Page 26 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

it out some time. For the moment may I offer one very painters and critics always seem to think it ('British Millais and Ruskin
generalized comparison ? In American art it is too good taste' etc.)—taste actually is a central faculty
often evident that a purely intellectual faculty is utterly indispensable to the painter. Taste is judge- Dear Sir,
uppermost, even when the idiom is one which is ment. Mr Tim Hilton ends his generous review of my
supposed to embody 'the spontaneous' (as in ab- Millais and the Ruskins (March issue) by saying, 'the
stract expressionism); the so-called spontaneity is in letters should have had their dates given, as the book
fact an intellectually apprehended and controlled is obviously going to be used by scholars.' Perhaps
MackMurdo's role in
formula standing for 'the spontaneous'. Intuition and Art Nouveau this answers a question which has often bothered me,
feeling are absent to a truly remarkable degree. To i.e., what distinguishes a 'scholar' from any other
intelligent reader? Since every letter in my book is
find that apparent hesitancy and muddle which a Dear Sir,
truly spontaneous or intuitive mode of working mani- There are several misconceptions about my book dated (although not always with the year and not
fests (see the surfaces of Matisse and Bonnard)—for Art Nouveau, in the recent review by D. J. Gordon every little extract from a letter) it may be that a
all this you have to look on this side of the Atlantic. ('What are we to do about Art Nouveau?' March scholar is someone who sees the trees without the
That the intellectual control shown in American issue). wood to such an extent that, when reading a book
painting is in itself brilliant is not in question: but its The term mid-twentieth century has never been used which spans only three years, as mine does, he is
perfection is arid and sterile. Art is concerned, of all by me as a term of 'approbation', I have merely used unconscious which year he is reading about. Perhaps
human activities, with an area that is located exactly it as a point in time from which one can measure back too, he is someone who reads into a book what is
half-way between the intuitive and the intellectual, or certainly not there because I say nothing about
to the turn of the century. Furthermore, the book never Millais's portrait of Ruskin 'going back to America'.
ratiocinative. I think British painting shows far greater
says the mid-twentieth century is a condition to It has never left this country and is going back to
resources of intuitive power and taste. Yes—taste, so
which the arts should aspire. Sussex after the exhibition In Liverpool. Or does the
far from being the effete shortcoming American
'Boring' or not, Mr Gordon will have to believe me scholar not read books at all? Perhaps he just filets
about MackMurdo being an adviser to the Kelmscott them.
Press. This fact was culled from typewritten manu- Yours faithfully,
scripts in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, Mary Lutyens
dictated by MackMurdo to his niece, Miss Pugh. But London, W.2
73 years ago for a source of that fact, Mr Gordon need not have
looked any further than an article by me entitled 'A Tim Hilton writes:
Taste for Tiffany' in Apollo, February 1963. Of course there are distinctions between scholars
Yours sincerely, and ordinary readers, though I can't think that Miss
Mario Amaya Lutyens' conjectures about scholars are very accur-
London, S.W.1 ate. I was talking about ease of reference, and it's
infuriating to skip around pages working out dates.
Sorry, I thought the picture was bought by an
Professor Gordon writes: American; but that doesn't invalidate my point; that
There is no secret about the claims that MackMurdo the picture isn't generally available, and therefore the
made, to be recorded by Miss Pugh. They were taken publishers would have done us a service with a better
into account, for example, by Dr Ian Fletcher, in his reproduction.
dissertation, Union and Beauty: an examination of
some nineteenth century minority periodicals (Reading
University, 1965), which contains the fullest account 'Hogarth to Turner' in Poland
of The Century Guild Hobby Horse and of the person-
alities associated with it. I wrote in full knowledge of The exhibition of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
MackMurdo's claim to have acted as 'adviser' to the British painting 'Hogarth to Turner', which has been
Kelmscott Press. I am still waiting for some substanti- touring Europe under British Council auspices, has
ation of this claim. To say that I must believe what a met with an astonishing response in some of the
man says about himself simply because he has said centres where it has been shown. In Warsaw, for
Narrow, shrunken sympathies are a very noticeable
it, is to introduce a principle startlingly new into example, where the exhibits were on show at the
feature of modern art, they are the expression of a
historical research, and one of extravagant and National Museum for a month from mid-February,
Nonconformist spirit that has its good and its bad side.
dangerous naivety. What Mr Amaya has in this case total attendance was estimated at 100,000.
It is the fresh air of individual opinion blowing through
so carefully suppressed is the precise nature and
the close atmosphere of authority, it purifies and vital-
extent of the claims MackMurdo was making in his
izes, but it is apt to be intolerant. Each little circle cries, old age; and not only to Miss Pugh. Thus, in 1940 Accidental intelligence
'Within there is salvation, without are dogs'; and the MackMurdo claimed, in writing, to Miss Lilian Block,
little sects are oftentimes very small, 'the minister and at that time preparing her thesis on The Century Lot 161 in a sale of Impressionist and modern draw-
one another', and that other has frequent doubts about Guild Hobby Horse, that he 'planned the first per- ings at Sotheby's on April 27 was 'Beauty' of Cin-
the safety of the minister. Intolerance is the vice of cinnati: Composition No. 6 in Red, White, Yellow and
formance of Wagner's operas and the first plays of
enthusiasm, tolerance the virtue of indifference. These Ibsen'. (Block, The Pursuit of Beauty, Columbia Uni- Green, gouache, stamped with the CZS stamp, num-
little sects rave against each other and the world at bered 6 and dated 1961. The catalogue description
versity unpublished thesis, 1941, p. 72; Fletcher,
large, because they believe in infallibility, even if it is read: 'Executed by the Cincinnati Zoological Society's
p. 207). If Mr Amaya will believe that without quite
only their own. Calvin burnt Servetus, and every chimpanzee when it was aged three. Unlike the
remarkable substantiation, then he will believe any-
reformer would probably burn all who did not hold London Zoo's chimpanzee 'Congo' and the Rotter-
thing. But perhaps he does. I, at any rate, am not
with him, if he could only collect faggots dry enough to dam gorilla 'Sophie' who used a brush, 'Beauty', like
called on to believe that Beardsley illustrated 'fine
kindle. 'Betsy' of Baltimore, always used (she has now
art books' for the Kelmscott Press simply because
From 'The Art Critic and the Critical Artist', by retired) her fingers. A photograph of the artist at
Mr Amaya, alone, says he did (Amaya, p. 58); or, for
Norman Garstin. work in her studio accompanies the gouache.' The
that matter, that the title of one of the most famous
English books of the nineteenth century is Origins of drawing, 14 ½ x 21 ½ in., was exhibited at Bianchini
The June issue the Species, simply because Mr Amaya (p. 11), alone, Gallery, N.Y., in 1961.
says it is.
The June issue of Studio International will include an My other comments seemed, and seem, perfectly
article by Alan Bowness on the influence of American fair. The reproaches that I have met are that I was far In brief
painters on post-war British painters; Norbert Lynton too indulgent with Mr Amaya's book. John Coplans, the artist and administrator, who has
on Ben Nicholson's recent work; and the second been director of the art gallery at the University of
Studio International supplement on lithographs and University of Reading, California, Irvine, has been appointed curator of art
original prints. Berks. tor the Pasadena Art Museum.
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