think that cars today are almost the
exact equivalent of the great Gothic
cathedrals: the supreme creation of
an era, conceived with passion by
unknown artists, and consumed
in image if not in usage by a whole
population which appropriates them
as a purely magical object.” Today, the
juxtaposition of high and low culture is
an accepted cultural trope; so in order
to understand the power of Roland
Barthes’ famous, sweeping observation
about automotive design it is necessary
to understand the France of the 1950s in which he made it: still
(just) an imperial power (it had recently lost control of its colonies
in Indochina and was fighting to retain Algeria); still a country in
which the Catholic Church wielded immense influence; and then,
as now, a country possessed of inordinate cultural self-belief and
capable of intellectual snobbery.
Barthes was taking one of the most cherished high culture
totems of northern Europe and yoking it to the industrially
manufactured object that,arguably, defined the 20th century
more than any other.
The stimulus for this extravagant comparison was the 1955As Bentley and Citroëncelebrate their centenaries,Vanity Fair En Route’s e d itorlooks back at their respectivetriumphs in the 1950s, and thepost-war Britain and Francethat inspired themBy NICHOLAS FOULKESÒI
YEAR
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andmarqueSEPTEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR EN ROUTE 43
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