Page 58 - Studio International - April 1967

more about himself. Turnbull is passionately con-
cerned with the idea of freedom. He wants to avoid
the manipulation of the spectator. Talking in 1960
about work he had done four years before he said:
`I never use permutation of components to elimi-
nate decision, but to have more flexibility in
arriving at one'. The 'interesting' object is there-
fore simply ingenious while the 'boring' object
permits promiscuity of interpretation and is an
avoidance of the responsibility of decision.
Spectator participation and response is therefore of
vital importance to Turnbull's idea of art. He
believes that a work of art draws strength from the
viewer in his actual commitment to the act of
looking. In other words less means more only in
terms of the minimal means which trigger off the
incomparably greater response. Why should the
artist say more than he does if he already says
more than sufficient? The more certain the talent,
the greater the understanding of the means, and
the less it needs to be demonstrated, the less
energetically it needs to be applied for it to be
recognized.
The most economic means can truly give rise to
the richest experience. A single colour is much
more than it seems, even before you begin to
modify it with textures and brushstrokes. Turnbull
says that everything is not only itself, it is also its
opposite. A blue picture will give you an orange
response: it is itself and, by induction, also its
complementary. Something which is not explicit
but which is nevertheless apprehended is an
infinitely more subtle thing than something defi-
nitely stated. It is, after all, only in a state of near
absolute freedom that the spectator can achieve
the most satisfying emotional responses. Self-won
discoveries are always more important than those
which are handed to us on a plate.
In Turnbull's own words, his pictures are 'acting
outwards into our own world, large environmental
shields changing our lives but leaving us in its
centre, provocations to contemplation and action'.
But they are also 'troublesome, demanding your
participation, your commitment in the act of
looking, with little comfort from the usual frame
of reference'. It is precisely the degree of freedom
which is so terrifying, the freedom to find associa-
tions in areas which were previously thought not to
exist. The greater the freedom, the greater the
difficulty in coming to terms with it. And the more
completely satisfying the emotional response in its
resolution.

Top right Double Red 1959
70 x 70 in. Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen
Centre right No. 9 1963
60 x 45 in.
Bottom right No. 8 1964
80 x 60 in.
Top far right No. 30 1963
40 x 40 in.
Centre far right No. 22 1964
100 x 100 in. Galerie Muller, Stuttgart
Bottom far right No. 14 1965
100 x 75 in.
(All oil on canvas)