Page 45 - Studio International - July 1966
P. 45
It may seem odd to equate Bridget Riley and Paul
Klee, but they do I think have more than a little in
common. London is rich in Klees at the moment—there
are some on show at the MARLBOROUGH GALLERY, and
more at the BROOK STREET GALLERY. What is impressive
is not only the range of Klee's invention, but the way that
each work is triggered off, spontaneously generated, by
the means which the artist is using. Few painters can
tell us so much about technique—every work that Klee
makes has a commentary on the way of making em-
bodied in it. And this, I think, is also true of Miss Riley—
here too we get an extreme consciousness of the means
being used.
It's a far cry from this kind of approach to that adopted
by the other artist whom the Marlborough are now
showing—Emil Nolde. Nolde wants to lose all conscious-
ness of the act he is engaged in. He wants to lose himself
in the picture, to become the thing he paints. The
opulent watercolours of flowers are particularly beauti-
ful—they have such a free, spontaneous, sensuous response
to the colour and texture of things. But I find Klee's
method more absorbing in the end. It has a more varied
range of satisfactions to offer.
I've chosen to talk of the capricious and playful ele-
ments in art, and these in turn have led me to speak of
the artistic process, and the way in which certain artists
seem to be able to stand away from it, treating it as a
kind of dialogue with the self—I'm thinking, here, of
such things as Klee's drawing entitled Stadtperspective at
the Marlborough: the outcome of his youthful visit to
North Africa, perhaps, but also an exclamation of
Ian Hamilton Finlay Little fields long for horizons Concrete poem
formerly at Glenfield Farmhouse, Ardgay, Ross-shire
Emile Nolde Paul Klee
Im Reisetracht (In travelling clothes) 1907 Above Nicht durch zu fuhren 1940
Coloured lithograph 19 1/4 x 12 5/8 in. Pencil and coloured crayon 11 3/8 x 8 1/4 in. Stadtperspective (View of the town) 1928
Marlborough Fine Art Ltd Brook Street Gallery Pen and wash on paper 18 x 13 7/8 in. Marlborough Fine Art Ltd
