Weichbild

Abstract

The city portraits unfold a particular strand of Benjamin's theory of the image. In “Marseille,” a series of short meditations, “Weichbild”—suburbs, banlieue—appears as a central notion. To be sure, Benjamin uses it in conformity with its judicial and political etymology, but he also gives the word a more common reading: a “Weichbild” thus becomes a feeble or blurred image that withdraws from a representational logic and gives way to further images. In short: “Weichbild” appears as an allegory of allegory, adapted to the conditions of urban modernity. The city portraits “Moscow,” “Weimar,” and “Naples” provide further evidence that “Marseille,” in its working through of Surrealist motifs and techniques, provides a link between the Trauerspielbuch and the early stages of the Passagenwerk.