Page 67 - Studio International - July 1966

Book reviews

An autonomous artistic medium that of conveying a drawing directly from plate to would not have surprised Pacheco himself. This is
print. It made the artist's personal gesture import- strictly an art-historian's product, but none (or not
History of Lithography by Wilhelm Weber ant and encouraged inventiveness. Lithography is much) the worse for that. At all events the facts
259 pages, 226 illustrations, 20 in colour, not fundamentally a method devised for trans- are there, correctly stated and in their right order.
Thames & Hudson, London, £7 7s. ferring a drawn or painted image to the printed The plates are mostly too red and too dark, but
page, imitating qualities of the medium it copies— there is a pleasing one of the leathery features of the
The invention of lithography in the late eighteen the characteristics, for example, of mezzotint, aqua- formidable nun, Jerónima de la Fuente, who was
century opened new vistas of creativity to graphic tint, and stipple engraving. painted by Velasquez in Seville on her way to
artists. To be sure, the sheerly artistic possibilities A look at the illustrations in this book reveals the found a convent in the Philippines. Looking like
of the medium were not recognized at once; rich potential (and startling achievements) possible the old woman frying eggs in the Edinburgh
Alois Senefelder, generally acknowledged as litho- in the medium. Every aspect of lithographic art picture, she would have been the right choice for
graphy's inventor, had been casting about for a way is noticed; one can wander happily backward the job.
MICHAEL KITSON
of printing his own writings cheaply. Subsequently, from examples of Jasper Johns and Jim Dine (both
a bit of badly printed score convinced him that subject to misprints in the captions) to works by
lithography's future lay in the reproduction of the earliest practitioners in Germany and France. Bohemian baroque
music. His first application for a franchise was to Some of the coloured illustrations are particularly Škréta's Family Portrait of Dionysio Miseroni by 0. J. Blažiček
have been supported by the reproduction of a fine (I would single out Ernst, Leger, and Tou-
musical manuscript. (The process was adequate to louse-Lautrec). 48 pages, 23 colour plates, 3 black and white figures,
the job, but there was no suitable printing press Mr Weber's text is lucid and scholarly. There Spring Books, London, 15s.
available and the undertaking was abandoned are numerous valuable quotations from commen-
temporarily.) tators and contemporary sources. Groups of artists The subject-matter of this book is a large baroque
This early experience of Senefelder's suggests and individual artists are dealt with in separate group-portrait in the Prague National Gallery of
how intimately the development of lithography has sections, depending upon Mr Weber's estimate of no outstanding aesthetic merit but considerable
been tied to technical progress in the printing their importance or of the sympathetic nature of historical interest. The principal figure in it is
trade. Itself a process devised for economical mass their contributions. And there are separate sec- Dionysio Miseroni, a jeweller of Italian parentage,
reproduction, lithography has been far more sensi- tions devoted to general topics, for instance, to who became Court Treasurer in Prague and suc-
tive to technical innovations than to aesthetic ones. chromolithography and to recent developments in ceeded his father as Gem-Cutter to the Emperor in
Wilhelm Weber sees lithography's growth, particu- German lithography. There is some unevenness, 1623. He is shown seated at a table surrounded by
larly as an autonomous artistic medium, as result- of course, but a great deal of information comes his family, with, in the background, a view of his
across. GENE BARO workshop occupied by apprentices handling the
grinding wheels and other machines. At the top
left appears his most famous piece, a crystal 'pyra-
An art-historian's Velasquez mid' consisting of four engraved goblets carved
from a single piece of rock-crystal, which fitted on
Velasquez by Philip Troutman top of each other to form a tower over three feet
44 pages, 48 colour plates, 8 black and white high. The foreman of the workshop holds another
illustrations, Spring Books, London, 15s. lump of crystal ready for carving. On the table and
held by members of the family are further examples
One of the faults of art-historians over the past of Miseroni's craft, which reached the height of
thirty years has been their failure to integrate the baroque complexity in the mid-seventeenth cen-
study of Spanish painting with that of the rest of tury and which became the starting point of the
European art. At the beginning of this century famous tradition of Bohemian cut-glass.
Velasquez was admired and written about in the The painter, Karel Škréta, was a friend of the
same terms as any other great artist (to judge his sitter and was the leading artist of his day in
popularity, look at the newly-cleaned Rokeby Venus Bohemia. In the 1630's he had come under baroque
and count the number of English pictures around influences in Italy which are reflected in the por-
1900 influenced by her). In the twenties El Greco trait, although, as the author of this book—O. J.
was hailed as a forerunner of Expressionism. Then Blažiček —says, the composition seems chiefly de-
E. L. Kirchner White villa in Hamburg 1910
Colour lithograph 13 x 15 in. came the Civil War, and Spanish art, like Spanish rived from Dutch or Flemish models. There are
Reproduced in the History of Lithography politics, was pushed out of sight and forgotten also parallels, almost certainly fortuitous, with
about by 'decent' people. Since then, most non- Velasquez. Aesthetically the portrait is dark,
ing from a collaboration between artists and Spanish experts in the subject have been Ameri- clumsy, ill-drawn and rather wooden but, as so
craftsmen; the dependence upon the refinement of cans, who, like the Spaniards themselves, have often with provincial work, strangely impressive.
techniques has been crucial to the expressive range treated Spanish art in severe isolation. (At least, Dr Blažiček explains all this in a clear, straight-
of the medium. this is true of historians of post-Renaissance art; it forward text which has been excellently, but
In short, the great men have depended upon the may be less true of mediaevalists.) Even the jargon anonymously, translated. The colour plates consist
lesser. Goya, Toulouse-Lautrec, Kirchner, and is peculiar. Words like bodegones and Churri- of one whole view and twenty-two details of the
other masters of lithography brought the force of a gueresgue are in use, although both are unnecessary picture. Alas, their number is not equalled by their
personal vision to what was essentially a perfecting (they mean, respectively, low-life genre painting and quality.
MICHAEL KITSON
industrial method. Mr Weber tells us quite rightly, Spanish high baroque architecture) and the second
`A history of the development of lithography... can if now recognized as misleading.
be arrived at from a study of its purely technical Philip Troutman, one of the few English art- English Ceramics by Stanley Fisher
aspects.' historians to specialize in Spanish painting, avoids 256 pages, 1 colour plate, 178 monochrome plates,
This book strikes an excellent balance between most of these faults. He treats Velasquez in rela- Ward Lock & Co., London and Melbourne, 30s.
the claims of art and of technique. It is especially tion to his time, dwelling on his training under
valuable in giving early French lithographers Pacheco, the visit of Rubens to Spain in 1628 and In five short chapters Mr Fisher, an acknowledged
credit, along with the German, for making the Velasquez's own two visits to Italy in 1629 and authority, outlines his subject, covering techniques and
medium economically and artistically viable. But 1648. Mr Troutman's book is also exceptionally the making of a collection. The remainder of the book
also it deals with such questions as the meaning of well documented, with copious quotations from consists of well-chosen illustrations grouped together
originality in the lithographic medium and the Pacheco's biography of his great former pupil, and according to period or type (e.g. 'English Delft', 'The
relationship—at first a rivalry—between litho- on that account alone will be invaluable to stu- Wedgwood School'). Each group is prefaced by explan-
graphy and photography. dents. As a critical appraisal, however, the book is atory essay, and additional information is given in the
The advantage that lithography had over older a non-starter and the reader is given a simpliste extended captions to the plates. Mr Fisher's book con-
graphic methods such as etching and engraving is view of Velasquez's 'progress' as an artist that stitutes a very good introduction to his subject.