Page 56 - Studio International - July August 1968

James Wilson Morrice at the Holburne
of Menstrie Museum, Bath, until
June 29 and at Wildensteins, London,
from July 4 to August 2.

James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924) is probably the
most interesting painter in the history of Canadian
art and was very much a beneficial influence on a
number of Canadian painters of more recent
generations. An exhibition of forty-five of his paint-
ings has been arranged for the 1968 Bath Festival
by the National Gallery of Canada and is on view
at the HOLBURNE OF MENSTRIE MUSEUM, Bath, until
29 June. Morrice was born in Montreal, the son of a
wealthy Scottish Presbyterian textile merchant. He
graduated from the University of Toronto and then
studied law. His interest in painting led to his
leaving Canada at the age of twenty-five and sett-
ling in Paris where he first attended the Academie
Julian and then studied under Henri Harpignies—
who probably strengthened his interest in landscape
painting.
Although, until 1914, Morrice made regular visits
(mainly in the winter) to Montreal he never re-
settled in Canada. This is in many ways hardly
surprising as such interest as there was in painting James W. Morrice Return from School c. 1907, oil on canvas, 18+ x 29 in. Coll. Art Gallery of Ontario
was mainly centred on mediocre Dutch painting.
The formation, in 1907, of the Canadian Art Club
to produce something Canadian in spirit ... Gondola, Venice, c. 1896-1903), and a number of his pinkish glow that characterizes many of his
strong, vital and living', did not materially affect early paintings show affinities with the work of paintings) demonstrate that he, of all Canadian
the situation despite the regular participation of Sickert (see cat. no. 10 Venice at the Golden Hour, painters of the period, was able to measure up to
artists such as Morrice in its annual exhibitions. c. 1903) and Manet. As well as an overall awareness the stated ideals of the ill-fated Canadian Art Club.
The Club was dissolved in 1915. In 1912 a of French painting of the period other strong Jeremy Rees
Canadian writer observed 'Indifference and lack of influences appear to have been the work of Bon-
appreciation cause many of our best men to leave nard and Vuillard and, later, Matisse.
us. Canada is either too young, too poor, too ig- Morrice was certainly an eclectic painter but at
norant or too busy making money to take much his best he produced, as this exhibition shows, a
interest in art.' number of compelling works. Although he travelled
In the 1890s a number of North Americans were a great deal in France, Italy, North Africa and the
working in Paris, among whom Morrice was West Indies it is his Canadian paintings that are
particularly friendly with and influenced by most significant—taken in the context of the sterility
Maurice Prendergast. As with many artists of this of Canadian art at that time. Paintings such as the
period Whistler's painting greatly interested Mor- Return from school, c. 1900-1903 (cat. 5) and The
rice (see cat. no. 2 in this exhibition Prow of a Ferry, Quebec, c. 1909 (cat. 24) (which has the faint

Paris—Londres at Arthur Tooth's until the abiding French flavour of Vuillard's Le manicure and flesh—which is the story of six decades, whose
June 22; 20th century paintings Et have been absorbed. What becomes salient is a end is still unknown.
sculpture at the Grosvenor, July 2-27 hermetic atmosphere conceived in light, a spiritual When Brancusi did his bronze of a child's head in
and August 27—September 21. wholeness in closer parallel to the Dutch and 1908 the problem was minimal for him. Subse-
Italian schools than to the spirit of the Nabis and quently, it arose and he solved it, though surely the
La Revue Blanche. Even Vlaminck's valley at solution was present in that early bronze to begin
Not so long ago, ARTHUR TOOTH'S Paris-Londres exhi- Bougival supersedes its Fauve colour, now under a with. Archipenko's figure fell short of the solution.
bition would have come across as a gentle summer varnish of time in motion, now almost unnaturally Style conquered, spirit and flesh faltered, a figura-
show with moments of the highest quality. But time complete in its articulation. But unnatural is per- tive encounter that prefigured Barbara Hepworth's
speeds on, accelerates, devastates perspectives, to haps the key word. It even applies to Pissarro's non-figurative stringed form in which the issue was
the extent that even a Bonnard or a Boudin look marvelously architectural La récolte des pommes-de- the same; whereas Henry Moore's totems found
different today than perhaps a season or two ago. terre. As the mood of the moment moves away from their perfect balance in the matter. The metaphors
If Bonnard was still debated in 1940, and thorough- a motion preserved in stillness, Pissarro moves accommodated style and spirit, or rather, were made
ly respectable in 1950, he has assumed a new closer to Mantegna. All the more fitting, then, that to. Consagra's façade of polished blade surfaces
avatar. At a time when metaphors have been the selection ends, chronologically, with Rouault's again managed nicely, and without metaphor at all.
interiorized, conceptualized, reduced, even elimi- Les deux clowns. This was exactly the direction Intimacy was, of all things, the salvation of
nated, the sensual reference gives way to sign and Rouault always did intend. Boccioni's oil study for Those who are going.
symbol, and Bonnard, Vuillard, Vlaminck and The GROSVENOR GALLERY'S '20th Century Paint- The Futurist Manifesto modulated in the name of
Marquet automatically shift direction. Masters ings and Sculpture' (in two parts, 2-27 July, plastic cogency, and to great poetic purpose. As
they still are, but old masters rather than new 27 August-21 September), takes up approximately was the case with Severini's handsome Cubist
masters. Which may ultimately be analogous to a where the other ends. As a vast exhibition, its stress collage. Or, again, Ozenfant's still-life, a 1930
wine ageing into its proper youth. is on variety rather than continuity, but a thematic synthesis of cubist and surrealist anatomies, was
Today, Boudin's Dordrecht canals or Trouville coherence emerges nonetheless—perhaps because surely not predestined to function, but it did. The
beaches become more pertinent in their mysticism the level of the work tends toward admirable and wavelength comes through.
than their perception, closer finally to Guardi or interesting examples rather than masterful and Natalia Gontcharova's large screen based on
Canaletto than to the vision France struggled with overwhelming ones. What emerges is the Battle of Spanish dancers is the central work of the exhibi-
a century ago. The decorative element and even Style—of style and content, style and spirit, style tion, and central to the implicit thread. Done in
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