1. Looking at Your “A.Q.”

"Life is short and the art long; the occasion fleeting, experience fallacious and judge­ment difficult."
Hippocrates

Ideas, People, Places, Books to Help You Step Up Your “Aesthetic Quotient”

In our search for worthwhile works of art, we will constantly encounter the question of beauty. This is not a word which permits a single, direct definition. It is tinted on all sides by individual ideas, moods, tastes, lives. Yet you must have some tangible guides as to what is beautiful, and consequently what to look for as you start, and build, your collection.

That is why some general reading in art history and its philosophy, Aesthetics, is indicated. I am fully aware of the annoyances you may encounter as you begin this reading, par­ticularly in the transcendental world of Aesthetics. I shall try to help you bypass this vexation by suggesting a short list of books which are fairly solid meat.

From Plato through Kant to Santayana, many are the phi­losophers who have fumed and fretted over the finer points of Aesthetics. We should touch upon some of them if we want to discover a basic approach to art's purpose, scope, and meaning. I know that it is easy to become fuzzy at this junc­ture. I can remember lectures I could not follow because abstruse arguments and ambiguity reigned. Taking all my sadder experiences into full consideration, I heartily recom­mend Art by Clive Bell. Mr. Bell's style is as clear and under­standable as his title. His thoughts on aesthetic expression in the artist, and the corresponding emotion that wells up in the viewer, will help you create your own set of values. This au­thor places great emphasis on the power of recognizing beauty; a power I think we all possess to some degree. His words help you resolve such power—get it into active form. He relates the emotional state of the artist or spectator to deeply felt religious experience, as far as its intensity is concerned. It is not con­nected with religion in a practicing or dogmatic sense, unlike Jacques Maritain's thesis in Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. Clive Bell traces the course of art through history and indicates its relationship to our society. This is a paperback book, easy to find and inexpensive.

Outstanding among other books which will guide you along the path toward a highly developed "Aesthetic Quotient" is Art Through the Ages by Helen Gardner. Here are names, places, dates, and a brisk commentary that ties them all to­gether. It gives no opinions and no theories, and is held by leading teachers to be a "bread and butter" text. The Story of Art by E. H. Gumbrick is also a direct and forthright history.

If you want to dip slightly into the psychological aspects of our subject, you might try Art and Visual Perception by Ru­dolph Arnheim. Mr. Arnheim reveals the findings of psychol­ogy in relation to the study of art, and analyzes the visual processes involved in creating or looking at pictures and sculp­ture. Read the anthology A Modern Book of Aesthetics, by Melvin Rader, for a comprehensive cross section. For a history of art that examines its depth, breadth, and meaning, as well as its function and psychology, turn to Ideas and Images in World Art by Renee Huyghe, honorary curator-in-chief of the Louvre. This is a handsome book, with a world of illustrations, many in full color. For philosophical experiences, Art and History by Bernard Berenson and John Dewey's Art as Experience are excellent.

Although I am sure that your own intuition and intelligence have by now suggested other concrete action you may take in order to bring your inborn "A.Q." (Aesthetic Quotient) up to its strongest potential, I should like to run through a few rudimentary steps in order to provide you some basic start.

Visiting museums is, of course, an absolute requisite. It is only by looking at paintings, drawings, sculpture, and prints that you will learn to discern the fine points about them and the differences between them. You will also have the advan­tage of looking at only the finest examples—what is known as "museum quality." But, in addition to simply looking at the creative efforts of the world's foremost artists, you can take advantage of the cumulative knowledge of the museum's staff and the wide variety of its activities. Be sure to find out what lectures, courses, seminars, and films are available. If you have any question as to how this might be done, simply drop a note to the museum director and I am sure that he will send you detailed information. Take a look at American Art Directory, available in your library. This lists all the art organizations, art schools, art museums, and museum publications in Amer­ica and Canada. It gives you information about the collections in each of the museums, as well as lectures and various pro­grams in art orientation and education. Select as many activi­ties as you have time for and participate in them.

Just to indicate how completely the museums are equipped to help you in this matter of sharpening your "A.Q.," I am setting down the lectures offered in a recent year at the Phila­delphia Museum of Art:

Prehistory: The Beginning of Man and Art; Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages; Babylonia; Persia; and Egypt.

Antiquity: The Origins of Western Civilization; Classical Art of Greece and Rome; Byzantium.

Medieval: Christian Art in Western Europe; The Develop­ment of Romanesque and Gothic.

Renaissance: The Rebirth of Classical Concepts; Renais­sance and Baroque.

Modern: The Age of the Machine; Sources and Styles of Our Time.

In addition to these lectures on the history of art, the mu­seum offers a series devoted exclusively to the appreciation of painting. To attend them would serve any aspiring art col­lector well.

The Artist's Vision: Styles in Painting, from Bosch and Blake to Redon, Dali, Chirico, Tanguy, Balthus, De-Kooning, DuBuffet, and Bacon.

Influences in Art: Tracing of influences in the develop­ment of an artist's style. El Greco and Tintoretto, Modigliani and African Sculpture, Picasso.

Portraiture and Figure Painting: From the 14th to the 20th centuries. Botticelli, Titian, El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Picasso.

Still Life: A discussion of inanimate objects as picture material. Representational and abstract examples of noted still life. From Chardin to Picasso.

Landscape: From the early 16th to the 20th centuries. Giorgione, Bruegel, Poussin, Ruisdael, Watteau, Con­stable, Corot, Monet, Cezanne, Soutine, and Kokoschka.

Contemporary Painting: An International Survey. Giants of the Abstract, Abstract-Expressionists, Figurative, and Non-Figurative Painters.

No matter where you live, many advantages accrue to you if you join the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a non­resident member. Should you travel to New York several times a year, the benefits will be of much more substance. However, the publications alone are well worth the modest price of a year's membership. Fully illustrated books on specific artists or entire art movements from the Impressionists to Art Nouveau roll off the presses at a pleasant rate. When you do go to New York, you can enjoy such activities as the Gallery Talks which are given every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday by Docent A. L. Chanin. The following is a one-month's schedule of Mr. Chanin's talks. It indicates the wide range of subject matter available to incipient collectors or lookers:

Looking at Cubism
Aspects of Expressionism
Art Nouveau as Reflected in Paintings
Portraits from the Museum Collections
New Spanish Painting and Sculpture
Sculpture in the Museum Collection
Distortion and Composition
The Art of Leger
The Art of Abstraction
Bracque

Of course, there are always exciting exhibits on the walls of this outstanding art institution, in the permanent collection as well as at special shows throughout the year.

Check carefully to see whether or not your local museum or art association has any showings of films on art subjects. If so, I seriously urge you to see as many as you can. Where none is available, perhaps you and a few friends might get together, secure a 16mm film projector, and rent such films from The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan, or some museum, library, or college nearer your home. The cost is moderate, particularly if you arrange for a complete series. Just to show how wide a choice you have, I am listing the films available from the Philadelphia Museum. This list, of course, does not match the even larger one of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Mediaeval and Renaissance Arts: From Doric to Gothic; Mainz Cathedral; Altar-Masterpiece; Images Medi-evales; French Tapestries; Hieronymus Bosch: Three Paintings; Crucifixion: Theme and Variations; Mem-ling; Fra Angelico; Paintings from Vienna; The Draw­ings of Leonardo da Vinci.

19th-century Arts: Goya, The Horrors of War; Manet; Balzac; Degas; Toulouse-Lautrec; Rodin; Thorvaldsen.

20th-century Arts: From Renoir to Picasso; Matisse; Cub­ism; Art and Motion; A Visit to Picasso; Light Play; Leger in America; Jackson Pollock; Portrait of a Painter (Morris Blackburn); Franklin Watkins; Maillol; Henry Moore—ideas, sculpture; Henry Moore—comments, quo­tations; Modern Tapestries; Edward Weston; Birth of the Motion Picture, Part 1; Birth of the Motion Picture, Part 2; Experimental Films by Norman McLaren; Pen Point Percussion, and Loops; Dots; Begone, Dull Care; Fiddle De Dee; Stars and Stripes.

Oriental Arts: Art in Japan; The Story of Chinese Art; Out of a Chinese Painting Brush; Yoshi No Yama; Kathak Dance—Bharata Natyam.

Ancient and Primitive Arts: Pre-Columbian Mexican Sculpture; Buma; The Loon's Necklace.

Art Techniques: How to Make an Etching; Hayter: New Ways of Gravure; Tree Trunk to Head; Modeling a Portrait; How to Make a Plaster of Paris Cast; Stone and the Sculptor; The Great Potter.

Music, Dance, Pantomime: Marcel Marceau; Steps of the Ballet; Instruments of Orchestra; Toscanini.

If you have the time and enough energy, you might wish to attend courses in art or aesthetics at your local college or university. Perhaps you might arrange to "audit" such courses, that is, attend classes without receiving college credits. For the very serious, with an abundance of free time and cash, there is a lot to be learned from the curatorial courses at Har­vard or Yale. But this is recommended as a possibility only if you intend to devote a major portion of your interests to the field of art.

By all means become a member of your local museum. The material advantages are important: free admission to lectures, seminars, films; subscription to the bulletin of the museum— usually highly informative and well illustrated. But there is more to be gained, if in a less tangible sense. You will enjoy becoming part of the spirit that actuates the encouragement of art in your own community. You will meet others with the same interests, the same goals in collecting.

I recognize that, for many of you, museums are too far away to make frequent visits possible. Limitations imposed by your job or profession may also stand in the way of visiting the pictures and sculpture you want to see, attending the lec­tures you wish to hear. In such cases there is a reasonably efficient method for bringing the mountain to Mohammed: the Metropolitan Museum's program, ART SEMINARS IN THE HOME. This series of portfolios by John Canaday, now the art critic for the New York Times, and formerly Educa­tional Director of the Philadelphia Museum, is an excellent art appreciation course.

Each volume, or portfolio, in the group of 12, contains full-color reproductions. These are tucked into an envelope inside the front cover, so that they are easily removable for you to study at first hand. You will be able to look at them as you would observe the pictures thrown on the screen in the usual lectures at a college or museum. I might add that the color is even better in the case of these reproductions than it is possible to get with slides. Mr. Canaday's text covers many of the aspects of painting and painters essential in acquiring both the taste and the knowledge that stand collectors in good stead.

In one portfolio he deals with a subject receiving much attention in the art world right now: Realism. Canaday con­siders the visual, intellectual, and emotional elements in paint­ing and analyzes them, each in its turn, remembering, of course, that they are not cleanly separated. He shows that realism is not mechanical mimicry of an object, but rather an interpretation in terms of how the painter sees, feels, and thinks. Other portfolios cover Expressionism, Abstraction, Composition, Techniques, and the artist's position as critic, poet, or mystic. Back pages include brief but adequate biogra­phies of leading artists, together with a capsule estimate of their work.

While there is a certain risk in relying too much on books, I should like to point out that there are certain publishers who offer exceptional illustrated texts that can be of great help. Skira and the New York Graphic Society are perhaps the fore­most of such houses. You will find an almost unlimited cata­logue of titles under these two imprints. Included are volumes on individual artists, replete with full-color illustrations and carefully written explanatory text, as well as books covering a particular period, country, or movement. The books of both these houses are flawlessly printed and bound. Other publishers whose books reflect careful judgment and good taste are Phaidon, Abrams, Universe, and Studio Books. Inexpensive, and limited because of their size, are the books in the "Pocket Library of Great Art," wherein text by John Rewald, a fore­most authority, flanks the full-color illustrations. Titles include Rembrandt, Manet, Cezanne, Botticelli, and the French Im­pressionists.

Virtually every major newspaper in the United States carries a page or a few columns on art and art criticism. Follow them for general information. In order to find out the particular merits or failings of an exhibit, always check the reviews after you have attended an opening. See what the critic has to say, then compare it with what you saw and how you felt about it. This is not to determine who's right and who's wrong. The important thing is to see how much you missed—what you failed to see.

Of course, if you have a sharp point of difference with the critic, it will be of obvious advantage to analyze the differences and determine who has the sounder point of view. In many cases, a return to the exhibit for a second look is advisable.

The many art magazines are another almost indispensable means of getting that "A.Q." of yours into a state where it will guide you almost infallibly when the hour arrives to pay your money and make your choice. I will consider them more com­pletely in Chapter 10, "New Frontiers." In reading such journals as Art News and The Arts, try at first to choose articles that are of a general nature rather than highly particularized critiques of contemporary work. Art Quarterly is perhaps the best as far as erudition and depth are concerned. But if you read the books I have recommended, you will have less need for this magazine's scholarly attitude.

Sometimes there is more pleasure to be derived in seeing a fine private collection than walking through the vaulted halls of a huge museum. This is particularly true when the collec­tion includes specific items for which you have a personal sympathy. Telephone or write eminent collectors and ask if you might come and see their collections. Don't be shy or hesitant about making such a request. Most collectors are very proud of what they have put together. They will be gratified at your appreciation; and you will discover that, as they show you their pictures and their sculpture, their prints or ceramics, they'll talk to you and tell you about each, often in a highly interesting and instructive fashion.

I often remember a trip I made through the upper part of Massachusetts back in 1950. As we drove through a very small town, we saw a group of beautiful antiques on a wide, open porch.

"Let's stop at that antique shop," my wife suggested.

"Gladly," I said. We walked up onto the graceful porch and an old lady came out of the house to greet us. I picked up a wooden weather vane and seemed so interested that the lady told me something of its history. I liked the shape and the soft, faded colors, so I asked the price.

"Oh, it isn't for sale," the lady told me.

"Well, then, I guess we'd better look at something else," I said.

At this point our "hostess" explained sweetly: "None of these things are for sale. This isn't a store."

I looked at her with surprise. "But if it isn't a store, why do you have everything piled up on the porch?"

"Because I know people like lovely things, and I'm lone­some. This way I have lots of callers!"

I have always found that visiting artists at work in their studios is another effective means of elevating the "A.Q." There is one precaution you must remember. The purpose of such visits is not to absorb pointers on the mechanical factors in­volved in the artist's handling of his medium. Your mission is to see how you respond to the same visual stimulus that is moving the artist as he puts on pigments or chips away marble. Look at the bowl of fruit . . . the curve of a shoulder . . . the silkiness of a cat, and measure your response—how you in­terpret the object or model beyond its obvious physical dimen­sions and attributes.

Try to conjure up in your own brain what you would put down on paper or canvas if you possessed the requisite skills. Keep in mind that, while you cannot claim the same technical faculties as the artist, you do have a reasonable quota of cre­ative intuition and imagination. When the studio's occupant has completed his response to the girl, the cat, or the fruit, compare it with the pictures in your mind. This isn't at all easy at the outset, but it is definitely worth any effort you put into it, for it brings much enrichment of your individual response and can add an impetus toward an ever livelier "A.Q."

Here is another anecdote which illustrates the value of visiting artists in their studios, as well as the good luck you may well encounter. Shortly after World War II, two American soldiers bought a Chagall for $100 in Paris. The young men had been sitting in cafe's, looking for Chagall, talking about his work, and a canny dealer took advantage of their interest by bringing them the painting.

Several days after their purchase they found Chagall in a small restaurant. After striking up a conversation, they showed their acquisition to the artist. He looked ... he said nothing. Then he asked the young men if they'd like to come with him to his atelier. They went eagerly.

When they entered the studio, Chagall took the painting and put it on an easel. With a few strokes of flat white paint he completely covered the small landscape and painted a charming substitute. Without waiting for the paint to dry, he took the new creation, handed it to the visitors and said, "Now, my friends, you own a CHAGALL!"

How fully you develop your own potential from this point on is a matter I leave in your own capable hands. I recognize, and fully, my responsibility to you in these pages. But I am sure you understand that to build your aesthetic insight on proper knowledge you must accept a reasonable part of such responsibility. The books you read, the lectures you attend, the actions you take, and the seriousness you apply to each of them are the sole determinants of the success you will enjoy.

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