Lee Krasner: A Life by Gail Levin

A workmanlike accumulation of facts

Lee Krasner: A Life, published in 2011, is a biography written by art historian Gail Levin. Krasner (1908-1984) was an American abstract painter and also the wife of painter Jackson Pollock. Both were part of the abstract expressionist movement in New York City, and they also started a satellite hub of artists on Long Island. While this book doesn’t shy away from her marriage to Pollock, its definite purpose is to focus on Krasner’s own artistic accomplishments. Levin was a longtime acquaintance of Krasner’s, and her high regard for her subject sometimes calls into question her objectivity, but she includes enough oral history from Krasner’s friends and colleagues—testimony both flattering and unflattering—to convince you this isn’t just an exercise in hero worship.

There’s a myth or a misconception that Pollock held back Krasner’s artistic career. Levin sets the record straight, at least as far as what Krasner had to say about the couple’s relationship. Pollock peaked about a decade earlier than Krasner, and his meteoric success allowed enough financial security for both of them to paint full time. Pollock’s alcoholism was certainly no help to Krasner, but Pollock supported her painting and vice versa. Krasner’s career was not held back by Pollock but rather by sexist American society and its chauvinist artists and critics. Pollock’s career was certainly aided by Krasner’s tireless boosterism of his art, and she also elevated his posthumous stature through her shrewd stewardship of his legacy.

Given that Levin has a curatorial background rather than a journalistic background, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that this book reads less like a biography and more like an exhibition catalogue or a master’s thesis. The main intention here is not to tell a story but to accumulate facts to support an argument. A typical sentence like “According to the 1930 federal census, Krasner apparently still lived at home at 594 Jerome Street with her parents,” is indicative of the research-paper style of the prose. Levin feels the need to summarize every letter Krasner ever sent or received, whether the contents are relevant to the lives of Krasner and Pollock or not. At one point, she unnecessarily quotes an advertisement for the brand of stereo system that Willem de Kooning owned. Levin’s constant reminding that she searched through a bunch of documents, and this is what she found, removes the reader from any emotional involvement in the narrative or any visceral or vicarious experience of Krasner and Pollock’s lives.

The best part of this book is its insight into how Krasner and other New York artists lived, worked, and survived during the Great Depression. This isn’t just another art history exposé that trumpets the hallowed names of abstract expressionism. Levin’s coverage of this era mixes the experiences of A-list, B-list, and C-list painters in Krasner’s circle, an approach that really provides an authentic and informative look into the New York art scene and the lives of its artists during this period. After Pollock dies, on the other hand, the book gets really boring. The last four chapters are mostly just a series of Krasner gallery exhibitions, with details about what paintings were shown and excerpts from critical reviews, both positive and negative. Like many an exhibition catalogue, it becomes a glorified curriculum vitae. Two points are beaten like a dead horse: 1) Krasner was not just Pollock’s wife but an important artist in her own right; and 2) Her career was held back by sexism in the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, but finally in the 1970s she’s got the recognition she deserves. These points are repeated over and over and over again, ad nauseam, until the reader is ready to say enough, I get it, can we get to her deathbed already?

In general, I prefer Krasner’s painting to Pollock’s, but only her later, mature work. She certainly deserves recognition as a pioneering abstract expressionist, as Levin asserts in this book. For those wanting to learn about Krasner’s art, this is not a lavishly illustrated art book. There are two photo inserts, one of people photos and one of Krasner’s art. About 32 artworks are depicted. As a biography, it puts more emphasis on biographical photographs that chronicle Krasner’s life.

Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris, edited by Nicole R. Myers and Katherine Rothkopf

The beautiful book his work deserves

The modernist painting style of cubism is generally considered to have been invented jointly by painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque around 1907. Most art aficionados, if questioned for a third artist in that movement, would call up the name of Juan Gris. In fact, though Gris followed in the footsteps of Picasso and Braque, some (myself included) consider Gris to have been the one who really took cubism to its creative apex. Gris pushed the stylistic experiments in form, structure, and color farther than his better-known contemporaries, and in the process managed to produce many beautiful paintings. Even those who can’t stand cubism (and that’s probably the majority of the world’s population) might very well enjoy looking at a Juan Gris painting.

The still life, usually an arrangement of objects on a table, was a common subject matter for cubist artists and a particular specialty of Gris’s. Now his work in that area gets its deserved recognition with the beautifully produced coffee table book Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris, edited by Nicole R. Myers of the Dallas Museum of Art and Katherine Rothkopf of the Baltimore Museum of Art. This book was published in 2021 by Yale University Press to coincide with an exhibition of Gris’s still lifes organized by those two museums.

This book is not intended to be a comprehensive biography or retrospective on Juan Gris. That has already been done at least twice, by Antonio Gaya Nuño in 1986 and by Christopher Green in 1992. This book is meant to focus solely on Gris’s still lifes, but it nevertheless does contain a biological overview and a fair share of scholarly content on Gris’s work. The assortment of essays included, however, is a bit random. Myers delivers a truly excellent essay examining how Gris went about planning and executing his still life paintings. For anyone who paints or draws, this chapter reads like a behind-the-scenes exposé into Gris’s methods and materials. Another essay is a string of brief institutional histories of every Spanish museum that owns a work by Juan Gris. It’s hard to see how that’s useful; wouldn’t a list have sufficed? Another essay explores the influence of Gris on abstract artists in South America. The connection feels only tenuously established, but this chapter did bring to my attention some Latin American artists with whom I was previously unfamiliar.

While the essays are hit-and-miss, the images strike the bullseye time and time again. The text divides Gris’s tragically brief career into five distinct stages. All of those stages are well-represented by selected artworks, and one can clearly see Gris’s progression as an artist over time. The paintings are all beautifully reproduced, most of them appearing at full-page size. The photography of the artworks and the quality of the printing are impeccable. When it comes to art publications, Yale University Press always makes a quality product.

I still think Green and Gaya Nuño’s books are better overall volumes on Gris’s life and career, but Cubism in Color is a great addition to the literature on Gris’s art. I doubt any art lover would ever say, “I’m of fan of Gris, but I don’t like his still lifes.” Still lifes were so integral to his thought and vision as an artist. This book celebrates Gris’s innovative visual experimentation and sublime talent for composition. His still lifes deserve a great showcase in print, and that’s what they’re given here.

Flowers, 1914

The Violin, 1916

Still Life with a Bottle of Bordeaux, 1919

The Open Window, 1921

All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures by Roger Tory Peterson

A miscellany of magazine columns

Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996) is not only the biggest name in birding but also a notable figure in book history. Others had published bird guides before Peterson, but he more or less created the modern genre of the popular illustrated field guide as we know it today. His Peterson Field Guides have since expanded into a broad range of natural history beyond just birds, and countless other authors, artists, and publishers have built and expanded upon his original template. All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures was published in 2006. From the title, packaging, and table of contents, I had hoped I was getting a Peterson autobiography, or at least a birding memoir along the lines of Kenn Kaufman’s Kingbird Highway or Noah Strycker’s Birding Without Borders. That was not the case, however. “All Things Reconsidered” is the title of a column that Peterson wrote for Bird Watcher’s Digest magazine. This book is a collection of those articles. The 42 selections included here are arranged in chronological order by date of original publication, from 1984 to 1996.

While not an autobiography, most of the articles reproduced in this grab bag are to some extent autobiographical. The majority do in fact focus on birding adventures, with Peterson describing trips he took to find birds in various locations, from Connecticut to Botswana to Antarctica. These stories reach back as far as the 1920s. Peterson is famous as a painter of birds, but he was also a bird photographer, and many of these articles are as much about photography as about birding. There’s very little in here about art, except for a couple of good entries at the end of the book. In addition to bird finding and bird identification, these articles cover a number of other bird-related topics, including wildlife conservation, ecotourism, extinct species, and birding history. Peterson devotes a couple columns to the life of John James Audubon, and spends several entries eulogizing or paying tribute to his contemporary birding colleagues and friends.

One learns a bit about birds from this book but learns even more about birding tourism—sites to visit, how to get there, what species you’ll find, etc. Because Peterson is the rock star of birding, his ornithological outings are far from typical. Peterson was successful enough in his career to afford a globe-hopping lifestyle. He gets “backstage” access to wildlife refuges and national parks, with permission to venture into areas in which the general public is not allowed. Wherever he goes birding, he is guided by the manager or director of the refuge he’s visiting or the leading ornithologists in the area, who give him the inside tips on where to find the rare, endemic species. Peterson also gets ferried around to remote locations by a host of friends with yachts, planes, safari caravans, and research vessels. The average birder’s experience at these sites is unlikely to resemble Peterson’s, but it is entertaining to live vicariously through his experiences. I really admire that Peterson, having realized at a young age that he loved birds, decided to build a life around them, successfully forged a unique career path, and despite not really being an academic ornithologist, he nonetheless made a lasting impact on ornithology.

All Things Reconsidered is what it is: a collection of short, miscellaneous magazine articles, and that’s what it reads like. Peterson is a good writer who delivers clear prose and keeps things interesting. If you’re a birder, you certainly won’t be bored reading his bird-related memories. On the other hand, this book isn’t really about anything in particular, so you’re not going to learn a whole lot about anything in particular, including Peterson’s life and career. A book called Wild America (1955) would be Peterson’s equivalent to Kaufman’s Kingbird Highway, and I don’t believe he published an autobiography. He did leave us a lot of great books on birds, however, and for that we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

Lessons in Pictorial Composition by Louis Wolchonok

Forgotten gem of a how-to art book

If you habitually haunt used bookstores, then you are no doubt familiar with the publications of Dover Books. This is doubly true if you are to any degree an artist. Dover publishes cheap, no-frills reprints of a wide variety of old books, from the greatest classics in world literature to wordless books full of clip art. The Dover catalog includes many obscure and forgotten old books, one of which is Louis Wolchonok’s 1961 book Lessons in Pictorial Composition. As an art school graduate and occasional would-be artist, I find most how-to books on art to be pretty useless. Not so with this book from Wolchonok, however. Although it’s an odd duck in the genre, this book actually has some really useful content for painters and draughtsmen.

Wolchonok (1898–1973) was a professional artist in New York City and taught at City College of New York. There is hardly any information on him to be found online except auction records of his works. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. Both the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Art have works by Wolchonok in their collections. To my knowledge, he published three books on art, the others being Design for Artists and Craftsmen and The Art of Three Dimensional Design.

Over 700 sketches by Wolchonok illustrate his Lessons in Pictorial Composition. Almost all of these are entirely black and white, using only line-art hatching effects for shading. Only a few of the illustrations use halftone grays. Although Wolchonok does discuss color towards the end, the book contains no color illustrations. The 700 sketches in this book exhibit a wide variety of styles, from non-objective abstractions similar to something Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, or Werner Drewes might produce, to realistic landscapes and figures reminiscent of Ben Shahn, early Stuart Davis, or Reginald Marsh. Are they all beautiful? No, but they are all very well thought-out. Each one of these little drawings, most smaller than a credit card, could serve as the basis for a completed painting. I’ve seen some of Wolchonok’s paintings online, and I don’t like them much. These sketches, however, though dated to an earlier modernist period, are quite impressive. It would be difficult for any artist to fill a sketchbook with such a high quantity and wide variety of potentially productive thumbnails. Any artist who can learn from Wolchonok’s workmanlike example would no doubt experience a notable increase in inspiration and productivity.

When I went to art school decades ago, we were required to take many drawing and painting classes, of course. We were also required to take “design” classes, in which we worked through visual exercises to learn about concepts like line, shape, color, form, tension, balance, etc. Lessons in Pictorial Composition would be a fine textbook for such a course. Wolchonok’s Lessons only applies to good ol’ fashioned two-dimensional art—drawings, paintings, prints—not to today’s artworld landscape of found-object sculpture, conceptual art, and other high-falutin gallery fare. Theoretically, however, Wolchonok’s lessons could apply to digital art, which is also 2D.

A lot of how-to art books try to idiot-proof the creative process by telling you where to put your brush and what color to choose. The best books in the genre, and there are few, actually help you to think like an artist. Wolchonok’s writing in this book will not excite you, but he does competently get his points across. The images do most of the talking. Much like Edgar Payne’s Composition of Outdoor Painting, Lessons in Pictorial Composition largely succeeds as a visual reference of examples that artists can learn from, emulate, and build upon.

The Atlas of Atlases: Exploring the Most Important Atlases in History and the Cartographers Who Made Them by Philip Parker

Can’t decide if it’s a coffee-table book or a textbook

Ivy Press publishes a series of books on bibliographic history called Liber Historica, which as of now consists of seven volumes. I have previously read and reviewed two books from this series, Scientifica Historica and The Philosopher’s Library, about the history of science and philosophy books, respectively. Having an avid interest in book history, I liked this series enough to come back for more, and as a map enthusiast I was eager to lay my hands on The Atlas of Atlases, published in 2022. Although the title indicates that this book is about the history of atlases (because Atlas of Atlases sounds cool), the book actually covers the entire history of cartography, not just maps bound into book form. Book-length atlases didn’t really exist before the mid-16th century. This book, however, starts with the first topographical lines scratched into a prehistoric rock and ends with Google Maps and other online geographic information systems.

All of the books in the Liber Historica series are in a mini-coffee-table size (8" x 9.5") and loaded with scores of color illustrations. It’s not just a series of picture books, however. Each volume also contains a full-length scholarly monograph on its subject. In the case of The Atlas of Atlases, the text by Philip Parker is a long and difficult slog. While Parker certainly provides a sufficient history of maps an atlases, he tries too hard to sum up practically the entire history of the Western World in 270 pages. Each map presented gets a paragraph or two of description crammed with names and dates—not just who made the atlas but who financed it, to whom it was dedicated, who was king or pope at the time, and what wars were going on. There’s nothing wrong with what Parker has to say (unlike The Philosopher’s Library, where I thought there were plenty of problems with the text). The way he says it, however, often put me to sleep. This is a case where I definitely would have preferred less text and more images. A chronological list of important maps and atlases with some pertinent facts about each would have been enough for me, rather than this dense prose narrative in paragraph form. John Noble Wilford’s The Mapmakers is a better history of cartography—more comprehensive and more pleasant to read—but that book doesn’t have all of the beautiful color illustrations that adorn The Atlas of Atlases.

The 8" x 9.5" page size was fine for Liber Historica’s other books, but it doesn’t really do justice to many of these maps. Because there’s so much text, most of the illustrations aren’t even full page size. The reproduction quality is very good, but the images are just too small to make out much detail. The best use of this book is to bring your attention to landmark maps and atlases that you can then look up elsewhere. Everything prior to the 20th century is probably digitized online somewhere (Try the David Rumsey Map Collection).

From what I’ve seen so far of the Liber Historica series, the initial flagship volume, Scientifica Historica, is still the best book in the bunch. I do like the Atlas of Atlases, however, more than The Philosopher’s Library. In general, if you like books about books, these volumes will make nice additions to your shelves, and they are rather inexpensive for the production quality that you’re getting. Recent additions to the series include The Botanist’s Library, The Astronomer’s Library, and The Mathematician’s Library.

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson

The book about everything by the man who’s read everything

I had previously read Peter Watson’s book The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century and liked it very much. His follow-up to that book, Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud is a prequel in the same vein that covers everything before the 20th century. The Modern Mind opened with Sigmund Freud, and Ideas ends with him. In both cases, Watson deliveries sweeping world histories comprised not of wars, monarchs, and governments, but rather of important developments in the arts, sciences, and humanities. Both books are eminently fascinating and enlightening works, but Ideas is even more impressive and captivating than The Modern Mind.

According to Amazon, the print edition of this book is 850 pages. According to my ebook copy, however, it’s 1850 pages, which seems more accurate when one contemplates just how much content is crammed into this volume. Yet crammed it never feels. Watson has to be one of the all-time greatest summarizers in history. Our grandparents had Will Durant to provide them with an overview of the world’s knowledge. We’ve got Watson, and I think we win. When you look at the sources that Watson cites for this book, typically he’s not going back to the original texts written in ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, or 19th-century Germany. Rather, he is drawing on the most recent scholarship—histories, biographies, critical studies—that have been published by eminent scholars about the people, -isms, and -ologies that he’s discussing. He doesn’t limit himself to Western civilization either, but includes contributions from Islamic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American thought as well. Watson seems to have read everything, and he miraculously assimilates it all into a coherent whole. He demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge in a variety of fields: history, science, literature, art, music, sociology, psychology, archaeology, and more. The task of assembling such a synthesis must have been herculean, yet Watson glides seamlessly from one topic to the next, explaining complex concepts in clear and accessible prose. That’s not to say that the text is dumbed down for a popular audience. The intelligent reader walks away from this book having acquired a great deal of knowledge.

What surprised me most about this history of ideas is that, for the most part, it’s also a history of religion. Metaphysical and mythological conjectures on God and the universe are just as much ideas as any scientific theory, and religious thought has dominated mankind’s intellectual development for most of homo sapiens’ existence. (Look at the pre-Enlightenment selections in any art museum or library, for example.) The history of human knowledge, as Watson tells it, is a history of overcoming religious superstition. Watson is not an atheist with an axe to grind like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. He just tells it like it is with a very objective account of how religion has stifled intellectual progress since ancient times. It seems like every major discovery had to go through a centuries-long probationary period during which it was repudiated, prohibited, and persecuted by religious authorities—the punishments of Galileo, for example, or the arduous process of establishing (via fossils) that the real world is older than literal Biblical time. The Catholic popes are famous for this sort of anti-intellectualism, but Watson shows that all faiths to some degree have worked to hold back the progress of learning: ancient polytheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Protestants, and others are all guilty of this crime. Reading this book really makes you wonder what mankind could have accomplished by now if we hadn’t wasted so much time fighting over theology. Of course, as Watson shows, ideas don’t always mean good ideas: White supremacy, social Darwinism, and eugenics are just a few examples of very wrong ideas that have nonetheless proven too influential in human history, and Watson covers such fallacies as well.

Watson is so good at kindling your curiosity, one walks away from his books with an extensive list of topics and readings for further study. Watson himself has written more narrowly focused intellectual histories on The French Mind, The German Genius, and The Great Divide between the cultures of the Old World and the New. Regardless of where and when he might take you, with Watson as your guide you are bound to be fascinated, amazed, enlightened, and entertained.

Indians of the Northwest Coast by Philip Drucker

Commonalities and diversity among Native peoples of the region

In the early and mid-20th century, the American Museum of Natural History published a series of books called Anthropological Handbooks. I’ve never been able to find a complete list of the books in this series, but I have found a few volumes available for free download online. Indians of the Northwest Coast by Philip Drucker, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology, is number 10 in the Handbook series and was published in 1955. My interest in the Northwest Coast Indians began with a love for their beautiful art, and trips to Alaska and British Columbia in recent years have heightened my curiosity about their culture, beliefs, and lifestyle.

In books related to history, archaeology, or anthropology, when I see the word “Handbook” in the title, it leads me to expect an overview suitable for general readers. This book is indeed an overview, but it’s hard to say who the intended audience is. It definitely requires the reader to have some foreknowledge of anthropological concepts and subject matter. There is a discussion here about blanket weaving, for example, for which the reader is expected to be familiar with the techniques and technical terminology of Native American hand weaving. In general, the text of this book reads as if it were meant to provide a general overview of the Northwest Coast Indians to anthropologists who specialize in some other region or culture.

The information is organized into categorical chapters on material culture, economy, social structure, religious beliefs, rites and ceremonies, and art. Rather than emphasizing the characteristics and customs common to the various Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest—the Tlingit, Haida, Coast Tsimshian, Bella Coola, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Coast Salish, and more—Drucker spends more pages pointing out the differences between these groups and the many subdivisions thereof. After introducing a practice common to many Northwest Coast peoples, such as matrilineal social organization, dancing societies, or potlatches, Drucker is then obliged to elaborate with a list of all the exceptions to what he just said. The result is a survey in which it’s very hard to see the forest for the trees. I have no issue with the facts presented, only the way those facts are presented. This would be a good reference for seeking specific details, but overall it’s hard to form a vivid glimpse into what Native life was like on the Northwest Coast. Much of this discussion of tribal differences—the Tlingit did this; the Haida did that—could be better accomplished through charts and tables, but few are included. The book is amply illustrated, however, with black and white photographs.

If your primary interest in the Northwest Coast Indians is their art, this book provides a chapter on the subject, but there are better and more colorful books on that topic, such as Bill Holm’s Northwest Coast Indian Art. At the time Drucker wrote his book, there were few Native artists practicing in the Northwest. Since then, thankfully, a number of Native artists have revived the techniques of their forefathers and continue to create compelling art. From this book, I was hoping for more of an understanding of the philosophy behind that art. The popular conception of these Indians nowadays is that they are a peaceful, egalitarian people living in harmony with nature. Readers may be troubled by Drucker’s revelations of historical practices like slavery, cannibalism, and a rather petty obsession with materialism. Although Drucker clearly has great respect for the Indians of the Northwest Coast, this is an old-school anthropology book written by a white ethnographer without any perspective from the Natives themselves, which today would be frowned upon. There is a lot to learn from this book, but there have surely been more comprehensive and accessible surveys of the subject published since.

The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College by Eva Díaz

A very academic study of three Black Mountain faculty

Robert Rauschenberg is one of my favorite American artists, and I’ve done much reading on his life and artistic career. By association, I’ve also learned a fair amount about his colleagues John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Buckminster Fuller. At one point circa 1950, they all converged at a mysterious institution in North Carolina called Black Mountain College. Though a small school in an obscure location, Black Mountain had a profound influence on American art. What the Bauhaus was to modern European art, Black Mountain could be thought of as the equivalent force in late-twentieth-century American art. I have always been rather fascinated by this nexus of creativity, but accounts I’ve read of the school have been rather vague and sketchy. I was happy, therefore, to stumble upon Eva Díaz’s 2015 book The Experimenters, hoping it would shed some insightful light on the goings-on at Black Mountain.

The Experimenters is not a comprehensive history of Black Mountain College. From what I gather from this book’s notes, that story may have already been written and published. This, rather, is a narrower monograph focusing on the ideas and careers of three members of Black Mountain’s faculty: Joseph Albers, John Cage, and Buckminster Fuller. While their time at Black Mountain is emphasized, this study looks at their entire careers, including the time before and after their semesters at the North Carolina college. In this book, one doesn’t learn much about the students who studied under these teachers. Black Mountain alumni like Rauschenberg, Willem de Kooning, and Cy Twombly are mentioned briefly but not much delved into, save for a few quotes about their time at the school. One learns more about the influences of the three central figures of the book—Erik Satie as a precursor of Cage, for example, or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy as a colleague of Albers’s at the Bauhaus. Only on rare occasions does the reader really get an idea of what it would have been like to be a student at Black Mountain, attending one of Cage’s theatre productions, for instance, or assisting Fuller with the erection of one of his geodesic domes. Instead, the text focuses more on the intellectual development, artistic philosophies, and pedagogical techniques of the three protagonists, drawn largely from their own published writings and statements from prior interviews.

The writing of this book is very academic. That doesn’t mean you need a PhD to understand it, but you may need a PhD to enjoy it. It is written as if the intended audience were a dissertation committee or a tenure board, not a general reading audience. Díaz’s introduction is very jargon-heavy, to the point where you may find yourself wondering if you really want to go through with the rest of the book. She spends much time contemplating the meaning of the word “experiment.” The average art lover, however, probably couldn’t care less and just wants to know what went on at Black Mountain. Thankfully, the chapters that follow are less esoteric and more engaging as one learns about the work of these three featured artists. Still, the thesis is reiterated constantly throughout the book, and the same points are repeated again and again to support that thesis. One wonders how much more information could have been delivered without so much tedious repetition of the same conclusions.

An art historian might very well find this to be a five-star read. I certainly have no problems with Díaz’s scholarship, and I am not qualified to argue with her if I did. I merely offer the perspective of the general reader who’s interested in the history of American art, as I’m sure many of the people who read this review may, like myself, fall into that category.
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Juan Gris by Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño

A lovely showcase of the cubist master’s work

The Spanish painter Juan Gris did not invent the pictorial style of cubism, but he perfected it to its zenith. While Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque moved on to other modes of expression, Gris devoted his whole career to the visual language of cubism, creating some of the most ingenious, intricate, and aesthetically stimulating works in the cubist idiom.

The book simply entitled Juan Gris by Spanish art historian Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño was published in 1986 by a Spanish publisher, Ediciones Polígrafa, but they also published an English-language edition. The book opens with 25 pages of nothing but text, set so densely that it is painful to the eyes. Beyond that, however, the remaining hundred pages are filled with reproductions of Gris’s work. The text by Gaya Nuño presents an informative biography of the artist. It is unlikely that Gaya Nuño ever met Gris, who died young, but the historian did interview some of the artist’s contemporaries and friends in his research for this essay. Written from a Spanish perspective, the text contemplates and emphasizes Gris’s Spanishness and to what extent he expressed the national spirit of his homeland in his works. Gaya Nuño’s assessment of Gris’s relationship to Picasso is somewhat surprising. According to this account, Gris looked up to Picasso as a mentor and idol, but Picasso looked down on Gris and resented any critical acclaim the younger artist received.

While the text is educational, the main attraction here is the images. The book reproduces 166 of Gris’s artworks. About three-quarters of them are printed in color, and many occupy a full page. The photographs of the artworks would have been supplied by the individual museums that held them, so the quality of the photographs varies in terms of lighting and clarity of focus, but on the whole the images are reproduced beautifully. They are presented in chronological order, even starting with several examples of Gris’s day-job work as a graphic artist and illustrator. Some of his theatrical designs for stage sets and costumes appear towards the end of the book. Over the course of this retrospective, one can see Gris’s style develop from an analytical cubism based on the ideas of Picasso and Braque to a more idiosyncratic synthetic cubism later in his career. From the very beginning, however, Gris’s work exhibits a lyricism, experimentation, and playfulness that distinguishes him from his cubist contemporaries.

I know of two other fine illustrated books that have been published on Gris. Christopher Green’s book entitled Juan Gris was published in 1992 by Yale University Press. James Thrall Soby’s 1958 book, also entitled Juan Gris, was published by the Museum of Modern Art. You can find a digitized version of the latter book on the MOMA website. The Green book is much stronger on text, with lots of biographical content and analysis and criticism of Gris’s work. If you want a thorough scholarly overview of Gris’s career, Green’s is probably your book. Soby’s book is similar in size and number of photographs to Gaya Nuño’s, but, being printed in 1958, more of the pictures are in black and white. If you’re a fan of Gris’s work, you really can’t go wrong with any one of these three. Gaya Nuño’s book, however, may be the best illustrated of the three.

Violin and Guitar, 1913, oil on canvas, 100 x 65.5 cm

The Checkerboard, 1915, oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm

The Violin, 1916, oil on wood, 116.5 x 73 cm

Guitar, Bottle, and Glass, 1917, oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm

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The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century by Peter Watson

An invigorating whirlwind tour through the arts, science, and humanities

Peter Watson’s 2000 book The Modern Mind is essentially a history textbook, but instead of focusing on political events, wars, or world leaders, Watson concentrates instead on developments in the arts, sciences, and humanities. The result is a very ambitious, panoramically erudite, and thoroughly engaging intellectual history of the twentieth century. Watson is a Brit, as evident from some of his spellings and turns of phrase. This is not merely a history of English-language culture, however. Watson has written a true world history, although by his own admission much of that history takes place in Europe and America. Watson follows the epicenter of ideas as it changes throughout the century, from Vienna to Berlin, Paris to London, then on to New York and the universities of the United States.

Not all of the intellectual movements Watson discusses are positive, progressive, or even morally acceptable. Social Darwinism, racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism, fascism, and Stalinism are discussed, not because they were good or intelligent, but because they happened, and they affected human lives. Over the course of the hundred years covered here, the modern mind was often mistaken, sometimes horribly so. Watson’s flowing narrative shows how ideas sprout from, counteract, and refute previous ideas as ideological movements come and go. For example, Watson acknowledges Sigmund Freud as one of the most influential minds of the twentieth century—an inspiration to many artistic movements, scientific theories, and the entire field of psychology—but he also points out that by the end of that century most of what Freud had to say was generally considered wrong.

Watson does a superb job of explaining some of the most complicated scientific and philosophical concepts in a manner accessible to any reasonably educated reader, without dumbing down the content. He summarizes countless published books by the greatest thinkers of the century and compares and contrasts them articulately. In terms of disciplines, Watson leaves no stone unturned. No matter how well-read you think you are, Watson covers a diverse enough array of fields of knowledge that you’re bound to learn something outside your comfort zone, and his writing is interesting enough to make you care about topics that didn’t interest you before. You never know where his encyclopedic mind will lead you next, and it is a pleasure to follow his lead through philosophy, physics, mathematics, psychology, economics, archaeology, art, music, literature, and many more areas of interest. I’m sure some could quibble about what’s included or what’s left out, or Watson’s particular take on some thinkers, but overall this is really an impressive work of staggering scope. If nothing else, I came away from The Modern Mind with a reading list of at least a hundred books for further consideration, in all fields of study.

While Watson’s text deserves praise, the publishers of this book (the Kindle edition, to be specific) should be ashamed of themselves. In 15 years of reading ebooks, I’ve never seen a worse collection of typographical errors. There are multiple problems with letter substitutions. In particular, double l’s came out as d’s and vice versa, so objects “cast a shallow,” “all” becomes “ad,” scientists don’t work at “Bell Labs” but at “Bed Labs,” not just in one instance but constantly throughout the text. The word “titles” always shows up as “tides.” Prehistoric man used “dint tools “ instead of flint. I work in book publishing, and I don’t even understand how such a screw-up is technologically possible. The bigger question is, how did HarperCollins release this ebook to the public without even noticing this pervasive problem? Maybe by the time you read this review they will have corrected the errors and uploaded a new file.
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Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form by Bill Holm

An informative style guide to a sophisticated Indigenous art form

The Native Americans (or First Nations, as Canadians would say) of the Northwest Pacific Coast of North America developed a beautiful artistic style that is still actively practiced by artists of the region, as evidenced in everything from totem poles to jewelry to modern lithographic prints. What makes this art so attractive and intriguing is the unique formal language of sinuous, undulating lines, and the composite, interconnected imagery of animal and human forms that’s instantly recognizable as common to this particular region. University of Washington art historian Bill Holm set out to establish a code of formal guidelines endemic to the Indigenous art of the Northwest Coast. He accomplished this by analyzing roughly 400 works in different media and quantitatively calculating statistics of form, color, and design to draw conclusions about the universal characteristics of this aesthetic language. Holm clarifies that he is specifically examining the art of five nations that he considers produce the purest examples of this art form: the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Bella Bella, and Bella Coola peoples. Holm’s book Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form was first published in 1965 by the University of Washington Press.

I read their 50th Anniversary Edition, published in 2015. This is really a beautiful book. Even though it’s just a slim paperback, it has the luscious quality of a coffee-table art tome. Graphic designer Thomas Eykemans deserves commendation for his composition and layout of this book. (I also design books for a university press, and this book makes me envious.) The photographs are all high quality, the illustrations are very well executed, and the book is beautifully printed.

The text by Holm, on the other hand, isn’t quite as pleasurable. His writing often reads with the dryness and abstrusity of a geometry textbook but without the mathematical precision. Holm may have been the first to write down the aesthetic rules for this art form, but I’m not sure how useful the guidelines he’s established will really be for artists attempting to learn this visual language. A lot of Holm’s statements are just obvious generalities that anyone could make by observing several pieces of Northwest Coast Indian art—the curvilinear forms and the use of ovoids, for example. Holm also phrases a lot of his aesthetic assessments in the form of “Some artists do this; some artists do that,” which doesn’t really provide any useful definitiveness either. Holm’s greatest contribution is his revelation that two-dimensional Northwest Coast art is made up of a primary formline, secondary forms, and tertiary forms, all of which must be balanced in their own right before working together as a cohesive whole. These levels of form also correspond to the three main colors employed: black, red, and blue-green. The book includes some very good diagrams that illustrate this concept well. Holm never discusses the meaning of the imagery in these artworks, such as the animal or human forms depicted. For artists looking to practice or learn from this art form, I think a better instructional manual would be Hilary Stewart’s Looking at Northwest Coast Indian Art.

The strength of Holm’s book is its instructive illustrations and diagrams. The design and full-color printing also make it a more visually attractive volume than Stewart’s book. Though I’ve expressed reservations about Holm’s writing, if you’re really interested in Northwest Coast Indian art, this is a book you should own. It’s not a huge coffee table book, so it’s not going to set you back a lot of money, and with the paperback price you’re certainly getting your money’s worth.  

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Werner Drewes: Sixty-Five Years of Printmaking by Martina Roudabush Norelli

Biographical interview with a pioneering abstractionist

I dabble a bit in printmaking—linocuts and woodcuts—so I always keep an eye open for good books on the subject, and “new” (to me) artists to discover. I recently became aware of Werner Drewes (1899-1985), a prolific German-American artist who produced several hundred prints, most of them etchings and woodcuts (as well as over a thousand paintings). After stumbling upon a collection of Drewes’s work online, I was really blown away by his range of styles and subject matter, his skillfully aggressive style of carving, and his bold yet sensitive taste in color and design. Drewes studied at the Bauhaus in Germany before emigrating to America in 1930. His work ranges in style from German expressionism to abstract expressionism, with occasional touches of cubism and surrealism.

As far as I know, only a few books have ever been published about Drewes, and all of them are out of print. The best of these books is the massive tome Werner Drewes: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Prints, compiled by Ingrid Rose. Like most catalogue raisonnés, however, a used copy will set you back at least 80 bucks. The runner-up, and a distant second in terms of size and coverage (only 56 pages), is Werner Drewes: Sixty-Five Years of Printmaking, an exhibition catalog published by the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in 1984.

If you are looking for a beautiful portfolio of Drewes’s art, this book isn’t it. Sixty-Five Years of Printmaking contains only three color plates, 26 black and white images of Drewes’s prints, and a few photos of the artist at different stages in his life. The exhibition for which this catalog was published was about evenly split between etchings and woodcuts, so the illustrations in the book are about evenly split as well. Fortunately, if you want to look at Drewes’s art, you can view hundreds of his works in full color online, either at drewesfineart.com or at the website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM).

The main attraction of this book is the text. Drewes was still alive when this exhibition was held, and the bulk of the catalog is devoted to an interview with the artist. In this interview, Drewes discusses his childhood, his artistic education, his world travels, and his career as an artist and teacher. This first-hand account by Drewes is likely the most authoritative source on his life and the influences behind his art. In the Bauhaus, Drewes studied with Johannes Itten, Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and László Moholy-Nagy. Decades before abstract expressionism became big, Drewes was part of a small group of American artists who pioneered purely abstract art. Though he never became a household name like some of his Bauhaus contemporaries, Drewes nevertheless built a solid career as an artist and educator. He led a very adventurous and inspiring life.

Interviewer Martina Roudabush Norelli doesn’t ask all of the questions I would have asked. Sometimes the interview reads more like a curriculum vitae than a discussion of an artist’s methods and philosophy. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interesting content to this conversation that makes this a worthwhile read for any fan of Drewes’s prints. This may not be the visual feast that this talented and innovative artist deserves, but considering the scarcity of information on Drewes, this book at least serves up a satisfying snack.
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Visit the website drewesfineart.com to see several hundred images of Werner Drewes’s prints:

Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky

Embracing the psychological effects of color and form

The Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky emigrated to Munich, where he became a leader in the movement of German Expressionism. He was a member of the group of Munich artists known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), named after his painting of that title from 1903. Kandinsky’s art was more abstract than his Expressionist contemporaries, and he is now regarded as a pioneer in abstract painting. Kandinsky was also a teacher of art, and he published a few books during his lifetime, including the book or woodcuts entitled Klänge (Sounds) and educational texts like Point and Line to Plane and Concerning the Spiritual in Art, the latter published in 1910.

Don’t let the word “Spiritual” scare you away. Kandinsky was a follower of Theosophy, a religion established by Russian mystic Madame Helena Blavatsky in the late 19th century that placed a heavy emphasis on colors and geometric forms as symbols of spiritual qualities. One need not subscribe to any such color cult, however, in order to appreciate what Kandinsky is saying here. Even atheists and materialists can understand and accept Kandinsky’s theories of “spiritual” art by simply substituting the word “emotional.” Essentially what Kandinsky is saying is that certain colors and shapes carry specific psychological and symbolic baggage with them that inspires particular emotional effects in the viewer of a work of art. An artist should embrace and utilize these emotional effects to create art that engenders a deeper psychological experience in the viewer than that attained through mere camera-image representation.

One aspect I don’t like about Concerning the Spiritual in Art is Kandinsky’s constant denigration of representational art. One must remember that, at the time, the academic art establishment and modern artists were basically at intellectual war with one another, the latter often being disparaged as “degenerate,” “naive,” or just plain terrible artists. The more abstract the art, the more the artist in question was a target for such invective. These days, however, I think we can recognize that there is a place in our lives for both representational and abstract art, just as there is a place in our lives for classical, jazz, and pop music. Each genre has its share of good and bad artists. There’s no reason why a realist painter couldn’t employ the ideas that Kandinsky imparts in this book, and doing so would probably result in a more effective and powerful end result.

As far as these artist manifestos go, I tend to judge them on three criteria: 1) Is the writing articulate? 2) Is the author saying something that’s actually useful to artists? and 3) Is it inspiring? Does reading this book make you want to paint? Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art is pretty successful on all three counts. Despite the rather abstract subject matter, Kandinsky’s writing is clear and accessible. Readers who know nothing about modern art will come away from this book with a better understanding of the theory behind abstract paintings and how to appreciate them. Kandinsky’s teachings are practical and applicable to artists working today, even those who are in no way spiritually inclined. Much of the most useful information is contained in Chapter 6, The Language of Form and Color, which should be assigned reading for undergraduate art students. Lastly, reading this book really does make you want to pick up a brush and go to work. Kandinsky’s advocation of freedom from pictorial conventions is liberating, and he reminds the artist that art is an ongoing experiment in which there are still discoveries to be made.
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On These Walls: Inscriptions and Quotations in the Buildings of the Library of Congress by John Y. Cole. Photographs by Carol M. Highsmith

The public art of America’s secular cathedral

On These Walls, published in 2008, is a photography book showcasing the art and architecture of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The subtitle, “Inscriptions & Quotations,” makes the book sound less exciting than it is. It’s not really so much about the quotes and text that adorn the LOC’s walls but more about the visuals that accompany them. This book is chock full of beautiful photographs of the murals, mosaics, sculptures, stained glass windows, and architectural details of the world’s largest library. The images include artworks found in the Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams buildings. The Jefferson building, however, being the Library’s flagship edifice that was lavishly decorated in the late 19th century, is the main attraction and gets the lion’s share of coverage.

At 9 x 10 inches and a half an inch thick, this isn’t quite a coffee table book, but it certainly isn’t a pocket guidebook either. The paper is of high quality, and the printing is impeccable. The photography is by Carol Highsmith, one of America’s greatest documentary photographers of the 20th century. After taking hundreds of thousands of photos all over America, she donated her entire body of work to the Library of Congress and graciously entered all her images into the public domain. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting photographer for this subject.

The photographs here include very few room-sized interior shots. Almost all the pictures focus on a particular work of art. This is not a comprehensive guide that attempts to document every artwork in these buildings. Instead, it gives the reader a general idea of the decorative theme or scheme in each room or hallway, and then shows a couple examples from each room. The captions provide information on the artists who created the artworks and also describes paintings and sculptures that are not pictured. For example, the text tells you that the Northwest Corridor of the Jefferson Building has nine lunettes (semicircular murals) painted by Edward Simmons depicting the nine Muses of Greek Mythology. It shows you photographs of two of these Muses, then lists the rest, also pointing out that under each Muse is a quotation by Alexander Pope. The photos are so beautiful they leave the reader wishing for more. Perhaps there is a book out there that documents every single artwork in the LOC, but if so it would be a huge and expensive book.

I have an art degree, but I only recognized the name of one artist discussed in this book: Elihu Vedder. Unfortunately, this romantic style of allegorical figurative art from the Gilded Age has since fallen out of favor among art scholars and critics, but On These Walls celebrates these great artists as they deserve. Not only is the art beautiful, but the symbolism is interesting and the subject matter inspiring. The Library of Congress is the ultimate monument to America’s intellectual heritage, similar to the Panthéon in Paris, but minus the tombs. (The art and inscriptions in the LOC actually celebrate achievements of all nations, but with a clear emphasis on European heritage and a predominance of American names.) Each room celebrates great achievements in literature, the arts, sciences, humanities, and industry. Like the cathedrals of Renaissance Europe, the decorative art delivers both an education and a sermon, but in this case it’s a secular sermon, one that champions human intellect and creative intrepidity. That’s a fitting message for an American library, and this is one library, and one book, that will make you proud to be an American.  

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Making Woodblock Prints by Merlyn Chesterman and Rod Nelson

A very good concise overview of techniques and materials

I’ve been doing linoleum block prints for years, and I recently decided to give wood a try. I haven't done an actual woodcut since college, so I was looking for a refresher course. As an amateur printmaker, I tend to collect books on the subject, and I have quite a number of how-to manuals. Making Woodblock Prints, published in 2015, is one of the better ones I’ve seen in recent years. It was written by two printmakers from the UK, Merlyn Chesterman and Rod Nelson.

This paperback book is only 112 pages long, but within that length it provides a very good brief overview of the necessary techniques of block printing. The writing is clear and accessible but not too elementary. Beginners will find the education they seek, and more experienced printmakers will also find some useful tips and techniques. The book is heavily illustrated with photographs showing materials and processes, as well as a few useful diagrams. Overall, the presentation is well thought-out and well executed.

Chesterman and Nelson’s teachings on woodblock printing offer a happy medium between classic traditions and modern convenience. They emphasize the need for planning and persistence in producing a print, but they also encourage the reader to experiment and explore the happy accidents of the medium. Older textbooks on this subject often expect the artist to go cut down trees and plane your own wood blocks. Chesterman and Nelson are aware that most 21st century artists are going to purchase their materials from a printmaking supply store, and they offer intelligent advice on quality tools and materials and how to take care of them.

Unlike many recent publications on this subject, Making Woodblock Prints is not a book of projects—how to make a greeting card, how to make wrapping paper, etc. Chesterman and Nelson want to guide the reader in making his or her own art. In addition to the how-to component, books on printmaking often also present a gallery of images showing the possibility of the medium. Usually that involves showing a variety of styles: for example, Albrecht Durer, German Expressionism, Japanese landscapes. In this book, Chesterman and Nelson mostly show their own work as well as the work of some of their like-minded friends. Some of their fellow artists are Chinese and Japanese, but all the works illustrated in the book display a similar style, an abstraction of natural forms that emphasizes textures like tree bark, flowing water, and craggy stone. So on the one hand, the authors want to teach the artist enough to have the freedom to follow their own path with the medium; on the other hand, it seems like they kind of want you to make art that looks something like theirs. 

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