Page 51 - Studio International - February 1970

architecture and objects. It is very close to
present constructivist concepts. The distor-
tions of the Papuan shields and figures touch
our abstract painters. Some of the distortions
recall our Expressionists. But the over-
whelming evidence emphasizes that the main
point of contact is with our Surrealists.
We now know that for the Surrealists and for
those movements now arising out of Surrealism
the Utopian dream was not what so many
supposed, the Renaissance, but the art of the
South Seas. The link, of course, is only one of
emotional attachment. We know that, histor-
ically, the Surrealists arrived at their state-
ment through Freud. He was the catalyst
who freed their unconscious selves to give
them the hope that they might arrive through
the free association of ideas and symbols at a
magical world. They derived from him. Yet
the relationship between South Sea art and
Surrealism makes clear that the modern
painter, no matter of what school, is emotion-
ally tied to primitive art. The Oceanic artist vision, complete and with candour. Carved knife with cutting edge made of shark's
and the Surrealist form a fraternity under a There is a new movement that has arisen here teeth; New Zealand, Maori
20 in. long
common fatherhood of aesthetic purpose. in America which shows through its works Coll : Peabody Museum of Salem, Salem, Mass, USA
Just as the exhibition clarified this fraternity, that it has, in effect, reinterpreted Oceanic 2
it also sharply exposed the fundamental art, that it has also set out on an art of magic, Dance mask covered with bark-cloth; Gulf of Papua,
New Guinea
cleavage between them which explains why but that this time it is a visionary art, a sub- 27 in. high
the Surrealists failed to achieve this common jective art without illusionary trappings. Their Coll: Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
purpose. It was almost as if the object lesson techniques are the techniques of modern 3
Mask made of bark-cloth by the Baining tribe;
of this important exhibition was to demon- abstract art but their roots lie in the same Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain
strate the failure of the Surrealists correctly mythological subject matter that motivated 18 in. high
Coll: Chicago Natural History Museum, Chicago, USA
to interpret the meaning of magic— that they the South Sea artist. They are thereby closer
comprehended only its superficial aspects. to him than the traditional Surrealists. How-
By insisting on a materialistic presentation of ever, an analysis of the work of this group is
it rather than a plastic one, by attempting to the subject of another article. q
present a transcendental world in terms of
realism, in terms of Renaissance plasticity
and Renaissance space, by so to speak,
mixing the prevailing dream of the modern
artist with the outworn dream of academic
Europe, they hoped to make acceptable (the
Surrealists prefer the term sur-real) what they
consciously knew was unreal. This realistic
David and Ingres, the French neo-classicists, had their
insistence, this attempt to make the unreal dream in the Florentine Renaissance; Delacroix,
more real by an over-emphasis on illusion leader of the French Romantics, in the Renaissance
through the flamboyant Rubens from Flanders; Manet,
ultimately fails to penetrate beyond illusion, the French Realist, found the Renaissance through the
for having reached the point where we see majestic, the baroque dream of Velasquez and Goya;
while the Spanish Realists, seeking to glorify the reality
through the illusion, we must come to the of their times in terms of an earlier idealism, went to the
conclusion that it must have been illusion for Renaissance directly. The list can be amplified to cover
every major figure and school of European art, yet it
the artists themselves, that they practised would be dangerous to value it more seriously than as
illusion because they did not themselves feel an interesting phenomenon in the history of artist
psychology. There should be no dialectical insistence of
the magic. For realism, even of the imagina- an 'historic process' lest some Kunstwissenschaftsman
tive, is in the last analysis a deception. more interested in the 'grand' conception than in truth
choose to indulge in it to build a dialectic of purpose to
Realistic fantasy inevitably must become the delight of our Hegel-intoxicated generation. The
phantasmagoria so that instead of creating a significance of this romantic urge among artists is that
it makes clear the psychological need they had and have
magical world, the Surrealists succeeded only for emotional security in an Utopian dream based on
in illustrating it. the past. It is a search for a sense of fraternity. No more.
2 Europe and America have seen many grand exhibi-
Here is the dividing line between the Sur- tions of African and Mexican art, but it is doubtful if
realist and the Oceanic artist. We know the South Sea art on such a scale has ever been shown any-
where.
primitive artist attempted no deception. He 3 The Mexicans carved the hardest stone without the
believed his magic. We feel it too, because we benefit of metal tools and this victory over nature, this
transcendental pride is visible in the heroic monu-
can see that it came from deep convictions, mentality of their work.
that it was an expression of the artist's being 4 In many of the islands, art objects were made in
religious exercises by a special elite class in special
rather than his beliefs. Without any attempts ceremonies depicting a specific mystery and the objects
at illusion, working directly, using the plastic then made were shown and destroyed immediately after
the ceremony. Here religion was art and art was a
means per se, the primitive artist gives us his religion.
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