HAGIA SOPHIA: ARCHITECTURE, STRUCTURE AND LITURGY OF JUSTINIAN'S GREATCHURCH by Rowland J. MainstoneReview by: Thomas JacobyArt Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 7, No. 4(Winter 1988), pp. 172-173Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27947984 .

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172 Art Documentation, Winter 1988

ski's essay is informative, insightful and greatly enhances one's appreciation of the complexities of both the images and the man.

The reproductions of Winogrand's photographs are divided into nine sections, organized by themes such as "Eisenhower

Years," "Women," and "The Street." The last of these sec

tions, entitled "Unfinished Work," is a collection of images selected by Szarkowski and printed by Thomas Consilvio (Winogrand's printer) from the massive body of work left either unprocessed and/or unedited at the time of

Winogrand's death in 1984. The technical production of the clothbound edition of the

book is of very high quality. Having had the opportunity to view the MoMA exhibition, I found that the book's halftone reproductions by Robert J. Hennessey retain the impact of the "silver" richness, detail, and contrast of the originals.

If there were a "best-buy" category in photography books published in 1988, Winogrand: Figments From the Real World would be at the top of the list. Both in quality and overall significance to the history of photography, this monograph may prove to be one of the better photography books of the 1980s, if not an eventual classic. It is an essential purchase for both public and academic libraries.

Kathy J. Anderson Onondaga County Public Library

OTHER REVIEWS THE MANDE BLACKSMITHS: KNOWLEDGE, POWER, AND ART IN WEST AFRICA / Patrick R. McNaughton. (Traditional Arts of Africa series) Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. 241 p.: ill. ISBN 0-253-33683-X; LC 86-46347: $37.50.

A study of blacksmiths does not sound like an art book, but Mande Blacksmiths is indeed about art. It is also about so ciety, its beliefs and its rituals: the Bamana (Bamb ra), a Mande-speaking people, living in Mali, West Africa. The Bamana are renowned for their sculptural art which is well represented in museums in the West. One of the first major

African art exhibitions in the United States, curated by Robert Goldwater in 1960 at the Museum of Primitive Art, was Barn bara Sculpture from the Western Sudan. What is now made clear by McNaughton is that the creators of this remarkable art are the blacksmiths, who hold the knowledge and the power associated with these objects.

Mande blacksmiths not only produce iron implements that one associates with forging, but they also make ritual objects, such as figurative iron staffs and sacred oil-burning lamps. More surprisingly, they are the wood carvers, creating the wide range of Mande masks and figures, heddle pulleys, door locks. Thus, they work in two very different media requiring different kinds of skills and technical mastery. In these en deavors, they hold exclusive rights, while wives of black smiths are exclusively designated as potters. Moreover, Mande blacksmiths are ritual specialists both feared and respected for their role in healing, divining and in performing rites of initiation. Yet, paradoxically, blacksmiths are a group apart, separate, a sort of "untouchable" caste.

This complex and ambivalent nature of blacksmiths is the central theme of McNaughtor s study. He examines why in Mande society so much responsibility and power are clus tered on the blacksmiths and how they are "facilitators, artic ulators, and transformers" in both the physical and super natural worlds. He wrestles with the contradiction of the blacksmith's position in society: that those who are so powerful and so central to Mande society are so set apart and viewed with distrust and even contempt a position sim ilar to that of or/ois/bards among the Wolof. McNaughton first went to Mali in 1972 and has continued

his study of Mande blacksmiths ever since. Although his study is centered on Bamana blacksmiths in southwestern Mali, he expands his frame of reference to what he calls the

Mande diaspora, which reaches from the Gambia on the At lantic Ocean across the Western Sudan into Ghana. This

work, originally a doctoral dissertation, is based on extensive fieldwork and an undistinguished (by his own admission) but enlightening apprenticeship with blacksmiths in Mali which gave him unique insight into iron-working techniques and training.

His central chapter, "The Blacksmith's Sculpture," exam ines oil-burning lamps made of iron, spear blades, equestrian figures and female figures of iron which are staff tops, and komo wooden masks. The discussion of these komo helmet masks, used by the powerful komo association and owned by blacksmiths, is an important fresh look at a major West African masking tradition.

He also addresses Mande aesthetics: how they view ob jects, how the visual is linked with spiritual force and with performance (in the case of masks), and how the act of crea tion itself is a potent, highly controlled spiritual undertaking.

McNaughton writes in the first-person singular, in a light narrative style, at times conversational, at other times, im

pressionistic (using terms like "visual energy," "assembled power" or "the shape of civilizing space"). He introduces indigenous categories and terms without overwhelming the reader with a wholly foreign vocabulary. Yet there is no ques tion that his study is one of serious scholarship directed to

ward an academic audience. Though drawing on earlier work of French ethnographers and others, McNaughton breaks new ground in focusing so directly and intensively on the blacksmiths. His book demonstrates again the inseparability of "art" and society in Africa. (This is why many substantive books on African art will be classed in DT rather than in the Library of Congress classification.)

Indiana University Press has chosen to go with 77 black and-white photographs and 8 colored plates all quite small and rather poorly reproduced which on the whole do not do justice to the subject; nor are they integrated in the text, but are kept in separate illustrated sections. Many of the illustrations are the author's field photographs.

The Mande Blacksmiths is recommended for all academic libraries building African art collections, as are other titles in the "Traditional Arts of Africa" series.

Janet L. Stanley National Museum of African Art Library

HAGIA SOPHIA: ARCHITECTURE, STRUCTURE AND LITURGY OF JUSTINIAN'S GREAT CHURCH / Rowland J. Mainstone. New York: Thames and Hudson, distributed by W. W. Norton, 1988. 288 p.: ill. ISBN 0-500-34098-6; LC 86-50969: $50.00.

It has now been 21 years since Heinz Kahler's Hagia Sophia with a chapter on the mosaics by Cyril Mango (London, Zwemmer, 1967) appeared in English. Kahler only wanted to describe Hagia Sophia and discuss some of the controversies of scholarship surrounding the building. Mainstone has the much more ambitious goal of summarizing scholarship to date and providing his own insights on the building and con troversies of scholarship after "a long familiarity with it and almost thirty years of questioning."

Mainstone's text is divided into ten chapters. The first chap ter is a lengthy introduction to the building and its impor tance. The second and third chapters discuss the present state of the church, its exterior, interior, materials and struc tural systems. The fourth chapter examines the evidence for the changes that have taken place since the church was first completed. The fifth chapter investigates churches on the site before the present building was erected. The sixth chap ter discusses Justinian's objectives in rebuilding the church and the architectural brief for the rebuilding. The seventh and eighth chapters examine the initial stages and further de velopment of the design as well as the construction and first partial reconstruction. The ninth chapter investigates the lit urgical furnishings and the liturgy of Constantinople in the sixth century as well as the patriarchal liturgy and imperial participation in the liturgy. The last chapter discusses the achievement of Hagia Sophia and its sequels and influence.

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Art Documentation, Winter 1988 173

Extensive notes follow the text along with an extremely use ful appendix of plans, elevations and sections, selected bibli ography and detailed index. There is no separate list of il lustrations but numbers in italics in the index refer to the

plates. Mainstone has succeeded in bringing together a book that

will appeal to both the specialist and the generalist who wants to gain some understanding of this building which still astounds despite the passage of more than 1400 years. Some of the discussion is very detailed and must be read slowly and even reread for understanding, but the time invested repays the reader with an understanding of this great build ing and the time in which it was built.

It is unfortunate that there are some technical flaws which detract from the book's utility. There are problems with the quality of reproduction of the photographs. Kahler's book, though much more modest, has vastly superior pho tographic plates. One can only presume that Mainstone had to choose between a separate section of plates on higher quality paper and having the plates in proximity to the text which the plates help to clarify. Unfortunately, the reproduc tions are excessively grainy and lack clarity. Furthermore, several of the plates are bled to the page gutter. The iso metric views are actually bled across facing pages. Even now when the book is newly published some of the details are lost at the gutter of the pages. There are also problems in that references to plates are in the margins of the double column text. Aside from the problems with the quality of the photographic plates, the isometric views and photographs bled to and across page gutters and the marginal references to plates are not a major problem as long as the book re mains in the publisher's binding. However, when the book is rebound, after the heavy use it is likely to receive, references along the inner margin of the double-text columns will be lost because the inner margins are so narrow and many de tails on the isometric views and the photographs bled to the gutter will be lost as well. This reviewer found only one plate to be misidentified.

Despite the shortcomings, this monograph is a valuable addition to the literature on Hagia Sophia. Mainstone has attempted a Herculean task in summarizing the vast literature on Hagia Sophia. To this summary, he has added his own detailed observations and critical examination of the fabric of the church and his conclusions are very compelling. This book is an essential purchase for every art history and architecture library as well as for most humanities collections.

Thomas Jacoby University of Connecticut, Storrs

HISTOIRE DE L'HISTOIRE DE L'ART DE VASARI A NOS JOURS / Germain Bazin. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986. 653 p. ISBN 2-226-02787-4: FR 190.

Current debates over the methodological foundations of art history have brought in their train a revival of interest in the pioneers of the discipline, many of whom were deeply concerned with theoretical issues. Until now, librarians and scholars wishing an overview of "the history of art history" have had to make do with Udo Kultermann's German volume of that title. The inadequacies of Kultermann's Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte: Der Weg einer Wissenschaft (Vienna and D sseldorf: Econ-Verlag, 1966; paperback ed. 1981) were promptly retailed by L. D. Ettlinger, whose devastating review {Architectural Review 142 [Nov. 1967]: 331) is uncharitable but just. It is only fair to add that, while Kultermann's chatty volume is (as Ettlinger has shown) superficial, derivative, anecdotal and occasionally unreliable, it had and still has its uses. If nothing else, Kultermann's Geschichte has served for 20 years as a handy if provisional "who's who" of art histo riography (something we sorely need), and it is therefore regrettable that Abaris Book's announced English version never materialized.

Happily, we finally have in Germain Bazin's new book an informed, scholarly, well-written history of the discipline of art history "from Vasari to the present." This volume super sedes Kultermann in almost every respect and should be

translated into English. (Hacker Books has entertained the idea of issuing an English version and should be encouraged to do so.)

Germain Bazin, formerly chief curator of paintings at the Louvre and professor at various universities in France, Brussels and Canada, is in a position to do justice to both the museological and the academic traditions of art history. Un like Kultermann, Bazin displays an enviable firsthand com

mand of the original sources, not only the canonical texts but also the major and minor arcana of the genre. He is also able to draw upon prolonged personal acquaintance with many of the most remarkable art historians of our time. This personal dimension lends his epic narrative a lively immediacy that, admittedly, occasionally descends to the anecdotal.

"Art history has its heroes," Bazin writes apropos the mys terious death of American medievalist Arthur Kingsley Porter (p. 260). But the superiority of his tome resides largely in the fact that, unlike Kultermann's, it is not merely a biographical compendium. To be sure, Bazin does paint scores of memor able portraits. Those of the eminent medievalist Emile M le, the archaeologist and romantic polymath Salomon Reinach, and maverick Josef Strzygowski are especially noteworthy. But far from reducing historiography to biography, Bazin suc cessfully weds biography, historical narrative and the sys tematic discussion of key issues.

Bazin's text is divided into four main sections. The first, "Prolegomena" (pp. 11-120), offers an extended survey of developments from the dawn of the Renaissance to the 18th century. With the second section, "From the History of Art to the Sciences of Art" (pp. 121-370), we are introduced to the founding fathers of modern art history, the main genres, the cardinal controversies. Individual chapters are devoted to "the seductions of determinism," the Vienna school, ico nography and iconology, connoisseurship, psychology and psychoanalysis. An important central chapter canvasses sev eral longstanding "disputed questions," among them the dis tinctive nature of Roman art, the origin of Gothic, Giotto's role at Assisi, and the enigma of Caravaggio. Bazin also traces the repercussions of these disputes down to the present day.

Bazin notes at one point that "what characterizes twentieth century art history is its resemblance to a jungle" (p. 257). In his third main section, "Ways and Means" (pp. 371 -416), he ventures a map of this tangled terrain. One chapter, on "encyclopedic knowledge," surveys the standard multivolume art historical surveys and encyclopedias. An other offers a crisp, too-crisp discussion of indexing and ab stracting services. The brevity of this discussion (a mere four pages) is out of all proportion to the importance of the sub ject; nor is it wholly reliable. We are told, for example, that unlike the R pertoire, the Art Index "only concerns Anglo American literature" (p. 391). A chapter on the "revolution in the world of images" provides an instructive history of art historical illustration, including profiles of the great pho tographic archives and some critical comments on present practices. A brief chapter on "the support of science" exam ines the introduction and role of scientific methods and mod ern technology in art historical studies.

The fourth and final main section of the book, which bears the title "Territories" (pp. 417-552), offers chronological pro files of the major national traditions of art historical scholar ship. Some of these profiles (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Latin America) are more authoritative than others. Ba zin's treatment of the English tradition leaves something to be desired, while the chapter on the United States, which he delegates to Alfonz Lengyel, is cursory and breathless. But these two chapters are by no means representative of the book as a whole, and Bazin's accounts of international de velopments are generally appreciative, sympathetic and well informed. A brief (15-page) conclusion offers the author's per sonal reflections upon the state of art history at our own fin de si cle.

Editorially, the book is inadequate. The index is neither exhaustive nor completely reliable. The notes, too, present problems. In more than one place the author speaks of "pre cious footnotes, often more beloved of contemporary histo rians than the texts themselves" (p. 484). But his own end notes, in which personal names and titles in languages other

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