Page 54 - Studio International - October 1970

response to the problems of painting space process of Pollock and Louis. Within the as that which use of a spray gun can produce.
generated by edge: an edge produced by palpably abstract syntax of Pollock's pictorial The Impressionists discovered homologous
staining, and a taped edge. Both have in language, the presence of unmistakably asser- surface through their realist identification of
common a concern to maintain the flatness tive physical substance in the form of accumu- pictorial and visual fields. A discernible edge,
and continuity of the painted surface. As a lations of paint and fragments of objects such a discrete mark, violates the total opticality of
conscious formal aim, this too has a history as glass, nails, and bottle-tops led some a homologous pictorial field, and initiates the
which dates back to Van Gogh (and was in critics to speak of Pollock's work as 'sculptural'. first interesting tension in plastic art. (The
emergence in the work of the Impressionists), Such an emphasis can lead to misinterpreta- easiness of the opticality which simply a
but only as one of many formal requirements tion of the language of the paintings, but spray gun by itself can achieve makes for a
in a state of mutual influence and tension. subsequent artists have taken further the dilution of the potential of pictorial experi-
Not until recently, as a result of an excessive possibility that a greater emphasis on the ence.) The pursuit of total opticality by
predilection for formal analysis on the part of literal 'stuff' of paint can paradoxically render modulation of edges and marks is a result of
a generation of critic-painters, has it come to painting more abstract and reduce extra- the impressionist vision—a realism by fidelity
be spoken of as a uniquely important priority. painterly reference. This approach however to the undifferentiated wholeness of the visual
Needless to say inspiration cannot flourish in labours under the continual difficulty of the field, in contrast to a 'sculptured' realism, by
too critically conscious an atmosphere. The maintenance of a pictorial space, whose rela- the textural gradation of markings from broad,
expressive muteness of much contemporary tions are 'accessible to eyesight alone', in face in the forefront of vision, to microscopic in
painting is attributable to over-education. To of the tendency for the painting to become a depth, where depth was created by seeing
quote Debussy, 'Much must be discovered mere agglomeration of matter, or an advertise- past and through broad marks to minute
and then discarded before arriving at the ment for a range of pigments, whose topo- marks. (This is altogether apart from the
naked flesh of feeling'. If the colourfulness of graphy is measurable only by a ruler; in other question of colour, which is secondary when
the metaphor does not suit contemporary words for the painting to become an object. it comes to the suggestion of depth. The most
palates (or palettes), tant pis. This situation can be precipitated with the aid recessive colours, laid on thickly, will retain
The distinction here is between the sort of of a very little paint in fact, even wilfully, as their frontal position in relation to any conti-
intellectual rigour which serves to open up the some of the work of Johns, and Stella's early guous washed colour.) Geometry and perspec-
range of possible expression from inside—a canvases, testify. tive are clearly also factors in the representation
goal-oriented process— and the sort which, by Jules Olitski's paintings are often cited as of depth. For flatness, a planar perspectival
analysis from without an ongoing activity, examples of a successful integration of maximal geometry, akin to collage, as developed by
narrows down the sphere of possible action until literality with maximal opticality. Whether Cubism, imposes maximum constraints on
only one thing is left to do, and the resultant this is true or not, another feature of his work colour. A kind of aerial perspective, or an
painting appears the 'solution' to an essenti- has been the obsessional attention, amounting acceptance of depth, could leave colour sur-
ally academic formal problem— a classificatory almost to preciosity, to surface texture, and its prisingly free.' Hans Hofmann's art owes its
process. Practising painters are just as prone effects on colour resonance. This is an complexity to this struggle to achieve flatness
to perform this latter kind of analysis as are important concern, and one too often over- with the greatest possible difficulty, that is by
critics. looked in the doctrinaire phase of pioneer means of a battlefield of markings, the tensions
By the technique of staining, a fusion of paint abstraction earlier in the century. Textural between which are ultimately cancelled out
and canvas which maintains a sense of con- richness and variety was formerly taken for by sheer force, to resolve in a dense and
tinuous surface is achieved, and where granted as an important factor in the life of a richly unified surface.
colours meet, an easy transition occurs with a painting. Even a Mondrian includes changes Hofmann, like Matisse, never entirely aban-
minimal suggestion of planar overlap even in of textural pace essential to the quality of the doned representation of the object-world
the presence of value contrast. A planar painting as an experiential fact, but since through motif. Pictorial form was for him an
implication of volume is thus avoided. Paint- then acres of painting have come into exist- `appearance' in relation to a reality beyond
ings constructed entirely by this technique do ence in which textural monotony is the rule, an the painting. In truth, Hofmann's departure
tend to evoke experiences of substance, the aspect of a tide of blindness which accom- from a conception of painting space as impli-
specific nature and location of which, how- panies doubts about the identity of the plastic citly volumetric was never as complete or as
ever, remain unidentifiable, ungraspable. The arts in face of the literary-philosophical radical as Matisse's. The heiratic chromatic
allure of this process is unquestionable. propaganda initiated by Dada, and perpetu- splendour of Matisse's late work, its bar-
Taped edges tend to enforce the optical in- ated ad nauseam by Duchamp and his barism, 'the fierce impulse', is a good deal
substantiality of colour, but careful adjust- imitators. more abstract than anything achieved by
ments of value are necessary to prevent a This is not in the least a plea for traditional Hofmann's art, which always has latent impli-
planar reading. There is a particular logic painterly values or 'la belle peinture', but cations of a Rembrandtesque dynamic of
about this process which in the hands of a simply the point that when visual acuity is meshing breadth and detail, around which
gifted colourist such as Kenneth Noland extended by painting of quality, its exercise shades of easel painting curl. The chink in
makes for compelling painting. A further becomes applicable categorically to the totality Hofmann's armour is revealed in this extract
function of drawing was revealed by his work of the presentation. This I take to be a lesson from his writings: 'Pictorial space exists two-
for those who were not aware of it already to be learned from Olitski's paintings. dimensionally. When the two-dimensionality
when the shape of the canvas support was In visual experience in general, in the visual of a picture is destroyed, it falls into parts—it
seen to operate crucially in activating the field, in spite of the analytical scrutinizing bias creates the effect of naturalistic space. When
total spatial configuration of the painting, and of bi-focal attention, all proceeds by elision. a picture conveys only naturalistic space, it
this whether the shape is rectangular or There are no lines, no discernible edges. The represents a special case, a portion of what is
otherwise. Much of the tension generated by notion of 'edge' is a complex construct from felt about three-dimensional experience. This
the spatial geometry of this mode of painting touch experienc . (In a sense also, however, expression of the artist's experience is thus
is a result of the immanence of volume defini- the notion of an undifferentiated visual field incomplete. The layman has extreme diffi-
tion, and how acutely the optics of the painting is a construct from experience of impressionist culty in understanding that plastic creation
are sprung to allow for its assertion. painting.) In the pictorial field maximal on a flat surface is possible without destroying
Another approach to problems of reference in opticality is achieved by a homologous surface this flat surface. But it is just this conceptual
abstraction has developed from aspects of the (which need not give rise to monotony), such completeness of a plastic experience that