books March 1974

Documentary Expression and Thirties America

William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 361 pages, 64 black-and-white illustrations.

William Stott’s new study is a strong and welcome antidote to the partial oblivion that still besets our consciousness of the thirties. Although not primarily concerned with the visual arts as such, the author’s analysis of the documentary mentality that affected a host of activities during the period—sociological studies of class and caste, radio news, “on the road”-style fiction or autobiography—will provide art historians with a “feel” of the times

print February 1974

“Photographers in 19th century Italy”

Three gondolas with nine Americans in each, their bleached-out eyes retouched with tiny black dots for pupils, the tableau spliced onto a backdrop of the Ducal Palace so that the gondoliers’ heads are ghostlike, is offered by Paolo Salviati, Photographer, and entitled Venezia in gold letters on a black border. A nude is seen six times over, one time with her left index finger curled against a plump cheek like Ingres’ Countess d’Haussonville, another time covering herself daintily like a Venus Surprised. Then there are market scenes, crowds at St. Peter’s, and Monuments, Monuments: the Bronze

print January 1974

In Search of “Sun Pictures”

Splendid buildings constructed of six kinds of precious wood I built within the precincts of Nineveh for my royal dwelling. With Sarmakhu trees from the foot of Mount Hermon, which the Syrian carpenters call the very best trees that they have in their land, or in the land of Chaldaea either, I erected the columns of its porticoes. Then Nineveh my royal city and its dwellings I embellished and made as splendid as the Sun.

SO SPAKE SENNACHERIB, “THE GREAT king, the powerful king, the king of Assyria,” according to the first attempted translation from a cylinder seal in the British Museum by Henry

Carl Baldwin