Page 73 - Studio International - July August 1972

programme, and indeed one as explicit as her book on a hundred and forty years of British what kind of disasters might overtake us : the
Isabella's for Perugino may never have existed. Industrial design it might seem from this machine age and its side-effects in design got
One fact that does suggest a fairly detailed volume that she did so in the belief that little control at a tremendous speed. Delacroix, for
preliminary programme however, is that for a critical comment had befallen the period, at any one, was pretty critical about the way things
tempera painting a careful design must have time, most of all perhaps in recent years. Miss were going, and very depressing—he seemed to
been made and was probably not altered much MacCarthy runs over the essentials of the story see that man's new tool was to separate him
on the panel itself. For the Venetians such as with the untroubled eye of an enthusiastic and from his object, that original thought would go
Bellini and Titian the use of oil, a more journalistic pioneer, as though she is discovering by the board and that imitation was the
malleable medium, allowed changes to be made the Industrial Revolution and its painted-on inevitable replacement. Heinrich Heine, was
throughout the work. This may help to clarify appearances of progress for the first time—rather equally horrified. Then Morris and his
the reaction of Giovanni Bellini to a prescribed like a student, possibly, whose decade was the contemporaries and disciples took up the cause,
`invention' again for Isabella reported by thirties, and who can see nothing wrong with the but their efforts faded away into Art Nouveau.
Bembo in 1506. 'He does not like to be given world around her— `All's perfect, Evermore.' But However, when Philip Webb said, 'I never
many written details which cramp his style; his we are less interested in mere glossy appearances begin to be satisfied until my work looks
way of working as he says is always to wander at these days than we are in the conflicts and commonplace' we know what he meant, and
will in his picture ... ' principles which lie behind those appearances; that his meaning (whether in the context of his
We can approach the meaning of a work of and it is with the appearances of design that Miss time, today, or any other time) makes good
art in two ways, either by attempting to MacCarthy specifically deals, with those sense. We know too that what he did not mean
formulate the intention of the artist or the concerned with the last fifty years in particular, was the kind of dull, lethargic and unthinking
programme he was given to follow, or by and with little else. In her heavy and thick study, modern envelope in which most of us find
discovering by observation the meaning the expensive and thoroughly badly presented, one ourselves most of the time today—the grey,
work contains. Professor Gombrich illustrates found oneself longing for a personal view, a few tepid and dismissive surroundings which, with
the best documented exegesis of a painting we conclusions, some perceptive criticism, some the help of the machine, have had a good deal
have from the Renaissance, Fra Pietro da traces of real feeling. But these things are seldom to do with the post-192os period of industrial
Novellara's description in 1501 of Leonardo's evident. Instead we get a reporter's book: long design. Of course, all this is under heavy attack
cartoon of St Anne, the Virgin and Child. It is lists of trendy names, whether of the past or nowadays and the English part in it is specially
notable for the caution Fra Petro displays in present. What these 'names' have said or written criticized. What is it that makes Italian car and
his description which suggests both the is reported without comment, with scarcely a ship design, for instance, so much better than
ambivalence and the strength of the image. question asked or a doubt shed. The pictures ours ? Why are Danish interiors and furniture
Vasari's story of Filippino Lippi giving are reportage in the same way: curtains, chairs, so much more sympathetic to ordinary living
Leonardo the commission is now generally beds, fabrics, ironwork and so on, are simply set than almost anything produced over here ? It
discredited, but its tenor implies that Leonardo down on the page with as much care and seems, however we look at it, that the
may have been working already on a theme affection that a manufacturer's standard extraordinary madness displayed at the Great
rather than responding to a commission for a catalogue would give—and not a criticism Exhibition in 1851—with the unresolved
specific subject. There is a drawing in the levelled in any direction, not a single personal conflict between craft-based forms and the
Uffizi ascribed to Verrocchio and associated view expressed in the captions. It is certainly machine for mass-producing them showing
with the Pistoxia commission of 1475 where a most unfair on any object to display it without itself in exhibits of extreme eccentricity—has led
similar double-headed image to that in the the setting of a room of its period, say; at the to the depressingly grim (if commercially
Burlington House cartoon occurs. In the same time, it is exceedingly irritating to see the well-adjusted) picture today. It's a rotten story.
drawing it is merely an alteration of position, in most banal and, at times, repulsive machine-age But it would make an exceptionally good one to
the Leonardo it may have become a visual product of, for instance, the thirties pass with write down—and it is some such fascinating
metaphor for the relationship of St Anne and no comment. theme that Miss MacCarthy has missed. What
the Virgin, more easily grasped visually than A great deal of water has passed under the a pity; or was her book simply intended as a
literally. As Giardo, from whom Professor bridge since the last book of this kind was throwaway—this could be it—of our horrible
Gombrich takes his title, wrote in 1626, 'the written—for some reason, I find myself civilization ? q
Symbolic Images, however, present themselves associating it with the fifties and designers like STEPHEN GARDINER
to contemplation, they leap to the eyes of their Gordon Russell, Mischa Black and Race—the
beholders and through the eyes they penetrate sort of people, in fact, who appear among the
into their minds, declaring their nature before illustrations in the book at smooth openings over
they are scrutinized...' iced drinks. Today, however, we are beginning
They not only instruct, but have that poetic to see these one hundred and forty odd years
quality of Delight by which they please as they rather differently. If anything good has come
teach. These two words seem fitting to describe out of the Industrial Revolution it is that
Professor Gombrich's book, for it is both powerful strata of design led by people like Contributors to the book supplement
instructive and delightful. q Mackintosh, Mies van der Rohe, Charles Eames,
ROGER TARR or, in the popular English field, the attractive T. Clarke's book on Courbet will be published by
suburbanization of modern architectural ideas Thames and Hudson next year . . . . Charles Harrison
J. Hobhouse writes on
is Editor of Art-Language
by the Habitat organization. All the same, the art in London and New York . . . . K. Baker writes for
influence of such a strata is always —when we Artforum and other magazines . . . . C. Lampert
studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the
come to look more closely—startlingly limited:
Slade. She is now a member of the staff of Studio
there is not much to get excited about, International . . . . Brian Petrie teaches at Reading
Throwaway design
particularly in England. In fact, one could say, University . . . . Norbert Lynton is Director of
All Things Bright and Beautiful by Fiona speaking generally, that design has declined Exhibitions at the Arts Council . . . . Stephen
Gardiner, the architect, is architectural correspondent
MacCarthy: 327 pp, 312 illustrations. Allen & considerably in the hundred and fifty years since of The Observer . . . . John Stezaker, the artist, recently
Unwin. £6. 95. industrialization first hit this country. The exhibited at Nigel Greenwood's Gallery, and is
situation was bad enough in the early days. And represented at the Hayward Biennale this summer .
R. Carr is a lecturer in the History of Art at Edinburgh
When Fiona MacCarthy settled down to write many people, even then, were able to predict University.
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