William Bailey

Rating:
Summary: Nudes, still lifes, and Hollander, oh my!
Review: Giuliano Briganti, William Bailey (Rizzoli, 1991)

If you're familiar with William Bailey's work, you don't need me to describe it for you. I was never all that much of a fan, considering his work somewhat repetitive, but when I read that poet John Hollander had done an essay for Rizzoli's book, I figured I'd give it a whirl. What is it with poets writing about art, anyway? (Hollander, in addition to his own stuff, extensively quotes both John Ashbery-who has released a whole large book of his writing on art, actually-and Mark Strand extensively in this essay.)

Seeing Bailey's work through Hollander's eyes doesn't make it much less repetitive, but it certainly does something for the boredom factor. The forty-five pages Hollander spends educating the reader are geared, seemingly, for folks like me, who weren't too fond of Hollander and need some educatin' on why his stuff is worth looking at again (and again and again). The bulk of the essay looks at various techniques Bailey used, then taking two pieces from various parts of his career and comparing and contrasting them as regards that particular technique. (I never even NOTICED the shadows in Bailey's work, for example.)

Briganti's introduction doesn't really add much; Briganti wrote it at the same time he was staging a major Bailey exhibition, and he seems to have been somewhat preoccupied with that. But, overall, the reading portion is worth it, and as I said before, if you know Bailey, you don't need me to tell you whether you're going to like the paintings in the rest of the book. *** ½