Vatican Splendour: Masterpieces of Baroque Art by C. Johnston, G. V. Shepherd, M. Worsdale (review)

HUMANITIES 223 are often found elsewhere. It is in section 11, for instance, that Nordenstam (p 124) and Tilghman (p 141) offer further refutations of Danto. This section, on theories of art, also finds Sparshott offering a multiple-arttheory apologetic (p 126), and Nzegwu giving a determined defence of the applicability of western aesthetics to Igbo culture and art (p 173). His philosophical targets are mainly fellow Africans. Section III, on turning-points, begins with a lyrical explanation of night as metaphor for aesthetic experience (Imamichi, p 185). This beginning is an editorial brush-stroke, but night as metaphor is hardly a turning-point. The section includes a refreshing look at art and nature as a locus in history by Canadian and American authors (Townsend, p 215, Carlson, p 222, and Crawford, p 232). Unfortunately, the Eastern perspective does not find voice until the very end of the book in the section on fiction (Zhou, p 465, Pail<, p 471, and Chan, p 475). Papers about art and value, in part IV, provide some unexpected twists. George Dickie defends Hume (p 309). Carolyn Wilde (p 351) comments on art and morality through the analysis of two paintings of Diana and Actaeon, one by Titian, the other by Rottenhammer. Barbara Herrnstein Smith provides an analysis of art and value, which sidesteps the role of capital in the establishing and nourishing of art and its institutions, but which is written in the discourse of the Harvard Business School (p 336). (The anthology is lacking in feminist perspective.) Section v, with articles on icons, photography, music, architecture, and black-ink painting, has a vitality born of philosophers' writing about what they love. For Lai-Xiang Zhou it is acceptable to paint snow on bananas, and describe mountains as 'dizzy' or 'drunken: for these are expressions of feelings and emotions, and of attitudes towards space and time (pp 446-7). The perspectives and examples and the too-infrequent references to local theory that philosophers from other countries offer are rare, and one has to dig for them. The reader learns that Western aesthetics is the measure of publishable matters, and that in looking elsewhere he may find only a distortion (often charming, nonetheless) of Western thought. When Kambayashi (p 56) explains in German that Japanese water colours and German landscapes find common theory in Heidegger, and that in looking at them we are seeing through the artistic eyes of soul brothers, one doesn't know whether to cheer for the universal man, or despair. (ELIZABETH A . TROIT) C. Johnston, G. V. Shepherd, and M. Worsdale. Vatican Splendour:Masterpieces of Baroque Art National Museums of Canada. 160, illus. $29.95 paper In 1986- 7 a selected number of important Baroque works of art from the Vatican toured Canada. They were seen first at the National Gallery of Ottawa from June to September 1986, then at the Vancouver Art Gallery in September and October, the Art Gallery of Ontario in October and November, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from December 1986 to February 1987. The travelling exhibition included several large altarpieces (three of them originally in St Peter's) painted by leading seventeenth -century artists like Domenichino, Poussin, Sacchi, and Valentin; several sculptures by Bernini and Algardi (among them, Bernini's sketches in terracotta for the figure of Charity on Urban VIII'S tomb and for the two prophets of the Chigi chapel in S. Maria del Popolo); and finally a number of works such as medals, tapestries, and sacred vestments which gave a sense of the richness and the high quality of liturgical art at the time. The selection from the Vatican holdings was complemented by works from Canadian collections showing how Baroque art, born in Rome, influenced Catholic countries all over the world, including Canada , during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue - the object of this review - containing some interesting essays. Catherine Johnston, in reviewing the history of papal patronage in Rome, provides the general frame of reference and brings together the various aspects of papal policy on architecture, painting, and the minor arts from the time ofClement VIII to the time of Innocent XII, that is from 1592 to 1700. Her well-balanced, lucid, and concise essay certainly could help visitors get an idea of the orientation of papal policy towards the arts in that century. In reviewing the minor arts Marc Worsdale faces the harder task of giving a sense of the general direction taken by the many artists and artisans of the time while providing information on a variety of objects as different as engravings, medals, vestments, and reliquaries. Rather than follow the many rivulets of an incredibly rich artistic milieu, Worsdale chooses to underline the tendency of all the artists towards complex symbolism as well as the interdependence of minor and major arts (a large number of craft articles produced originated in the ateliers of the most famous artists). Gyde Vanier Shepherd writes a brief history of monumental religious art in I Quebec for the period in question, establishing a relationship between the arts in Rome and those of Quebec, a relationship which usually had French art and artists as intermediaries. Finally, the catalogue includes forty-nine colour reproductions of and entries on the material from the I Vatican, the former of excellent quality, the latter usually clear and exhaustive . With the rather dramatic - although, again, selective - display of these art works, the curators of the exhibition from both the Vatican and the National Gallery in Ottawa intended to underline the contribution of the Church to the art of the Baroque period and by extension to the culture of Early Modern Europe. They also wished to remind us that in this part of HUMANITIES 225 the world the Church generated a body of forms and a beauty which has become very much part of our common cultural heritage. Such a purpose was, of course, laudable. One might note, however, that the Canadian curators met the challenge rather timidly: the four museums involved were without a unified policy on the Canadian content of the exhibitiona pity, since a strong Canadian presence would have made the exhibition both original and significant for our cultural history. The Canadian pieces were unfortunately added to the exhibition like appendages or curiosities and are not even included in the catalogue. Just as I would have wished to see a greater presence of local art in the exhibit, I would prefera more simple and accessible presentation from the writers of the catalogue. As this was not an exhibition for the specialist, many entries and some parts of the essaysin the catalogue seem too dense and erudite (especially the essay by Worsdale, less the one by Shepherd). In spite of this small quibble, both exhibition and catalogue are welcome. They have brought to large numbers of Canadians a direct knowledge of some of the highest products of Roman Baroque for the first time. (GIUSEPPE SCAVIZZI) Patricia Morley. Kurelek: A Biography Macmillan. xiii, 338, illus. $34.95 'The biographers job is not to supplement or update [the autobiographer 's1 but to see differently, freshly' (p 2), states Morley early in her 'quest for the man behind the artist and his personal myth' (p ix). Together with her equation of life-writing as an 'act of faith' (p ix), these are fitting presuppositions for a biography of William Kurelek. Yet, given the intensity of his proselytizing as both a Catholic convert and a didactic artist, his biographer's job must consist largely of filling in the details Kurelek filtered out in his various self-portraits. Indeed, for his Toronto years of success and fame, Morley does have to supplement his autobiography , Someone with Me (1973, 1980). Morley proceeds through perceptive biocritical analyses of Kurelek's work and often incorporates the views of those who knew him privately or professionally. Above aU, Morley draws on her free access to his voluminous personal papers as well as his clinical records at psychiatric hospitals in England. The result is an '''official'' or "authorized'" (p ix) biography. Despite such officialness, however, and despite the constraintsimposed at least implicitly by Kurelek's immediate family, Morley maintains her scholarly independence. Her basic attitude is one of tact and empathy. Her empathy is at times tinged with awe of the artist as a seemingly enigmatic man of destiny, and many of the corresponding chapter headings (e.g., 'In the Lion's Den' and 'The Crusader') indicate ...