Books Wanted

A PHILOSOPHY OF SOLITUDE by John Cowper Powys. Also Parson Woodforde's Diary. William Lock, 11 Castle House, Caine, Wiltshire, A LADY OF THE SALONS by D. E. Enfield (Cape. c.1924) also her "L. E. L." (Leticia Landon) Hogarth Prose 0,1930, Mrs. N. Pusey, 70 East Street, Farnham, Surrey. Tel. Farnham 5433, ANY BOOKS on painting landscapes in oils, acrylics or pastels. Shape. 138 Marine Court, Si. Leonards, E. Sussex. JAKOB OFFENBACH by Anton Henseler (Max Hesse, Berlin, 1930) Write: Alexander Faris, 118d Regent's Park Road, London NW1.

PROUST 'In Search of Time Past' complete set required, h/b preferred. Write, stating price to Spectator Box No. 765. MATHEMATICS IN THE MAKING. Hogben, 1960. Hood, Airyholme Lane, Great Ayton, Middlesbrough, Cleveland T59 SHP. THE WHITE COTTAGE MYSTERY, Margery Ailing ham. 'Tiger in Inc Smoke abridged for schools with notes, E. Haddon, Unabridged 'William' books. Write Spectator Box No. 786. PAUSANIAS, Travel in Greece. (Penguin or other) Write Spectator Box No. 787.

NOVELS by Margaret Kennedy and Elizabeth Jenkins. Write, Spectator Box No. 768. MONKS OF WAR by D. Seward, Eyre Methuen '72, C. K. Elliott, West Walton, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It F. RUBINSTEIN'S first play 'Peter and Pour (1924). Write Spectator Box No. 769. MOZART Piano trios, SAL 3681/82. Phillips. Beaux Arts Trio. Write: Skinner, Fitzhead, Taunton.

LIFE AT FONTHILL by William Beckford. (Hart Davis, 1957) Write Spectator Box No, 760.

MANSFIELD PARK, PERSUASION. Jane Austen. Dent edition Col. Illus. by Charles E. Brock Write Adam n Legg, High Brunner„ Mayfield, Sussex.

CLASSICAL 78'e. Operatic and instrumental purchased also operatic photos, prints, books and old programmes. J. Waters, 41 Midholm, London NW11 6LL. GONCOURT JOURNALS complete. Early Inge. Johnson Lives of the Poets. Maughann Writer's Notebook RS only. Write Spectator BOIC NO. 761.

CROQUET TODAY by Maurice B. Reckin. J. R. Douglas, Dermas, Fryerning, Ingateslone, Essex.

ANYTHING on Philately. OUP History of England, OUP Anthology of English Literature. Klivert's Diary, Detective novels by R. Austin, Freeman, Lyan Brock, Henry Wade. Write Spectator B'ox No. 762. • • THORNE SMITH books wanted. Turnabout; The Night Life of the Gods; The Stray Lamb; The Jovial Ghosts; The GloriouS Pool; Rain in the Doorway and Did She Fall. Write Spectator Box No. 763.

THE WORLD OF THE SHINING PRINCE by Ivan Morris. OUP. Write, Tampa, Home Farm, Culham, Oxford.

SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH SCHOOLS by G. S. Osborne (Longmans 66); Sickheart River by John Buchan; Good Behaviour by Harold Nicolson. Stiven, 154 Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh. LOEB CLASSICS especially Greek. E. T, Widdup, 16 Oakley Gardens. London SW3. Tel 01-352 3864.

HAMPSHIRE DAYS by W. H. Hudson. Write Spectator Box No. 732.

'A DR. FELL OMNIBUS by John Dickson Carr (HH1959) Write Spectator Box No. 751 WEBSTER'S Third New International Dictionary; Oxford English Dictionary /H urgently required. Write Spectator Box No. 752 or telephone (01) 582 2691. 0 THESE MEN by Angela Thirkell, 18, Central Drive. Elmer. Bognor Regis. Middleton 3513 AN IRISH BEAUTY OF THE REGENCY by Mrs Warenne Blake. pub 1911 by John Lane, The Bodley Head. JOURNALS & CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR HARRY CAL VERT pub 1853 by Hurst & Blacken. Grove, 30 Farringdon Street, London EC4. Tel 01-236 3011 AN AIRMAN MARCHES by Harold H. Balfour and ABOVE THE BRIGHT BLUE SKY by Elliott While Springs. Any edition In any condition. Write Spectator Box No. 753 BABABUKRA by Imre Holbauer (London 1947). Write Spectator Box No. 754 ANY HENRY WILLIAMSON, Folio Society. C. F. Tunniclitte, King Penguins, pre 1900 illustrated. Write Spectator Box No, 755 VATICAN COUNCIL Sessions 1, 3 and 4 by X. Rynne. Faber 19808. Write Spectator Box No, 756 BROADLEY AND BARTLETT 'The Three Dorset Captains at Trafalgar' and 'Nelson's Hardy'; his life, letters and friends. Write Spectator Box No. 757

THE RECKONING, part 3 of autobiography by Lord Avon (Anthony Eden) pub. Cassano. Write Spectator Box 729. INNOCENTS by A. L. Barker. Write Spectator Sox 730. END QUIET WAR (NEL 1968); THE OUTPOST (Kimber) by Hedger Worries. Wilt. Spectator Box 731,

SATURDAY BOOKS: please aisle volume numbers. Write Spectator Box 733.

position of Power in the art world, to the point where he now controls all patronage. Both authors also mention the political' advantages of the present situation. Auty suggests that government patronage of the arts is a response to the public's guilt about the artist, and amounts to 'attempting to pay for van Gogh's ear'. He also gives credence to the theory that governments prefer meaningless art without recognisable subject matter because it nullifies the possibility of art as a form of political comment. This is rather less convincing; partly because not even governments find human affairs that easy to ,organise. But, more important, because the political motives of art's cackhanded sponsors are almost irrelevant beside the effects of their activities. The loss we have suffered in the decline in the quality of European painting over the last fifty years is immeasurably greater than any loss we may. have suffered in the restrictions imposed on the artist's freedom to make political statements. The value of art transcends any political role it may have to play.

It may be that all government subsidies are death, eventually, to all art and to all literature (it would be interesting,to see this proposition argued against Public Lending Right). Certainly their most obvious effect is to create a superstructure of nonperformers,. who eventually acquire a monopoly of taste and influence over the artists: And as we now know, it is not long before the chief use of the art is to adorn the egos of these influential gentlemen; in Tom Wolfe's striking image, the paintings come to illustrate the text of the catalogue.

The painter Roger Hilton once described art critics as 'the sort of thing Christ turned out of the Temple.' Auty takes the view that they are well-meaning but fatuous. Perhaps most people are simply incapable of following them as they meander through the language, intermittently approaching the edge of verifiable meaning, then whinneying and drawing back. Many of them are listed and quoted, to their disadvantage, in this book. As far as I know neither Guy Brett (The Times), Edward Lucie-Smith (Sunday Times), Nigel Gosling (Observer), Robert Hughes (Studio International), nor Richard Morphet (deputy keeper, Modern Collection, the Tate) have reviewed it, prei ferring the dignified silence of the self-elect. They 'should review it, and they should attempt to justify their considerable power, because the dignity of their silence is wearing a little thin.

Their usual defence to all rootand-branch criticism of the present set-up is to describe it as philistinism, but even that refuge is getting overcrowded, Suppose that public subsidy were to be replaced by Onin

formed public taste as the chief patron of art, and suppose, without any evidence, that the result was that only Peter Scott's ducks or David Shepherd's elephants found a market. Would that, depressing as it would be, be any more philistine than the art of the Empty Room (Klein), the Heap of Twigs (Long), or the Nasal Wipes (who cares)? Auty thinks not. He has not written a defence of academic art or an attack on abstract art. He has instead presented a straightforward critique whose originality is shaming, since the truth of what he writes is so obvious. This book, with Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word, Mme Parmelin's work and the Book of Pseuds forms the nucleus of a black library of modern art.