its Descendants: Cubo-Futurism Vitebsk and Symbolism Symbolism and its Descendents: FEKS 5. Constructivism: Between Productivism and Suprematism Symbolism and Its Descendents: Constructivism 6. Eisenstein, Constructivism and the Dialectic The Fact: Nature and Its Transformation The Theory of the Dialectic and the Concept of Transformation The Concept of Transformation in Earlier and Later Eisenstein Eisenstein, Bely, Russia, and the Magic of Language Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy and the Avant-garde Rosicrucianism and the Theory of Transformation What Would Eisenstein Have Heard in a Rosicrucian Lodge? Rosicrucianism and Eisenstein's Aesthetic Theory Constructivism and Counterscience The Engineer of Human Souls Fechner and the Science of Effects The Cinema and Spiritual Technology The Cinema and X-rays Nikolai Fedorov's Cosmicism The New Body Mexico and Mallarmé Eisenstein, the Monistic Ensemble, and Symbolism Eisenstein, Symbolism, and the Fourth Dimension Eisenstein's Pangraphism and the Theory of Imitation Mimesis, Pangraphism, and Language of Adam Eisensten and Symbolist Colour Theory Concluding Unscientific Postscript Appendix: Viking Eggeling's Diagonal-Symphonie: An Analysis Shot Description/Analysis Index