Paul Klee: Figures and Faces by Margaret Plant (review)

Books 339 havecome to accept this as a statement of fact, well realizing that on rare occasions he did draw without objects before him and then, I believe, his work was recognizablydifferent and inferior. I have found evidence that convinces me that Velasquez used a mirror to aid him like a camera obscura in painting ‘Las Meninas’ and that Vermeer did the same for his ‘Ars Pictoria’. 1 still hope to find a publisher brave enough to print these heresies and to face the disapproval of established scholarly opinion. Soutine. Alfred Werner. Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1977. 167 pp., illus. Reviewed by Nicole Chan* Soutine’s paintings fascinate one by their exaggeration: exaggeration of touch, of technique and an exaggeration of exasperation with anxious feelings expressed for very casual motives. That is why one would like to know more about Soutine’s personality. Werner attempts to enlighten one about it in his book, but 1 find he fails. Soutine, himself, did not make an understanding of him an easy matter. As Werner points out, Soutine was a strange, lonely person, full of contradictory traits. A ‘born bachelor’, with no family and very few friends, he kept no diary and wrote no memoirs. Something of a mythomaniac, he exaggerated the miseries of his poverty-stricken youth and pretended his father was a mean tormentor who beat him (was this true?). Starting with this bare outline, Werner finds it difficultto say much about Soutine as a person. He subscribes to the view that Soutine, as a Jew from the ghettos of Russia at the beginning of this century, was in revolt against this milieu. In France he claimed to support the views of the rightist, anti-Semitic magazine I’Action Franpise. But, as Werner admits, other Jews, for instance, did not resort to Expressionism and an exaggerated type of Expressionismwas also practised by non-Jewish painters. Werner makes no mention of the traumatic effect upon European artists of the butchery of World War 1. One learns, quite incidentally, that Soutine volunteered to serve in the French army, although an alien, and mainly dug trenches. Perhaps the experience with fire, blood and mud affected Soutine’swork as much as the lifeof his early youth in Russia. It iscertain that artists in France during the first part of the century did not generally lead a picturesque, bohemian existence enlivened by sitting in the cafes of Paris. In spite of my reservations about Werner’s Introduction, I found the works illustrated commented upon intelligently and interestingly.I recommend the book to those who alreadyadmire Soutine’spaintings and to those who wish to become acquainted with them. Duchamp et la photographie. Jean Clair. (In French) Chine, Paris, 1977. 119 pp., illus. 130.00 FF. Reviewed by Jacques J. Halber** An enumeration of the Table of Contents will give the quickest, although somewhat superficial,surveyof the book. Eight chapter headings divide it as follows: Shadows, Non-Retinal Art, ExtraQuick Exposure, Delay in Glass, ‘Horlogism’, Wanted, ‘Opticeries ’ (presumably things done by means of optics), Infra-Thin and a very interesting Comparative Chronology (History of Photography vs. Autobiographical Chronology). The author has a solid background for the text he presents. I attended one of his lectures and knew him through his occasional articles in the periodical Chroniques de I’Art Vivunf (Paris) (no longer published) where, if his articles were among the most comprehensible, they did not seem to stand out in any notable fashion. Later he was entrusted with organizing the Marcel Duchamp retrospective exhibition that was presented at the opening of the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1977 and the preparation of the fourvolume catalogue issued in connection with this event. Duchamp is generally recognized to have been a major influenceon contemporary art, even though artists influencedby *25 rue Clignancourt, 75018 Paris, France. **24 Schaapsdrift, 6871 XB Renkum, The Netherlands. him are often unaware of their source, and many collectors and dealers of Duchamp’s works lack a thorough understanding of his life’s work. First known as a painter (he is best known for his painting ‘Nude Descending Staircase’, which reminds me of William Edgerton’s first stroboscopic...