Page 29 - Studio International - October 1967

relates to the British obsession with detail and with finish down Braque or the property of designers; at worst,
— the love of minutiae, which makes so much art here another way of painting landscapes. The British contri-
simply arty. This connects in turn with widespread feeling bution to the understanding of Cubism and to its formal
in these islands that art is a craft. The high finish of the extension was minimal; it suggested no viable alterna-
walnut fittings in the Rolls and the luscious patina on a tives. Matisse and his followers were influential, but in a
Henry Moore bronze are admired in much the same terms. similar way; Fauve colour became a little touch added to
Another aspect of this prejudice is that British class what was already going on here. And Gabo and Mon-
structure has heretofore supported the view that the arts drian fared not much better in altering British thinking
are civilized accomplishments, intended to embellish life — that is, upon fundamentals; they had an effect upon
and make it more agreeable. The artist practices a skill, style, however, and Gabo's use of contemporary materials
and it is the skill embodied in the artifact that one was soon imitated.
admires. This idea imposes a crippling limitation both on Paul Nash's statement in Unit One (1934) is not untypi-
the artist and the audience, for art begins only where skill cal of an 'advanced' position for its time. It is worth
ends. In modern art particularly, skill is nowhere near quoting at length :
the point, not even as an incidental virtue of much weight.
That is why a large section of the public here finds noth- English art has always shown particular tendencies which recur
ing to see, when there is no analysable system of refer- throughout its history. A pronounced linear method in design,
ences, no story, no exploitation of effects, and no tricks no doubt traceable to sources in Celtic ornament, or to a pre-
with the qualities of materials. The idea that art is a dilection for the Gothic idiom. A peculiar bright delicacy in the
species of formal statement concerning reality—that the choice of colours—somewhat cold but radiant and sharp in key.
artist has something to say, and that his statement is A concentration too, in the practice of portraiture, as though
nothing more than the organisation of the medium—is everything must be a likeness rather than an equivalent; not only
still pretty much a foreign one in Britain. eligible persons and parts of the countryside, but the very dew,
Abstract art in this country can claim no exemption from the light, the wind as it passed. Blake, even, made a portrait of
the strictures noted above. It, too, has been overwhelm- the ghost of a flea....
ingly romantic in orientation. Where it has drawn upon But such characterization will not help to explain what I have
foreign models, it has misunderstood or adapted or in mind. There seems to exist, behind the frank expressions of
reduced them. Of the modern movements that are portrait and scene, an imprisoned spirit; yet this spirit is the
Continental in origin, Surrealism alone—a narrative art source, the motive power which animates this art. These pictures
—has had a British development in kind. Cubism was are the vehicles of this spirit but, somehow, they are inadequate,
turned to decorative or expressive ends—at best, watered- being only echoes and reflections of familiar images (in portrait and