The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (143 page)

Chapter 49. New Worlds for the Orchestra
. Excellent starting points for Beethoven are the readable and cogent George R. Marek,
Beethoven: Biography of a Genius
(1969), or Stanley Sadie,
Beethoven
(1967) in Faber’s Great Composer Series. The monumental life is by Alexander Wheelock Thayer, revised and edited by Elliot Forbes,
Thayer’s Life of Beethoven
(2 vols., 1967). But none of these has the intimacy and authenticity of
Beethoven as I Knew Him
(D. W. Macardle, ed., 1966), by Anton Felix Schindler (1795–1864), the German conductor and Beethoven’s close friend. The great man is illuminated from many sides in C. G. Sonneck, ed.,
Beethoven: Impressions by His Contemporaries
(1967), a Dover paperback. For the wider background and the auguries of Romanticism, see Jacques Barzun’s engrossing
Berlioz and the Romantic Century
(2 vols., 3d ed., 1969).

Chapter 50. The Music of Risorgimento
. Since Verdi was not a literary person, he left few writings about himself except his letters and we depend heavily on anecdotal materials. A perceptive introduction is Frank Walker,
The Man Verdi
(1962), supplemented by the full-length biography,

Dyneley Hussey,
Verdi
(rev. 1973), illustrated with music examples. See also John F. Toye,
Giuseppe Verdi
(1931); D. Kimbell,
Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism
(1981), a documented panorama.

Chapter 51. A Germanic Union of the Arts
. Wagner’s own voluminous writings and his encompassing interests have produced a vast literature. A useful introductory essay is by John Warrack in
The New Oxford Companion to Music
. The standard up-to-date biography is Curt von Westernhagen,
Wagner
(2 vols., 1978). For copious detail: Ernest Newman,
The Life of Richard Wagner
(4 vols., 1933–47),
The Wagner Operas
(1949). Wagner’s own writings:
My Life
(A. Gray, trans.; Mary Whittall, ed., 1983),
Opera and Drama
(Edwin Evans, trans., 2 vols.),
Three Wagner Essays
(Robert L. Jacobs, trans., 1979). An intimate view: M. Gregor-Dellin and D. Mack, eds.,
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries
(1978–80). And brilliantly suggestive essays for the context: Jacques Barzun,
Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage
(2d ed., 1981); George Bernard Shaw,
The Perfect Wagnerite, a Commentary on the Ring
(1923, 1967), a Dover paperback; Peter Viereck,
Metapolitics
, the roots of the Nazi mind, from the Romantics to Hitler (rev. 1961).

Chapter 52. The Ephemeral Art of the Dance
. A stirring introduction by one of the leading American patrons of dance: Lincoln Kirstein,
Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing
(anniversary ed., intro. by Nancy Reynolds, 1987). A wider view: John Lawson,
A History of Ballet and Its Makers
(1964); on individual dancers and styles, Kenneth McLeish,
Penguin Companion to the Arts in the Twentieth Century
(1955), and the handy
Dance Encyclopedia
(Anatole Chujoy, ed., 1949). A lively introduction to Russian ballet in its setting: Suzanne Massie,
Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia
(1980). For biography, begin with Richard Buckle,
Diaghilev
(1979), and find details in S. L. Grigoriev,
The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909–1929
(1953). For the tantalizing Isadora Duncan, begin with Walter Terry,
Isadora Duncan: Her Life, her Art, her Legacy
(1984). Then Allan Ross Macdougall,
Isadora: A Revolutionary in Art and Love
(1960) on her sensational impact,
and the more sober V. Seroff,
The Real Isadora
(1971). And enjoy Isadora Duncan’s own version in
My Life
(1927). For Martha Graham:
Blood Memory: An Autobiography
(1991); Don McDonagh,
Martha Graham
(1973);
Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham
(1991), the passionate and breathless chronicle by Agnes de Mille, her friend for sixty years. To define modern dance and put it in context: the eloquent John Martin,
Introduction to the Dance
(1965),
The Modern Dance
(1965),
American Dancing: the background and personalities of the modern dance
(1968), illustrated.

Chapter 53. The Music of Innovation
The best introduction to Stravinsky is Eric Walter White’s comprehensive and readable
Stravinsky: The Composer and his Works
(2d ed., 1979). The composer himself was articulate, voluble, affable, and sometimes venomous. See, for example: his
Autobiography
(1936; 1975);
Poetics of Music
(1947), his Norton Lectures at Harvard; and
Themes and Conclusions
(1972), a collection of his program notes, reviews, and interveiws. His friend and aide Robert Craft elicits a wide range of opinions in
Conversations with Igor Stravinsky
(1959). Lillian Libman, a warm admirer, provides intimate details of Stravinsky (1959–1971) as composer, performer, and stirring conversationalist, in
And Music at the Close: Stravinsky’s Last Years
(1972). Few other modern composers have provided such a lively arena of personal aesthetic, and professional controversy. For the context see: Eric Walter White,
Stravinsky: A Critical Survey
(1979); the richly suggestive
Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg
(ed. Leonard Stein, 1975), including his influential “Composition with Twelve Tones” (1941), explaining how “the method of composing with twelve tones grew out of necessity.” And for Schoenberg’s relation to Stravinsky, see Dika Newlin
Schoenberg Remembered: Diaries and Recollections (1938–76)
(1980).

For the relation of Western discovery and definition of time and space to thinking about the world, see Boorstin,
The Discoverers
, Books I and II. See also my
Republic of Technology
(1978),
The Image
(1961, 1987), and
The Americans: The Democratic Experience
(1973). On the role of the arts and technology in these perceptions, two of the most rewarding writers are the Swiss historian Sigfried Giedion,
The Eternal Present: The Beginnings of Art
(1962),
The Beginnings of Architecture
(1981),
Mechanization Takes Command
(1948),
Space, Time, and Architecture
(1949); and the American polymath Lewis Mumford,
Sticks and Stones
(1924) on American life interpreted through architecture,
The Culture of Cities
(1938),
The City in History
(1961),
The Myth of the Machine
(1970). For particular topics, consult the scholarly and readable
A History of Technology
(Charles Singer et al., eds., Vols. 4 and 5, 1958; Trevor Williams, ed., Vols. 6 and 7, 1978), and for persons, see the incomparable
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
.

Chapter 54. The Painted Moment
. We are fortunate in having the comprehensive and perceptive
History of Impressionism
(4th ed., 1987) by John Rewald to give us our bearings. Martin Kemp’s magisterial
The Science of Art, Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat
(1990) relates the artists to the sciences. See also: Phoebe Pool,
Impressionism
(1967); Herschel B. Chipp,
Theories of Modern Art
(1968), selections from artists and critics; Aaron Scharf,
Art and Photography
(1974), with intriguing detail, illustrated; Richard Shiff,
Cézanne and the End of Impressionism
(1984);
Impressionism 1874–1886: The New Painting
, catalog of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 1986; Alan Bowness,
Great Art and Artists of the World, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
(n.d.). For an illuminating history of the materials and technology of the artist: W. G. Constable,
The Painter’s Workshop
(1954). And some stimulating speculation: Remi Clignet,
The Structure of Artistic Revolutions
(1985), testing hypotheses of historians of science in relation to the arts. To glimpse the surprising range of dominant theories: Vasco Ronchi,
The Nature of Light: An Historical Survey
(1970). Excellent illustrated biographies from various points of view: John House,
Monet: Nature into Art (1986);
Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge,
Monet
(1983)
with ample quotations from Monet; William C. Seitz,
Claude Monet
(1960); Stephen Shore,
The Gardens at Giverny: A View of Monet’s World
(1983), vividly illustrated.

Chapter 55. The Power of Light: “The Pencil of Nature.”
This new popular art has invited a vast literature, with a history that is readily illustrated. The best up-to-date introduction is John Szarkowski,
Photography until Now
(1989). See also Beaumont Newhall,
The History of Photography
(rev. ed., 1982); Sarah Greenough et al.,
On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography
(1989). catalog of an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. Renata W. Shaw, comp.,
A Century of Photographs, 1846–1946
(1980), from the collections of the Library of Congress. And for a scintillating essay on the history of illustration: William M. Ivins, Jr.,
Prints and Visual Communication
(1953). And again: Martin Kemp,
The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art
(1990); Aaron Scharf,
Art and Photography
(1974). For a comprehensive illustrated biography: Gail Buckland,
Fox Talbot and the Invention of Photography
(1980). We gain insight into the early debates over the relation of photography to “art,” from Peter Henry Emerson.,
Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art: The Death of Naturalistic Photography
(reprinted in Literature of Photography series, Arno Press, 1973). For an entertaining digression on an instrument of writer and artist: Henry Petroski,
The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance
(1990). Much of the literature on Alfred Stieglitz is by his uncritical acolytes: Waldo Frank et al., eds.,
America and Alfred Stieglitz: Collective Portrait
(1934);
Alfred Stieglitz: Photographer
(1965); Dorothy Norman,
Alfred Stieglitz: Introduction to an American Seer
(1960). These can be corrected by the uncompromising dual biography: Benita Eisler,
O’Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance
(1991), and by Georgia O’Keeffe’s autobiography (1976). André Malraux boldly and brilliantly describes the consequences of photographic reproduction for our experience of all the arts, finally creating a “museum without walls,” in
Voices of Silence
(1953), Part I. And for a stimulating essay on the effect of photography on our experience of the world, see Susan Sontag,
On Photography
(1977), in Anchor paperback. See also my
The Image
(1961; 1987).

Chapter 56. The Rise of the Skyscraper
. The best introduction is Paul Goldberger’s well-illustrated
The Skyscraper
(1981). For the wider context, David P. Billington,
The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering
(1983). For the American context, see Earle Shultz and Walter Simmons,
Offices in the Sky
(1959), and the readable works of Carl W. Condit,
American Building Art: The Nineteenth Century
(1960),
… The Twentieth Century
(1961),
American Building
(2d ed., 1982), a concise treatment of materials and techniques since Colonial times. Some distinctively American developments in architecture appear in my
The Americans: The National Experience
(1966), Chapters 18 and 19, and
The Americans: The Democratic Experience
(1973), Chapters 39 and 40. Writings by architects and their critics: Don Gifford, ed.,
The Literature of Architecture
 … in
Nineteenth-Century America
(1966); Horatio Greenough,
Form and Function
(Harold A. Small, ed., 1957);
Montgomery Schuyler, American Architecture and Other Writings
(1948), William H. Jordy and Ralph Coe, eds. Well-illustrated surveys: Carl W. Condit,
The Chicago School of Architecture
 … 
1875–1025
(1952);
Chicago Architecture 1872–1022, Birth of a Metropolis
(John Zukowsky, ed., 1987). On Sullivan, the basic Hugh Morrison,
Louis Sullivan: Prophet of Modern Architecture
(1935), and Sherman Paul,
Louis Sullivan: An Architect in American Thought
(1962). However crisp were the members of the Chicago School in their architecture, they were wordy, repetitive, and emotive in their writing, for example Louis H. Sullivan,
The Autobiography of an Idea
(1924),
Kindergarten Chats
(1947). Sullivan’s “Tall Office Building” is reprinted in
An American Primer
(Daniel J. Boorstin, ed., Mentor paperback, 1968), at pp. 580ff. Brendan Gill has given us an engrossing life of Frank Lloyd Wright in
Many Masks
(1987). And see Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Autobiography
(1987). For the mythic and legendary meanings of the Chicago Fire: Ross Miller,
American Apocalypse
(1990).

To grasp the novelty of the modern biography as a literary form we need only glance at the writers of “lives” before Boswell. Sample, at least, Plutarch’s
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
(often referred to as the
Parallel Lives
) in
Great Books of the Western World
, vol. 14, or in any of many handy reprints—for example, in Penguin Books. The best-known examples of “lives” in earlier English literature are those by Izaak Walton (1593–1683), who wrote pious life stories to sanctify John Donne (1640), Richard Hooker (1665), George Herbert (1670), and other Anglican worthies, and the writings of Thomas Fuller (1608–1661), whose lives of local notables were appropriately titled (after his death)
The History of the Worthies of England
(1662). Such bloodless adulatory chronicles are a far cry from the creators of our Chapters 57–60. See John A. Garraty,
The Nature of Biography
(1957) and André Maurois,
Aspects of Biography
(1929), by a master of popular lives. On the history of the genre in England we have a delightful essay by Harold Nicolson,
The Development of English Biography
(1928). And see Donald A. Stauffer,
English Biography before 1700
(1930),
The Art of Biography in Eighteenth-Century England
(1944); Leon Edel,
Literary Biography
(1957). For autobiography: Roy Pascal,
Design and Truth in Autobiography
(1960); James Olney,
Metaphors of Self: the Meaning of Autobiography
(1981); John N. Morris,
Versions of the Self
(1966), English autobiography from Bunyan to Mill; Thomas Mallon,
A Book of One’s Own
(1984), an introduction to the history of diaries and diarists. For a lively survey of works after Boswell: Richard Altick,
Lives and Letters: A History of Literary Biography in England and America
(1965). Phyllis Rose,
Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages
(1983), offers an engaging combination of the techniques of Plutarch and Boswell in her account of eminent authors and their spouses. And, for a suggestive contrast, Robert E. Hegel and Richard C. Hessney, eds.,
Expressions of Self in Chinese Literature
(1985). An entertaining anthology: Edgar Johnson,
A Treasury of Biography
(1941). As usual, André Malraux makes something tantalizingly new with his
Anti-Memoirs
(1968).