Page 28 - Studio International - October 1967

meanings and methods of art ensued. It was a time for The dominating strain in English painting has been ro-
making statements (see, for example, Lawrence Alloway's mantic and narrative, at least since Tudor times. Hol-
Nine Abstract Artists, published by Alec Tiranti Ltd., bein's frontal portrait of Henry VIII and Nicholas
London 1954). In fact, the atmosphere was less charged Hilliard's Portrait of a Youth Leaning Against a Tree are
than it was permissive. Changes in style and in aesthetic of the same order of being. Their concern is not with
commitment were the order of the day—had been for a formal structure but with effect. They tell a story; their
decade. visual impact involves the viewer in understanding and
There were a number of reasons for this. The end of the explaining. So to speak, the image delivers the quality.
war reintroduced British artists to contemporary Euro- Henry is a man arranged and dressed to convey power
pean art. Suddenly, the first half of the twentieth century and menace. In the image of the Buddha, quality inheres
could be seen whole. There was a new sense of the vali- in relationships, is the form and is indistinguishable from
dity of abstraction; there was great curiosity about where it. Confronted by the image, we have nothing to say.
the practice of Picasso and Matisse might lead. Of course, There is nothing to rationalize and everything to feel.
Parisian painting was reasserting its dominance over The image is and does at the same moment.
certain of the would-be liberated among the British, but The romantic disposition in English art is pervasive.
also other theoretical and practical sources were being Characteristically, if the painting is not merely a
tapped, some for the first time. One thinks, for instance, of narrative, the artist works to capture a quality of appearance.
Victor Pasmore's conversion in 1951 to the constructivist The portraits of Van Dyke, the landscapes of Gains-
aesthetic of the American Charles Biederman, or of borough, the cityscapes and sunsets of Turner, the stage-
Kenneth Martin's discovery of his own sort of mobile. set moralities of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the 'immorali-
Then too, British sculpture provided an impulse to- ties' of Beardsley have this remarkable consistency. Even
ward change by succeeding internationally, first in the when the rules are drawn up, as they were, for instance,
person of Henry Moore, who took first prize at the by Sir Joshua Reynolds, they are apt to insist upon
Venice Biennale in 1948, and two years later in the person appearance. Sir Joshua's dictates upon style called for an
of Barbara Hepworth, whose exhibition at Venice was amalgam of qualities found in Renaissance painting : they
widely acclaimed. The subsequent international success were to be valued for their own sake, sheerly as desirable
of the younger British sculptors, Butler, Chadwick, and qualities, and not certainly for their structural pertinence
Armitage, may have suggested to painters of comparable to the art in which they attracted his notice.
years that a general release of energies could produce British realism, too, is part of a romanticism of appear-
happy results. If that was the case, it prepared them to ances. Holman Hunt's travelling to Palestine to paint a
misunderstand the rigours of Abstract Expressionism. goat in an authentic setting (for a Biblical picture)

Above David Hockney Atlantic crossing 1965 Facing page
acrylic on canvas, 71 x 71 in. Left Bridget Riley Pause 1964
Kasmin Gallery, London emulsion on board, 45½ x 45¾ in.
Coll.: Mrs Louise Riley, London
Above centre Harold Cohen Almost 1967
acrylic and synthetic on canvas, 42 x 42 in. Right Peter Blake La favourite 1967
tinted photograph 40 x 30+ in.
Far right Bernard Cohen No. 7 1967 Robert Fraser Gallery, London
acrylic on canvas, 60 x 30 in.
Kasmin Gallery, London