Page 70 - Studio International - November 1970

·1earns something olhow one sculptor under­ The discussion of the works themselves is very cerns Sir John's personal relations with
stands another's work. A strict art-historical general and the book remains basically a Churchill, selecting his pictures for the R.A.
study which does deal with the many questions personality study with a great deal of historical summer show, buying one fo� the Tate, and­
is needed, but an equally valid treatment material thrown in. That Giovanni was a the biggest non-reminiscence of all-an
would be one in which one encounters the genius and an innovator is indisputable. This account of his time as the Rector of the
work directly, guided by the insights and book is a sincere tribute to an important University of St Andrews. There are other
instincts of a fellow artist. The splendid photo­ artist who deserves to be .better known, but it things that one might discuss, like the rela­
graphs frequently speak for themselves and is unfortunate that the author did not, as tionship between the director of the Tate and
communicate more of a feeling of the three­ promised, ·write of the sculptor 'as a sculptor'. its trustees. But presm;nably most of the
dimensional quality of the sculpture than is DEBORAH A. STOTT □ evidence is locked away in the Tate files, and
usual in reproductions, but there is dis­ Rothenstein's half-hearted malice on this
appointingly little discussion in the text of the Personal relation subject will be accorded its place by a future
works which had such dramatic effect on the historian. So, for that matter, will his kindness
author. Often they seem to have been men­ Time's Thievish Progress by Sir John Rothen­ to Stanley Spenser in his last illness. Rothen­
tioned as an excuse for a digression on icono­ stein. 288 pp with 12 pp of monochrome stein is obviously a man to whom such friend­
graphy or an interpretation of Giovanni's . plates. Cassel. 60s. ships have meant a great deal, and he's
per�onality; one seldom learns what it was obviously been better at friendship than at
about these sculptures that was so extra­ This is the third volume of Sir John Rothen­ public relations. To publish as weak a book
ordinarily impressive. Mr Ayrton also has a stein's autobiography, and the weakest of the as this will gain him no friends-that he doesn't
disturbing way of sniping at 'art historians' three parts. The story so far is well known: know already. D
while working out of a superficially art­ son of Sir William, then at Leeds, then at the TIMOTHY HILTON
historical format (using untranslated foreign Tate. But the interest has always been in the
terms, unexplained technical terms and people he knew ratherth an what he did. The
including a 'catalogue raisonee' which is best things he has ever written are in the auto­
simply a list of the plates). biographical parts of Modern English Painters. Chance meeting
The book begins with a wide-ranging evo­ That sort of recollection was quite touching,
cation of 'the climate of the time', attempt­ quite sensitive, and still makes good reading. Dada and Surrealist Art by William S. Rubin.
ing to create an historical situation into which On the other hand, the action for which he is 525 pages with 851 illustrations, 60 in colour
to place Gic,lVanni, incl;1ding a glance at his best known is punching Douglas Cooper. Thames and Hudson. £10 10s in UK only.
father Nicola and a suggestion of the con­ That was good fun, at the time. But today he Surrealist Art by Sarane Alexandrian; trans­
temporary theological controversies. The and Cooper could pound and tear at each lated from the French by Gordon Clough.
most interesting section is that on the possible other the whole length of Whitehall a:nd no­ 256 pages with 236 illustrations, 50 in colour.
effects of new developments in the tempering body would give tuppence. We have more Thames and Hudson. 55s.
of steel. Harder and sharper tools permitted interesting things to think about, more
and perhaps encouraged Giovanni's dramatic interesting people to assault. This book has There are too many books in the world, and
technique and new control over the marble, given me a quite profound sense (which, as a too few that seem to have been worth the
and one wishes that the author had described historian, I do not want to feel) of just not doing. I think it would be worthwhile to write
more thoroughly and specifically these ad­ caring about Rothenstein and his times. a book about 'Surrealist Art', but nQt the kind
vances and their reflection in actual works. That's a damning thing to say about an auto­ done by either Rubin or Alexandrian.
The major pa;t of the book is a chronological biography. However, it must be admitted that What's fascinating about the notion 'Sur-'
account of Giovanni's life and work, based on the author does what he can to make you realist Art' is its inherent and multiple irony.
a rather free interpretation of the few known think that he has been the witness of matters As a term, it sounds like Impressionist,
sources. From these-some documents and of great concern. So do his publishers; they've Abstract, Modernist, Pop, Minimalist Art­
the tantalizingly enigmatie inscription on the tricked out the publicity with a review saying all those other style-movement labels coined
Pisa pulpit-Mr Ayrton has created a mis­ that Rothenstein has 'the compulsive read­ by post-facto critics to expedite their general­
understood genius remarkably like a kind of ability of C. P. Snow at his best'. Ha ha. It's ized explanations of the unique and the 'new'
medieval Michelangelo. This Giovanni is a an untruth, but there's a weird similarity, for in the plastic arts. But 'Surrealism' was a
sensitive and turbulent spirit caught up in the Snow's orotund relation of (trivial) Events he verbal banner for a complex of ideas about
political and theological disputes of the day has Lived Through has its parallel here. the use of the Unconscious and Thought, of
and plagued by :misunc;lerstandings and Rothenstein can talk about having a drink personal freedom, of revolution amongst and
mundane problems of mismanagement and with Colquhoun and MacBride (God rest within Mankind: a banner defined within a
lack of appreciation. It is a tempting image. them both; they added to the gaiety of literary context by Andre Breton first in his
Giovanni's distorted sculptures speak to the nations) with such solemnity that one might Manifeste du Surrealisme ( 1924 or 1925, depend­
contemporary sensibility in much the same think the heavens themselves are personally ing on which 'authority' one believes). As
way as those of Michelangelo and recently concerned. I'm glad that the great press this document only mentioned 'art' in a foot­
'disc�vered' Mannerist artists, and it does photo of the lads from the I.R.A. trotting note appendage of painters' names, the label
seem evident that he was a man of strong down the steps of the Tate with a stolen Berthe was not primarily feeding off a contemporary
temperament who quarrelled with those with Morisot has been included; it's a pleasure to 'movement' in the visual arts; it had its own
whom he worked. Unfortunately, such a see it again. And it livens things up. One of independent meaning in its time and place;
characterization, however attractive, goes too the fellows in that photo was later io hold my and if it did not attract a band-wagon of
far beyond what is actually known. It is just nighty-clad wife a prisoner in a house in painters and sculptors anxious to join an
not historically accurate to apply the concept Connemara, waving a gun, while in the 'avant-garde' group, it was at least accepted
of the artist-genius as embodied by Michel­ shrubbery crouched dozens of men from the as significant by the artists who later exhibited
angelo in the sixteenth century (and inter­ French navy who had pursued him in a fleet work in galleries and magazines and jointly
preted by the nineteenth and twentieth of taxis from Galway City. I'm not saying signed verbal statements under the auspices
centuries) to a thirteenth-century artist­ why. I merely mention it in order not to talk of 'Surrealism'. But if something could be
craftsman. about a large part of this book, which con- termed 'Surrealist' with credible historical

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