Review

Author(s): Max Schoen

Review by: Max Schoen
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Dec., 1948), p. 173
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/425829
Accessed: 07-07-2016 09:23 UTC

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 REVIEWS 173

The World Within is a collection of excerpts and complete stories from the pens
of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Henry James, Proust, Kafka,
Conrad Aiken, E. B. White, Anna Kavan, Truman Capote, Edita Morris, Robert
M. Coates, James Still, Eudora Welty, and William Faulkner. Each selection
is preceded by a brief note, mainly biographical, written by Mrs. Aswell (literary
editor of Harper's Bazaar); and each is followed by a brief clinical analysis by
Dr. Wertham, well-known psychiatrist. The selection has been made to include
both pre-Freudian and post-Freudian writers and could hardly be criticised
either from the point of view of literary merit or on the basis of psychological
value.
Regarding Mrs. Aswell's prefacing notes before each selection, one finds here
and there a tendency for the literary critic to psychologize, a function better left
to her collaborator. He, however, in his postscripts to the selections, too often
eschews the role of psychological analyst for that of literary critic. The net
result is an overall "literary effect"; this is precisely the quality of similar studies
in the past which has made more scientifically-minded psychologists and psychia-
trists sceptical of any joint endeavor by artist and scientist to understand human
nature.
H. G. SCHRICKEL

GRABO, CARL H. The Creative Critic. The University of Chicago Press 1948,
pp. 136, $3.00.
Professor Grabo's essay deals with a problem and proposes a remedy for it.
The problem is the "vicious circle" formed by the demand of the public for the
familiar in art and the necessity imposed on the creative artist to comply if he is
to earn a living by his art. The author calls upon the creative critic to break
this circle by defending the young and promising artist against the timid pub-
lisher who rejects his work as "risky" and against the public which damns it as
"different." He would also have the creative critic work towards the estab-
lishment of a literary foundation to take the place of the literary patron of past
days. He offers practical suggestions for the cooperation of such a foundation
with the commercial publisher.
MAX SCHOEN

LOWENFELD, VIKTOR. Creative and Mental Growth. A Textbook on Art Educa-

tion. New York 1947, The Macmillan Company, pp. viii + 304, $4.50.
Professor Lowenfeld presents in this book a program of art education in keeping
with the child's power and need for self-expression at the different stages of
creative and mental growth, from kindergarten through the secondary school.
The content of the book shows that he is well versed in the literature bearing on
his subject. Combined with his practical experience in art education and an
inquiring and experimental turn of mind, this has enabled him to produce a book
that teachers of art should welcome, and by which art education should greatly
profit.
MAX SCHOEN

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