Leonardo

The Spirit of Colors: The Art of Karl Gerstner by Karl Gerstner; Henri StierlinReview by: Roy OsborneLeonardo, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), p. 155Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574832 .

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theatrical effects and only a brief acknowledgement is given to the impact on movies and TV. The approach is conservative reportage, more like a stockholder's report, rather than exploitive or imaginative about revolutions in performance and effects of lighting.

This is a most useful vanity publication. The concluding diagram on pages 214-215 summarizing the development of lighting from oil lamps to modern arcs, fluorescents, incandescents, and flash lamps is a treasure. Too bad graphics were not used more liberally.

When one realizes the many production areas other than lamps (railroad engines, aircraft turbines, consumer electrical appliances, etc.) that are also the General Electric story, the care in choosing a focus for this history must be admired. Such a glowing tale of a truly general industry is a most rewarding read.

The Spirit of Colors: The Art of Karl Gerstner. Karl Gerstner and Henri Stierlin (eds.). The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981. 225 pp., illus. $39.95. ISBN: 0-262-07084-7. Reviewed by Roy Osborne*

The subtitle of this sizeable book might better have been exchanged for its title: while the entire volume is about "The Art of Karl Gerstner", barely half of its 80-page text concerns itself directly with colour.

A most valuable feature of the book is a set of 64 colour plates, superbly presented and printed, and organized in a series of 9 picture chapters. This extensive cross-section of Gerstner's work shows him to be an artist obsessed with precision of form and of colour gradation and contrast. This is not so much the visually intuitive precision of a Bonnard or Barnett Newman, but a logical, geometrical order, shared by Gerstner's Swiss compatriots Max Bill, Richard Lohse and Camille Graeser. The artist makes numerous references to his interest in the affinity between art and mathematics, and devotes his final chapter to ideas generated by the Swiss mathematician Andreas Speiser. Among other tributes are those to Goethe, Kandinsky, Duchamp and Albers. (There is no mention here of "Bauhausmeister" Paul Klee, arguably Switzerland's greatest draughtsman and colourist.)

The first 14 pages of biographical material are followed by 7 essays in which Gerstner tends to avoid stating his own ideas directly in favour of presenting the thought-provoking quotations of others, selected apparently to confirm or strengthen his own stance as a visual artist. The 4 essays which deal with the subjective experience of colour include a precis of Goethe's colour symbolism and collected thoughts on the relationship between colour and form. Reference is not made to physical aspects of colour theory.

Each picture chapter is accompanied by an informative introduction and notes (in one instance contributed by the Swiss psychologist Max Liischer). Gerstner has worked with serial images since the early 1950s, often employing a practice which Albers called "the art of given form," that is, one in which the format remains the same while colour combinations are changed. This device is intended to throw emphasis from form to colour, though the linear beauty of the designs, such as the "Color Reliefs" and "Color Sounds," is such that one is tempted to feel that any colour combination will look pleasing, if not extremely attractive.

The emotional impact of these works (which give greater relevance to the title of the book) is immediate and powerful. They confirm that visual art need not be overtly expressionist in its use of colour and form in order to communicate strong feeling between artist and observer. In the early "Aperspective" series (the only series so far completed), an attempt is made to compensate for the non-original nature of a manufactured artwork by making each picture alterable: the appearance of each example can be extensively changed by the observer while the underlying formula remains constant and intact.

Editor Henry Stierlin deserves congratulation for his initiative in giving Gerstner-an accomplished artist in mid-career-such a free hand in organizing his own material. This is not just a book about Karl Gerstner but a work of art in itself, a stimulating extension of the artist's oeuvre. One hopes that the success of this undertaking may prompt other editors to offer similar opportunities elsewhere.

"The Spirit of Colors" is available in hardcover and paperback in German, French and American-English editions.

theatrical effects and only a brief acknowledgement is given to the impact on movies and TV. The approach is conservative reportage, more like a stockholder's report, rather than exploitive or imaginative about revolutions in performance and effects of lighting.

This is a most useful vanity publication. The concluding diagram on pages 214-215 summarizing the development of lighting from oil lamps to modern arcs, fluorescents, incandescents, and flash lamps is a treasure. Too bad graphics were not used more liberally.

When one realizes the many production areas other than lamps (railroad engines, aircraft turbines, consumer electrical appliances, etc.) that are also the General Electric story, the care in choosing a focus for this history must be admired. Such a glowing tale of a truly general industry is a most rewarding read.

The Spirit of Colors: The Art of Karl Gerstner. Karl Gerstner and Henri Stierlin (eds.). The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981. 225 pp., illus. $39.95. ISBN: 0-262-07084-7. Reviewed by Roy Osborne*

The subtitle of this sizeable book might better have been exchanged for its title: while the entire volume is about "The Art of Karl Gerstner", barely half of its 80-page text concerns itself directly with colour.

A most valuable feature of the book is a set of 64 colour plates, superbly presented and printed, and organized in a series of 9 picture chapters. This extensive cross-section of Gerstner's work shows him to be an artist obsessed with precision of form and of colour gradation and contrast. This is not so much the visually intuitive precision of a Bonnard or Barnett Newman, but a logical, geometrical order, shared by Gerstner's Swiss compatriots Max Bill, Richard Lohse and Camille Graeser. The artist makes numerous references to his interest in the affinity between art and mathematics, and devotes his final chapter to ideas generated by the Swiss mathematician Andreas Speiser. Among other tributes are those to Goethe, Kandinsky, Duchamp and Albers. (There is no mention here of "Bauhausmeister" Paul Klee, arguably Switzerland's greatest draughtsman and colourist.)

The first 14 pages of biographical material are followed by 7 essays in which Gerstner tends to avoid stating his own ideas directly in favour of presenting the thought-provoking quotations of others, selected apparently to confirm or strengthen his own stance as a visual artist. The 4 essays which deal with the subjective experience of colour include a precis of Goethe's colour symbolism and collected thoughts on the relationship between colour and form. Reference is not made to physical aspects of colour theory.

Each picture chapter is accompanied by an informative introduction and notes (in one instance contributed by the Swiss psychologist Max Liischer). Gerstner has worked with serial images since the early 1950s, often employing a practice which Albers called "the art of given form," that is, one in which the format remains the same while colour combinations are changed. This device is intended to throw emphasis from form to colour, though the linear beauty of the designs, such as the "Color Reliefs" and "Color Sounds," is such that one is tempted to feel that any colour combination will look pleasing, if not extremely attractive.

The emotional impact of these works (which give greater relevance to the title of the book) is immediate and powerful. They confirm that visual art need not be overtly expressionist in its use of colour and form in order to communicate strong feeling between artist and observer. In the early "Aperspective" series (the only series so far completed), an attempt is made to compensate for the non-original nature of a manufactured artwork by making each picture alterable: the appearance of each example can be extensively changed by the observer while the underlying formula remains constant and intact.

Editor Henry Stierlin deserves congratulation for his initiative in giving Gerstner-an accomplished artist in mid-career-such a free hand in organizing his own material. This is not just a book about Karl Gerstner but a work of art in itself, a stimulating extension of the artist's oeuvre. One hopes that the success of this undertaking may prompt other editors to offer similar opportunities elsewhere.

"The Spirit of Colors" is available in hardcover and paperback in German, French and American-English editions.

theatrical effects and only a brief acknowledgement is given to the impact on movies and TV. The approach is conservative reportage, more like a stockholder's report, rather than exploitive or imaginative about revolutions in performance and effects of lighting.

This is a most useful vanity publication. The concluding diagram on pages 214-215 summarizing the development of lighting from oil lamps to modern arcs, fluorescents, incandescents, and flash lamps is a treasure. Too bad graphics were not used more liberally.

When one realizes the many production areas other than lamps (railroad engines, aircraft turbines, consumer electrical appliances, etc.) that are also the General Electric story, the care in choosing a focus for this history must be admired. Such a glowing tale of a truly general industry is a most rewarding read.

The Spirit of Colors: The Art of Karl Gerstner. Karl Gerstner and Henri Stierlin (eds.). The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981. 225 pp., illus. $39.95. ISBN: 0-262-07084-7. Reviewed by Roy Osborne*

The subtitle of this sizeable book might better have been exchanged for its title: while the entire volume is about "The Art of Karl Gerstner", barely half of its 80-page text concerns itself directly with colour.

A most valuable feature of the book is a set of 64 colour plates, superbly presented and printed, and organized in a series of 9 picture chapters. This extensive cross-section of Gerstner's work shows him to be an artist obsessed with precision of form and of colour gradation and contrast. This is not so much the visually intuitive precision of a Bonnard or Barnett Newman, but a logical, geometrical order, shared by Gerstner's Swiss compatriots Max Bill, Richard Lohse and Camille Graeser. The artist makes numerous references to his interest in the affinity between art and mathematics, and devotes his final chapter to ideas generated by the Swiss mathematician Andreas Speiser. Among other tributes are those to Goethe, Kandinsky, Duchamp and Albers. (There is no mention here of "Bauhausmeister" Paul Klee, arguably Switzerland's greatest draughtsman and colourist.)

The first 14 pages of biographical material are followed by 7 essays in which Gerstner tends to avoid stating his own ideas directly in favour of presenting the thought-provoking quotations of others, selected apparently to confirm or strengthen his own stance as a visual artist. The 4 essays which deal with the subjective experience of colour include a precis of Goethe's colour symbolism and collected thoughts on the relationship between colour and form. Reference is not made to physical aspects of colour theory.

Each picture chapter is accompanied by an informative introduction and notes (in one instance contributed by the Swiss psychologist Max Liischer). Gerstner has worked with serial images since the early 1950s, often employing a practice which Albers called "the art of given form," that is, one in which the format remains the same while colour combinations are changed. This device is intended to throw emphasis from form to colour, though the linear beauty of the designs, such as the "Color Reliefs" and "Color Sounds," is such that one is tempted to feel that any colour combination will look pleasing, if not extremely attractive.

The emotional impact of these works (which give greater relevance to the title of the book) is immediate and powerful. They confirm that visual art need not be overtly expressionist in its use of colour and form in order to communicate strong feeling between artist and observer. In the early "Aperspective" series (the only series so far completed), an attempt is made to compensate for the non-original nature of a manufactured artwork by making each picture alterable: the appearance of each example can be extensively changed by the observer while the underlying formula remains constant and intact.

Editor Henry Stierlin deserves congratulation for his initiative in giving Gerstner-an accomplished artist in mid-career-such a free hand in organizing his own material. This is not just a book about Karl Gerstner but a work of art in itself, a stimulating extension of the artist's oeuvre. One hopes that the success of this undertaking may prompt other editors to offer similar opportunities elsewhere.

"The Spirit of Colors" is available in hardcover and paperback in German, French and American-English editions.

careers as painters but because they considered the graphic impact of their publications as significant as the verbal content. C. Douglas approaches this topic by tracing the ideas of the poet Kruchenykh and the painter Kazimir Malevich to the explosion of new scientific ideas at the beginning of this century. There are also two good comparative essays on Russian and Italian Futurism. John Bowit, who has almost single-handedly brought early 20th century Russian art to the attention of the European and American public, has contributed an artistic biography of the painter Pavel Filonov and his "theory of analytical art". This raises the question, however, of the appropriateness of using the term "Futurist" to include a broad spectrum of approaches to the graphic arts and literature. While Malevich and Filonov shared many political and aesthetic views with their literary Futurist coevals, they largely fought their aesthetic battles on their own. This was particularly true of Malevich, who moved to pure abstraction about the same time that his literary friends were declaring the "self-sufficiency of the word" in poetry. It would therefore have been more helptul, and more correct, to treat Futurism as one of several manifestations of modernism afloat in the period immediately before and after the Revolution than to try to fit the views of artists as different as Malevich and Mayakovsky into this procrustean bed. Again, the lack of an introductory discussion shedding some light on Futurism's relations to other modernist movements such as Expressionism, Suprematism and Constructivism is felt.

The anthology fulfills a need by bringing together selections in English of several members of an important 20th century literary and art movement, but it is neither representative nor comprehensive. The photographs and reproductions at the end of the book are often more illuminating than the texts themselves. For a more thorough understanding of Futurism, at least in its pre-Revolutionary form, there is still nothing better than Vladimir Markov's 1968 study, Russian Futurism: A History.

A Century of Light. James A. Cox. Rutledge, New York, 1978. 224 pp., illus. $17.50. Reviewed by Richard I. Land*

Here is a remarkable 'birthday card'; a sumptuous way to mark a century of electric lamps and the place of the General Electric Company in that history. Many early photographs and documents are reproduced along with first hand reports of Edison laboratory activity. The text bristles with facts and tales about the development of modern lighting. Care and attention is given to ordering the details of the story, tagged with dates. The technical details are often overshadowed by historical views, personal issues, and business intrigue. Here is resource to delight anyone interested in why and how electric lamps came into their ubiquitous current use and variety of types.

The subtitle, "The General Electric History of Light" implies some of the difficulties in this project. A company-supported biography must flatter the sponsor-of course, much of the story is worthy of pride. But one side of history leaves one wondering about the competition. Westinghouse and foreign efforts are mentioned, but objectivity is necessarily compromised. Facts and issues are not distorted, but unique contributions not incorporated in GE efforts are either missing or lightly treated. Who in England really sparked the fluorescent lamp development in the early 1930s? This sort of omission is not really a problem in the earliest years, since almost all lamp development was the GE story, or of companies that became part of GE.

The book is part systematic history of business and technology, and part scrapbook of anecdotes, vignettes and proud achievements. Actually, the production decisions, personalities and investments provide one story line that weaves back and forth in time and emphasis across the line of invention, research and technical realization. There is abundant evidence for the vital role research has provided through the hundred years. It's significant that the Schenectady Laboratories were the first devoted to basic research for an American industry. While perhaps eclipsed in these days of microelectronics and quantum optics by Bell Labs, the GE labs are a proud second in prestige. The final chapter devoted to the 'bricks and mortar' story of Nela Park seems incidental to the lighting story in previous chapters. Despite the devotion of Chapter 6 to a pictorial record of attractive and interesting electric lamp use, mostly in color, little emphasis is given to artistic use,

careers as painters but because they considered the graphic impact of their publications as significant as the verbal content. C. Douglas approaches this topic by tracing the ideas of the poet Kruchenykh and the painter Kazimir Malevich to the explosion of new scientific ideas at the beginning of this century. There are also two good comparative essays on Russian and Italian Futurism. John Bowit, who has almost single-handedly brought early 20th century Russian art to the attention of the European and American public, has contributed an artistic biography of the painter Pavel Filonov and his "theory of analytical art". This raises the question, however, of the appropriateness of using the term "Futurist" to include a broad spectrum of approaches to the graphic arts and literature. While Malevich and Filonov shared many political and aesthetic views with their literary Futurist coevals, they largely fought their aesthetic battles on their own. This was particularly true of Malevich, who moved to pure abstraction about the same time that his literary friends were declaring the "self-sufficiency of the word" in poetry. It would therefore have been more helptul, and more correct, to treat Futurism as one of several manifestations of modernism afloat in the period immediately before and after the Revolution than to try to fit the views of artists as different as Malevich and Mayakovsky into this procrustean bed. Again, the lack of an introductory discussion shedding some light on Futurism's relations to other modernist movements such as Expressionism, Suprematism and Constructivism is felt.

The anthology fulfills a need by bringing together selections in English of several members of an important 20th century literary and art movement, but it is neither representative nor comprehensive. The photographs and reproductions at the end of the book are often more illuminating than the texts themselves. For a more thorough understanding of Futurism, at least in its pre-Revolutionary form, there is still nothing better than Vladimir Markov's 1968 study, Russian Futurism: A History.

A Century of Light. James A. Cox. Rutledge, New York, 1978. 224 pp., illus. $17.50. Reviewed by Richard I. Land*

Here is a remarkable 'birthday card'; a sumptuous way to mark a century of electric lamps and the place of the General Electric Company in that history. Many early photographs and documents are reproduced along with first hand reports of Edison laboratory activity. The text bristles with facts and tales about the development of modern lighting. Care and attention is given to ordering the details of the story, tagged with dates. The technical details are often overshadowed by historical views, personal issues, and business intrigue. Here is resource to delight anyone interested in why and how electric lamps came into their ubiquitous current use and variety of types.

The subtitle, "The General Electric History of Light" implies some of the difficulties in this project. A company-supported biography must flatter the sponsor-of course, much of the story is worthy of pride. But one side of history leaves one wondering about the competition. Westinghouse and foreign efforts are mentioned, but objectivity is necessarily compromised. Facts and issues are not distorted, but unique contributions not incorporated in GE efforts are either missing or lightly treated. Who in England really sparked the fluorescent lamp development in the early 1930s? This sort of omission is not really a problem in the earliest years, since almost all lamp development was the GE story, or of companies that became part of GE.

The book is part systematic history of business and technology, and part scrapbook of anecdotes, vignettes and proud achievements. Actually, the production decisions, personalities and investments provide one story line that weaves back and forth in time and emphasis across the line of invention, research and technical realization. There is abundant evidence for the vital role research has provided through the hundred years. It's significant that the Schenectady Laboratories were the first devoted to basic research for an American industry. While perhaps eclipsed in these days of microelectronics and quantum optics by Bell Labs, the GE labs are a proud second in prestige. The final chapter devoted to the 'bricks and mortar' story of Nela Park seems incidental to the lighting story in previous chapters. Despite the devotion of Chapter 6 to a pictorial record of attractive and interesting electric lamp use, mostly in color, little emphasis is given to artistic use,

careers as painters but because they considered the graphic impact of their publications as significant as the verbal content. C. Douglas approaches this topic by tracing the ideas of the poet Kruchenykh and the painter Kazimir Malevich to the explosion of new scientific ideas at the beginning of this century. There are also two good comparative essays on Russian and Italian Futurism. John Bowit, who has almost single-handedly brought early 20th century Russian art to the attention of the European and American public, has contributed an artistic biography of the painter Pavel Filonov and his "theory of analytical art". This raises the question, however, of the appropriateness of using the term "Futurist" to include a broad spectrum of approaches to the graphic arts and literature. While Malevich and Filonov shared many political and aesthetic views with their literary Futurist coevals, they largely fought their aesthetic battles on their own. This was particularly true of Malevich, who moved to pure abstraction about the same time that his literary friends were declaring the "self-sufficiency of the word" in poetry. It would therefore have been more helptul, and more correct, to treat Futurism as one of several manifestations of modernism afloat in the period immediately before and after the Revolution than to try to fit the views of artists as different as Malevich and Mayakovsky into this procrustean bed. Again, the lack of an introductory discussion shedding some light on Futurism's relations to other modernist movements such as Expressionism, Suprematism and Constructivism is felt.

The anthology fulfills a need by bringing together selections in English of several members of an important 20th century literary and art movement, but it is neither representative nor comprehensive. The photographs and reproductions at the end of the book are often more illuminating than the texts themselves. For a more thorough understanding of Futurism, at least in its pre-Revolutionary form, there is still nothing better than Vladimir Markov's 1968 study, Russian Futurism: A History.

A Century of Light. James A. Cox. Rutledge, New York, 1978. 224 pp., illus. $17.50. Reviewed by Richard I. Land*

Here is a remarkable 'birthday card'; a sumptuous way to mark a century of electric lamps and the place of the General Electric Company in that history. Many early photographs and documents are reproduced along with first hand reports of Edison laboratory activity. The text bristles with facts and tales about the development of modern lighting. Care and attention is given to ordering the details of the story, tagged with dates. The technical details are often overshadowed by historical views, personal issues, and business intrigue. Here is resource to delight anyone interested in why and how electric lamps came into their ubiquitous current use and variety of types.

The subtitle, "The General Electric History of Light" implies some of the difficulties in this project. A company-supported biography must flatter the sponsor-of course, much of the story is worthy of pride. But one side of history leaves one wondering about the competition. Westinghouse and foreign efforts are mentioned, but objectivity is necessarily compromised. Facts and issues are not distorted, but unique contributions not incorporated in GE efforts are either missing or lightly treated. Who in England really sparked the fluorescent lamp development in the early 1930s? This sort of omission is not really a problem in the earliest years, since almost all lamp development was the GE story, or of companies that became part of GE.

The book is part systematic history of business and technology, and part scrapbook of anecdotes, vignettes and proud achievements. Actually, the production decisions, personalities and investments provide one story line that weaves back and forth in time and emphasis across the line of invention, research and technical realization. There is abundant evidence for the vital role research has provided through the hundred years. It's significant that the Schenectady Laboratories were the first devoted to basic research for an American industry. While perhaps eclipsed in these days of microelectronics and quantum optics by Bell Labs, the GE labs are a proud second in prestige. The final chapter devoted to the 'bricks and mortar' story of Nela Park seems incidental to the lighting story in previous chapters. Despite the devotion of Chapter 6 to a pictorial record of attractive and interesting electric lamp use, mostly in color, little emphasis is given to artistic use,

*10 Trapelo Road, Belmont, MA 02176, U.S.A. *10 Trapelo Road, Belmont, MA 02176, U.S.A. *10 Trapelo Road, Belmont, MA 02176, U.S.A. *15 Westerleigh Road, Bristol BS16 6UY, U.K. *15 Westerleigh Road, Bristol BS16 6UY, U.K. *15 Westerleigh Road, Bristol BS16 6UY, U.K.

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