Page 17 - Studio International - October 1965

Editorial

How far is painting an expression of personality 7 In seems less of a person in depth than Rembrandt.
this modern age when. despite the fall of Stalinism. Personality in a painte:. as is to be expected. has its
personality is a cult that has its adherents in business. dangers especially if it is one capable of deriving an
industry, education as well in the more obvious sectors influence from another and lacking the strength to
of politics and entertainment. it is sure that in painting establish its own power. Samuel Palmer. to be sure.
too it is a distinct ingredient that is plain to see if not in his 'Visionary years· in the Shoreham Valley had
in individual pieces at least in sequences of canvases. character beyond the ordinary, apparent in the shim­
Picasso is the example par excellence yet his personality mering little landscapes of wheatfields and woods in
was never too patently apparent in the canvases that the pleasant Kentish landscape but he lacked the
preceded his classic phase of the 1920s after his stamina to sustain the poetic mood on that idyllic
rejection of or tiring with analytical cubism. Artists when level. unlike his mentor William Blake who carried
they are working in a common style or fashion are apt through schemes of illustrations and texts for books
to have their identities submerged to the purpose that that would have discouraged weaker men.
concerns them along with others. You can regard a Coming to our own times. Augustus John was a
group of early cubist painting by Picasso. Braque. Gris painter who could almost always be expected to
and Marcoussis and. devoid of hindsight. cannot invoke the word 'bravura· in any discussion of his
determine easily who is the artist possessing the greater work and in the canvases that were capable of being
personality. Yet though Picasso has emerged in finished fairly quickly there is no lack of specimens of
history as the performer with unlimited roles in his both painterly prowess and a handwriting indicative
repertoire it is in his individual paintings such as those of the Welsh artist's attractive and enlarging personality.
of Dora Maar with eyes painted in profile and frontally But in the more ambitious projects. personality was
that his personality becomes strongest. not invariably capable of sustaining the energetic
Yet it is not always in the figurative idiom that deployment of the characters throughout the
personality is most dominant. Piet Mondrian·s identity composition. In sculpture. Epstein was a personality
is capable of making itself felt even though his abstract who impressed it in nearly everything he attempted
design seems anonymous. It is not. of course. and it is even in the Rock Drill. that prophetic and dynamic
interesting to determine why. Despite its apparent sculpture in the Tate Gallery that marked the moment
mathematical basis. the structure in a Mondrian painting of real non-acceptance in his career. In the later
has its very definite traces of a character that is definite portraits the mark of Epstein is ever present and in the
and strong in its control of a large colour area bounded greatest of his figures The Madonna on the wall of the
by black dividing lines that separate it from other convent in Cavendish Square. he him:,elf could say
areas of colour also carefully weighed in proportion that the hand of God was upon him when he made it.
and space. In its own manner the Mondrian is as Francis Bacon's paintings are the imprint of a
forceful and dramatic as. say, one of the versions of personality as distinctive as a print from his thumb.
the Woman paintings by Willem de Kooning. The turbulent imagery is not descriptive of external
Vincent van Gogh. viewed against the background of observation but of an interior drama of which we
his short and belated creative period. is sometimes receive the record. Bacon. in fact. is all personality
judged as a personality that had become enamoured of with little of what is visual common ground with the
itself and violent excesses. Yet this view is entirely rest of the world.
mistaken. Anyone who has read the letters of van Gogh Personality is what distinguishes one person from
must be conscious of the capacity of thought that another; it makes itself felt as much in paint as in
lay behind every canvas painted by the Dutchman. conversation. It survives into a phase that is driving
some in several versions that betokened not a art into the dehumanised zone of electronic exercise;
narcissistic urge to express his self-love in paint but an the mind and the character of the creative man is
attempt to complete on canvas a work that would be obscured by his inventions. Lacking them is to have
conclusive of the ideas that motivated him. In the later lost a greatest communicable factor in art. Personality,
paintings of St. Remy and Auvers. the signs of derange­ as we can detect it. is valuable. warming and unifying.■
ment are there and a frenzy in execution is explicit but
this is scarcely to be construed as personality's hand­
writing. Artists who have been primarily concerned
with methods of seeing and communicating their vision
by specific means have usually been at pains to
submerge their egos so that the overall scheme in its
full working operation can produce its desired effect.
Personality can be seen even when individuality is
lacking as. for example. when we compare Rubens
with Jordaens. Though the latter's paint is sometimes
indistinguishable from his master's there can be little
doubt who was the author of The Chapeau de Paille
in the National Gallery. Similarly, though the frequent
discovery of so-called Rembrandts is a recognition of
how like him superficially were some of his seventeenth­
century Dutch contemporaries. the autographical
quality in A Woman bathing. also in the National
Gallery, is unmistakable. Frans Hals. by comparison.
though he heightened the personalities of his sitters
Studio International
Volume CLXX No. 870 in a flamboyant and particular richness. as in the
October, 1965 famous Laughing Cavalier in the Wallace Collection.
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