[REVIEW] Art of the Book

By: Alex Florescu

If you were an art museum director and you were deciding on an exhibit theme, what would you pick to be your display? Of all the options under consideration, would books be one of them? Probably not.

The McMaster Museum of Art strays from the norm, having an entire exhibit dubbed The Art of the Book. All of the books come entirely from one source – Rabbi Baskin, a generous benefactor who donated over 1,000 volumes to the university museum. It is entirely because of his contributions that visitors to the museum can view the 16th-century Spanish imprints that cover the exhibit walls, or be close enough to touch an 1876 edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Adding to the collection are prints by private press editor Leonard Baskin, the Rabbi’s brother.

It is these prints by Baskin that seem to be a dominant and reoccurring presence in the exhibit. Two of his prints stood out to me, with the first one being a simplistic ink drawing of a flower with detailing around it. What I loved about the piece is that the details have not been drawn on. Instead, the background has been inked in black, while the flower and other parts of the “drawing” are starch white, unchanged from the original piece of paper.

The second of these pieces is a large mural of a man, created solely by overlapping black lines. What is remarkable is that when looking at this mural, it seems as if the pen was never lifted from the paper. Rather, it appears as if the entire piece was created in one continuous motion. While it is essentially just an outline, the man portrayed has impressive form and three-dimensionality. The varying thickness and repetition of black inked lines make the man’s calf muscles look as if they are bulging and his face appear to be hiding half in the shadows.

The books themselves were interesting, mostly because they are incredibly antique. The careful detail that went into the calligraphy and penmanship of these volumes is evident, and the illustrations are simplistic but beautifully done. While they are encased behind glass and cannot be reached, you get the sense that they are so old that they could crumble the second you touched them.

While there were prints and books that I found fascinating, there were also other pieces of the exhibit that did not impress me as much. Many of the prints featured grotesque half-animal, half-human composites that were slightly too morbid for my taste. Some of them had deformed faces, with misplaced eyes and mouths. Others were entire bird bodies that also happened to feature human anatomical parts. While they weren’t necessarily pieces of art I would put up in my own home, I could definitely recognize that to others, the pieces would have meant a lot more.

While The Art of the Book isn’t exactly my favourite exhibit, it features many interesting pieces – especially for a literary nerd fascinated by old copies of classic novels. On the other hand, the prints that hang on the wall definitely offer something for those into modern art; and if none of the above interests you, then it wouldn’t make for a bad place to curl up and do your readings for the day.