Volume 48, Number 1 · January 11, 2001
Lear, Far and Near
By John Updike
Edward Lear and the Art of Travel
catalog of the exhibition by Scott Wilcox, with contributions by Eva Bowerman, Clay Dean, Morna O'Neill, Stephen Vella, and Emily Weeks.
Yale Center for British Art, 190 pp., $24.95 (paper)
Edward Lear and the Art of Travel
an exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, September 20, 2000–January 14, 2001
Even during Edward Lear's lifetime, his nonsense verse tended to detract from the seriousness of his landscape painting. In the corner of a letter Lear had written Ruskin in 1883, the great critic nonresponsively jotted, 'Is this the nonsense man?' A few years later, Ruskin in Pall Mall Magazine praised the writer but ignored the artist. Posthumously, appreciation of the art must work its way around (to quote a review from 1930) 'the Himalaya of nonsense [whereupon] Edward Lear sits enthroned.' The catalog of one exhibit of his watercolors almost insultingly speaks of 'Edward Lear, 'the landscape painter' as he was wont to call himself.'
Review, 3009 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |