Page 60 - Studio International - April 1966

Book reviews

The Japanese element was coined by Christian Dotremont from COpen- `youthful high spirits' of David Hockney and Allen
hagen, BRussels, Amsterdam-these being the Jones. Within the compass of his eight pages he
Insho Domoto: Shiro Domoto (compiler) capitals of the three countries from which the manages, very expertly, to touch on the specific
Kyoto-Shoin Co. Ltd, Kyoto. 1965. 62 pages of text, artists came. The movement lasted from 1948-51. contribution of most of the leading painters to
texts in Japanese and English, 27 pages of colour So far nobody has written a thorough study of emerge since 1945.
plates, 55 pages of monochrome illustrations, $30.
COBRA or, for that matter, of Asger Jorn, who
It is always interesting to know whether a tradi-
was the leading artist of this group. It would be Prehistoric Art by Robert Myron
tional Far Eastern painter who eventually 'goes
most appropriate if the Centro Internazionale delle Pitman Publishing Corporation,
abstract' is motivated by a desire to be in the stream
Arti e del Costume at the PALAZZO GRASSI, with its 92 pages, monochrome illustrations, and drawings
of the international modern movement, or has
unique resources and its special interest in COBRA, by John Hopkins, 18s.
been stimulated by it to rediscover the abstract ele-
were to sponsor a study of this rather neglected A brief guide from the Ice Age to the 'complex
ments in his own tradition. Insho Domoto is a case
chapter of post-war art. GUY ATKINS symbolism' of the Great Stone Age, clearly and
in point.
simply written by the associate professor of fine
At first glance his work of the last twenty years, arts at Hofstra University, who also considers, •in
--
known in the West chiefly through exhibitions in The Cartoonist's Life
a chapter entitled Past and Present, the influence of
New York, Paris, Milan, and Turin, does not look
Funny Way to Earn a Living by Michael Bateman prehistoric art on such twentieth-century artists as
very Japanese, and indeed Professor Shizuichi
Leslie Frewin, 128 pages, 60 black-and-white illustra- Picasso, Leger and Klee.
Shimomise stresses in a preface, perhaps rather un-
tions, 35s.
fortunately, the regrettable 'time lag' shown by
You are invited to 'go on a sortie into cartoonland',
Japanese artists in catching up with the West-as
to 'journey into a unique group of society'. You
if that were necessary or admirable.
return with a few keepsakes of no lasting import-
What makes Insho's work interesting is not the
ance and little more. You meet the political, the
apparent debt to such men as Hartung, Pollock,
social, the strip, and the magazine cartoonists. You
and Kline, but its Japanese elements. His pictures
learn something of their backgrounds, their careers
called Tying, Gathering, Rebounding, are a response
and, in some cases, their incomes. You discover
to the acute awareness of stresses in utilitarian ob-
that Giles, who created a huge family, has no
jects that Yuichiro Kojiro analysed in his recent
children of his own, that Graham might have been
Forms in japan; Insho's pure ink abstractions, such
a serious painter if it had not been for the war, and
as Being and Nothingness, are clearly related to
that Anton is a woman.
the ideographs for these words; while his use of
You become slightly acquainted with the super-
splashes of gold and of thin gold lines that wander
ficial characteristics of twenty British cartoonists,
into the picture and out again, ignoring the larger
and you take a look at their work, represented by a
calligraphic gestures with the brush, have their
number of ill-chosen reproductions. But you are
roots in Japanese lacquer decoration.
given no idea of the sort of animal the cartoonist
The texts in Japanese and English give the essen-
is. What particular and unique pressures are they
tial information on Insho's career, with a number
subject to? What is it like to be funny to a deadline
of comments by Japanese and French critics. In a day after day, to be topical in a week desperately
very mixed bag, Bernard Dorival writes briefly
without news or to be partial, passionate and poli-
and to the point. The book is well made and the
tical on a paper which has a distinct and different
reproductions are excellent. It would have added political axe to grind?
much to its interest if the compilers had shown how Here and there you find an odd bias. John
Insho arrived at abstract expressionism after a
lifetime as an honoured traditionalist. Glashan, whose casual and eccentric hieroglyphics
and elaborate handwritten captions decorate the
back-end of Queen magazine, is given an entire
chapter and improbably translated to the heights
Asger Jorn
of genius. Barry Fantoni, whose claims to the title
Jorn a Venezia by Paolo Marinotti (ed.) of cartoonist are slight, is celebrated by a lengthy
Palazzo Grassi, Venice. 12 colour plates, 17 black- piece enlarged by weighty statements: 'What was
and-white illustrations. Jesus like in his day ?' asked Fantoni. 'He was a big
This slim and attractively produced volume con- figure, someone that people desperately wanted to
tains illustrations of all but two of the paintings by believe in. We have the same today. The Beatles,
Asger Jorn which were shown in the huge and Superman, Presley.'
Occasionally we learn something of real interest.
lavish mixed exhibition (Visione-Colore) at the
When John Berger was art critic of the Observer,
PALAZZO GRASSI in Venice in 1963. Paolo Marinotti,
he wrote an article about Gerald Scarfe, mention-
who organized the exhibition and owns a cross-
section of the works that were in it, has written an ing him in the same breath as Rowlandson, Gilray,
introductory text in Italian. Translations of this are and Hogarth. The piece was never published and
enclosed as a separate pamphlet. The text pays Berger left the paper. There's something about
homage to Jorn the artist and Jorn the man, but cartoonists that I would really like to read. Cer-
without giving any details of his career. Some tainly better than a tourist-trip to cartoonland.
chronological notes might have been expected, FRANK WHITFORD
especially since the paintings which are reproduced
in the book cover a period of more than twenty British Painting since 1945 by Ronald Alley
years. Another unfortunate omission is that the Tate Gallery, London. 40 pages, 8 colour plates,
captions fail to indicate the size, medium, or owner- 24 monochrome illustrations, 5s.
ship of the paintings. For such details the reader In a short but perceptive essay Ronald Alley traces
has to refer back to the original catalogue of the the development of British painting from the
exhibition. Euston Road School and Neo-Romanticists, who
Paolo Marinotti is the only important private dominated the scene immediately after the war, to A Zulu carved-wood figure, one of the 170 plates in
collector outside Scandinavia and the Low Coun- what he calls the 'new mood of buoyancy and con- William Fagg's Tribes and Forms in African Art
tries who has for some time taken a special interest fidence, . . . in part a reflection of the much more (Methuen, London, 6 gns)- probably the most
in the artists of the former COBRA movement: favourable climate for modern art in Britain today' definitive study to date of tribal differences in African
mainly Jorn, Pedersen, Appel, Constant, Corneille, -represented by the Cohen brothers, William art and certainly one of the most effective demon-
Alechinsky. The name COBRA is an acronym that Turnbull, Richard Smith and others, and the strations of the rich variety of African sculpture.
168