Volume 56, Number 2 · February 12, 2009
The Pleasure of Watteau
By Julian Bell
Antoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World
by Jed Perl
Knopf, 207 pp., $25.00
Antoine's Alphabet, the new book by the New York art critic Jed Perl, is a set of reflections centered on the painter Antoine Watteau. Some sixty short texts are laid out according to the alphabetical order of their headings. These spell out some themes that anyone familiar with the painter might expect—'Actors,' 'Commedia dell'arte,' 'Rococo'—and some others they might not—'Beardsley,' 'Flaubert,' 'Kleist,' 'New York City.' The alphabet, in fact, turns out to be a minimum handhold on a bus ride that lurches and deviates, rattling along on sheer intuition.
Review, 3985 words
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