MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IHAVE been reading this week an American book, entitled Lost Treasures of Europe, which purports to be a catalogue and a
pictorial record of the main works of artistic importance destroyed during the war. It is edited by*Mr. Henry La Farge, and contains an introduction by Mr. Ernest T. DeWald, of Princeton University, who during the war was Director of the Fine Arts Subcommission in Italy and Austria The English edition is issued by Messrs. Batsford at the price of thirty shillings. From the formidable list of acknowledgements by which the book is preceded one might derive the impression that its editor had profited by the advice, and even the assistance, of many of the highest authorities in two con- tinents. Yet those who expect to derive from this compilation any detailed or comprehensive information regarding the destruction caused in belligerent countries to works of architectural or artistic importance will be disappointed. The book is, in fact, misleading, incomplete and in places inaccurate. It is misleading, since it fails to provide any reader who has not visited the sites mentioned, or who has not had access to more precise documentation, with any real conception either of the scope, or the nature, of the damage caused. Mr. La Farge in his preface states that " many monuments which are seriously damaged are not included, simply because they are not completely destroyed, and are being, or will be, repaired." If this means anything, it means that the monuments which are scheduled as " largely destroyed " or " severely damaged " must be regarded as beyond all hope of repair; which is not true. Conversely, I doubt whether any reader ignorant of the actual extent of damage done to works of art in this country would derive any true impression of the magnitude of the losses to which we have been exposed. He would learn that a few Wren churches had been shattered ; he would derive no impression from the plates of the scope or nature of that destruction.
* * * * When I say that this record is " incomplete," I am not suggesting that it would be possible within the scope of a single volume to provide a full catalogue of all the important treasures that have been lost. I am suggesting only that many of the most important losses are not mentioned at all. Thus in the list of monuments and works of art destroyed in Berlin no mention is made of pictures and sculptures belonging to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, which, although they had been removed to a supposedly safe place, were consumed by fire. These treasures included not merely many magnificent examples of Italian Renaissance sculpture, but also Signorelli's picture " Pan and the Gods," which is in painting perhaps the most serious loss outside Italy. Nor in the long list of Italian monuments which have been bombed or burnt or blown up, is any mention made of the serious damage done at Capua, of the sad havoc wrought in Petrarch's house at Arezzo, of the destruction of many houses in Pompeii, or of the blowing up by the Germans of the Palazzo Pretorio at Cortona. In such respects the Macmillan Report is more informative, and costs only one shilling and sixpence. Apart from these omissions there are several statements of fact (and I have consulted an expert) which are inaccurate. The Vitelleschi Palace at Tarquinia has not been " largely destroyed" ; it can in time be repaired. The Trinity bridge at Florence can be reconstructed, and its statues have already been recovered from the bed of the Arno. The Tabernacle of Filippino Lippi at Prato has not been " destroyed " ; it is at this moment under expert repair in Florence. It is not accurate to say that the Viterbo frescoes have been " largely destroyed " ; they are today being subjected to careful reparation in the Istituto di Ristauro at Rome. The Borgo San Jacopo at Florence is not entirely in ruins ; it has been blown up only as far as the Via dei Giudici. Such inaccuracies diminish the value of the book.
* * * * Incomplete and misleading though this compilation is, it does none the less constitute a formidable record of military achievement. At Rotterdam the gaunt ruin of the church of St. Laurence stands up like a decayed tree-trunk above a wide flat waste of utter devasta- tion—a monument to one of the most vicious terror-raids of all the war. We obtain from these photographs some conception of what Warsaw suffered, and can deplore the ruin of the Lazienski Palace which added a rare note of gaiety to that grim town. The photo- graphs of Peterhof and of Tsarskoc give but slight impression of the flashing splendour of those long facades or of the utter ruin to which they, and the wide terraces and fountains which surrounded them, have been reduced. Tragic, indeed, is the disappearance of the twelfth-century Spas Nereditsky church at Novgorod, the church of the Transfiguration, which was of such importance to all students of Byzantine architecture, and which to the tourist glimmered high and white and gold. More personally regrettable to us who live in London is the ruin caused to the Temple, the great crash which destroyed one half of Pump Court, the burning of the Temple Church, the complete disappearance of the Master's House in the Inner Temple—surely one of the most elegant little houses ever built. Such things may perhaps be reconstructed. But who will re- build Peterhof, or restore the Mirror Room at Wiirzburg, or raise the Romer from its rubble?
It is impossible to turn the pages even of this inadequate and misleading compilation without experiencing feelings of anger and remorse. Mr. DeWald, in his introduction, seeks to provide some grains of comfort. " The burned-out hulks of buildings," he writes, " the façades and walls of which are still standing, are nuclei for attempts at reconstruction, and can contain much of historical and architectural value for the future, as is the case with the Parthenon and the Palace of Theodoric at Ravenna." I can myself derive no comfort from this illiterate phrase. Would Mr. DeWald seriously contend that any subsequent reconstruction can restore its gay spirit to the Farnese Theatre at Parma, the whole charm of which was that it caught a momentary mood which can never be recaptured? Would he suggest that the tourist visiting a restored Goethe Haus at Frankfurt will ever derive that sense of authenticity which the original building conveyed? Can he pretend that the charm of Hildesheim, which at its best was but a fragile charm, can ever artificially be reproduced? The splash of fountains, in that sweet city, used to echo faintly against clustered frontages ; but rubble returns no echo, and the fountains are dry and cracked. Can Caen ever recover her lost loveliness, or Saint-L6 or Gisors? As cne picks one's way along the rubble paths of Ulm, or Rothenburg, or Nuremberg, one is aware that something of curious interest has gone for ever. Is it honest to pretend that the Zwinger, or the Frauen- kirche at Dresden, or the cool old streets of Lubeck, can ever be the same again? It is vain to make excuses, either for ourselves or others. Immense damage, some inevitable, some wanton, has been caused. It is perhaps salutary to reflect that mankind by his ingenuity has destroyed what his intelligence created, and that in an atomic war no Fine Arts Subcommission, however competent or em- powered, will be able to preserve from ruin a single canvas or a single stone.
* * I have criticised this book for inadequacy and carelessness ; let me at least praise it for its objectivity. No passions are evoked- and no blame is attributed to one side or the other. Mr. DeWald admits even that there were instances "of concentrated fury visited upon Germany." There are those who can dismiss st.,11 instances as just retribution for Rotterdam, Warsaw and Covent: . ..!4 should ask such people to climb up the castle hill at Nuremiwg and to look down upon the ruins below them. If they rejoice t the spectacle, then their sense of retribution must be almost Heb-N)c. 'But if they are rendered uneasy by the sight, then they wil' agree that the irreplaceable is often more important than the replaceable, and that our conduct in a war to save civilisation was not always very civilised.
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