Page 43 - Studio International - March 1966

consonance or in aissonance, aepenaing on Guston's By temperament—at least as revealed in his work—
subtle play with syntax. Martin is a nostalgic, rather tender person whose mind
It is no use looking only at the outward form which, is shoring up a host of memories with which to fight
as critics have remarked, does not differ greatly from off the swift assaults of 'isms' in modern art. His
canvas to canvas. In 'halting himself, going over it knowledge of technique is obvious, particularly in his
again so that nothing of it should escape,' as Proust collage paintings, but he prefers a modest technique
said Rembrandt did, Guston has each time rendered commensurate with his subject-matter.
more precise his vision of a real universe of paint existing In his exhibition at the Royal Marks Gallery, Martin's
tenuously in the unreal universe of illusion. These last subject-matter unfolds in series of informal drawings,
black, white and grey paintings frankly hang in limbo. paintings and collages. There is, apparently, an Arcadia
The white edges are not disguised, they are not even of which he dreams with the happy innocence and
invaded by the paint ! All the more stark, the more burning passion of a William Blake. This Arcadia is
convincing are the images. homespun America with its wheat fields, hills, rivers,
The same is true of Guston's excellent drawings. The and home-sweet-home sentimentality. In Martin's little
most recent among them are as spare as certain oriental drawings you can smell the kerosene lamp.
still-lifes, relying totally on the tense whiteness of paper But Martin's America is also the America of slogans,
in contrast with the memory of volume each line evokes. propaganda and flagwaving, and he is well aware of its
The intensely meditative quality of Guston's work more mawkish characteristics. These negatives find
announces itself in the sparest of drawings and the most their way into his poems, which accompany many of
complicated of paintings with the same power. the drawings. There are little ironies throughout his
work which indicate that his is the Baudelairean and
Fred Martin is a West Coast painter whose work was not the Eugene Field brand of naïveté.
unknown to New Yorkers until recently. Yet the thirty- One series of gouaches is of blazons of the home-
eight year old painter has a broad underground reputa- sweet-home theme, artlessly rendered as Wallpapers
tion based, I suspect, on Martin's stubborn naïveté. and Other Things. Another is called Products of
When I say he is naïve, I mean it in the queer sense the California, and another Seed Catalog. In his writings,
word was given by Baudelaire. ('By the naiveté of the which sometimes imitate the handwriting of unlettered
genius you must understand a complete knowledge of field hands, Martin urges us to 'look for the objects
Fred Martin
On the easel 1963 technique combined with the Know thyself! of the which have come down from the distant past as
Watercolour, distemper, Greeks, but with knowledge modestly surrendering the permanent emblems, abiding reminders, carriers always
pencil, collage
18 x 18 in. leading role to temperament.") of the power of the earth and of the eternal life thereon.'
And I would think that he really means it. He looks at
nests, wells, flowers, sheaves of wheat, homely pottery,
and reconstructs a convincing vision of Arcadia carried
over from his youth.
The folk-song in its new guise (Bob Dylan and Joan
Baez) has something in common with Martin's visual
mythmaking. Martin is clearly concerned in his little
pencil drawings, or his tiny painted landscapes, with
an American tradition that begins to appear remote
beyond recuperation. His effort to be simple, sincere,
legible, moral is apparent, as is his ability to be com-
plicated, hip, avant-garde and amoral if he chose.

In keeping with its policy of keeping track, phenomenon
by phenomenon, of recent events, the Guggenheim
Museum presents a small exhibition of works based on
The Photographic Image. As curator Lawrence Alloway
explains, the artists represented 'are working in terms
of painting (fusion) and not collage (compilation).' He
reminds us in his scholarly way that photography
influenced painters as early as Courbet and Corot, and
that, contrary to Kierkegaard's mistrust of the daguerro-
type, photography is as susceptible to personal use and
interpretation as, say, classically-derived iconography.
No one can argue with him there. And in fact, the
seven artists in his exhibition do use photography in
personal ways, at least technically speaking. But as, in
the end, they are working in terms of painting, their
paintings invariably call up responses to painting and
not to photography.
As paintings, then, Richard Artschwager's charcoal
113