Page 59 - Studio International - November 1968

through some general material on the difference be­
Supplement autumn 1968 tween Renaissance and modern art. Suddenly a new
paragraph begins: 'By the time Poussin arrived in
Rome, in 162 4 .. .' (I'd swear that was based on notes
taken at a railroad-timetable art history lecture at the
Courtauld or the I.F.A. in New York). In fact, a size­
able portion of this brief book is on Poussin. Most
of that is a comparjson Qf his Landscape with snake
(National Gallery) and Andy Warhol's White disaster,
New and riecent art Hooks and much of that is wasted on a lot of talk about art
comparisons in general. These errors of proportion
aside, the Poussin/Warhol chapter is bad in itself.
There is a whole paragraph informing us that Pous­
sin's paintings are often geometrical, and·warning us
to beware of paintings, lest hidden geometry get us
is the only man with a chapter all to himself; Jim when we least expect! Fact No. 1 : the Poussin in
Pop- corn Dine is fine, but that just makes the problem even question is not particularly geometrical. Fact No. '"2:
foggier.)
geometry does not even bear on the comparison with
Often the text is so badly written that it is unpleasant the Warhol. One more 'linguistic problem': the spec­
to read. It is gross to say that one thing is 'collaged' tator in White disaster is by no means 'disinterested';
Pop Art; object and image, by Christopher Finch. onto another. Lacking a dictionary, I find it impossible the point is that he is uninterested, that he couldn't
London: Studio Vista Limited; New York: E. P. to imagine 'a common-sense illusion of space, where care less. Finally, the central thought of the chapter,
2
Dutton & Co., Inc., Paperback 12s 6d, $2.45. objects occlude one another.' (Can you picture ob­ that Warhol has a classically cool attitude toward
jects occluding 7) Over and over again we stumble violence, is John Ashbery·s. 3
As with other volumes in the Studio Vista series, this over the same painful cliches: artists 'exploring·, If Finch thought it was cleverly 'Pop' to write so
new treatment of Pop Art is a handy theatrum of pic­ 'investigating ... problems', and 'pushing ... tenden­ much about Poussin instead of Pop Art, his energies
tures, many (especially of works by British artists) not cies' (cf. Picasso: 'I do not seek; I find'). No chance would have been better utilized in an investigation of
accessible in book form until now. We can be grateful is missed to indulge in banal philosophizing: 'The a subject which remains open to fruitful study, the
for that much. What follows is aimed at the text. problem (always remembering that it's only necessary interrelation between art history and Pop Art. Apart
The first thing one does when dealing with a move­ to postulate a problem, since the answer is already from the fact that art historians were watching over
ment or style is to establish a tentative canon. Then there) was to .. .' (italics in original; comma added). the shoulders of Pop artists from an early stage, I
you move out from there, checking less central figures There is a lot of talk about language games, as if the wonder, for example, about the far-reaching effects of
and works against what you already understand, and, author had .just read an article on semantics, but it's E. H. Gombrich's 1956 Mellon Lectures in Washing­
by a process of feedback, revise and confirm the for­ more like a con game, really. When you just can"t ton, published as Art and Illusion (London. 1959).
mulation as you go further afield. In Finch's book think you can always talk about language. one of the first important books to deal with fine art
there is no evidence of a process of this kind ever As in some of the less interesting writings of John and everyday graphics as being one of a piece. Who
having taken place. Actually, criticism, like modern Cage, there is plenty of irrelevant filler, with none of knows what influence derived from Gombrich's paral­
science, is nothing more than a system of significant the restful irrelevance-excuse me, I would like a glass lels of Pannini's Interior of the Pantheon with a
(i.e. non-trivial) mutually verifiable truths about sub­ of water-which Cage always supplies. There is a poster. Clean Up, Paint Up, Fix Up, or of Giovanni di
jective observations. I only stress this here because section basically devoted to Duchamp as a proto-Pop Paolo's Annunciation with a newspaper advert for
4
a lack of confidence in the adequacy of criticism, a figure, altogether predictable and unenlightening, Windjammer at the Roxy Theatre ? Moreover. Gom­
hesitancy to frame non-trivial truths, is the most which never adequately articulates the difference be­ brich's book devotes special attention to the corriic
serious deficiency of this book .. In contrast. when tween Dada and Pop (polar opposites in many ways). strip, which was invented by Rodolphe Topffer, illus­
Lucy Lippard deals with the subject she sets down Frequent public flexing of embarassingly weak intel­ trating three strips from his Le Docteur Festus (written
1
a working canon of artists who are sure Pop (Warhol, lectual muscles: when I came to the phrase 'New­ 1829; pub. Paris, 1840). An example of how great
Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, Rosenquist. and Olden­ tonian relativity' at the end, the whole book-the very art historians can share Pop sensibility in their own
burg) with which other phenomena can be associated paper and type-became unreal for a moment. work is the very subject of Panofsky's 'The Ideo­
5
or contrasted. Consequently Finch is never able to The first time Nicolas Poussin's name springs up it logical Antecedents of the Rolls-Royce Radiator' •
say what's Pop and what's not. (Borderline Jim Dine is with an incredible jolt. You are reading along Speaking of scholarship, wouldn't anyone who

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