Page 39 - Studio International - July August 1968

after his death. With a bit of time in between one can fit those much colour, kind of hanging in space, graspable, one next to another.
better into perspective and the whole work seems to be valid and a Matisse's use of colour is much more overall in the sense that you
valid exrpession of the artist's intention right the way through. I feel the colour is spread out and you can read colour at the top right
don't believe that one could really see many fallow periods in hand corner of the painting and the bottom left at the same time;
Matisse's work. There are great paintings right through his career. they kind of mix out in front and the surface is completely irrelevant.
Howard Hodgkin: As every year goes by his work coalesces in the The fact that Matisse used paint with a lot of turpentine or something
way that it probably didn't before, as much because of what people at an earlier stage proves that Louis' point of staining colour into a
said about it as for any other reason. Partly because of not having canvas is irrelevant. I feel that really one is never terribly concerned
the opportunity to see it altogether. I think he is an artist who about the texture of a Matisse painting and about whether the paint
needs to have as much of his life's work shown together as possible. is thinned down. If the paint was thinned down, it was probably
Andrew Forge: Is it Matisse who says somewhere in one of his state- for reasons of brightness and to do with colour mixing; but not on
ments that a metre of green is greener than a centimetre of green? the surface; always outside the surface, always in front somewhere.
Thus, one might argue, launching a whole view of colour as a kind of In the end, it's much flatter and much more optical. I'd say American
environment factor, a total saturated experience, which separated painting is more tactile and physical, to do with your taste buds.
colour off once and for all from the idea that it could be local and Howard Hodgkin: Matisse could use colour in formal terms completely
that it was above all representational and above all had to do with two-dimensionally. He could also, by its brilliance, as you say by
how large the thing was represented in the format of the picture. its relevance to light, make a flat plane to the spectator. I think he
In this sense, would you agree that his thinking about colour is did this in the Red studio, which it is possible to experience both in
absolutely novel, and not traditional at all? terms of the flat object which you know is flat when you see it, and
Howard Hodgkin: I think it's absolutely novel in Western painting; I also, because of its density and luminosity of colour, it can lose
don't think it's novel in terms of near-Eastern painting. surface altogether. I think this was one of the more important
Andrew Forge: Doesn't it have something to say about sheer size? ways he was able to express his sensations about the real world.
Howard Hodgkin: Well, I would have said more about relative propor- He could use colour that had the physical luminosity and brilliance
tion of colour. As soon as he painted the Red studio, surely the measure- of actual light and he used colour contrast to produce this.
ments of the Red studio become rather irrelevant. Phillip King: It's interesting that you would still call him a palette
Andrew Forge: I'm interested in how Matisse by freeing colour first painter. He used a specific number of colours. The idea of having
of all from the idea of naturalistic representation and secondly from only ten or twelve colours or whatever it is he used was some-
an easy notion of harmony, hit on the fact that colour has the power thing that I think went right through his career as a painter even to
to affect one directly in a physical sense, which has obvious ramifica- the late works where he painted out a large number of sheets with
tions in terms of scale and in terms of saturation. Do you think that certain colours and then used them. I feel that the American approach
his ideas about colour introduce new attributes to Western painting? to colour is very different. Their colour is very much more specified
Howard Hodgkin: Yes they do in fairly specific ways. I don't like very and therefore more graspable. I feel that the use of colour in sculpture
much pointing it out because it suggests something more systematic is more traditional in that it's to do with tonal value, because colour
and decided than it actually was, but I think in the Red studio, for changes as a result of light hitting various planes of colour. But in
example, he was using colour in a way that was two-dimensionally another sense colour is reflected off surfaces in sculpture. You feel
expressive of three dimensions. The density of the physical impact of colour is actually colouring light and colouring space in front of itself.
the red within the specific format of the picture was expressive not I think colour in sculpture actually works outside itself; it seems to
only of the emotion but also of pictorial space in a way that colour affect the space around the sculpture, I feel: this is something to do
had never been before. I think this probably does form a kind of peg with the way I look at Matisse's work.
for certain kinds of recent American environmental painting which Howard Hodgkin: Do you think that colour in sculpture can ever defy
are carried out on a very much larger format than the Red studio. the effect of light on the form?
The actual use of colour can surely be paralleled in Rothko. I would Phillip King: Yes, I think there is a definite link-up between colour in
have thought also scale had a great deal to do with it; I think the sculpture and the feeling of form, the weight of the form and its
paintings of Morris Louis where you have a completely different spread.
weight of colour, a completely different brilliance of tint, where you Howard Hodgkin: Colour can alter the weight of the form?
have cloudy browns overlapping each other on a very large scale, Phillip King: Yes, and the specific spread and the specific position in
much bigger than man-size, do relate dimly and disjointly with what space as well, in its relationship to other things.
Matisse started doing in the Red studio. Howard Hodgkin: I think that the actual physical answers that
Phillip King: I feel that Matisse's use of colour, compared to a lot of Matisse found are only of a very general application. This is partly
recent work, is much more optical and to do with an expression oflight perhaps why he hasn't been specifically very influential so far. I
as understood by the Impressionists possibly. I feel a lot of the use of think they were extremely personal answers to the positions he
recent colour in American painting is very much more tactile and found himself in, and I think that what has influenced me, and what
physical than the use of colour in Matisse. This possibly comes out of will certainly be increasingly influential, is his attitude. The position,
Pollock being such an influence on American painting. I feel that most relative to his life and his feelings, of the object that he made.
American painters have used colour in a very physical sense. Staining Andrew Forge : He takes it as a matter of course that being a painter is a
colour in the canvas makes the colour very much part of the material perfectly reasonable profession to follow. He never takes, as a point of
and I find that, for instance, looking at a Louis or an Olitski, one always departure, that he is being unreasonable or outrageous in choosing
tends to read colour across the thread of the canvas. You move from to be a painter. He didn't see that he had to show himself as a very
colour to colour gradually in a linear way across the canvas. It's progressive and very daring artist in any other way than by his work.
always one colour versus another colour butted up next to it, or He didn't see it necessary to proclaim this originality by severing his
going through it, one colour through another but always along the connections with the mass of art that had already been done. Are we
surface. The business of colour in American painting has always saying that the demonstrative avant-gardist posture that one is so
been so allied to surface, and to texture in a very sculptural sense. My familiar with in so much of early-twentieth-century art is no longer
first impression on going into the Louis exhibition at Kasmin's was of relevant? That what is interesting now is to somehow find a way of
being faced with physical objects that I could grasp almost—bands of working which doesn't have to proclaim its own outrageousness ? q