Page 34 - Studio International - January 1967

the details for himself. ability to communicate.
Should we simply conclude that modern painting is Painting has been liberated from the comparatively
impoverished ? I think not. If we are to understand the static demands of literature and anecdote. But if this
difference between Poussin and de Staël, we must think liberation is not to remain a merely formal abstraction, it
historically. We must consider the advent of other media must rely upon a more evolved, more sophisticated form
which have to a large extent taken over the function of of synthesis : if it is not to re-tell stories, it must make
painting. Above all we must consider the modern theore- diagrams that can reveal the truth underlying a myriad
tical freedom of the individual: a freedom which, how- different stories or anecdotes.
ever theoretical, remains to some extent true, although it The crisis that faces modern painting is the crisis of
has not been resolved by the necessary creation of a new choice between creating a pattern—however intelligent
collectivity in which individuals can share. Consequently and seductive—or creating a diagram whose truth can be
this freedom means, paradoxically, a reduction in the checked against the evidence of multiple experience. If it

de Staël
Street musicians 1953
Oil on canvas
63 3/4 x 44 7/8 in.
Collection: Phillips Mem
Gallery, Washington D.0