Page 46 - Studio International - November 1967

LONDON art expressed its tensions. In his introduction to the of Otto Gutfreund could hold their own in any
catalogue of the 'Cubist Art from Czechoslovakia'
exhibition of international Cubism.
commentary by exhibition at the TATE GALLERY, Dr Jaromír A large section of the Tate exhibition was devoted
Zemina remarks on the interest of these artists in to the works of Frantisek Kupka, the most cele-
Charles Harrison
the art of their nation's past and refers to the dia- brated of the twentieth century Czech painters. His
mond vaulting of Bohemian gothic architecture. role as a marginal claimant to the title of First
The reference is particularly apt in the case of Abstract Painter has assured his historical position.
Bohumil Kubišta (1884-1918), the most remark- Certainly the concepts involved in his early ab-
Cubist Art from Czechoslovakia at the
Tate (Arts Council exhibition) — until able and the most short-lived of the Czech cubists, stract paintings were important and are still of
and something of a revelation in the Tate exhibi- interest. But I find it impossible to respond to his
Oct. 29; Aspects of Russian
tion. His Waterfall in the Alps of 1912 reveals a true work with any enthusiasm. I miss entirely the
Experimental Art 1900-1925 at the
Cubist's vision, close in some respects to the early tension and the sense of wide internal horizon that
Grosvenor — until Nov. 18; Contemporary
cubist works of Juan Gris, but with an even tighter is present in the works of the major pioneers of
Russian Posters at Lords Gallery — from
Nov. until mid-Jan. control over more dynamic forms. Kubišta was an abstraction in the second decade of this century. He
outstanding mathematician and an admirer of is that tiresome thing, an important painter who
Poussin. The painting is alive with the forces never painted a magnificent painting.
and with the intelligence which pulled it into the Provincial Cubism gets a second airing in the
form it has now; a passionate ordering of complex exhibition at the GROSVENOR GALLERY of 'Aspects
Cubism was born in a country which had already visual material; a surface which retains the passion, of Russian Experimental Art 1900-1925'. Largely
achieved its major social and political revolution. the order and the complexity. through the activities of the Mir Isskustva group
In other countries the various forms of response to The early dates of many of the works in this exhi- (World of Art; here represented by Bakst, Benois,
the new movement became identified with radical- bition serve to remind us how far more open most Lanseray and Yasnetsov) over the turn of the
ism in more than painting and sculpture. Vorti- other European countries were than our own to century, and through the collections of Shchukin
cism, in the hands of Wyndham Lewis, was a tool contemporary events in Paris. How much richer and Morosov, the works of French artists were soon
with which to épater les bourgeois. The Futurists, and the permanent collections of the Tate would be if available and well appreciated in Russia. Larionov
Marinetti in particular, became only too closely we had had a benefactor to assemble in England a and Goncharova were the major figures of the early
involved with politics. For the avant-garde artists selection of cubist art such as the one which Dr period of experimentation in Russian art and they
of Bohemia, cubist painting and sculpture were Vincenc Kramář left to the National Gallery in are well illustrated at the Grosvenor. Larionov's
activities through which intense feelings of Czech Prague. Formed before the First World War the primitivism, largely the reaction to a period of
nationalism could be expressed, a part of the strug- collection contained paintings of the highest quality military service, is represented by a particularly
gle to assert the rights of a people to an independent by Picasso, Braque and Derain and set a high fine oil, The Soldiers of 1908, that recalls the hussar
existence. This explains the wholesale absorption standard for the Prague Group of Artists among and brothel paintings of Van Dongen in Paris.
of cubist ideas both in Czech painting and sculp- whom Kramá ř Goncharova's lyrical Pêches et fleurs rouges of 1907
worked. Certainly not all the works
ture and in their architecture and applied art, and of the Czech cubists were original in form or spirit makes it easy to understand why she was such a
explains also the healthy survival, well into the — a painting of a girl by Antonin Procházka is favourite with Roger Fry. Works by minor French
twenties, of cubist mannerisms in Czech painting. typical of the works of the international multitude Cubists were included in the first Knave of Diamonds
If the nation was struggling to establish itself and that followed closely in the steps of Lhote, Met- exhibition in Russia in 1910 and the response was
to assert, through its culture, the character of its zinger and Gleizes—but the paintings of Kubišta, immediate. Cubist works by Chagall (a particu-
people, the artists partook of that struggle and their of Emil Filla and of Václav Spála, or the sculptures larly impressive Still Life of 1912), David Burliuk,