Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet

Author:Jacques Bonnet
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781623652630
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-10-19T21:00:00+00:00

6

READING PICTURES

Libraries, like museums, are a refuge from old age, sickness and death.

JEAN GRENIER

In my study, the bookshelves are all devoted to art history. On my right, when I am sitting at my desk, are normal-sized books in alphabetical order of author, from Laurie Schneider Adams, The Methodologies of Art (and this may be an example of a category mistake since Schneider is, on reflection, more likely to be the first part of a double surname, not a second first name, but it’s too late now) to Ludovico Zorzi (Représentation picturale et représentation théatrale (Pictorial and theatrical representation). On my left are the big art books. They have ended up invading every wall, pushing out any posters, engravings or pictures, and have spilled over into the room next door, where I keep catalogs and thematic studies, as well as works on architecture, photography and all kinds of coffee-table books. Monographs are classified in alphabetical order and by school (French, Italian, German, and so on), to make it easier to find them. Thematic works are grouped according to links which are sometimes a bit wayward. So Metropolitan Cats by John P. O’Neill and Le Chat et la palette (The Painted Cat) by Elisabeth Foucart-Walter and Pierre Rosenberg rub shoulders quite amicably with Le Chien dans l’art (The Dog in Art) by Robert Rosenblum. Books on Saint Sebastian or Mary Magdalen sit alongside a Rath Museum catalog of an exhibition on Cleopatra and La Calomnie d’Apelle (The calumny of Apelles) by Jean-Michel Massing. But the location of L’Art et le temps, regards sur la quatrième dimension (Art and time: views of the fourth dimension), a collective work edited by Michel Baudson, or Le Monde à l’envers (The world upside down) by Frédéric Tristan could only be the result of an arbitrary decision. Not to mention learned journals, in a field where recent research is often communicated in a short article of a few pages. If I have a whole run of a periodical title, like the 158 numbers of La Revue de l’art (Art Review) that’s straightforward enough, but what am I to do with one-off issues of the occasional journal like the number 5–6 of Macula or the three issues I happen to own of La Part de l’oeil (The eye’s share)?

The art books are in my study for purely practical reasons in the first instance: it’s the only room in the house that is not affected by damp, whatever the season. But there’s another aspect: the visual pleasure to be found when working alone. These books often have an illustration on the spine, and the titles instantly bring other images to mind. So when I am sitting in front of my computer, I can read titles like Mantegna and the Bridal Chamber, The strange case of Félix Vallotton, King René and his age, Oudry’s Animals or De Staël: from line to color. I have only to see the name of an artist (Georges Seurat say, or Jacapo da Pontormo) to

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