Thursday. Dec. 10, 1959 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
Art Exhibit Presents the Legend of the Old West
The Art of Franz Holzlhuber
By John Selfridge
The Sketchbooks of an Austrian visitor to the United States from 1856 to 1860, the current exhibition at the Museum of Art, present intriguing problems to the viewer.
The nature and significance of the American West after 1850 are difficult to understand. What might have been the character of the actual West often is clouded by the popular, romantic West.
To this physical West, came Franz Holzhuber, who presented a popular visual image, the romantic vision of the new country.
He shows the cabins, the forts, the railroads as already built. The Indians scout, hunt, assemble into groups for their portraits, and chase the U.S. Mail; but they are all the same with ambiguous feathered headdresses of questionable origin. They are not the fighting Indians of the Northern Plains or the Southwest, but Wild West Show Indians, noble but harmless, a curiosity.
By 1856, the West had become a place, not a direction. The bounds had been set, the Pacific Ocean had been reached, Canada and Mexico had formed a political boundary. Now, the great desert between the Rocky Mountains and the rich Mississippi Valley remained to be settled.
His European art training overshadows his desire for accuracy. If you are to compare his biography rugs to actual rugs you find that his are not even "close." Instead, they are more unified and coherent than his models. If one added another head to his birds on those same rugs, he would have more of a German eagle than actual Indian studies.
This is the West which would absorb much of the expanding population of Europe.
In this crisp, well-presented exhibit one can test his visual image of the West with that of Holzl-huber, and with current scholarly studies, or even television.
What are your color slides of "Aunt Hattie and the kids in Yellowstone" like? What would you send back to narrow, crowded Europe to explain the size and the vastness of the American West?
Whereas deTocqueville left a penetrating, critical and prophetic study of America based on his visit, Holzlhuber seems to record a more popular and romantic image: the promise of a land to be settled.
It may not be accurate, but it it effective.
By Walter Starkie
Visiting Professor in Romance Languages
JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann, Oxford University Press,
$12.50.
Richard Ellmann, who aroused considerable interest in literary circles by his biography of W. B. Yeats in 1948 and its sequel "The Identity of Yeats" in 1954, has now produced a full length biography of the most enigmatic figure in all modern literature—James Joyce. This book will be welcomed by the ever-increasing number of Joycean devotees in Europe as well as America, and one result of its success will be to provoke frenzied verbal duels between the experts, for, as the author says in his introduction, Joyce's court is, like Dante's or Tolstoi's, always in session.
Heroic Consequence
Joyce was the first writer to endow an urban man of no importance with heroic consequence. Unlike his senior fellow-countrymen, the poet Yeats and the dramatist Shaw, he was not aristocratic like the former, demanding distinctions between men, nor did he follow the latter in asking them to be eloquent and reasonable.
He was determined to justify the common man through his humble Ulysses, Bloom, who lives his Bloomsday, and draws us after him during the journey of 800 pages through every hole, corner and cranny of "dear dirty Dublin," and in the end we accept him, not as a Babbit or "l'homme moyen sensuel," as the French have said, for Bloom is too much of a Dublin 'artist' for that, but a kindly individual, who, with all the devices that Joyce the demiurge can command, will 'orient' use within our universe and prepare us for our space age.
Uncanny Understanding
Mr. Ellmann's extraordinary industry has enabled him to write with uncanny understanding of his subject's mind, and his book, we believe, would even tranquilize Joyce himself who called biographers "biografiends." He shows the great Irish author not as a colossus of literature, but as an artist living the 'nightmare of history' and as he once said of himself, 'bowed by the cross of his cruel fiction.'
The greatest merit of this biography is that it makes the complex personality of Joyce the man live for us. Joyce continually disparaged himself and spoke of himself as "a man of small virtue inclined to alcoholism," and when the academic Louis Gillet wished to exalt him, he said "Don't make a hero out of me. I'm only a simple middle-class man." He mixed with waiters, tailors, fruit-sellers, hotel porters, concierges and bank clerks, for he was interested in everyone. Hence the hero of his last monumental work, H.C. Earwicker—'Here cometh Every body.'
Sketches Excellent
When people taxed him with wasting his time on unknown people, he replied. "I never met a bore."
The author has given excellent sketches of the writers who played a part in the life of Joyce and he has elucidated important points, as for instance the relations between Joyce and Ettore Schmitz, his Italian disciple, known to the world as Italo Svevo.
In the case of Joyce's old companion and fellow-goliard in Dublin, Malachi Mulligan, alias Oliver Gogarty, the author has not told us all the story, but now that Buck Mulligan has joined his erstwhile friend in the Elysian Fields, let us hope that some documents will be forthcoming showing the complete story of that intriguing relationship.
Japan: A Story of Economic Development
By Larry S. Hazelrigg
Japan has emerged since the close of World War II from a prostrate economic condition to one where it again is beckoning for recognition as a world trade power.
Lawrence Olson, American Universities Field Staff expert on the Far East, is providing insight into this movement while he is on campus. He will be here until Wednesday.
Japan has always had economic problems, for several reasons. The area of the country's four main islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu—is only about 140,000 square miles. At the latest estimate, nearly ninety-two million persons occupy this space, or a ratio of more than 600 people to one square mile. Seventy per cent of the land area is made up of mountains and forests, leaving only a small area open for development.
This density of population has driven Japan into the field of manufacturing. Highly industrialized areas grew up at the six major cities, Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kvoto, Osaka and Kobe.
Resources needed for Japan's industrialization are hard to find there. Iron ore, coking coal, petroleum and chemicals are only a few of the materials which have to be imported. Although Japan leads the Far East in production of copper and low-grade bitum-
inous coal, it is hardly enough to use for development of industry.
Little Arable Land
Agriculture in Japan has suffered because of the lack of arable land. It is estimated that the farmers of Japan, about 40 per cent of the total population, can raise enough food for 80 per cent of the people. The rest has to be imported.
The main crop is rice, because of its high protein value. The skill and technology of seed development has led to the highest yields in Asia. Other crops include potatoes, corn and greens.
Each Japanese consumes about 60 pounds of fish annually. One reason for this is the near absence of meat animals in the country. In fact, the Japanese fishing industry is the largest in the world. Recently a move has been underway to introduce cattle into the upland pastures. Milk and milk products are becoming more a part of the diet.
A main obstacle to the cattle program is that each livestock farmer would need more than the average two and one-half acres which now make up a farm.
Japan Must Export
To pay for the imports of food and raw materials, Japan must, in turn, export to the world. Chief among the exported commodities are cotton goods, silk, seafood, tea,
ceramics, toys and cameras. By the 1930's Japan had the largest cotton textile industry in the world, because of the availability of cheap labor. Yet every bit of cotton has to be imported. Silk production is greatest in Japan mainly because of the highly skilled labor and a favorable climate for growing mulberry trees, which leaves are used for food for the silkworms.
After World War II, a depression fell upon the country. Eighty per cent of the cotton spindles had been destroyed. Other industrial plants had been bombed. Trade with many nations had been broken off, and the tourist trade had vanished.
To help break the depression, the United States supplied food and consumer goods to Japan. Before the occupation of U. S. troops had ended, 2 billion dollars had been loaned for machinery and industrial development. Military personnel stationed in Japan during the Korean war supplied ready cash for Japanese products. Tourist trade also picked up and is nearing an all-time high.
Japan found that after the war it had fewer markets. The United States discouraged trade with Communist China after that country was founded in 1949.
Business Opposed Trade
Business Opposed Trade Japanese trade turned more to the United States Here, too, it met opposition. American manufacturers saw their market being invaded by another country which could produce commodities more cheaply. Pressure was put on the U. S. government to impose tariffs and import quotas upon Japanese goods. The goods became stereotyped as being of "poor quality." Items such as binoculars and cameras, which are of high quality, did not make up enough of the foreign exchange to bring in much revenue.
In relation to its imports, Japan's exports did not reach their prewar level until 1938. Japan realized the need for other markets than the United States and began to seek them. Reparations agreements were signed with the Philippines, Burma and Indonesia. These opened the way for trade with these countries, which had lost trust for the Japanese after the war.
In February of 1958 Japan signed two agreements with India, one for trade and the other to grant 50 million dollars in loans to India. In return, Japan gained an entry into India for its engineers, businessmen and bankers. It was the first treaty to be signed between Japan and any Asian nation since the war. The money loaned to India is being used to buy Japanese railroad equipment, ships, mining machinery and other equipment for India's industrialization program.
Pro-Red Propaganda
Because of the dwindling of trade with Red China, propaganda has arisen from the small-scale manufacturers to recognize the Communists. But the fact remains that the raw materials which Japan desires from China are now committed to China's own industrialization program. Moreover, Japan is finding Russia and China are its competitors for Southeast Asian markets. Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's slogan remains "Trade but no recognition" with the Communists.
Another program between the two countries will result in Japan's participating in an iron-mine development, whereby it will receive 2 million tons of ore a year as soon as production begins. All of these programs are being aided by loans from the United States and several commercial banks.
Japan has begun to restore confidence in itself as a leading nation in the world. The Japanese are living up to their agreements and are striving to make other countries forget their hate for Japan. It is the story of an energetic and skillful people. So long as progress can be made, with the help of such nations as ours, the Western world need not worry that Japan will turn to the Communistic world for help.