Page 49 - Studio International - November 1970

disliking the 'plastic' or artificial appearance
of impasto worked from synthetic pigment as
well as its intractable properties as a quickly
drying substance). The work is alive with
paradox: when it seems most descriptive and
representational, it is immediately apparent
that the illusion of place only exists on a
shallow plane : the 'real' painting radically
distends any factual references. Conversely,
when the painting appears broader and more
loosely defined, its references are more, not
less, specific.
The key to all Hubbard's work, notably in its
recent culminating phase of great authority,
perhaps resides in the fact that his tutor at
Harvard knew Morris Graves, Mark Tobey,
and other West Coast painters with an aware-
ness of Oriental art. On his visits to New York,
Hubbard as a student explored their work, as
well as Oriental art itself, and for a while also
felt identified with Burchfield, Hopper, Dove,
Hartley and other American artists who were
involved with specific time and place in their
handling of landscape and their approach to
its mood. Hubbard as a young man met David
Smith and was profoundly stirred by Smith's
occasional obsession with a 'memorial', or with
`emblems', or 'place'. This may represent an
American usage, but it embodies an Oriental
instinct for compression and philosophic dis-
tillation which only recently is finding its
fullest and most mature expression in
Hubbard's work.
For Hubbard is really painting himself, and
some echoing chord in his own psyche, when
he searches for equivalents for the 'character'
of a landscape in his work as it evolves. The
quest for self-discovery is endless for we change
continually as well as the light on the rock or
the foliage, and it is to Hubbard's immense
credit that he has conducted the search with
an avoidance of easy exits, and a refusal to be
In the High Atlas no. 1 1969
Oil on canvas intimidated by the connotations of what, in
70 x 65 in. shallow minds, could seem an orthodox and
Coll: The Arts Council of Great Britain
practically exhausted convention. His total
2 approach to landscape is becoming so per-
Reflections (Water) 1969
Oil on canvas sonal that its validity in terms of original
80 x 65 in.
painting can only become clearer, stronger,
and more resonant in its implications.
Hubbard has also avoided preciosity in his
abstract in his approach to nature. But in efforts to reconcile an Oriental approach to
general, there is no question that, despite art with Western conditions, material, spiri-
Hubbard's need for landscape and his self- tual, or atmospheric; and as his handling of
imposed immolation with it for the greater paint becomes more 'impersonal' is contriving
part of each year (by far the greater part of it, to release new forces which still celebrate the
in fact) in solitude and observant contempla- `landscape' itself as well as define its com-
tion, the paintings are becoming tougher and mentary on his own state of being. Hubbard's
more forceful, certainly more concentrated and paintings are also two-way mirrors, and both
less 'self-indulgent' in painterly terms and, reflections when unified are deepened by a
whilst retaining the spirit of each place, are metaphysical force that is, of course, Ameri-
finding a greater imaginative and perceptual can. And this is a strange force; in Hubbard's
equivalent in plastic terms. case no longer qualified or deflected by his
The colour is still schematic, and invented New England origins. q
after the event, but its orchestration is in-
creasingly original and unpredictable. The
quality of paint is far more compact, dry and John Hubbard's works are at the New Art
frugal (Hubbard has always worked in oil, Centre, London, November 3-28.