National Art Education Association Creativity in the Arts by Vincent Tomas Review by: Marilyn Zurmuehlen Art Education, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Apr., 1970), p. 35 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191457 . Accessed: 16/06/2014 15:47 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. . National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.78.143 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 15:47:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=naea http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191457?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp book reviews: CREATIVITY IN THE ARTS. Vincent Tomas, ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964. 110 pp. $2.95. This paperback is one of the Contempo- rary Perspectives in Philosophy Series which was conceived for students and non- professionals. The collection includes pre- vious publications by R. G. Collingwood, Etienne Gilson, Bernard Berenson, C. J. Ducasse, Eliseo Vivas, and Vincent Tomas, along with accounts by artists Ben Shahn, Stephen Spender, and Wassily Kandinsky. Obviously, a strong asset is its convenient form for exposing undergraduate students in art and art education to a sample of the philosophical writings about creativity. One of the reader's first impressions may be a recognition of the diversity of viewpoints represented in the anthology. This effect is enhanced by the positioning of the essays, so that Collingwood's distinc- tion between making the plan as creating, and imposing the plan on certain matter as fabricating, is followed by Shahn's de- scription of beginning a painting with no established idea. Another comparison is suggested by placing Berenson's conten- tion that artistic qualities can only be discerned when novelty has abated after Gilson's definition of creation as "that character of 'novelty' which is so typical of artistic production." This subtle pacing may enhance the student's distinctions among the writers and, possibly, stimulate additional explorations. However, a sense of contradiction or of confusion does not seem likely to result from reading the entire collection because of the summarizing nature of the editor's final article and due to the emergence of a certain commonality among the ques- tions which a number of the authors con- sider. Spender, Kandinsky, and Shahn are concerned with the artist's audience: to Spender "every writer is secretly writing for someone; for Kandinsky the position of the audience in time is a determinant of those works which are the "quintes- sence of art"; while Shahn stresses that the audience is an audience of individuals. Shahn's attempt to record the evolution of a painting is reinforced by Gilson's position that what the painter "has calcu- lated is less his work than the way he is going to do it." Reaffirmation is supplied by Ducasse's qualification of art as endo- telic, or purposive within, and by his as- sertion that its nature is made clear only after it is created. This theme is restated by Vivas: ". .. the creative process con- sists at once in creating and discovering what one wants to say." The book can make a valuable contribu- tion to undergraduate students and to art teachers who are beginning to formulate philosophical foundations from which to make decisions about art curriculum and teaching strategies. The selected bibli- ography, hopefully, will encourage addi- tional reading. Marilyn Zurmuehlen Columbia, Missouri MICHELANGELO: THE CREATIVE SCULPTOR. Frederick Hartt. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1969. 310 pp. $20.00 Each year there appears to be an in- creasing number of books published that set high standards in both the visual and verbal accounts that they give of an artist and his work. However, every now and then a new landmark is established, and certainly the latest of these is Frederick Hartt's book on Michelangelo. The sculptor's work has been newly pho- tographed both in black and white and in color. The result is magnificent, and the reader is afforded the opportunity of com- ing as close to the works themselves as is humanly possible within the covers of a book. Each work has been photographed from a number of views, and in the close- ups every gesture and detail is described to reveal the master's ability to capture the "feel" of the whole figure in the movement of a hand, the tension of a foot, or the curve of a brow. Stone was Michel- angelo's life, says Hartt, and he goes on to point out that the color and resonance of the marble is very important to an un- derstanding of the sculpture. "The smoothed masses have a deep, inner glow which comes from careful and prolonged polishing and seems to be the counterpart of firm muscles and silky skin." It is a credit to all those engaged in the photogra- phy, selection, and reproduction of the color plates that it is exactly this quality of an "inner glow" that is revealed. The text is so clear and comprehensive that it would be ideal for the student first acquainting himself with the work and life of Michelangelo. (Hartt states that his book is primarily intended for the general public.) At the same time the specialist will find much of interest here, since new information is presented and the author maintains a point of view that is critical of some of the existing analyses of the sculptor's works. He suggests that al- though to our eyes the unfinished quality of many of the figures may be very sugges- tive and mysterious as these huge forms seem to struggle out of the stone, there is no evidence that the sculptor intended to leave them in this condition; and conse- quently, "a great deal of Romantic non- sense" has been written about their un- finished state. He also challenges much of the Neoplatonic interpretation of the sculp- ture's symbolic meaning. Hartt disagrees with Panofsky's view that Neoplatonism was the essence of Michelangelo's vision, and of his subsequent analysis of the Medici Chapel in terms of Neoplatonic cosmogony. Hartt's appeal to us to seek meaning "in the nature and purpose of the individual monument, in the personali- ties, ambitions, beliefs, and pronounce- ments of the patron and his advisors; and above all (when available) in the words of the artist himself," seems to make a lot of sense, particularly in light of the rather obsessive lengths to which some Neopla- tonic interpretations go in order to fit all of the work into the same scheme. The author must be commended for sticking to the principles he outlines above by offer- ing detailed descriptions of the problems and personalities surrounding the fate of the sculptor's monumental projects and also by constantly resorting to the letters and poems of the artist himself. An introductory essay traces the life of Michelangelo from his birth in the stony wilderness of a mountain village into an- other wilderness of old age and infirmity- a period which he dedicated to his final triumphant vision of a new St. Peter's. The remaining body of the book is devoted to an examination and description of the sculptor's thirty-six sculptural projects, throughout which the text and photographs are harmoniously linked. The author does not burden the reader with endless foot- notes, and the text is completed with a biographical outline and a selected bibliog- raphy. Hartt also provides a series of his own reconstructions which gives insight into the magnitude of the unfinished projects although the draughtmanship does little to convey the scale and sensibility of the master's grandiose schemes in which sculpture and architecture unite and em- brace each other. However, this is an in- significant defect in a book that accom- plishes so much in revealing the essential agony of the struggle between spirit and matter-a struggle which exemplifies both the sculptor's personal life and the restless masterpieces he created. I can only advise everyone to see for himself. When you open this book, you are invited to share in and be touched by the fragments of a vision that far outstretched the capabili- ties of its creator-which is the very rea- son why the "hard and alpine stone" of Michelangelo continues to speak to all of us and for all of us. Ian Thomas Vancouver, B. C., Canada A WORLD HISTORY OF ART. Gina Pischel. New York: The Golden Press, Inc., 1968. 718 pp. $17.95 This is one of those beautifully illus- trated pictorial histories of the develop- ment of art-a good example of the art book that is given to adorn the coffee table. The format is simple, the layout is lush, with many full page color illustra- tions, and the coverage is comprehensive, though not overly thorough. It is a book to be looked at and enjoyed and is valu- able as a visual dialogue for the elementary student or library. As a basic solid refer- ence book in art, however, it only super- ficially deals with the periods of art. It presents a sketchy and incomplete state- ment of the periods and deals with them in the most general of terms. If art is strictly to be studied on a visual level, this book does so in a very rich and colorful way; but if art is also to be dealt with as a scholarly study of the influences and movements that have created and de- veloped the art of the world, this book leaves much to be desired. Duncan E. Stewart Pensacola, Florida 35 This content downloaded from 185.44.78.143 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 15:47:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Article Contents p.35 Issue Table of Contents Art Education, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Apr., 1970), pp. 1-42 Front Matter [pp.1-9] A Doctor of Arts Program in Art [pp.10-13] Are We Still with It? [pp.14-18] To Structure or Not to Structure: A Divestiture of Two Aspects of Creativity [pp.19-21] Bent Shahn in Retrospect [pp.23-27] A Modular Curriculum for Junior High School Art [pp.28-29] Instruction in Art for Classroom Teachers [pp.30-32] Book Reviews untitled [p.35] untitled [p.35] untitled [p.35] untitled [p.36] untitled [p.37] untitled [p.38] untitled [p.38] untitled [p.39] untitled [p.40] untitled [p.40] Back Matter [pp.33-42]