Page 62 - Studio International - November 1966

track, and the race-course. There is a restlessness about artist regards her searching is hinted at by the fragment
him which urges him to seek the dynamic for its own sake. of an ink-drawing by Leonardo which lurks in one of the
His commitment can be applied to a pop song or a football thirteen pictures on the Venus theme.
team just as well as to political lunacy in Spain or Viet- Jan Manker, who is the youngest of the group, is the one
nam. Impressions of objective reality often by-pass his who has the strongest links with the urban imagery which
conscious will and take shape in his paintings. He wants has captivated Rauschenberg and some of his followers
to paint as he talks—with exclamation marks. among pop artists. Manker's pictures are concerned
For a long time, Par Gunnar Thelander's paintings with man in the mass-communication society and the
tended to be elegant and stylish. In front of his earlier way in which he understands the world around him. He
pictures, painted in fresh organic greens, we experience a exploits the values which we have conferred on the icono-
joyous but coolly sensuous presence surrounding us. It is graphy of commercial advertising, but in a way which
easy to understand that he should have found a kindred turns his pictures into allegories of events in our own
spirit in Botticelli as he was before he came under the everyday life. The formal and visual effectiveness with
influence of Savonarola : someone who enjoys life and which he amalgamates several pictures within a single
loves beauty when it is most refined and at the same time painting is as striking as commercial advertising itself. In
tinged with melancholy. This very refinement seems to the execution there is also a harshness and absence of
us out of reach because it is an anachronism today. But sensuality which is evident in our repertoire of urban
Thelander is looking for something which he cannot images.
discover in the Florentine artist. His paintings become Thus these six painters, representing the styles and gener-
complicated because he allows them to depict an unsolved ations of post-war Swedish art, offer an understanding
relationship between colour and form. In one of his of at least some aspects of present-day Swedish art, while
paintings we see Venus going out in search of something at the same time remaining six distinct artistic person-
she cannot discover. But the seriousness with which the alities. q