Page 32 - Studio International - November 1968

The A is different but the B remains the same

Peter Schmidt describes his work and his paintings, which are exhibited at the Lisson Gallery,
68 Bell Street, London, N.W.1, throughout November. His monoprints will be shown at the Alecto Gallery,
38 Albermarle Street, W.1, in December. The introductory note is by Jasia Reichardt.
Most pictures, indeed any works, yield extra information when they take its place. This something else was more acceptable, but it was
are examined closely, but few give an exact key of the processes less me. I wondered whether or not to go to art school, anticipating
which are involved, even under such very close scrutiny. In this that if I went the production of pictures that had the qualities that I
sense, the paintings of Peter Schmidt are exceptional. They embody wanted would become even more difficult. In a conversation with a
a considerable variety both in form and mood, and they provide friend at that time I was given the advice that the effect of going
information about the systems on which they are based when would in fact be to make it impossible to produce pictures that had
examined closely. Travelling around a Peter Schmidt painting one any of the qualities that I started out with, but that nevertheless it
might find that in one direction, say, vertically, the colour of a series was necessary. To arrest the process of decay and possible subse-
of elements changes from grey to green, simultaneously another quent regrowth was quite wrong, like an attempt to preserve oneself
series progressing horizontally changes from black to white. Mean- in aspic.
while large discs become tiny and on the entire orchestration is super- I went to art school. As predicted, my drawing improved and the
imposed a series of increasingly expansive white spaces, emanating pictures got worse. When I tried to force the issue and to produce
from the centre. The process is logical, and often complex. What is paintings using the knowledge I had acquired, they were false. I
interesting, however, is that having decided on the parameters—the became interested in other artists. I liked Van Gogh, and became
range of colours, and forms, and the system which will manipulate interested in the way in which his pictures were a fusion of a pas-
them—the result is unforseeable, both to the artist himself and his sionate interest in his subject and a very matter of fact use of paint
audience. It may seem a contradiction that any system which as a coloured substance which can be used to cover a surface. I
Schmidt follows does in fact embody such random and unexpected disliked Cezanne. At a lecture at the Slade I tried to explain to the
qualities; but if you proceed, for instance, over a surface diagonally lecturer why I found Van Gogh so much preferable to Cezanne, and
in increasing steps and with increasing intensity of colour, and the ended up by saying that Cezanne played a kind of game with his
marks you are making are superimposed on an already existing subject matter, alternatively embracing it and destroying it, in
pattern, the outcome must be unexpected. favour of the abstract qualities of the picture, and always seemed
The very notion of having a system in relation to making paintings finally to push the subject gently away from himself, as though with
is often anathema to those who value the mysterious and the intuitive, his fingertips. A few days after this I began to learn Cezanne's
the free and the expressionist, in art. Systems, nevertheless, dispense language, and ended up liking him very much. I spent about five
neither with intuition nor with mystery. Intuition is instrumental in years trying to be Cezanne. Again, I was fascinated by the apparently
the design of the system and mystery always remains in the final irreconcilable qualities of great devotion to the subject matter and a
result. Schmidt's paintings are in the truest sense experiments since scrupulous use of paint as paint. I learned something about colour,
each work consists of new propositions and their unexpected out- and limited my palette to yellow, red, blue and white.
come. Jasia Reichardt Soon after I left art school, I began to teach at an art school. The
students were not interested in Cezanne. I began to talk to them
When I first started to paint it was like magic; it still is, but only about the ideas of Paul Klee, but did not allow myself to use these
occasionally. At that time I suddenly found myself able to do some- ideas in my own painting, I arrived at a point where the student's
thing, something which I knew quite definitely to be impossible, to paintings were better than my own. I was frightened of being
be beyond my powers, and in private I used to laugh at myself for the intellectual, as I had learned to regard intellectual as a term of abuse.
arrogance, for the presumption, and was inwardly sure that it would Gradually I succumbed to the influence of Klee and of Webern. I
all come to nothing. All the same, it was magic, and when I looked at worked on paintings in which each colour and shape decision was
the pictures I could see that they were real and that I had in fact done arrived at after a considerable period of thought. Sometimes I would
them, and that it was not impossible but possible. I also decided at wait several hours before making a small coloured mark on the
that time that it was useless for me to try to learn to draw as it was painting. I still trusted my decisions, but the tendency became to
obviously impossible. I had never done art at school. I'd been quite make decisions that were expectable or that went well with what had
interested in mathematics and vaguely anticipated that I might be- already been done. After working on a picture for a considerable
come a mathematician. Suddenly, without knowing from where it time I no longer had the ability to make startling decisions which
came, something had happened, and it seemed a natural consequence were capable of changing the painting. I'd come to the point where
that I would continue painting, and a consequence of this decision was I had to distrust my aesthetic decisions, where good taste had begun
that I should go to art school. By this time I had compromised, and to creep up on me, and where the pictures were beautiful, decorative
had decided to try drawing, and had found that it was in fact possible. and sterile.
However, what had originally been happening in the pictures I did The way out came from the least expected source, from those very
was beginning to disappear, and something else was beginning to intellectual, mathematical powers which I had rejected ten years
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