Short Reviews

signal, it is simply that artistic activities will in the future be even more lively and flourishing. Short Reviews FRACTALFANTASY Videotape: animation and software by Charles Fitch; editing and music by Michael Angelo Strasmich. Media Magic, P.O. Box 2069, Mill Valley, CA 94942, U.S.A. This 30-minute VHS videotape is a visual study of the Mandelbrot set, a subject familiar to Leonard0 readers. Over 20 enlarged regions along the edge of the set are displayed with animation through variations of the color palettes used. Electronic music accompanies, but is not directly connected to, the images. This is a useful illustration tape for educators in computer graphics. PERFORMANCE ART: FROM FUTURISM TO THE PRESENT by RoseLee Goldberg. Thames and Hudson, London, U.K., 1988. 216 pp., illus. Paper, E4.95. ISBN: 0-500-20214-1. Performance Art is as old as human society itself. Whether we think of primitive tribal ritual, medieval mystery plays or a Dada-esque ‘happening’, they all have one common aspect: use of performers in performance (with or without staging) to express artistic or other concepts. RoseLee Goldberg devotes the bulk of her history to the present century, in which this most adventurous art form-one that cannot be traded or reproduced, only directly experiencedhas flowered and flourished as never before. This is an essential and welcome critical documentation of an art that is ephemeralby nature, yet has proved to be far-reaching in influence. ROBERTO ROSSELLINI by Peter Brunette. Oxford University Press, New York, U.S.A., 1987.440 pp., illus. Cloth, $29.95, E22.50. ISBN: 0-19-504988-8. If one were asked to choose only one film to represent the postwar Italian film industry, Rossellini’s Roma, citta aperta (Open City) could well be the one. Yet it is regarded by many as one of his most conventional. Nevertheless, it was a bench mark, a turning point in both Rossellini’s work and in the history of cinema. Peter Brunette gives full weight to this view while not neglecting Rossellini’s later work with Ingrid Bergman (who determined to work with him after seeing Open City),his ‘Indian’ period and his ‘history’ films from L’etu del ferro (The Iron Age) in 1964 to The Messiah in 1975. The book presents a readable, informative and ultimately fascinating account of a great film director. ART IN VIENNA 1898-1918 by Peter Vergo. Phaidon Press Ltd., Oxford, U.K., 1986.256 pp., illus. Paper, Ell.95. ISBN: 0-7148-2224-8. EGON SCHIELE by Simon Wilson. Phaidon Press Ltd., Oxford, U.K., 1987. 80 pp., illus. Paper, E7.95. ISBN: 0-7148-2494-1. THEMALENUDE-A MODERN VIEW by Francois de Louville and Edward Lucie-Smith. Phaidon Press Ltd., Oxford, U.K., 1985. 174pp., illus. Cloth, 520.00. ISBN: 0-7148-2382-1. The author of Art in Vienna may be exaggerating somewhat when he suggests that at the beginning of the Dual Monarchy (Austria-Hungary) in 1867 Vienna was hardly more than a medieval village. But by 1900, at the height of empire, Vienna had been transformed into an avant-garde city, a place of unrivaled culture (at least, in its own terms). About a third of Art in Vienna is devoted to architecture, for it was indeed through the new buildings, both public and private, that much of the spirit and ‘feel’of the age was made manifest. Less subservient to the grandeur and apparent solidity of empire were Vienna’s fin de sikcle artists of the Secession, three of whom are particularly considered in this volume: Gustav Klimt, the urbane first president of the Secession; Oskar Kokoschka, the painter of dream, nightmare and fantasy;and Egon Schiele, the enfunt terriblewhographically depicted his obsessive preoccupation with this own sexuality. Peter Vergo skilfully sketches the historical background, leading us through an evolving Vienna, while clearly defining the roles of art and artists. Simon Wilson in Egon Schiele further explores the deep anguish and frustration that produced the nude self-portraits that so outraged sections of Viennese society. Perhaps ‘naked’ would describe them better-a nakedness of soul as well as body. Our modern eyes are more inured to such blatant sexuality...