Page 46 - Studio International - November 1969

Paul Huxley's the question?' She died some minutes later. In aesthetic terms, it demands the continual
Equally apposite in the light of Huxley's act of exploration. Culture, in short, is some-
thing you create as you go along and it
paintings approach to painting, and free of Miss Stein's emerges, like tradition, from behaviour, cir-
profound paradox, are the words of the bio-
logist, T. H. Huxley, at a public address: cumstances and environment, as different
`The thoughts to which I am now giving units and factors activate each other.
Bryan Robertson utterance and your thoughts regarding them From the beginning, Huxley's paintings have
are the expression of molecular changes in comprised different units seen always in ten-
that matter of life which is the source of our sile response to each other's stimulus. The
other vital phenomena'.1 The physical reality paintings are in some ways existential; but
of Huxley's paintings is concrete and explicit the inter-action of shapes, even the registra-
enough to be perfectly, if elusively, identifi- tion of an individual, insulated brush mark,
able in straightforward terms of colour, pig- achieves the restrained intensity of morpholo-
ment, and mode of painting. If their 'matter' gical enquiry. Huxley shows no interest in
subsists, also, as readily describable marks or Gestalt theory, but it is essential, in any con-
shapes, then it is the total action implicit in sideration of his work, to be aware of the pre-
each painting, the 'collusion' and its impact, cise differences between mark, sign, symbol,
which first requires interpretation given these shape, form, and image. An equally vital
preliminary claims of 'departure' rather than impulse, but kept at a discreet distance, is
arrival, and 'question' in preference to ans- a concern for the pure act of painting and a
wer. vigilant scrutiny of its vocabulary both in
For the way in which Huxley projects his isolation and in over-all relation to the lan-
images in their totality, the entire action in guage it may achieve. In the painting of 1962
each case as a combination of paint, colour, entitled Shades, for example, Huxley made a
marks or shapes, ground or space, degree of statement on the nature of brushmarks with
opacity, luminosity or darkness: all this in its greater imaginative consequence, certainly
application engenders an oddly dispassionate with more acute originality, than the later
presence. No individual work of Huxley's can embalments by Lichtenstein of the superficial
be called happy or sad, gay or sombre: the marks, in vacuo, of abstract expressionism.
climate of all the paintings is severely con- Huxley is not an art critic or a satirist, though
stant, if temperate. Each painting has a dis- his work is not without humour, and he is
concerting objectivity which exists outside the unconcerned with commentaries on taste or
constraints of time or emotional distortion. stylistic asides.
The progression of ideas since 1961-2 sug- Shades is one of a series of paintings made in
A painting by Paul Huxley is a departure gests an air of research conducted under 1962-3 in which the square format, con-
rather than an arrival. Alternatively, the tightly controlled conditions; and it is in this sistently employed by Huxley to the present
painting postulates a question with certain sense that Huxley's painting, though never time, was counterpointed by a diamond-
implications, slanted if you like (or if Huxley clinical or cold, has the engrossing character shaped area of warmer or lighter tone placed
intends) in a particular way without attempt- of a series of biochemical experiments in inside the square and up-tilted, with one
ing a comprehensive answer. There is, quite morphology, conducted with relentless dis- point resting on the base of the canvas. Inside
suitably, a partial reaction to such delicate cipline by an artist aware of the potential life the diamond shape, varying from canvas to
prompting. If the terms of departure no less of forms as well as the processes of painting. canvas, extremely concentrated distension of
than the presentation of the question are Such a heady combination of factors is, of marks or signs are placed, centrally or at the
definitive, there is also an explicit division course, impossible. Huxley has had no base of the diamond. These marks or signs
between departure and arrival, question and scientific training; all his instincts are toward also imply shapes with a distinct identity,
answer, which, if fine as a hair line, is also painting. But he has said that if he were not an ranging from a loose, heavily loaded brush-
razor sharp. This division, intermediary state, artist he would prefer to work as a scientist, mark registered as a solid, palpable object to
or pause, is wholly subliminal, but its rever- and he has been absorbed since childhood by a sharper and cleaner-edged sign, like a serif.
beration is strong and what the painting is those scientific books from which the layman There is an element of 'presentation' in all
ultimately about: its essential definition, how- can gather a sensation of the order under- this, but as well as the exploration of format,
ever ulterior. We are left with evidence but lying the physical world. Some attention has and sign, mark or shape, the paintings suggest
no sight of the crime, which has to be detected been given to the books of Farbre, the Lorentz philosophical states of being. For sometimes
by inference rather than through pragmatic of his day, whose studies of the behaviour the diamond is contained exactly inside the
deduction. The marks or shapes in Huxley's pattern among insects, though now super- square; at other times, the points disappear
paintings are clear enough, in themselves, but seded and always qualified by a degree of from view, extending in various degrees
they are not propelled into activity so much poetic licence, are well attuned to the imagi- beyond the boundaries of the four sides of the
as compelled into a state of collusion: both nation of an artist. canvas. There is, first, a sense of an absolute
with each other and with their supporting Morphology, after all, is the study of the condition, calm and resolved, as opposed to a
ground or space. organization of shape; morphogenesis means more fragmented, temporary or dispersed
The oft-quoted story of Gertrude Stein's the making of shapes or forms and the impli- state. The marks, as units, then contribute
death is worth recalling here. Rallying from a cations of their resultant structure; structure additional factors of equilibrium, contain-
coma, the writer (who had absorbed with itself is organized shape; biochemistry is the ment and poise, or their energetically dis-
innovatory creative results all of William study of the chemical or physico-chemical ruptive opposition.
James's philosophical insights into a con- processes and products involved in the life In Shades, the square is an inert light brown;
tinuous present) said to her friends: 'What is phenomena of plants and animals. When the diamond a softly glowing plum-red. In
the answer?' There was no reply. Gertrude considering art, we speak of 'culture' but descending order, the brushmarks are cold
Stein laughed, and said: 'In that case, what is possibly forget that a culture is a living growth. greenish black as a humped mound with a