Cultural Legacy and American National Identity in Michel Butors Mobile

Discreet references to artists and architects in Michel Butorʹs Mobile can be read as a highly schematic, but thematically coherent, outline history of American art since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The article first identifies the artists and architects who figure as representatives of their era and explores the reasons underlying Butorʹs choice. It then considers the broader question of the thematic coherence of Mobile and analyses the multiple relationships which Butor establishes between this particular set of art-historical references and some of the textʹs principal thematic preoccupations.