John Beckwith's 'Art of Constantinople' Contains No Colour Photographs

This shocked and saddened me: a book on Byzantine art, indeed, what appears to be considered a standard work on the subject,containing 203 photographs over 153 pages -- every single one of them in black and white.

I'm referring to the 2nd edition of 1968. The 1st was published in 1961. I thought that just possibly, what with Beckwith having spent the intervening 7 years in riotously-colorful Swinging London, it might have occurred to him add more color to his book on the very beautifully-colorful art of the Eastern Romans. This is an example of how buying books in used-book stores instead of online could have spared a horrible disappointment.

Beckwith begins his chapter on the iconoclastic period by remarking that there is an almost total lack of visual evidence relative to the time just before iconoclasm erupted. How ironic that Beckwith complains about this, the author of a book entirely lacking color photographs. Did color photography really suck that hard in 1968? Was Beckwith in 1968, not yet 50 years old, nevertheless already such a fogey that he was hopelessly out of touch with contemporary developments in color photography? Can it be that Swinging London did affect him, but negatively, so that he published his works in a black and white fashion as a form of conservative protest? (You know what would be really ironic, is if it turns out that the 1961 1st edition is chock fulla color.)

Something else which surprised me, much less unpleasantly so than the lack of color, is the very first sentence in Beckwith's book, at the beginning of the Acknowledgements, thanking Steven Runciman "for constant encouragement and advice." I'm so used to seeing lesser writers, enraged because Runciman has demolished their traditionalist, romantic, pro-Western notions about the Crusades with his consummate professionalism and command of many relevant source languages other than Latin and French, impotently attacking him or attempting to damn him with faint praise, but I can't remember having read anything nice about him in print before written by someone other than myself or William Gaddis or the writers of his obituaries.

Although I knew of course that Runciman had friends and admirers, still it was nice to see a dissent among all the usual anti-Runciman sniping. Still, it rebounded a bit against Runciman. Yes, I'm afraid I'm still on the photographs. You see, I'm the sort of guy who likes art books very much, but to look at much more than to read. I don't think I've ever actually read an entire art book. What've I got against Runciman now, because Beckwith was apparently his protogee to some extent? A renewed suspicion of elitism, is what. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for elitism in some cases, it's just that I'm against it in others. I'm all for it, for example, when in the preface to The Sicilian VespersRunciman bluntly informs the reader the the prose of the book to follow is complicated because the events it portrays were complicated, and advises readers confused by history to stick to fiction. But if Beckwith had nothing but black and white photos in his book because he, like Runciman, constantly traveled from one sumptuous collection of the actual objects under consideration to the next and gave little thought to those unable to do the same, well then there's an elitism against which I am, to imitate Winston Churchill.

It's only a suspicion, far from a certainty, and for all I actually know no-one was more upset by and protested more energetically against the lack of color illustrations in Beckwith's and Runciman's book than Beckwith and Runciman. An author, after all, is not the same thing as a publisher.

Anyhoo. Perhaps this will be the first book about art whose text I actually read from start to finish, and perhaps reading it will actually benefit me when and if I actually come across a book full of quality color photographs of Byzantine art. The fact that Runciman encouraged Beckwith definitely makes me more interested in his prose.

(And btw, yes, I am aware that quite a few of my blog posts, like this one, refer to books which I am about to read, instead of, much more conventionally, books which I have already read. A few thoughts about that. For one, a difference between a post like this and many a conventional book review is that I freely admit I haven't read the book, while book reviewers often lie and claim they have. One of many good reasons to read jack green's FIRE THE BASTARDS!is the way he busts big-time book reviewers for this rather serious sin. The entire book is about the shortcomings of the reviews of William Gaddis' first novel The Recognitions,which I, like green before me, have actually read. For the full delicious effect of righteous indignation I recommend reading the novel first, and then green's book. And two, eh, I think I write interesting stuff. So, just two thoughts about that, not a full few as promised.)

Books I Like

At first I thought about giving this post the title "Books I Heartily Recommend," but "Books I Like" is more accurate. If you know me a little, you'll have some idea whether and to what extent the fact that I like a book means you'll like it too. Checking out some of these books would not be a bad way to get to know me and get a feel for my interests.

The Recognitions and JR, William Gaddis' first two novels, long and delightfully difficult and tremendously good. Gaddis' next two novels are excellent as well, but I like these ones the most. The fifth one, published posthumously, is still unfinished, in my opinion, and is of interest only to hard-core fans. The posthumous collection of essays is also a bit of a letdown.

On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry and The Tunnel a novel, by William H. Gass. Gass is in some ways even more difficult than Gaddis. The term "unflinching" perhaps never was more entirely fitting to any other writer. The term "catharsis" applies as well. On Being Blue is about the color blue and about being depressed and melancholy and about writing about sex and about many other things. The Tunnel is about an American historian specializing in the Third Reich who is thoroughly unlikeable. The tunnel of the title is one he's digging under his house, and a symbol for the abysses into which the human soul can sink.

The History Of The Reformation Of The Church Of England V4 is a collection of some of the sources for Gilbert Burnett's history of the Reformation: letters to and from the English monarchs from Henry VII through Elizabeth I and from related personages, and other documents of the time. Untranslated. Elizabeth wrote very good Latin. (But I don't think she wrote any of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.)

Der Antichrist (ISBN 3-458-32647-2) von Friedrich Nietzsche ist nicht umsonst noch heute ein Renner. Hier findet man knapp und klar resumiert die Schaden, die das Christentum dem Denken eines Drittel der Menschheit zugefuegt hat, and die Gruende, warum man Schluss damit machen muss. (Dass es von einem Maerchen handelt ist laengst nicht der einzige Grund, ist nicht mal der Hauptgrund.)

The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Canto) or just about any other book by Steven Runciman, except that if you're interested in the bibliographies, you will want to avoid his abridged version of The First Crusade. (The unabridged version is A History of the Crusades Vol. I: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) And if you are anything at all like me, you will absolutely delight in Runciman's bibliographies.

I could go on and on and on and on and on. I will definitely rattle off a lot of other book titles in future posts. For the moment let me just say that Gaddis, Gass, Nietzsche and Runciman are the best teachers I have ever had so far. None of them is perfect: Nietzsche was afflicted with a bad crazy case of misogyny, and Runciman seems to have been infected with a bit of anti-semitism fashionable in Cambridge in the early 20th-century. (Although his case was far from the most severe -- he was far from being the bigot that, for example, T.S. Eliot was -- and he may have partly cured himself of it over the course of his long life.) Those are serious shortcomings, but then again, as far as I know, no-one is perfect. These four writers share vast scholarship, huge ambition, keen judgement and beautiful prose style.