Page 34 - Studio International - February 1965

ence on a limited. two-dimensional surface is the pride compelling illusion. They partake of that 'medium'
of the painter By the initial paradox he plays himself within which they transpire. In seeking what he has
against the commonplace and establishes his domain­ called 'an experience more remote than what I know,'
the domain of the imagination. or the metaphysical Guston has found a view of the universe, a view of
domain. Not necessarily in the tragic mode of Nietzsche form as shaped by total energy. His forms, like the
who spoke exaltedly of illusion and claimed that art forms of many major 20th century artists, live by virtue
was metaphysical solace. No. more in the mode of the of their contexts. Their very existence depends on what
modern philosopher Gaston Bachelard who in insisting passes through and around them.
on the reality, the entitv of the imagination. held that There is more, yet, to be read in the long, loose,
the function of the unreal was just as vital in the human silvered strokes that come into being like slow surf, or
psyche as the function of the real.* that weave deep behind the picture-plane, touching
Within the damp. throbbing environment the forms earth and depths. For the statement is not only of an
take on various functions. At times. they come near intuition of the construct of the universe. It is also a
to being merely accents. slightly varied rhythms within direct expression of self, or of a particular imagination.
the whole. At times they are like creatures. burrowing The many shifts in distance. in direction, in pace, in
into safe recesses or pressing aggressively forward. emotional climate sensed on the canvas, and the
Mythical overtones are .in the nesting suggestions. and. various roles of the. figures, now assertive, 11owvolatiJe.
the birth struggles. A form can ride like a forlorn raft are not merely ambiguous. They are multiplicity itself.
on the high seas. or it can struggle violently in the a direct projection of the working imagination. The
claustrophobic twilight. painter is saying, 'if painting is this, it is that also.'
Not known to the eye, but familiar and stirring to the Swept by forces and energies. the forms in Guston's
imagination. these forms gather up the forces of the paintings, like his human organism, resist. Their
whole. They are not based on direct observation-not resistance, their stubborn defiance of conflicting forces.
in the colour. which is largely neutral. not in the assures their dynamic equilibrium.
outlines which are generally equivocal. They are the Where is the citadel of human resistance 7 In the
quintessence. rather. of the artist's imaginative experi­ imagination. that power that moves beyond the range
ence as he works. of brute forces, beyond the range of matter and anti­
The drawing is not based on any classical function of matter, that moves forward in the grand ocean of time.
drawing. Lines jerk or glide. interrupt themselves or For only the imagination can realize the onward flow,
wind themselves into tangled skeins. They are sig­ the e!an vital which is what Guston's paintings are
nificant movements and arrive at that point, described about.
once by the artist. at which 'the hand and the mind Many are the priests. Few are the theologians. Many
know each other.' are the painters who make pictures unquestioningly.
In these last paintings. Guston's soliloquy is not working on established assumptions but never reflect­
muffled. The strokes which before were somewhat ing. Few are the painters who, like the theologian,
wayward now lie serene. Some have coalesced into search for the meanings behind the rituals.
firm bodies suggesting heads, masks. iron objects. I said in the beginning that for Guston, painting is a
These rest, although still nervously active like the human mode of philosophical inquiry. But. the logical posi­
organism, with a final assurance of their equilibrium in tivists would counter, a painting is still a solid, material
a chaotic universe. object that stands or falls by its physical properties.
Guston has gone through the capital experience of the (Yes, it is that too.) They would probably object that
century, that irreversible thrust into the sources of the artist's intention doesn't count. (No, not if it isn't
creation in which the instrument is reduction. (Delacroix realized in matter.)
had predicted it. He spoke incessantly of the need for But it does count. and very much. Guston's experience,
sacrifices in painting.) He aims not at formal simplicity, read in the paintings, is a continuous juggling-act of
but at the true shape of his question: what. after all, is difficult terms. He extends the most serious aspect of
a painting? the romantic tradition, for his view of the organic
If it is not representation. his hand and mind speculate, imagination remains orthodox: It is through the con­
then perhaps it is presentation. Presentation of what? junction of imagination and hand that ideas gain body.
Of the summaries of reductions. of an overwhelming Process against product. Ideas become dense. pulsating,
intuition of the nature of existence. readable 'things' as the artist's imagination labours.
Guston's insight, properly expressed solely in painting, Style. said Schopenhauer, is the physiognomy of the
concerns a view of the cosmos. Without conscious mind. It is this physiognomy, rendered with mirror-like
comparison, he arrives at a position close to that of fidelity, that is portrayed 1n Guston's paintings.
philosophically inclined contemporary scientists. Physiognomies change, and thousands of nuances pass
The unique quality in all the recent paintings is this: over them like clouds on a windy day, and Guston, like
that out of the unequal but rhythmic stroking a physical Rembrandt starts again and again to trace the true
analogue of the sense of space-time is drawn. The physiognomy. 'I think often of Whitehead's definition
beings within this space-time are nothing other than a of philosophy,' he has said, 'philosophy is the long way
dynamic concentration of that which surrounds them. around. Painting begins in one place and in a way,
They are composed of the very same matter. They are winds up in the same place.'
rhythms. but rhythms that are accented and accelerated The events in the painting occur without warning, even
-intense concentrations of energy. When the strokes to Guston, who awaits them like a seasoned trapper.
coalesce, suggesting solids that displace space, it is 'Sometimes I think of the Zen koan. I know very little
about Zen. but I think somehow I am undergoing the
koan.' (The koan, says D. T. Suzuki, is a non-logical
*The Poetics of Space. 'By the swiftness of its actions, the ima gination sep arates
us from the past as well as from reality: it faces the future. To the function of exercise given to Zen initiates. 'Ta Hui was never tired
realitv. wise in experience of the past . . . should be added the function of
unrealitv. equally positive .... · of impressing on his disciples the importance of having
66