◆ SpookStack

art mistucy pes . portant as the expression of certain ideas about the art of the past in a literary form. . ‘After T left Harvard 1 went to study ia with Berenson in Florence. Mrs. Beren- : son was the sister ‘of the writer Logan Pearsall Smith. The whole atmosphere of I Tatti was one not only of expertise in painting, which was Berenson’s great contribution, but also in good writing. We used to read aloud at night and the whole atmosphere was closely related to books. I was always a voracious reader, but Bere: ulated me to read even more outside the field of the history of art. I remember reading Browning’s The and the Book, a wonderful poem and great deal of Proust. Edith Whar. ton was a great friend of the Berensons and we read her The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. Berenson also knew Henry James and I remember read- ing The Ambassadors. We also spent a great deal of time on the Russians — Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky and Chek- hov. One of the sorrows I’ve had in my profession is that I've had to read so much straight art historical writing and the level of quality, from a literary point of view, has become lower and lower. There are only a few outstanding writers ~ in the bistory of art that I admire as $= stylists — Kenneth M. Clark and Ernst Page? a aunpicy oss his catalogues at the Museum of Moaern Art and his writings on Matisse and « others, then, I think, he is an art his- dorian. But if he is simply writing « straight critical work I wouldn’t consider him an art historian. | Do you think that writing about art contributes in any way to the quality, the nature, the trends of the art th is actually produced? Indirectly, yes. For example, it's be cause of art historians that artists began to look at primitive art as an art form. Before that it had been put in the ethno- ' logical museums and people didn’t really i let's say, African sculpture. rtists began to be influenced by African sculpture there was a kind of discussion by art historians of ethno- logical art as an art form. It’s very difficult to tell which comes first, the literary discovery or the artistic discovery. There are, very definitely, re- lationships between painters and writers. Obviously Virginia Woolf's descriptions would not have taken the forms they took if she had not been looking at paint- ings by Duncan Grant, if she had not been discussing art with a writer and critic like Clive Bell. Can you see a parallel between move- ments in art and changes in style? Yes, I think there are definite resem- tou Cas -painting and literature in a ratner other. people have done it too. We decided ‘to take a series of paintings in the col- fion of the National Gallery of Art d try to find writers who were not art r historians, whenever possible, but who “conveyed the essence of the paintings. “There are obvious connections between ‘painting and literature. An artist like *Claude Lorrain, who lived in the 17th ‘century, was steeped in classical litera- ture, The parallel between Virgil’s writ- ing and Lorrain’s landscapes seemed evi- dent to us and we took a quotation from Virgil to show how closely related the two were. Sometimes we found that « .Mriter had an insight into the style of a peinter which art critics lacked, or at ry gift he con: y gift he con- veyed it more vividly. So, for example, we discovered that D. H. Lawrence, who was himself a painter, had certain in- sights into Cézanne which we thought were more beautifully expressed and perhaps more perceptively felt than any other writer that we could find on Cézanne. +] think an inspiration for our book perhaps even on our practic:3, wit -The Brown Decades, Sticks and St and The Culture of Cities, to name a Tell me about Malranx, this ver teresting man who is both Fra * Minister gf State for Cultural Ai and an art historiam I think his books on the history « hsve made people look at works of 1 a. new way. He has a very wide an’ . cyclopedic knowledge of art and hi brought together fascinating com tions and revealed new facets of » his juxtapositions of works of = various periods. Many people find one of the greatest art uo I understand that the Nath lery has had » happy relationship Malraux. Yea. The National Gallery owes h great deal. It was thanks to him thi were able to show the exhibitio French contemporary painting ¥ just ended. He has also announced he hopes to arrange a comparable ex tion of contemporary American pain at one of the large state museun Paris. He feels the Freneh should | more about what is being done in York, and this, for a Frenchman, very yemarkable, cosmopolitan poi view. “a Book wa