A good haul

I went to the annual Lifeline bookfair at South Bank over the weekend. Out of the silty river bed of out of date text books (some 120 years out of date) and Maeve Binchys I chanced on some solid gold nuggets. I made the tail end of one of these fairs years ago, and found much more grit than gold last time. Lesson learnt: get there early, snatch, and run.

It also helps to have clearly defined criteria beyond the author or subject matter. I was looking for good condition antiques this time, and the haul includes the following:

Most were art books or art criticism ...

2 x Kenneth Clark (HB, 1st);
3 x John Ruskin (HB, 1890s);
2 x William Gaunt (HB, DJ, 1st);

Along with some curiosities:

A beautifully illustrated (watercolour) hardback on Belgium by Forestier & Omond from the '20s;

The real find of the booksale was probably a 1930s edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1st & 4th Fitzgerald translation, illustrated by Willy Pogany, gilt edging intact.

After all these years there is no damage to the black-and-gold bookplate stuck to the cover.

As well as a dozen beautiful tipped in colour reproductions there are these black-and-gold stuck on block illustrations. Arabesques, florilegia, fantastic urns, grotesque anamorphic forms that grin like gargoyles.

It is a strange but not displeasing mixture of chaste classic line, Arabian Nights atmosphere, and a lady who could sway out of the pages of an Art Deco fashion catalogue.

I also chanced on a catalogue of a Justin O'Brien retrospective, an Australian academy-trained modernist who painted in a loosely Siennese style.

I think this is marvellous painting in its primitive, urgent colour, and in its austere counterpoint of volume and void. O'Brien is a modern who has enriched himself with the passionate study of masters who suited his temperament. There is no straining, no reaction, no rebellion. The work has the timelessness of a Duccio or a Puvis de Chavannes. But with Chavannes I am pulled up on the question of spiritual content. Like Chavannes there is purity of colour, grandeur of form, serenity of temperament. But what is the painting's contribution to the summa of Christian art? Not having been Christian in 20 years I'm not one to offer an ultimate affirmation or denial. But it strikes me that works like this don't positively add to the Christian tradition so much as offer a lyrical interlude. Time is suspended, and you find yourself back in 13th century Tuscany, but of fresh religious inspiration, prophetic insight, I see no sign. But then, the greatest popular Christian thinker of the time was probably an ironist, G.K. Chesterton, compared to figures like St. Francis and Dante who would have inspired O'Brien's idols. At least he didn't howl to the whirlwind.

There was also a paperback annual of the art / lifestyle magazine 'Colour', whose sub-heading features the charming endorsement: 'The most fascinating magazine in the world'. At a glimpse it's a bit of a mish-mash of art reviews, anthologized (bad) poetry, serialised adventures, etc. And gobsmackingly beautiful illustrations from the Royal Academy thoroughbreds of the day. The colours stand up well today and they must have been stunning to the audience of the time. And the reproductions bear no consistent relation to the text. But they're awfully pretty ... er, 'fascinating'.

Also, two calf-skinned volumes of Wordsworth and Tennyson. So sensuous to touch it ought to be perverse.

Again, a quarto of sculpture from India, Khmer, Cambodia. The perfect companion to the Roger Fry 'Last Lectures' recently acquired ...

And lastly :

Two 1st eds (I think), hard cover and dust jacketed Frank Herberts and Douglas Adams: 'Chapter House Dune' & 'Mostly Harmless'.

A good haul this year.