Balthus by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola (review)

prototypes. We still use words of Arab origin rellecting those achievements: algebra, algorithm, zero, alkali, alcohol, alizarin, soap, check, admiral. Even the word lens, which is derived from the name of the lentil bean it resembles, reflects the older Arabic usage, adasa. The modern concept of “good functional design” owes a lot to this period. The average Arab sought to surround himself with beautifully made objects placed in welldesigned structures, and the high standard of living allowed the invention of what we might today call high-tech toys. Bad? az-Zaman alJazari (twelfth to thirteenth centuries) compiled and beautifully illustrated The Book qf Ingenious Mechanical Devices. full of water clocks, fountains, automata, and the like[2]. One device was ofthe “foremost importance in the development of the steam engine and pumping machinery.” It was a two-piston reciprocating pump in which circular motion was converted to linear motion. Another device employed a conical floating valve, one of the earliest examples of a closed-loop feedback control system, a startingly modern concept. Conical valves were first mentioned in the West by da Vinci, and it is speculated that the Renaissance master could have had access to Latin versions of al-Jazari’s book. In one of the specialized essays that focus on particular persons or events, R. B. Winder wryly comments that “if al-Jazari, like Leonardo, had devoted some of his genius to the construction of machines of war, his name would be well remembered in the West today” (p. 216). This remark is unfair to Leonardo. The Arab civilization survived despite the conflict and war that are all too common in any age. The Arabs had their own share of eccentric professors, fickle rulers, and all-toohuman dreamers. Consider al-Jahiz, a scholar whose name means “popeye”, who perished when a bookshelf toppled over him. Hunayn ibn Ishaq, the renowned physician, went to prison rather than comply with his prince’s request to provide him with poison. Or consider al-Haytham himself, who spent his old age in disgrace for his failed plan to regulate the flow of the Nile and made his living copying works by Euclid. Still, those centuriesdiffered from our world in important ways. A bedrock of faith allowed the Arab to believe in a good universe created by Allah, in which people felt at home. This world view allowed amazingly confident flights of imagination within a holistic approach to nature and society. Intuition, followed by refinement of perception and concept, characterized the spirit of the times, unlike the tight hypotheses in need of proof that often lead to aridity and inhibition and color so much of our own world today. 1. D. J. Lovell, “Optical Anecdotes”, SPIE, Box. 10 Bellingham, Washington. 2. D. Hill, The Book o f Knowledge o f Ingenious and MechanicalDevices (Boston: Dordrecht, 1974). Reviewed by Vladimir Tamari 1-27-11 Schimmachi, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan 154. The Aesthetic Imperative, Relevance and Responsibility in Arts Education, Curriculum Issues in Art Education, Vol. 2. M. Ross, ed. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1981. 177pp., Cloth 8.75, $21.00. ISBN: 0-08-0267661. The papers in this book were delivered at the University of Exeter’s Creative Arts Summer School held at Dillington House College, England, in July and August 1980. The book is the second in a series of three volumes, each with a different theme: Vol. I is titled The Arts and Personal Growth: Vol. 3 is Aesthetic Development. The papers in thesecond volume are responses to Malcolm Ross’s introductory paper, “Hard Core: The Predicament of the Arts”. He critiques a British national report,A Framework for the Curriculum (1980), which, in its description of the core curriculum, doesn’t mention the arts (except literature) until the last page. Ross contends that the Framework “discloses a severely restricted account of the growth of the human mind”, a narrow definition of learning which threatens the very survival of the arts. He is convinced that arts educators must join together and find a common language ifthe “arts areever to play a significant role in education”. The core should be broadly conceived and curriculum left open-ended to avoid merely “legislatingto reproduce and integrate that...