Science Made Stupid: How to Discomprehend the World Around Us by Tom Weller (review)

Morris Louis: The CompletePaintingsis a lovely picture book, a volume that externally resemblesother Abrams coffee table books, many of which are frankly excessive, some of which are unarguably mere vanity pieces. Indeed, a previous volume in the Abrams library, Michael Fried’s Morris Louis (one of the best works on Louis heretofore), shares the same cut size and format with Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings; coming upon these two books unawares, the casual reader might wonder why a second volumewasissuedby thesamepublishing company. Happily, that similarity of format is this book‘s only serious demerit. Diane Upright’s long arduous labor presents an immense contribution to the all-too-rare catalogues of modern artists. The works of Louis not only rely upon color for their vitality and meaning (one could say the same for Chagall, for example) but are in many instances indistinguishable to the novice except in color (which is not true for Chagall). Accordingly, Upright has reproduced every one of Louis’s mature paintings in color-no easy administrative choreand quality control is exceedingly fine. The reproduction of these paintingsmany in full-page color-has a startling effect. The fact that Louis worked in a series contributed to his being regarded by some as somewhat limited, if brilliant -his painting felt familiar, there seemed to be a fixed ‘look‘ to his art. Only now, with the publication of the Catalogue, do we witness Louis’s enormous variety and invention. The breadth of his work made visible, we witness its genuine tension, a balance between Abstract Expressionism and Color Field tendencies. Nor is this Diane Upright’s only service, although that alone would suffice to more than justify her efforts. Each of Upright’s 655 regular catalogueentriescontains 12fields(categories) of information, which offers an astoundingamount of material in a most compact presentation. Upright shows us another face to Louis’s art in an appendix of experimental paintings. Sixty-three canvasesthat Louishad ordereddestroyed had not been at the time of his death; of these, 17 were preserved for study and deposited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (these experimental paintings are reproduced here for the first time). Another appendix of paintings listes 11 lost works for which no photographic reference exists,paintings known only by referencein exhibition catalogues orfrom the Morris Louis Archives. (We might also admire the sawy courage of Louis’s dealer, AndrC Emmerich, who fostered this book and thus informed the marketplace of exactly the number and location of Louis’s works.) The Index of Paintings in Public Collections is organized by country, city, museum (and Catalogue number for each citation). Finally, the general index-an eminently useful, if laborious (and therefore expensive and often deferred element of publication)allows the reader to develop rapidly a firm sense of the shape of the artist’s career, the evolution of his art and the critical reaction that hasgreeted his work. But Upright has not shirked her critical responsibilities in favor of statistical presentation. Too often we forget that the raisonnk part of a ‘catalogue raisonnt’ depends on the author’s reasoned arguments for the specific qualities of an artistic personality. If, in Morris Louis’s case, problems of forgery or misattribution are not yet (thank goodness!) points needing discussion ,the character of Louis’sambitions is very much in question; concomitantly, many technical questions regarding his art, and the critical assessment of the paintings, depend upon biographic particulars. Upright handles these problems in a seriesof essaysat the front of the book. Notably, her “Introduction” describes the development of Louis’s career. In addition to the book‘s appendices the Catalogue contains an alphabetical listing by painting titles and a concordance (of estate numbers and the Catalogue’s numbering). An exhibition history details the visibility of Louis’s work from 1937 to 1982. The usefulness of these tables is heightened by Upright’s essays on “The Procedure of Morris Louis” that dwell on the esthetic framework within which he operated. “The Technique of Morris Louis” is thorough, yet the novice reader will not sense from this narrative the utter mystery with which Louis shrouded his techniques. Both for the literary value of this dramatic (and spooky) aspect of his personality...