Page 41 - Studio International - January 1972

resurgence of painterliness—of a new interest in Moon has floundered—and has become seduced fore, seem somehow meaningless. The activity
complicated, tactile and broadly 'expressive' by the ideologies of his art. The grid formats of the grid meeting the edges of the support is
concerns—and that his taking on of involved (mainly diagonal) of the Rowan paintings have so slight and the colour juxtaposition is so un-
gestural forms means that painterliness has now only a conceptual interest as a 'conventional' demanding that it is hard to see the pictorial
become an inescapable issue for new art.' But art-making device.3 Formally, one searches for justification behind them.
the situation is rather more involved than that; some justification for these works. As with the I prefaced this article with the remark that
for Stella has, since the Protractor paintings, Stellas, some are better than others. Flamingo stylistic ambition is no guarantee of excellence;
relied very much on complications and ambi- and Lake set themselves above the overtly but here one wishes there had been more ambi-
guities which the new paintings really only ideological Fault (a grid split apart in one tion in terms of style. It should be by now quite
specify in a new way. Stella's work from 1959 section). Sun, Sand and Sea, a diagonal grid of evident that the possibilities of sixties
to around 1963 possessed a real conviction and lemon yellow on a blue ground, is so plainly a `linearism' are being openly challenged. It may
directness which, I feel, has been lacking since failure of taste (and looks too like a Patrick seem unfair to blame Moon for limiting his
that date. What the new paintings seem to show Caulfield to be taken seriously). Christmas, a ambitions to what he is accustomed to cope
is either that Stella has become aware of his red and green diagonal grid on grey, seems with (and I am certainly not saying that to strive
problems—that he could no longer continue as banal when you read the title, but is among the for radicalism is ever enough—for it is becoming
an accomplished designer—or that his evident better paintings. But none really have any con- more and more clear that the cloak of radicalism
design sense is seeking new grounds to conquer. viction. In these works, Moon has clearly not hides as much poor art as the Academy used to),
Some similar works, shown recently at Rubin's looked hard enough at what he is doing—has not but the disappointment of these paintings is
in New York, have not only the varied applied challenged himself in the way all artists must both that they lack a local intensity of effort and
materials, but an actual change in relief across do if their pictures are to be more than that their broader ambitions seem so narrow.
surfaces. They spell-out, more obviously than `realized' schemes. It is always easy to have At this stage, I should perhaps attempt to
the Kasmin paintings, that Stella is finding the good ideas; but a lot harder to keep checking justify discussing in some detail paintings which
actual practice of painting somehow unsatis- their results. By using grids, Moon has taken on fall below a reasonable standard of excellence.
fying and is looking to bas-relief as a way out. something very difficult: to make pictorial It would be very easy to bypass work like this;
But however much one respects Stella's inte- something by now strongly conceptual in for criticism is generally only useful when
grity, one cannot help but feel that this is nature. Few have achieved this, and those who considering what one thinks of as good art. But
dodging the issue. As paintings they so obvi- have done it have been aware of the dangers of there is a good deal of value in trying to under-
ously fail to carry conviction: their complica- their situation. Moon, one feels, has been stand why potentially serious art falls down. So
tions have so little real logic other than of ignorant in this sense, and the paintings, there- often, failures are as instructive as successes;
incident—and this is how one tends to read them.
They embrace illusionism, like the 1967 paint- 6
ings I mentioned, but their illusionism appears
somehow unintentional—a matter of failing to
convince as surfaceness. They cannot help but
insist their being carpentered —but this too
seems the by-product of a failure on other
counts. One is never sure whether certain gaps
between the applied materials is intentional or
not or whether the revealed corrugated paper on
the sides is supposed to be part of the painting.
Too much is left to chance. But for all their
manifest failings, one is left with an indescrib-
able feeling that Stella was somehow correct in
breaking with his past. Odelisk IV at Kasmin
and its companion piece shown in New York
come close to achieving something of the
authority of the early Stella. They suffer on
many counts—especially in the choices of applied
surfaces—but they do stamp themselves as
confident images; and, for all my complaints,
works like these leave me with a very consider-
able faith in Stella's future.
If Stella's pictures suffer from their wilful
`radicalness'—their seeking to be 'genuine'
through an 'advanced' look—Jeremy Moon's 7 8
recent works, shown at ROWAN, disappoint for
other reasons. I admired Moon's Y-shaped
paintings of 19672 for the seriousness with
which they fixed their 'literalness' (partly in
response to Stella's Ifafa II of 1964). At that
time, Moon appeared to be in the process of
becoming a very serious artist. The issues he
was confronting were very real ones, and some
of that year's paintings (especially those which
made strong use of yellows) remain important
in modern English art. His recent paintings,
however, have lost their intensity. Somewhere,

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