Page 17 - Studio International - May 1965

Editorial

Is there an Iron Curtain in art? From evidence recently Of the two only Moore has been seen in several
made more credible by a personal visit to Hungary, it originals and those only of small dimensions. Both
would seem that any barrier between East and West artists are admired for the same reason: their expression
is not erected by artists. While it is true that the art of of humanity. To the artists of Hungary the medium
any country that is seen abroad nowadays in official remains paramount as the process of expressing an
exhibitions is generally selected by responsible com­ imagery of thought rather than a subtle subliminal
mittees in the homeland, this is not always reflective delight in the emotional association of colours. forms
of the most interesting work being created. If at and surfaces.
biennial jamborees the paintings and sculptures in Socialist realism is now a dead duck so far as the
each country's pavilion are seen as typical it is so only artist of Eastern Europe is concerned. While it is still
in regard to its availability. The United Kingdom. the honoured in the articles appearing in such journals as
United States. France. Italy, Spain and most countries the Russian /stkustvo, closer scrutiny of the illustrations
of the so-called capitalist world exhibit the products reveal their dates as earlier than 1964. Even in the
of artists who are active internationally, successful gigantic Liberation Monument erected on the Gellert
and almost without a doubt having some link with a Hill in Budapest, the work of veteran Zsigmond Kisfaludi
commercial gallery that is selling his work. The Strobl. the figures recall the romanticism of Delacroix
academic celebrities are almost universally ignored in their flamboyant gestures.
because generally speaking their status is insular, Miklos Borsos. at fifty-eight is undoubtedly the most
limited and their age is as a rule verging on the elderly. exciting sculptor working in Hungary today. Having
With one notable exception the art displayed in the studied in Florence first as a painter he has become a
pavilions of the communist states of the world is the carver of peculiar strength and impact. His contact
opposite. The elder dignitaries of art up to now have with Henry Moore at the English sculptor's home only
been honoured as if in relation to their seniority. If a few years ago provided a new sense of purpose.
not, the art has been safe, illustrative and capable of The personal communication between the two artists
comprehension by the most stupid proletarian likely had for Borsos a meaning that he speaks of with great
to see it, in other words. exactly of a Ii keness to the warmth and enthusiasm. Yet there is no indication of
senior academicians of the U.K .. the U.S.A., France. Moore's influence in the new images of Borsos; it was
and other countries as mentioned above. Art has been almost as if Moore had enabled the Hungarian to look
used in the political East as propaganda, not of artistic again at his own work with eyes sharpened and
enterprise. but of the new materialistic autocracies responses quickened. His shapes are pared away and
seen through the faces of happy peasants. collective reduced to their elemental minimum. But they are still
farm workers. of fruit pickers and industrial serfs. Art in the images of man.
other words has come back to an archaic employment, In many ways the seclusion of the artists of the East
regardless of the fact that the poster. the newspaper. from influence by much of the feeble fever that has
the film. the book, have supplanted the pictorial vitiated the paintings of the West since 1945 may turn
medium as the method of indoctrination. To any out to be a blessing for all. When they can assess it
intelligent spectator the idea of Soviet or Chinese or its abstract qualities can be employed in a humanist
Albanian citizer,s grinning idiotically in the benign sun system of artifacts that only now the truly creative
is symbolic not of progress but of benighted ignoram­ artists of the West are developing. Art, it is worth
uses deprived of the privilege of worrying what the remembering, is created not for art's sake. not even the
rulers of the world are likely to be cooking up as the artist's but for humanity. ■
united fate of the ruled.
Artists as we know are the seismographs of the world
conscience. We in the Western sphere reflect it in the
most obvious way possible. Our artists hide their
heads in the sand and ignore the clouds. Art pour /'art
is the current trend as exemplified in the escapist
tricks, gimmicks and catchpenny exercises that are
displayed in the most sophisticated milieux of London,
Paris and New York. Art being seismographic is so
for want of comment not because of it. Many artists
seem to have lost their faith in their own powers or
they have become atrophied for want of use. It seems
almost as if the photograph not only spelt the end of
impressionist landscape painting but that growing
literacy has denied painting the potential it contains
of comment on human activity without which it falls
into the realm of inventive decoration. Escapism in
fact is what most plastic art in the West suggests.
Yet the signs are at hand that a wind of change is
blowing-and not for the first time from the East.
Talking to artists in Hungary, ranging from the senior
academician to the young contemporary, the impres­
sion is strong that, avid as they are to see originals and
reproductions of their colleagues of the greater world.
the abstract pattern-making is of little interest to
Studio International emulate-only to experiment with. Most popular
Volume CLXIX No. 865
May, 1965 British artists are Henry Moore and Francis Bacon.
191