Robert Walser's 'Looking at Pictures' offers playful, subjective art writings from 1902-1930

A new collection of Swiss writer Robert Walser's art writings, 'Looking at Pictures,' translated by Susan Bernofsky, Lydia Davis, and Christopher Middleton, presents his unconventional approach to art criticism. Published by New Directions Publishing in 2015, the 128-page book features Walser's musings on works by artists like Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Éduoard Manet, Karl Walser, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, and Rembrandt. His writings, spanning from 1902 to 1930, often ignore traditional art historical contexts, focusing instead on imaginative, subjective responses. Walser, who spent his later years in a mental institution and died in 1956, viewed art criticism as impossible, preferring whimsical descriptions over academic analysis. In one essay, he humorously interprets Brueghel's 'The Parable of the Blind' (1616), while in another, he praises his brother Karl's 'Portrait of a Lady' (1902) for its romantic language. The book highlights Walser's belief in art's enjoyability, contrasting with contemporary discourse dominated by market trends like Zombie Formalism. His style, compared to Marcel Duchamp's freelance artist archetype, emphasizes inward imagination over external conventions, offering a poetic, personal perspective on art.