New Art and Antiques Books Reviewed

by M.A.D. Staff

These are reviews of books recently sent to us. We have included ordering information for publishers that accept mail, phone, or on-line orders. For other publishers, your local bookstore or mail-order house is the place to look.

John Singer Sargent: Venetian Figures and Landscapes, 1898-1913. Complete Paintings, Volume VI by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray (Yale University Press, 2009, 272 pp., hardbound, $75 from Yale University Press, [www.yalebooks.com] or [800] 405-1619).

Living near an iconic visual locale myself (Monhegan Island, Maine), I recognize the inherent artistic dilemma in presenting an icon with freshness. John Singer Sargent, a consummate master of vision and technique, captured Venice his own way. In this book, Sargent's Venice comes alive for me. Having previously reviewed volumes in this rich series of the unfolding entire catalogue raisonné for Sargent, I am enormously pleased to see and study this one. It can stand alone but is especially valuable as part of the whole. Sargent studied Istrian stone architecture by the sea with the same attention he gave to facial bone structure and hand gesture in his illustrious portraits. I am smitten by his portraits of Istrian stone and Venetian boats.

The introduction by Elaine Kilmurray, the chapter introductions by Richard Ormond, and even the footnotes and endnotes interweave pertinent and clearly written information from original sources, relevant to Sargent's art during this period and to the overall perspective. It is engrossing. Even lists of patrons (public and private) are enjoyable. Contemporary reviews round out the text and our vicarious experience of Sargent's life, but the letters by Sargent himself, ferreted from various archives, are truly a gift.

On a journey to Venice in September 2005, the catalogue raisonné team of Warren Adelson, Elizabeth Oustinoff, Kilmurray, and Ormond secured the help of watermen and photographed Sargent's locales from the same perspective as his paintings—a valuable and charming addition to the text on each painting. (One photo was added in 2007 by the owner of a painting.) They include a map of Venice around 1900 with dots marking the places. All adds up to a vicarious trip to the magic city via this book.

In Kilmurray's introduction I learned that Sargent visited antiques dealers in Venice, and later in the book there is a quote from one of his letters regarding a bookshelf he wished to buy. Most of his evenings were spent with friends and family, dining and listening to musicians or attending the theater. He usually visited Venice in the autumn, and many of his paintings have the slanting, warm golden quality of autumn light.

With the watercolor #1044, The Grand Canal, Venice, is an example of how the authors interlace the information. This painting was inscribed by Sargent to Léon Delafosse (1874-1955). Sargent helped to promote him, "describing him to Isabella Stewart Gardner, in a letter of about 1893-94, as 'a décadent, especially in the matter of neckties—but he is a very intelligent little Frenchman and a composer and excellent pianist, who is probably going over to America in a year's time, so I sent his portrait over as a forerunner. I shall make bold to give him a note of introduction to you, and I am sure you will enjoy his playing and his French finesse.' Delafosse was a close friend of the writer Marcel Proust, who drew on him for the character of the violinist, Charlie Morel, in his great novel Á la recherche du temps perdu…[Delafosse's] career fell away after World War I, and he died in poverty and obscurity."

There is a black-and-white photograph of an untraced watercolor (#1058) "lost in transit in 1972, presumed stolen…." Others of Sargent's works are listed as untraced but usually presented in full color. No stone is unturned, though the writers leave room for further verifications and research.

In the full listing, there are many watercolors that are more abstract than I would have anticipated. Many of my favorites in the book are in private collections, such as Rio Eremite and Rio di Sant'Andrea, Venice, part of a series dated "c. 1902-4" that follow Sargent's usual format of being done while seated in a gondola so the painting's vantage point is low and powerful. In chapter four, "Ships and Boats, c. 1902-1909," there are many beautiful watercolors taken from that vantage point. (The chapter's introduction has a helpful list of Venetian names and explanations of the boats and ships that appear.)

By the time I came to Sketching on the Giudecca, I felt I knew this scene and these people. It "depicts Sargent's friends and fellow-artists Wilfrid and Jane de Glehn in a gondola on the Giudecca Canal, facing the Zattere." Sargent is in his gondola, the prow of which shows in his watercolor, and they are tied to the mooring lines of a large sailing ship. Wilfrid is sketching, and Jane leans back, suggested by a few bold strokes in the white of paper, since she wore a white dress and hat and was back to him. "The de Glehns were in Venice on their honeymoon in the autumn of 1904, at the same time as Sargent, who painted a sketch of Jane de Glehn in a gondola (see fig. 33)." There is a small reproduction (fig. 82) beside the text of an oil on canvas by Jane of her husband sketching from a gondola.

Chapter five is "Architecture, c. 1904-1913." Sargent's "love affair with Venetian architecture reached its peak in his studies of Santa Maria della Salute." Ormond gives us a brief history of the structure and speculates upon the reason for the artist's concentration on this motif. In this chapter, be prepared to fall under the artist's spell. His renderings of the buildings, the play of light on the mostly white stone, will entrance.

Here's an example. From picture #1156, an oil on canvas called Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice, you see that a "topo is moored in the side canal; the white sails are down, spilling in heavy folds over the sides of the boat, and the dismantled mast and rudder form strong horizontal foreground planes that emphasize the soaring verticals of the church. The scene is empty [of people]…The artist's gondola was moored close to the barge and the steps leading up to the quayside, enabling him to study the junction of church and guild from an oblique angle." It takes the breath away, even in the photograph. Imagine seeing the painting itself (it's in a private collection).

As stated in Kilmurray's introduction: "Sargent's response was to contest traditional ways of representing the city…by means of idiosyncratic pictorial construction and framings. An artist like Monet [who was a friend of Sargent] painted the great tourist spectacles in a broadly topographical mode, using his highly individual eye and technique to render his interpretations personal and novel. Sargent, however, painted few vistas…electing instead to subject segments of buildings to particular scrutiny and to overcome the issue of hackneyed representation by disorienting the spectator and directing him to look afresh…."

A.C.V.

On Connoisseurship and Reason in the Authentication of Art by Andrew W. Brainerd (Prologue Press, 2007, 587 pp., hardbound, $55 from Prologue Press, [www.authenticatingart.com] or [877] 800-2776).

Because of the title and my initial perusal of the numerous color illustrations, this large volume was approached with anticipation of fresh insight into the integration of laboratory results into the scholarly study of artworks. Proceeding through the lengthy first section, "The Authenticating Industry," its seven chapters whirled around in a prolonged setup of the author's evidence and understanding of the history of connoisseurship.

Here are four of the choice nuggets in those chapters: the legal affidavit of Thomas J. Bright, concerning his tribulations and discoveries in trying to have a probable van Gogh attributed; documentation concerning under-the-table attributions for large fees by a famous scholar (Bernard Berenson); how an auction house writes a contract to its advantage (and can leave a seller holding a bad bag); and how the system of so-called expert opinion by sales personnel can result in less than open and honest appraisals and sales. Unfortunately, Brainerd's convoluted writing style and the lack of editing cause the nuggets to appear like pyrite rather than gold.

In the second section, "Case Studies in Conventional Expertise," he details minutely his own progress and disappointments with authenticating a painting called "Infanta." This "chronicle," as he calls it, includes one chapter written by two others, Albert Boime and Alexander Kossolapov, in which the case is succinctly and thoroughly presented. (It was previously published in the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation.) By this evidence, it seems incontrovertible that the painting in question, a small study of part of a painting in the Louvre, was painted by Manet.

In the next chapter Brainerd descends into a diatribe about the fact that this small study was deliberately left out of an international exhibition, called in the U.S. Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting (it was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 2003). By overstating his legitimate concerns about "Truth, as an Ethical Mandate" by art historians, he weakens his presentation to readers, in my opinion. After many pages of "Manet/Velázquez: A Response" he comments:

"[T]he word 'connoisseurship' came quickly into focus as a term to euphemistically describe a process by which judgment may be loosed from its moorings in fact, to permit visits into imagined areas. Over this period I soon encountered examples of such trips, as well as many dedicated persons who saw in them the same concern for their validity which I saw, at various levels of eminence. Manet/Velázquez, and Chapter 14 which confronts authenticity questions in the context of Toulouse-Lautrec, confront these problems in a different manner, tracing in part to the psychology and philosophy of French determinations and procedures which, relegating science, stand very distantly apart from what one finds, for example, in the Dutch Rembrandt Research Project, which in turn differs from those of van Gogh, in Chapter 13. But while these chapters require a certain concentration that most persons will be reluctant to employ, it is those details that are perhaps the most informative in any attempt to delineate intellectually the persuasive potential of expressions which bear a responsible relationship to reality. Manet/Velázquez is a wide, complex and fertile area in which to unremittingly pursue and insist upon truth in many of its assertions, some of which are identified in these pages, rather than merely luxuriate in the presence of hundreds of colorful photographs of magnificent paintings."

One does not question the author's veracity, only his verbosity.

It was a bit easier reading in the chapter about the sad story of Jelle de Boer (1908-1970), a humble, impassioned aficionado of Vincent van Gogh. Here is not the place to recount it all, but it does bring to the fore the fairness and unfairness of the art establishment.

The chapter that follows the story of de Boer himself, "A de Boer van Gogh," gives the crux of the book's theme: "It is a basic thesis of this book, nowhere illustrated more persuasively than the example from life described in this chapter, that the most responsible determinations of 'true' authenticity in final analysis must ultimately rest on factual evidence and not on professional opinion, which, by definition, can only be offered in retrospect…."

So, Brainerd embarked to produce a "case study based on the huge compendium of physical facts and verifiable circumstances which existed prior to Vincent's departure for Paris in early 1886, which alone and without more provide sufficient evidence to support the authenticity of a single painting or drawing not already identified in the historical record." He gives as a reason why no other study was published: "establishment art must always interpret the factual approach to authenticity determination as challenging connoisseurship, and hence inconsistent with professional theory, academically demeaning, and endangering the sacred fundament of those discretionary attributive freedoms of the 'expert opinion' doctrine elsewhere identified and examined in this book."

Another case study is fully presented in the chapter "Les Orphelins de l'Art." This is his chronicle of efforts toward authenticating a painting that may be by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Deep into the book on page 454 (in the chapter "Catalogues Raisonnés in the Twenty-first Century"), we come to an analysis statement that confronts the status quo again. It is chosen because it more or less summarizes Brainerd's thesis. "That hard fact and science are professionally anathema to the commercially oriented faction within establishment art unfortunately now includes Catalogues Raisonnés proponents in increasing number. The purposes and strategies served by these contradictory circumstances center upon the most arduous and determined insistence that 'expert opinion' shall dominate, and always over-ride any competitive attempt to show or prove 'truth,' though confronted by incontrovertible evidence no matter how compelling, and though offered by some of the most respected and trusted minds of science, however thus demeaned."

The final two chapters of this book deal with the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) and with the topic "The Sciences, and the Rise of Reason." Time constraint prevented a full reading of these nearly 100 pages.

The problems of authenticity and the entwining of money and marketing into the scholarship of art history are ideas worthy of scrutiny. Andrew Brainerd reminds me of a 21st-century Diogenes, with his lantern being laboratory analysis and his pathway his practice of law. I believe it is beneficial to bear in mind that auction houses and galleries are marketplaces and that fairness in dealing with so-called outsiders should be scrutinized. Certainly a healthy skepticism can clarify situations and warn us as we proceed through the markets in our various capacities. We can be thankful that authors such as Brainerd are vigilant and stubborn in their pursuit of the facts, but I, as a dedicated reader of art history and as one open to scientific analysis of artworks, must say that the information in this book is largely not presented with clarity.

A.C.V.

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice by Frederick Ilchman (MFA Publications, 2009, 315 pp., hardbound, $65 or $40, softbound, from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, [www.mfashop.com] or [617] 369-3575).

Richly illustrated with color reproductions of masterpieces in museums, churches, palaces, monasteries, libraries, schools, and academies, this impressive volume sheds light on the influences, competition, rivalry, technical brilliance, and stylistic development of these ambitious giants—known as the "Big Three"—who dominated Venetian painting for nearly four decades in the 16th century. At the same time, it enhances the reader's knowledge of the culture prevailing during Venice's golden age.

The book explores the treatment of similar subjects by these artists, whose dates overlapped: Titian (1488-1576), Tintoretto (1518-1594), and Veronese (1528-1588). Their signature styles are highlighted, as is their individual handling of themes popular in this era. Dominant are sacred subjects (i.e., religious narrative, such as the Baptism of Christ, the supper at Emmaus, and the temptation of St. Anthony), Classical mythology (especially the goddesses Venus and Diana), the female nude (there are many beautiful women, some with mirrors), portraiture, and emerging secular concepts, in particular pertaining to that faithful hunting companion, the dog.

Titian's important introduction of easel oil painting on canvas, which superseded oil on wood panel, is discussed. Adding insight are scholarly essays on art patronage and collecting in 16th- and 17th-century Venice, illustrations of the interior of Venetian spaces where some paintings were originally hung, a map of Venice indicating the location of selected public commissions of each artist, and technical examination of working techniques and changes in a few of the masterpieces that emerged through scientific study.

The book's appendices include a chronology and an invaluable bibliography, as well as an informative essay on Boston's role in collecting Venetian paintings, detailing Isabella Stewart Gardner's acquisition of the famed Titian Europa and discussing the contribution of Italian paintings connoisseur Bernard Berenson.

This book was written to accompany the major exhibition of the same name. The exhibit premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in March, will remain in Boston through August 16, and then will travel to the Louvre, where it will be from September 14 through January 4, 2010.

Rose Safran

Large Art in Small Places: Discovering the California Mural Towns by Kevin Bruce (Ten Speed Press, 2009, 184 pp., softbound, $24.95).

Historical, commemorative, beautiful, imaginative, quirky, and surprising are just a few of the adjectives that describe the contemporary mural art included in this art book and travel guide. In the introduction, "The Miracle of the California Mural Towns," Kevin Bruce briefly discusses the development and socioeconomic impact of mural art in small towns. Mural art is one way for communities to preserve their cultural and historical past or commemorate an important event, as well as to create tourist traffic and a renewed sense of community.

The art is presented in a simple guidebook format, divided by geographic routes that you can follow from your armchair or in your vehicle (with a reliable California map) to the California towns that "intend the murals be all, or part, of a plan to attract tourism."

Information on each of the 250 murals in this book includes the size, location, date, and artist(s) with a description of what the mural represents and comments on the style or how it relates to the area. The murals are numbered and included on a list and a simple street map on the first page of each section. Bruce includes contact information for the local chambers of commerce, a few paragraphs about the town, and a list of other things to do or see. If you enjoy art or travel from your armchair, or if you want a new road trip on the West Coast, pick up this nifty book.

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