Page 30 - Studio International - October 1967

scene). If I were asked to describe this spirit I would say it borrow and play with visual systems developed elsewhere.
is of the land; genous loci is indeed almost its conception. If This is an acceptable basis for a career and a reputation
its expression could be designated I would say it is almost en- in Britain. The painter picks up this or that mode because
tirely lyrical. Further, I dare not go; except to recount history and to it seems to be 'opening up exciting new possibilities'. The
state my faith. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, William choice is what's going, not necessarily what relates to the
Blake, then, and often now, called a madman, perceived among individual sensibility; after a while, the new mode will be
many things the hidden significance of the land he called Albion. abandoned and another taken up. (See, for instance,
For him, Albion possessed great spiritual personality and he Ronald Alley's 'Patrick Heron: the Development of a
constantly inveighed against Nature, the appearance of which Painter' Studio International, July/August 1967.)
he mistrusted as a false reality. At the same time, his work was I have gone into these general questions at some length
immensely influenced by the country he lived in. His poetry because in the mid fifties a new dispensation seems
literally came out of England. Blake's life was spent in seeking possible. A post-war generation of artists begins to come
symbols for what his 'inward' eye perceived, but which alas, his to maturity. It is without any inhibiting allegiance to the
hand could seldom express. Turner, again, sought to break through past; it is at no psychological disadvantage to the School
the deceptive mirage which he could depict with such ease, to a of Paris. Picasso's achievements are as much history to it
reality more real, in his imagination. In the same way, we, today, as Seurat's or Cezanne's. It witnesses dispassionately the
must find new symbols to express our reaction to environment. In debates of its teachers and elders on the nature of art. In
some cases, this will take the form of an abstract art, in others we some sense, it is decisively divided from these men, who
may look for some different nature of imaginative research. But experienced the dislocations of war in their professional
in whatever form, it will be a subjective art. lives.
Artistically, the new generation is born into a promising
What does this amount to? In Nash's case, the 'new time. The art schools have a more democratic atmosphere
symbols to express our reaction to environment' combined in post-war Britain. The class structure of society is less
the superficial imagery of Surrealism with structural rigid. There is increased opportunity for education and for
devices out of Cubism, flattened volumes, interpenetrat- economic betterment for the mass of men. The young and
ing, overlapping, and ambiguous planes. Whatever the the newly liberated are aware of popular culture as a
rationale may be, symbol-seeking or a belief that 'the shaping force—a force in which they participate; they are
machine can produce new types of form which the hand not merely acted upon. A new art audience is in the
cannot adequately or effectively construct' (Pasmore making, of the age and tastes, it seems, of the young artists
1953) or a conviction that 'colour is now the only direction themselves. And there is a bit more money about—not the
in which painting can travel' (Patrick Heron, 1962), the least of the virtues of the time.
work of the British artist is likely to be eclectic. Painters In 1956 and even more powerfully in 1959, post-war
in this country are apt to use several styles at once without American art made itself felt on the London scene.
synthesizing them compellingly or to run through a Reproductions in art magazines were nothing to the
variety of innovations developed elsewhere without alter- reality of Abstract Expressionist canvases hung on the
ing their work fundamentally. This comes of not accepting walls of the Tate. Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Rothko,
art as a self-sustaining visual system, a means and method Motherwell, Gorky, Still, Guston, and Tomlin were seen
of seeing. in the first of these two surveys (there was an earlier
Writing of Pasmore in 1954, Lawrence Alloway ob- broadly historical survey of American painting shown
served: at the Tate in 1946). In 1959, 'New American Painting'
showed the American avant garde in greater depth,
Though he calls his reliefs prototypes his technique of assembling adding work of two important artists not to be seen in the
is done with the flair of a painter, not with the functional econ- earlier show, Barnett Newman and Adolph Gottlieb.
omy of an architect or designer. Pasmore has set himself up as I won't go into the details of the Anglo-American con-
anti-Morris but, in fact, his failure to rely on industrial technique frontation. This has been well-documented recently by
of assembly with standardized components has a belated Arts Alan Bowness in 'The American Invasion and the British
and Crafts individualism. Response' (Studio International, June 1967). Readers
...Pasmore has realized some of the ambiguities of his argument, curious about the developing pattern of contemporary
for he now points out a connection between his late impressionistic American exhibitions in London between the end of the
river scenes and his plastic reliefs. The constructions are built war and the Gulbenkian Exhibition at the Tate Gallery
to catch the light in ways that are inherent in the refractive, in 1964 cannot do better than consult Mr Bowness's
translucent, and transparent materials he uses. Thus the effects article.
of light that Pasmore painted on the Thames are now expressed What is of concern to me here is the nature of the impact
in concrete form. of contemporary American art on the young, on the post-
war generation. Among well-established artists, there
This sort of strategy, which involves translating an effect were many dabblers in American methods and ideas.
from one idiom into another, is quite typical of British Why not? But there were very few who discovered in
art. The exploitation of resemblances needn't be so subtle their own visual experience or sensibility a genuine
A good deal of British abstraction is only landscape play. affinity for the scale, boldness, bareness, flatness, colour-
ing hide-and-seek in paint quality and painterly gestures. ism, and single-impact idiom of American painting.
The farther painting is from being a visual system, the Will' am Turnbull is an exception. Anthony Caro de-
more it will be subject to vagaries of style; that is, it wil veloped a useful analogue that is very much his own