The Rose Window: Splendor and Symbol, Painton Cowen

Reviews quality without bending their ear, for example Janetta Benton’s Art of the Middle Ages (Thames and Hudson, 2002); those wanting a theoretical approach to the subject without feeling that the author is out to show what complicated language s/he can use may find Paul Binski’s Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170–1300 (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art & Yale University Press, 2004; see The Art Book vol. 13 issue 3) more useful and enjoyable. Those who are interested in Foucault should read Foucault. It is hard to recommend this book, except perhaps as a demonstration that ‘reading’ images rather than looking at them does not make one able necessarily to write convincingly on them. matt cambridge Art historian, Edinburgh THE ROSE WINDOW: SPLENDOR AND SYMBOL painton cowen Thames & Hudson 2005 d39.95 $85.00 276 pp. 301 col/80 mono illus isbn 0-500-51174-8 A s a complete work of art, the cathedral may be without peer, a perfect marriage of solid stone and delicate glass, appeal to the senses and to the intellect, and technological wizardry in the service of spirituality. The description may apply equally, if on a smaller scale, to ‘every rose window’, each being, according to a caption on page 15, ‘a balance of stone, glass, iron and lead, each element requiring very specialized skills’. Painton Cowen, author and photographer of this beautiful volume, is more inclusive still, assuming explicitly on the same page that ‘all monumental, circular, typically axial openings, glazed and unglazed, with or without tracery, may reasonably be called ‘‘rose windows’’’. ‘Traditionally’, Cowen notes, ‘the birth of the rose window has been seen to coincide with the birth of the Gothic style at St Denis’ in the mid-twelfth century. That rose was replaced by a clock in the eighteenth century, he laments, but its near contemporary at St Etienne in Beauvais survives. Citing and elaborating upon ‘the development of the oculus, the independent development of tracery, and the symbolism of the circle’ as ‘three key pre-rose window trends’, Cowen makes a case instead for the rose at ninth-century San Miguel de Lillo in Oviedo, Spain, as the earliest surviving rose window. If scholars disagree, at least Cowen lays out his definitions and the photographic evidence for all to see. Excepting several dozen historical photographs, prints, and drawings (primarily the black and white illustrations), Cowen is the photographer and occasional draughtsman for this, his much-expanded follow-up to Rose Windows (1979). The colour photographs, rarely smaller than 30 square inches (four to a page) and sometimes 250 square inches (a single photograph spanning two pages), are comparable in splendour to those in Bernhard Schütz’s Great Cathedrals (English translation published by Abrams in 2002) with photographs by Albert Hirmer, Florian Monheim, and Joseph Martin. In a few cases, the same photographs are reproduced in both books, allowing side-byside comparison. Full-page, facing colour photographs of the north and south roses and companion lancets at Chartres (attributed to Hirmer in Great Cathedrals) are distinguishable only by subtle differences in hue. Which is truer to the windows themselves, and to one’s experience of them, is perhaps unanswerable given the ever-changing natural light. One of The Rose Window’s many remarkable photographs throws into high relief the regular geometry and light- and warmth-giving functions of a cathedral’s windows. Courtesy of Bildarchiv Photo in Marburg, it is a panoramic shot of Sant Cugat, Sant Cugat del Valles. Illustration from The Rose Window: Splendor and Symbol by Painton Cowen. Chartres Cathedral’s cavernous interior taken during or shortly after the Second World War, when the stained glass had been removed for safekeeping and replaced with what appears to be clear glass. The absence of stained glass also emphasises what is lost in iconography and in the aesthetics and symbolism of colour and organic form. Lest the reader think that Cowen, or the reviewer, overemphasises Chartres, the reviewer cannot help it, having first beheld it two years ago (but he is equally prepared to overemphasise experiences at Sainte-Chapelle or New York’s St. John the Divine). Cowen, on the other hand, spreads the wealth: photographs and text document rose windows at St Denis, Sainte-Chapelle, Laon, NotreDame in Paris, Reims, Lyon, York Minster, Byland Abbey, Milan, Seville, Florence, Bristol, St. John the Divine, Washington National Cathedral, and dozens more. A more thorough, though not exhaustive, roster of European cathedrals arranged by country appears in the gazetteer and its companion maps. Locations of rose windows at 13 American sites conclude the gazetteer. A bibliography of approximately 100 entries precedes the index. While Chartres and Notre-Dame receive a bit of extra emphasis, Cowen’s main project is to document the elements and variety of rose styles and their r 2006 the authors. journal compilation r 2006 bpl/aah volume 13 issue 3 august 2006 The Art Book 51 Reviews development from the earliest examples to the twentieth century. Roses are photographed inside and out; in isolation and in the context of entire facades or their interior counterparts; original, as reconstructed, and in glorious ruin. Total text amounting to perhaps a hundred pages, The Rose Window is unequal parts provocative overview and beautiful photographic essay. It is an inspiration. craig bunch Librarian, Houston, Texas BEYOND THE NAKED EYE – DETAILS FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY jill dunkerton and rachel billinge The National Gallery Company Ltd. 2005 d9.95 $16.95 80 pp. Fully illustrated isbn 18570-9381X Dist. Yale University Press F or more than a decade, the National Gallery has been examining and re-examining its collection of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flemish and Italian works to reveal wonderful features in the paintings usually missed by the casual viewer. State-of-the art technology used in conservation departments enables nuances of style and handling to be shown in detail and all new discoveries are quickly recorded in the pages of professional journals. For the non-specialist or for the person who does not take the time or make the effort to look carefully, however, many hidden delights are never even noticed; it is for these viewers that this book is intended. Beyond the Naked Eye is the most recent of a series of excellent publications by the Gallery investigating different aspects of its own collection. It draws upon an archive of 35 mm colour film taken through a stereobinocular microscope and enlarged many times. These photographs (called photomacrographs here), supplement the use of x-ray and infrared methods of examination and of scientific analysis of paint samples in establishing provenance and tracing the styles and working practices of the artist. This book, intended for the ordinary viewer, never pronounces on scholarly matters but it puzzles, delights and intrigues the reader to such a degree that he or she may be driven to return to the Gallery to search for 52 The Art Book those mysterious details that were missed the first time around. Details from well-known paintings are included here along with a few surprises. The Van Eyck Arnolfini Marriage (perhaps the most famous of the National Gallery’s Flemish pictures) has no less than seven details revealed by the photomacrographs, some of which might easily have escaped the notice of the most erudite Flemish specialist. One illustration shows a strip of ripe cherries on a tree outside the window; this is an actual area on the painting measuring just 11 mm but is magnified here 17.3 times. The colours are true, the resolution perfect. The illustration of a tiny detail of a bishop’s crosier in a predella painting by Fra Angelico, although barely noticeable to the naked eye, reveals a restoration effort in the past when minute losses of mordant gold have been covered over using powdered ‘shell’ gold. And in Van der Weyden’s The Magdalen Reading, which is a mere fragment of a larger altarpiece, we see in the distance a minute figure of a woman and her reflection in water. Tiny dabs and streaks of pigment appear under the magnifying powers of the microscope. The actual area of paint is just 11  17 mm. The overall arrangement of the book is quite complicated as it is, but even after some thought, it proved impossible to design a better one. The illustration of the whole painting is overlaid with numbered tags indicating the photomacrographic details. These general pictures are placed at the end (they could have been bigger) but it might have been better to have put them at the beginning of the book. The task for the reader is to consult the details and the whole back and forth, repeatedly, to make the best use of the book. To make things easier the illustrations are gathered under four headings: ‘Observing the world’, ‘Portraying mankind’, ‘Describing objects’ and ‘Manipulating materials’. A short and unpretentious text introduces each heading. It is clear that, for once, the writers and designers worked together on this project. The illustrations are given precedence and the text never overwhelms. The introductory remarks at the beginning of the section called ‘Portraying mankind’ point out the details that we instinctively monitor on a human face that enable us to register character and mood. Eyes and mouth seem to provide the clearest expression of mood. The exam- ples given here show a remarkable range: sad concern in the eye of a monk carefully lifting the body of St Hubert from a tomb in an exhumation and the gentle reserve in the lowered eyelids (treated in sfumato fashion) of a Madonna by the Spanish artist Luis de Morales. The smallest details in eyes such as the placement of the catchlights made with touches of solid lead white indicate the convexity and wetness of an eye as well as the direction of the light source. The section called ‘Describing objects’ proves the huge strength of the Renaissance rendition of textures and surfaces. For hard and reflective precious stones, Cranach, for instance, uses raised blobs of lead-tin yellow pigment which come across when seeing the whole painting as stones set in a decorative brooch. The artist’s skill and confidence is evident. Memling is another artist whose actual handling appears almost abstract. For mother-of-pearl he uses a soft-grey base colour with highlights placed off centre. This trick was such a success it was soon copied all over Europe. Other photomacrographs show close-up the handling used in rendering soft feathers and velvet. This is fascinating material simply and directly presented, a worthy publication from the National Gallery. eleanor robbins Writer, London IMAGINE NO POSSESSIONS: THE SOCIALIST OBJECTS OF RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM christina kiaer MIT Press 2005 d25.95 $35.95 326 pp. 23 col/many mono illus isbn 0-262-11289-2 T his really excellent book sets out to examine the possibility of the production of an object that preserves the desire and mystery of the commodity under capitalism, and couples it with the object as friend, helper and co-worker – the object as comrade. This, argues Christina Kiaer, was the project of avantgarde artists/designers in the period of the NEP (New Economic Policy) in the USSR during the years from about 1921–8. Towards the end of the book, in Chapter 5, the author examines the correspondence of the artist/designer Rodchenko during his visit to Paris to help assemble the pavilion of the USSR at the ‘Arts Deco’ volume 13 issue 3 august 2006 r 2006 the authors. journal compilation r 2006 bpl/aah