An Artist’s Workbook by Natalie d’Arbeloff (review)

246 Books-Livres passages as illustrations but two will illustrate the contrast between the objective description employed when reporting physiological studies and the reference to individual investigators’ observations , which are the raw material of colour psychology . On the visual cortex, ‘The visual afferent axons terminating here originate in the lateral geniculate nuclei’. And a conclusion on temporal factors, ‘The Prevost-Fechner-Benham Effect and the Brucke-Bartley Effect are essentially manifestations of the Broca-Sulzer-Pieron Effect with intermittant stimulation’. This is not a book for the beginner in the field. But when he has read and accepted the standard texts this book will stimulate him to re-examine his conclusions. The expert, too, should read the book. It will givehim an occasional salutatory jolt and also a periodic feeling of superiority when he finds a passage where his knowledge is deeper than that revealed by the text. A fresh and uninhibited survey of the science of colour has been overdue and is well provided by this book. An Artist’s Workbook. Natalie d’Arbeloff. Studio Vista, London, 1969. 128pp., illus., 36s. Reviewed by: Joseph Acheson* The mystery of the creative process has so far defeated the efforts of philosopher, scholar, critic and even the artist himself to penetrate and reveal its nature, although many great minds from Plato on have sought to do so. In our own century scientists increasingly have joined in the quest, and for many the mystery must remain unrevealed only for a short while longer, for they share the belief of Victor Vasarely in his comment: ‘Some scientists are trying to invent a perfect creative machine-I am sure they will succeed.’ Meanwhile for the majority of artists who are inclined to be inarticulate about their work, the attempts at explanation by others of the artist’s processes of thought and action are not only of very little interest to him but likely to provoke his active antipathy, if he responds at all. The Bauhaus under its philosopher-architect leader, Walter Gropius, took the first important steps in this century towards isolating and defining the elements of art by means of scientific analytical methods and systemization of the findings, achieving the incredibledoublesuccessoftotal staffand student participation in their artistic revolution, and giving the whole experiment a raison d’btre and social significance, which has survived to make the Bauhaus idea still a force in art and design today. In this country, our own generation paid its belated tribute to the movement by the numerous efforts made during the late ’fiftiesand early ’sixties to improve and codify basic design teaching throughout the art colleges of Britain, a movement which achieved considerable success before it lost impetus through its rigidity and the emerging evidence of *Wirnbledon School o f Art, Merton Hall, Merton Hall Road , London, S.W. 19, England. certain obvious flaws. One of its great proselytizers here was the late Maurice de Sausmarez, who has contributed a foreword to Natalie d’Arbeloff’s An Artist’s Workbook, itself another small contribution to the movement. An Artist’s Workbookis an attempt to provide for young art students a sketchbook, note-book and general reference work, which they can emulate and modify to meet their own needs and preferences as their training progresses. It has resulted in a slim volume decorated with 170 illustrations, ten of which are in colour. She begins with an excellent inventory of the principal elements of a work of art: line, shape, volume, light and colour. These are illustrated by a series of striking photographs of a uniform size by Ted Sebley, who abandoned his career as a painter to concentrate on photography. In keeping with the current revolution in visual communications, each visual variation is matched with a number of appropriate semantic variations in the text. Each item in the inventory is accompanied by a number of technical suggestions for revealing that aspect as clearly as possible. Ingenious and effective as many of these are, ranging from rubbings and blottings to use of sand, gum, adhesive tapes and transfer sheets, one regrets that the student is not more often encouraged to explore with that simplest of investigating methods, drawing. It is in...