Page 68 - Studio International - March 1968

Spring of these business men whose ugly faces show up in
Books
From
Phaidon
Essays on Italian Sculpture.
By John Pope-Hennessy. 25 of
Mr Pope-Hennessy's essays.
240 pages. 247 illustrations.
10 x 7 in. May. 80s
On Quality in Art. By Jakob
Rosenberg. The search for valid
criteria of excellence by which to
judge works of art. 264 pages.
168 illustrations, 4 in colour.
10¼ x 7¼ in. May. 84s
The Marlborough Tapestries at
Blenheim Palace. By Alan Wace.
A detailed study of this famous set
of tapestries and the other military
tapestries of the 17th and 18th
centuries. 146 pages. 78 plates.
12 x 9 in. May. 59s 6d
A Catalogue of the Paintings and
Drawings at Wilton House,
Salisbury, Wiltshire. Compiled by
Sidney, 16th Earl of Pembroke. A
catalogue raisonne. 224 pages.
150 illustrations, 13 in colour.
11 x 8 in. May. 90s
Koral: Archaic Greek Maidens.
By Gisela M. A. Richter. A study of
the development of the kore type-the
standing female figure-in Archaic
Greek art. 428 pages. 800 illustrations.
12X 91n.June.£9
Hallan Pictures of the
Renaissance: North and Central
Italian Schools. By Bernard
Berenson. An illustrated edition in
three volumes. Text volume: 400 pages.
2 Plate volumes: 1984 illustrations.
10½ X 71 In. June. 90s per vol.
Phaidon Paperbacks
9t x 6t in. July publication.
Story of Art. By E. H. Gombrich.
488 pages. 384 illustrations, 21 In
colour. 27s 6d
Classic Art. By Heinrich Wolfflin.
314 pages. 209 illustrations,
10 colour plates. 24s
The Art of Constantinople. By
John Beckwith. 184 pages. 228
illustrations. 21s
Phaidon Press Ltd
5 Cromwell Place
London SW7
160
generations. In spite of the omission, lust, the dead­
so many eighteenth-century prints-as it was said of
liest of the Seven Deadly Sins, had a full life in the
Hitler's Germans during the gas-chamber era-that
eighteenth century. A quick but rewarding glance at
they did not know what was going on. In 1776 the first omitted treasures produced by Rowlandson, Newton,
E. Fuchs' Sittengeschichte reveals a few of the
motion in the House of Commons that 'the slave
the Cruikshanks, and Gillray. But perhaps alienation
trade was contrary to the laws of God and the rights
has gone so far in a napalm-oriented world that sex is
of man' failed.
thousands off the land, to swell the unemployed and no longer considered a social subject! As Antal
In agriculture, enclosure acts drove hundreds of
pointed out-and what a marvellous book he could
under-employed in towns and cities. This rationaliza­
have written on Dr George's subject-the exuberant
tion of agriculture was great for progress, but hell on baroque of Rowlandson's caricatures was mainly
the victims of history. Then, too, the beginning of the
concerned with the erotic. How sad the omission
industrial revolution and the famous Speenhamland
from this book of his Exhibition Stare Case, The Pasha
system accentuated the pauperization of the labour­
ing population. and His Harem, The Bum Shop, etc. etc. In this genre
Rowlandson dealt with the female breast and buttock
Dr George's selection emphasizes the bestial in the better than any contemporary editor of magazines for
English face, generally bloated by the sins of gluttony arrested male adolescents.
and drunkenness. Her omission of lechery recalls a Let us not be ungrateful. Dr George has produced a
classic story. A child fobbed off by parents and grand­ beautiful and useful book-the index is first-rate-and
parents with mythical explanations of his origin, anyone interested in eighteenth-century modes and
noted in his diary that from all accounts there had manners will continue to be in her debt.
been no sexual intercourse in his family for several Howard Daniel
there are other, less familiar strands to his art. One is
Late Victorian a series of pretty girls posed against Venetian back­
grounds which he painted In much the same manner
as his brother-In-law Henry Woods and the Austrian
Van Haanen. The present book throws welcome light
on this little studied aspect of late Victorian art. The
Luke Fi/des R.A. A Victorian Painter by L. V. Fildes. later years of the artist were Increasingly taken up with
256 pp, 25 monochrome illustrations. Michael Joseph portraiture, into which he was led by the success of
42s. the painting of his wife, made after seeing the work of
Carolus-Duran in 1887. The most taxing part of this
Extraordinary though it may be, it appears that this is phase of his career was the necessity to produce, with
the first book to be published about Luke Fildes, a team of assistants, more than thirty replicas of the
painter of the state portraits of Edward VII and state portrait of Edward VII.
George V, to say nothing of The Doctor. His style was The pattern which Mr L. V. Fi Ides traces is one com­
formed by the 1870s but when he died, in 1927, the mon to a number of late Victorian artists: progress
style of anecdotal painting of which he was a symbol from relatively humble beginnings to fame and
was anathema. Now that It is possible once again to riches; and social consequence achieved at some
view Victorian painting dispassionately it is a pleasure expense of creative power. Not the least interesting
to welcome this belated biography, written by his part of his narrative is the account of the collectors of
eldest son and containing the intimate glimpses of his those days, including Schwabe, Lever and Tate. In
family life which only a close relative can provide. later years there came the suggestion th_at Fildes
Starting as an illustrator, the artist's first stroke of might be a candidate for the Presidency of the Royal
fortune was to be recommended by Millais to Dickens Academy, dismissed In the memorable phrase 'Your
as the illustrator for Edwin Drood. His interest in mother would have to have her brougham'; and the
social problems had already been awakened by his painter's ultra-conservatism toward modern art,
work for the Graphic, one of the designs for which which doubtless helped to alienate opinion from his
became the model for his earliest successful oil own achievement. Sixteen of his chief paintings are
Applicants for admission to a casual ward. He con­ illustrated In a book which will become a valued
tinued the social realist theme In the Widower, and addition to the growing literature on Victorian
The Doctor, of 1891, was the culmination of this vein painting.
and the last of his important subject pictures. But Graham Reynolds
Milan. The English edition, which will be the only one
Art in its time available In the U.K., will be published by Thames
and Hudson in April as The New Sculpture, price
£4.10s.)
Kurt Schwitters: life and Work by Werner Schmalen­ Art and Commerce: Between Passion and Speculation
bach. 420 pages, lavishly illustrated in colour and by Willi Bongard. 271 pages, 16 monochrome illustra­
monochrome, catalogue, register, bibliography, and tions. Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg, DM26.
exhibitions catalogue. Dumont-Schauberg Verlag,
Cologne, DM95. Dada before Neo-Dada, Schwitters before Rauschen­
New Dimensions in Sculpture by Udo Kultermann. 236 berg, Merz before 'comblne-painting'-we have had
pages, 12 colour plates, 375 monochrome lllustra­
ti�ns, appendix and biographies of the artists, index everything already, the European critic hastily assures
us when the question of Pop art and Junk art arises.
of the literature 1927-1967. Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, The American, however, usually Insists that the Ideas
Tubingen, DM48. (Foreign editions are being pub­ that revitalized the scene in New York in the past ten
lished at the same time In New York, London and years differ basically from the revolutionary ideas