Hungarian Folk Art by Tamas Hofer and Edit Fel (review)

Books 163 Hungarian Folk Art. Tamas Hofer and Edit Fel, Maria Kresz and Bertha Gaster, trans. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1979. 638 pp., illus. £12.50. Reviewed by Lynn Kari Petrich" This is a large book containing many illustrations of varied examples of its subject-it is unfortunate that more of them were not printed in color, since some black-and-white reproductions of, for instance, intricate embroidery and carvings cannot be seen clearly. The book provides valuable information on Hungarian folk art. This art gradually declined with the industrialization of the country and vanished about a generation ago. Contemporary Hungarian artistic expression is, however, rooted in the folkloric traditions. The authors emphasize heavily visual documentation of the art rather than its sociological signification; some readers may wish for more of the latter. In peasant art of different countries form was generally functional, with decoration, often iconic, added. Extensive variations upon several themes (found on religious artifacts, domestic items, herdsmen's accessories, pottery, and costumes and textiles) have been provided that show characteristics of the mode of life of the Hungarian peasantry. It is interesting to note, for instance, the decorative style that grew out of the herdsman's need for a warm, weatherimpermeable outer garment. The ornamental embroidery of the cifraszur (heavy woolen coat) was also transposed onto wood carvings and domestic textiles. The wearing of the coats was discouraged by the government as early as 1810, since, according to the authors, it exemplified a possible threatening self-awareness on the part of the peasants. Nevertheless, the fashion spread also to the country nobility and even courtiers' garments in the Habsburg empire show the influence of the peasant-style embroidered and appliqued decoration on the coats. Modem Art: 19th and 20th Centuries. Meyer Schapiro. Chatto and Windus, London, 1978. 227 pp., illus. £16.50 (also George Braziller, New York, 1979. 308 pp., illus. $20.00). Reviewed by John F. Moffit"" This is the second selection of previously published essays by Schapiro, whose most important contributions to scholarship have been focused upon Medieval art, particularly sculpture. (The first selection by the same publisher was entitled Romanesque Art and appeared in 1976.) Schapiro is one of the few scholars who have dared to analyze artworks of widely disparate and chronologically distinct periods. The essays deal with Cezanne (a three-part study), Courbet, Van Gogh, Seurat, Picasso, Chagall, the Armory Show, Arshile Gorky, Mondrian and 'abstract art' in general (also in three parts). Characteristic of Schapiro's method is an incisive analysis of the structural composition of artworks in order to uncover the layers of their hidden meaning. I think it is apparent that his critical stance had been shaped in the 1930s by Marxist philosophy, perhaps the period of his most important research . As he observed in his discussion of Style (p. 133), 'the great interest of the Marxist approach lies not only in the attempt to interpret the historically changing relations of art and economic life in the light of a general theory of society, but also in the weight given to the differences and conflicts within the social group [affecting] outlook, religion, morality, and philosophy'. Indeed, Schapiro's is an interpretive art history. About half of the essays deal with the 19th century, and these I found generally superior to those that are concerned with artworks of the early 20th century. Particularly, I found the series of apologia dealing with 'abstract' (nonfigurative) painting overly long and, by now, somewhat unnecessary (although I was enthralled by his comments on Gorky). The first item, The Apples of Cezanne: An Essay on the "1432 Southwest 170th St., Seattle, WA 98166, U.S.A. ""Dept. of Art, New Mexico State University, Box 3572, Las Cruces, NM 88003, U.S.A. Meaning of Still-Life, is I believe worthy of analysis here to convey to readers something of Schapiro's interpretive deductions as well as their usefulness for future investigations. Schapiro relates Cezanne's youthful love of classical poetry to a mental image that he may have derived from Vergil's Eclogues (II, 34, 67-71) (' .. .if a girl be seduced with ten apples, happy is he who can so cheaply buy love with...