It’s been a curious day in many ways. This morning we drove over to the nearby town of Ilkley. One of our principal objectives was to pick the plentiful blackberries that grow along the river Wharfe, but my wife also wanted to do some shopping in the town. While she was doing her own thing I popped into the Oxfam charity shop. They seem to be the only such establishment that stocks interesting second-hand books. In fact, they have such a reputation that I’m told that they have been driving traditional antiquarian booksellers out of business in some places. Anyway, browsing along the shelves I encountered what looked like an interesting find.
What I picked up was a book by Maly and Dietfried Gerhardus, entitled Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Bearing in mind my interest in the Symbolist movement in Italy I thought that it was bound to be of interest. It is …. but not for the reason I expected. There appears to be absolutely no awareness at all of the strength and diversity of Symbolism in Italy. Painters I would regard as central to the movement, such as Nomellini, Previati and Sartorio are ignored here. I want to know how it might be possible to write a book about Symbolism that manages to overlook Boccioni.
Sadly this is (I have discovered) typical of art history of the modern period. The Italian contribution to the development of painting is almost completely unknown to most writers. The Gerhardus volume treats Symbolism as a phenomenon of almost entirely northern European provenance.
As time passes I discover that the writing of art history is arbitrary in many respects, both with regard to what is included as significant and what is ignored. There was a very interesting TV series recently by the critic and art historian Waldemar Janusczak, about art in the USA, and I had to admit that a large proportion of the work he talked about was almost entirely unfamiliar to me. I am sure that we all have our blind spots, and we should all get out more and allow ourselves to be surprised.
PS: Correction, the Gerhardus book does mention Segantini briefly. My general point stands.