Page 53 - Studio International - November 1974

'British Art changed: indeed, it disappeared', M.-M. Davy, and the contributors to the great
has any validity, certainly the work of Augustus Laffont-Chevalier `Dictionnaire des Symboles',
John continued unchecked on its erratic, all of whom have escaped Mr Hall's bibliography.
unpredictable and often pedestrian career for Indeed, the mandorla entry sets the sexless tone
another fifty-one years. of the book which, fittingly, has a brief
The colour plates in 'The Art of Augustus introduction by Kenneth Clark. That
John' cover the period 1899 to 1938 and depict distinguished writer may well be remembered in
a decline in both vigour and freshness, with the fifty year's time, less for his Civilization, than
somnolent W.B. Yeats of 1907, the garish for having produced a book on the nude which
Ottoline Morrell baring horsey teeth, up to the avoided any reference to the almost complete
final 'Mixed Flowers in a Jar', which wouldn't absence of pubic hair in western art until recent
have shamed the palette of Winston Churchill. times.
Amongst the black-and-white halftones, Other omissions limit the book's use as a
drawings, etchings and paintings, there is gallery-goer's companion. Except for a
inevitably the occasional, good likeness or promising colour-plate of a Rubens painting
portrait study; Wyndham Lewis, James Joyce, on the dust jacket, the book, somewhat
Dylan Thomas or Matthew Smith, to which surprisingly for its price, totally lacks
time has added a patina of respectful and illustrations. The occasional line drawings
uncritical acceptance. But alas, it is precisely scattered through the text are merely decorative.
this question of 'likeness' that makes us question They cover such subjects as 'bridle', 'fetters',
whether, behind all the rhetorical bombast of 'gridiron', and 'labyrinth', which scarcely require
'Chiaroscuro' (his autobiography), the posturing reminders of their visual appearance. Half the
and bohemianism, he was an artist at all. If value of a dictionary of this kind rests in copious
Mr Holroyd believes that 'Art' only emerges illustrations and constant reference in the
from schools, groups or movements, to what entries to actual works of art and their location.
school, group or movement do we attribute the This dictionary and its recent predecessors
work of Francis Bacon, Lowry, Edward Burra have certainly whetted the appetite of those
or Lucien Freud or, for that matter, from interested in subjects, themes and symbols in
whence did Turner spring? western art, and their meaning. The satisfaction
Would it be unfair to John to leave the last of that appetite must await a writer fully
words with John? Asked by a journalist, at the conversant with the work of such savants as
age of seventy-nine, had he always wanted to be Hauser, Panofsky, Baltrusaitis and M.-M. Davy.
a painter, he replied: 'Give me another hundred Howard Daniel
years and I would be a very good one'.
Martin Green
Monumental brevity
Experimental Music by Michael Nyman. 154 pp,
Westering home 61 black and white illustrations. Studio Vista,
Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, £3.75.
compiled by James Hall. 345 pp. John Murray, There are several books on experimental music
£4. worth writing, and worth reading, even by those
The dust jacket title of 'Hall's Dictionary' who imagine they have no interest in this
suggests that its publishers would like it to be subject whatsoever. Michael Nyman gives us
considered a definitive work in its field. only one of them, but undoubtedly the one
Anything but that, this latest addition to a which fills the greatest need and best suggests
recent flow of works on a subject of increasing the others — a survey of the origins and
interest to gallery-goers and others, surpasses its development of the movement, its distinctive
predecessors in scholarship and thoroughness of concepts and main individuals, and all the
treatment. But it will disappoint the intelligent various forms it has taken. For the benefit of
general reader, curious for information which the uninitiated, this includes the entire field of
he cannot find in the writings of the big post-war innovations in classical music, which
establishment figures in art criticism and amazingly enough have never before received
connoisseurship. For the book is an old- thorough and reliable treatment between hard
fashioned, traditional art historical work which covers, and much that refers to other media.
leaves out the real or significant meaning of More fundamental, however, is that in
many of the subjects treated. The work is of experimental music there emerges most
course a book about subjects and symbols in coherently that increasingly familiar body of
western art although this is not apparent from ideas which challenges all accepted views of art,
the title. The treatment of the entries is and it is as an introduction to experimentalism
western-centred, and the user interested for in general that the book has its greatest
example in the symbolism of romanesque and importance for a wider audience.
gothic sculpture would never know the debt Nyman is writing as a music critic producing
those arts owed to non-western sources. a standard work on a musical topic, so it is
The author's statement that the shape of the worth stressing that the book is perfectly
mandorla 'has no intrinsic significance' may accessible and meaningful to the musical
satisfy the innocent. It will not satisfy readers illiterate. In fact especially accessible, since
familiar with the writings of Jung, Eliade, Cirlo, experimental music is concerned with new
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