Page 38 - Studio International - March 1965

w. H. Chattaway Sculptor

by P. G. Bruguiere
Chattaway is one of the few artists in our modern age
who, without belonging to any particular school or
following contemporary patterns, uses traditional
means to attain traditional ends. No stylistic research,
formal idealism or even expressionism will be found in
his work; he is not concerned with objects or shapes as
symbols of ideas, his interest centres on the object
itself in which he searches for truth. Such an approach
requires lively perception. an objective and perfectly
sincere mind, as well as tenacity, energy, and intelli­
gence in order to discover the clear, logical and accurate
form in its varied facets and with its essential motives
-since we are concerned with a mental concept. No
subject can be reproduced without imaginative insight
if it is to give a true picture and reflect reality.
Chattaway observes passers-by in the street, their
movements and their attitudes: form is an attitude
which is defined by movement and animated by a
certain rhythm. In 1955 Chattaway fashioned in rapid
succession a series of figurines. His hands seem to have
given perfect expression to the lively impulses of his
mind. Plane in natural line, vivid expressions of fluid
thought can be recognized without difficulty in the very
detail of the artist's touch. Rhythm predominates. it
links and organises all stationary or moving forms.
The reality of the attitude-animated by essential
movement-lends truth, presence and personality to
2
L'Homme Debout (1961 ). The art of individual re­
presentation must always work from essential forms
and universal principles in order to attain to an
individual essence. So it is that universal relevance is
retained in the immediate and evident reality of the
particular, endowing it with genuine life. Aesthetic
principles of this kind enable the artist to attain supreme
mastery of the portraitist's art.
As for the natural reality of the physical presence, it is
true to say that the body assumes shape and vivid
quality-indeed spiritual significance-by proportion
and balance. La Femme Enceinte is an example of this:
there is no heaviness in this work and the representation
is perfect; the accuracy of the quantities ensures formal
perfection and a lightness which is purely spiritual.
The Nu Couche ( 1962) astonishes us by the extra­
ordinary presence which is the mark of all this sculptor's
work and which can surely be attributed to the truth of
the attitude, the quality of rhythm and movement, the
order which is always dominant, the exact proportions,
the precisely conceived forms and the clearly linked
volumes.
The sculptor whose concern is truth is always con­
sciously worried-to a greater or lesser extent-by one
problem: that of unity or of the inner self behind the
physical form which must be expressed in the external
surface. For six months Chattaway studied quinces-a
type of fruit with an extraordinarily varied external
shape. He found in them a continual variety of forms
and rounded shapes, the 'envelope' of internal, living
matter centred on the axis between the two ·eyes'. To
understand the movement of the external cover is to
apprehend unity in diversity, the principle and reality
1 of an inner concept. When Chattaway went on to
Femme Allongee, 1962
Bronze 19 in, long sculpt a series of heads of women he worked from a
2
Homme debout, 1961 new concept of reality: flesh which produces its outer
Bronze 32 in. high cover. He now works with free proportions, seen as
Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry
3 complete entities: the hair. forehead, cheeks, cheek­
Tete de Femme, 1963 bone, neck ... These proportioned forms now control
Bronze 8½ in. high
4 the inner aspect, just as grapes combine in clusters to
The Hutchinson Bull, 1958
Bronze give a new total shape. Female torsoes are built up
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