Page 67 - Studio International - February 1967

that Whistler's work, like that of the early Degas or
Book the unsettling stimulus of Picasso's Les Demoiselles Picasso, provides a mine for the questing art
d'Avignon. Also from this article are two unfamiliar
photos of Picasso and of Braque taken in 1908. historian which Mr Sutton has only begun to
reviews Most of the paintings discussed in the book are explore. Many questions are scarcely raised. What,
illustrated. The colour plates are above average; one wonders, is the relationship of Whistler's works
the black-and-white reproductions vary from to the early Degas and Fantin-Latour on the one
sharp and clear to fuzzy 'second-hand' photos such hand_and to his English friends on the other?
as 111.35. The juxtaposition of Braque's and Whistler's fanatical admiration for Millais in the
Picasso's landscapes of 1909 with contemporary early 'sixties and his illustrations for the magazine
photos is particularly interesting. Minor misprints Once a Week of 1862 are not mentioned. How does
Texts on Cubism include erroneous references to illustrations on pages his art compare with Tissot's, whose career offers
27 and 140. The book design is attractive and un- many parallels to Whistler's own ? Again what is
Cubism by Edward Fry marred by the 'bleeding' of illustrations. his relationship to Sargent, Beardsley and even to
200 pages, 8 colour plates, 69 illus. in monochrome, One of the outstanding features of this book is its the late Monet, who was instrumental in cementing
Thames & Hudson, 35s hard cover, 21s paperback scholarly apparatus of index, notes, bibliography, the friendship with Mallarmé ? There is room for
lists of exhibitions and auctions and full data about other new books on Whistler beside Mr Sutton's.
Edward Fry's 'Cubism' is an important recent the pictures reproduced. It is arguable that foot- ALASTAIR GRIEVE
addition to Thames and Hudson's 'Modern notes are most convenient on the relevant page
Movement' series. The 200-page text is primarily rather than at the back of the book. As the book is The meaning of 'Pre-Romanesque'
an anthology of documents from the cubist period, organized one must constantly turn from text to
translated, annotated and introduced by Mr Fry. illustrations to notes etc. Pre-Romanesque Art, ed. by Harald Busch and
His introductory section includes an intelligent, This book will be useful for scholars and also for Bernd Lonse
accurate summary of the history of Cubism which non-specialists who may not read foreign languages 42 pages of text, 216 pages of monochrome plates
suffers somewhat from overcompression of a diffi- and for whom these documents would otherwise be B. T. Batsford Ltd. 70s
cult and complex subject. This defect is particularly inaccessible. Anyone who is seriously interested in
noticeable in his section 'Cubism as a stylistic and the enigma of modern art will find this a valuable 'Pre-Romanesque Art? I didn't know there was
historical phenomenon' in which he discusses and attractive book. such a thing.' In a sense there is no such thing; art
JOHN H. FIELD
analogies between Cubism and contemporary of the era from the fall of the Western Roman
philosophy. After comparing Bergson with Cezanne Empire (5th century) until the dawn of the
and early Cubism, Mr Fry refers to parallels Whistler Romanesque period (11th century) is more con-
between later Cubism and Husserl's phenomen- temporaneous than homogeneous. The label itself
ology. Here the text becomes impenetrably dense James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, defines it only by what it is not, i.e. Romanesque,
and concentrated: Pastels and Watercolours, by Denys Sutton and even the label 'Romanesque' only points to a
... This method of eidetic reduction, concrete33, 129 plates, including 19 in full colour wide area of definition, implying art that is not
purely descriptive34, and based on intuition35, Phaidon 70s quite Roman, but not Gothic or Renaissance
can be used to arrive at the essence of an object, either. The pre-Romanesque period is usually
at those essentials which qualify it if secondary Inevitably this book invites comparison with referred to historically as the Dark Ages, and only
determinations are to qualify it also"; these Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler pub- comparatively recently have historians uncovered
essentials shall include its morphological essences lished in 1963 by Country Life. The Phaidon costs the culture behind this misnomer, and art critics
as opposed to ideal, abstract, geometrical con- 17s 6d more. It is larger and has over twice as are in the wake of the historians.
cepts", and shall include all but a specifically many illustrations. The earlier book has the longer This book is a necessary first step; it amounts to a
individual content... and more informative text with footnotes acknow- catalogue, in broad outline, of the art of this period,
Happily this grotesque sentence is not typical. At ledging sources of information and an index. The and the short introductory text indicates some of
the worst the non-philosophical reader can skip text of the Phaidon consists of an essay by Mr the threads that run through a vast area of creative
this very brief section; at best he can grapple with Sutton, the 'Ten O'Clock', 'Propositions No. 2', activity. The magnificent photographs include
it and perhaps brush up on his Husserl. 'A Further Proposition' and 'The Red Rag'. The churches from England to Syria, books, statues,
The forty-eight selected texts, mainly dating essay is printed in beautifully clear type, it is jewellery, paintings, and so on, ad infinitum.
between 1908 and 1925, are arranged in chrono- perceptive and carefully written. The word There is far too much material for a book of this
logical order. Mr Fry follows each document with `brilliant' which was scattered so freely throughout size to establish any clear pattern in it, and until
useful information about the author and comments the 1963 text does not occur once, but there are some mammoth publication rectifies this, the
on the text. The translations seem accurate and in occasional errors, for instance the 1857 Manchester tendency will be to interest oneself in separated
his judicious selection Mr Fry includes a number Exhibition is dated 1855. At the back of the book topics, i.e. Celtic art, Byzantine art, Carolingian
of unfamiliar items some of which are rare and are notes on the pictures reproduced. These notes art. But it is informative, the text is unobtrusive,
inaccessible. (There ought to be, in London, are useful but are not, as Mr Sutton admits, full economical, and never far-fetched, and for the
microfilms of key avant-garde reviews.) catalogue entries. time being it is interesting to have Dark Ages Syria
The texts are by artists, their defenders and their The Phaidon is well worth 70s. The illustrations and Scandinavia associated in one's mind. There is
PAUL ALLEN
critics. The expositors of Cubism were usually are of high quality with important works such as no bibliography.
personal friends of the painters, poets working as Wapping and The Music Room reproduced in
art critics, such as Apollinaire, Salmon, Allard, colour. Those in the text show works which
Revardy, etc., or dealers like Kahnweiler and Whistler admired and which influenced his own Student Handbook of Color, by Charles N. Smith
L. Rosenberg. Their writings are often rhetorical art. The Mazo in the Louvre copied by Whistler 96 pages, 24 colour plates, 40 illus. in monochrome
and propagandistic and not always lucid and tells us something about his own early self-portrait Reinhold (distributed in U.K. by Studio Vista, 60s)
pertinent, but they are the closest we can come to in the FREER GALLERY. Courbet's Le Bord de la
the intellectual intentions of the creators of Cubism Mer a Palavas makes a revealing comparison with This is an uncompromisingly serious text book
in the absence of clear explanatory statements by Harmony in Blue and Silver: Trouville. A woodcut by for those interested in examining the theory of
Picasso and Braque (most of whose 'gnomic Kiyonaga given to the British Museum by colour, and its relevance to the artist. It consists of
utterances' of this period are included). The texts Whistler's sister-in-law is a probable source for The a number of exercises, designed to be worked out
are inevitably somewhat repetitious. Balcony. A statuette from Tanagra shows the by each reader for himself with sheets of coloured
Among Mr Fry's most interesting 'finds' is an diversity of Whistler's enthusiasms. His own At the paper. The conscientious student who does so will
article from the New York Architectural Record Piano of 1858-9 can be grouped with Degas' find himself in possession of a detailed under-
(May 1910) in which Gelett Burgess reported his Bellelli Family and Fantin's The Two Sisters to form standing of the basic theory of colour. Without
interviews in 1908 with 'The Wildmen of Paris'. a group of pictures of carefully related figures in this concentration, however, the book remains
From this article Mr Fry reproduces an important intimate, bourgeois surroundings. merely a series of interesting optical illusions.
drawing given to Burgess by Braque which shows All these examples are fascinating and one feels ANGELA LAMBERT