Page 61 - Studio International - May 1972

which provides or suggests some theoretical different elements. From then on his art has
logic) look always arbitrary,—and that within the been concerned with complexity as a
context of abstractness (for Lucassen is not just syntactical expression. Recently he introduced
a figurative painter), can be just as well computerised randomness because working with
geometrically abstract as figurative,—they are extremely large amounts of elements at random
neutral all the same. This kind of thinking may heightens syntactical possibilities and seems
sound like Mondrian put upside down; however to be the best chance to arrive at unexpected
it still does adhere to the general proposition in structural complexities.
Mondrian's art : that elements are neutral and In a more general way, however, the main
that visual art comes down to relational ordering point of Struycken's achievement lies in his
of those elements. emphasis on the absolute neutrality of the
The possible arbitrariness of picture-making elements used in a picture, and hence on the
with abstract elements made the problem of fact that abstractness is not a periodic style but
procedure in abstract art a special one. In the a structure for making art (in somewhat the
first phase of abstractness, the years of World same way as central perspective is a structure to
War I, this grammar of illusionism was replaced realise illusionist space). In this respect his work
mainly by rather vague concepts such as surely is a radicalisation of what was only
`harmony'. It was, however, Mondrian again hesitantly present, I think, in Mondrian. And
who came closest to working within what may this kind of thinking, that art is made of neutral
be called the basic conditions of, say, a rectangle. elements which become meaningful only in
As there are fixed types of relation between a their syntactical relations with other elements,
man and a tree, types constituting the basic has provided a basic structure for much of the
conditions of figurative art, there are some best art in Holland. In the work of such different
fixed properties of a rectangle : it has sides, four personalities as Jan Dibbets or Carel Visser or
corners, a centre, two axes and two diagonals. Jan Maaskant art is certainly not reduced to the
It seems to me that Mondrian sensed the expression of syntactical relations. All three use
grammatical possibilities of this : he draws his such relations as compository principle, each
lines parallel to the sides or the axes, and he in his own way, to work out very different and
moves a rectangle close into a corner or towards individual expressions.
the centre. He uses the effects of equilibrium It may be true that the effect of neutrality
in the geometrical division of a rectangle, but was only there, in Mondrian's art, in spite of
certain aesthetic convictions as well as a himself. He chose to work with a few primary
traditional notion of the expressive stopped him elements because that kind of spareness and
from identifying a square form with the centre clarity went with his anthroposophical thinking
or a line with an axis. It was Ad Dekkers, most about the essence of reality—so in his art it has
of all, who made out of the objective properties semantic meaning. But later on the neutrality of
of geometric forms, such as the square or the elements destroyed the last remnants of figurative
circle, the basis of a grammar. This grammar thinking in abstract art (of which Kandinsky is
enables him to execute reliefs within a perfectly an example) and it made art, for some artists, a
logical procedure and, as it turned out, without venture almost exclusively concerned with
the reliefs becoming sterile or dogmatic. They syntax. I believe this purely syntactical art
have the extraordinary clarity of Mondrian's (which is also most purely abstract) was freedom he manages to find within the paradigm.
best work (which Dekkers consciously emulates), envisaged by Mondrian, and it is in its At the same moment there may exist several
while they are at the same time able to development that his true heritage lies. paradigms, and one paradigm may in one cultural
accommodate a highly complex behaviour of From the point of view of art-critical method area be stronger than another one. In her article
spatial effects and of effects of light. one may ask whether it makes sense to bring quoted above Miss Barbara Rose points to
Peter Struycken is also trying to formulate a back the art of a group of distinct individuals Mondrian as the paradigm for certain aspects
grammar. He arrived at a different, more flexible to one paradigm. I think that it does because it of New York School painting. I believe,
and also more complex system than did Dekkers. is characteristic of the continual development however, that other paradigms are much stronger
The reason for this difference is probably an of art (as, for that matter, of all other fields of in American art, but that Mondrian's art is the
originally different relation to Mondrian. While human behaviour) that paradigms come into dominant paradigm for most of the best art in
Dekkers was interested mainly in the clarity and existence and grow into some kind of symbolic Holland today. q
apparent simplicity of Mondrian's pure plasticist model. In art a paradigm (which is something
style of the late twenties and early thirties, else than a person-to-person influence) 5 P. Struycken Structure 1969
Struycken was more intrigued with the increase establishes what is, at a given moment in time, 6 Reinier Lucassen A Cosy Corner 1968
of visual complexity in Mondrian's late essential for art to do, and it formulates in a 18o x 260 cm. Coll: Dordrechts Museum, Dordrechts
7 J. C. J. van der Heyden Page from Book 1-2 1965
paintings. These paintings expressed, so to say, general and abstract way what is relevant as art 50 X 65 cm.
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
increased complexity, but did so with even or not. And since art exists within an aesthetic 8 Jan Dibbets
fewer elements than are used in the earlier, context which is not there by nature but by A White Wall (12 Numbered Photographs with
Different Shutter Speeds)
more simple-looking pictures. The black grid some kind of collective conviction in a culture Published in Art & Project Bulletin 36 (April 7, 1971)
doesn't appear any more, only the primary (or parts of a culture) it is necessary to try and Coll : Panza di Biumo, Milan
colours remain, while there is at the same time describe the different aspects of an art (or artist) 9 Jan Maaskant Relief 197o
8o x 8o cm. Coll: the artist
less difference in the size of the elements used. that has become paradigmatic. For it is in the 10 Carel Visser
The suggestion here is (at least it was the strength with which a paradigm establishes itself Coupled Square 1969
suggestion picked up by Struycken) that and remains established that this collective Coll : Galerie Espace, Amsterdam
11 Jan Maaskant
complexity is expressed through syntax and not aesthetic conviction makes itself known—as an Untitled 1970
through striking contrasts between wildly individual artist expresses his quality in the 125 X 200 X 200 cm. Coll: the artist