Word & Image

A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry

ISSN: 0266-6286 (Print) 1943-2178 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/twim20

Artists’ writings, 1850–present: introduction

Linda Goddard

To cite this article: Linda Goddard (2012) Artists’ writings, 1850–present: introduction, Word &
Image, 28:4, 331-334, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.2012.740177

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1 – Matisse, Jazz, 1947, reprinted in Matisse
on Art, ed. Jack Flam, London and New York:
Artists’ writings, 1850–present:
Phaidon, 1973), 111–13, here 111. Matisse
repeated variations of this phrase on a num-
ber of occasions, see Jack Flam,
introduction
‘Introduction’, ibid., 9. LINDA GODDARD
2 – This myth has been frequently challenged,
but it still endures. Brian Wallis notes that
‘Despite a century of theoretical and critical
writings by modern artists, popular concep-
tions preserve a view of the artist as a ‘‘gifted’’
or ‘‘natural’’ man’, see ‘Telling Stories: A Introduction
Fictional Approach to Artists’ Writings’: in
Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings Henri Matisse famously declared that ‘he who wants to dedicate himself to
by Contemporary Artists, ed. Brian Wallis painting should start by cutting out his tongue’.1 His advice has been cited
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), xi–xvii,
here xi. For evidence of the persistent ten-
ever since as proof that artists create intuitively without any intellectual
dency to take at face value artists’ apparent agenda; that art and literature belong to separate spheres; and that painting
reluctance to express themselves in words, see is a silent art that transcends language.2 But if we take Matisse at his word,
my article in this issue.
3 – Yve-Alain Bois, ‘Newman’s Laterality’, in
how do we account for his own writing, which Yve-Alain Bois has described as
Reconsidering Barnett Newman, ed. Melissa Ho ‘so good that it is very difficult for anyone wanting to address his painting to
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), stray very long from his own explanations’?3 In his 1908 article, ‘Notes of a
29–45, here 29.
Painter’, Matisse began by apologising for putting his thoughts into print, and
4 – ‘. . . sans y apporter de préoccupation
d’écriture’. Henri Matisse, ‘Notes d’un pein- insisted that he would express himself ‘without any concern for literary style’.4
tre’, La Grande Revue 52, no. 24 (25 December But in the same breath, as if to justify trespassing into the writer’s domain, he
1908): 731–45, here 733.
cited a number of other artist-writers — Maurice Denis, Paul Signac, Émile
5 – The present collection was initially devel-
oped from a selection of the papers delivered Bernard — as precedents for his hybrid activity, thereby granting it a certain
at the conference ‘Artists’ Writings, 1850– prestige and authority.
Present’ at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Matisse was far from alone in his contradictory attitude to writing, and
London, 2009. Other recent events include
‘Artists’ Words and Writers’ Images’, College all of the artists whose texts are addressed in this special issue — from
of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, 2009; Edgar Degas to Carl Andre — have at one point or another expressed
‘Making in Two Modes’, University College, their opposition to verbalising the visual. Nonetheless, they have all also
Cork, 2010, and ‘Not a Day without a Line:
Artists’ Words and Writings’, University made compelling contributions to literature, whether in the form of
College Ghent, 2011. The research network poetry, correspondence, interviews, statements, art theory, diaries, auto-
and website http://www.pictoriana.be/ has a biography, fiction or artists’ books. In recent years there has been a surge
particular focus on writings by Belgian artists
(1830–2000), but also provides information on
of interest in artists’ writings, as witnessed by the growing number of
artists’ writings and word–image relations conferences, research networks and university courses devoted to this
more broadly. theme.5 Statements by artists have always offered a particularly compel-
6 – See Candace Jesse Stout, ‘Artists as
Writers: Enriching Perspectives in Art
ling form of primary evidence for the art historian or student, as infor-
Appreciation’, Studies in Art Education 40, no. 3 mation that appears to come direct from ‘the horse’s mouth’.6 The
(Spring 1999): 226–41. On the ‘statement’ as a interest that they excite and the seriousness with which they are taken
particular genre of artists’ writing, see Natalie
Adamson and Linda Goddard, eds., ‘Artists’
as contributions to art theory is evident in projects such as the MIT
Statements: Origins, Intentions, Exegesis’, Press’s ‘Writing Art’ series (begun in 1991), which consists of scholarly
special issue of Forum for Modern Language editions of the writings of twentieth-century (predominantly post-war)
Studies 48, no. 4 (October 2012).
7 – These are too numerous to list here, but a
artists.
sample includes the following: Artists on Art: On the whole, however, anthologies and editions of artists’ writings
From the Fourteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. considerably outweigh critical studies.7 Attempts at a broad analysis of
Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves the phenomenon are rare, and do not always avoid succumbing to the
(London: Kegan Paul, 1947); Blasted Allegories:
An Anthology of Artists’ Writings by Contemporary lure of celebrating the artist’s text as a unique confessional document.
Artists, ed. Brian Wallis (Cambridge, MA: For instance, in an article tellingly subtitled ‘inside information’, the
MIT Press, 1987); Voicing Our Visions: Writings critic Lawrence Alloway claimed in 1974 that artists’ words hold ‘a
by Women Artists, ed. Mara R. Witzling
(London: Women’s Press, 1992); Theories and privileged relation to the artworks that they produce’, allowing us
Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of ‘more intimate contact with the work of art’.8 Richard Hobbs, who has

WORD & IMAGE, VOL. 28, NO. 4, OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2012 331

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2012.740177

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

worked extensively on artists’ writings in nineteenth-century France, has
cautioned against this kind of unquestioning trust, noting in 2002 that
‘artists’ words [. . .] have kept much of their authority in an often
unchallenged way’ and asking whether it is advisable to accord them
‘special status [. . .] in attempts at exegesis of visual works of art’.9 Taking
its cue from this question, my own contribution to this issue of Word &
Image investigates artists’ motivations for stressing the unrivalled authen-
ticity of their insights, while at the same time downplaying their status as
professional writers.
It is arguably harder to amass examples of artists who have not written than
of those who have.10 Although the figure of the artist-writer is most commonly
associated with the modern period, the tradition stretches back at least as far
as the Renaissance, to Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting, Michelangelo’s
poetry, and Giorgio Vasari’s Lives, and onwards to the Academy Discourses
and manuals of Joshua Reynolds and other artists of the early modern
period.11 The present collection barely scratches the surface of this longer
history, which undoubtedly deserves fuller attention, and no compilation of
any scope could possibly aim to be comprehensive. Even within the time
frame covered here (c. 1850–2000), these essays cannot hope to be fully
representative of all the possible varieties of artists’ writing.12 Collectively,
however, they do go some way towards demonstrating the extent and diver-
sity of artists’ contributions to modern literature and criticism. Whereas
previous studies have tended to focus on individual artist-authors, national
contexts, or centuries (the nineteenth and late twentieth are rarely considered
together, for example), this collection adopts a comparative approach in order
to identify and explore some of the themes and methodological problems that
connect diverse genres of text.13
One such issue is the distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ forms of
writing. Frequently, the supposedly personal nature of texts such as letters and
diaries is taken to confirm the authenticity of an artist’s innermost thoughts
and feelings, as if the reader were granted unmediated access to his/her true
intentions.14 In this issue, the contributions of John House, Peter Maber and
Rachel Sloan in particular complicate this assumption. In his discussion of
letters written by nineteenth-century artists, House stresses the need to con-
sider not only what they say, but to whom they were written and for what
purpose. Often, he shows, they were not spontaneous outpourings, but
strategic documents sent with the aim of generating publicity or manipulating
the critical reception of works of art. House warns us against the tendency
(itself encouraged by the increasing use of letters as biographical source
material in the nineteenth century) to treat claims made in an artist’s corre-
spondence as factual evidence about his or her work and life.
Maber tackles a very different set of letters penned by the British painter
Roger Hilton from his sickbed in the 1970s — many of which are both
humorous and offensive, yet also visually striking. He shows how, for
Hilton, these ostensibly private missives, mostly addressed to his wife, became
a way of generating a more public sense of self, as well as an alternative means
for making art in the final years of his life. Hilton may have been dismissive of
writing, calling it — as Maber records — ‘something to do between pictures’,
but, as with many artists, his commitment to it behind the scenes belies this
outward rejection. Looking back to the nineteenth century, Maurice Denis
332 LINDA GODDARD
Artists’ Writings, ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter
Selz (Berkeley and London: University of
California Press, 1996); Institutional Critique: An
Anthology of Artists’ Writings, ed. Alexander
Alberro and Blake Stimson (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2009).
8 – Lawrence Alloway, ‘Artists as Writers,
Part One: Inside Information’, Artforum 12, no.
6 (March 1974): 30–35, here 31. Alloway does
also point to how ‘a really successful state-
ment has the effect of freezing interpretation’
by discouraging us from pursuing other legit-
imate lines of enquiry. Ibid., 34.
9 – Richard Hobbs, ‘Reading Artists’ Words’,
in A Companion to Art Theory, ed. Paul Smith
and Carolyn Wilde (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002),
173–82. See also Hobbs, ‘L’apparition du
peintre-écrivain’, in Le Champ littéraire 1860–
1900: Études offertes à Michael Pakenham, ed.
Keith Cameron and James Kearns
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 127–37.
10 – Even those artists who are generally
thought to have remained silent often turn out
to be more significant as writers than it at first
appears. Georges Braque, for example, is
mentioned by Charles Harrison, Conceptual Art
and Painting: Further Essays on Art & Language
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 7, as an
example of an artist who writes little, while in
contrast Alloway, ‘Artists as Writers’, 30,
emphasises the influence of his aphoristic
writing style on American artist-writers in the
post-war period.
11 – While the writings of these artists are well
known in themselves, they tend to be studied
more for their content (whether this is
accepted as ‘literary’ in its own right, or
valued for its insights into the artist’s work and
life) than for their status as artists’ texts, and
there has arguably been even less explicit
engagement with the phenomenon of the
‘artist-writer’ in general pre-1800 than in the
modern period.
12 – Categories not addressed in detail here
(although the distinctions between them are
not fixed and the case studies in the present
collection touch on aspects of all of them)
include: manuals, treatises or guidebooks;
manifestos; interviews; and novels.
13 – Notable examples of studies on single
artist-authors or national contexts in the
nineteenth to twentieth centuries include
Laurence Brogniez, ed., Écrit(ure)s de peintres
belges (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008); Paul
Edwards, Wyndham Lewis: Painter and Writer
(New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 2000); Michèle Hannoosh, Painting and
the Journal of Eugène Delacroix (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1995); Eric
Robertson, Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2006). Françoise Levaillant, ed., Les Écrits
d’artistes depuis 1940 (Caen: IMEC, 2004)
addresses the post-1940 period only, while
Florence Godeau, ed., Et in Fabula Pictor:
Peintres-écrivains au XXe siècle: Des fables en marges
des tableaux (Paris: Editions Kimé, 2006)
focuses on twentieth-century fictional writ-
ings by artists.
14 – To cite just one example, Alfred Werner,
‘Artists Who Write’, Art Journal 24, no. 4
(Summer 1965): 342–47, here 346, describes
Vincent Van Gogh’s letters as ‘straightfor-
ward self-revelations’.
15 – Sol LeWitt, ‘Sentences on Conceptual
Art’ 0–9, no. 5 (January 1969): 3–5 and Art-
Language 1, no.1 (May 1969): 11–13, reprinted
in Johnson, American Artists on Art, 128.
constitutes another example of an artist whose seemingly confessional writing
— in the form of passages in his diary poetically recounting the courtship of
his wife — provided him with material for public works of visual art. As Sloan
observes in her analysis of his lithographic suite Amour, whose textual inscrip-
tions are drawn from the prose-poem journal entries, Denis’s reputation as an
artist (and a theorist) has obscured his more complex negotiation of interac-
tions between word and image. Scholars have celebrated the prints, but
dismissed the text as a secondary feature, thus ignoring the way in which
text and image combine to create a pattern of suggestive fragmentation that is
in line with Denis’s symbolist leanings. As these authors show, then, forms of
writing or verbal communication that are conventionally understood as
spontaneous, authentic and personal — and all the more so when originating
from the mouth or pen of the artist rather than the professional writer — are
in fact much more strategic, crafted, and sometimes obfuscatory than they at
first appear.
These problems of intention and authority raise questions as to how we
should interpret artists’ writings about art. But what of artists’ writing as art?
Several contributors to this volume draw attention to the visual qualities of
artists’ texts: in Denis’s ‘double work’, as Sloan demonstrates, words not only
accompany the prints in the guise of captions, but their decorative form
becomes an integral part of the images themselves, while the graphic aspect
of Hilton’s ‘Night Letters’ aligns them with the tradition of the livre d’artiste, as
Maber suggests. The tensions or crossovers between writing and art acquire a
marked prominence in the articles by Grace Brockington and Anna Lovatt.
Walter Crane’s visual ‘language of design’, as investigated by Brockington,
involved not only the aesthetic presentation of text (allowing his educational
primers for children to assume the status of artists’ books), but also a wider
philosophy of a collective mode of communication that was essentially visual
in nature. In his work with educational theorists, and affiliations with anar-
chism, Crane prioritised the visual over the verbal. He proposed that the
decorative arts in particular (as opposed to illusionistic painting) possessed a
universal faculty that language, with its national divisions, lacked. If used to
teach literacy, art as language could — in his Utopian view — overcome these
differences and unite the world in peaceful fellowship.
Lovatt’s study of Sol LeWitt’s 1969 ‘Sentences on Conceptual Art’ and
other writings demonstrates, in contrast, that text does not always have to
display markedly visual qualities in order to be considered ‘art’. In common
with other artists of his generation, LeWitt defied conventional distinctions
between the work of art itself and commentary upon it, thereby subverting the
critic’s authority as interpreter. His ‘Sentences’ remain deliberately equivocal
about their status as either ‘art’ or ‘commentary’: they both ‘comment on art,
but are not art’ (no. 16) and also propose that ‘if words are used, and they
proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature’ (no. 32).15
Lovatt relates LeWitt’s description of his ‘Sentences’ as ‘an operational dia-
gram to automate art’ to his interest in the revered symbolist poet Stéphane
Mallarmé, whose unrealised Book consisted largely of instructions for its own
performance and dissemination. Both Mallarmé’s Book and LeWitt’s Serial
Project #1 (at once a three-dimensional structure and an instruction manual),
eschew a fixed narrative structure in favour of a permutational system that can
be manipulated by the reader or viewer. By drawing attention to the
333
‘operational logic’ that structures both object and text, Lovatt shows how
LeWitt’s writing is integral to his practice, rather than descriptive of it.
In their articles on Degas and Andre, Richard Hobbs and Alistair Rider
focus on artists whose considerable reputations in their apparently chosen
spheres (of painting and sculpture, respectively) have overshadowed their
substantial contributions to another field: that of poetry. However, neither
author is especially anxious to recuperate this neglected aspect of the artists’
œuvres simply by adding another name to the literary canon. Instead, both are
primarily concerned with questions of genre and identity. In his comparative
analysis of sonnets by Degas, and the lesser-known painter-poet Claudius
Popelin, Hobbs poses the question of why both artist-writers chose not to
adopt a transgressively ‘visual’ mode of writing, but instead to try their hand at
one of the most established and demanding of poetic genres. The explanation,
he suggests, might lie in part with the ‘intrinsic pictorialism’ of the sonnet
form, but it is also to be found in a broader tradition of visual/verbal
exchanges (including the pairing of sonnets and etchings in an early livre de
peintres), of which Popelin — although neglected today — was a prime
exponent. Rather than seeing Degas’s sonnets as a minor strand within an
exclusively literary tradition, Hobbs proposes that we situate them instead
within this hybrid context in which artists operated not as amateurs but as key
players.
As with other artists addressed in this collection, the visual dimension of
Andre’s writing is crucial to its interpretation, and Rider notes how — in the
case of his long poem entitled Stillanovel, centred on the life of the photogra-
pher Eadweard Muybridge — the carefully arranged blocks of text may
suggest the form of photographs or film stills. More significant than these
visual analogies, however, is the way in which the poem (based on ‘captions’
— borrowed from documentary texts — for imaginary photographs) resists
categorisation under any one particular genre, while simultaneously evoking
the conventions of many. This flexibility applies equally to the way in which
we classify Andre’s production as either ‘sculpture’ or ‘poetry’. Depending on
how they were distributed, displayed or marketed, his texts could be inter-
preted variously as poems or as works of art, while his standing as an artist has
caused his poetry to be read in the light of his sculpture, rather than on its own
terms.
As the cases of both Degas and Andre make clear, our efforts to identify
individual figures as either ‘artists’ or ‘writers’ are not aided by the fixed
features of any individual work, or even by the balance of an œuvre as a whole,
but are determined instead by factors such as reputation and reception.
Indeed, the very possibility of identifying ‘artists’ writings’ as a grouping
depends on a prior acceptance that the writer, in this case, is understood
predominantly to be an ‘artist’. As I argue in my own essay on artists’ writings
from the nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries, such problems of defini-
tion in themselves mean that we should consider artists’ writings not as
supplementary to their visual practice, nor as a subset of an existing literary
genre (be it criticism, theory or fiction), but as a category with its own — not
yet fully explored — pressures and conventions.

334 LINDA GODDARD