Moments of Vision by Kenneth Clark (review)

148 Books pollution and ecological hazards. Now. even the new and renewable sources (such as the low entropy energy of the sun) are being directed towards achieving similar objectives. But this shall not be because “movement from high entropy to a low entropy system will transform our values, our culture. our economic and political institution”. or in other words, will effect a total transformation of the society. The initiative to achieve such a transformation will lie with those better-endowed developing societies whose options for the future are still open, who do not carry heavy infrastructural burdens. whose psychic and emotional commitments to the existing withering institution of consumerism are still not irreversible. who have very little high energy infrastructure to dismantle but only need to build a new one. For them. it is the moment between despair and hope. In Entropy Rifkin comes down with the force of a sledgehammer on the illusions which propel the world of the late 20th century. We areleft with the conclusion that we must slow down the speed on our present suicidal path and abandon the aggression against the cosmic order. The Anatomy of Nature. Andreas Feininger. Dover, New York. 1979. 175 pp.. illus. Paper. $6.95. ISBN: 0-486-23840-7. Reviewed by Gwyneth Thurgood. The Anotomj qf Nature by Andreas Feininger is a photographic survey of the varied facets of the natural forms around us. Details about the photographs are contained in a concise and interesting text at the back of the book. Feininger views a stimulating photograph as one which conveys something new to the viewer. He isolates a specific subject and captures many unusual aspects of it with his camera. The imaginative and often creative results are in black and white. Hestates “As faras the pictures in this book are concerned. I avoided photographing subjects that were not suitable for rendition in black-and-white”(p. 167).Clarity of shape and form is always an important consideration. The highlighting of certain aspects of a form can help us t o become more consciously aware of our environment. The interdependence of organisms and the study of the functional qualities of diverse subjects provided the stimulus tor the photos. Feininger says “As I examined them. I found that certain entirely unrelated objects of nature were constructed according to the same basic principle” (p. 8). He compares the structure of wood and sedimentary rock, and the appearance of the layering process: the magnification X I 0 0 of charred wood showing the growth rings is compared to a clam shell X20. The eroding and powerful forces of nature and the elements can be seen in many of the varied photos. This is a worthwhile book revealing a wide spectrum of nature. Moments of Vision. Kenneth Clark. John Murray, London. 1981. 191 pp. €9.50. ISBN: 0-71 95-3860-2. Reviewed by John Adkins Richardson** The title essay. like most of the others in this collection, was originally a lecture. Lord Clark says. in his brief preface, that he is “incapable of improvisation” and his speeches are always written out in rstenso. These particular ones. “although they are obviously pieces d‘orcasion”. do contain observations he thinks may interest the general reader. Inasmuch as the opening essay provides the title for the book. we may wonder whether it does not also intimatea general theme. I believe that it does, though not perhaps in the way one might at first suppose. “Moments of Vision” was given as the Romanes Lecture at Oxford in 1954. Clark’s opening remarks are simply a more eloquent version of what many lecturers on visual art have said when confronted with the necessity of speaking while fully exposed to view in a lighted hall, bereft of the entrancing illuminations provided by their color slides. In a few lines, however. this speaker has segued, as it were, to the old doctrine of ut picfuro porris and moved on to literary representations in which ordinary objects take on an intense vividness that provokes a special form of self-revelation in the viewer. This is the sort of phenomenon often noted by the Germans. Schopenhauer, for instance, believed that to have...