Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/56

48 :is bent, the seasons quiver, the crowds push on to death:a science undoes and remakes what already exists, whole worlds disappear forever from our understanding... Somehow it seemed to the most perceptive that all the former bases of cultural and social existence had been undermined. All that had formerly appeared solid now seemed suspended in mid-air. Towering above all other scientific ideas were the theories of Einstein on the relations between matter, energy, time and the speed of light. These meant that even the most elementary presuppositions of physical existence—the dimensions of space and time—were apparently not immune from overthrow. Not only Europe's social structure but the world and the universe seemed to be slipping from mental grasp, shifting and trembling..."disappearing forever from our understanding..."

An art-form which was to express the spirit of the times would have to base itself not on the old and familiar certainties—which were certainties no more—but on the void, on the unknown world which seemed to be just coming into view. Above all, it would have to abandon the idea of a static, unchangeable objective reality "as seen through a window", beyond the reach of man, far away and undisturbed, existing "in a world of its own". The mathematical and other methodological principles of science were not merely "looking at" or "reflecting" reality. They were actively transforming nature and the globe. They were stretching through the window, as it were, and rooting up the view. It was this experience of intimate, tangible intercourse with nature—of penetration to its "inside"—which the Cubists felt compelled to express. The formal elements and principles of their art could not be content with "mirroring" the world—they had to smash through the glass and actively dominate and reconstruct it.