Page 40 - Studio International - April 1966

Constructivism and Content

by John Ernest

Constructivism holds a rather special place among the granted, and one may be obliged to look past the ideas
movements of recent art history. For one thing it has that the artist, or scientist, or philosopher—people who
traced a line of continuous development since its incep- handle the fundamental stuff of their culture—claim to be
tion in 1913, although there were periods in which the concerned with. In the Renaissance, underlying the new
line was drawn very fine. For another it was the first interest in natural phenomena which led to the birth of
gathering together and perhaps launching place of a modern science, was a belief in the ultimate orderliness
significant family of ideas which figure prominently in of nature. As Whitehead put it: 'It is the faith that at the
today's art. However, the aspect of Constructivism which base of things we shall not find mere arbitrary mystery.'
I would like to consider in some detail is one that it shares Together with this was the conviction that the elemental
with a number of other art forms, that is, the fact that it is truths of nature could be discovered by examining its
non-figurative. It seems to me that the process which outward aspect. This notion lies behind the work of Da
divested painting of its representational function cul- Vinci, who in his painstaking observation of particular
minated at exactly the right time for the Constructivists phenomena actually anticipated the general direction of
to explore the positive aspects of a new situation whose science. We must, of course, consult nature to discover
implications are not yet fully understood. its laws, but if, as one scientist said, 'An experiment is a
Constructivism emerged at a time when a series of question put to nature', it is evident from how oblique
attacks on the role of representation in painting had those questions have since become just how much things
broken a tradition that had been central in Western art have changed since the Renaissance. The truths that lie
for hundreds of years. From Impressionism through behind the surface of things now lie a long way back.
Cubism, in a remarkably short space of time, the rejec-
tion of the conventions of representational realism was Towards non-figuration
made complete. The Cubists occupy a most important This view appears to have held intact, or with only
interim place in this, not because they either began or slight modification, until Impressionism, and then things
finished the process, but because their almost orderly began to change. The change became dramatically evi-
development through phases of greater and greater dent during Cubism. The Cubists made an attempt to
abstraction constituted the most continuous single state- deal with the notion that man experiences the world in a
ment of the idea of abstraction from nature. The break- new complexity. Like the Futurists, they detected signs of
through into non-figuration, which was chronologically the coming change of pace of a technological society. New
untidy, confronted the artists concerned with an im- ideas from science seeped through to them and though
mensely difficult problem. To put it most simply: If a their involvement with those ideas is doubtful (their use
painting has no subject-matter, what is it about? In spite of multiple viewpoint and simultaneity can be regarded
of the fact that I believe this to be a false question, I think as a sort of visual analogy which treats time as the fourth
it is worth asking because it points up certain implica- dimension), the effect on them was important. Not, as is
tions of pure abstraction not otherwise noticed. To con- sometimes thought, because they were analytical in any
sider those implications we must look back in history. scientific sense. The sort of structures that characterize
Analytic Cubism— planes, interpenetrating, sometimes
The artist's relationship to external reality angled away from the picture surface, sometimes paral-
Western art until this century has persistently tried to lel—are not structures that inform about the physical
hold a mirror up to nature—to achieve greater likeness nature of things. They are not anatomical, nor cellular,
with the appearance of reality. This was clearly evident nor molecular structures, they are sheer inventions de-
during the Renaissance, when such things as anatomy and vised to dramatize, or simply to make apparent the
the laws of perspective were systematically examined. A volumes of space occupied by solid bodies: inventions
less obvious but equally important example would be the which refer intuitively to geometry and the space-defining
sort of change introduced by artists of the Venetian structures of architecture and engineering. The real im-
school in the early sixteenth century, where a predomi- portance of scientific thought on the Cubists was that its
nantly tactile, denotative evaluation of nature was re- accumulated impact had shaken the beliefs of their age
placed by a closer correspondence to the actual visual as to the connexion between man's sensory experience
image. Instead of recording a world of discrete objects, and the actual condition of the physical world. They
examined in turn, they took note of only that degree of genuinely doubted the significance of outward appear-
separateness between things allowed by the qualities of ance, and this doubt was not occasioned by a belief in the
light and atmosphere. Artists like Giorgione and Titian supernatural or the extra-natural which finds expression
who were responsible for this change were no less empiri- in fantasy, but by the undermining of the kind of model
cal than the anatomists and the perspectivists. For if such of reality which can be constructed by our senses. It is
qualities, seeming as they do to be objective properties of interesting to note that it was not until the second half
the visual image of reality, were already present in every of the nineteenth century that such terms as model or
man's eye, it is well to remember the extent to which pre- picture were used for the conceptual constructs of science.
conceptions distort or give shape to the world picture of a Non-figurative art followed very quickly from Cubism,
particular man, or culture, or period. though there were isolated examples of it earlier. In
This is the point. In every age the artist positions him- Russia, Malevich made his first suprematist paintings in
self towards nature, or whatever comprises external 1913, and in the same year Tatlin made his first con-
reality, in such a way as to reflect the underlying beliefs struction. This has always seemed to me to be one of the
of that age. The beliefs may be so basic as to be taken for surest intuitive leaps in the art of this century, yet though