by Jon Lackman | 8 March 2007 | Ancient, Books, Modern, Theory
Numerous engaging book reviews can be found in the November 2006 issue of Art History (reviews editor Liz James).
On John Henderson’s The Triumph of Art at Thorvaldsens Museum: ‘Løve’ in Copenhagen, writes: “Which of us, nowadays, would dare to declare our love for a monument as the motive for a scholarly study? John Henderson introduces his short monograph on the exterior frieze of the Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen: ‘I fell for the bijou museum dreamed up there, on sight, no less, and now know it is a place I want to take those I love around. Fearlessly, too, Henderson uses such adjectives as ‘wonderful,’ ‘marvellous,’ ‘lovely.’ This is a book for that elusive, perhaps mythical general reader,’ yet it would be a mistake to read its enthusiasm as mere hype. Ideas of love and glorification animate the books’ avowed ‘challenge’ from author to reader; but they also interpret the frieze itself, a homage to a beloved teacher and a national hero … this is a particularly engaging study of a single monument, made at a particularly interesting historical moment. But who is going to read a monograph on a monument that most of us are never likely to visit, and the names of whose artists few will even recognize (indeed, the artists who actually executed the frieze remain unnamed in the book)?”
On Christopher Hallett’s The Roman Nude, Emma Dench writes: “How can we take Roman nude portraiture seriously? … modern art historians have found it hard to contain their scorn or, more frequently, laughter at the sight of towering, leanly athletic and youthful bodies topped with grim and elderly faces … Hallett’s thought-provoking study explores the problems that are raised by Roman nude statues, attempting a fresh reading of the various ‘meanings’ of this nudity within ancient culture itself; and suggests that it is high time that modern art historians engaged in some soul-searching to discover why they have found these artefacts so repulsive. Hallett set out self-consciously to write a book that put ‘the big questions’ in the foreground, enhancing the usefulness and appeal of the study for scholars working across the disciplines of classical antiquity and for a more general audience as well.”
Reviewing Gavin Butt‘s Between You and Me: Queer Disclosures in the New York Art World, 1948-1963, John Potvin writes: “Undertaking a study which aims to unpack how gossip has directly and/or inadvertently affected art-historical writing on queer artists by suggesting that gossip itself forms a legitimate discursive network from which to garner meaning and unpack artistic mythology is no small feat. [Ed's Note: Lilian Chee’s recent CAA presentation on Singapore's Raffles Hotel made a similar argument.] However, as Gavin Butt exquisitely proves, the line between history and gossip is as slippery as the relationship between signifiers and signifieds in the pictures of American artists of the period after the 1939-45 war … his strategy of deploying gossip, rumour and innuendo as legitimate discursive modes in unpacking art’s fraught and complex history has much broader implications beyond the historical and geographical context to which he limits himself.”
