Page 36 - Studio International - September 1969

3
Model for outdoor sculpture 1936, New York
Painted metal
63 cm high
4
Structurist work # 4 1937, Paris
Painted wood
91 x 80 x 9 cm
5
Structurist work # 7 1938, New York
Painted wood
91 x 61 x 6 cm
6
Structurist work # 45 1953-68, Red Wing
Painted aluminium
85 x 70 x 12 cm
7
Structurist work # 50 1962-67, Red Wing
Painted aluminium
100 x 75 x 20 cm
8
Structurist work # 3 1967-68, Red Wing
Painted aluminium
102 x 75 x 23 cm
9
Structurist work # 27 1968-69, Red Wing
Painted aluminium
105 x 74 x 20 cm
10
Structurist work # 28 1968-69, Red Wing
Painted aluminium
98 x 75 x 20 cm

trast, should Biederman be found advocating for the realizing of its ultimate aims. probably only tenable given sufficient reason.
the same idea from his standpoint—and in so With regard to this last, Biederman seems to A realist thesis is probably the only one to
many words he has said as much—what would set no limit on the final physical character of lead to such intensity of commitment. It
be implied ? Biederman's answer would not be the work. Parnassus could well be a demater- prompts the final question: why at this mom-
the rationalist/Classicist tradition (the com- ialized kinetic art work but grounded in real ent, should a realist thesis appear so rare ? 10
plement to the Romantic/Irrationalist tradi- structural relationships in accordance with the 9 One of the earliest transatlantic calls for the next
tion) it would be the Realist tradition. scientists 'picture/model' of reality. But Par-
development in painting came from W. Huntington
Biederman argues what seems to be a historic- nassus must be arrived at step by step; the hard Wright (novelist brother of Stanton MacDonald
ist/determinist case for the evolution of just ascent and by no shorter route.9 Wright). His books—Modern Painting (1913) and The
one tradition. The great step to be taken being It is probably true to say that Biederman, Future of Painting (1923) — championed the latter's
the development in Realism from mimeticism through holding these views, can see nothing Synchromism. He claimed that `... after Synchromism
no more innovatory "movements" or "schools" are
to abstraction. This in turn is entirely depend- of value in any other approaches in art today.
possible ... the era of pure creation begins with the
ant upon the contingent arguments which are It would follow that the only profitable con- present day', since Synchromism had forseen the true
of necessity closely knit. As they follow out, frontation would be between Biederman and direction of painting which was to be an abstract art of
they are, after (1) the evolutionary theory, artists who, while holding different views, pure colour using light machines. He hastened to men-
(art as reality-based), (2) the structural pro- claim to be advancing a comparable realist tion that 'The leading exponent of Synchromism has
long since discarded pigments and canvas ...'
cess/reality thesis, (3) the real space develop- thesis for abstract art.10
10 With regard to priorities concerning the 'radical' use
ment (art leaves the illusionistic two-dimen- Biederman's anti-pluralist view of art also of the term Realism (as per an ideology), it was Courbet
sional space and in doing so develops slowly makes us wonder if he is alone in holding to who first used it as a 'battle cry'. When next it appeared
into fully three-dimensional space) and lastly what might otherwise seem a quite natural it was in the title of the Pevsner brothers' Realist Mani-
(4) the Grandus ad Parnassam approach by point of view. While the view is clearly not so festo published in the Soviet Russia of the 20's. (Later
which Structurist art will eventually employ unusual (no less than the view that fine art Gabo was to speak of 'constructive Realism.') Gabo's
conception remains the nearest comparable approach
the fullest range of technological achievement has come to the end of its usefulness) it is to Biederman's, despite the obvious differences.