Page 52 - Studio Internationa - March 1971

arrested voltage. stultifying influence, renounce the official
This is something that Rosenblum finds ladder to success and, after exile and revelation
a constant feature in Stella. He 'holds the in the forest around Fontainebleau, return to the
conflict between the frenzied and the frozen at place that is waiting for them at the café table;
fever pitch'. Those who consider Stella to be a the conversation has turned to the burning of
`cool' artist get a bit of a knocking in this book, the Louvre....
but are knocked judiciously, and in an oddly What is absolutely not considered is the
familiar way. For Rosenblum's academic exact nature of the great negative against which
interests mean that he is adept at juggling all they uttered their greater positive. There has
the changes on the Ingres-Delacroix argument. been a conspiracy of silence, broken only by
Art-history doesn't change as fast as art, and demonstrations of good-bad taste a la mode.
criticism is the loser thereby. Still, the The myth of exile has insisted on it this way,
Romantic-Classic argument, here again, and indeed has provided a scenario well into our
updated to hard-edge v. gestural, works rather century, irrespective of the facts. This is the
well, and Rosenblum's skills make Stella look pathology of modern art.
good in the middle of it. I look forward to the Here at least is a study of the background
Slade lectures he will be giving in Oxford next against which the incomparable achievements—
year. and the myths — were moulded. It is impossible
This new series looks quite nice, but one to do justice here to the scope and intelligence
might wish that there was rather more in them of this book. If its thesis can be summarized it
for the money. A good essay like Rosenblum's is that the truth lies in the story of the tensions
makes it worthwhile, but this isn't so with between the Academy and the independent
Christopher Finch's Patrick Caulfield. Finch's artists, and the official reactions to those
text lumbers up to 'This is not the place to tensions. There is only one starting point to the
make any sweeping pronouncements about the story — the Academy, its aesthetic and its social
future of European art and about Caulfield's organization. The story branches in all
position in this complex situation. It seems to directions. Independent artists were often
me possible, however, that the future of those who received official support and indeed
European art may lie in a kind of informed the role of government was often that of
conservatism.' Nobody should be required to mediator or popularizer. In this process, some
pay eighteen shillings for this kind of talk. academic artists were as severely neglected as
However, that sum equals two or three visits their most advanced rivals.
to a 'public' gallery nowadays, and this sort of Boime sweeps continually between the
book will increasingly assume some of the broad issues of social organization and detailed
public role which the government now denies examination of studio practice. One illuminates
to the real physical experience of painting. One the other. He shows, for example, how deeply
should be really glad, therefore, to read David competitive was the work in the ateliers. In
Thompson's essay on Robyn Denny, since it's organization they resembled ancient guild
difficult to see many of Denny's paintings; half schools with strict hierarchical barriers. But
of those reproduced are labelled 'coll the unlike the older forms, they offered no
artist', and they really haven't been seen around guarantee of professional success. This lay
as much as one would wish. So Thompson's only through a limited number of competitive
individual ability for reproducing the physical awards, the Prix de Rome. The ateliers, then,
experience of these pictures is especially were hot-beds of rivalry, bitterness and a
valuable. His discussion of size and scale is frustration which was economic more than
excellent, and in the example of Home from aesthetic. Boime suggests that the famous
Home—a 1959 painting—it becomes a touchstone atelier blague, when new students were cruelly
of his whole interpretation of the artist. teased, should be seen not so much as a harmless
Thompson is good at remembering what the bohemian prank as a session when pent-up
fifties were like, and is sensible in his assessment aggression and revenge could be worked out
of what the sixties achieved. He convinces one ritualistically against defenceless rivals.
that Denny certainly has achieved something Working out of doors may have taken on its
substantial, and ends with interesting remarks special symbolic intensity of meaning for
on Denny's Englishness in relation to the parallel reasons. But, he points out, painting
international scene. q out of doors was a regular feature in a number
TIMOTHY HILTON of academic studios; also that landscape had an
honoured place in the academic canon of the
The great negative nineteenth century; and that l'effet, the overall
impression of light and shade, was considered by
The Academy and French Painting in the the Academy to be the essential concept in
Nineteenth Century by Albert Boime. 332 pp painting, the vehicle of ideas and individual
plus 161 illustrations. Phaidon Press. £8.
feeling. This is typical of the way in which he
The Academy, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the explores the roots of the great innovation in the
Salon are shadowy presences in most accounts actual circumstances of the atelier. Everywhere
of the nineteenth century, bad fathers looming one comes upon familiar features but from a new
somewhere in the background muttering 'No'. angle and in unexpected places. Topping them
The true artists quickly throw off their all in importance, the main theme here is his
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