Page 60 - Studio International - November 1968

wrote on Pop Art be curious about the actual grow ugly with desire• while the rest of life remains Finch could have takefl up instead of writing all
phrase? Not Finch. I should think an Ef'lglish�an attractively clean and masculine. The reason why around his plates and never coming to terms
would be especially interested, because the name demode women's fashions and out-of-date domestic effective!y with a single work or idea. People used
'Pop Art' was supposedly originated by Lawrerice trappings enter in is that they are both areas where to say that modern art looks like you could do it
Alloway in 1954. which date Alloway himself says O women seem ridiculously to overextend themselves yourself; now there are books on modern art that it
is too early; this. plus the fact that the word '.fop' in order to get and keep their man. only to be. later, looks like anybody could write.
has such a prominent place in Richard Hamilton's made fools of by time. These twin tendencies are Joseph Mashack
eariy (1956) painting. Just what is it that makes exaggerated by followers of New York Pop Art 1 Pop Art (London. 1966). p. 69.
today's homes so different. so appealing? should proper. Thus. on the West Coast. Billy Al Bengston 2 Those who still object to 'cool' as a critical term
add up to real curiosity on the part of English (wasn't that the name of last year's Miss America?) should note that it is used by Kant: • •.. he is cool
critic. And speaking of wit; why nothing on how paints motorcycle gear; and Englishmen. especially, enough in each feeling to occupy his mind with re­
funny Pop Art can be? Finch is on the right track mock an engagement ring (Patrick Caulfield). make flections upon demeanor, splendor. and appear­
when he says of Lichtenstein's Brushstroke, 'The Norman Rockwell paintings of dumb broads, sweaty ances.' (ObseNations on the Feeling of the Beautiful
bravura ges­ture of the abstract expressionist is with sex (Peter Blake. Pin-up girl). or show a woman and Sublime. trans. John T. Goldthwait. Berkeley and
made the ironic property of the trompe I' oeil artist'. swooning in the embrace of a gorilla (Paolozzi. in the Los Angeles. 1960. p. 104).
Except for the fact that this isn't trompe /'oeil at all. Moonstrips Empire News). I offer a risky generaliza­ 3 Acknowledged on p. 148. Cf. my own remarks on
he does come close to 'getting' the picture. But tion. that. with the possible exception of Tom Wes­ Warhol's cool attitude towards violence in these
isn't it funny too? Isn't Lichtenstein, in this sell!lann (and even his 'hottest' Great American Death in America paintings in Art News (December
painting, suggesting that the chest-pounding nudes preserve facial anonymity) in orthodox New 1967).
heartiness of the action painters re­sulted in Pretty York Pop we are never dragged into this cynical de­ 4 fil:1ch may well have used Gombrich's book himself.
Art? And isn't that a scandalous joke, like finding humanizing mockery of other people's Most Intense On p. 17 he (quite correctly) mentions John Frederick
out that som� football player is queer. or noticing Moments. Andy Warhol's portraits of women (and Peto (1854-1907) as a precursor of Pop in America.
that Ernest Hemingway's books are exercises in over- Genetesque Most [N.B.J wanted men) are moved by Now. any American who mentioned Peto would also
compensation? What about sex? What about. for honesty and tenderness. Marilyn Monroe's pathetic have mentioned William Michael Harnett (1848-92).
instance. the anti­feminism of a lot of Pop Art? To vulnerability. the tawdry stucco of Elizabeth Taylor's but in Art and Illusion there is just one work, by Peto.
what extent is the motif of the woman as sex make-up. Jacqueline Kennedy's }mchanting sub­ Panofsky had used an advert for the Bowery Savings
buffoon a reflection of everyday reality. to what stitution of grace for brilliance-these are not bitchy Bank in an essay on 'Father Time' (in Studies in
extent a refraction through a Pop mind? It would wisecracks. but loving intuitions of the human lconology, 1939) but only reproduced a detail as a
be false to maintain that Pop Art is-like the comedy. tiny line drawing; thus it was not yet accepted, on a
Florentine Renaissance-a movement led by I only stop here because there is no more room. par with his fine art plates.
homosexuals.. but anti-heterosexuality is one of its There are many more errors. some of judgment (like a 5 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
recurrent infantilistic themes. This aspect of the Pop full-page illustration of Jann Haworth's Mae West, CVII (1963), pp. 273-88.
Art outlook (and let me stress again that this is only W. C. Fields. Shirley Temple; not all that's campy is 8 Lawrence Alloway, 'The Development of British
a part of the picture) is the pre-puberty world. Pop). and many of omission-important issues which Pop', in Lippard. op. cit .• p. 27.
where women appear to go mushy with sentiment or

Adoration of the Kings (National Gallery no. 592) ment of persons and issues experienced in the past
Spit and polish will serve as an example of what to expect (p. 103). could reccur. Moreover, Mr Ruhemann might by now
The promised volume will presumably be less of a be described as an Emeritus figure in the world of
mixed bag than the present one-which in addition conservation who could honourably leave the field to
to Mr Ruhemann's own chapters contains a useful others. There is no sign however. of any such in­
The Cleaning of Paintings-problems and potenti­ comprehensive bibliography by Joyce Plesters and tention though nothing new is introduced into the
alities by Helmut Ruhemann. with bibliography and various reprinted articles-and. it is to be hoped. better discussion, a discussion now as previously charac­
supplementary material by Joyce Plesters. 508 pp produced. The quality of some of the plates in the terized by a certain naivety. For example. the idea that
95 monochrome and 6 colour plates with 17 line present volume is below what is needed if the finer the debate is whether to clean or not to clean. It is
diagrams. Faber and Faber. 6 gns. gradations of modelling, essential in any discussion not easy to decide whether the naivety is truly Mr
on cleaning, are to be visible; in the reviewer's copy, Ruhemann's own or something he assumes in his
The cleaning of paintings has been Mr Helmut plates 8 and 9 of a Mantegna before and after cleaning readers-curators. art historians. museum scientists
Ruhemann's life work. but this book is also about the show a distinct loss of detail. presumably photo­ and the lay public alike. An amusing example will help
man-not only in its autobiographical chapter but in graphic and not real. There seems to ha"'.e been little the reader to decide. Some time ago the reviewer was
the way there is hardly a paragraph in the technical effprt at proof-reading: miscroscopic. Narvic for Wel­ invited to contribute to a certain festschrift (see
chapters that does not reveal something about his vic. wedding for wading, Cl F for Cl E; punctuation bibliography page 409 item 70). writing in English for
personality. This is something of a duality: on the errors; faulty indentation. Better editing would have subsequent translation. A slip-an error in word order
one hand the gentle, likeable restorer and teacher. detected several lapses: an incomplete sentence -resulted in a sentence meaning the opposite of what
and on the other the fanatical, uncompromising (p. 164); Technical Studies ran to 1942 not 1941 was intended. The German version implied that old
defender of the National Gallery in the celebrated (p. 54) ; the date of the foundation of the Courtauld oil paint was more vulnerable to solvents than recent
cleaning controversy. Institute laboratory is given incorrectly as 1935 on paint. an error which must be obvious to all. It should
Those who have been fortunate enough to be his p. 54 and correctly as 1934 on p. 77; footnote 5 on amuse the reader to see the use to which Mr Ruhe­
colleague will readily acknowledge how much of p. 162 refers to a paper which turns out to be on a mann puts this lapse on three separate occasions. pp.
their knowledge and understanding of paintings as different topic. More curious is the section headed 198. 410 and 440. where the corrupt sentence re­
material objects they owe to his inspiration ; the 'Hot Table and Vacuum-lining Method' (p. 153), a appears. now translated back into English together
reviewer is glad to count himself among them in method widely used throughout the world: neither with other passages from the article-sometimes in
spite of having many times been the target of attack here nor in the related Appendix D (p. 335) is there inverted commas. I do not approve of this translation
from the other Ruhemann. It is not easy to estimate any mention of the use of a vacuum. A footnote. how­ either and would have preferred Mr Ruhemann to
the extent of his influence on those who have ever. refers to a 1960 paper on the subject by Mr have used the original which was available to him.
worked with him. nor what it will be on readers of Ruhemann. but the original paper dated 1955 (not Was it perhaps assumed that I could not possibly
this book, but the companion volume which is by Mr Ruhemann) is relegated to the role of ampli­ object: was I not liquidated on page 7-1, National
promised on the Techniques of the Old Masters fying the term�marouf/age. Gallery Report. 1962-1964?
cannot fail to be a significant contribution to that The National Gallery Cleaning Controversy is, in­ But seriously. there are very few restorers of Mr
subject. He has an intimate knowledge of countless evitably, referred to again and again and cannot Ruhemann's experience who are prepared to write
paintings including the National Gallery's greatest therefore be ignored if this review is to be honest. about their work. His book cannot therefore be dis­
masterpieces. In the meantime Mr Ruhemann's however much one would wish to do so since under regarded. in spite of its shortcomings, many of which
masterly technical analysis of the early Botticelli Mr Martin Davies it is inconceivable that the treat- could be readily corrected. S. Rees-Jones
218