Technological Change and the Humanities Curriculum/part three

Vincent Van Gogh, Self Portrait

New Patterns in the Patronage of Art

The situation in the visual arts is similar. For example, an excellent paperback on the history of Western art has just appeared. Bernard Myers, Fifty Great Artists (BN) is a survey of "Six Centuries of Art from Giotto to Picasso."

Highly praised by art historians and critics, it contains over 100 full-page reproductions, sixteen of them in full color. Two issues of a paperback anthology, Seven Arts (PE) have appeared. These collections contain writings by men of the stature of Thomas Mann, Frank Lloyd Wright, Aaron Copland, William Carlos Williams and Gian-Carlo Menotti. In the words of the editor, Fernando Puma, the collections provide "an exciting opportunity to read valuable and provocative articles by the foremost leaders in the world of painting, sculpture, music, literature, dance, theatre and architecture."

The first volume contained, in addition to over 200 pages of text, forty-eight pages of black and white plates of sculpture, architecture, photography, and painting. The Pocket Library of Great Art (PB) is a new series of pocket-size art books that sell for fifty cents. Degas, El Greco, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Matisse, Cezanne, Botticelli, the French Impressionists, Dufy, Van Gogh, Utrilo, and Rembrandt were the first titles; many more have since appeared.

The first titles met with such success that the series is now planned as a continuous operation. The Nation's art critic has described them well: These superb little books give many times their value in their texts, abundance of illustrations, and the quality and size of their twenty color plates, six of which double or even treble the size of the page by use of the double spread or the folded sheet. There are twenty supplementary illustrations of excellent quality in black and white. (October 10, 1953, p. 296.)

Each volume is edited by an outstanding authority, indicating that mass production and distribution need not imply vulgarization if the scholar and critic are willing to interpret their special knowledge for a non-specialized audience. Marboro Book Shops have launched another type of mass distribution program. Fourteen paintings were chosen for reproduction from the Louvre. Modigliani, Renoir, Rouault, Van Gogh, Lautrec, Monet, Vlaminck, Dufy, Utrillo, Matisse, Picasso, and Cezanne are represented. Most of the paintings are approximately 20" X 24", in full color; the rest vary slightly from these dimensions. These color reproductions are available by mail order for two dollars each. Here again technology and business combine to provide the average American with an exciting opportunity for patronage.

Another popularization of classic paintings that deserves the support of the humanities faculties in mass education is the Metropolitan Miniature series. Each volume in the series contains twenty-four post-card size reproductions that the buyer mounts in an album with text. For each six volumes purchased, an attractive filing box is provided. Quite often this series is topically organized: "Children in Art," "Six Centuries of Flower Painting," "Three American Water Colorists," "Great European Portraits," "The Story of Christ," "Japanese Prints," "Medieval Vista," "Italian Renaissance Painting," "Persian Painting," and "American Folk Art." These albums fit the standard opaque projector, and the topical organization makes some of them excellent supplementary material for certain phases of English and American literary history. Each volume costs $1.25 and postage; the subscriber has no selection. Art Treasures of the World has started an even more impressive venture.

Here the formula is a portfolio of sixteen color reproductions, individually mounted on 11" X 15" matting paper ready for framing. An eminent critic has described the quality of re- production as "miraculous." Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Picasso, Modigliani, Cezanne, Gauguin, El Greco, and Toulouse-Lautrec are among the first artists presented. Added features are analyses of individual paintings and a separate "Art Appreciation Course" prepared monthly by outstanding art educators. Each portfolio costs three dollars; the subscriber has complete freedom of purchase.

Even the reproduction of three dimensional objects is coming within the range of the average purchaser. According to Francis Henry Taylor, writing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's catalog, Sculpture Reproductions, this new dimension in the democratization of art patronage is also based on a technical advance: In 1946 a new process for sculpture reproduction was adopted by the Museum. In addition to making many objects available for reproduction that could not have been cast before, this process makes it possible to achieve the greatest accuracy of detail in reproduction and to make an exact and sensitive recreation of the original sculpture. A brief text prepared by a member of the staff provides a description and history of the original Museum sculpture.

Similar sculpture reproductions can be obtained from Museum Pieces, an organization that is not limited to the work of the Metropolitan but includes many more. Its work retails by mail at prices from two to seventy-five dollars. Contemporary Arts, a Boston firm, specializes in outstanding modem sculpture. Not only are the possibilities of patronizing the classic arts being broadened, but also an entirely new consciousness of good design in everyday objects is being disseminated by the mass circulation magazines.

Side by side with the Life and Time color reproductions of art masterpieces and feature stories on all phases of art history will be found advertisements of and articles about well designed articles of everyday use. Art News, sensing the importance of this philosophy to the visual environment of industrial America, has inaugurated its "Design Portfolio." The first two issues of this feature have been devoted to advertising art and political cartooning. The Walker Art Center continues to publish its excellent Design (formerly Everyday Art) Quarterly.

Hallmark Cards again last year commissioned artists like Saul Steinberg to do Christmas cards for the mass market. Again the British are ahead of us in this respect: Penguin has started an excellent series called "The Things We See," with volumes on houses, public transport, and ships, among others. Finally, the Associated American Artists Galleries should be mentioned as an example of the creative personalities' banding together to develop a more conscious art patronage in America. This organization distributes original work in lithographs, etching, experimental media, tiles, and Christmas cards.

If we are slow to respond to the businessman and technician, surely we ought to cooperate with these overtures of the artist.