The Legends of King Arthur in Art by Muriel Whitaker (review)

HUMANITIES 179 Muriel Whitaker. The Legends of King Arthur in Art D.S. Brewer. x, 363, us $86.00 This is a book to possess, in both senses: first make the effort to own a copy, and then know one's way round it. Close students of the Arthurian legend, of whom there are a great number, inside and outside the academic world, will need and want to consult it frequently, but I think the specialist in Rossetti or Burne-Jones will find the medieval chapters illuminating and that the medievalist will be impelled to read on. Many Arthurians, on reading it, will resolve to make a visit, or a detour, or an expedition, to the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, or the Boston Public Library, orCartwright Hall in Bradford, or the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, just to see the art works described or depicted. It deserves a serious but festive reading - spread over a fortnight at Pentecost, perhaps, or the twelve days of Christmas. Most academic books can be read faster than the pace of discourse, and some can be rapidly pillaged, but not this. I recommend looking at the illustrations alone, slowly, on the first day. There are seventy-two in black-and-white and thirty-five in colour. To mention only half a dozen of the colour plates: many are just what we expect and demand - the Round Table at Winchester, King Arthur among the Worthies at the Cloisters, William Morris's La Belle Iseult; but many more are rareties - the Rodenegg Castle murals, the Wedding of Arthur and Guenevere at Brussels, and Frederick Sandys's Vivien. Looking at the pictures at leisure is the best way to prepare for a reading and to appreciate from the outset the vast scope of the material - and to marvel that anyone should attempt to encompass it in a single study. After a general introduction on 'Images of Arthurian Romance: the chapters deal with illuminated Arthurian manuscripts before and after 1340, carvings and hangings and wall paintings in church and castle, directing specialattention to the figure ofArthuramong theNineWorthies. A transitional chapter discusses the illustration of early printed books. Thereafter, a more familiar story is related, of the Arthurian decoration of the Queen's Robin Room in the new Houses ofParliament and ofTennyson and the artists, some of whom returned by preference to Malory. The remaining chapters deal with the Arthurian 'book as art object: with 'Arthurian Art in America' (including Canada), and with twentieth-century developments, with welcome reference to David Jones. In reading, this does not seem at all miscellaneous but the best organization for a SWirling intricacy of phenomena and influence that yet holds to a principle of unity. Successfully avoided are two great faults: the dull temptation simply to load thirteen dump-trucks and then dump them, and the sharp temptation to strive incessantly for any kind of continuity or contrast, no matter how adventitious orspurious. Onlyonce is a bright idea 180 LEITERS IN CANADA 1990 really not such a bright idea, when the author remarks that 'the number of The Nine Worthies - three classical heroes, three Jews and three Christians - alludes to the Trinity.' I can see, for instance, how a ninefold choral ktJrie could occasion a meditation on the Persons of the Trinity, in the beginning, now, and forever; but, worthy though they be, the Nine seem a little 0'erparted in this context. Much more sensible is the description of the murals at Schloss Runkelstein, near Bo1zano: A sequence of triumvirates illustrates the medieval delight in classification and correspondences. The larger-than·life figures are the three greatest pagan heroes (Hector, Alexander, Julius Caesar); the three greatest Christian heroes (Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Boulogne); the three best knights (Perceval, Gawain, lwain); the three noblest lovers (William of Austria and Aglei, Tristan and Isolde, William of Orleans and Amelie); the three greatest swordsmen (Dietrich of Bern with his sword Sachs, Siegfried with Balmuny, Dietleib with Welsun); the three strongest 'giants (Asperan, King Ortnit, Struthan); and the three giant women (Riel Nagelringen, Vogelgart, and Rahin). At the end of the balcony are three royal dwarfs and a lady who offers a welcoming drink. (Perhaps the...