Page 15 - Studio International - August 1966

David Smith : the art of wholeness

by Gene Baro

Probably the most remarkable thing about David Smith degree: both his revolt and his dedication were a bit
is that he scaled his life to the demands of his art rather over life-size—and so, for that matter, was his sculpture.
than the other way round. I don't suppose this was a The work speaks of will, but not any less than the crea-
matter of cold decision alone, though there were many tion of the circumstances that made it possible.
points in Smith's long career when he chose calculatedly I am not suggesting that Smith was a Paragon, still
against happiness, well-being, and success, in the ordinary less a Puritan. His formidable self-discipline came out of
meaning of those terms. In fact, his disposition to give hard self-knowledge. He was profoundly a man of the
way to his art must have grown upon him. It came of his senses, as well as of the intellect. He wanted the world,
realization that everything is potentially of use to the every experience of it, with the insistent appetite of a big
artist, that the artist must be open to influence, available man in the heyday of his blood. But also his necessity
to the world, but also peculiarly attentive to the prompt- was to understand and project what he felt about the
ings of his own nature. world and himself in it. He saw his emotion transfigured
Does this seem self-evident, applicable to artists in as sculpture; reality, if it could be grasped at all, could
general? If so, it is seldom honoured. Art, for most of its be stated as relationships of mass, space, plane, and
practitioners, represents a compromise of interests and colour. In sculpture's sheer physicality and arbitrary
not the sacrificial pursuit of anything as dubious as form the inner life and the outer would meet.
creative freedom. Artists commonly do what they can The artist's problem is always to give shape to his
do, what comes to be expected of them, and haven't the feelings in a way that elaborates and refreshes the con-
patience or nerve or need to woo the inexpressible. They vention. He has at his disposal the riches of art history
are bound by what they accept as men. and of the natural world. The contemporary scene defines
To put it another way, the size of the studio—or of the permissible idioms and perhaps offers insidious stimu-
family—affects the conception. It is a question of how lants, for present art always seems to be taking a direction.
much the artist gets from the man's store of energies, What the individual artist will find most difficult to know
how his comforts and appetites relate to the working is his relationship to his inner resources of creativity. It
day. Even a sense of vocation more often limits than is easier to find an acceptable cultural posture than to
enlarges the effort. The convention dominates: the artist discover the imagery of unconscious culture in oneself.
is prepared to say what art is, not to ask what it is. Society David Smith knew that he must be free to take ad-
at large and the pressures of the market-place fit the artist vantage of every creative resource, especially of the
to exacting, if contradictory, roles. truths of his own psychology. Doesn't the artist remake
Smith's response as artist was perhaps only different in the world in his own image ? Smith worked as much by