773100

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College Art Journal.

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ReviewAuthor(s): George Heard HamiltonReview by: George Heard HamiltonSource: College Art Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Autumn, 1949), pp. 87-89Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/773100Accessed: 10-11-2015 07:13 UTC

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BOOK

REVIEWS

87

art

fall,

in

Berenson's

analysis,

nto two

categories-decoration

and

representa-

tion. Tactile

values and

movementare

the two principalattributesof decora-

tion-proportion,

arrangement,

space

composition,

and

even

color

being

lesser

considerations.

t

is

largely

because of

inadequate

actile

values,

for

example,

that

most abstract art cannot stand

Berenson's

test,

and he condemns

it

without

mercy.

Even if

a work

of art

has

the

requisite

actilevalues and move-

ment,

it

may

fail as

illustration.

deated

identification with

it cannot

be life-

enhancingif, for example, the repre-

sentation

awakens

a

feeling

of

disgust;

the

effect s

then

quite

the

opposite,

ife-

diminishing.

With

these

requirements

s

a

touch-

stone,

the

critic can

recognize among

the

remains

of all

ages

and

all

places

the

productions

that have

most

value

for

our

civilization,

and

the art

his-

torian

can

classify

them

and chart

their

fluctuating

appeal

to

successive

genera-

tions.

He

can

study, oo,

the

developmentof

styles

and

the

influenceof one

upon

another,

always

centering

his

attention,

if

he

be

wise,

upon

those

currents hat

have

contributed

most

richly

to

our

western

civilization.

Perhaps

the

most

subtle

influence of

art,

the author

points out,

is

upon

our

vision

of

nature.

Even

people

who

think

themselves

gnorant

of

art

see

the

human

form

according

to the

canons formu-

lated

by

artists

and fashion

designers;

and we tend to see hill and dale, tree

and

flower in

the

patterns

urnishedus

by

art.

Finally,

if our

association

with

art is

sufficiently

close,

we

may hope

to

become our

own

artists,

so

that

we

"see

in

any

given object,

say

a

flower,

a

tree,

an

animal-a

quality

of

art

that

no work

of

art

representing

he

same

object

rivals."

Berenson's

book

is not

addressed o

any

one

class

of

readers.

His

definitions

and explanationsare clear and simple;

yet

there

is

never

a

hint of

condescen-

sion.

It is

merely

that

the matter

is

so

clear

and

precise

in his own mind

that

simple language

most

naturally

ex-

presses

it.

And then what a wealth

of

literature, mythology and history is

stored

in his

memory,

to

yield

at

any

moment

the

most

illuminating

analogy

What

could

be more

apt

than

his

de-

scription

of form as "like

a robe

thrown

around

hapes,

not

a

consuming

ne

like

the

mantleof

Nessus but

a

vivifying

one

like the robe

of

Isis,

provided

you

do

not lift

it;

for in art

appearance

s

the

only

reality."

The

book is

most

welcome,

the

reader will feel

throughout,

not

only for the light it casts on problems

of

aesthetics

and

history

but also for

the view it

gives

us

of the "House

of

Life"

built

for

himself

by

one of

the

most cultivated

men of our

age.

FERNRUSK

SHAPLEY

National

Gallery

of

Art

SAMUEL HAzzARD

CROSS,

Mediaeval

Russian

Churches,

edited

by

Kenneth

John Conant,

95

p.,

114 ill.

+

map.

Cambridge

I

Mass.), 1949,

The

Me-

diaeval

Academy

of America.

$7.50.

For

the

analysis

of

problems

n Rus-

sian

art

history

surely

we have the

right

to

require

the

most

scrupulous regard

for historical

accuracy

and critical in-

tegrity.

The

truth,

at

the

least, may

help

us

to

reach decisions

undistorted

by

ignorance

and

prejudice.

In

this

respect

we have not

always

been well served

by

recent

publications

in

English

which,

too

frequently compiled

in

haste

from

standard sources, repeat the conventional

summaries

of

the familiar texts and

re-

produce

the

usual monuments

with

a

dearth of

fresh

interpretation.

n

this

connection the

state

of

our

present

know-

ledge

of

Russian

art

history

is

reflected

in

the few

short

sentences on Malevich

and

Archipenko,

whose works are

cer-

tainly

not

the

most

characteristic witnes-

ses to Russian

art,

which are the

only

references to

the

subject

in

the

recent

History of World Art by Upjohn, Win-

gert

and Mahler.

Neither

art,

history,

nor truth is

advanced

by

such exclusion.

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88 COLLEGE

ART

JOURNAL

Therefore

it is

good

to

welcome

to

the

small shelf of

books

in

English

on

Rus-

sian art this

brief account

of

mediaeval

Russian church architecture. Professor

Cross's

untimely

death

in

1946

abruptly

terminated

his

distinguished

career

of

teaching

and research in

Slavic

lan-

guages

and

literatures at Harvard.

His

in.

terest

in

mediaeval

architecture,

ncour-

aged by

his

friendship

with Professor

Conant,

who

in his

introduction

con-

fesses that

his

own

interest

in

Russian

church

architecture was awakened

by

Dr.

Cross,

found

public

expression

in

a

series of lectures delivered at Harvard

in

1933.

The four

lectures,

which

com-

prise

the

text

of

this

volume,

follow

the

course of the

historical

development

of Russian architecture from

the

tenth

through

the

seventeenth

centuries,

with

one

chapter

devoted to each of

the

re-

gions

of

Kiev

and

Chernigov,

Novgorod

and

Pskov,

Vladimir-Suzdal

and

Mos-

cow.

The

argument

is

supported

by

114

carefully

selected

illustrations,

many

familiar

to the readers of

Grabar,

Reau

and

Alpatov,

but with several less com-

mon

views

taken from

the

more re-

cent works of the

Soviet

historians

Nekrasov

and

Zabello. The book

inevi-

tably

invites

comparison

with

D.

R.

Buxton's

Russian

Mediaeval

Architecture,

published

in

England

in

1934.

Except

that Buxton continued his

work with

"an

account

of

the

Transcaucasian

styles

and

their

influence

in

the

West" the

two

are

comparable

in

length

and

num-

ber of illustrations. Cross, however, de-

voted

more

time and care to

establishing

the

bases

for

an

understanding

of the

historical circumstances

which

prompted

the

development

of

a

peculiarly

Russian

architecture.

In

this

respect

his first

two

chapters

are

perhaps

more valuable than

the

last

two where

the historical

back-

ground

of the

sixteenth and

seventeenth

centuries is

inferred

rather than

re-

counted.

Where

Buxton

attempted

to

distinguish the larger developments of

architectural

types,

Cross

analyzed

in

more detail

the

peculiar

characteristics

of individual

structures.

His

position

was well taken

since the

illustrations,

sometimes

a

bit

gritty

from

too

frequent

re-reproduction,ackthe clarityof Bux-

ton's

brighter

half-tones. But this

text

has

the

advantage

f

ProfessorConant's

exquisite drawings

of his

conjectural

restorations

f

the

church

of

the

Desya-

tinnaya

in

Kiev

and of

the

cathedrals

of

St.

Sophia

in

Kiev

and

Novgorod.

It is

worth

observing,

too,

how

appro-

priately

the

discussion

of mediaeval

mural

painting

is related

to

the

earlier

architecture f

Kiev

and

Novgorod;

one

misses the more any referenceto the

interesting

ater

painting

of the Moscow

churchesof

the sixteenth

century.

One

may

hope

that

this

clear

and

useful

book will

be

so

widely

read

as

to

require

additional

printings.

If this

should occur

perhaps

the editor

will

clarify

an

important

problem

in the

roofing

of

mediaeval Russian churches.

The

four-sloped

roof of the

Novgorod

church

of the later middle

ages

is

not,

as Cross

inadvertently

mplied (page

36),

the

original

covering.

At a later

date it

replaced

the

eight-sloped

roof,

itself a

simplification

f

the

first

medi-

aeval

roofs

which

followed,

in

a

succes-

sion of

curves,

the external

surfaces of

the

vaults. The distinction

can

be seen

by

comparing

the illustrations

of

St.

Theodore

Stratilates

n

Novgorod (fig.

36)

with those

St.

Sergius

and

St. Basil

in

Pskov

(figs.

40

and

41).

Technologic-

ally

the substitution

was

assisted

and

imposedbythechange n theseventeenth

century

from malleable

lead

to

rigid

iron

sheets,

as Cross

himself inferred

in

his

account

of

the later Moscow

Baroque

(p.

97).

Any

criticism

of

Russian

art intro-

duces unavoidable

problems

n

interpre-

tation.

Shall

the

monuments

e

criticized

for

their

likeness

or

unlikeness o

West-

ern

European

architecture,

with which

the

reader

s

supposedly

more familiar?

Or

shall specific riteriabe advanced or

the criticism

of

Russianart

in

terms

of

its

own

particulardevelopment?

These


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BOOK

REVIEWS

89

questions

cannot be answered

here;

the

difficulty

of

any

dogmatic

resolution

s

apparent

when

the

multiplicity

of ex-

changes of artisticideas with Western

Europe

is

considered.Within

the com-

pass

of his

four lecturesDr.

Cross

may

well

have

felt that

the

specifically

Rus-

sian

character f

the churcheswas best

conveyed

o

his

audiences

by

describing

them

in

terms

of

familiar

objects.

Thus

the

statement,

"the

monuments

of

(the

Vladimir-Suzdal) egion

and

epoch

rep-

resent

the

Russian variant

of Western

European

Romanesque

tyle expressed

n

white stone and combinedwith tradi-

tional

Russo-Byzantine

eatures,"

might

be

taken

to

weight

the

issue,

if

at

all,

in

favor

of the

interpretation

f Russian

art as a minor variation

of

a

broader

European

movement.

Again,

his

admir-

able and

succinct

ormal

analysis

of the

extravagant

hurch

of

St.

Basil

in

Mos-

cow

is

introduced

by

the

description

of

the

effect

of the

church as

"neuras-

thenic,"

an

adjective

which

needs

more

extended

elucidation

of

the

historical

conditions

of

the sixteenth

century

han

can

be

inferred

rom

an

anecdote.

Professor

Conant has

wisely

brought

the

bibliography

p

to

date

by

including

not

only

Buxton's

work

but also the

interesting

discussions

by

the

Soviet

historians

Nekrasov,

Voronin and Za-

bello.

It

would

have been

interesting

o

have had

their

attitudes

oward

he

same

material

summarized n a

note,

especi-

ally

the

results of

Voronin's

excavations

and restorationsat Bogolyubovo and

Suzdal.

Since

Professor Conant's

mod-

esty

prevented

him,

it is

a

pleasure

for

this

reviewer

o add

to the

bibliography

Conant's

"Novgorod,

Constantinople,

and

Kiev in

Old

Russian

Church

Archi-

tecture"

(The

Slavonic

and

East

Euro-

pean

Review,

May

1944),

and

his

and

Dr.

Cross's

"Earliest

Mediaeval

Chur-

ches of

Kiev"

(Speculum,

October,

1936),

so

important

for

their

analysis

of the monuments and the texts in

conjunction

with

the work

of the

Ukran-

ian

historian

H. V.

Morgilevski.

With

these articles and

the

present

volume

Cross and Conant

have

equipped

the

American

tudentwith

admirablenstru-

ments with which to commence his

studies of this

significant

and

unduly

neglected

period

of architectural

istory.

GEORGE

HEARD

HAMILTON

Yale

University

EDMUND

AND

JULES

DE

GONCOURT,

French

Eighteenth

Century

Painters:

Watteau,

Boucher,

Chardin,

LaTour,

Greuze,

Fragonard,

xvi

+

318

p.,

104

pl. (4

in

color).

New

York,

1949,

Oxford UniversityPress (Phaidon).

$2.50.

Six

of the dozen or

so

essays

that

make

up

the Goncourts'

Art

of

the

Eighteenth

Century

are

printed

here,

in

a translation

by

Robin Ironside.

Notes

identifying

the more obscure

persons

mentioned

have been

added,

properly

distinguished

from the

authors'

own

notes. Some of the latter

are

omitted,

as

well as

the

lists

of

engraved

works

and

exhibitions,

and

although

we

must

regret

this

in

principle,

little harm

is

done in this case.

Actually,

few of

the

notes

are

missing,

and

the

general

reader

or student will

hardly

need

the

lists. A

group

of

illustrations,

elected

by

Ludwig

Goldscheider,

s

bound

in

at

the

back,

and to him

is due

also the

design

of

the

book.

The

format is

the

small

handy

size used

before

in

this

series;

the text is

nicely

printed;

and

the book is

decoratedwith

motifs

se-

lected from eighteenth centurybooks,

which,

printed

in

chocolate

color

on

an

attractive

yellow

cloth,

make a

very

pretty

little

volume--not

inappropriate

to one

of

the

most

dazzling

productions

of

the

older

criticism. The

Goncourts,

as creative

writers,

members

of

the

group

of

realistic

or

naturalistic

novel-

ists

of the

latter nineteenth

century,

took an

active

part

in

developing

the

prose

style

of

the

time

toward

richness,

color, accuracyof expression, particu-

larly

of

physical

and

visual

qualities,

of

things

seen;

active

collectors,

hey

were


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