(feed In fMlep Library BULLETIN DEC h 74 ALLEN^ MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM OBERLIN COLLEGE XXXU, 1, 1974-75
ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM BULLETIN
VOLUME XXXII, NUMBER 1 1974-75
Contents
Wolfgang Stechow 1896-1974 ...... 3
Acquisitions: 1973-74 by Richard E. Spear ...... (,
Accessions ------16
St. Catherine Disputing with the Philosophers, an Early Work by the Master of St. G-udule by Maryan W. Ainsworth ...... 22
A Landscape Handscroll by Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung
by Daphne Lange Rosenzweig ----- 34
Oberlin's Acquisitions Ethics Policy ----- 57
Notes Exhibitions 1974-75 60 Oberlin-Ashland Archaeological Society 60 Baldwin Seminar ------61 Friends of Art Concert Series - - - - - 61 Friends of Art Film Series ------61 Oberlin Friends of Art ------62
Published twice a year by the Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. $6.00 a year, this issue $3.00; mailed free to members of the Oberlin Friends of Art. Back issues available on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Printed by the Press of the Times, Oberlin, Ohio
Wolfgang Stechow 1896-1974 Wolfgang Stechow
Wolfgang Stechow, editor of this Bulletin, a mystery to his colleagues in Europe, and even beloved colleague, teacher and friend to a multi to those in the larger American universities. tude of persons both at Oberlin and throughout The presence of the museum, and also that of the world of art, died on October 12 at the age the Conservatory, had much to do with his of seventy-eight. When word was received of his staying, of course. But those who have taught sudden death in Princeton, where he had a teach at Oberlin any length of time and have en ing appointment for the fall term, the current countered generation after generation of the issue was already in proof. Professor Stechow special kind of student that Oberlin attracts — served as editor of the Bulletin from the fall of bright, inquisitive, eager, receptive to the warmth 1967 to the present, but throughout his Oberlin and understanding that radiated from such a career, that is, from 1940 on, he took an active man—will realize what kept him here. part in encouraging contributions to the maga Those who knew Wolf well in his working zine and was himself its most prolific contributor. life at the museum will remember with gratitude In fact, Vol. I, no. 1, which appeared in June and affection his gentle and tolerant, yet probing 1944, was devoted entirely to his important study and insistent way of urging upon the rest of us of a newly acquired cassone panel. a particularly desirable work that had appeared Professor Stechow, though in the twelfth year on the market. A listing of what was acquired of his retirement from Oberlin College, contin through his encouragement would be too long ued to play a major role in the life of the Mu for these pages, and an exhibition of such works seum and the College: through recommenda too large for our gallery space. He had a de tions of acquisitions, in soliciting donations, by manding and accurate eye for quality, and set a research and publication, with generous gifts to standard for us all. During the last summer of the collection, and in devoted service on the his life, when he and Ursula were travelling museum purchase committee. Our loss is im abroad, he saw an exquisite Dutch landscape measurable. And because he seemed to have in the London trade. It always embarrassed access to some fountain of youth that was kept Wolf a bit to find "one more Dutch picture" secret from the rest of us, we w7ere unprepared that might fill a gap in the already ample for this sudden end. That so distinguished a Dutch collections. "This is a real 'Lugt' picture," scholar stayed at Oberlin throughout the main he wrote. We might say, now that he is gone, part of his teaching career may well have been "it was a real 'Wolf picture." It is thanks to him, of course, that the collections are so strong in tion which will be included in a forthcoming Dutch painting, and in Netherlandish and issue of Apollo, devoted to the Oberlin museum. German prints. The maxim of building upon Just before Wolf left for Princeton in Septem strength, always closely adhered to at Oberlin, ber, one of our staff remarked to him, in pass meant building not only on the strength of the ing, "It's marvelous that you can continue to collection, but upon Wolf Stechow's strength: teach and give so much of yourself, but don't his presence and his scholarship. His appoint you ever want to slow down?" His answer was, ment as Honorary Curator of the collection in "I have to teach. I could not do otherwise." He 1973 only made official what had been an un looked well and he felt well the last months of acknowledged fact for nearly thirty-five years. his life and anticipated his semester at Princeton Professor Stechow had just completed the with great pleasure. He was busy until the end, manuscript of a catalogue of the museum's draw7- and that is the way he would have had it. Some ings, a project undertaken with matching funds of his closest friends died with equal sudden from two devoted friends and the National En ness, and he never spoke of the manner of their dowment for the Arts. He also had just finished death but with a sense of gladness. We are an article on landscape paintings in our collec thankful he was granted the same mercy.
C.H.Y.
Having had the extraordinary privilege of giving this one a B minus? This paper does not working beside Wolf since 1940, I should like deserve more than a C because that boy could to add to the above expression of what we all do so much better." feel a word or two more about his teaching. He All of his thousands of students responded loved teaching all students, and he gave the not only to Wolfgang Stechow's persuasive visual same kind of thoughtful consideration to the analyses of pictures, but equally as much (even papers of swimming stars and future business though few of them will have realized it) to men as he did to the theses of mature art his his disciplined thinking, his unwavering exacti torians. Most of his students, and perhaps even tude as a scholar, a teacher and a connoisseur. colleagues, would find it hard to believe how (While he knew the market well, he scrupulous much of his time this internationally distin ly refused to enhance the commercial value of guished scholar gave to reading papers and blue- an art work by putting his name to an expertise.) books. And he never stopped worrying himself The straight, aristocratic bearing that Wolf main about that delicate task of evaluating someone tained to his last day owed far less to his early else's work. "Would you mind reading this experience as a German army officer than to the essay? Do you think it is really worth an A minus, rectitude by which he lived, and the wit and or is it only a B plus? Would I be justified in grace in which he cloaked it. E.H.J. Acquisitions: 1973-74
The statistics of new acquisitions are easily earlier attitude towards medals, when they were determined: during the fiscal year 1973-74, ap hung on chains as simple decorative objects. proximately 125 works of art were bought by While the Duke's daughter (1535-63) is por or donated to the Oberlin Museum. Less ob trayed in profile in high relief on the principal jective is any choice of the "more important" side of the bronze, Diana at the hunt, and Pluto pieces, but the summary nature of this review of and Persephone with Cerberus are depicted on recently-accessioned works necessitates a rather the reverse (further research will clarify the rigorous selection. The character of what I con iconographical relationship between Diana and sider to be the main acquisitions prompts dis lppolita). The lively, complex action on the cussion based on chronology rather than medium, reverse contrasts markedly with the quiet, ideal for certain paintings, drawings, sculptures and ized pose of lppolita, but in each instance prints form particularly provocative groups. Leoni's consummate skill in modelling on a It is not surprising that outstanding works small scale is manifest. from the Renaissance are seldom available. Oberlin's collection of eighteenth century Nevertheless, a fine engraving of Apollo and European art was significantly strengthened Marsyas by the Master of the Die, an anony through this year's acquisitions. Gregorio de mous printmaker in Raphael's (or more accur Ferrari's magnificent drawing for a ceiling in ately, Marcantonio's) circle, active in the 1530's, the Palazzo Balbi-Senarega in Genoa (actually was acquired; but the most important Renais executed at the very end of the seventeenth sance purchase was Leone Leoni's signed medal century but highly indicative of changing taste of lppolita di Ferdinando Gonzaga (figs. 1, 2). ca. 1700), was fully analyzed by Mary New- This particular bronze by Leoni (1509-90), one come in the previous issue of the Bulletin,1 so of the outstanding medallists of the sixteenth there is no need to discuss it anew. century, is rare. Oberlin's impression is very Newcome speaks of the "gay, witty, rococo good, marred only by slight wear and that not- spirit" of Gregorio de Ferrari's drawing; its uncommon hole at the top, which records an decorative-architectural motifs can actually be
Mary Newcome, "Et nos cedamus Amori: A Draw ing by Gregorio de Ferrari for the Palazzo Balbi- Senarega in Genoa," AMAM Bulletin, XXXI, 1973- 74, pp. 78 ff., figs. 5-6, 8. 1. Leone Leoni, obv. lppolita di Ferdinando Gonzaga
2. Leone Leoni, rev. Diana
3. Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Bust of a Young Girl 4. Louis Lagrenee, Midday (before cleaning)
5. Louis Lagrenee, Sunset (before cleaning) found in Jean Le Pautre's (1618-82) album of jects which was so popular in France in the forty ornamental engravings of chimneys, al second half of the eighteenth century. On a coves, ceilings, antique vases, plaques, friezes, future occasion and after the canvases have been etc., which also was bought during the year. cleaned, the Lagrenees will be discussed in Jean Baptiste Lemoyne's dated (1762) Bust of a greater detail. Young Girl (fig. 3) reiterates the rococo theme The German portraitist Balthasar Denner of youthful charm and naivete. Whereas Le (1685-1749) was highly fashionable for his ele moyne (1704-78) is best known for his brilliantly gant, full-length portraits, and he also achieved fresh, life-sized portraits of members of Louis considerable fame for astonishingly veristic rep XV's court, his busts of children are relatively resentation of heads of old men and women. rare. Oberlin's terracotta is very similar to an Oberlin's Portrait of a Man (fig. 6), neither other Young Girl formerly in the David-Weill signed nor dated but unquestionably typical of collection,2 for in each that alluring innocence Denner's studies of memorable faces, belongs to so characteristic of much rococo art is quite this latter group. Eminently Germanic in its evident. insistent, linear naturalism, it also is a product Lemoyne's little girl could have stepped out of the Age of Reason, of its treatises on physi of a Boucher fete pastorale (or is she the sister ognomy. The luminosity of this panel comple of the painter's Boy Holding a Carrot?3). Bou ments the old man's intense alertness, producing cher's art epitomizes for us so many aspects of a magnetic quality that affects even the casual the reign of Louis XV, and it is equally true observer. that Boucher's imagery had an enormous in Three drawings from the mid-nineteenth fluence on his own contemporaries. Louis La century also should be singled out from among grenee (1725-1805), far from being the excep the acquisitions of 1973-74. The earliest, signed tion, profited immensely from studying Boucher's by Grandville (1803-47; his real name w7as Jean mythologies. A set of four paintings, docu Ignace Isidore Gerard), represents La Serre mented in Lagrenee's own inventory-account list Throwing Chapelain's Wig into the Street (fig. and said to have been made for one "M. de 7), a rare, comical incident drawn from Boileau's, Saint-Julien," represents the four Times of the Racine's, and Furetiere's Chapelain decoiffe . . . Day.4 Two, depicting Aurora and Night (the (1664), which by strange coincidence is also the first and last scenes of the set), are untraced, subject of Oberlin's drawing close to Gillot but "Le soleil dissipant les vents et les orages" (64.17). Grandville's graphically descriptive, (fig. 4), evidently Midday, and "Apollon dans humorous sheet is the final preparatory drawing, le sein de Thetis" (fig. 5), or Sunset, the former in reverse, for a wood engraving of 1840, illus signed and dated 1772, reappeared this past year trating Boileau's Oeuvres. and were bought by the Oberlin Museum. Pos Two years later, Edward Lear (1812-88), sibly designed as overdoors, they typify that that indefatigable English chronicler of Medi lyrical, decorative approach to mythological sub terranean travels, sketched Mt. Etna (fig. 8) in
2 See Louis Reau, Les Lemoyne, Paris, 1927, fig. 123. 4 See Edmond de Goncourt, "Lagrenee l'Aine," L'Art, 8 See Francois Boucher in North American Collections: y annee, 1877, pp. 25 ff. and specifically p. 236, nos. 100 Drawings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 222-25 and n. 19. D.C, and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1973-74, p. 41, no. 32. black chalk on grey-green paper, heightening the body the very essence of Art Deco, while at the scene with touches of white —all put down same time they are excellent examples of fine with a great economy of means and that superb modern porcelain. The Museum is indebted to sense of knowing just how little description is John Stern ('39), himself a devoted collector of needed to record a site and evoke its mood. Art Deco figures, for having bought these pieces Red Rose and White (fig. 9), signed and for Oberlin. dated (1867) by Anthony Frederick Sandys Nearly all of the modern art acquired during (1832-1904), is English too, but representative 1973-74 is contemporary, although a most wel of a quite different sensibility, that of the Pre- come exception — for our holdings of Surrealism Raphaelite Brotherhood. The languid expression are meagre — is Kay Sage's (1898-1963) Cow- of the expansive woman, her specific physiog position (fig. 15), a delicate drawing signed and nomy, and the decorative, sinuous handling of dated 1945 and dedicated "a Madame Lefebvre." colored chalks, are strongly evocative of Dante Sam Gilliam generously donated to the Museum Gabriel Rossetti, who profoundly influenced a fine example of his coloristically-rich work, Sandys. Although Sandys' art is relatively little Softly Still (fig. 13), a creased, crumpled, stained, known today, a reassessment may be forthcom splattered piece of polypropylene paper, 15 by 12 ing, for as these notes go to press the first major feet, draped over a custom-made Ponderosa pine exhibition of his art is taking place in Brighton sawhorse. Oberlin purchased Meditation on the and Sheffield. Theorem of Pythagoras, the first "piece" by the Stylistically, Pre-Raphaelite art has many conceptual artist Mel Bochner to enter a public in cross-connections — most obviously with move stitution. Temporarily installed on neutral brown ments such as the Nazarenes in Germany and paper (awaiting an unpatterned floor in the new Italy, but also with Art Nouveau. When the modern gallery), it is a simple yet visually collection of St. John's College in Cleveland provocative display of the fundamental order was auctioned last autumn, the Oberlin Museum contained in a 3 x 4 x 5 triangle. The theorem purchased an unusual decorative sculpture (fig. of Pythagoras, learned by us all in school, is 10), signed by one J. Tovar, whose identity is given new visual meaning through a literal otherwise unknown to us. Possibly Spanish, he demonstration, where both counting and surface evidently worked in Paris early in this century, areas are rendered in palpable, straightforward to judge from the foundry mark, Valsuani. The terms. Another form of conceptual art — that piece pays homage to Rodin's Gates of Hell, yet based on language — was donated to Oberlin by is thoroughly Art Nouveau in character; sur Andy Warhol: two of Joseph Kosuth's large, prisingly, it has electric lights and mirrors hid photostatic, dictionary definitions, of White and den behind colored glass. It represents, in a Black, part of his series "art as idea as idea." quite free fashion, the Inferno. Lest there be An early (1963) Dan Flavin, Untitled (to any doubt, Dante's lines are quoted on the work Charles Cowles), is composed of one blue and itself: "Uomini fummo ed or / sem fatti sterpi/ one daylight eight-foot fluorescent tube —an C. CHI Inf-Dante" ("Men we were and now we austere work, "minimal" in one sense, yet quietly are changed to sticks"). poetic and mysterious in another. Flavin's sculp Equally stylish are two Rosenthal porcelain ture was acquired with matching funds from figures, the Prince and the Princess (figs. 11, the National Endowment for the Arts' "Museum 12,), signed by G. Schliepstein, who worked for Purchase Plan" grant, as were two other works. the Rosenthal factory between the Wars. These Richard Serra's Tiro Cuts (1971, fig. 14), twelve mannered, intensely self-conscious figures em feet of hot-rolled steel, is scheduled to be in- 10 6. Balthasar Denner, Portrait of a Man 7. J. J. Grandville, La Serre Throwing Chapelain's Wig into the Street
8. Edw7ard Lear, Mount Etna
9. Anthony Frederick Sandys, Red Rose and White stalled on the Museum's grounds during this Sonnier strengthened our collection of modern year. Weighing nearly five tons, it obviously graphics. In addition, Diane Arbus' A Box of Ten represents Serra's preoccupation with awesome Photographs, a group of ten of her most impor weight, and with physical processes as well, for tant works, was selected for the Museum by it demonstrates the formal consequences of nat the Friends of Art at their annual Purchase ural laws, in this case balance and gravity. "Cut Party. one" disappears as such, for the top-heavy one- Two other contemporary sculptures should inch slab falls over with its own w7eight; "cut be mentioned. Jackie Winsor's Four Corners, two" remains just that, because the four-inch known to the Oberlin public from the "Four wide slices of steel can stand on their own. Young Americans" exhibition of 1973,5 was gen The third of the N.E.A. purchases — and the erously donated to the Museum by Donald final acquisition of the year, for the painting Droll. And Anne Healy's Premise (1973), a literally was drying as the fiscal period closed — strip of sheer black silk, gathered between verti is Audrey Flack's Straxvberry Tart Supreme (fig. cal rods of aluminum, was presented by an 17), a sensuous feast of five desserts whose anonymous donor in memory of Sara Houston. brilliant luminosity stems from, but far outstrips, Like old black velvet, Healy's piece has a somber the photographic transparency from which they organic mystery to it, inviting yet forbidding were made. Like traditional still-life painters, one's touch. Flack composes (and then photographs) her still Finally, four important works from non- lifes, and paints from — or rather, on — their Western cultures came to the Oberlin collec projected image. Her acrylic sprays work magic, tions during 1973-74. A terracotta Seated Male spatially, descriptively, and coloristically, both on Figure (fig. 16), bought by the Friends of Art, a naturalistic and abstract level. is perfectly characteristic of the Colombian sculp Drawings by tw7o other artists of the "Photo ture generally classified as "Quimbaya Culture." Realist" tendency were acquired through the The seated man, highly abstracted into simple Fund for Contemporary Art: Frances Kuehn's geometric units and shapes, ingeniously becomes Untitled acrylic drawing of part of a simple his own chair. The apparent rawness of the wooden chair and a leg, and Janet Fish's luscious clay admirably reinforces the directness of the Oranges pastel. A second drawing by Red piece, which reminds us that formal strength Grooms was added to the collections — a witty can be quite independent of refined craftsman tw7o-page sketch of Inside Launching Pad, made ship and "sophistication." when Grooms was the official N.A.S.A. artist Padmapani Lokeshvara (fig. 18), a splendid at Cape Kennedy for an Apollo shot (1971). Nepalese bronze of the thirteenth century, was Three other recent drawings, by Jud Fine, Will donated to the Museum by Paul F. Walter ('57). Insley, and Sylvia Mangold, w7ere bought during Exhibited at Oberlin in 1971," it represents the the year. And a group of prints by artists in lotus-bearer Bodhisattva standing in the swaying cluding Diebenkorn (the gift of Carl Gerber, tribhanga pose with his right hand forming the '58), Marisol, Ed Moses, Rauschenberg, and gesture of charity (the lotus or padma is on his
"Festival of Contemporary Arts," AMAM Bulletin, 6 "Indian Art from the Paul Walter Collection,"AMAM XXX, 1973, fig. 15, and Athena T. Spear, "Some Bulletin, XXVIII, 1971, p. 101, no. 100. Thoughts on Contemporary Art," loc. cit., pp. 94-95. 12 10. J. Tovar, Dante's 'Inferno'
11. Gerhard Schliepstein, Prince
12. Gerhard Schliepstein, Princess 13. Sam Gilliam, Softly Still
14. Richard Serra, Two Cuts left shoulder). The young prince, elegantly quality and fine in condition. One, with fea aristocratic in bearing, costume, and expression, tures relating it to the Kamakura and Bizen is the personification of compassion; he makes traditions, is of the fourteenth century, while an unusually interesting complement to the the other, of the Noshu Province tradition, dates second century Chamba Padmapani Lokeshvara from the sixteenth century. Both belong to the acquired by the Museum last year.7 "shinogi zukuri" or "long sword" category. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung's handscroll (discussed in this issue of the Bulletin, pp. 34 ff.) is a par As these notes must make quite evident, the ticularly welcome addition to the Oberlin col Museum is deeply indebted to many generous lections, for despite the College's long-standing alumni and friends for strengthening its collec involvement with the Orient, the Museum's tions during the past year. To them, to the staff holdings of good Chinese paintings are small. of the Museum, and to the members of the Pur An alumnus who spent considerable time in chase Committee, I express our sincerest appre Japan, Sherwood F. Moran (T4), presented two ciation, for they are directly responsible for en fine Japanese sword blades, both excellent in riching our hours in the Oberlin galleries.
Richard E. Spear Director
"Acquisitions: 1972-73," AMAM Bulletin, XXXI, 1973-74, fig. 4. 15 Accessions
PAINTINGS DRAWINGS Balthasar Denner, German, 1685-1749 Arman (Armand Fernandez), French, 1928- Portrait of a Man, ca. 1720 FIG. 6 Boom-Boom, 1972 Oil on panel, I6V2 x 13% in. Felt pen and Craypas, 300 x 230 mm. Special Acquisitions Fund (73.96) Fund for Contemporary Art (73.77)
Audrey Flack, American, 1931- Clyde Giltner Chandler, American Strawberry Tart Supreme, 1974 FIG. 17 Drawing of Four People, ca. 1900 Acrylic on canvas, 54 x 60% in. Graphite, 720 x 876 mm. National Endowment for the Arts General Acquisitions Fund (73.88) Museum Purchase Plan (74.43) Gregorio de Ferrari, Italian, 1647-1726 Sam Gilliam, American, 1933- Drawing for gallery ceiling, Palazzo Softly Still, 1973 FIG. 13 Balbi-Senarega, Genoa, ca. 1690 Acrylic, latex and dyes Pen and brown ink, brown w7ash, heightened on polypropylene, draped over with white on light buff paper, 392 x 1524 mm. wooden sawhorse, 182 x 119 in. (painting), General Acquisitions Fund and Friends of Art 30'A x 36 x 13 in. (sawdiorse) Endowment (73.78) Gift of the artist (73.89) Jud Fine, American, 1944- Hsiao Yiin-tsung, Chinese, 1596-1673 Untitled, 1973 Handscroll, 1665 Pencil and photograph, 476 x 610 mm. Ink and colors on paper, 11% x 153% in. Fund for Contemporary Art (74.1) R. T. Miller, Jr. Fund (73.74) See pp. 34-56 in this issue of the Bulletin Janet Fish, American, 1938- Oranges, 1973 Louis Lagrenee, French, 1725-1805 Pastel on sandpaper, 560 x 965 mm. Midday, 1772 FIG. 4 Fund for Contemporary Art (74.6) Oil on canvas, 29V4 x 55% in. Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Fund (74.10) J. J. Grandville (Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard), French, 1803-1847 Louis Lagrenee, French, 1725-1805 La Serre Throwing Chapelain's Sunset, 1772 FIG. 5 Wig into the Street FIG. Oil on canvas, 29% x 55!4 in. Pen and ink, 134x 112mm. Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Fund (74.11) Anonymous Art Fund (73.92)
Virginia McLoid, American Red Grooms, American, 1937- Landscape, 1862 Inside Launching Pad, 1971 Painted leaves on cardboard, 16'/2 x 19% in. Black pen, 404 x 701 mm. (two sheets) Gift of Mrs. Melvin Gisman (73.61) Special Acquisitions Fund (74.31 a-b)
Virginia McLoid, American Indian, Chamba, Pahari, ca. 1760-1770 Landscape, 1862 God on Horseback with Dancing Women Painted leaves on cardboard, 9% x 12% in. Pen and ink on light buff paper, 150 x 175 mm. Gift of Mrs. Melvin Gisman (73.62) Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wiener (73.94) 16 15. Kay Sage, Composition 16. Seated Male Figure
17. Audrey Flack, Strawberry Tart Supreme Indian, Rajastan, ca. 1800 Anne Frye, American, 1945- Avtar of Vishnu as a Boar Untitled, 1971 Pen and ink with wash, 260 x 175 mm. Neoprene rubber, SVi x 8Vi x 2!/io in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wiener (73.83) Fund for Contemporary Art (73.72)
William Insley, American, 1929- Anne Healy, American, 1939- Channel Spiral, 1968 Premise, 1973 Pencil on ragboard, 787 x 787 mm. Silk and aluminum, 96 x 18 x 12 in. Fund for Contemporary Art (73.85) Anonymous Donor in Memory of Sara Houston Frances Kuehn, American, 1943- (74.12) Untitled, 1971 Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, French, 1704-1778 Acrylic on paper, 652 x 507 mm. Head of a Young Girl, 1762 FIG. 3 Fund for Contemporay Art (74.27) Terracotta, 12 x IVs x 8 in. Edward Lear, English, 1812-1888 Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Fund (74.36) Mount Etna, 1842 FIG. 8 Black chalk heightened with w7hite on Leone Leoni, Italian, 1509-1590 green-grey paper, 85 x 177 mm. Medal of lppolita di Ferdinando Special Acquisitions Fund (74.29) Gonzaga, 1551 FIGS. 1, 2 Bronze, D: 2"/i6 in. Sylvia Mangold, American, 1938- Special Acquisitions Fund (74.32) Study for Large Painting, 1970 Liquitex, 584 x 736 mm. Elie Nadelman, American, 1882-1946 Fund for Contemporary Art (74.34) Autumn, ca. 1912 Terracotta, 4V& x 6% in. Kay Sage, American, 1898-1963 Gift of Mr. E. Jan Nadelman (73.65) Composition, 1945 FIG. 15 Pencil and ink wash, 230 x 188 mm. Nepalese, 13th century R. T. Miller, Jr. Fund (74.3) Padmapani Lokeshvara FIG. 18 Anthony Frederick Sandys, English, Gilt bronze, H: 16 in. 1829/32-1904 Gift of Paul F. Walter (74.22) Red Rose and White, 1867 FIG. 9 Red and black chalks, 405 x 335 mm. Gerhard Schliepstein (designer), German, 1886-r Olney Fund (73.68) Rosenthal manufacture The Prince FIG. 11 William T. Wiley, American, 1937- Porcelain, H: lSViin. Drawing of Eye Talisman Strain, 1972 John Stern Fund (74.19) Watercolor, magic marker, ball point pen, 280 x215 mm. Gerhard Schliepstein (designer), German, 1886-? Gift of the artist (73.71) Rosenthal manufacture The Princess FIG. 12 SCULPTURE Porcelain, H: 18>/2in. John Stern Fund (74.20) Me! Bochner, American, 1940- Meditation on the Theorem of Pythagoras, 1972 Richard Serra, American, 1939- Hazelnuts and wdiite chalk (temporarily installed) Two Cuts FIG. 14 5 on brown wrapping paper, 35 x 33V4 in. Hot-rolled steel, 5Ys x 23Vi6 x 120 /s in. Fund for Contemporary Art (74.26) National Endowment for the Arts Museum Purchase Plan (74.40) Dan Flavin, American, 1933- Untitled (to Charles Cowles), 1963 J. Tovar, Spanish (?) Daylight and blue fluorescent light, H: 96 in. Dante's Inferno, ca. 1900 FIG. 10 National Endowment for the Arts Metal and glass, 18% x 15Vz x IVi in. Museum Purchase Plan (74.38) General Acquisitions Fund (73.66) 18 Jackie Winsor, American, 1941- Ed Moses, American, 1926- Four Corners, 1972 Wedge Series *4, 1973 Wood and hemp, 30 x 48 x 48 in. Color lithograph, 610 x 457 mm. Gift of Donald Droll (73.87) Fund for Contemporay Art (74.18)
Alphonse Mucha, Czechoslovakian, 1860-1939 PRINTS Illustration to Le Pater, commentaire et compositions de A. M. Mucha, 1899 Hans Bellmer, German, 1902- Watercolor and gold paint on printed page lllustration for "Poesies," 1932 354x251 mm. Lithograph, 253 x 330 mm. Special Acquisitions Fund (73.57) General Acquisitions Fund (74.8) Gary Bower, American, 1940- Jean Le Pautre, French, 1618-1682 Untitled, 1973 40 Ornamental Designs, ca. 1670 Lithograph, 768 x 562 mm. Engraving, 225 x 310 mm. each Friends of Art Fund (73.73) Anonymous Art Fund (74.25) Robert Cottingham, American, 1935- Robert Rauschenberg, American, 1925- Fox, 1973 Horsefeathers Thirteen, 1972 Color lithograph, 584 x 584 mm. Lithograph, silkscreen and pochoir collage, Fund for Contemporary Art (74.15) 648 x 524 mm. Fund for Contemporary Art (74.9) Paul Delvaux, Belgian, 1897- Two Girls, 1967 Robert Rauschenberg, American, 1925- Color lithograph, 350 x 280 mm. Tanya, 1974 General Acquisitions Fund (74.7) Embossed lithograph, 571 x 394 mm. Fund for Contemporary Art (74.33) Richard Diebenkorn, American, 1922- Untitled, 1969 Jacques Reich, American, 1852-1923 Lithograph, 606 x 473 mm. 42 Portraits, 1895-1914 Gift of Carl L. Gerber (74.2) Etching, 317 x 419 mm. each Yozo Hamaguchi, Japanese, 1901- Gift of Oswald D. Reich (73.67.1-42) Papillon Rouge, 1973 Mezzotint, 51x51 mm. Victor Joseph Roux-Champion, French, ca. 1871-? Portrait of Paul Signac Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland (73.59) Etching with aquatint, 336 x 255 mm. Joseph Kosuth, American, c. 1938- Purchase Show Fund (73.90) White and Black, 1966 Enlarged photostats of dictionary definitions, Richard Serra, American, 1939- part of series Art as Idea as Idea, 183rd and Webster Ave., 1972 1220 x 1220 mm. each Lithograph, 812 x 1424 mm. Photostatic copy on posterboard Fund for Contemporary Art (73.64) Gift of Andy Warhol (74.39 a-b) Frank Short, English, 1857-1945, after G. F. Watts Marisol (Marisol Escobar), American, 1930- Love and Death, 1900 Five Hands and One Finger, 1971 Mezzotint with white chalk, 620 x 350 mm. Lithograph, 457 x 610 mm. Charles F. Olney Fund (74.21) Fund for Contemporary Art (74.17) Keith Sonnier, American, 1941- Master of the Die, Italian, 16th century Video Silkscreen 111, 1973 Apollo and Marsyas Silkscreen on polyester film and arjomari Engraving, 190 x 287 mm. paper, 705 x 914 mm. R. T. Miller, Jr. Fund (74.4) Fund for Contemporary Art (74.13) 19 18. Padmapani Lokeshvara Larry Stark, American, 1940- VIDEO TAPES March 17 th, 1971, 1971 William Wegman, American, 1942- Photo silkscreen, 448 x 585 mm. Selected Works, Reel 1, 1970-72, and Reel 3, 1972 Friends of Art Fund (73.79) Gift of the Oberlin Art Department, Anderson Film Archive Fund (74.44.a-b) Larry Stark, American, 1940- October, 1969, 1971 BASKETRY Photo silkscreen, 347 x 485 mm. African, ca. 1875 Friends of Art Fund (73.80) Round basket with cover Walasse Ting, Chinese, 1929- H: 5V2in., D: 9 in. Fireworks, 1974 Gift of Elmina R. Lucke (74.5) Color lithograph, 380 x 565 mm. Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland (74.41) CERAMICS Colombian, Quimbaya Culture, ca. 500-1000 A.D. Mark Tobey, American, 1890- Seated Male Figure FIG. 16 Pensees germinales, 1973 Terracotta, H: 12V4 in. Drypoint, 238 x 146 mm. Friends of Art and Friends of Art Endowment Friends of Art Fund (73.60) Funds (74.24) Suzanne Valadon (Marie Clementine Valadon), WEAPONS French, 1867-1938 Portrait of Maurice Utrillo, 1928 Japanese, early 14th century Lithograph, 225 x 178 mm. Sword Purchase Show Fund (73.91) Steel, 17 in. Gift of Sherwood F. Moran (73.69) Anthonie Waterloo, Dutch, ca. 1610-1690 Japanese, 16th century The Milkwoman, B. 70 Sword Etching, 131 x 147 mm. Steel, 17 in. Purchase Show Fund (73.95) Gift of Sherwood F. Moran (73.70)
Neil Welliver, American, 1929- WOOD ENGRAVING BLOCK Trout, 1973 Thomas Bewick, English, 1753-1828 Etching with watercolor, 559 x 582 mm. Harbor Scene, 41 x63x 19 mm. Fund for Contemporary Art (74.14) Cherryburn Press Gift of the Oberlin College Library (74.30)
PHOTOGRAPHS COSTUMES Diane Arbus, American, 1923-197' 1 Gifts to the Helen Ward Memorial Collection of A Box of 10 Photographs, 1970 Costumes and Textiles have been made by Dorothy 505 x 409 mm. each Hall Alexander, Lelia Holloway, Gertrude Jacob, Friends of Art Endowment Fund (74.23 a-j) Oberlin College Library, Gladys Sellew, and Athena Tacha Spear. George N. Barnard, American, 1819-1902 C. S. Depot and Hospital, Lookout Mountain, TEXTILES ca. 1864 Japanese, 19th or 20th century 253 x 327 mm. Five textile design stencils R. T. Miller, Jr. Fund (74.28) Paper, 17V4 x 9Vi in. (average) Gift of Margaret Schauffler (74.35.1-5) William Wegman, American, 1942- Persian, Feraghan, late 19th century A Stormy Night, 1972 Rug, Harati pattern Nine photographs, 355 x 279 mm. each Wool, 791/2 x 54Vi in. Fund for Contemporary Art (73.86 a-i) Gift of Mrs. Robert Woodbury (73.75) 21 1. Master of St. Gudule, St. Catherine Disputing with the Philosophers, Oberlin St. Catherine Disputing with the Philosophers, an Early Work by the Master of St. Gudule
Those panel painters who worked in Brussels Of those who followed Roger, there were during the last third of the fifteenth century some of greater distinction, such as Vrancke van have never received great acclaim, let alone much der Stockt (successor to Roger as city painter of scholarly attention, and there is seeming justifi Brussels), and some of lesser distinction. And cation for this. The period that stretched be there were many who today have to be relegated tween the death of that city's illustrious painter, to the category of anonymous masters. This Roger van der Weyden, in 1464 and the birth of a ought not to be always an indication of inferior new style through the works of Bernaert van Or- craftsmanship or creativity. Rather, it is often ley at the start of the sixteenth century, was not those removed from the limelight who are able particularly innovative. Partly because the capital to depart somewhat from tradition, to allow of Burgundy was changed from Brussels to Ma- foreign influences to filter into their style. It lines and later (1474) to Ghent by Charles the may be that through the study of some of these Bold,1 and probably because of the lack of any anonymous masters a taste of period and en singularly gifted and charismatic painter,2 Brus vironment can be most directly savored. sels no longer attracted the patronage of the ducal court it had enjoyed in Roger's time. Nor did it With these special considerations in mind, draw the traffic of renowned artists who had pre I direct the reader's attention to the Master of viously frequented the city. Generally, one may St. Gudule and his St. Catherine Disputing with say that from Roger's death until the century's the Philosophers in the Allen Memorial Art end, artistic production in Brussels experienced a Museum (fig. I).3 Max J. Friedlander first in detente in which the overpowering tradition of troduced this artist in an article of 1923;* he Roger van der Weyden could not be supplanted. coined the artist's name after a painting in the
P. Bonenfant, "Bruxelles et la maison de Bourgogne," Ace. no. 72.1; panel, 36.3 x 29.8 cm. (14%e x 11% Bruxelles au XVe siecle, Brussels, 1953, p. 29. in.). Purchased from Newhouse Galleries, New York. Hugo van der Goes must not be forgotten as a first- Heinemann, Munich, 1936 (trade); Coll. of E. Ma- rate Brussels artist who came to live in that city in kower, London, 1939; sale of Duke of Leeds and 1475. However, since he lived in seclusion in the Other Coll., London (Sotheby's), June 14, 1961 (43); Red Cloister until his death in 1482, he exerted little, sale, London (Christie's), Nov. 24, 1967 (83). if any, influence on the Brussels school. Max J. Fried Max J. Friedlander, "Die Briisseler Tafelmalerei gegen lander, Early Netherlandish Painting, IV (Hugo van den Ausgang des 15. Jahrhunderts," in Die Belgv der Goes), trans. H. Norden, Brussels/Leyden, 1967, schen Kunstdenkmaler, I, ed. by Paul Clemen, Mu p. 13. nich, 1923, pp. 317ff. 23 Louvre, The Pastoral Instruction (fig. 7),5 in At once striking is the painting's miniature which the Brussels cathedral of St. Gudule is like quality; it is small (36.3 x 29.8 cm.), and the prominent.0 elaborate scene tends to emphasize that char The Oberlin panel was mentioned in another acter. Figures are bunched together in groups article by Friedlander in 1939 as an early work,7 before a rather naive, but carefully detailed de but since then it has not received further at piction of architecture, while overlapping hills tention.8 Generally in good condition, the paint suggest pictorial depth; recession into space, how ing has been slightly retouched in the face of ever, fails to relieve the very crowded effect of St. Catherine and in the architecture at the the picture. In this particular aspect and in sever upper right and left. More extensive repair al others as well, the Oberlin panel closely re 10 appears in the uppermost portion of the sky sembles contemporary manuscript illumination. where major retouching follows the outline of Many comparisons may be made, for instance, a cusped frame w7hich originally may have been with a manuscript page, the Entry into Jerusalem associated with the panel.9 Other changes were (Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. 9081-82, folio made intentionally by the artist, and they are 5; fig. 2), attributed to the atelier of Dreux Jean. now visible to the naked eye. Pentimenti ap In each composition, figures are gathered in two pear on the top of the pavilion where there was lateral groups and connected by one central fig once a round window; some of the columns of ure (Jesus on ITis donkey in the manuscript the pavilion were originally placed more to the example and an ecclesiastical figure in the Ober left; the railing leading to the palace was at lin panel). Slightly set back from the lower one time in a lower position. edge of the picture plane by a pathway or small
Inv. No. 2198; on panel, 95 x 68 cm. in the analyses carried out in November, 1971. The The Master of St. Gudule shows his allegiance to outline of these ridges suggests that there may have Brussels through several other paintings depicting been an elaborate cusped engaged frame associated Brussels architecture (Marriage of the Virgin, Brus with the panel originally. If this were so, the presence sels, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; Portrait of a of azurite above the ridges w7ould indicate that altera Young Man, London, National Gallery'; Marriage of tions must have been made prior to the 18th century." the Virgin, The Hague, Dienst voor's Rijks Ver- (Report of Richard Buck based on an examination spreide Kunstvoorwerpen, and possibly others) and made in the Intermuseum Conservation Association through stylistic associations with Roger van der Wey Laboratory at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.) den, Vrancke van der Stockt, and the Master of the As far as I know, the first and only other published Legend of St. Catherine, as will be explained. suggestion of the connection between manuscript il lumination and the early works of the Master of St. Max J. Friedlander, "Der Meister von Sainte-Gudule, Gudule was made by G. J. Hoogewerff in vol. I of Nachtragliches," Annuaire des Musees Royaux des De Noord-Nederlandsche Schilderkunst, 's-Graven- Beaux-Arts de Belgique, II, 1939, p. 29, pi. II. hage, 1936, pp. 484-85. There he mistakenly at Le Maitre de la vue de Sainte-Gudule, an unpub tributed a painting by the Master of St. Gudule in lished thesis by Marie-Noel Snoy for the University Dijon (discussed in this essay, fig. 5) to the Master of Louvain, Belgium, in 1966 does not mention the of the Legend of St. Barbara and made a comparison painting. It is treated in detail by the present author between that painting and a group of miniatures in in her thesis of 1973 (see note 29). the British Museum of London (Add. ms. 15410). "The surface is very uneven with ridges following Although in this article I certainly agree that the the vague pattern of a cusped arch springing from the Dijon panel reflects a knowledge of the style and architecture on each side. There is excessive retouch techniques of manuscript illumination, I find the ing above the line of the 'arch,' but on its removal at specific relationship of it to the British Museum mini the top edge blue paint containing azurite was found atures not entirely convincing. See further note 20. 24 - • ' *•••'" " '
MJ^V commence la \\\ 0u»n a; n rc/cwtnr Jhcfi tm/t' tfammcnr c-< foment laOuift am/imai jvf iir fw i re mozir Hfcifl ia ^»knipinfc 5c la >c>icnti(?Ti^i« il t*tuple J)K/iien/fc rux/iWMt ktomrux \cn3lKvufctUin ct fen ata an -pptefc ldc^atoirwiiiitirc/lwrSwnralcltt* jjj 3u temple •=•!/! .ifTrt»nW 2. Atelier of Dreux Jean, Entry into Jerusalem, Bibliotheque Royale, Brussels Copyright Bibliotheque Royale Albert I, Brussels ifnaw/hii c»i biter firmou. Auntie on ncpcitt titttotcr tic ntrcr lc&p 11 Because the initials C and M, for Charles and Marga 14 C. Mathieu, "Le Metier des peintres a Bruxelles aux ret, appear on this page, the date of its execution has XIVe et XVe siecles," Bruxelles au XVe siecle, Brus been fixed between 1468, when the couple was mar sels, 1953, p. 222. ried, and 1477, when Charles died in battle. L. M.J. 15 7 Ibid. It has often been suggested that Roger van der Delaisse, Medieval Miniatures, New York, 1965, p. Weyden and Jan van Eyck each received early train 199. ing in the art of manuscript illumination. Tradition 12 According to Delaisse, this is the first time that any ally attributed to Roger, though often disputed, is the monument is reproduced so faithfully in a manuscript miniature of Jean Wauquelin Presenting a Book to of the Burgundian period. L. M. J. Delaisse, La Min Philip the Good (Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. iature flamande. Le Mecenat de Philippe le Bon. Ex 9242, folio 1). Other manuscript illuminations have position Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1959, p. 135. likewise been plausibly attributed to Jan. It is quite possible that this custom continued into the late dec 13 Delaisse, Medieval Miniatures, p. 198. ades of the century. 27 illuminated manuscripts which definitely may suppressing the people of Alexandria and oblig be attributed to the Gudule Master, although ing them to worship his idols, Emperor Max- from the previous stylistic discussion, it seems entius ordered the recalcitrant Catherine to be likely that this artist w7as either trained in the carried off to his palace for questioning. There practice of illumination or was greatly influenced in his private chambers (indicated by the bed by a close association with manuscript art during in the Dijon panel) Maxentius and his court this particular phase of his career. Doubtless, authorities interrogated her concerning her line many of the visual sources available to the Mas age and Christian beliefs. Not able to pre ter of St. Gudule have since disappeared. It is vail in this debate, Maxentius then summoned important, therefore, to note the stylistic simi philosophers and knowledgeable men from the larities with the works of Dreux Jean mentioned ends of his kingdom to debate with St. Cath above, for he was the most prominent manu erine.19 Although it is difficult to determine script illuminator in the last half of the fifteenth what specific text was used for these paintings, century in Brussels.16 it seems likely that the scene represented in the A second major problem of the Ol>erlin panel Oberlin panel follows that of the Dijon panel in concerns its iconography and original function. the narrative sequence established by The Golden There can be little question about the theme Legend passage. Therefore I suggest that a more of Oberlin's panel. A young lady of royal par suitable title for the Dijon panel would be "St. entage (indicated as such by her crown) debating Catherine Interrogated by Maxentius in his with many philosophers and religious men be Chambers." fore a pavilion of pagan idols fits the theme of That the Dijon picture belongs with the 7 St. Catherine disputing w ith the philosophers. Oberlin panel iconographically and stylistically Yet, in 1937, Friedlander identified this panel is evident, if for no other reason than that the as "St. Catherine Disputing with the Clerics" panels of practically identical size represent the and a pendant panel in the Musee des Beaux- main figure, St. Catherine, in precisely the same n Arts at Dijon (fig. 5) as "St. Catherine Dis gown. A more detailed study reveals that the 18 puting with the Philosophers." Consultation palette, the naive treatment of architectural per of The Golden Legend serves to elucidate the spective, the scale of figures to their environ problem. This source relates in brief that, after ment, and the technique of painting figures and 16 Brussels was not a primary center for manuscript il Banden), Leyden, 1937, pp. 94-95. According to Hoo- lumination in the fifteenth century. There was, in gewerff (see note 10) I, pp. 484-85, the Dijon panel fact, nothing of real quality produced there before represents an argument between St. Catherine and 1460. However, Dreux Jean, who arrived in Brussels her father, an interpretation which, to my knowledge, in 1462 and entered the Brotherhood of Sainte-Croix is not justified by any known versions. It is sug of the Abbey of Coudenberg, kept pace with the gested by Henri Pauwels (Primitifs flamands anony- famous schools of Bruges and Ghent in quality, if not mes, Groeningemuseum, exhibition catalogue, Bruges, in quantity. See L. M. J. Delaisse, "Les Manuscrits 1969, pp. 123 and 255) that the scene represents the a peintures," Bruxelles au XVe siecle, Brussels, 1953, return of Maxentius after a pagan celebration to his p. 122. palace (p. 123) or to St. Catherine's palace (p. 255) to 17 Inv. No. 1293; on panel. Ex. Coll. J. Maciet (gift to question the princess, an interpretation which I find more plausible. the Musee des Beaux-Arts in 1888). 18 Max J. Friedlander, Die altniederlandische Malerei, 19 The Golden Legend, VII, trans, by William Caxton, XIV (Pieter Bruegel und Nachtrage zu den friiheren London, 1900, pp. 18ff. 28 Master of St. Gudule, St. Catherine interrogated by Maxentius in his Chambers, Musee des Beaux Arts, Dijon Copyright A.C.L., Brussels 6. Master of the Legend of St. Catherine, Legend of St. Catherine, Private Collection, Belgium Copyright A.C.L., Brussels faces are by the same hand.2" There is, in addi pling of pagan idols during a religious proces tion, a comparable amount of pentimenti and sion. However, the story stops abruptly there, indecision in both compositions which indicates leaving to other panels the attempts to have St. that one artist conceived both paintings at an Catherine wed, her conversion of Alexandria's early stage in his career.21 inhabitants to Christianity, the meeting with The survival of only two interrelated scenes the pagan Maxentius, St. Catherine's contest from the legend of St. Catherine poses a special with the philosophers, the conversion of Max problem. Evidently we are dealing with frag entius' court, and her eventual martyrdom and ments of an altarpiece. It is possible but not burial in Mount Sinai. probable that all other scenes from St. Cath It is therefore tempting to test the possibility erine's life, depicted on altar wing panels of of a physical connection between the Oberlin similar size, may have disappeared. A more and Dijon panels and the St. Catherine Master's plausible alternative would be the assumption painting. In checking the dimensions of the that the Oberlin and Dijon paintings supple panels, three of the Oberlin/Dijon-size panels ment an existing altarpiece in which many of (approx. 36 x 30 cm.) could fit down each side the other scenes from the Saint's life, depicted of the St. Catherine Master's painting (120 x on altar wing panels of similar size, may have 100 cm.) and still leave a slight margin for disappeared. A more plausible alternative would framing. Such a program, however, would neces be the assumption that the Oberlin and Dijon sitate fixed altarwings because the horizontal paintings supplement an existing altarpiece in measurement of the smaller panels, when folded which many of the other scenes from the Saint's inwards, would not equal the horizontal dimen life do occur. sion of the large panel. Altarwings with patron In examining the extant works from the saints and donors or other education scenes Brussels school which might fulfill the needs of (e.g. Christ in the Temple and the Education this assumption, one example by the Master of of the Virgin), measuring 120 x 80 cm. each, the Legend of St. Catherine comes to mind. could have covered this central panel. However, Presently in a private collection in Belgium, the there is, as yet, no supporting evidence for the panel represents scenes from the life of St. Cath addition of wings. erine (fig. 6). Bursting with narrative detail, it The particular arrangement of the six lateral represents eleven tightly packed events from the scenes is admittedly speculative. Whether the early portion of St. Catherine's life. Beginning cusped engaged frame once associated with the with her birth (at the upper left-hand section of Oberlin panel suggests its placement can not be the painting), the story is carried through her ascertained with the information at hand. The education in the Seven Liberal Arts and religion, Dijon painting shows no sign of such a frame. to her mystical marriage to Christ and the top Precedence for the proposed configuration of a 20 For the stylistic relationship of the Dijon panel W7ith -' Pentimenti in the Oberlin panel have already been manuscript painting see note 10. One example where mentioned at the beginning of this article. Changes figure style and setting are quite similar is an illumin made in the Dijon painting are visible in the upper ated page by Jean Hennecart, L'lnstruction du Jeune right corner where the bed canopy was originally Prince: The Father Giving Instructions to His Son placed. (Paris, Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal, ms. 5104, folio 66) of 1470. See Delaisse, La Miniature flamande, p. 149 and illustration. 30 large panel with multiple lateral supporting Roger's sons, Pieter van der Weyden, is stylisti scenes may be found in the putative works of cally quite close to Roger.25 The small group of Vrancke van der Stockt. The so-called Cambrai works attributed to him copy figures and motifs Altarpiece (Madrid, Prado), a Presentation of the from Roger so freely that it is unlikely that the Virgin (El Escorial, Real Palacio y Monasterio two were separated by more than a generation. de S. Lorenzo), and the Last Judgment Altar- The Master of St. Gudule, in my estimation, piece (Valencia, Ayuntamiento)22 all exemplify belonged to the next generation, for his mature this particular arrangement of scenes.2'1 The works fall at the very end of the century. It abundant detail and love of narration seen in may not be precipitate to suggest, then, that the Vrancke van der Stockt's works were certainly Master of the Legend of St. Catherine super continued and elaborated upon by the St. Cath vised a Brussels atelier in which the Gudule erine Master.24 So full of detail are some of the Master spent some time. Studies have already latter artist's compositions that they appear to been made of the collaboration of the St. Cath burst through their frames, on occasion, per erine Master with the Master of the Legend of haps, necessitating the adjunct of other separate St. Barbara, and the Master of the Legend of scenes to complete the story. St. Mary Magdalene,21'1 usually called contem 27 Finally, what could have been the relation poraries of the Gudule Master. The suggestion ship between the Master of the Legend of St. of another joint effort with a younger apprentice Catherine and the Master of St. Gudule? The artist, the Master of St. Gudule, seems quite former, thought bv Friedlander to be one of acceptable. 22 Max J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, II the St. Columba Altarpiece (Munich, Pinakothek). Roger van der Weyden and the Master of Flemalle), The figure style is generally quite close to Roger's trans. H. Norden, Brussels/Leyden, 1967; pi. 67, no. conception. The man at the center of the painting 47; pi. 106, no. 83; pi. 114, no. 101. w7ith a scroll of paper in his right hand is copied from an identical figure in the left shutter of the Bladelin 2:i Inasmuch as the Oberlin panel has been cut down on Altarpiece. The Madonna and Child are thoroughly all sides, it could have been cut from a larger panel. Rogerian in type; even the small dog appears to be If this is the case, it may be comparable to the van descended from the breed Roger so often represented. der Stockt examples where lateral supporting scenes The collaboration of the St. Catherine Master with are not separate, individual panels, but are part of the the Master of the Legend of Man7 Magdalene on the same panel(s) composing the central scene. No phys Altarpiece of the Feeding of the Ten Thousand (Mel ical data about the Dijon panel are available. bourne, National Gallery of Victoria) has been dis 24 Other works by the St. Catherine Master in which cussed most recently by U. Hoff and M. Davies, The an abundance of narrative growth thrives are the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (Les Primitifs Altarpiece of the Feeding of the Ten Thousand (Mel flamands, I. Corpus de la Peinture . . . , 12), Brussels, bourne, National Gallery of Victoria) and the Altar- 1971, pp. 16-17 and 20-21. The Job Altarpiece (Co piece of Job (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum). logne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum), executed jointly These examples are illustrated in Max J. Friedlander, by the St. Catherine Master and the St. Barbara Early Netherlandish Painting, IV, pis. 52-53 and 64- Master has been studied in B. Steinborn," 'Retable de 65 respectively. Job' au Musee Silesien," Bulletin d'Histoire de VArt, XXIV, 1962, pp. 2-26 and more recently by N. Rey- -•' The close association of the St. Catherine Master naud and J. Foucart, "Expositions. Primitifs flamands with Roger may be seen directly in the Legend of St. anonymes," Revue de VArt, No. 8, 1970, pp. 66-72. Catherine (fig. 6). The background architectural com For the relationship of the Masters of St. Gudule, St. plex, for example, is reminiscent of Roger's compli Barbara and St. Marv Magdalene see Friedlander, IV, cated cityscapes in the Bladelin Altarpiece (Berlin- pp. 56ff. Dahlem, Gemaldegalerie der staatlichen Museen) or 31 Master of St. Gudule, Pastoral Instruction, Louvre Patrons for an altarpiece dedicated to St. later becomes more subdued, and the abundant Catherine were not lacking in Brussels in the pentimenti such as are found in the Oberlin second half of the fifteenth century. There was and Dijon panls gradually disappear in the ma a church dedicated to St. Catherine as well as ture works where underdrawings are followed her chapel in the Cathedral of St. Gudule.28 exactly.30 Finally, the association between the In addition, there were numerous lay women's Master of St. Gudule and the Master of the educational and charity associations that may Legend of St. Catherine could only have oc have favored her. curred early in the former's career, perhaps dur St. Catherine w7as not only the patron saint ing an apprenticeship. of wheelwrights and mechanics, but also of The Louvre's Pastoral Instruction (fig. 7), young maidens and female students. Certainly the "name painting" of the artist characterizing the patron who commissioned the Legend of St. his mature style, looks back to these beginnings Catherine had the matter of education, the Lib w7ith its animated, gesticulating figures, special eral Arts and St. Catherine as patroness of fe ized technical treatment of facial types, love of male students in mind. If there were additional decorative embellishments in red and gold, in panels included with the St. Catherine Master's terest in precise architectural settings, and Rog panel, then it seems logical to assume that the erian heritage. The later efforts of this master education theme would have been continued by to break away from the very traditional begin panels such as the Oberlin and Dijon works nings evidenced in the Oberlin painting are yet where education, debate and interrogation play another story. the major role. Appreciated as an independent work, Ober It is not w7ithin the scope of this essay to lin's St. Catherine Disputing with the Philoso reconstruct a chronology of the Master of St. phers is at once delightful and genuinely charm Gudule's oeuvre. However, the material pre ing in its naive quality and delicate, jewel-like sented here and my own reconstruction of the forms. Through its stylistic relationship with master's works29 seem to me to favor placing manuscript illumination, it may reflect some the Oberlin painting and the Dijon panel very thing of the apprenticeship system still in prac early in the artist's career. They are possibly tice in Brussels at the time and a hint of those his earliest extant w7orks, which by comparison like Dreux Jean who influenced it. If the pro with the manuscript examples illustrated here posed altarpiece reconstruction is accepted, the probably fall in the early 1470's. The small size panel also illustrates another significant aspect of these panels and their technical relationship of the Brussels artistic environment — that is, to manuscript illumination are later abandoned the interrelationship of artists working in Brus for larger panels less readily associated with a sels as the artistic leadership of that city began miniaturist's art. The early palette of high values to fade. Maryan W. Ainsworth 28 Henri Velge, La Collegiale des Saints Michel et 30 Infra-red photographs available for study of the Mas Gudule a Bruxelles, Brussels, 1925, pp. 187ff. ter of St. Gudule's Pastoral Instruction (Paris, Louvre) 2" A suggested chronological reconstruction of the Master and Liberation of the Prisoners (Paris, Cluny Mu of St. Gudule's oeuvre is presented in: Maryan Wynn seum) indicate that the entire compositions are un Ainsworth, The Master of St. Gudule, Master's The changed from the underdrawings. sis, Oberlin College, 1973. 33 A Landscape Handscroll by Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung In the fall of 1973 the Allen Memorial Art mediate inspiration for most of his paintings. Museum purchased a landscape handscroll by Little is known about his life. Evidently he the Chinese painter and poet Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung3* stood for the official examinations in the late (1596-1673).1 The scroll is 12'8" long and ll5/s" Ming period, and passed the rigorous tests, but wide, and is painted in ink with light color on when the foreign Ch'ing dynasty took control paper. The artist's colophon at the end of the of China, he refused to become an official and scroll dates the painting to 1665 A.D. Figs. 1-7 retreated into the mountains. As he wrote: reproduce the scroll in its entirety, as it moves I am a man of the open fields, and have nothing to from the abrupt cliff at the far right (fig. 7) to offer the imperial court. I but labor over these the gentle marshlands and the colophon at the scrolls and store them away, waiting for someone 7 7 3 far left (fig. 1). w ho w ill understand me. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, from Wu-hu in Anhui In Anhui during the seventeenth century Province,1" was one of the most interesting and there were in fact many who would have under influential artists of the late Ming—early Ch'ing stood him; Anhui was home to a very distinctive period.2 Hsiao lived in isolation in the famous painting school, the "most refined and specific mountains of Anhui, which formed the im provincial group"4 in the early Ch'ing period. A letter indicates that the Chinese character for this recently view7ed it express no doubt that in fact 1672 word or name will be found on the last page of the is a valid dating. For a summary of the range of article. In the interest of space, Chinese book titles are opinions concerning Hsiao's dates among Chinese and not included in the list of Chinese characters. Western scholars, see Chen Jen Dao, King Kwei Ts'ang-hua Ping-shih, Hong Kong, 1956, II, pp. 197-98. Ace. no. 73.74, R. T. Miller, Jr. Fund; acquired from 7 David Newman, London. These dates are generally The following periods w ill be mentioned in the course accepted, but various authors have suggested slightly of this article: T'ang, 618-907; Five Dynasties, 907- different birth and death dates. A death date of 1669 960; Sung, 960-1279; Yuan, 1279-1368; Ming, 1368- A.D. has been put forward by several; yet one of the 1644; and Ch'ing, 1644-1911. paintings generally regarded as a genuine work by Y. Yonezawa and M. Kaw7akita, Arts of China 111, Hsiao (Kokka, 735) is dated 1672. Although the Tokyo, 1970, p. 189. present writer has not seen this painting in person, O. Siren, Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and she accepts its attribution, and authorities who have Principles, New York, 1958, V., p. 115. 34 Although the painters of this group utilized equation of the artists' minds with the spirit of traditional forms and brushstrokes, they devel the mountains, a cherished goal of all Chinese oped quite unconventional and very individual painters accomplished only too rarely. As Ku styles, and they were inspired by specific Anhui Ning-yiian (active ca. 1636) wrote in his Hua scenery. "In both the actual landscape and the Yin:c paintings of it the terrain is spare, linear, angular When the inspiration does not rise and the wrist with little vegetation to break the clean con does not turn freely, the motions simply move ahead tours."5 Their paintings generally depict men or and nothing is really accomplished. But if one immortals relaxing in the autumn woods among observes dry and decaying stubs, stones, pools of water, distant woods and all sorts of ruined things, the scenic Anhui mountains (fig. 8). Humble w7hich are quite different from those fashioned by rural dwellings and small cities are scattered men, and seeks for their hidden meaning with deep throughout the natural setting. feeling, the picture will become a thing alive. It 6 Many of the paintings by these artists con is like collecting phrases of poetry in a brocade bag. veyed a beguiling intimacy with this grand Hsiao's paintings are, indeed, the collections of landscape. There is a remarkably successful a brocade bag spread across a picture surface. The leading painters of the Anhui group were Mei rich overlay of wet and dry brushstrokes; nothing is Ch'ing" (1623-1697), Hung Jen (1610-1663), Ch'a allow7ed to soften the stark architecture of the masses, 1 Shih-piao (1615-1698), and Hsiao. There were a which are composed of discrete, repeated units. There number of minor artists as well. These painters were is nothing of enlivening detail, nothing stimulating to not necessarily acquainted with each other, but their the senses." (J. Cahill, Fantastics and Eccentrics in works form a remarkably coherent unit. While the in Chinese Painting, New York, 1967, p. 19.) But these 7 fluence of Hung Jen is quite obvious in the w orks of three schools which are compared with Hsiao Yiin- Hsiao, neither Mei Ch'ing nor Ch'a Shih-piao seems ts'ung's Ku-shu School, also derive content and style to have had immediate contact with or influence on from Shen Chou (1427-1509), leader of the Wu 7 or from Hsiao. There w ere several "schools" in Anhui School in the Ming period. Both Tung's 'stark archi during the seventeenth century; Hsiao is said to have tecture of the masses' and Shen Chou's 'restful casual- been the founder of the Ku-shu School," named after ness' (M. Loehr, "Chinese Painting," in Catalogue of 7 an Anhui locality. This school w as "of equal the Exhibition of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy strength" with Chao Tso's Su Sung School,* Ku in the Collection of John M. Crawford, Jr., New Cheng-i's Hua Ting School," and Shen Shih-ch'ung's York, 1962, p. 43) become combined in the paintings Yiin Chien school," according to the book Chung-kuo of Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung. A general school name for Hui-hua Shih, Taipei, 1965 reprint, II, p. 171. Chao Anhui painters of this period is the Hsin-an School,*" 7 Tso (active ca. 1610-30) w as from the Sung-chiang named after the city in which Hung Jen was born. 1 (Hua-t'ing), Kiangsu area, so famous for painters in The exact implications of the name 'Ku-shu School' the late Ming and early Ch'ing. He worked in the are blurred; further research might clarify if and how style of Tung Yuan," Mi Fei," and the Yuan masters. painters in this school differ from the Hsin-an School Ku Cheng-i (flourished ca. 1580) was also from Hua- painters. For more information about these Ming t'ing, and created landscapes in the style of Huang artists, see James Cahill, editor, The Restless Land 7 Kung w ang. Shen Shih-ch'ung, also from Hua-t'ing, scape: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Period, was a pupil of Chao Tso, and worked in the style of Berkeley, 1971. the Yuan masters. These three schools were founded in the most active center of late Ming painting, the Cahill, Fantastics and Eccentrics . . . , p. 44. Section small city of Hua-t'ing, w7here Tung Ch'i-ch'ang"" III, "The Anhui Masters" makes no mention of (1555-1636) made his home. Tung, one of the great Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung. est theorists and most influential painters of all time, O. Siren, A History of Later Chinese Painting, Lon "strips away the Yuan master's [Huang Kung-wang] don, 1938, II, p. 17. 35 {' 44 T i d 4b | « 1 U ft H i'1 j. ;t& 4- -* 1 JL 2& * it. '* ^ ' 1 I ji-4. %. A •A 4 1 i 1$ r ft Si* a t 1 p a fr lit it -9V i f 1.-7. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Anhui Landscape, Oberlin '/%•> ' ^9f -ii jair^^> ?*?C^r 2. ^^Sf^t^^^^^ ••txMui «&•.&**$*ttt> t> .<«.• m^-TV -, 3. 4. The paintings of Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung were landscape"11 in Hsiao's paintings, a musical com popular in his own time, and many were made ment which many other critics, both Chinese into stone and wood carvings and transmitted and Western, have made. Yonezawa, the famous through the media of stone rubbings and wood Japanese art historian, was impressed by Hsiao's block prints to later generations.7 His paintings "natural warm and graceful manner."12 always have been regarded as beautifully modu Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung almost exclusively painted lated expressions of a highly individual person. handscrolls, but also created several fans, at least Yet opinions about the degree of creativity and one hanging scroll, and a few sets of album the amount of strength inherent in his work pages, the most noteworthy of which is the have varied widely. Some authors find that "Album of Seasonal Landscapes" (figs. 10, 11, Hsiao freed himself completely from past con 12), in the Cleveland Museum. This set is ventions, others, that he was an excellent in dated 1668 and shares many stylistic character terpreter of the past; some believe that Hsiao istics with the Oberlin scroll. was a rather delicate, even weak, painter in Hsiao's scrolls usually are signed, with name, comparison with his Anhui contemporaries; date, and often a poem, as in the case of the others, that he was fully equal to, and indeed Oberlin work (fig. 1). The name most frequently surpassed, most of the painters of his region. found in the colophon is his hao (sobriquet) A succinct view of his work was given by Chung-shan Lao-jen.d Less frequently he signed Siren, the famous Swedish art historian, who his tzu (literary name) Hsiao Ch'ih-mu.e Al wrote that Hsiao's pictures contain "so many of though he had still other names, they are seldom the essential elements of Chinese landscape found in his colophons.13 painting in a well controlled, refined, and har In his own dating of a scroll, Hsiao often gave monious form."8 Siren felt that he was "not a not only the year but also the season, and even very strong creative master but a delicate paint a specific month. The season is almost always er"9 who had formed his own manner. Werner autumn (as in the Oberlin scroll), and the Speiser, commenting on the recent purchase of month the tenth month of the lunar calendar, a Hsiao scroll by the Tokyo National Museum, or late fall. Autumn was not only the season thought that "their [Hsiao's paintings] clear in which the scroll was painted but also the simple forms reveal them as forerunners of the season depicted in the scroll itself. There are Chinese 'individualists' and also of Cezanne."10 very few paintings in which Hsiao was inspired Speiser spoke also of the "unending melody of by another season of the year; one of these few 10 R. Soame Jenyns, in Chinese Art: the Minor Arts, W. Speiser, R. Goepper, and J. Fribourg, Chinese New York, 1963, p. 93, mentions another type of Art, London, 1964, p. 60. 'copy' of Hsiao's paintings. He refers to 'iron pic 11 Ibid. tures,' a tradition established by two men in the 12 Yonezawa and Kawakita, p. 189. latter half of the seventeenth century in Wu-hu, 13 V. Contag and C. C. Wang, Seals of Chinese Paint Anhui: "It is said that T'ang (one of the two) was a ers and Collectors of the Ming and Ch'ing Periods, neighbor of the painter Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, and finding Hong Kong, 1966, pp. 476, 719. Yonezawa and his craft rated lower than Hsiao's, undertook to pro Kawakita, p. 189, suggest that the name "Ch'ih-mu" duce iron landscape paintings as fine as the painters." was used early in his career, while in his late years he Siren, Chinese Painting . . . , p. 115. preferred "Chung-shan Tao-jen,",a a variation of Ibid, p. 114. "Chung-shan Lao-jen." In fact, he used both names throughout his painting career. 43 exceptions is the first leaf in the Cleveland settings for the subjects. The Li Sao illustra album set (fig. 10). tions evidently were done in 1645, early in his career, and were almost immediately carved into In the midst of peach and willow trees, stone for posterity. They have been reproduced Why the carriages and horses? also in woodblock form, and have been reprinted In the third month of spring, people are unceasingly 18 stamping through Ching and Ch'u.14 in this manner in the twentieth century. The paintings of this series (which are known through Of the extant scrolls by Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, the woodblocks) are extremely imaginative and 19 there are several dated in the 1630's and 1640's, lively. but most date in the 1650's and 1660's. Hsiao In spite of the success of this set, Hsiao seems painted steadily from 1655 to the end of the never again to have concentrated on figure paint 1660's, and at least one scroll dates from 1672.1-' ings. As stated before, the primary focus of his If these dates are truly indicative of when Hsiao works is landscape, done in his own individual began painting and when he was most active, style but guided by the precedent of old masters, it is evident that he became a painter at a as w7as the case with most fine Ming and Ch'ing later age than most Chinese painters, starting period painters. In terms of composition and as he did in his late thirties. brushwork, there are great variations among his The subject of Hsiao's paintings is usually scrolls, but there are certain features always landscape, specifically the mountains of Anhui. present, and it is these features which make There are, however, at least two different sets Hsiao's paintings a distinctive unit, easily recog of plum blossom paintings attributed to him16 nizable and different from the work of other and a large set of illustrations to Ch'u Yiian's Chinese landscape artists. While there is an Li Sao poem.17 This poem, and others by Ch'u evolution in Hsiao's style from early to later Yiian, became an extremely popular subject for works, the changes are merely from one assured painters as early as the Sung and Yiian periods. stage to another. His paintings do become more The artists depicted important personalities in coherent and sophisticated in the 1650's and the poems, commonly isolating the main figure 1660's, the height of his career. against a bare page. Hsiao, while following this Hsiao's brushwork encompasses both dry and practice generally, often created very interesting wet strokes; the strokes may be either cursive 14 S. Lee, "An Album of Landscapes by Hsiao Yiin- evele, see Burton Watson, Early Chinese Literature, ts'ung," Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, New York, 1962. XLIV, 1957, quoting a poem translated by Wen 18 The woodblocks have been published in this century Fong. in both 1925, in Japan (Hsiao Ch'ih-mu Li-sao t'u, or 15 Illustrated Li-sao by Hsiao Ch'ih-mu, edited by Omura Siren, Chinese Painting, VII, pp. 337-38, a list of Seigai for the Society of Zuhon Sokan) and in 1961 many Hsiao paintings, with dates when known. in China (Chung Hua Book Store). 10 16 One plum blossom set is in the Musee Guimet in Another interesting example of Ch'u Yiian's poetry Paris, and the other in the Seattle Art Museum. in visual form is the handscroll by Chang Wu" in the Cleveland Museum of Art. It has been published 17 Ch'u Yiian w7as an extremely famous statesman and in S. Lee and W-k Ho, Chinese Art Under the poet of the late Chou period (4th c. B.C.) whose Mongols: The Yiian Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland, w7orks were very influential in later art and literature. 1968, entry 187, and in S. Lee, The Colors of Ink, The cycle of poems attributed to him is known as the New York, 1974, pp. 52-5. See also Thomas Law- Elegies of Ch'u and includes the Li Sao or "Encoun ton, Chinese Figure Painting, Washington, 1973, tering Sorrow" narrative. For an examination of this entrv 2. 44 ••" -rf-' ' 8. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Anhui Landscape, detail of fig. 6, Oberlin 9. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Anhui Landscape, detail of fig. 4, Oberlin - it s w N •SB " a •*1U> -/; **" 10. 11. 1 J= '; / 10. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Traveling through Ching and Ch'u from Album of Seasonal Landscapes, The Cleveland Museum of Art 11. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Autumn Landscape with the Artist Traveling from Album of Seasonal Landscapes, The Cleveland Museum of Art 12. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Landscape in the Style of Wu Chen from Album of Seasonal Landscapes, The Cleveland Museum of Art or abrupt. Many variations may and do occur however, is the clarity of purpose and structure within the same painting. In general, dry brush with which each area is conveyed and by which strokes are utilized to define profiles of land- each is tied to the next. It is in this regard that forms, people, and architecture, while wet strokes the Oberlin scroll is outstanding; although it serve both as an expression of water and also is episodic, with a number of major areas as mountain or rock mass (figs. 13, 16). Hsiao's sketched out along the way, each is integrated early worts tend to have more dry strokes than with the next in a completely natural manner later works, which combine dry and wet strokes (figs. 7-1), and the scroll conveys a unified rather very successfully. than fragmented impression of an undulating Tonalities are subdued over most of the landscape. Thus, the Oberlin scroll is not a topo surface, but occasionally (and the later the work, graphic map, as in the work of 1655, nor is it con the more frequently) there will be sharp notes cerned with just one landscape passage, as in the of bright color, brilliantly contrasting with the Cleveland scroll. It falls between the two in underlying blues, umbers, and salmon colors. terms of complexity, and may be classified as a While limiting his colors to a very traditional work of Hsiao's later years on the basis of its palette, Hsiao was not afraid of using them, and coherency. in fact, as in the Oberlin handscroll, depends In Hsiao's paintings as, for example, the on them as major elements in the works. They Oberlin scroll, individual landform areas are are not simply accessory elements. The works built up in a distinctive manner; cubic volumes w7ould be, if not empty, at least much less in are piled one on the other (fig. 15) or overlap teresting without the color. slightly (fig. 9). These individual units are The composition can be either simple, with then placed in a rhythmic order in the composi one mountain area occupying a central area and tion, enlivening one area here, making an im the rest subsidiary; or complex, with a number posing statement there (fig. 8). The volumes of mountain areas, each one interesting in it are simply treated so that there is not a con self. The Cleveland Museum handscroll (fig. fusion of form. They are either left undefined, 17) of 1664 A.D. is an example of the simpler touched briskly with a dry stroke, or treated type of composition; it starts with a water pass with a wash; in no case is there a completely age, builds up to the mountain mass, then sub realistic portrayal of form, but a grasp of the sides gradually into a marshland. This is in general mode of the form. Without a complete great contrast to a scroll dated 1655 A.D. (re visual instruction manual to guide him, the produced in Shina Nanga Taisei, XV) which viewer understands the intent. Saying much describes an extraordinarily complicated series of with little has alw7ays been regarded by the mountains and valleys, each major area with a Chinese as one of the signs of a good artist. label identifying it as a specific place. It is, in Hsiao accomplished this difficult task with con essence, a tremendously detailed topographic summate grace. It should be noted that the map of a particular mountain locality, together volumes are set up on a solid horizontal-vertical with all the pagodas and villas actually found grid system, and thus the diagonals, which are there. Although these two scrolls were done at so startling to the eye, have a strong structural different times, the same diversity of composi base. Incidentally, these diagonals, noted earlier tion could be found in scrolls created in the as one of the primary features of Hsiao's style, same year. Evidently there is not an enormous are not as strongly emphasized in the Oberlin change from an earlier, complex composition to scroll as they are in the Cleveland scroll done a later, simpler composition. What does change, just a year earlier (figs. 5 and 17), or in the 47 Los Angeles scroll, painted four years later (fig. similarities between Huang and Hsiao. Yet the 18). The Oberlin scroll shows moderation in erratic impulses which charge the generally all the basic features of Hsiao's style. It is more placid atmosphere of the Hsiao handscroll do subdued than either the sharply defined land not come from Huang. Nor were they com scape of the Los Angeles or the highly coloristic pletely invented by Hsiao; there are a number Cleveland scroll. of late Ming and early Ch'ing paintings which In the scrolls by Hsiao, there are fascinating contain passages of rapid directional changes, stylistic references to several earlier painters. and sudden diagonal masses flowing over a Among the older masters whom Hsiao himself system of forms oriented in a conservative cited as influences on his painting style are the horizontal-vertical grid. A detail of the Cleve Sung artists Ma Ho-chihs (active ca. 1131-62) land Museum scroll "Landscape in the South and Kuo Chung-shuh (10th century), and the of the Yang-tze River" by Ku T'ien-chih1 (dated Yiian artists Huang Kung-wang1 (1269-1354), 1649) is a fine example of the abrupt diagonal Ni Tsani (1301-1374), and Wu Chenk (1280- flows of flat masses, typical features of land 1354). There are also other artists not mentioned scapes in this period, the mid-seventeenth cen by Hsiao who seem to have been a more im tury (fig. 14). In Ku's paintings it is easy to tell mediate inspiration for his work, artists of the that these strikingly simple forms are intended Ming and early Ch'ing who were themselves as mountain or hill tops; in the works of Hsiao interpreters of the Sung and Yiian masters.20 the form often becomes somewhat ambiguous, What exactly did Hsiao derive from the and might be interpreted as either hill top or older masters? From Huang Kung-wang he may side (fig. 13), a more sophisticated development. have garnered the idea of the rendering of a Therefore, although Huang's general system mountain landscape with an abundance of com was a source of artistic inspiration for Hsiao, plex yet comprehensible forms and surface Hsiao may have been familiar with it through 22 strokes unrelated to structure (fig. 8). There its late Ming variations. were many other Sung and Yiian landscapes Another artist w7hom he cited, Ni Tsan, was which fit this description, but Huang's "Dwelling a Yiian master noted for sparing use of ink, in the Fu Ch'un Mountains" was an extremely uniform tonalities, and a three-part landscape 21 famous and influential landscape handscroll, an which relies on utter perfection in every form inspiration for numerous later paintings. In and rhythm for validity. Both composition and terms of a movement from one complex yet brush style were much imitated in later periods, carefully defined form to another, there are and Hsiao is no exception. This general com- 20 See the following books for information about Hsiao's king, 1962, landscape in the style of Shen Chou. paintings in the styles of these masters: Hsiao Ch'ih-mu Kuei-yu 1-yiian T'u, Peking, in National Palace Museum, Ku-kung Shu-hua Lu, T'ang and Sung styles. Taipei, 1965, IV, sec. 6, pp. 152-53, in the style of Siren, Chinese Painting . . . , VI, p. 350, The Los Ma Ho-chih. Angeles County Museum of Art scroll, influenced by Hsiao Chih-mu Shan-shui Chuan, Peking, 1959, Shen Chou (or see Oriental Art, Autumn, 1955). reproduction of a landscape handscroll in the styles 21 See Siren, Chinese Painting . . . , IV, pp. 59-69, for of Ni Tsan and Huang Kung-wang. a discussion of this scroll, and V. Contag, Chinese T'ien-tsin-shih I-shu-po-wu-kuan Ts'ang-hua-chi, Pe Masters of the 17th Century, Rutland, 1969, for com king, 1959, reproduction of a hanging scroll in the parative materials. style of Ni Tsan or Hung or both. 22 See Contag, ibid., and also Roderick Whitfield, In Liao-ning-sheng Po-wu-kuan Ts'ang-hua-chi, Pe Pursuit of Antiquity, Princeton, 1969. 48 -4 ***r«J 13. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung^ Anhui Landscape, detail of fig. 7, Oberlin 14. Ku T'ien-chih, Landscape in the South of the Yang-tze River, detail, The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund J •W*^"- ' '- «.. ,.:' ±-.'~^?"*rM»i».-.. -U..f.( -^S-.atftfcV, f . #~"W-^ 15. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Anhui Landscape, detail of figs. 3, 4, Oberlin J v. . .*'. 9fK'r '"' "* • '-•"* •SLit . <£?'. ^•'. ! JJ ^": wtd. 16. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Anhui Landscape, detail of figs. 1, 2, Oberlin positional format is found in, for example, one spired by Sung rather than Yiian painting. The of the Cleveland album pages (fig. 11) and in Oberlin scroll, which combines many different several passages from the Oberlin scroll (fig. 15). influences with Hsiao's own individual inspira Hsiao's brushwork, however, while dry and tion, includes several passages which stylistically 'bland' in the proper Ni style, was far more relate to the Sung rather than Yiian; figure 5 complex than Ni Tsan's. demonstrates a section which resembles in form In most of Hsiao's paintings (for instance, if not in ink use the famous Kuo Hsim (active fig. 9), the brushwork and structure evoke Ca- ca. 1060-1075) hanging scroll, "Early Spring." hill's description of Anhui paintings in general: Repeated mounds of hills convoluting into deep The implicit goal of much Anhui painting seems to space are found in both paintings. have been to reduce landscape to its barest bones, One of the chief immediate influences on and to build a firm, coherent structure with crumbly, the art of Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung seems to be Shen dry-brush line and a minimum of wash or charcoal 23 Chou" (1427-1509), the great Ming scholar- like dry texturing. painter.27 Hsiao's and Shen's paintings are alike Yet there are instances when the brushwork is in their brevity, beauty, and elegance, as well much richer, the tonalities varied and dense as in their specific subjects. Figure 8 from the and the ink wetter; one such instance is the Oberlin Hsiao scroll, for example, is remarkably second leaf of the Cleveland album (fig. 12). similar to a number of Shen Chou compositions. This album leaf is painted after the style of There is little doubt that Shen Chou is a major Wu Chen. As Hsiao wrote in his colophon: source of inspiration for Hsiao, not only in Shen's own personal style, but also in his con I love Mei-tao-jen (Wu Chen) ception of the styles of Sung and Yiian masters. whose brushes often have strange thoughts; Between the heavy modeling (t'sun) and deep It is interesting, therefore, that Hsiao never coloring, seems to have mentioned Shen Chou in his One finds himself as it were, in real forest and colophons, but rather acknowledges the original wilderness.24 masters of each style. It is difficult to draw a There is no passage quite like this in the Ober conclusion from this; there are several possible lin scroll, which is firmly structured and has a explanations, but since we lack Hsiao's own casually varied ink texture and tone (fig. 13), comments on the art of painting and his de as opposed to the Cleveland album leaf's round velopment as an artist (apart from brief and ed, soft forms and wet inks. Thus Wu Chen, generally unhelpful notes in colophons), it per while an influence on some work of Hsiao, was haps would be best to leave the question open. not an important influence in the Oberlin scroll. Further research might illuminate this trouble The name of Ma Ho-chih occurs in the colophon some point. of one scroll only, that in the possession of the One of the most fascinating questions about National Palace Museum in Taiwan,25 while Hsiao's sources of inspiration revolves around the name of Kuo Chung-shu is associated with the question of his relationship with the artist several scrolls painted in a style apparently in Hung Jen.0 Hung Jen w7as born in 1610 and 27 23 Cahill, Fantastics and Eccentrics, p. 44. R. Edwards, The Field of Stones, Washington, 1962, is an older study of the works of Shen Chou. Chiang 24 Lee, "An Album . . .", p. 124. Chiao-shen's current research on Shen Chou and the 25 See footnote 20, first entry. entire Wu School is being published in a series of 26 Now in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan. articles in the National Palace Museum Quarterly. 51 died in 1663, and painted only for a very short relationship, had surpassed him in the expres period of time.28 His paintings are considered siveness of his paintings. There seems little by many Chinese, Japanese, and Western critics doubt that the cool simplicity of the typical to be the finest created by an Anhui school Hung Jen landscape influenced the style of artist. He is often called a 'pupil' of Hsiao Yiin- Hsiao. ts'ung, although he may not have actually Hsiao learned from older masters; he in studied under him.29 There is an undeniable turn influenced a number of later painters. Two relationship between the two, and it is thought of the great twentieth century masters, Fu Pao- that Hung Jen first learned from Hsiao, the shihP and Ch'i Pai-shih 1 are indebted to Hsiao older man, and then, because Hung Jen became shih" and Ch'i Pai-shih11 are indebted to Hsiao an obviously greater painter, Hsiao learned from and his fellow Anhui artists. In a catalogue of him. Marilyn and Shen Fu, in their book Studies a Fu Pao-shih exhibition in Hong Kong, the in Connoisseurship, reproduce a colophon which author J. Y. C. Watt wrote that: Hsiao wrote on a set of fifty album leaves painted In his landscapes, the 'textural strokes' are highly by Hung Jen and depicting Huang-shan, a reminiscent of certain 17th century landscape artists famous mountain in Anhui. The colophon was like Mei Ch'ing, Shih-t'ao, and Hsiao Yiin-ch'ung written in 1664, the year before the Oberlin (sic), and the 'strange' compositions of his early scroll was painted, and so is very important for works also display certain affinities with these artists.31 an understanding of Hsiao's philosophy at this period. He laments that while he had visited It is interesting that Fu, like Hsiao in an earlier many of the wonderful beauty spots of Anhui, period, created a set of illustrations for the set he never traveled to Huang Shan; instead, Hung of "Nine Songs" by Ch'ii Yiian. Jen had described it to him. The Fus translate Ch'i Pai-shih, the modern Chinese artist the final passages of the colophon in this fashion: best-known in the West, was obviously in I am an old painter. In the art of painting, I have fluenced by the /\nhui artists. He wrote at not yielded my claims to any predecessors. But least one colophon on a Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung paint when I see this album, I cannot help but withdraw ing, the "1000 Peaks and 10,000 Valleys" scroll, my hand. Inscribed by the seventy-year-old Hsiao now in the Liaoning Provincial Museum. Un Yiin-ts'ung at the Wu-men Studio on Mt. Chung 30 fortunately his colophon is not reproduced in beneath the plum trees. the Museum catalogue.32 Although many Chinese colophons praise the It is not surprising that Hsiao should have painter and deprecate the writer, the whole tenor been an influence on modern Chinese painting. of this colophon indicates that in fact Hsiao His simple strokes, structurally sound forms, recognized that Hung Jen, wdth whom he ob and intricate yet clear composition all appeal to viously shared a close and mutually respectful modern painters. 2R See Marilyn and Shen Fu, Studies in Connoisseur- Chinese Landscape Painting, Cleveland, 1962, p. 119: ship, Princeton, 1973, pp. 140-151, for the most re "Hung Jen, a priest-recluse, died before Hsiao Yiin- cent examination of Hung Jen. ts'ung, but was his pupil. The student became more 29 famous than the master." W. Speiser, Chinese Art, p. 145; "It is probable that Fu, Studies . . . , p. 141. Hung-jen was closely connected with this master though he may not have been a pupil. Hsiao Yiin- J. C. Y Watt, Fu Pao-shih, Hong Kong, 1965, Intro ts'ung's simplification of form was further developed duction. bv him into a clear, translucent cubism." S. Lee, Liao-ning-sheng . . . , pi. 79. 52 •.X "W'**y ^ th \&t 17. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Pure Tones of Hills and Water, detail, The Cleveland Museum of Art t '"V i<« 18. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Landscape with Mountains and Rivers, detail, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. Allan C. Balch Fund k {fa -t i /v. sa i' 1 Axf t k 4 i 4' 4 il il 7 1/ I il ~H 19. Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, Anhui Landscape, detail of fig. 1, Oberlin Finally, Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung's colophon at the is added. There are also tw7o seals, "Chung-shan end of the Oberlin scroll (figs. 1 and 19) is Ts'ao-t'angr and "Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung." Neither in his typical calligraphy style, uncomplicated one is reproduced in Contag and Wang's com yet elegant. The style of the writing, and the pendium, which, however, is admittedly incom clarity with which each character is set down plete.33 with a flowing stroke though separated from its neighbors, reflect the same spirit as the painting In summary, the Oberlin scroll is a notable style. The subject is typical of Hsiao's colo example of a later Chinese painting which phons; it is a verbal expression of the visual melds many varied influences into a coherent passage that precedes it. Hsiao reflects on a and vibrant landscape image. From the opening trip he made to a famous mountainous area, and passage of the cliff face, the scenery flows the sights and sounds which entranced him: the rhythmically to its conclusion in the marshes. echoes of wind in the pines, the tinkle of a Nowhere is there a coarse, abrupt interruption waterfall, immortals in a secluded grove; in fact, of the transition from mountain to water, yet all the conventional poetic and artistic concepts there are outstanding individual passages along of traditional Chinese culture. There is nothing the way, to be noted as the eye moves not only outstanding about the textual style of the colo from right to left but also from top to bottom. phon, just as the painting is not a startling new The scroll is in every way satisfying. Its placid development in the world of Chinese landscape clarity and subtle modulations charm the eye art. There is, however, a remarkable harmony and create a mood of quiet introspection. In between painting and calligraphy styles, between the works of Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung, the echoes of painting and textual subjects. The scroll is the past are refreshed and charged with new signed with his age (seventy) and the name meaning which in turn has inspired a later Hsiao Yiin-ts'ung. No sobriquet or literary name generation. Daphne Lange Rosenzweig 33 Contag and Wang, Seals . . . 55 Chinese Characters * a. 3- ft ^ - ^i4 * | < * m- if $ - if £ - * « *• H * £ ^ > If fc i * Characters written by Mrs. Martha Fu (Su Jui-p'ing) of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan. Oberlhv's Acquisitions Ethics Policy For the information of our public and as a matter of record, four Articles concerning acquisitions ethics — the result of months of policy deliberation by the Museum's Purchase Committee —• are here printed. Together with the preamble, they indicate that the Oberlin Museum joins a growing number of institutions which believe that one necessary response to illicit trafficking in art is a clear ethics statement bv museums. R.E.S. 57 Particularly since the second World War, art museums, dealers, and private collectors have eagerly, at times competitively, sought new acquisitions. Art of qual ity has become scarcer and prices have risen sharply. Because of these developments, looting of archaeological sites, theft from private and public collections, and illegal importation and exportation of cultural property from the country of origin have increased to frightening proportions. Irreplaceable evidence of lost civilizations, such as the Mayan and Incan of Central and South America, the Indian of the United States, or the Khmer of Cambodia, is destroyed daily or stripped of its meaningful archaeological-historical context. Religious objects of great significance to modern peoples are torn from their temples in Africa and Asia. Provincial, unprotected collections throughout the world, as well as those in urban centers, risk major theft; and even the personnel associated w7ith such collections face the threat of physical violence. As a result of these international developments, in the spring of 1970, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, which houses primarily archaeological collections, issued the first public policy statement intended to counteract this situa tion: the Director announced that the University Museum would no longer purchase antiquities without a clearly established, legal provenance. In the fall of the same year, the UNESCO Convention on the "Means of Pro hibiting and Preventing the Illicit Export, Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property" was formulated by delegates to the General Conference in Paris. The nations signing this agreement are under obligation to help recover stolen art objects, fight theft from archaeological sites and of folk art, and block as far as legally possible the purchase of art thus declared illicit. Consent to the treaty was given by the U.S. Senate on August 11, 1972, but the implementing legislation to carry out the terms of the Convention must still be approved by both Houses of Congress. The House of Representatives (summer, 1971) and the Senate (fall, 1972) have, however, passed the Wilbur D. Mills Pre-Columbian Bill which: 1) prohibits the importation into the United States of pre-Columbian monumental and architectural sculpture and murals illegally removed from their country of origin; and 2) stipulates that if the importer cannot prove that the work was exported with the approval of the country of origin, the article may be seized by Customs and returned to the country. The Mills Bill is not retroactive and refers to major monuments such as stelae and wall paintings. Following the Pennsylvania Declaration, the UNESCO Convention, and the Mills Pre-Columbian Bill and stimulated by the present state of crisis exemplified by the widely-publicized Euphronios krater episode at the Metropolitan Museum of 58 Art, institutions and professional societies have publicly expressed their willingness to support the principles of the UNESCO Convention. The Archaeological Institute of America (1970), the American Association of Museums Special Policy Committee (1971), the Brooklyn Museum (1972), the Smithsonian Institution (1973), the Uni versity of California at Berkeley (1973), and the Association of Art Museum Directors (1973) are only a few7 who have issued policy statements. On March 1, 1974, in support of these worldwide efforts to prevent site destruc tion, theft, and illegal exportation of art objects, the Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College through the unanimous vote of its Purchase Committee adopted the following resolutions: Article 1: The Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College will not acquire, through purchase or donation, any work of art which is known or suspected to be stolen property; or to have been illegally ex ported from its country of origin, or from the country where it was last legally owned. This policy encompasses those objects excavated without permit, where a permit is required, in the United States and in foreign countries. Article 2: It shall be the responsibility of the Director and Curator(s) of the Museum to investigate the provenance of potential acquisitions so that there is reasonable certainty a clear title can be obtained for the work under consideration. Article 3: This policy is operative as of March 1, 1974, the date of passage of these Articles by the Purchase Committee of the Museum. It pertains to all stolen art works, and to those illegally exported after March 1, 1974. However, the Allen Memorial Art Museum urges pro fessional organizations such as the American Association of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors to establish ethical guidelines for the acquisition of works of art exported without permit in the past and to recommend an effective date regarding the acquisition of such works. This Museum will adopt an earlier effective date when recom mended by such organizations, but will not apply it retroactively. Article 4: In the event a work of art inadvertently is accessioned, after the effective date of this resolution, in violation of Article 1, the Museum will seek to return the object(s) to the vendor or legal owner in such a way that the interests of all parties are preserved. 59 Notes Exhibitions 1974 - 75 September 10-October 13 April 5-May 4 Diaghilev and the Russian Stage Designers Wall Hangings by Eleanor Merrill Unusual and important watercolors from Three-dimensional weavings by Eleanor the Diaghilev era of Russian stage design Merrill organized by the Allen Art Museum from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Nikita staff with the support of the "Ohio Artists" D. Lobanov-Kostovsky, organized by and grant program of the Ohio Arts Council. circulated under the auspices of the Inter (Catalogue) national Exhibitions Foundation, Washing ton, D.C. (Catalogue) November 2 - December 1 New Acquisitions Paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and Oberlin-Ashland Archaeological Society decorative arts acquired by the Allen Art Museum in 1973-74. The Oberlin-Ashland chapter of the Archae ological Institute of America will sponsor four December 14-January 19 public lectures during the 1974-75 academic year: October 24 at Ashland College, Jane C. Impressionism Waldbaum, University of Wisconsin at Milwau An exhibition, drawn from the collections kee, "Iron in the Bronze Age in the Eastern of the Allen Art Museum, in celebration of Mediterranean;" November 14 at Oberlin Col the 100th anniversary of the first Impres lege, Mary C. Sturgeon, Oberlin College, "The sionist Show. ater Reliefs in Ancient Corinth;" February 13 at Ashland College, Elizabeth R. Gebhard, Uni versity of Illinois at Chicago, "The Theater at February 17-March 10 Stobi — A Mixed Theater of the Empire;" April The Black Experience in Prints 10 at Oberlin College, Robert L. Johnston, Col A selection of prints, chosen by the staff of lege of Fine and Applied Arts, Rochester In the Pratt Graphics Center, which reflects the stitute of Technology, "The Paleo-Ceramist at Black experience in American society. an Archaeological Site." 60 Baldwin Seminar Friends of Art Film Series The Baldwin seminar, Architects on Archi October 8 tecture, will be given from April 12 through April 19 by Denise Scott Brown and Robert The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Venturi. Two public lectures will complement (Vittorio De Sica, Italian, 1971) the seminar meetings for registered students. November 5 I Am A Camera (Henry Cornelius, English, 1955) Friends of Art Concert Series February 10 December 1 All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, American, 1930) Allen Museum Sculpture Court Choral and Instrumental Music performed by the Recorder Duo, the Belle Arts String March 3 Quartette, and the Oberlin Community The Best Years of Our Lives Chamber Singers (William Wyler, American, 1946) April 15 Allen Museum Sculpture Court April 7 17th and 18th Century Chamber Music The Testament of Dr. Mabuse performed by the Baroque Ensemble (Fritz Lang, German, 1933) 61 Oberlin Friends of Art Privileges of Membership An original silkscreen print by Paul Arnold, made exclusively for the Oberlin Friends of Art in a signed and numbered edition. A copy of each issue of the Bulletin Free admission to film and concert series Free enrollment in children's Saturday art classes (for family and life members only- children ages 6-12) Invitations to exhibition openings, gallery talks, Baldwin lecture and visiting artist series An annual members' acquisition party, during which members purchase by vote works for the museum collection A discount on museum catalogues and Christmas cards Categories of Membership Life .... $150.00 Family (annual) $ 30.00 Sustaining (annual) . $ 15.00 Member (annual) $ 7.50 Student (annual) $ 4.00 A sustaining or life membership gives privileges to husband and wife, and a family membership includes all children. Membership contributions are tax deductible (less $8.00 for tangible benefits received). 62 STAFF OF THE MUSEUM Richard E. Spear, Director Paul Ettesvold, Graduate Assistant to the Curators Ellen H. Johnson, Honorary Curator Floyd A. Kinnee, Museum Technician Katharine J. Watson, Curator of Art before 1800 Margery M. Williams, Librarian Chloe H. Young, Curator Doris B. Moore, Administrative Secretary Ellen Goldhaar, Assistant to the Curators Arthur Fowls, Head Custodian INTERMUSEUM CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION Marigene H. Buder, Barbara Beardsley, Associate Conservator Director and Head of Training Program James Bernstein, Associate Conservator Delbert Spurlock, Chief Conservator Ruth Spider, Secretary Abraham Rosenzweig, Associate Head of Training Program MUSEUM PURCHASE COMMITTEE Richard E. Spear, Chairman John Pearson Paul B. Arnold Thalia Gouma Peterson Frederick B. Artz Athena Tacha Spear Laurine Bongiorno Katharine J. Watson Ellsworth C. Carlson Forbes Whiteside Ellen H. Johnson Chloe H. Young EDITOR OF THE BULLETIN MUSEUM HOURS Wolfgang Stechow School Year: Monday through Friday 10:00-12:00 A.M. (side gate) 1:30 - 4:30 and 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. Saturday PHOTOGRAPHER 10:00 -12:00 A.M. (side gate) Robert Stillwell 2:00-5:30 P.M. Sunday 2:00-5:30 P.M. Summer: PUBLICATIONS Monday through Friday The Bulletin, the catalogue of the 10:00-12:00 A.M. painting and sculpture collection, 2:00-4:00 P.M. photographs, postcards, slides, and color reproductions are on sale at Saturday and Sunday the Museum. 1:00-5:00 P.M. udr**^S* ft"