by Dirk Grathoff

Seeing a man with his wife does give rise to strange thoughts. They are measured, and all sorts of things are considered which one does not think when one sees each alone.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Sudelbücher H 13

This aphorism by Lichtenberg provided the impetus for Klaus Beilstein's "Couples" series, the first of which was created in 1976 and the others have followed in ever quicker succession since the late 1980s. In 1991, a selection from the series was presented to the public for the first time (Klaus Beilstein: "Schwarzbunt undKugelrund". Works on paper. Oldenburg 1991, pp. 21-32). Anyone familiar with Klaus Beilstein's individual portraits and figures ("Gesichter und Profile einer Stadt". Oldenburg 1995 - also opened with a Lichtenberg motto), may be able to appreciate how Lichtenberg's remark inspired the comparative and constrastive setting of pairs, because in doing so something is thought of "that one does not think of when one sees each alone".

As is so often the case, Lichtenberg's supposed aphorism in his Sudelbücher is only part of a longer record, the overall context of which may shed light on what goes beyond the individual portraits in the double portraits of the "pairs". In booklet H of the "Sudelbücher", entry 134 reads: "In Genoa, no man is allowed to be seen with his wife on the street or in public; the cicisbeat has reached its greatest height there, and a man who did not want to pay attention to it would be ridiculed and expose himself to the greatest insults from the mob. This use is perhaps rightly criticised, but there is something in the feeling that excuses it. There is, after all, cause for strange thoughts in seeing a man with his wife. They are measured, and all sorts of things are thought of that one does not think when one sees each alone. To see an Archbishop of Canterbury walking with his wife would not, at least, establish the episcopal reputation more firmly, that is certain. In every human use, approved by a whole state, there is always something at the bottom of it which, if not justifiable, can be excused."

According to that Genoese custom, the sight of a married couple provokes ridicule, even the "greatest insults of the mob", while the Italian cicisbeo, as the institutionalised domestic friend, is allowed to be seen in public with his lady. The one Institute is tolerated, the other mocked. And Beilstein's couples always show that a sight - as with the Archbishop of Canterbury - does not necessarily enhance their reputation. In an earlier entry in the "Sudelbücher", Lichtenberg has told us how he imagines the Cicisbeo, and he comes very close to Beilstein's gentlemanly figures: ". . . thus the dandy arises, it may now consist in a too careful smearing with cow dung or with make-up, in an all too diligent arrangement in the waistcoat of sealskins or of brocade, in the uniform or the choir skirt." (Sudelbücher B 180).

The couple as an institution is Beilstein's theme. Lichtenberg had also thought about the couple as an institution, about the view and reputation of couples in the public eye, however institutionalised. This is where Beilstein's sharp pen takes her. The composition is always strictly structured: the lady always on the left, the gentleman always on the right, initially separated by a centre line. Sometimes adorned with medals, sometimes with jewellery and trinkets, the most diverse material collages with fabrics are varied, sometimes reminiscent of Lichtenberg's "Brocade", then again taken from a Neckermann catalogue. They are always ridiculous, not quite exposed to the "insults of the mob", but the mockery is unmistakable. It seems to be the joke and the mockery that Beilstein associates with Lichtenberg's Enlightenment.

Even the famous portrait of a couple from classical modernism, which evolved into postmodernism, the "American Gothic" by Grant Wood from 1930, lived from the quotation installed there in the Gothic window between the egg-shaped, elongated faces of the farmer couple from the American Midwest. It is well known that couples become more and more like each other over the course of time - or like their dogs. Grant Wood makes such similarities in habitus and appearance comical with subtle irony. Klaus Beilstein, on the other hand, is more interested in opposites and contrasts, in what does not fit together, even though his Werder Bremen couple, with its abundance of quotations, is reminiscent of Grant Wood's couple on a completely different level. Beilstein's couples are often turned away from each other, standing back to back, moving in opposite directions. No wonder he was attracted by the contrast between Balzac and the beautiful Eveline Hanska, whom Balzac in his "Seraphita" calls an angel of the diet with the command "ne mange pas tant!" ("Don't eat so much!"). ("Don't eat so much!"), which had already provoked mocking caricatures from his contemporaries. The basic structure of the caricature, which is also present in Beilstein's "realistic" portraits, celebrates a joyous rebirth in his couples.

Beilstein had already emerged as an ironist in his self-portraits, where he demonstrated the ability to comically double himself, which Paul de Man emphasised as the basis of all irony by quoting a thought by Baudelaire: "The man who falls never laughs at his own fall, he would be a philosopher, one who had acquired the ability through habituation to double himself immediately and to witness the phenomena of his own self as an uninterested observer." (de Man, "The Rhetoric of Temporality") Beilstein is certainly not an uninterested observer; this bridge to classical aesthetics can by no means be built, but the Enlightenment ability to laugh at others as well as at oneself can. Splitting up is a basic prerequisite for irony, often achieved in Beilstein's pairs through the alienating use of material collages. Just think of the two gloves from 1990, where a red piece of fabric peeps mischievously out of the piece of leather. Beilstein probably only learnt about the "sealskins" and "brocades" of Lichtenberg's Cicisbeo through our joint work, just as I only came across them while searching through his spiritual ancestor Lichtenberg. With his ironic-comic double portrait art of the "Couples", Beilstein again represents a piece of that distinctive Oldenburg cultural tradition that rightly seeks its roots in the humour and criticism of the German Enlightenment. The recourse to Lichtenberg is successful.

Klaus Beilstein (56) has been head of the art workshops at the University of Oldenburg since 1976 and his pictures have been exhibited in numerous cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bremen, Cholet/France, Taastrup/Denmark, Alma Ata/Kazakhstan and Krakow/Poland. The exhibition "Couples" was shown in Wilhelmshaven in summer 1995. - Prof Dr Dirk Grathoff (48) was appointed to the professorship for modern literary history at the University of Oldenburg in 1985. His main areas of research include the literature of the Goethe era and the history of 20th century literature and film.