Page 33 - Studio International - October1973

Lorraine

Gill

John Berger

Given the values of the present art world
(dealers, critics, publishers, etc) it is not
surprising that to discuss truly original work
usually means discussing work that is relatively
unknown. And this is the case now. Lorraine
Gill has not yet been 'discovered' by a dealer
or the network. Some of her paintings were
shown in a public hall in Oxford last Spring
(see Studio International June 1973) and a
larger selection of recent work will be on show
in London during the second half of October,
by courtesy of the Slade School of Art, at the
Collegiate, Gordon Street, London WCI.
The latter occasion will give readers an
opportunity to see and judge for themselves
the works, whose reference, in an art-historical
context, I want to try to define here.
It is tempting to talk about the meaning,
the content or the philosophical implications
of Gill's work. But this will make more sense
when her work is more widely known. Such
`interpretations' should follow the reader's
experience of an artist's work, not precede it.
And so I shall confine myself to trying to place
the work art-historically. What I have to say -
even about the art of the past - should have a
relevance to the paintings by Gill reproduced
on these pages.
Three moments in art history have
particularly influenced Gill : the moment of
the duecento and early Renaissance (Duccio,
Siennese School, Fra Angelico, etc); the
moment of Grünewald's altarpiece at Colmar;
and the moment of Cezanne's extraordinary from the spectator. In a painting by Duccio the (Top)
breakthrough to a new vision of nature. three dimensions are in a state of equality. Structures in Hyperspace 1973. 4o x 4o in.
I. How does one give as much value-as-reality Height and breadth are bordered by the frame,
(Bottom left)
to the far end of a field as to the near end ? and depth, as established by the overlapping Finite Infinity 1973. 40 x 40 in.
How does one paint a whole field and not of forms and by the drawing, is limited, 'framed'
simply a single view of it ? Some of the by the colour surface of the panel. The painting, (Bottom right)
Curved Universe 1973. 4o x 40 in.
paintings of the duecento appear to have in all three dimensions, is self-centred. And
answered these questions before they were this forces the spectator to abandon his position
posed. Duecento painting is sometimes of confronting the image, and to take up, in
thought of as being two-dimensional. This is imagination, another one somewhere within
because of the art that came after them, that the image. The fact that there is enough space
insisted upon the dominance of the third within the image to accommodate the spectator
dimension. Renaissance perspective insists that in this way, is why these works are never
the spectator confronts the scene depicted: merely decorative. (The same is true of Gill's
everything is seen as a function of distance work.)
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