The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art: Treatment, Repair and Restoration by H. L. Plenderleith, A. E. A. Warner (review)

Books 183 I also recommend the following books: Bernard Leach. A Potter’s Book. Faber and Faber, London, 1940; Dora Billington. The Technique of Pottery. B. T. Batsford, London, 1962 and Michael Cardew. Pioneer Pottery. Longmans, London, 1969. The History of the Poster. Josef and Shizuko Miiller-Brockmann . ABC Verlag, Zurich, 1971. 244 pp., illus. A Concise History of Posters. John Barnicoat. World of Art Library, Thames and Hudson, London, 1972, 288 pp., illus. Cloth f2.50, paper 51.50. 100 Years of Posters, Brevis Hillier. Pall Mall, London, 1972. 96 pp., plus plates. f2.25. Reviewed by: John Milner* A number of distinct difficulties beset writers on posters and their history. These books reveal different approaches to tackling the problem. The History of the Poster is in itself a small marvel of design and its viewpoint is closer to that of the designer than to that of the historian. It is the only one of the three books to attempt working definitions of the inside processes of poster designing; the other two are closer to a stylistic history that deals with posters as documents of stylistic developments rather than examples that in a clear way reveal the disciplines involved in their design. Perhaps more than in the case with books on the history of art as such, texts on the history of posters bear the characteristics of visual anthologies. In this respect The History of the Poster is entirely devoted to major figures but neverthelessfascinating. Very glossy paper is employed and no attempt is made to recapture the physical surface or texture of the posters illustrated; on the other hand, the colour printing is of such exceptional quality that much of the visual impact of the original posters is retained on a small scale-perhaps at the risk of translating the blandness of many of the posters into the preciousness of miniatures. In the trilingual parallel texts, of which the English version is the least successful, Josef and Shizuko Miiller-Brockmann attempt to categorize the major developments in poster design in terms of the construction of the poster and the projection of the message or product. Sadly, for much of this is original and penetrating, the authors restrict themselves to posters proper and ignore completely related design in film, television and magazine advertisement , as well as kinetic, neon-lit or three-dimensional displays. They maintain that posters should spring an ambush on the attention of the passer-by and constitute what Cassandre called ‘an optical incident’. They consider this within the context of a dazzling array of examples and are probably at their most perceptive when discussing the rise of the large simplified image of the advertised object against a coloured ground and the manufacturer’s name (as employed by the Berlin designers Julius Gipkens, Lucien Bernhard and Julius Klinger). As a result of their design-oriented approach, the reader is invited inside the processes of poster making and some clarification of criteria becomes possible. The danger of trying to force the history of poster design into the categories accepted by contemporary art historians is avoided. Neither do the authors discuss posters within the context of the history of taste. Within their limits, this only is regrettable to the extent that they attempt no discussion of the poster within its urban surroundings. No comparable critical definitions emerge from either Hillier’s 100 Years of Posters or Barnicoat’s A Concise History of Posters. The latter struggles valiantly but ineffectively to relate poster-designs to contemporary art movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism. This proves an unconvincing and unenlightening exercise. Barnicoat opens with a lengthy comparison of Jules Cheret and Tiepolo, which is as unnecessary an apology for Cheret’s art as it is unflattering to his work visually. Amidst the long lists of new and familiar names in the loose commentary upon the illustrations, it is with added reliefthat the book’s most original passages are encountered where the author presents illustrations and an inadequately brief discussion of posters in situ on theatre hoardings, shop fronts or the end wall of houses or flats. It is here that one suddenly gains direct information about the kind of impact made...