Mies van der Rohe by Philip C.

Johnson
Review by: Joseph Rykwert
The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 91, No. 558 (Sep., 1949), pp. 268-269
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.
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THE

bien conservee,and Hermann Speer is the

last architect mentioned.
The volume on English art can unfortunately not be compared with that by
M. du Colombier. It is behind the times,
superficial and banal. The history of sixteenth-century painting is somewhat simplified, that of the following periods even
more. Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough,
Romney, Raeburn and Lawrence are the
only artists who appear under the heading
Le Portrait,and each of them is treated in
the most perfunctory fashion. Constable
gets the greatest attention, as one might
expect from a French writer. The chapter
on La peinturedu genresimply will not do:
not even the names of Highmore, Devis,
Zoffany appear; instead we get a few paragraphs on Rowlandson and Gillray. Claude
and Poussin are here the only prototypes
for Richard Wilson whose art is described
as sober, and the title of whose CaderIdrisis
misspelt in the caption to Plate I. As to
contemporary art, the confusion is complete. It is true that the bibliography at the
end explains nearly everything. It is not
the author's fault that reliable monographs
on most English artists do not exist and
that some branches of British art have not
been explored. But even though she had
very little source material to draw on, the
bad use made of what there is (she might
even have found something in THE
and the baBURLINGTON
MAGAZINE!)
nality of her characterisation cannot be
excused. This volume is a blemish on an
otherwise excellent series.
The book on French Drawing is introduced by a description of the various
techniques and their history. It is scholarly
to the point of discussing recent attributions. Perhaps it is a mistake in a book of
this kind to refer to very many particular
drawings which can, of course, not all be
illustrated. The background of painting
and of the development of styles in general
are never forgotten. Emphasis is laid on the
real masters in contrast to the majority of
artists, and the whole is agreeably well
written.
E. H.

Sir Godfrey Kneller and his Times.

By Lord Killanin, 118 pp. + 86 pl.,
(B. T. Batsford), ?2 2s.
No serious study of Godfrey Kneller has
appeared since Mr Collins Baker's chapter
on him in his work on the seventeenthcentury portrait painters in England, but
no student engaged on such a study should
be diverted from his work by the appearance of this volume, which, it must be
stated, is very bad indeed. In two ways it
harks back to the average English monograph written fifty or sixty years ago: in a
complete refusal to assess at all profoundly
the subject's connection with Continental
artistic movements; and in the mass of

268

LITERATURE

OF

ART

irrelevant gossip about sitters. No attempt

is made to analyse the development of
Kneller's style, primarily because the
author simply has not seen enough of his
work. He urges the difficulty of travel at
the present time, but he should realise that
the serious student has, since the days of
Vertue, done all he can to overcome these
difficulties (and are they very great?) in an
effort to see his material. Lord Killanin has
not even seen, for example, the vital
Knellers in such well-known collections as
Rousham, Althorp and Chatsworth, and
he is thus unaware of the conflicting influences of Bol, Maratta and Largillibrein
Kneller's work before about 1690.
Two sentences indicate the extent of his
familiarity with a wider canvas. 'Till this
time all North-West Europe had been influenced by the Dutch and Flemish school
of painting, but the works of the great
Italian masterswere now finding their way
across Europe as communications improved'; again: 'When Kneller was painting, the landscape artist was almost unheard of, though Rubens mastered the art'.
These extracts are also typical examples of
the style in which the whole book is written.
Of the value of this book as a critical
study, it is enough to say that Lord
Killanin thinks that Kneller at his best
was Van Dyck's equal as a draughtsman
and colourist, that he sees a family likeness
between Rembrandt's and Kneller's drawings and that he puts forward Rembrandt's
Self-portraitof
1640 in the NationalGallery as
a prototype for the Kit Cat Club portraits.
The volume is full of misunderstandings
of every kind, culminating in a confused
account of the various processes used in
making prints, while the chronological
catalogue is loaded with inaccuracies. The
author cannot even spell artists' names
right: Bols is a particularly unfortunate
variant. If one final instance is to be given
of the quality of this volume, it should be
Lord Killanin's comparison between the
popularity offoreignpaintersin seventeenth
century England and the way in which 'today head waiters areFrench, and ice-cream
merchants Italian'.
There are no references for the quotations in the text, no discrimination in the
use of sources (Miss Sitwell is quoted as
glibly as Vertue), and there are no dates
given in the bibliography. The plates are a
wretched selection: many are of pictures
and drawings which are not by Kneller;
and the use of engravings when originals
are accessible is unpardonable.
OLIVER

MILLAR

A Comparison of the
'Paragone',
Arts. By Leonardo da Vinci, with an
introduction and English translation by
Irma A. Richter, 112 pp. + 12 pl.,
(Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press), I8s.

In the preface to this book Miss Richter

explains that as the 1939 edition of the late
Dr J. P. Richter's LiteraryWorksof Leonardo
da Vinciis now out of print it was decided
to reprint its opening section - the Paragone- separately. This is in one way a
curious decision since the section in question is the only one in Dr J. P. Richter's
book which does not reproducea surviving
MS. of Leonardo, but only an edited copy.
The justification, no doubt, is that the
Paragone,being itself an edited mosaic of
Leonardo's notes, is more connected and,
therefore, more readable than the notes
which survive in MS.
The present volume, by the addition of
informative editorial introductions to each
section and a documented account of the
debate in the sixteenth century on the
rival merits of sculpture and painting, is
more readable still; but I, for one, would
have welcomed more textual criticism.
Miss Richter points out that the scribe of
the Codex Urbinas 1270 mentions Leon-

ardo's left-handed writing as an excuse

for errors committed. But she makes no
attempt to assessthese errors.More curious
still, although giving cross-referencesto the
body of the Trattato(itself a compilation)
she does not give references to those
passages in the Paragonewhich survive
in Leonardo's own MS. Thus two long
sections of the Paragone- paragraphs 23

and most of 39 - reproduce almost verbatim folios I9A, I9B, 25A and 24B of
Leonardo's 'Ashburnham MS. 2038' (Institut de France). There are many variations of single words and phrases - e.g.,
faciendo of the original becomes, in one
in the Paragone,tristobeplace, esercitando
comes debbole(sic) etc. - but few which
change the sense appreciably. The point,
therefore, is not one of major significance,
but it should at least have been made.
The plates, though quite good, and presumably from the same blocks as the 1939
edition, are slightly inferior to the latter in
effect through being on glossy paper.
CECIL

GOULD

Mies van der Rohe. By Philip C. Johnson,

208 pp. (I90 ill.), New York (Museum
of Modern Art), $7.50.

The figure of Mies van der Rohe has been

growing into a myth for some years now.
Representing the only crystallised architectonic experiment which is both contemporary and a serious rival to that of Le
Corbusier,the WissenhofSiedlung at Stutt-

gart (1927), the German pavilion at the

Barcelona Exhibition (1929), the Tugendhat House at Brno (1930), were known, if

only through the medium of fragmentary

photographs, to most students of contemporary architecture; almost entirely on the
basis of these buildings, van der Rohe's
reputation rose as high as that of Gropius,

THE

or even of Le Corbusier. But in 1945 many

of his admirers were so disturbed by the
publication of the scheme for the Metals
and Minerals building of the Illinois Institute of Technology that alarm changed
to despondency on the publication of the
scheme for the whole Institute in 1947.
There had, however, been no study of
any importance of van der Rohe's work;
Mr Johnson's work is first in the field, and
in that alone he has deserved well. It is
only unfortunate that this lavish publication should be little more than an exhibition catalogue. The reader will find the
bibliography (even though most of the
items listed are not available) the most informative part of the book. The passages
from the published writings of van der
Rohe himself are too short and disjointed
to be very informative; but it is Mr Johnson's text which is the most disappointing
section of the letterpress. Van der Rohe's
philosophy is tantalisingly mentioned, only
to be immediately dismissed on the first
page; the most potent architectural influences (Schinkel, Berlage, Frank Lloyd
Wright) receive only the most cursory
treatment; while his social thought receives
no treatment at all. There is no discussion
of the aims of his aestheticexperiments, of
his use of proportion or of sculpture. There
is (and this is a very serious defect) no attempt at a critical evaluation of van der
Rohe's works, either in relation to one another or to the work of his contemporaries;
no attempt to account for the lapse which
occurs when van der Rohe turns from his
most brilliant experimental projects of the
'twenties to the flabby villas of the 'thirties;
or for the violent change of attitude which
produced the slick, lucid, sickening scheme
for the Illinois Institute.
Turning to the illustrations, one's disappointment must be, if anything, more
acute; pages are wasted on pleasant, but
insignificant sketches, while some buildings
are published entirely without plans; such
plans, elevations, or structural details as
are printed bear no reference to scale or
orientation and are often quite illegible;
while the photographs never depart from
the worn track of the familiar.
Since there is not likely to be a successor
to Mr Johnson's work for some time to
come it is a pity that a critic of his reputation could not collaborate with an enterprise of the scale and importance of the
Museum of Modern Art to better purpose.
JOSEPH

RYKWERT

LITERATURE

OF

ART

including unwillingness on the part of some

Stedelijk Museum De 'Lakenhal ', Leiartists 'to take part in "collective manifesden: Beschrijvende Catalogus van de
tations" '. No such justification can be
Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1949.
made, however, for the lack of any mention
xiv + 344 PP. + 32 pl.
in her text of Degas, Renoir - Rodin and
Maillol are discussed at length - Matisse,
The picture gallery at Leyden is less visited
than the major museums of Holland, but
Braque, Manzu, Gabo, and Calder, nor for
the strange sense of proportion displayed in
it contains an interestinglittle collection. Inthe apportioning of her space (thus Barbara
deed, the triptych by Lucasvan Leyden and
two triptychs by Cornelis Engebrechtsz.
Hepworth and Vigeland get fifty-one lines
each, Gill thirty-six, Minne twenty-three,
are key-pieces of early Dutch paintLipschitz thirteen, Laurens nine, Giacoing. The museum also contains various
metti eight, and Picasso five). On the other
works of later date, especially by painters
hand, Miss Ramsden provides much usewho lived at Leyden. The young Remful information about artists working in
brandt is adequately, if somewhat disScandinavia and the Balkans whose sculppleasingly, represented by a picture
ture is not only inaccessible at first hand to
(Bredius, pl. 460), which since 1948 is on
loan from the Sitchting Nederlandsch
most, but has been so overlooked by
French, English, and American historians
Kunstbezit; there are also interesting exthat their very names are unfamiliar even
amples of Jan van Goyen (No. 15), Jan
to the student. But the fruits of such fieldSteen (No. 404), Frans van Mieris the
work are scarcely fitted to constitute the
Younger (No. 311), and others. There are
main interest of a 2o,ooo-word essay purin particular municipal pieces of some
porting to be a survey of Twentieth-Century distinction; three allegories by Abraham
Sculpture.
van den Tempel, a portrait group by Carel
This is only one of the several respects in
de Moor and a striking series of pictures by
which Miss Ramsden's method is inadeJoris van Schooten. The collection clearly
quate. Her essay consists of a series of critijustifies serious research, which the Direccal assessmentsof individual artists, grouptor of the Museum, Dr E. Pelinck, has
ed together according to the country of
most excellently carried out. The present
their birth. From time to time, Cubism
catalogue is very much fuller than any of
and Abstraction and Surrealism rear up
the previous ones, and the information
their heads as ghostly entities whose meangiven, a good deal of which is new,
ing and genesis are nowhere explained (and
appears to be extremely accurate. Dr
Pelinck acknowledges in the preface how
they need constant explanation, re-interuseful he has found the Rijksbureau voor
pretation). So the book is almost entirely
devoid of any attempt either to give a coKunsthistorische Documentatie at The
herent account of the stylistic development
M. D.
Hague for his work.
of twentieth-century sculpture or to relate
its main preoccupations to the spirit of the
times. Neither can it serve as an up-to-date
source of information, since much of it
Nollekens and His Times. By J. T.
could have been based on data collected
Smith, xviii+275 pp.+4 ills. (Turnstile
ten or a score of years ago. No hint is given
Press), Ios. 6d.
that Henry Moore's style and ideas have
been modified since 1940, that Lipschitz
The older classics and source-booksof Engnow works in America, and that the mechlish art are gradually becoming available
anistic idiom of his RecliningWomanwith a
again. We have recently, for example, had
Guitarhas for twenty years played a far less
reprints of the Redgraves' Centuryof British
dominant r61ein his output than the BaroPainters and Hazlitt's Conversationswith
Northcote.For those without access to the
que idiom of his bronzes, that Gonzalez whom Miss Ramsden underestimates betwo original editions of Nollekensand his
cause she misunderstands him - died in
Timesor to the subsequent editions of 1895
1942, that Giacometti's

language has for

fifteen years been anything and everything

but 'abstract with a surrealist bias'. Yet
even these lacunae are insignificant beside
the author's apparent ignorance of the fact
that the sculptural euvreof Picasso (who,
incidentally, was not born, as her Index
states, in 190o3)has not been confined to the

Twentieth-Century Sculpture. By E. H.
Ramsden, 42 pp. + 63 pl. London
(Pleiades Books), 25s.

Miss Ramsden forestalls criticism of her

somewhat eccentric choice of illustrations
by enumerating in her Preface various
plausible excuses for its imperfections,

BronzeHeadof 1909. By writing as if it were

she has achieved the formidable task of surveying twentieth-century sculpture without mentioning the most influential works
of the period. This, together with some of
the omissions cited above - suggest that
Miss Ramsden acquiesces in the curious
superstition that an artist must on no account produce great paintings if he wishes
his sculptural work to be treated on its
merits.
DAVID

SYLVESTER

by Gosse and of 1929 in the 'World's

Clissics' (both of which omitted the memoirs of artists appended to the second edition), this is a straightforward reprint, excellently produced and at very moderate
price, of the 'World's Classics' edition,
with the addition of a spirited introduction
by Mr W. G. Stonier, one coloured and
three half-tone plates, and end-papers
based on a map of London of 1766. The
only editorial changes, apart from a few
typographical discrepancies with the Oxford Press reprint, are to print the chapter
summaries only at the beginning and to incorporate - innocuous though hardly necessary - the not very numerous footnotes
into the text. With these encouragements,
would not some equally enterprising publisher give us a straight, reasonably-priced
c. M.
reprint of Pye's Patronage?
269