A Prose Pointillist
MR. SITWELL is a " pointillist " in prose. He assembles a vast palette of facts and names which he then places close to one another in small dots, but since it is difficult to read a book as one should look at a Seurat, from ten feet away, it is equally difficult to assemble these facts into a picture of the subject. I have read every word of British Architects and Craftsmen, and I cannot say that this first reading has clarified the matter for me. There are passages Of highly intelligent comment, interlarded with clots of erudite nomen- clature which got me nowhere. There are provocative statements and simple truths tucked into purple passages so deep in colour as to be unreadable. The travelogue on pages two and three of the introduction is an example of the • latter. Mr. Sitwell resists the temptation of including or illustrating Perpendicular Gothic in this book which is called British Architects and Craftsmen, and he says he has no reason for so resisting. He then goes on to talk about it for half a page in terms of the highest praise as "the first distinct contribution of England to the architecture of the world." By page two he has got to the Tudors, and the remaining hundred and eighty-nine pages refer to later work. I fail to see why Mr. Sitwell resisted the temptation, if his work was to be complete. He might have said more about Perpendicular and less about Victorian Gothic. However, it contains a concourse of facts of the greatest interest ; the research was, I imagine, very considerable, and the book is probably of exceptional value as a popular publication on a specialist subject. The illustrations are fascinating and excellently selected, both for their diversity and quality. Mr. Sitwell un- doubtedly knows all about it. In all his books he seems to know all about it—in fact, he finds it necessary to include all the culture he has at his disposal in all his books, but I wish he could convey it all a little more simply to the ignorant like myself.
MICHAEL AYRTON.
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