Page 80 - Studio International - July August 1970

ing, appears on the dust-cover of Dr Bann's ing away of the whole notion of the work of
book, so that the glossy paper itself looks about art' necessitate the withering away of
to be eaten into. Dr Bann rightly comments: criticism? It is a pity that he does not venture
`In the paintings with acid on nylon, the evaluation more boldly in the later part of his
artist destroys the work in the process of book, rather than split hairs about whether
creating it. There is a fascinating tension certain painters qualify or not as experi-
between the development of the forms to their mentalists. Seldom has the concept of experi-
fullest extent—their creative flowering—and mental art been better expressed than here;
the inevitable progress of the work towards but it should lead to a corresponding commit-
destruction.' ment on the part of the critic to a 'path of
But I see no reason for his placing Metzger controlled activity'. Dr Bann quotes from
in the same tradition as Giacometti. To be Mondrian to clarify the idea of experimental
fair to Dr Bann, he admits that his chapter on art: 'True art like true life takes a single road'.
destruction as a 'path of experiment' is less The same could be said of true criticism,
coherent than his chapters on 'construction', which is rare today in the visual arts. Bann is
`abstraction' and 'reduction'. But the suspicion near to achieving it, were he only to take in
remains that he is more interested in estab- some of the slack in his ideas and tell us what
lishing a framework of ideas than in confront- he really thinks is worth caring about. q
ing art specifically. Though Dr Bann praises JONATHAN BENTHALL
Metzger he fails to give an account of this
artist's extreme radicalism, which requires
comment in terms of political and ecological
crisis. Mr Metzger's own statements of auto- Parfit gentil anarchist
destructive and auto-creative theory have Herbert Read: A Memorial Symposium edited by
been rather confusing in their many-sided- Robin Skelton. Methuen. 50s.
ness, but it is clear that they represent a direct
response to the nuclear bomb and environ- Everyone knows that Herbert Read (the
mental pollution, among other things. It is revolutionary and anarchist bowed before the
also clear that nothing from Metzger's hand Queen to become Sir Herbert in 1953, a low
could ever be mistaken for an illustration of in- year in the history of English political dissent)
terior decor from L'Oeil or House and Garden. was a very important man, but it's a bit
Dr Bann's failure to register such elementary difficult to say why, when we get down to it.
points casts doubt, for me, on his whole This book suffers from a lack of sharpness
critical method, however helpful and inform- about his historical importance and a vague-
ative he is on certain other specific artists ness about his achievement. Perhaps it could
such as Biederman and Vasarely. not be other than indistinct on such topics. Of
His first few pages seem to me the most his personal nature we can be sure. He was
interesting. He traces the idea of the experi- one of those men whose humanity and gentle-
mental painter—defined as one 'committed ness of character not only shine out with their
to a particular path of controlled activity, of own light, but seem to calm and dignify all who
which the works which he produces remain as meet them. This is a rare quality, and many
evidence'—back to Monet and Constable, of the numerous contributions to this volume
noting that only in the last decade, following are right to insist on it. But we can be less
the work of groups like GRAV and the New sure of the things Read said and did, and
Tendency, has a concept of the artist's much less sure about what he wrote. For
function as 'open research' become widely years, Read was the public representative of
accepted. Comparing the use of the word English Modernism. To some extent he
`experiment' in artistic and scientific contexts, formed it, and there are many ways in which
he concludes that, according to his own he is symptomatic of the weaknesses of our
definition of the experimental activity of the national avant-garde tradition, of the way that
painter, 'it must be carried on without any it lacked political sinew and intellectual
possibility of successful resolution. In other talent. Read lacked social purposiveness, for
words, it is a search which is bound to be self:- all his airy protestations, and he wasn't very
justifying, since there are no objective criteria clever. Twentieth-century England never
for assessing success or failure. It is essentially had an intelligentsia.
a deviation from the role of the artist as it is Read's politics are summarized by George
traditionally understood, and so necessarily Woodcock in a sympathetic essay. Read's
involves a rejection of the scale of values [I social writings are largely commentaries on
have taken the liberty of correcting what others, expositions of his favourite philo- ,
seems to be a miss-print in Dr Bann's text] sophical and libertarian sages, people like
traditionally applied to what the artist (lists of this sort are frequent in Read's
produces.' writing) Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Christ, St
This is well argued, as is the whole of the Francis, Comenius, Kant, Tolstoy, Gandhi,
first chapter, 'The experimental approach: Camus— and so on. The fact is that Read did
past and present'. But have there ever been not have a political mind, and was not inter-
truly 'objective criteria' for art criticism? ested in politics as a means of doing things,
Conversely, does what Bann calls the 'wither- only as one more way of doing his own thing.

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