What is the force in art, C. Stephen Jaeger asks, that can enter
our consciousness, inspire admiration or imitation, and carry a
reader or viewer from the world as it is to a world more sublime?
We have long recognized the power of individuals to lead or enchant
by the force of personal charisma-and indeed, in his award-winning
Envy of Angels, Jaeger himself brilliantly parsed the ability of
charismatic teachers to shape the world of medieval learning. In
Enchantment, he turns his attention to a sweeping and multifaceted
exploration of the charisma not of individuals but of art. For
Jaeger, the charisma of the visual arts, literature, and film
functions by creating an exalted semblance of life, a realm of
beauty, sublime emotions, heroic motives and deeds, godlike bodies
and actions, and superhuman abilities, so as to dazzle the humbled
spectator and lift him or her up into the place so represented.
Charismatic art makes us want to live in the higher world that it
depicts, to behave like its heroes and heroines, and to think and
act according to their values. It temporarily weakens individual
will and rational critical thought. It brings us into a state of
enchantment. Ranging widely across periods and genres, Enchantment
investigates the charismatic effect of an ancient statue of Apollo
on the poet Rilke, of the painter Durer's self-portrayal as a
figure of Christ-like magnificence, of a numinous Odysseus washed
ashore on Phaeacia, and of the black-and-white projection of Fred
Astaire dancing across the Depression-era movie screen. From the
tattoos on the face of a Maori tribesman to the haunting visage of
Charlotte Rampling in a film by Woody Allen, Jaeger's extraordinary
book explores the dichotomies of reality and illusion, life and art
that are fundamental to both cultic and aesthetic experience.
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