Page 61 - Studio International - November 1973

In his treatment of Dadd's work in and murder remarkably like the one in which he had appears to be provoking a profound
immediately after his return from the Middle already participated. dematerialization of art, especially of art as
East, Mr Greysmith is even more clearly Much of the comment remains at this rather object, and if it continues to prevail, it may
manipulating the facts to fit a preconceived trivial level. Colour, one of the most subtle result in the object's becoming wholly
theory. There is in the V & A a sketchbook attractions of many of these works, is rarely obsolete.' (`Changing', p. 255).
brought back from this journey containing some spoken of, an unfortunate omission in a book `Six Years' is about a time span in
marvellously fine drawing, its 191 pages of whose colour reproduction is so bad that anyone contemporary art history, about some of the
figure studies and bits of landscape and not knowing the originals may be forgiven for events in so-called conceptual art, as described
riverscape, scattered throughout with myriads of thinking that Dadd selected his palette from a in the book's long and pedantic sub-title : 'a
miraculously tiny boats. But instead of being packet of mixed blancmange powders. One cross-reference book of information on some
told about this, we are told that after his return, notable exception is a remark about the 'heavy aesthetic boundaries : consisting of a
`some of the paintings' are spiritless and prosaic dark colouring . . . rather oppressive and dull' of bibliography into which are inserted a
and 'exhibited a stilted quality and the Tate's Flight out of Egypt, which happens to fragmented text, art works, documents,
awkwardness, as if he were forgetting his hard- be the only one of Dadd's paintings which interviews and symposia, arranged
earned skills as draughtsman and designer'. might be described as gaudy, with its dazzling chronologically and focused on so-called
This sounds circumstantial enough: but in fact scarlets and bright blues and yellows. conceptual or information or idea art with
there is only one painting known at all from Mr Greysmith begins by saying that he has mentions of such vaguely designated areas as
this period, Caravan Halted by the Sea Shore, as tried to avoid the pitfall of overrating his minimal, antiform, systems, earth, or process
a glance at the checklist will confirm (and this subject, and in the matter of illustration his art, occurring now in the Americas, Europe,
is, incidentally, a picture of strange beauty and publishers seem to have joined all too England, Australia, and Asia (with occasional
striking quality, whatever it may look like at enthusiastically in helping towards this aim; at political overtones), edited and annotated by
plate 36). Otherwise there are a few watercolour any rate, they have managed to represent most Lucy R. Lippard'. This way of organizing,
sketches, at least one of them of high quality, of the work of this most refined and delicate of chronology being the only ordering principle,
most of them as likely to have been made during artists as a series of coarse, clotted, out-of-focus suggests that it is the ambition of 'Six Years' to
as after the journey. blotches. be kaleidoscopic, open, and global.
Thus the whole of Dadd's early surviving Those who already admire Richard Dadd may Part of the short preface consists of excerpts
work is apparently dismissed as being too be glad of this book, if they can afford it, to from an interview by Ursula Meyer with Lucy
uninteresting to be worth looking at, on the expand their existing knowledge of him; and it Lippard, done in 1969, in the middle of
evidence that the parts which have not survived does contain a list of his works at the end which, everything. This interview expressed the then
do not sound very interesting from their titles. though very incomplete and often confused, is current hopes and ideologies about non-object
For the rest, the discussion consists largely of the most substantial produced so far. But there art being able finally to force 'another culture,
random comments on individual pictures, of is little in it to attract those who have yet to be a new network' beyond the traditional art
which only The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke is introduced to the fascination of his work; to the establishment — a new culture with a free and
treated in much detail. This comment is precise assurance of his draughtsmanship; the open exchange of information, ideas, concepts.
particularly rewarding when the pictures are delicacy of drawing and subtlety of colour of the " But in a postface to the book, 1973, Miss
considered from the point of view of design, watercolours; his absolute mastery in two Lippard confesses to having been too
a reminder that the author is here on home extremes of style, the texture of a fabric laid optimistic.
ground as a painter; and it is a pity that he did down with a few broad washes of shadow, the After six years, the phenomena which make
not choose to treat more than one or two to texture of the sea built up speck by speck with up the book are now more or less channelled
analysis in these terms. Otherwise he does not the point of a one-haired brush; the sheer into several conceptual sub-styles and modern
have much to say beyond what is fairly apparent virtuoso brilliance of many of the paintings and traditions, in a classic paradigm of artistic
from looking at the photographs, and sometimes the ultra refinement of detail, epitomized in development sometimes referring back, and
seems to be casting rather desperately around Oberon and Titania with its endless and explicitly so, to traditions in old art. A lot of the
for something to fill in with. Of the 'Passions' compulsive games of hide-and-seek; the things that looked fairly new and interesting in
drawings, Hatred, for example, we are told that inventiveness, the self-sufficiency, the total 1966, though nobody could really say whether
it is a theatrical work, and that 'here the pose of commitment which in every work produces a they were good or not, now seem inflated and
the man is surely that of a ham actor. Note that fresh revelation of a vision so intense that it can derivative. Things turned out differently, as
both he and the fallen figure have the same sort never be ignored, even where, as occasionally some people hoped and as Miss Lippard
of shoes; there is a motto of some sort upon his it does, it repels. All this, and much besides, is recognizes; and 'Six Years' is such a curious and
garter and what at first looks like an anomalous not to be found here, either in the text or in the disconcerting book because it is made as if all
watch hung upon a ribbon around his neck, illustrations. q hopes did come true. Therefore it fails as
though probably it is just a medallion . . .' Even PATRICIA ALLDERIDGE contemporary history. It tries to recall 'the
from the poor illustration it will probably be chaotic network of ideas in the air, in America
obvious that the composition is theatrical and abroad, between 1966 and 1971' (p. 5); but
because it is a scene from Henry VI part 3; that Hail to the network it doesn't make clear, as it should, how the
the characters are in what the mid-nineteenth Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art expectations for the future, so happily voiced in
century considered to be the appropriate Object from 1966 to 1972 by Lucy R. Lippard. 1966, were gradually perverted or abandoned.
costume for this play, right down to their shoes; 272 pp and 128 monochrome illustrations. There is nothing in the book to provide a
that the motto on the garter is `lion soit qui mal London: Studio Vista 1973. £4.60. glimpse of the traditional power structure
y pense'; and that it is indeed just a medallion within the art world (the galleries, the dealers,
and not an anomalous watch. We might have The title and subject of this book refer back to the magazines, the established artists), which is
been told, but are not, the less obvious but more an article by Lucy Lippard and John Chandler very real — nor does one find information about
interesting fact that Richard, Duke of published in 1968 in Art International (and now relations between artists and between artists and
Gloucester is almost certainly a self-portrait, and reprinted in Miss Lippard's book of essays, critics; and those relations are very real too, as
that Dadd has therefore chosen to represent `Changing') in which a new contemporary sub- Miss Lippard must know. Also it would be
himself overtly here (elsewhere he does it more title was welcomed with a new label: 'The informative to know why people in 1966 thought
obliquely) as the protagonist in a scene of studio is again becoming a study. Such a trend or hoped that a new culture would come, given
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