Julian Schnabel, Paintings 1975-1986. London, WhitechapelAuthor(s): Peter FullerSource: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 1004 (Nov., 1986), pp. 839-841Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/882724 .

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EXHIBITION REVIEWS EXHIBITION REVIEWS

London, Whitechapel Julian Schnabel, Paintings 1975-1986

Julian Schnabel, born in New York in 1951, had established a greater reputation as a waiter than as a painter, until his first exhibition of'plate' pictures at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York, in 1979. The works in that show were made out of broken crockery imbedded in masonite, over which an image was loosely and inelegantly painted. As a result of this exhibition Schnabel achieved considerable notoriety; his reputation was bolstered by media and commercial interests. He was featured prominently in A Wew Spirit in Painting, an influential exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1981, which heralded the arrival of neo-expressionism. A large num- ber of his works was acquired by Doris and Charles Saatchi; and, in 1982, these were hung in a controversial exhibition at the Tate Gallery. The catalogue proclaimed Schnabel as 'one of the most celebrated young artists working anywhere in the world today'.

But informed critical and popular opinion in Britain were both markedly more re- served. In his 'Foreword' to the catalogue of the recent exhibition (closed 26th Oc- tober), Nicholas Serota, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, implied that this re- luctance of a wider public, in this country, to affirm Schnabel's achievement was re- lated to the media's obsession with his personality. Serota referred to 'a surprising lack of familiarity' with the work itself. This exhibition was intended to rectify the situation by offering a representative selection of Schnabel's paintings, dating back to 1975.

What then was to be seen? On entering the gallery, the viewer was immediately confronted with The trial (Fig.65), a work painted last year in oil and modelling paste on a piece of tarpaulin which had been previously 'aged' by leaving it outside to weather for a year. Schnabel's contribution to the finished image appears to consist largely in crude caricatures of human and animal faces, disposed like graffiti across the vast surface. As with many of the works in this exhibition, the most notable quality of The trial was its size, 279 by 538 centi- metres- although it was by no means the largest of the thirty-five pictures on view.

EthnictypesAo.15andAo.72 (Fig.66) hung on a nearby wall; a sense of inflated desul- toriness was here confirmed, for although at 274 by 305 centimetres, this is a notably smaller work, its dimensions cannot be said to be modest; nor does this picture exhibit any more manifest coherence in either iconography or technique. The imagery includes two crudely painted human heads, perhaps copied from a child's introduction to anthropology; these are disposed on a

London, Whitechapel Julian Schnabel, Paintings 1975-1986

Julian Schnabel, born in New York in 1951, had established a greater reputation as a waiter than as a painter, until his first exhibition of'plate' pictures at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York, in 1979. The works in that show were made out of broken crockery imbedded in masonite, over which an image was loosely and inelegantly painted. As a result of this exhibition Schnabel achieved considerable notoriety; his reputation was bolstered by media and commercial interests. He was featured prominently in A Wew Spirit in Painting, an influential exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1981, which heralded the arrival of neo-expressionism. A large num- ber of his works was acquired by Doris and Charles Saatchi; and, in 1982, these were hung in a controversial exhibition at the Tate Gallery. The catalogue proclaimed Schnabel as 'one of the most celebrated young artists working anywhere in the world today'.

But informed critical and popular opinion in Britain were both markedly more re- served. In his 'Foreword' to the catalogue of the recent exhibition (closed 26th Oc- tober), Nicholas Serota, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, implied that this re- luctance of a wider public, in this country, to affirm Schnabel's achievement was re- lated to the media's obsession with his personality. Serota referred to 'a surprising lack of familiarity' with the work itself. This exhibition was intended to rectify the situation by offering a representative selection of Schnabel's paintings, dating back to 1975.

What then was to be seen? On entering the gallery, the viewer was immediately confronted with The trial (Fig.65), a work painted last year in oil and modelling paste on a piece of tarpaulin which had been previously 'aged' by leaving it outside to weather for a year. Schnabel's contribution to the finished image appears to consist largely in crude caricatures of human and animal faces, disposed like graffiti across the vast surface. As with many of the works in this exhibition, the most notable quality of The trial was its size, 279 by 538 centi- metres- although it was by no means the largest of the thirty-five pictures on view.

EthnictypesAo.15andAo.72 (Fig.66) hung on a nearby wall; a sense of inflated desul- toriness was here confirmed, for although at 274 by 305 centimetres, this is a notably smaller work, its dimensions cannot be said to be modest; nor does this picture exhibit any more manifest coherence in either iconography or technique. The imagery includes two crudely painted human heads, perhaps copied from a child's introduction to anthropology; these are disposed on a surface of black velvet, upon which various emblems have been painted with kinder- garten subtlety, and to which fragments of real, brown-and-white animal hide have been attached. But Ethnic types is by no means the least prepossessing of Schnabel's recent works. The exhibition affiorded another opportunity to view Prison: waiting for an ultraviolet ray, a triptych of character-

surface of black velvet, upon which various emblems have been painted with kinder- garten subtlety, and to which fragments of real, brown-and-white animal hide have been attached. But Ethnic types is by no means the least prepossessing of Schnabel's recent works. The exhibition affiorded another opportunity to view Prison: waiting for an ultraviolet ray, a triptych of character-

64. The white cow, byJan van de Velde. Etching and engraving. 17.1 by 22.6 cm. (British Museum; exh. National Gallery).

64. The white cow, byJan van de Velde. Etching and engraving. 17.1 by 22.6 cm. (British Museum; exh. National Gallery).

One fundamental question, pursued in the first essay in the catalogue and tackled from various angles in the subsequent con- tributions, remains constant - why did all these things happen in Holland, and why in this particular period? The catalogue goes a little deeper than Haverkamp- Begemann, who in his Haarlem: the seventee77th century (Exh. Cat. Rutgers NJ., 1983, p.3), suggested that 'the setting of the city, the fresh air praised by contemporary ob- servers, the light; all contributed to making Haarlem the center of landscape art, and stimulated artists who worked there'. The contributors to the London catalogue acknowledge the pioneering work on a social-history explanation initiated by Ake Bengtsson. It is suggested that the rise of protestantism, the accidents of cross-in- fluence from non-art images (commercial prints), the newly urban culture's fasci- nation with the countryside, patriotism, and a creative mis-reading of the traditional academic insistence on studying nature (or, indeed, a happy ignorance of anything better), not to forget the mainstream of influence from Rome and the methods of marine painters: all these combined with a new kind of market in paintings to make the particularly Dutch developments possible.

The assumption which lies behind the whole exhibition is that the history of Dutch landscape painting is the story of, or an episode in, the rise of naturalism - that naturalism is the definitive characteristic of Dutch painting, indeed its style. It is fair to point out that contemporaries did not get excited about such things - when Hoog- straten discussed the paintings of Van Goyen he wrote about the illusionism of his works and about their handling- hand- ling which had a particular appeal to the connoisseur. In his accounts of landscape painting, as in all other accounts of land-

One fundamental question, pursued in the first essay in the catalogue and tackled from various angles in the subsequent con- tributions, remains constant - why did all these things happen in Holland, and why in this particular period? The catalogue goes a little deeper than Haverkamp- Begemann, who in his Haarlem: the seventee77th century (Exh. Cat. Rutgers NJ., 1983, p.3), suggested that 'the setting of the city, the fresh air praised by contemporary ob- servers, the light; all contributed to making Haarlem the center of landscape art, and stimulated artists who worked there'. The contributors to the London catalogue acknowledge the pioneering work on a social-history explanation initiated by Ake Bengtsson. It is suggested that the rise of protestantism, the accidents of cross-in- fluence from non-art images (commercial prints), the newly urban culture's fasci- nation with the countryside, patriotism, and a creative mis-reading of the traditional academic insistence on studying nature (or, indeed, a happy ignorance of anything better), not to forget the mainstream of influence from Rome and the methods of marine painters: all these combined with a new kind of market in paintings to make the particularly Dutch developments possible.

The assumption which lies behind the whole exhibition is that the history of Dutch landscape painting is the story of, or an episode in, the rise of naturalism - that naturalism is the definitive characteristic of Dutch painting, indeed its style. It is fair to point out that contemporaries did not get excited about such things - when Hoog- straten discussed the paintings of Van Goyen he wrote about the illusionism of his works and about their handling- hand- ling which had a particular appeal to the connoisseur. In his accounts of landscape painting, as in all other accounts of land-

scape painting of the age, nowhere is it observed that such-and-such a generation turned to depicting Dutch irnagery within these-or-those compositional formulae - style is discussed rather as the manner of making than as the final appearance. Cer- tain cities, such as Haarlemr might be noted for their pre-eminence in landscape art, but this pre-eminence was traced so far back (to the early sixteenth century) as to be irrelevant for our purposes.

From the generations of Michelangelo to Reynolds, Netherlandish painting was criticised for its 'realismn, though in a suc- cession of diffierent ways. The nineteenth century's renewed interest in Dutch seven- teenth-century painting resulted in the inversion of the scorrect' valuation of the eighteenth century; the nineteenth-century critic admired the 'modernity' of the Dutch preoccupation with depicting the 'real world') instead of condemning its banality. As a recent article in The Burlington Magazine put it, 'the representation of the past is inevitably a presentation of the present'. Our fascination with these pictures is not lessened by the suspicion of seeing our own faces and opinions reflected in them.

CHARLES FORD

*Dutch Landscape: the earlyyears. Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650. Ed. Christopher Brown, (the contents in- clude an Introduction by the editor, supplemented with translations from Van Mander, Ampzing and Huyghens; 'Techniques of the Early Dutch Landscape Painters', by David Bomford; 'Hendrick Goltzius and his Conception of Landscape', by E.KJ. Reznicek; 'Seascape into Landscape' by Margarita Russell; 'Nature and Landscape in Dutch Literature of the Golden Age' by M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen; 'The Dutch Rural Economy and the Landscape', by Jan de Vries; the Catalogue and a Bibliography). 240 pp. + col. & b. & w. ills., (National Gallery Publications, 1986), ?9.95) ISBN 0 947645 05 5.

scape painting of the age, nowhere is it observed that such-and-such a generation turned to depicting Dutch irnagery within these-or-those compositional formulae - style is discussed rather as the manner of making than as the final appearance. Cer- tain cities, such as Haarlemr might be noted for their pre-eminence in landscape art, but this pre-eminence was traced so far back (to the early sixteenth century) as to be irrelevant for our purposes.

From the generations of Michelangelo to Reynolds, Netherlandish painting was criticised for its 'realismn, though in a suc- cession of diffierent ways. The nineteenth century's renewed interest in Dutch seven- teenth-century painting resulted in the inversion of the scorrect' valuation of the eighteenth century; the nineteenth-century critic admired the 'modernity' of the Dutch preoccupation with depicting the 'real world') instead of condemning its banality. As a recent article in The Burlington Magazine put it, 'the representation of the past is inevitably a presentation of the present'. Our fascination with these pictures is not lessened by the suspicion of seeing our own faces and opinions reflected in them.

CHARLES FORD

*Dutch Landscape: the earlyyears. Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650. Ed. Christopher Brown, (the contents in- clude an Introduction by the editor, supplemented with translations from Van Mander, Ampzing and Huyghens; 'Techniques of the Early Dutch Landscape Painters', by David Bomford; 'Hendrick Goltzius and his Conception of Landscape', by E.KJ. Reznicek; 'Seascape into Landscape' by Margarita Russell; 'Nature and Landscape in Dutch Literature of the Golden Age' by M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen; 'The Dutch Rural Economy and the Landscape', by Jan de Vries; the Catalogue and a Bibliography). 240 pp. + col. & b. & w. ills., (National Gallery Publications, 1986), ?9.95) ISBN 0 947645 05 5.

839 839

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EXHIBITION REVIEWS

and modelling )n;

65. Detail from The trial, byJulian Schnabel. 1985. Oil J

paste on tarpaulin. 279 by 538 cm. (Private collectio exh. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London).

66. Ethnic types no. 15 and no. 72., byJulian Schnabel. 1984. Oil, animal hide and modelling paste on velvet. 22.9 by 25.4 cm. (Exh. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London) .

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it :E 67. Rebirth III,

byJulian Schnabel. Oil and tempera on muslin. 376 by 340 cm. (Exh. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London).

and other debris mounted into a bed of oil and wax on masonite. The excremental imagery persisted in fAe mud in Mudanza, 1982, another 'plate' painting, vaguely suggestive of the bed of a river, drained of everything except detritus and sewage. An aroma of straining bombast, and unrealistic phallic aspirations, spilt over into Prehistory: glory, honor, g?rivilege, toverty, 1981, which relies, for its slender effects, upon antlers and pony skin, rather than shattered plates and masonite. Those works deprived of the curio value of such props are easily forgotten: the pleasure that can be ob- tained from Schnabel's Maria Callas paint- ings, in oil on velvet, would appear to be confined to a sense of marvel at the spoli-

ation, through random smearing, of such vast expanses of lush, if unwholesome, ma- terial. But perhaps it was intended that we should be in mind of the secondary meaning of the phrase, 'on velvet', i.e. 'in an advantageous or prosperous position'.

For if these works revealed anything, it was that Schnabel has managed to stretch somewhat less than a modicum of talent over a very large surface area. No one with any real feeling for painting could leave this exhibition without being over- whelmed by a sense of spiritual, imaginative and technical dereliction. Schnabel's va- cuity of spirit was reflected in the selection from his writings published at the end of the catalogue in which, for example, a Van Gogh drawing brings to his mind the following thoughts: 'There's a funny light in it. It made me feel like I was standing on Houston Street in late November, the temperature has just changed; I don't have a scarf; a friend has cancelled a dinner appointment with me.' Schnabel's spiritual and aesthetic awareness rarely runs any deeper. It is not just a question of his thin response to the work of others; his own modestly entitled Portrait of God, 1981 - a blue daub - provides no reason for suppos- ing that he has ever suffered from an over- whelming sense of the Mysterium Tremendum. Nor should we mistake the blandness of this work for what Rudolf Otto described, and Mark Rothko realised: a void which is, like silence, 'a negation, but a negation that does away with every "this" and "here", in order that the "wholly other" may become actual'. Schnabel's work rather reveals a noisy emptiness, commercialism, self-seek- ing and cutaneous soul-baring comparable to American T.V. evangelism.

That Schnabel's imaginative life consists of no more than a jumble of second-hand cliches was made manifest in painting after painting; but this exposure of the broken banality of his inner world was not allevi-

istically ungainly proportions which was exhibited in Schnabel's last commercial show in London at Waddington's Gallery, last year. Two of the three enormous panels, in oil and fibreglass, on a ground of coloured linoleum, are taken up with representations of the human phallus, of a size which would not seem out of place on a chalk down. The edifying message EFIL, or the word 'LIFE' spelt backwards, is crudely blocked along one of them.

The feeling that Schnabel is singularly lacking in those qualities and faculties commonly referred to as 'good taste' was not mitigated by earlier works like Circum- navigating the sea of shit, 1979, which consists of shattered plates, cups, scallop shells,

840

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EXHIBITION REVIEWS EXHIBITION REVIEWS

ated by any evidence of a capacity to see human or natural forms in a fresh or feeling- ful way. He possesses no intuitive feel for the emotional resonances of colour. Nor can it be said that there are compensations to be found in displays of skill, or craftsman- ship. Schnabel's touch, as revealed in, say, the painting of the head in ExiZe, 1980 is, by turns, gauche, ingratiating, and gawky.

If Schnabel's work has any perceptible aesthetic quality, it lies in a certain ill- formed, and often inappropriately de- ployed, decorative sense. This was apparent in certain works, e.g. Seed, 1983, included in the first Waddington show, three years ago but not re-exhibited here; it was, how- ever, confirmed by Rebirth III (Fig.67), at the Whitechapel, a picture completed this

rl * 1 ' fs 1 year. l nls worx manltests an uncnaracter- istic aspiration towards ornamental exuber- ance and a sense of the gaiety offorms which lie beyond the water-closet or the rubbish- tip. But) in earlier paintings, even this ornamentalism tends to be degraded into a predilection for tawdry reiteration of ready-made patterns, for example through the use of 'grounds' of cheap linoleum.

Schnabel is not to be blamed for his manifest lack of talent; he can no more rectify this short-coming than he can con- trol the exposure to which his work is sub- jected. The emotion aroused by such an extravagant display of tactlessness and aesthetic insensitivity, as that which the Whitechapel recently aSorded, is not so much one of anger as of embarrassment, for all those involved in the tacky exercise. But a significant question remains: how does it happen that work which is mani- festly of such negligible merit can be so persistently, and apparently so confidently, placed before the public?

The introduction in the catalogue to the exhibition was less than enlightening. In a windy text, which is at least commensurate with the scale and content of Schnabel's paintings, Thomas McEvilley invoked Hegel and 'de-Christianisation' to argue that the value of Schnabel's work resides in the fact that he has re-united a 'Post- Modernist' sense offragmentation and de- construction- manifest in, say, the broken plates- with an epic, and hitherto obsolete, Pollockian sense of'.Modernist' will. Cynics have long been saying that the demands and vicissitudes of the art market provide a more suicient explanation. But, for the present reviewer, this line of reasoning is also inadequate; for the market is only an . . . nstrument; and 1nstruments are not ex- planatory causes. The market can no more 'explain' the vacuity of Schnabel, than it can sexplain' the spirituality of the late Henry Moore: those who think that refer- ence to the market says all that has to be said in the case of Schnabel should not forget that it elevated them both.

ated by any evidence of a capacity to see human or natural forms in a fresh or feeling- ful way. He possesses no intuitive feel for the emotional resonances of colour. Nor can it be said that there are compensations to be found in displays of skill, or craftsman- ship. Schnabel's touch, as revealed in, say, the painting of the head in ExiZe, 1980 is, by turns, gauche, ingratiating, and gawky.

If Schnabel's work has any perceptible aesthetic quality, it lies in a certain ill- formed, and often inappropriately de- ployed, decorative sense. This was apparent in certain works, e.g. Seed, 1983, included in the first Waddington show, three years ago but not re-exhibited here; it was, how- ever, confirmed by Rebirth III (Fig.67), at the Whitechapel, a picture completed this

rl * 1 ' fs 1 year. l nls worx manltests an uncnaracter- istic aspiration towards ornamental exuber- ance and a sense of the gaiety offorms which lie beyond the water-closet or the rubbish- tip. But) in earlier paintings, even this ornamentalism tends to be degraded into a predilection for tawdry reiteration of ready-made patterns, for example through the use of 'grounds' of cheap linoleum.

Schnabel is not to be blamed for his manifest lack of talent; he can no more rectify this short-coming than he can con- trol the exposure to which his work is sub- jected. The emotion aroused by such an extravagant display of tactlessness and aesthetic insensitivity, as that which the Whitechapel recently aSorded, is not so much one of anger as of embarrassment, for all those involved in the tacky exercise. But a significant question remains: how does it happen that work which is mani- festly of such negligible merit can be so persistently, and apparently so confidently, placed before the public?

The introduction in the catalogue to the exhibition was less than enlightening. In a windy text, which is at least commensurate with the scale and content of Schnabel's paintings, Thomas McEvilley invoked Hegel and 'de-Christianisation' to argue that the value of Schnabel's work resides in the fact that he has re-united a 'Post- Modernist' sense offragmentation and de- construction- manifest in, say, the broken plates- with an epic, and hitherto obsolete, Pollockian sense of'.Modernist' will. Cynics have long been saying that the demands and vicissitudes of the art market provide a more suicient explanation. But, for the present reviewer, this line of reasoning is also inadequate; for the market is only an . . . nstrument; and 1nstruments are not ex- planatory causes. The market can no more 'explain' the vacuity of Schnabel, than it can sexplain' the spirituality of the late Henry Moore: those who think that refer- ence to the market says all that has to be said in the case of Schnabel should not forget that it elevated them both.

That America could give rise to a phenomenon such as Schnabel need affiord no surprise to those acquainted with the cultural manifestations of American aes- thetic and spiritual life. But the reasons why this sort of work is given prominence within the institutions devoted to contem- porary art in Britain are more complex. For Schnabel has no serious critical sup-

That America could give rise to a phenomenon such as Schnabel need affiord no surprise to those acquainted with the cultural manifestations of American aes- thetic and spiritual life. But the reasons why this sort of work is given prominence within the institutions devoted to contem- porary art in Britain are more complex. For Schnabel has no serious critical sup-

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69. Seated sibyl, Guercino. Red chalk, 23.0 by 16.5 cm.

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69. Seated sibyl, Guercino. Red chalk, 23.0 by 16.5 cm. 68. Seated sibyl, here attributed to Guercino. Pen and brown ink, 28.4 by 18.5 cm. (Royal Library, WindsoI Castle: Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen).

68. Seated sibyl, here attributed to Guercino. Pen and brown ink, 28.4 by 18.5 cm. (Royal Library, WindsoI Castle: Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen).

(Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) .

the Ashmolean; these last, almost without exception acquired by Sir Karl) are them- selves a fine and representative group and form an ideal complement to those placed on deposit. Accompanying the exhibition is a lavishly illustrated catalogue compiled by Sir Denis and David Ekserdjian, with the assistance of Helen Davies. Published by The Burlington Magazine with the help of Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox and the Ash- molean, it first appeared as a supplement to the March issue, and is now available as a separate volume.

The prefatory sketch of Sir Denis written by James Byam Shaw briefly touches on the history of Sir Denis's enthusiasm for Guercino, an enthusiasm that has borne remarkable fruit. Not only has it led to the formation of an outstanding collection of works by Italian seventeenth-century artists, of which the splendid group of Guercinos form the centrepiece, but it has also prompted a series of monographic writings on the subject, mostly in the form of exhibition catalogues, which are the foundation for any study of the artist. Also mentioned in Byam Shaw's sketch is Sir Denis's important political work under- taken as a result of his sense of outrage at the steadily increasing departure abroad of works of art from this country.

As Nicholas Penny explains in his short preface, in the case of the drawings from Sir Denis's collection, this catalogue does not render the earlier ones of the same material 'redundant', even though it does incorporate some recent changes of view. Finally, attention should be drawn to the addenda to the second part ofthe catalogue, containing entries on two drawings from a private collection, which the owner in- tends to bequeath to the Museum.

The M:ahon Collection of Guercino drawings is a tribute to both artist and

(Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) .

the Ashmolean; these last, almost without exception acquired by Sir Karl) are them- selves a fine and representative group and form an ideal complement to those placed on deposit. Accompanying the exhibition is a lavishly illustrated catalogue compiled by Sir Denis and David Ekserdjian, with the assistance of Helen Davies. Published by The Burlington Magazine with the help of Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox and the Ash- molean, it first appeared as a supplement to the March issue, and is now available as a separate volume.

The prefatory sketch of Sir Denis written by James Byam Shaw briefly touches on the history of Sir Denis's enthusiasm for Guercino, an enthusiasm that has borne remarkable fruit. Not only has it led to the formation of an outstanding collection of works by Italian seventeenth-century artists, of which the splendid group of Guercinos form the centrepiece, but it has also prompted a series of monographic writings on the subject, mostly in the form of exhibition catalogues, which are the foundation for any study of the artist. Also mentioned in Byam Shaw's sketch is Sir Denis's important political work under- taken as a result of his sense of outrage at the steadily increasing departure abroad of works of art from this country.

As Nicholas Penny explains in his short preface, in the case of the drawings from Sir Denis's collection, this catalogue does not render the earlier ones of the same material 'redundant', even though it does incorporate some recent changes of view. Finally, attention should be drawn to the addenda to the second part ofthe catalogue, containing entries on two drawings from a private collection, which the owner in- tends to bequeath to the Museum.

The M:ahon Collection of Guercino drawings is a tribute to both artist and

porters in this countryJ and no popular following. One is forced towards the con- clusion that the high ideals which motiv- ated those who fostered the development

. . . . ,%

ot natlona lnstltutlons ol contemporary art immediately after the last war have largely evaporated; their faith, vision, and humanity appear to have been replaced by the manipulative cynicism of those who, prefer, literally, Circumnavigating the sea af shzt.

PETER FULLER

London Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox Guercino drawings

This beautiful exhibition (Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, 15th October to 12th November) commemorates the loan to the Ashmolean Museum of Sir Denis Mahon's magnificent collection of drawings by Guercino. As Christopher White states in the foreword to the catalogue, it is Sir Denis's intention that these drawings should eventually become a part of the Museum's permanent eollection. Sir Denis wished his loan to be associated with the ninetieth birthday of Sir Karl Parker, the former Keeper of Western Art, as a tribute to Sir Karl's inspired tenure of office over many years, a period which saw the rapid expan- sion of the Ashmolean's collection of Old Master drawings into one of the greatest . . ln t R1S country.

1 *1 * * -

lhe exnlDltlon, whlch was seen at the Ashmolean Museum from 29th April to 22nd June, shows Sir Denis's drawings alongsicle those by Guercino already at

porters in this countryJ and no popular following. One is forced towards the con- clusion that the high ideals which motiv- ated those who fostered the development

. . . . ,%

ot natlona lnstltutlons ol contemporary art immediately after the last war have largely evaporated; their faith, vision, and humanity appear to have been replaced by the manipulative cynicism of those who, prefer, literally, Circumnavigating the sea af shzt.

PETER FULLER

London Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox Guercino drawings

This beautiful exhibition (Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, 15th October to 12th November) commemorates the loan to the Ashmolean Museum of Sir Denis Mahon's magnificent collection of drawings by Guercino. As Christopher White states in the foreword to the catalogue, it is Sir Denis's intention that these drawings should eventually become a part of the Museum's permanent eollection. Sir Denis wished his loan to be associated with the ninetieth birthday of Sir Karl Parker, the former Keeper of Western Art, as a tribute to Sir Karl's inspired tenure of office over many years, a period which saw the rapid expan- sion of the Ashmolean's collection of Old Master drawings into one of the greatest . . ln t R1S country.

1 *1 * * -

lhe exnlDltlon, whlch was seen at the Ashmolean Museum from 29th April to 22nd June, shows Sir Denis's drawings alongsicle those by Guercino already at

841 841

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