Page 47 - Studio International - March 1968

Left No. 11 1967
acrylic on canvas, 86 x 99 in.

Below No. 17 1967
acrylic on canvas, 71 x 82 in.

between alternative possibilities continues from the `essentialize meaningfulness as such—as though the
moment the painting has begun, and the alternatives are possibility of meaning what we say and do alone makes
now more significant than they have been before. The his sculpture possible'.4 Jeremy Moon's paintings, it
final equilibrium, when it is reached, is the more mean- seems to me, assert passionately the possibility of saying
ingful for being won in the face of what are, for the what one means, and of making, in paint on canvas,
painter, deeply important considerations. It is as if meaningful statements of a kind that cannot be expressed
Jeremy Moon were deliberately forcing himself, time and through any other form. I know it isn't true, but when
again, into situations in which the maximum number of standing in front of a painting like No. 12, I feel momen-
considerations yield the narrowest range of possible ends. tarily convinced that perhaps painting is a better way of
This is the measure of his ambition as a painter: to be saying more things of greater depth than any other
successful in circumstances in which, to succeed at all, he means of expression. q
must be true to all that he considers relevant to the
pursuit of painting at the present time. Not all the recent
paintings are successful by this criterion; in No. 18 I do in
fact feel that the most exciting solution lay closer to its
first than its present form; the finished painting appears
to me too controlled and ungenerous in relation to the
possibilities inherent in its size and colour. The danger of
working on a scale and with a scope comparable to that of 1 In his important article 'Frank Stella's New Paintings' in
Artforum November 1966.
the American artists is that the English painter risks failing
2 See, for instance, Olitski: 'Paint becomes painting when
just where the Americans appear to succeed with such
colour establishes surface', with its corollary that there is no
open-handed grandeur and with such ease. But where surface until colour is established and that surface, when it is
Jeremy Moon does succeed, as in No. 12, the paintings established, should be read as colour rather than as paint.
carry complete conviction. Of the gifts, preoccupations (From 'Painting in Colour', an expanded version of Olitski's
catalogue statement for the 1966 Venice Biennale, in Artforum
and insights with which the painter is armed at his
January 1967).
moments of keenest experience, nothing is lost in the
3 See the progress studies of the Pink Nude published by Alfred
making of the painting. Michael Fried has written of Barr in his monograph on Matisse.
Anthony Caro's sculptures that it is as though they 4 In 'New Work by Anthony Caro', Artforum February 1967.