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CHOICE Review

Gibson, an art critic for the International Herald Tribune since 1969, presents a revised version of the original 1984 French edition. In this work--more than a coffee table book yet less than a scholarly study--his comments are rich in ancedote and his insights are interesting, though not always convincing. As is traditional, he defines Symbolism as less an art movement than a shared "nebulous entity" of decadence at the end of the 19th century. His thesis is that Symbolism, as a product of the industrial world and a rejection of progress, has been neglected for its part played as a vital link to European Modernism of 1910 to 1930. The phenomena are treated by country or region: England, Europe, and the US. The final chapters are generalized, serving more as a summary than as an analysis of individual works. The section on Polish Symbolism introduces recent scholarship on artists and works little known to the average reader. There are 56 color plates and 263 black-and-white illustrations; several of the latter reproduce large complicated subjects so crowded it is nearly impossible to make them out in the relatively small reproductions in the margins. Short biographical index to the artists; selected bibliography. Gibson's work is more appropriate to the large public library than to a research collection, which would do better with, for example, Robert L. Delevoy's Symbolists and Symbolism (CH, May '79). -M. Hamel-Schwulst, Goucher College