Page 68 - Studio International - December 1968

Bridget Riley's Nineteen greys

A suite of prints by the winner of the major painting prize of this year's Venice Biennale—
published by the Rowan Gallery and printed by Kelpra Press

Gene Baro

The print medium has its own artistic laws and necessities. Its best It was that print fulfilled the conception most completely in these
effects are those to be won uniquely from inks and press. In short, the few instances. Print technique allowed, even compelled, the image
artist who hopes to make the great print must think in ink, must think the artist visualized. Print gave the desired qualities without making
printing. To transfer an image from painting or sculpture into the print those qualities an issue. What would have been a tour de force in
medium is only after all to reproduce it. painting was, so to speak, natural in printing. Inks provided the ideal
But there are times when the other visual arts legitimately feed the luminosity and sustained subtle tonal gradations that were required,
print medium. The present suite, Bridget Riley's Nineteen greys, and printing provided the crisp edges, the absolute flatness and
developed from particular aspects of a series of studies for paintings. powdery overlay of colour. In this case, painting could only have
In that sense, they are central to her thought; they deal with her approximated the characteristic effects of serigraphy, effects peculiarly
typical preoccupations as a painter. Responding to the stimulus that apt to the project. Proper scale, too, was more readily to be achieved
made the painting studies possible, she began to see some of her on the appropriate sheet of paper than on the canvas. These visual
images as print. ideas would have gained no advantage from mere size. Artistic and
visual economy—realizing the most through conservation of means—
dictated. these prints. In this suite, nothing is too much, nothing is
extra. Idea and structure are identical, inevitable. The image is
governed strictly by what is necessary to achieve it.
Nineteen greys is based upon the idea and sensation of denial. It
involves certain visual juxtapositions and confrontations where the
elements or their activities neutralize one another, cancel one another
out. The central subject of the prints is the result of this neutralization
or cancellation.
What are these elements specifically? First of all, the grid; then, the
angles ; finally, the tonal movement. Each of these three organizational
systems is made to move against the other two.
In these prints, the principle of regularity is expressed overtly in a
grid system of unvarying intervals. The grid may be organized accord-
ing to the right angles or diagonals. The angle movement is made to
operate against the normal structure of these two kinds of grid, flowing
from horizontal to vertical or from vertical to horizontal or diagonally.
In all of these prints, the angle movement departs from its original
state to achieve its opposite and by degrees returns to its former
orientation. The movement of reversal and return may be fast or slow.
A variable movement is played against the equidistant beat of the grid.
The tonal movement consists of two systems, light-dark, warm-cold.
Fundamentally in this suite there are two warm grey grounds against
which the cold grey ovals are pitched and two cold grey grounds in
reaction to ovals in warm grey. The tonal structure provides both
contrast in terms of light and dark and, where contrast is reduced or
absent, a release of colour-emphasis upon sheer hue. Up to nineteen
greys are used in the prints, tones filled with colour. In each print,
the directional flow of the tones is at variance with the movement of
the angles and the structure of the grid.
The formal element in Bridget Riley's work always serves to project
and illuminate feeling. Based upon visual experience, it makes feeling
visible. Nineteen greys mediates among tensions and creates a living
balance of forces, a pause that says everything. q