The Economist Europe – July 22-28, 2017

The EconomistJuly 22nd 2017 Books and arts 67

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LEXANDER CALDER (1898-1976), the in-

ventor of those delicate, floating struc-

tures of wire and metal known as “mo-

biles”, was not the first modern sculptor to

set his works in motion. That distinction

may belong to his friend Marcel Duchamp,

who in 1913 mounted a bicycle wheel on

top of a stool and called it art. But sculptors

have always played with movement,

whether in medieval processions in which

the statues of saints were carried through

the streets, or in the Baroque works of Gian

Lorenzo Bernini, whose spiralling compo-

sitions invite the viewer to move around

them in order to appreciate forms unfold-

ing in time as well as space. Sculpture is in-

herently participatory, closer to the real,

living world than painting. But no sculptor

has incorporated the fourth dimension

with Calder’s intelligence, dedication and

sly humour.

“Calder: Hypermobility”, at the Whit-

ney Museum in New York until October

23rd, chronicles the artist’s long investiga-

tion of form in motion. It contains many of

the classic mobiles, like “Hanging Spider”

(pictured), a whimsical sky-borne filigree

in black dancingon ambient currents, or

“Blizzard (Roxbury Flurry)”, which cap-

tures the subtle atmospheric effects of a

winter storm in wire and metal.

The surprises here are the experimen-

tal, motorised sculptures that preceded

these classic, familiar works. Before he hit

upon the happy notion of allowing air cur-

rents or a gentle touch to introduce move-

ment, Calder activated his sculptures

Alexander Calder

Sculpture in

motion

The artist who put the fourth

dimension at the heart of his work

Victorian history

Summer of ’58

I

F YOU wanted to devote an entire book

to a year in Victorian Britain, 1858

would not be an obvious choice. Rose-

mary Ashton, who has done justthat,

admits as much. No famous novel was

published, and the government, like

many just before it, collapsed in a vote of

no confidence. Historians prefer 1859:

Charles Darwin published his “On the

Origin of Species”, the Liberal Party was

founded, and Dickens, Tennyson, Eliot

and Mill all produced major works. 1861

brought the death of Prince Albert and

Queen Victoria’swithdrawal from public

life. So why 1858?

Ms Ashton sees the year’s importance

reflected in the lives of three Victorians.

Benjamin Disraeli would have to wait

until 1868 to become prime minister. But

his second run as chancellor, beginning

in 1858, proved his worthiness as he

steered important bills through Parlia-

ment, at times acting in place of the gout-

ridden prime minister Lord Derby. Dick-

ens began his popular reading tours,

earning fantastic sums. And Darwin,

after years of pondering evolution, was

panicked into finalising his theory after

realising that others were reaching con-

clusions similar to his.

The book’s real strength is its descrip-

tion of London quivering between mo-

dernity and the dark ages. Amid record-

breaking heat and the stench of a filthy

Thames, engineers proposed an im-

proved sewer system, still believing the

(soon to fall from favour) airborne theory

of infection. Laws making divorce easier

were accompanied by infamous cases in

which husbands tried to have their wives

declared insane. While the government

allowed the first non-Christians to sit in

Parliament, pious scientists vehemently

opposed Darwinian evolution.

Against this backdrop Ms Ashton

narrates scandals of high society, draw-

ing on private correspondence and the

penny papers. A well-known doctor was

accused of an affair with a married pa-

tient, preventing him from verifying her

sanity in the divorce court (presided over

by the wonderfully named Sir Cresswell

Cresswell). A “hot headed and almost

paranoid” Dickens, who tormented his

wife and resented his “numerous and

expensive family”, read rumours of his

infidelities in the press. The book focuses

a bit too much on these squabbles, when

it could give more space to the comple-

tion of a transatlantictelegraph cable or

the downfall ofthe EastIndia Company.

But there is plenty to enjoy in this panora-

ma of Victorians in their heyday.

One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin,

Disraeli and the Great Stink of 1858.By

Rosemary Ashton. Yale University Press; 338

pages; $30 and £25

atrocity. After a failed attempton Grazia-

ni’s life, the Italians’ bloody revenge lasted

three days. Led by the local “Blackshirts”—

Mussolini’s paramilitaries, officially grant-

ed carta bianca—regular soldiers, carabini-

eri and perhaps more than half of Addis

Ababa’s Italian civilians took part. In this

ghoulish massacre, witnesses reported

crushed babies, disembowelled pregnant

women and the burning of entire families.

Mr Campbell argues that this was a me-

thodical effort to wipe out Ethiopian resis-

tance to Italian rule, more like later Nazi

war crimes than earlier colonial massa-

cres. He charges both Graziani and the lo-

cal Fascist Party leader, Guido Cortese,

with personal responsibility. Though un-

conscious when the killing began, Graziani

took control of the subsequent reprisal exe-

cutions, aimed in particular at eliminating

the Ethiopian nobility and intelligentsia.

Graziani was never prosecuted for

crimes in Africa, though he was convicted

for collaboration with the Nazis and briefly

imprisoned. Britain, wary of setting awk-

ward precedents, played an outsized role

in sheltering Italians with blood on their

hands. Mr Campbell cites a telegram writ-

ten by Winston Churchill to his ambassa-

dor in Rome in 1944, instructing him to pro-

tect Marshal Badoglio, Italian commander

of the Ethiopian northern front, who used

poison gas, and is considered the top war

criminal byEthiopia.

Italy was never forced to reckon with

Fascism as Germany was with Nazism.

Few post-war Italian historians ever tack-

led the massacre. Those thatdid were often

denounced as unpatriotic. Angelo Del

Boca, writing in the 1960s, was accused by

the Italian army of being a “liar” for his re-

search on Graziani’s crimes. When “Lion

of the Desert”—a film depicting his actions

in Libya—was released in 1981, it was soon

banned, for damaging the honour of the

Italian army. To this day Italian schoolchil-

dren are not taught about the Addis Ababa

massacre. Graziani is little known; his sins

even less so. Mr Campbell’s book will be

welcomed by the Ethiopian government,

which has long argued that its citizens de-

serve an apology. 7