Chinese Calligraphy by Lucy Driscoll; Kenji TodaReview by: Ludwig BachhoferThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Dec., 1936), pp. 585-586Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3045656 .

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REVIEWS 585

preoccupation with their "perfect visibility " in their front views. That visibility they have, because Dona- tello began his statues in the same way as his reliefs, viz. with a carefully thought-out design of the motif on the front side of the block of stone. We must never forget, however, that he worked out his ideas into full round creations, which very well bear in- spection from other sides than the front. That holds good for even the earlier works, like the St. George. But we can observe a growing perfection in this regard in his further development. And his latest works, like the Judith and the Magdalen, can only be fully appreciated if one tries to understand the delicate transitions of the modeling in the round. A strange exception is, however, the bronze David, which in this company seems flat and has very harsh breaks in the movement, especially in the torsion of the body as it is expressed in the back.

What in Dr. Kauffmann's analysis of the sculptures is perhaps only an understandable overemphasizing of a newly discovered principle, proves to be more fatal when he deals with the architectural creations of the master. When he talks about their Fldchigkeit (which is a somewhat less dangerous word than flatness), I can agree with him only to a limited extent in regard to some of the earlier works. But even in the Coscia monument I would not dare to speak of a Fldckenverband, since the sarcophagus and the curtain, with their strong projections, have such a strong tendency to break the smooth continuity of the single parts. And if I consider the level of the framing columns as binding for the whole monument, this level is completely durchgefpflgt, or broken up by a series of deep holes. Here we find ourselves back near the problem of the two doors in the Old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. Had the author insisted more on the strong three-dimensional qualities of Donatel- lo's later architecture (e. g. the basis of the Cavalcanti altar, the strong projections of the moldings of the cantoria, etc.) he would not have needed the com- plicated excuses for the dissonance Donatello created in this case. And perhaps he would also have con- sidered some sides of the reconstruction of the Paduan high altar under another light. If we do not believe in Donatello's tendency towards Fldchigkeit, we can take away the disturbing background of the pala et tabernaculo without any qualms of conscience.

, -

I hope the kindly disposed reader and the author will forgive me this long review, which tries in very insufficient space to explain some views of mine which differ from those of the author. After reading such a brilliant book, after considering and trying to understand and to appreciate the whole significance of its many ideas, one is tempted to indulge in writing down one's own ideas, even if it can be done only in a very incomplete and inadequate and scat- tered way. Perhaps they may be of use in bringing us nearer the never-reached goal of truth.22

ULRICH MIDDELDORF

22. Since I wrote this review there has appeared in the Kriti- sche Berichte, 1932/3, pp. 126-131, a periodical usually dedicated to book reviews, an article by J. Lanyi on Donatello. I am rather puzzled at the meaning and the purpose of this article, as it bears no reference to Dr. Kauffmann's book and even seems to have been written before the publication of the latter. On the other hand, it contradicts a number of attributions to Donatello, which Dr. Kauff-

mann has accepted. Would it not have been better to add to this article, even if it was already set in type, a few words explaining why it could not consider Dr. Kauffmann's book, in order to avoid the painful impression of a kind of anonymous criticism? Considering the fact that Dr. Lanyi gives in no case a proof for his new sug- gestions, I think it is better, for the present, not to take them as anything else than his application to some " Art criticism Patent Office" to secure the exclusive right for certain ideas of his, for which he now will owe us the definite proof. Bewildering, however, is the fact that such an appeal to the benevolence of the scholarly world is accompanied by strange and strong polemical utterances against (among others) "sogenannte Kenner" and

sAgenten des

Handels," the names of whom remain in the dark. I wish Dr. Lanyi would in this case, also, explain what was in his mind. I wonder, e. g., if he thinks it was one of the " sogenannte Kenner...." whom he seems to hate so much who forged the inscription DONATELLO on the basis of the statue of St. John on the Campanile? I would prefer the hypothesis that this inscription, which has pure Q u a t- trocento character, was put on this figure in 1464, when the places of these statues were changed and when Donatello was still alive and would have protested against the interference of meddlers, whose aim it may have been to upset the critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Another article of Dr. Lanyi's, which has come out just as these pages go into print, demands being mentioned here. In Rivista d'Arte, XVIII (1936), pp. 137 ff. he identifies the puzzling so-called Joshua in the interior of the cathedral at Florence with a prophet commissioned of and executed by Nanni di Banco in 14o8. One is at first surprised at this identification, as the statue of the prophet is a very unsatisfactory piece of sculpture, but Dr. Lanyi's argu- ments and a careful " Morellian" stylistic comparison are very con- vincing, and we have probably to accept this statue as the earliest among the know works by Nanni di Banco (always remembering that the artist had been working since z4o6 on the Porta della Man- dorla, but that we have been until now incapable of identifying his share in it). We shall hope that other such valuable contributions will grow out of Dr. Lanyi's above-mentioned vague suggestions.

I am glad to see that my friend L. H. Heydenreich professes views very similar to mine on Dr. Kauffmann's book in a short but remarkable review of it in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, of March II, 1936, no. 117/8. And quite a number of the more general ideas I found to my great pleasure pronounced by R. Oertel in a review of some recent books on Masaccio in Zeitschrift fir Kunst- wissenschaft.

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY. By Lucy Driscoll and Kenji Toda. vii, 71 f.,- 17 figs. Chicago, University Press, 1935. $ 2.

Anybody familiar with Chinese art knows how closely painting and calligraphy are connected, how calligraphy is regarded as the twin of painting and even given precedence by some native scholars. Western critics have usually been content to quote the Chinese views. It seems that most of them feel a little embarrassed when it comes to discussing Chinese calligraphy; the problem is indeed extraor- dinarily subtle and complex, and almost inaccessible to an Occidental, for the few articles published about it have not provided sufficient material and criteria to permit an independent opinion.

Two principal explanations have been offered in connection with the Chinese point of view: one, that writing and painting have a common source, most of the oldest written characters being pictographs, and as such having more or less the quality of pictures; the other, that writer and painter use the same ma- terials, Chinese ink, silk or paper, the brush, the means of expression being thus in both cases the same - the brush stroke.

If we admit for a moment the correctness of this reasoning, the first argument would plainly suggest the predominance of painting over writing. But it disregards the fact that writing and painting are two totally different things, originating from fundament- ally different mental attitudes towards the things

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586 THE ART BULLETIN

depicted, and striving for aims totally distinct from each other: it is one thing to handle a combination of lines, fixed for once and all, and another one to create a form ever anew. Granted that some calli- graphers compress or stretch the characters, even give an asymmetrical shape to an originally strictly symmetrical pattern, the result is never a new form. The difference between a calligrapher and a painter corresponds exactly to the difference between a MNu- sikant and a Musiker, the interpreter-ingenious though he be-and the creator of music.

The second argument is a materialistic one, and like all arguments of the kind is not at all to the point. Taken at its face value, it would correspond to a theory which would try to explain the various styles of pen drawing in Europe, from the Utrecht Psalter to Rembrandt, as the influence of contempo- rary calligraphy-obviously a silly idea. But the argument is intended to have a more subtle signifi- cation, namely that the emancipation of the brush stroke from strict servitude to form was reached earlier in calligraphy than in painting. Influence of calli- graphy is understood to mean that this free, loosened line was taken over by the painter. But here too is overlooked the decisive fact that the brush stroke is always a means, never an end.

Some of the Chinese were perfectly aware of this, for the oft quoted saying that "1the idea ought to exist before the brush " puts the brushwork very neatly in its proper place. The best explanation of how this mysterious " idea " is realized seems to be given by Kuo Jo-hsfi in his T'u-hua Chien-wbn chik, published shortly after 1074 A. D.: "This means to have from beginning to end an order uninterrupted and a relation unbroken." It goes without saying that each epoch interpreted order and relation in a different way; nevertheless, these two concepts were regarded from the outset as the fundamental cate- gories, by the help of which a Chinese critic ascer- tained whether " life movement," the ultimate crite- rion, was present in a piece of writing or not.

"' Life movement" is the literal translation of shing-tung, the second part of the first principle of Hsieh Ho (c. 400 A. D.): ch'iiyin shing-tung. The principle has puzzled Oriental as well as Western scholars considerably, most of them attaching to these four characters a philosophic meaning impossible at the time, as justly remarked by Osvald Siren. Shing- fung is certainly not a logical concept, but an aesthetic one, and designates the artistic phenomenon which we call rhythm. Giles and Okakura were right in introducing this expression in their translations.

About " life movement " and its importance much is said in the book on Chinese calligraphy by Driscoll and Toda, and the authors are justified in doing so. Yet the reader may not find his way easily because no coherent explanation of its meaning, of how it is made visible and recognizable, has been inserted at the beginning. Apart from this, their essay is very good. It makes us acquainted with a good many views about, and examples of, calligraphy. A valuable definition of Chinese calligraphy is given on page 5: " Calligraphy, reduced to its essentials consists of taking this particular form, or complex of forms i. e. the character, enriching the dynamic content and more finely ordering the pattern." Naturally, cal- ligraphy was at all times intimately connected with

everyday writing and took part in its evolution, the result of this process being the various styles. It was a process of increasing slurring.

The principal sources for the historical part are Chang Yen-yiuan's Fa shu yao lu, published, it ap- pears, after the same author's famous Li tai ming hua chi of 847 A. D., and the Shu yian ching hua by Ch'in Ssti of about the middle of the thirteenth century.

The translations of the most important parts of these and some other treatises on calligraphy are highly welcome. Written by calligraphers for students of the art, they contain mostly precepts for technique: the " Nine Forces," the "Eight Laws," the "Battle Array of the Brush," the "Eighty-Four Laws " deal, all of them, with things which can be taught and apprehended.

The aim of the authors " to understand what the Chinese themselves have said about calligraphy as an art" is certainly attained; indeed, they have given much more: a good survey of the evolution of Chi- nese calligraphy, a short history of the best calligra- phers, and an excellent account of their achievements.

LUDWIG BACHHOFER

THE SPIRIT OF MAN IN ASIAN ART. By Laurence

Binyon. xv, 217 Pp.; 70 P/s. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1935.

This book is the record of six Charles Eliot Norton lectures, delivered at Harvard in 1934-35. The aim of these lectures was to make the audience see how some of the most important races of Asia, the Persians, the Hindus, the Chinese, and the Japanese had " ex- pressed their relation to the world and the universe through creative art." This is a very noble and exalted theme, and so are the others promised in the introduction: " to suggest the likenesses and contrasts between these arts and the arts of the Western countries, the reaction of the arts of the various races of Asia on each other, and the specific virtue in the contribution of each of them to the whole. Perhaps by the way we may be led to enquire into the nature of art itself."

Binyon is a famous English poet, and apart from this he was for many years in charge of the prints and drawings in the British Museum; he is, in a general, human way, deeply interested in Asian art. If this book is taken as the impress of the arts of Asia on a very sensitive and cultured mind, it is of considerable value. But Binyon's is certainly not a scholarly mind, and his personal ideas and sensations are blended with a mass of antiquated and outworn opinions, so that the advisability of presenting themn to American students may be questioned. It requires a vast knowledge, and a close intimacy with facts, to disentangle the good portions from the misleading ones which cover a conspicuous part of the book. The situation is aggravated by the wonderful English in which the whole is written.

There is only one section in the book which is very good, that on Japanese art: there the author has intuitively grasped the very soul of Japan, its attitude towards the varied aspects of life, and towards art. This part is admirable, and saves the whole.

LUDWIG BACHHOFER

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