Heresies of Modern Art by Xavier Rubert de Ventós, and: Art and the Question of Meaning by Hans Küng (review)

Books 325 Once a year I commencea survey course in European art history with the well-known medieval picture of St. Matthew (from the Rheims ms., Epernay, Municipal Library). It iswell known among art historians, but for the naive students in my class it is something new and strange. Indeed, they usually don’t know what to make of this man with the wild hair and bulging eyes, who is writing upon an askewed table. Some see him as half-crazed, others as a creature from some exotic culture. But none sees what was intended by the artist: the visualpresentation of the inspiration of an illiterate man suddenly giftedwith the power of written expression. Most students, for example, don’t notice the angel in the upper right-hand corner, which is crucial for a correct ‘reading’,sinceit is St. Matthew’s symbol. But once the picture is thus explained, the students experience a visual awakening; they often speak of ‘seeing’ anew. Certainly the meaning and expression of the picture for the students is now closer to the original, namely, the true one. My point is two-fold: there isan historicallyaccurateperception of an art object, and this perception (although available rhrough the object) is not in the object itself. None of this, of course, precludes other perceptions of the object; for example, to see St. Matthew’s picture as similar to some contemporary art. But such perceptions, although possibly individually meaningful, are subjectiveand anachronistic, and therefore historically meaningless. Ironically, Wollheim (after several tangential discussions) seems eventually to say as much. Indeed he concludes by saying that ‘art is essentially historical’. This issue he continues in the excellent supplementary essay,‘CriticismasRetrieval’,which(in essence)is a plea for history in criticism.The argument is straightforward and correct (to my mind): ‘The task of criticism is the reconstruction of the creative process.’ For such ‘reconstruction’ historical evidence is required. Often, of course, a complete reconstruction isimpossible,becauseof the limitations of documents and so forth. Criticism may then drift into revision, but the goal should always be as complete a reconstruction as possible. ‘Retrieval, like archaeology,. ..is simultaneously an investigation into past reality and an exploitation of present resources. Anachronism arises not whenthe criticcharacterizes the past in terms of his own day, but only when in doing so he falsifies it.’ I couldn’t agree more. Art andthe Future: Collected Papersofthe First InternationalConference on Art and the Future. Margret Alisjahbana, ed. The International Association for Art and the Future, Toyabungkah, Bali, Indonesia, 1980. 158 pp. Paper, $6.00. Reviewed by Robert F. Erickson* The papers in this book were deliveredat the International Conference on Art and the Future which met in Indonesia in July, 1978, and was attended primarily by representatives from the Third World. Of the conference papers, only five are by Westerners, and thus, the book affords an unusual opportunity to investigate non-Western attitudes on art. The title of the book is somewhat misleading, in that not all of the essays are directed specifically to the theme of the conference. For example, the piece by Takashi Funayama, Contemporary Music in Japan, delivers only a passing reference to the possibilities in future Japanese music; Moerdowo’s, Continuities and Change in Balinese Art and Culture has the same shortcoming, but it isavery interesting survey of past and present Balinese painting, sculpture and dance. Of the others, one of the most impressive is that of S. Takdir Alisjahbana, who is Chairman of the Academy at Jakarta. Heembraces the broad topic of Search for the Valuesof the Futureand the Art of the Futureand analyzessuch topics asthe crisisin industrial civilizationand the pessimism of our time. His view of present world circumstances is not a laudatory one, and he states that there is a ‘present national and international confusion in socialand cultural life’and that art isa mirror of the social and cultural crisis of our time. As for the future, he advocates a concern for the total individual and an emphasis on human dignity. Somehow, art should become involved in the safe-guarding of the future of mankind, and the artist should become a ‘co-worker inthe struggle for permanent peace’. What is now deplorable is...