Page 60 - Studio International - May 1969

1

5
. 7. 68
acrylic on canvas
78 x 144 in.

might otherwise undermine the abstractness possible complexity and richness of Hoyland's 1 Outlined in Clement Greenberg's essay, 'Modern-
of the heavier colour areas. (The cow-in the- art. He has in fact recently produced some ist Painting' in Art and Literature, No. 4, Spring
1965.
field process can work both ways: if your area small paintings (the best to date, dated
2 Not that the painters concerned necessarily them-
of green looks too much like a field, any form 21. 3. 69., measures 26 by 40 inches) exploit- selves accept that they are working solely for the
placed upon it is a potential cow.) Hoyland's ing this smaller scale of colour to invest their exhaustion of a critical concept.
painting has recently become more abstract surfaces with the kind of complexity in total 3 I think I have arrived, by a circuitous route, in
Modernist territory: 'The essence of Modernism
by becoming more physical and more textural. abstraction which we have come to expect
lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristic
We are conditioned to expect precisely the only of wall-size canvases. The quality of de-
methods of a discipline to criticise the discipline
opposite order of evolution. As far as I am tail, combined with deep impasto, enables the itself—not in order to subvert it, but to entrench
aware, Hoyland's development is without painter to maintain the kind of physical in- it more firmly in its area of competence'— Clement
significant precedent in the painting of the volvement with the surface which prevents Greenberg, loc cit.
last ten years; it certainly marks him off from selfconsciousness.
his American contemporaries. It's easy to In Hoyland's work the paint is not a medium
forget that in England there have been no for the resurrection of choice experience or
Abstract Expressionist painters to react for the recreation of familiar emotion. The
against, and difficult to accept that there may experience is in the paint itself and emotion is
by now be some consequent advantages to be generated in painting and in mixing colour.
gained, a special freedom to be exploited. (Colour in Hoyland's work is now largely
Hoyland's best paintings turn on the differ- mixed on the canvas.) He is continually
ence between different kinds of self-expres- pushing for a faster kind of painting, a creative
sion, between free and active process (pouring process, that is to say, in which there is a
liquid paint) and conscious decision (apply- minimal time-lag between motivation and
ing colour in certain precise areas and thick- action. Confronted with an undeniably flat
nesses and in certain precisely controlled surface with edges which cannot be passed he
conjunctions). In these recent works he ap- seeks to act out his own particular intentions
pears to be close to a resolution of the two with no present sense of restriction. His paint-
extremes. On the one hand the rectangular ing is highly unconceptual. Since the war the
areas are frequently painted on with a palette best painting has been that in which the logic
knife freely manipulated, on the other, many of development within a particular kind of
of the flecks of colour which look as if they process (Pollock, Louis) or in a certain formal
were spattered on at random have in fact configuration (Rothko, Newman) has itself
been carefully and deliberately applied. In been the means to self-revelation and self-
one painting, dated 20. 5. 68., a large deep realization for the painter. Hoyland shows a
blue area rests on a ground washed with grey; commendable unwillingness to take decisions
the edges of the blue, which extends almost to outside the painting process. The things which
either end of the twelve-foot canvas, are clear change painting from the outside are the
cut and its form is strong and definite; above things which change life for the painter—like
it two flecks of blue paint interrupt the ex- getting a new studio. Everything else changes
panse of grey as if dropped there by mistake. painting from inside. Hoyland's latest paint-
Because these flecks of colour act as interrup- ings are hard to see, difficult to resolve, and
tions they impinge forcibly upon our atten- replete with the evidence of actions and de-
tions. This ability to make colour areas register cisions which seem inexplicable and unprece-
in a large painting as distinct detailed ele- dented. Careful and open-minded considera-
ments, rather than as small and non-specific tion reveals the best of them to be full, rich
ingredients of composition (as in Noland's and generous.
large horizontal stripe paintings), adds to the