Page 20 - Studio International - July August 1973

concepts of 'advanced' or 'progressive' art. Moore's sculpture was made of volumes sonata form. He has moved over long periods
They have all looked to the past — particularly sealed within surfaces, over which the eye of time from theme to variation to
to the pre-classical Mediterranean and primitive could slide but into which it could never recapitulation, and the nature of his medium has
past — and they have each given a reality to the enter. When Moore was faced with the problem frozen the movements so that they all share the
wholeness of time. They have all, often without of relating closed volume to open container, same space and time.
clear reason, changed style while at the peak of a such as the head to the mouth or eye, he usually Chronology for the writer on art is a useful
stylistic period. They have all at times seemed scratched a sign for the orifice on the large and reasonable way to distribute facts in time,
to take the most disturbing reversals in surface. Turnbull's sculptures of that time, and and the reader who finds it reasonable may get
direction. They have all observed nature later, show him always to have been interested the illusion that he has gained access to the art
through the vehicle of drawing and have all, in the specific details of nature's embryonic that is being discussed. For the sake of that
either in their painting or sculpture or both, dramas. It would seem that he did not use illusion many artists in recent times have
devoted much time to the subject of the free volume for a number of years because he could compromisingly exercised 'reasonable'
standing nude. not see it or construct it objectively. chronological control over the appearance of
The sculptor/painter would seem to be a The stand against volume proved crucial to their art. The door through which we can enter
combination of physical Titan, fox and the work of the years that followed, for with the their art is always situated at the point where
polyglot. He has also been the trickster, the rejection of the volume went a rejection of the they began their journey. If we look for a
difficult man who is entirely without cultural concept of an organic flow between art and reasonable development of style in Turnbull's
courtesy or charm, who disturbs the respected nature. He would see art and nature as quite work we will miss its central irony, which like
pathways of art. He speaks many languages and separate things, which when crossed would the irony of the fool and the prophet has the
has been known to deliberately answer the yield a form that was literally an end product. power to make us aware of our own originality.
dogmatism of his fellows in a way they will not Art would never grow 'naturally' out of art and We can find our way into Turnbull's art only
understand. the appearance of stylistic continuity would be as a response to its archetypal, that is to say
Turnbull, like Picasso, Matisse, Miró and fortuitous. original, models, models that have been
Giacometti, has invented a form of creative In the years that followed he demonstrated `existent from the first'. He has tried to empty
behaviour that does more than is traditionally how, during moments of supreme confidence, his work of everything that would impair the
expected of the artist. That he chose to work in when the artist is fully stretched, the slightest clarity of those 'models', and, so that his
two areas and has kept each independent of the modification to his procedure can dramatically understanding of them, as well as ours, would
other is of massive symbolic importance. In alter the 'look' of what he makes. Turnbull's not be obscured by the over-familiar he has
the presence of the clown who juggles as he art became an art of changes. During the 27 rejected things that were of his own making,
dances on a tight rope we may discover years since Horse, his sculpture has, often at such as easily recognizable style, things which
equilibrium. Some artists, like some clowns, one and the same time, been made open and most artists regard as life supports. There have
hold our gaze to the danger of their falling out linear, solid and self contained, monolithic and always been great risks attached to the way he
of equilibrium. Turnbull's equilibrium gives us flat and spread out over the ground. It has been has made his art, not the least of which has come
stillness. There is no rhetoric. His art is made made entirely without figuration and has been from his preferring nothing to confusion. His
with obsessional detachment. specifically concerned with the standing nude. contribution to the art of our time and to the
Turnbull said recently 'You find your He has crafted some of his sculptures with great many artists who, like myself; have learned
painting or sculpture when you find a way skill and has used found objects for others. He from its example, has partly been his courage in
to put it together.' In 1946 he made a sculpture has worked the surfaces of his forms with his exercising that preference. But the 'models' are
called Horse from flattish intersecting planes. hands or has cut them with chisels or has had there, bright and clear. They have no names and
Seen individually the planes are not them made from industrial processes. He has the ones we give them, like the ones we give to
figurative and together do not add up to an made them from stone, metals of all kinds, the 'models' contained in any art, at best
obviously iconographic form. They are not plaster, plastic, fibreglass and paint. describe regions of sensibility they enliven
used as constructivist units but have their own The paintings show how fortuitous the within us. My tribute to Turnbull is to name
separate characters which, placed as they are, appearance of continuity can be, for even in some of them.
echo the rhythms of the earth and of things their simplicity they behave in a wide variety of
growing from it. Horse with its horizontal and ways, rhythmic or static, hermetic or open, The container
vertical sheets, set Turnbull apart from the monochromatic or complex in colour. When the The horizontal containing the vertical was first
other young British sculptors of that time, who paintings became uncompromisingly flat the seen in Horse and is amplified in the sculpture
had followed Moore's example by making sculpture was made round and voluminous. of 1949. Sculpture 1949 is made of a thick base
volume synonymous with nature. For them as While making his most abstract paintings be of clay (later cast in bronze) small enough to be
for Moore objects could be metamorphosed has modelled the human figure or made sensual held in the hands, into which fifteen twigs have
into the human presence, could in turn become drawings from plants.
integrated into the environment, provided that His work is never deliberately related to (Facing page)
they had volume and a shape that was the developments of recent modern art. He (Right)
coincidentally humanoid to begin with. opposes 'avant gardists' who confuse medium Source 1958
Bronze,49½ x 21½ x 3½ in.
Moore's example of an animal bone becoming with message and seek to make models for a
a man and enlivening the hill from which it was future society by strictly separating sign from (Far right top)
Masks r953
dug was an example of sculptural principle symbol and seeking only to find models of man's Bronze
that bewitched nearly every young sculptor creative origins. He stands apart from artists (Centre top)
of that time. I think it would be true to say that who are what he calls 'static targets', who Female Figure 1955
Moore's work seemed too romantic and too full change their principles but not their Bronze 47½ in. high
of contradictions to Turnbull. For the way one recognizable style. He has never been inspired (Far right centre)
read Moore's sculpture contradicted the by a 'progressive' vision to make a rejection of Head/Object 1955
compactness with which it was made. The more everything that went before. He might have Bronze, 8 in. long
seductively the surfaces encouraged one's eyes wanted 'to be a moving target' but his (Far right bottom)
to travel over the volume, the more easily did movements have added up to a dance that could Permutation Sculpture 1956
Bronze, 59 in. high
the form drift into the picturesque. have been choreographed by one obsessed with Coll. A. Ossorio, USA
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