Page 67 - Studio International - October 1966

travel quickens and the cities continue to spread,
action increasingly saturates the urban experience.'
When these hillocks are surmounted the essays are
revealed as elementary and introductory. They are
not equally satisfactory.
George Rickey on Kinetic Art provides the most
interesting study, in which he argues that an artist
in this field, apart from having the traditionally
accepted qualities for creation, requires a greater
degree of skill and technical expertise than is gene-
rally recognized. To innovate is not to create art.
The least satisfactory essay is by Robert Gessner
on a new cinema aesthetic. Nothing he says is new,
his style is cumbersome, and he is inaccurate. The
definition 'Cinema is the creation of rhythms amid illumi-
nated objects and accompanying sounds to express meaning
and emotion' does not appear useful. What does the
law that 'visual stimuli in cinema alter in ratio to the
rhythms of Motion and Light,' help one to under-
stand? It is also surprising that along with Birth of
a Nation, Citizen Kane and 84, we see Tom Jones
noted as a milestone in artistic achievement. This
might be a minor eccentricity were it not for the
obscurity of language.
KEVIN GOUGH-YATES

A Stubbs masterwork
The Anatomy of the Horse by George Stubbs. The
original 1766 edition and illustrations, with a modern
veterinary paraphrase by James McCunn assisted
by C. W. Ottaway, and with 24 additional plates of
Stubbs' drawings for this work, now published for
the first time. J. A. Allen & Co Ltd, London. 1965.
£1010s.
George Stubbs's horse paintings were said not
long since to be still with the families who com-
missioned them in the eighteenth century. Now
that they are highly prized by collectors, it is an
opportune time for a new edition of his famous en-
gravings of equine anatomy, published 200 years
ago and extremely hard to find. The book is of
interest to horsemen and to artists. Though he had
predecessors such as Andrew Snape, Stubbs was
the first to combine scientific knowledge of horse-
anatomy with artistic vision and skill. His book
brought him fame and work. Petrus Camper, the
great Dutch comparative anatomist, acclaimed
him; Joseph Banks and the Hunters, who were
connoisseurs as well as scientists, employed him to
paint strange animals of which they required
faithful portraits.
Stubbs's compositions are not very different from
those of Ben Marshall or Sawrey Gilpin, but his
animal portraits display a unique sense of the
underlying forms. Only Leonardo before him had
made similar studies of the play of a horse's dissection. As Professor McCunn says, this goes a fluenced Landseer (from whom, too, these draw-
muscles in control of movement with scientific long way to explain why his portraits of horses 'are ings came to the Royal Academy).
accuracy. This new edition combines a full-size vital, as if blood was still coursing through their The horse being oblong when seen from the side,
facsimile of the original large plates with their veins, and they seem ready to walk off the canvas'. Stubbs issued his engravings in a large oblong
descriptive text, a paraphrase in modern termi- He points to the profundity of Stubbs's work: 'All book with an outline facing each fully-toned plate,
nology, and—most interestingly—the first repro- the salient surface markings are shown with clarity. to carry the reference-key; this format enabled
duction of twenty-four preliminary drawings Many details which would escape the observation him also to place the outline for each fore or hind
lately discovered at the Royal Academy, for which of a good judge are included. When the deeper view beside its finished counterpart. The new edi-
Professor J. A. McCunn provides a very instruc- layers are reached the parts are depicted true in tion is of more convenient upright shape, but since
tive appreciation. A little-known drawing of form, position and poise'. But with this rational all the plates are on recto pages no outline can be
Stubbs by George Dance, also belonging to the approach Stubbs combined a romantic imagina- seen with the plate it indexes. Stubbs's copperplate
Academy, is reproduced as a frontispiece. tion. This is only adumbrated in the drawings, engravings are reproduced by lithography, which
Stubbs followed the tradition of displaying his where the approaching or receding animal is gives a good general impression, but is not faith-
dissections in living postures. He is known to have exaggeratedly foreshortened and its posture ful to his clear tones and overemphasizes the
hung up the complete carcase, injecting the blood- dramatized. It was from such studies, however, darker passages. The pencil drawings are more
vessels with wax to retain their form, and to have that he later composed the various versions of his successfully reproduced in collotype, but reduced
W. R. LEFANU
recorded step by step five successive depths of Horse frightened by a lion, which undoubtedly in- to about two-fifths linear.