Page 42 - Studio International - September 1972

soon seem fitted for aesthetic contemplation. only if there existed world-wide strict control of But I think we are also aware of impasse in
Hence he linked the Impressionists with a conservation, pollution, of drastic consumption those directions where symbolic functions of
development that includes Duchamp's cut-back, and above all of population. You may the art object are either isolated or minimized
ready-mades; also with presentations at this not agree. At any rate it is not disputed that or consciously repudiated. This last attitude
moment, constructions akin to industrial ecological studies induce an awareness of the itself tends in fact to be symbolic—symbolism
products, seemingly casually arranged as works delicate balance as well as the traditional power can never be undone—of the psyche's negative
of art. I find this analysis particularly poignant of Nature whose interdependent processes we estimations and of the projection of schizoid
in view of the lack of resonance from our streets. begin to fear will disintegrate under our touch : states. On the other hand I regard it as a gain
The great extension of subject-matter, as well as Nature the broadest aspect of our home. For it is that, doubtless encouraged by the lack of
its disappearance, over the last hundred years not the urban scene alone that induces some planned reverberation from urban environment,
will have been over-determined. I would point estrangement, with no certainty anywhere of from haphazard technological advance, we are
only to the breakdown of architecture as had unpolluted process. We know seas and skies are thoroughly learning at last the most austere
hitherto been achieved, and would suggest that threatened, that is, our use of them is threatened lesson of Darwinian evolution. It has taken a
one reason for the vast extension of subject- by our usages. hundred years for the complete realization to
matter might be that the artist had felt the And so, to return to art, it seems that modes come through that there could be no plan in
sense of meaningful urban surround to be at evolved in the scanning of appearances promise such a process, no built-in design: that the
risk and that, lacking a meaningful frame, as it no future better than their present since our emergence, as we call it, of life itself is a chance
were, for the urban activity of the time, he faith in the essence of the things at which we chemical concatenation of interest to ourselves.
searched for its reconstruction not only in the look suffers qualification. Yet there is the other Such lack of partiality in its fullness is apt to hit
studio and the studio figure: he found it thought, namely that the natural scene, even the non-religious as hard as the religious, the
everywhere if he treated everywhere in such a from the practical point of view, has become, philosopher as well as the ordinary man. We
way as to evoke, not architectural forms —far and will increasingly become, more precious acknowledge instead the power of the drives,
from it—but the contrasts and reconciliations of from the literal fear of its further appropriation particularly the sexual drive. There is also the
architectural textures. Since that time most and poisoning by man. I can imagine panic, instinct of self-preservation. Survival of the
painting has offered compensation for the loss stampede of panic in the face of wide disaster. I species rather than of the individual, nation,
of textures in our streets. The state of this can imagine circumstances by which, for the race, has, or will soon, become a sublime and
development in the arts today show that we must first time, the concept, the human species, will conscious aim that must in part reverse an aim
try to fan warmth from unlikely material be an emotive term for all. It would require all, uniform through the hundreds of thousands of
unconfined by older patterns of response. if the species at large shall survive only through years of human existence, repudiating what is
Whenever, wherever we may, we must the terrible suffering bf cutting back in now suddenly an excessive control and
construct our home. production and consumption as well as, employment of other forms of life and of
An accompaniment of these attitudes has drastically, in the production of offspring. It is geological deposits.
been the regard for Nature and the materials of likely that the present is the moment of greatest But moderation in the ecological interference
Nature to which Andrew Forge also referred, plenty, confined though it is to the rich would not apply to the probable controls, say,
quoting Reynolds on the imperfection of Nature countries. Hence, to put it briefly, respect for from genetic science over selective breeding. It
as opposed to art, the correction by art of the unseen delicacy of an overpowering is easy to see that the pushing of science forward
Nature; contrasting Reynolds's view with the mechanism, the world: poison, otherwise, in many directions while foregoing other
subsequent Romantic need—we are still in the starvation. I leave out of account the possibility immediate power that it could bring, and indeed
Romantic phase though in a different manner— of destruction and atrophy from atomic warfare. has brought, added to the urgency of strong
to sit at Nature's feet. This coincided—grimly restraints upon production, will complicate
enough—with the beginnings of the Industrial further the problem from the psychological as
Revolution, with the unparalleled extension of well as from the economic angle. This too will
the extraction of natural resources and of have to be faced. It seems that almost
science. But whereas the biological aim impossible courses are now demanded. There is
throughout history has been the conquest, the ample room for despair.
full employment of Nature, success in recent As far as we know there has not hitherto been
years is such that man gobbles up the world, his Art tells of ourselves in terms of the external a survival problem for mankind as a whole
own placenta as it were. I must repeat that world; tells that we are now joined to things spread over much of the earth. When in the
natural riches as used at present are in danger of that mean less than we would like them to do. past an area was depleted or over-populated or
depletion not at all distant. Some authorities Each of the vastly differing aspects of the had become climate-wise or predator-wise more
believe in the efficacy of future substitutes. I Modern Movement can be interpreted as an difficult, if adaptation was impossible a move
cannot argue, though it seems clear that even attempt to get on familiar terms with these was made elsewhere. For us there will be
were the substitute endeavours that might things. Yet away from art, we contemplate them nowhere to go. It has been put out that at the
embrace the complete victory of synthetic food glumly. I wrote more than twelve years ago of present rate of increase the world population in
and the anxious re-use of metals, were they what I called the 'is-ness' of some avant-garde less than a century would be thirty billions, that
enough to furnish a much enlarged population, art. Of course modern art is most varied and is, perhaps nine times the present swollen
these substitute endeavours could be effective experimental : and in achievement, magnificent. number. No one denies the gravity. Differences

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