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Jacques Barzun
Launched in honor of cultural historian Jacques Barzun's centenary in November 2007, this page is dedicated to his life and work. Here readers will find both original material and links to select items about him published elsewhere.
Centenary
* The Jacques Barzun Centennial, website by Leo Wong
Tributes by friends and admirers
* Barzun at 100, weblog by Leo Wong
A treasure trove of material. Its archive, from October 2005 to the present, is a delight to peruse, with surprises of both word and image at every turn.
* "Jacques Barzun at 100," by Jeffrey Hart (New Criterion, November 2007)
* "Age of Reason," by Arthur Krystal (New Yorker, November 14, 2007)
* Barzun Centenary (Notes & Comments, Aristos, November 2007)95th Birthday
* Greetings from the editors of Aristos and other friends and admirers (The Website of Mary Murphy and Leo Wong)
Books
* At Amazon.com
* Noted on LibraryThing
A comprehensive listing of Barzun's books, ranked by members of this online book club. Includes reviews and book descriptions
* "From the Barzun File" [see link in sidebar], excerpts from books and essays selected by Leo Wong (The Website of Mary Murphy and Leo Wong)
* "In Depth with Jacques Barzun" (Book TV on C-Span2, May 6, 2001)
A three-hour interview. (During the third and final segment, which is 25 minutes long, Barzun comments on What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand--by Aristos co-editors Louis Torres and Michelle Kamhi--in response to a viewer's question regarding Rand's work.)
* Barzun on "The Book[s] That Changed My Life" (National Book Foundation, 2007)About
* "Simple and Direct," by William R. Keylor, in Columbia (The Magazine of Columbia University), Fall 2007
* "Living Legacies: Jacques Barzun '27," by Thomas Vinciguerra (chapter from Living Legacies at Columbia, ed. by William Theodore de Bary), reprinted in Columbia College Today, January 2006
* "Jacques Barzun," adapted from Timothy P. Cross, An Oasis of Order: The Core Curriculum at Columbia College (1995), in "Columbia 250: C250 Celebrates Columbians Ahead of Their Time" (2004)
* "The Man Who Knew Too Much," by Roger Gathman (Austin Chronicle, October 13, 2000)
* "Despite His Move to San Antonio, Barzun Keeps Ties to Columbia," by Fred Knubel (Columbia University, The Record, April 25, 1997)
* Time Magazine Cover Article: "America and the Intellectual: The Reconciliation" (Time, June 11, 1956)
Letters from . . .
Comments on Aristos and What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand [more] [more], as well as more generally on the arts and esthetics."I found the latest issue [of Aristos (January 1988)] well worth reading and applauded particularly your article on children's poetry ['The Child as Poet: An Insidious and Injurious Myth']. . . ." [For the full text of this letter, and a brief response by Louis Torres, see "Readers' Forum," Aristos, December 1988.] (June 30, 1988)"I find ['Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Art: A Critical Introduction,' Aristos, 1991-92] excellent in two points of view--one, it is so detailed that I feel confident of its fairness to the text; and two, I admire the analytic skill with which merits and demerits are laid out. The reader has a chance to weigh their application, instead of reading only conclusions and judgments." (October 11, 1991)"[T]he latest issue of Aristos [August 1993] with its argumentative letters [on 'Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Art'] was, as usual, instructive. . . . I wonder if you have ever come across A Study in Aesthetics (London, 1931), by Louis Arnaud Reid (1895-1986), an English philosopher. He seems to me to have written the best account so far of art-as-expression. Unless you have read and dismissed it, the work might be a useful subject for one of your critical articles. I would propose doing it myself if I had not taken a vow not to interrupt my present writing project." [See comments on Reid in What Art Is.] (October 6, 1993)"At last I have found enough uninterrupted time to read What Art Is from end to end, and I report my enthusiastic appreciation and enjoyment. You have done a splendid piece of work--research, reflection, and writing are worthy of all praise. . . . Your scholarly treatment of modern art, your Appendices, your Notes are full of facts, comparisons and judgments that come to grips suggestively with the elusive double topic, Art and the arts. . . . [A]s I see it, you and Rand and I all repudiate art that is not made but found, or simply assembled, or is a mere arrangement of lines and colors. When I look at a Rothko, I may admire the subtle gradation of colors and the shimmering, but I feel 'This isn't enough.'" (August 6, 2000)"I have reread a large part of your What Art Is and . . . particularly admire your treatment of music, which I find parallels my own thought on a number of points. And the views in which we concur need to be disseminated, because the confusion that reigns is dense and desperately repetitive in itself and its offshoots. I enclose a short piece of mine ["Is Music Unspeakable?" (scroll down to excerpt), The American Scholar, Spring 1996] which is perhaps my fifth or sixth effort to make a simple point since I began to put it into words fifty years ago in Berlioz and the Romantic Century." (November 29, 2000)Asked by a viewer (during the last half hour of his In Depth interview on Book TV [C-SPAN2]) what he thought of Ayn Rand's work, Barzun replied: "I've not read her work, though I know a good deal about one aspect of it. Her theory of art has been the subject of a large and very interesting and thorough book by Louis Torres [and Michelle Marder Kamhi]. . . . I was privileged to see some advance pages of that and finally read the whole book . . . and so I not only remedied my ignorance of the work of Ayn Rand but I admire a great part (not all) of her theory of art." (May 6, 2001)"Yours is the kind of work that makes its way slowly but lasts long, both because its subject is perennial and because of the breadth and depth of your treatment." (October 5, 2001)"Your last message was very gratifying: you were busy with the happy consequences of your fine book, answering comments, amplifying your website, and the like. It is encouraging to see that from time to time works of intellectual weight travel instead of sinking." (March 6, 2002)"I [am] glad to hear that Aristos continues in existence and that you and it remain pillars in the edifice of art education and appreciation in this country. I agree with you that much put forward as art these days is a product of either charlatanism or invincible ignorance." (September 10, 2006)
