Page 63 - Studio International - March 1972

to facilitate style analysis and in addition does her best to consign Zola to the dust and our dues for being so pleasantly employed in
satisfy the scientists demand for references, advances the astonishing claim that he liked such an unsafe world. q
bibliographies and index. Impressionist painting because he was ANITA BROOKNER
One looks forward to the following volumes in short-sighted. Dr Furst should have gone
this series. The publishers promise studies of further and forbidden the use of the conference Crumbs for the grateful
Nuba Body Painting and House Decoration in hall to anyone wearing spectacles, Wols: Aphorisms and Pictures. Arc Publication
Nubia. q shortsightedness being highly prevalent 1971. Translated by Peter Inch and Annie
TORE HAKANSSON amongst art and literary historians, and, who Fatet. Limited edition: Soo copies. Paperbound.
knows ? even amongst artists and writers Wraps. 52 pp, 7 black and white reproductions.
All Talk themselves. The variability of Zola's myopia is 2 biographical photographs. Available from :
French 19th-century painting and literature with proved by his devouring capacity to see ARC, II Byron Road, Gillingham, Kent,
special reference to the relevance of literary everything else. Surely Zola is concerned UK. 45p.
subject-matter to French painting. Edited by mainly with a kind of enlightened confidence Love above all, and other drawings: 120 works
Ulrich Finke. 385 pp with over 290 illustrations expressed in both subject matter and style by George Grosz. Republication of two
Manchester University Press. £8.40. which jolted him continually into pugnacious volumes Uber alles die Liebe and Die
joy. And surely it is a disservice to such a great Gezeichneten Berlin 1930. Artist's preface and
Le Beau est toujours bizarre. This standard is all man to suggest such puerile reasons for his captions (translation Stanley Appelbaum) 120
too often applied to scholarship, with inevitably convictions. plates and two small drawings. 119 pp. Dover
boring results. Held as mild convictions, all The papers are many and varied and a Publications 1971. £I-25.
the papers read at the 1969 Manchester summary is impossible. Since the theme of the
University symposium on the relationship conference is that of the links between painting Wols is an artist whose drawings I have always
between painting and literature in the and literature in the nineteenth century it will admired; ironically, their pure quality is even
nineteenth century give pleasure and come as no surprise to any to realize that these more apparent today when so many
enlightenment. But too often they have exist in abundance. In fact there seem to be chemically-induced fantasies using a
developed into rabid obsessions which disguise too many and the most satisfying papers are superficially similar spidery line fill the pages of
and somehow impart an uneasy flavour to the those which stress the accidental nature of a the 'underground' press. This is the first time
subjects under discussion. They must have been painter's inspiration. It is surprising to note that I have read any of his writings. The
somewhat of a trial to listen to. Many of the that none of the scholars stresses that the link aphorism is one of the most tempting of literary
papers in the present collection have been between the two disciplines was the creation of forms : concise, 'poetic', and with a built-in, air
expanded for publication, but it must be stated the Romantic Movement, and there should of profundity. The danger is of pompousness or
that with the honourable exceptions of Francis surely have been a whole section devoted to throw-away arrogance : crumbs for the grateful
Haskell and Alan Bowness, the scholars Delacroix without whose vast and literary oeuvre reader, every one a gem. The marvellous Zen
represented fall into the Ancient Mariner class. this kind of link would not have become a texts which use forms related to the aphorism
Eileen Souffin Le Breton, who packs enough commonplace. Delacroix used reading instead of have spawned some of the worst quasi-profound
material for at least three articles into her paper talking to furnish his loneliness, fuel his trivia: witness the cerebral wanking of which so
on `Banville et la poetique du decor', further inspiration, and save his weak throat, and much 'concept art' consists. So few writers have
qualifies it with 75 footnotes. This is although this position was later rationalized used the aphorism to really telling effect that
beaten by Anne Coffin Hanson on 'Popular by Baudelaire it was an intensely personal Wols's efforts must inevitably invite
Imagery and the works of Edouard Manet' one. Myth and story filled Delacroix's mind comparisons. Certainly there is nothing here
with 85, and topped by Theodore Reff in quite naturally; later painters (those dealt similar to the paradox of Lichtenberg's : 'A
`Degas and the Literature of his Time' with with in this survey) tended to fall into a pose of knife that lacks a blade and has lost its handle',
198. Conference speaking is an attraction to reverie or to use literary material as fodder in a or the beautiful absurdity of the same man's
the scholar, particularly if the venue is exotic, much brisker manner. This distinction should `If there were only turnips and potatoes in the
which cannot be said of Manchester, but he have been made by the speakers at the world perhaps someone would come along and
must do his bit. He must not read a chapter conference, many of whom seem to go about say it's a pity that plants grow the wrong way up.'
from his forthcoming book; he must not betray their tasks like mining engineers, excavating Rather, many of Wols's writings bear closer
his occasional exasperation with his subject; `material' without evaluating the attitude of the comparison to Kafka's religious aphorisms (it
he must not, above all, give the impression that artist to the material thus excavated. The results says something for Kafka's stature that he could
his intelligence is superior to that of the writer are informative but unsatisfying. actually make religious aphorisms readable, let
or painter under discussion. Which brings me Mammoth futilities evolved by tristes alone enjoyable). Like Kafka's (a writer whose
back to my first point. An enquiry into Manet's spécialistes? Not quite. I know at least two-thirds work he illustrated), Wols's aphorisms are
sources or Degas' literary tastes—to take two of the contributors to be excellent and worthy essentially private notes and observations, often
examples at random—should be a lively but teachers. But I should like to make a plea for a of a defensive nature; they incorporate a good
harmless game played with due humility. It considered revival of the art of belles-lettres. deal of personal pain. With Lichtenberg one
should never become an iron-hard programme I should like art historians to revert to the feels the words to be much more detached
in which the scholar, not the artist, has the last nineteenth-century pattern and develop their inventions, aware of an audience, and contrived
word. potentialities as diarists, travellers, for telling effect : this is what gives them their
Most of the papers in this collection are dull conversationalists, stylists, and, if possible, quality. Wols gives the impression of writing for
but convincing. Those by Francis Haskell and wits. There is no reason why we should bore himself, and if this were entirely true one might
Alan Bowness are convincing and not dull. All each other into submission. Fascination should feel the same sense of intrusion, of invasion of
quote Baudelaire, most pay respectful homage breed fascination. Let us hope that the next privacy, that comes from reading Kafka's diaries
to his erratic admiration for Haussoullier's colloquium, symposium or congress will be and letters. But Wols, although apparently
Fontaine de jouvence, and all agree that the remembered for the blazing enthusiasm of the contemptuous of financial success, nevertheless
history of nineteenth-century painting speakers, the enchanted rapport of the was aware of his artistic stature (several of the
needs rewriting. It is hard to fault any of this audience, the free (not covert) expression of aphorisms use the third-person Wols' instead
or indeed to argue with it. But I should like to human emotions such as aggressiveness or of `I'); and he rated himself high, as is indicated
take strenuous issue with Dr Lilian Furst who delight, and the conviction that we are paying when in one of the writings he lists himself

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