Page 54 - Studio International - July August 1973

useless then but Klein and his coevals pink monochromes were okay,
embraced it with gullible enthusiasm. though : one flatly painted, the other
Their ideas were usually inherited or encrusted. There was a 'fire' painting
disinterred from prior artistic with a nice looping design on a
movements, notably Dada and slightly singed ground. The wind and
Surrealism, and they were rain 'Cosmogonies' were nothing
conspicuously ignorant of or special and the big relief sponge
indifferent to post-war American art. painting was ponderous.
In consequence, and as a result of the Some commentators have
social and cultural conditions of discussed the ostensible relationship
European art during this period, their between Klein's paintings and
professed avant-gardism and contemporary American art. There are
subsequent practice exemplified a obviously superficial resemblances
latent form of embourgeoisement. but they stay superficial. Klein's
Klein's theories were predominantly paintings, although beautiful, are
mystical in inspiration and probably reactionary and in
indiscriminately eclectic. Some of comparison with the best American
his ideas were taken from Malevich, painting he steps aside. q
others derived from religious or R. J. REES
quasi-philosophical sources. In his
remaining years he fused his theories
to form a grandiose, synoptic vision of Cy Twombly at the Mayor Gallery
art which led him to produce a prolific from 16 May to 9 June
succession of works : relief paintings, Cy Twombly's long awaited London
sculptures, 'monogold' paintings, debut came in the form of a very
'fire' paintings with panels scorched limited exhibition. The Mayor gallery
by a flame thrower, 'wind and rain' showed a small selection of drawings
paintings—the elements infusing and and paintings from 1971 which were
forming the painted image, mural presented by a feeling of indecision,
decorations, proposed architectural indeed they suggested middle-aged
projects and more and more creative anaemia.
theatrical events. In his last years, Not that this was unexpected if one
Klein gradually succumbed to the had previously grouped Twombly
romanticist notion that the artist is with the second generation of
superior to the art and that the latter American abstract expressionists, but Cy Twombly Untitled 1971. Gouache, crayon, pencil on paper, 44x 38 in.
is merely a record of the artist's it proved disappointing if one had
exquisite sensibility. He came to been seduced by his disingenuous dormant on the left-hand margin. an exhibitionist. The accusation bore
regard his life as a 'constant spectacle' figurative drawing of only five years They consisted of short pencil marks a good deal of truth. One of the more
inseparable from his art, and thus ago. In fact there seems to be a at measured intervals and hastily effectively bewildering exhibitions at
much of his work is simply a stage widening gap between Twombly's scribbled numbers reminding one of his local gallery, La Tartaruga,
prop to the elaborate metaphysical recent ponderous non-figurative the informational role of consisted of rows of condensed,
roles he contrived for himself. landscapes and the humorous diagrammatic drawing. These veiled repetitive script on sheets of grey
Klein's excesses would seem to graffiti-based, light-filled sketches of references were more specific in the poster paper, all with curling edges.
place him in the infamous 'He Was the mid 1960s'. part of the series shown at Leo One was curiously amused at seeing
His Own Greatest Masterpiece' One of the works from 1971 at the Castelli's which had the Duchampian the uninhibited linear results of an
category of twentieth-century art. Mayor Gallery, the largest Untitled title, Letters of Resignation. artist's exercising routine in such
But this would be to ignore the canvas, contained the perplexing Glancing through the catalogues to intimate surroundings. Accordingly.
difficult and unmitigated force of the subtleties that make Twombly a Twombly's recent retrospectives in a good deal of what was disturbing
blue monochrome paintings. The difficult but outstanding draughtsman. Basel and Bern, one is reminded of the and unsatisfying about the seven
Gimpel Fils show exhibited only one Over a dark ground Twombly spread trouble he has taken to avoid direct other abstract drawings at the Mayor
of these works, but it was an diluted white oil which streaked and identification with New York Gallery stemmed from their false
exemplary piece. The painting hardened into crusty splashes as it ran movements. Physically he ensured isolation behind glass, In as much as
measures around six and a half feet downwards, very much on the his distance by settling in Rome in there is little doctrinal and very much
by five and the corners of the panel picture surface. Horizontally there 1957. Before that he had travelled in instinctive in Twombly's artistic
are rounded. The surface of the stretched ruled graphite lines and Italy, Spain and North Africa in the procedure, it seems only predictable
painting is inert, gently textured — freehand strokes, some in blue chalk, company of Robert Rauschenberg ; that among his superb drawings
almost fibrous—and entirely uniform. others smudged and vanishing. The the two were ex-students of Black there will occur less pungent
There is a strong polarity between the mass of lines was grouped in the top Mountain College where Twombly examples. q
stamped-out, emphatic shape of the half of the canvas, landscape fashion. had studied under Franz Kilne and CATHERINE LAMPERT
panel and the subtle inflection of its However, by their bulk and the Robert Motherwell. In Rome
surface. Initially, the deep luminous eccentric independence of their paths Rauschenberg had tried making art
blue corresponds in resonance with they brought to bear a downward from street debris, the result being a Edward Burra at the Tate Gallery,
the plaque-like shape of the support ; pull, thus reinforcing the planar series of rope objects which led to the 23 May —8 July
but on closer inspection, as the opposition of vertical and horizontal. dirt painting of 1952 .Not surprisingly Patrick Caulfield 'Print
inflection of the surface begins to The visually obvious record of each but in contrast, Twombly responded Retrospective' at the Waddington
assert itself, the blue changes line's making was in harmony with to the literary, hedonistic side of Gallery, 17 April —12 May
perceptibly, deepens, becomes less the clearly handmade modifications of Italian life. He soon derived colourful Jeremy Moon 'Paintings', at the
vibrant although no less powerful, the surface —for instance the scrubbed inspiration from mythology and the Rowan Gallery, 3-31 May
until finally it moves away from this patches, retraced lines and soiled classical past. Themes based on Edward Burra has generally been
correspondence and begins to edges. All very factural, and yet characters with the richest string of seen by critics as a modern
establish and renew the hitherto Twombly departed from an exclusively sexual deviations, like Sappho and Thersites, the scurrilous Grecian who
unexamined constitution of the factural approach by the Leda, fitted the aroused gesturalism characterized the goings-on in
surface. predetermined landscape format. The of his first mature work. Troilus and Cressida as all 'wars and
The rest of the show was uneven in band of lines, happened to be blue The symbolism of his personalized lechery' enacted by 'incontinent
quality. The Anthropométries are at horizon level, and in addition there graffiti had become more and more varlets'. The character of the
terrible : they represent a corny was a curious triangular line up-of implicit; thirsty-looking stains and Jacobean malcontent is popular in
'Images of Man' humanism of the pencil flicks describing perspective frenzied scrawls obliterated the English fiction, art criticism included,
kind rampant in the fifties. In contrast and one-point focus. biomorphic imagery and written but it is not a role that easily describes
with the solitary blue monochrome Staying with the same painting, one messages. Of course this kind of Edward Burra. England was at no
painting there were too many of these recognized the trademarks of drawing orgy fostered the critical time in Burra's life susceptible to
in the exhibition. A couple of small conceptual art, albeit lying rather judgment that Twombly was merely analogy with the Weimar Republic
44