Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 17, 1963, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press saturday August 17, 1963 artists or charlatans Koenner Kuenstler Scha Latane by Richard w. Eichler 357 pp., Munich Lehmann yer lag. This is a Bosk of impressive format with 132 reproductions of Well known Many of them in color and three interesting maps depicting the development of the great civilizations of the world and the evolution of different artistic movements. In fact when first leafing through this volume one has the definite impression that this is a work of considerable scope and that the author must be a German disciple of Andre Malraux. I unfortunately such is not the ease. The Book is actually very disappointing and its resemblance to Malraux s void do silence or psycho logic de 1 Art is purely superficial. Within the limited Frame work of a 351 Page volume the author sets out to explore and judge the evolution of the plastic arts from their beginnings during the ice age right up to the pre sent moment. This project in it self a very ambitious one seems frankly presumptuous when one notes that the author devotes Only the first 150 pages to the chapters dealing with Oriental Art the artistic achievements of Crete Ecru c. A. E Jensen dept. Of French University of Manitoba Ria the incas Greece Rome and the Art of Western Europe from the dark Ages to the end of the 19th Century. In this rapid tour d horizon there Are no startling new syntheses and certainly there is no Ori Ginal scholarship. The Book is heavily influenced by the theories of professor Hans Sedlmayr especially by the Basic theme of his Verbust Der Mitte without How Ever having Sedlmayr s scholarly solidity. One theme appears the imagination of Richard Eichler. It is the theory first developed by Schlegel Brothers that Art if it is to be truly great must have a Strong rapport with the age and civilization that produced it. It is Eichler s conviction that this Bond does exist in All the great periods of artistic evolution that he studies up to the end of the 19th Century. Even the primitivism of the ice age satisfies this requirement for it is after All authentic. However with the contemporary period roughly the period begin Ning at the turn of the Arthur still lives by Rose Mac Murray sword at Sunset by Rosemary Syf Cliffy 495 pp., Toronto Longmans Green. Kinsmen of the grail by Dorothy James Roberts 367 pp., Toronto Little Brown. There Are Many parallels be Al tween the Bible As we know it and the vast trove of arthurian lore known As the matter of both comprise a collage of legend epic poetry and authenticated his tory both represent a score of auth ors and took several centuries to compile both survived the dark Ages on scattered monastic scrolls and both have puzzled and inspired men for years. That distinguished con sir Thomas Malory whiled away the prison years 1452-1456 shaping the matter of Britain into the first Chrono logical anthology of Arthur s violent King Arthur life and brutal times. Tennyson enthralled thex sentimental victorians by re doing Malory As a fairy tale Complete with Boulies and gho sties and emasculated knights. And in 1958, t. H. White completed the third Camelot work adding wit and freudian motivation to the Best of Malory and Tennyson in his unforgettable once and future now we have two More versions of this perennially provocative material from two gifted women who write in Brilliant contrast to one another. Rosemary Sutcliffe offers a Clang ing Bronze epic sword at which recalls Malory and even Xeno Phon. Arthur is treated As a Plaus Ible and necessary figure out of British history who must have sparked one of the clouded centuries be tween the roman withdrawal and the Norman Conquest. This is a new the sear son of the legions a Semi Savage War lord As Brave pragmatic and humourless As Mary Renault s theseus fighting an arduous lifetime to preserve the roman ethic and delay the inevitable tide of barbarism surging across the Northern Borders. Dorothy James Roberts has chosen a smaller scale and a gentler mood in writing Kinsmen of the a magic evocation of the look and life and language of Britain the abandoned roman Colony. Sir Gawin Arthur s Knight and Nephew leaves a Stark in tapestries Camelot to tra Vel the Savage Island showing the Flag and reassuring the isolated settlements and frightened monasteries that the round table represents or Der and Protection. Gawin rides the Weed grown roman roads and shares the Dregs of Imperial cellars with nervous locals and their obsolete colonial titles. He meets a Saint a murderer and the Jove of his Wistful Middle age. He settles for less than his stainless Young Hopes and savors the fleeting Beauty of the Here and now. He is no hero just a minor official doing his Job but his Rue Ful acceptance and dogged Effort Are ageless and moving. This Gawin will never rate a Ballad or a Crest but he is a valuable addition to the matter of owl it 1983 fort there appears a cleavage Between the artist and the Public and the last 200 pages of the Book Are de voted to the demonstration of the author s thesis that our present age has produced on the one hand charlatans who either consciously or foist on the lie the distorted creations of their diseased imaginations and on the other hand an Art Industry com posed of a clique of critics specialists and promoters whose principal aim is likewise to exploit the innocent Public and impose on it tastes and standards which the natural healthy instincts of the people would tend normally to reject. Medicine and Astron omy started out we Are informed As pure charlatan ism and in the course of time became True sciences. In the Case of the plastic arts this process is reversed and f the True and authentic finds itself replaced by the false and fraudulent. It is hardly necessary to be an enthusiast for modern Art to find Eichler s thesis unacceptable. In the Hierarchy of Art critics Eichler seems to be still Young and inexperienced. He is certainly in temperate in his judgments and in his expression. With a Zeal amount ing in the later chapters almost to frenzy and without the Benefit of original research he rushes through the. First few thousand years of the history of Art to show that formerly All was Well and that now in the twentieth Century All is Sham fraud and corruption. Most of the artists thus condemned Are German and indeed the Book proves most irritating when the author time after time confuses artistic issues with poli tical ones. However if Paul Klee Hans Thorn a and Max Ernst fare badly at the hands of the critic so do Dubuffet Kandinsky and Picas so. The illustrations though excellent for the earlier periods seem for the contemporary per Iod frequently chosen because of their grotesque Ness or sheer Absurdity. In Brief this is not a serious scholarly treatment of modern Art. It would be difficult indeed to argue that the modern school has produced Only masterpieces. How Ever Eichler s virulent and highly prejudiced attack on All aspects of contemporary painting and Sculp Ture will convince few readers. It is More Likely to arouse a certain sympathy for the artists he condemns. Books received anguish in Rotterdam from the Low countries How to become a scratch golfer by Patrick Campbell 144 pp., Tor onto the Copp Clark publishing co. Ltd. After Tippecanoe some aspects of the War of 1812, edited by Philip Char p. Mason 106 pp., Toronto the Ryerson press. How to become archbishop by Michael Barsley 156 pp., Toronto the Copp Clark publishing co. Ltd the Union National by Herbert f. Quinn 249 pp., Toronto University of Toronto press. The Beadle by Pauline Smith 288 pp., Toronto the Copp Clark pub Lishing co. Ltd. Stalin s foreign policy reappraised by Marshall d. Shulman 320 pp., Toronto s. J. Reginald Saund ers and company Ltd. Economics Canada by m. H. Wat Kins and d. F. Forester 376 up Toronto Mcgraw Hill company of Canada limited folktales of Israel edited by Dov nov translated by Gene Baharav 221 pp., Toronto University of to Ronto press cats in photographs by Jan Styczynski t07 pp., Don Mills ont Andre Deutseh Ltd. The automation age by Pauline Arnold and Percival White 197 up Toronto s. J. Reginald Saunders and company limited the wonderful Clouds by fran Coise Sagan 119 up. Montreal. Bantam books sent Greece Greece of fsr away places by p. Mcl. Greece by Alexander Eliot and rat editors of life 160 pp., Chicago time inc. The Low countries by Eugene Rachlis and the editors of Lile 160 pp., Chicago time inc. Pt1hese Are the two latest adj editions to life Magazine s Ever growing world Library. Like the previous the series they Combine pictures and text to give a rounded balanced portrait of the country or countries they cover. Alexander Eliot who wrote the text of the volume on Greece is an sex time writer and an author of note who now lives in that country. Eugene Rachlis author of the Low countries is also a Journ Alist who came to know Holland Belgium and Luxembourg when he was information officer of the Marshall plan Mission to the Netherlands in 1949 and 1950. The photographs Are the greatest attraction of these volumes both the coloured and the Black and White. Life photographers Are generally acknowledged to be As Good As they come and through their cameras they have captured not merely the surface but the mood and the feeling and the attitude of the countries they picture. In a macedonian Village from Greece ;