Volume 15, Number 12 · January 7, 1971
From Courbet to Che
By Francis Haskell
Social Radicalism and the Arts: Western Europe
by Donald Drew Egbert
Knopf, 928 pp., $15.00
Professor Egbert's enormously long book refers to the opinions on art of almost every left-wing writer (in the loosest sense of the term) in Western Europe from Saint-Simon and Fourier to Mr. John Berger. Though in his Preface he is careful to disassociate himself from most of these opinions, he is fair and dispassionate throughout, and his volume can be recommended as an invaluable source of facts for those teachers trying to cope with the 'Che Guevara and Art' kind of lecture now in demand. It also deserves to be looked at (though hardly read through) with some attention by anyone interested in the wider relationships between art and society. For Professor Egbert has read prodigiously, has brought together a great deal of material which is not easily accessible, and has provided footnotes which will constitute a very useful bibliography—though unfortunately their arrangement makes it difficult for the reader to refer to them as such.
Review, 2345 words
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