BOOKS
587
One approaches a volume like this with a mixture of cynicism and
expectation. The past few years have witnessed an enormous production
of
art
books, but they have been almost wholly devoid of critical texts.
(The Meyer Schapiro volumes on Van Gogh and Cezanne are notable
exceptions.) It seems like such a small thing, ·once a publisher is pre–
pared to undertake the expense of these books, to engage a writer to
furnish some critical illumination into the subject; but it is almost never
done. Instead, we are treated to the unending barrage of banalities of
which art commentators seem to have an even greater supply than their
colleagues in the political press.
Still, one does expect something from a volume like Mr. Ritchie's.
It seems to recognize the proliferation of sculptural talent in our time,
and to attempt an account of its meaning. It even gives the impression
of having a critical thesis, for it is Mr. Ritchie's essay which provides
the frame for this volume ; the photographs are arranged as illustrations
of it, and so, to some extent, are the selections in "Sculptors on Sculp–
ture." But once again the expectation is disappointed. Because there is
no real focus on the subject, no effort of the imagination to grasp the
significance of an art which has suddenly awakened after two centuries
of sleep, the subject is left in complete disorder. We are given neither
a general account of the epoch, nor a particular account of the figures
who embody the epoch. All we are given is a commentary in which ar–
tists are inevitably played off against each other because of a principle
of organization which not only offers a minimum of illumination but
actually paralyzes any discussion of the subject.
This organization consists of the "various ways of treating the ob–
ject" in modem sculpture; and the fact that many of the best sculptors
treat "the object" (or are indifferent to it) in a variety of ways-and
that this in itself might be a hint of something-does not dismay Mr.
Ritchie for a moment. Thus, Rodin is discussed under "The Object
in
Relation to Light," Maillol under "The Object Idealized," Brancusi
under "The Object Purified," and Picasso under almost everything. The
only sculptors who actually lend themselves to this classification are
minor figures whose sensibilities have the same limited range as Mr.
Ritchie's. It is a method which makes mincemeat out of a figure like
Picasso or Lipchitz; and it delivers a formidable talent like Brancusi or
Giacometti to a niche from which he is never rescued.
Moreover, the discussion is conducted in that depressing amalgam
of pseudo-formalism and intellectual gossip which is readily recognizable
as the language of a museum monograph. It is a language which gives
the appearance of formal analysis, but which explores none of the
subtle meanings of form; a language which rides along by tickling the
