Book review
Prints & Drawings: A Pictorial History by Gottfried Lindemann
published by Phaidon, Oxford 1976 (474 pages, $21.95)
A Treasury Of Great Master Drawings by Colin Eisler
published by Phaidon, London 1975 (264 pages, $35.60)
Reviewed by HUGH FOSTER
Drawings, as has often been remarked, are the most intimate revelation of an artist's communion with his creative imagination, his particular powers of invention. They range all the way from the most vulnerable naked things, delicate beginnings (Blake's wonderful pencil studies in the 'Rossetti MS', Cezanne's first drawings for the Bathers, Mondrian's Façades) to Ingres' very considered and self-conscious portrait drawings (superb in their way. . . but the atmosphere is a bit stuffy!)
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| LYONEL FEININGER Ships at the Quayside 1918 woodcut |
A painter's drawing will often go to prove that the best of intentions, the most subtle inspiration, may be killed by second, third and fourth thoughts, and an 'over-elaboration of minute particulars'. Picasso said he thought he had solved the problem by painting nothing but sketches, and always moving on to the next intention. To a large degree he succeeded in his search for spontaneity: but his work will never please people who would have nothing but petitpoint.
For those who wish to consider the whole field, one of the best of recent omnibus books on the graphic arts, Gottfried Lindemann's Prints & Drawings: A Pictorial History, originally published in English by the Pall Mall Press, is again available from Phaidon.
In this book the illustrations are a great asset. Very adequately printed in Germany, with a generous proportion of colour, they give a good idea of the range of expression possible in the various drawing media, plus a sprinkling of the less-elaborated, more direct sort of original prints (which I personally prefer) such as wood-cuts. The book shows the impressive achievement of artists ranging from the late Middle Ages to more-or-less the present day. The contemporary section is the least adequate.
A minor fault is that the captions to the illustrations do not give the medium of the work - one has to search in the main text. All in all, however, this is an excellent popular introduction to graphic art over the centuries, and, given the high standard of the reproductions, a fairly-priced one.
A Treasury of Great Master Drawings, also from Phaidon, is an even more sumptuous picture-book. If you can afford it you can gloat over illustrations put together into a package of goodies as piquant as any 'theatre-mixture' - and as heterogeneous. The book divides the historical panorama into broad subjects: portraits, landscapes, figures, genre and so on; and the standard of colour reproduction is as good as could be desired.
Professor Eisler ends his short, but lively and encompassing introduction with some thought-provoking remarks:
Drawing, so long relegated to the Beaux-Arts nostalgia alley, has in recent decades returned almost to the prominence it formerly enjoyed in the heyday of the academy. .. The inimitable force of black on white and the initiatory, singular eloquence of the graphic act are sometimes felt, ironically, most strongly in just those current-day tendencies which proclaim themselves in the most outwardly nihilistic attitude toward ikon and idea. Moreover, in 'hand-making' its new mirrors of actuality, the New Realism is reasserting the continuing dominance of the painter-draughtsman, with his unique powers of intellect and choice, in reclaiming some of that visual realm temporarily captured by photography.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 5 April/May 1977