Page 56 - Studio International - November 1974

interpretation (pl. 6) of Gauguin's Vision After Too many key art-historical and theoretical sister art of painting by many Germans since
The Sermon in the Edinburgh National Gallery, texts are inaccessible to English readers, the the Romantic period and Kandinsky had long
and her quiet intimiste interiors (pl. 5). More majority of whom have little French, less been exercised by the Wagnerian notion of the
often the effects are purely decorative and the German and Italian and no Russian. These Gesamtkunstwerk which, the Russian believed,
epithet, none too complimentary a century ago, texts are either obscured by messy translation was the ideal form for the great spiritual art of
of 'painted wallpaper' often applies here and and/or abridgement or remain locked within the future. More precise connections between
shows the essentially nineteenth-century origins their original languages. For any teacher or contemporary painting and music are revealed
of her kind of art. Redpath's liking for Moreau student of German expressionist art the most in Schoenberg's essay for the almanac, The
and Redon in her Venetian work carries with it urgent need has long been for an English edition Relationship to the Text. Here, Schoenberg
none of their visionary symbolism. Only Gillies of 'Der Blaue Reite', often quoted, seldom read concerns himself partly with problems faced by
seems to have adopted successfully a personal and always singled out as one of the major the composer of Lieden: how closely to follow
style to match his reaction to the Scottish modernist documents. Now at last we do have what the poet has provided him with? How to
landscape, and one which does not offer an an English edition of the almanac and it appears write music which the public will understand?
impossible challenge to his European masters. in a series (The Documents of 20th-century He comes to the conclusion that few people are
It is difficult to accept Harvey Wood's attempts Art) which has already done much to make in a position to appreciate music which creates
to have us consider MacTaggart by the standards important theoretical texts accessible to English its effects in exclusively musical terms. Thus,
of French, German and Russian Expressionism. readers. Even if the translation of the almanac even the critic 'helplessly faces the pure musical
His version of Rouault and Munch is meaningless were messy or the original cut short it would be effect and he prefers, therefore, to write about
without their symbolism, and some of his colour difficult not to greet its appearance with joy. the kind of music that is somehow related to a
effects (pls. 34, 35) require a stomach used to But the `Blaue Reiter Almanac' has not been text, about programme music, lieder, operas,
swallowing double scotches a minute before cut short. It is, essentially, a translation of the etc.' This must change. The intellect must
time. Not surprisingly this sort of subjective facsimile edition of the original (published by make way for the subconscious response.
art without subject matter is written about in Piper in Munich in 1965) with notes and an Music must speak directly to the soul in its own
all three cases in a highly individual style, and introduction by Professor Klaus Lankheit, and way without relying on a text or any other kind
by three authors who knew their artists a very good translation it is, too — by Henning of external support. 'Karl Kraus calls language
intimately. Their efforts have perhaps been Falkenstein with the assistance of Manug Terzian the mother of ideas; Kandinsky and Oskar
comparatively over-stretched in view of the fact and Gertrude Hinderlie. It would have been a Kokoschka paint pictures in which the external
that there are whole uncharted areas of art miracle however had the mystical perfume and object is hardly more than a stimulus to
historical research into Scottish art, from long elegant ambiguities of Kandinsky's essay On the improvise in colour or form and to express
before MacTaggart senior to Fergusson and Question of Form come across completely in themselves as only the composer expressed
beyond, still waiting to be investigated and English or any other language. This essay is in himself previously. These are symptoms of a
equally in need of the support given to these some ways more important even than Concerning gradually spreading recognition of the true
more minor artists. I have one criticism. Now the Spiritual in Art (and it is time there was a essence of art'. For students of the theoretical
that the distinction between exhibition new translation of this, too). It is certainly background to early abstraction, an essay like
catalogues and art books no longer exists, the easier to understand and its arguments are less this holds enormous fascination.
format for this series, like hard-back versions of esoteric: 'Necessity creates form. Fish that Scriabin is also given his due in the almanac,
the old Penguin 'Modern Painters' series, seems live at great depths have no eyes. The elephant and not only because Kandinsky was a lover of
not just old fashioned but bad book design: the has a trunk. The chameleon changes its colour, Russian music. An essay by L. Sabaneiev on
unstitched text easily parts company from the etc., etc. Form reflects the spirit of the Scriabin's Prometheus makes it clear why the
binding, which is exactly what happened to my individual artist. Form bears the stamp of the composer was held in such high esteem by the
copy of `Gillies'. personality'. painter. 'In Prometheus the symphony of
Robin Spencer The most obvious thing about the almanac is colours is based on the principle of
the breadth of its approach. It reproduces not corresponding sounds and colours ... '
only work by the Blaue Reiter artists themselves Scriabin's colour-organ, for which there is a
and by their radical French contemporaries, but line in the score of Prometheus (C=red,
also a wide variety of exotic and primitive art, E=whitish-blue, B-flat=with a metallic shine,
From the Blue Rider to the Bauhaus
drawings by children, paintings by Russian and etc.) is obviously intimately related to
The Blaue Reiter Almanac edited by Wassily
Bavarian folk artists and a selection of medieval Kandinsky's experience of synaesthesia, to his
Kandinsky and Franz Marc, Documentary
and Renaissance art. It is clear that one of the system of colour-music, emotional
Edition by Klaus Lankheit. 296 pp, 153
almanac's main aims was to redefine the correspondences and to his idea of the
illustrations. The Documents of 20th-Century
conventional artistic categories: to break down Gesamtkunstwerk, a prototype of which also
Art, Thames and Hudson, £3.75, paperback
the barriers between High and Low art. It is appears in the.almanac: The Yellow Sound.
£1.95.
also clear that its editors (Kandinsky and Marc) This is a 'stage Composition', an attempt to
Arnold Schoenberg Letters, edited by
wanted to demolish the barriers between the synthesize dance, gesture, speech, song,
Erwin Stein. 309 pp, 3 illustrations. Faber and
various traditional art forms. About half the painting and music (composed by Thomas von
Faber, paperb4ck £2.95.
essays are not about the visual arts at all, but Hartmann) and presented by, among others,
Die Tunisreise, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen von
August Macke. 125 pp, 35 illustrations, 16 in deal with music (especially modern, 'formless' five giants, several vague creatures, people in
colour. Kunsttaschenbücher, M. DuMont music) and are supplemented by three Lieder flowing robes and others in tights. I nteresting
Schauberg, Cologne, n.p. scores: one by Schoenberg and one by each of though all this is, it is not difficult to see why
Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus his disciples Alban Berg and Anton von Webern. the piece has been but rarely performed.
in Weimar by Marcel Franciscono. 336 pp, The attack on conventional categories and In view of the central position of music in
42 illustrations. University of Illinois Press. attitudes was to continue in further volumes. Kandinsky's credo it is clear why the
£5.40. The first almanac appeared in 1912 but other friendship with Schoenberg meant so much to
Moholy-Nagy edited by Richard Kostelanetz. commitments and then the war intervened him. Here was a composer who was also a
238 pp, 67 illustrations. Documentary before the second could even properly be painter (albeit with more enthusiasm than
Monographs in Modern Art, Allen Lane, planned. technical skill) and a man whose musical
paperback £2.00. Of course music had been regarded as the theories were almost identical to Kandinsky's
214