Page 55 - Studio International - September 1973

OSTEND PICASSO condemned as the painter who
destroyed painting, should have
become among other things the great
This year's Europa Prize exhibition Today in Avignon the austere exponent of plastic and poetic
in Ostend was the sixth in a biennial masonry of the great fourteenth- qualities in his regeneration of that
series that began in 1960. Like its century chapel of Pope Clement VI has art. To the formal, measured
predecessors, it had a specific been covered once more with achievements of early Cubism he has
character which sets it apart from paintings which have a unity of style added influences, with humour and
the general run of mixed international and yet are bewildering in their passion creating a style which could
exhibitions. It is genuinely a variety. Three years ago there was in be called emotional cubism.
volunteers' exhibition. Dealerdom in the same great hall a similar
plays no part in it. Nobody has display of Picasso's production of one Once more Picasso has presented us
an official sponsor behind him. year, 1969, supplemented by a few in this exhibition with a visual
The prizes, though generous in drawings, In both cases the contrast saturnalia in which we should not
themselves, are purchase-prizes; for between the ancient religious setting look for a climax. There is no central
this reason, established big names are and the pagan strength of the masterpiece. For years, rather than
unlikely to compete. What emerges is, paintings was obvious. This time it is concentrate on one work, he has
on the contrary, an authentic even more accentuated by the sense produced groups of paintings that are
impression of what is being done all of urgency they contain. We are Picasso Maternité 1970 related to each other and elaborated,
over Europe by artists who were presented with the latest news 116 x 89cm with great variety, themes he has had
born for the most part in the 1940s. displayed without ceremony, with no at heart all his life —themes which are
This year there were in all 575 fuss and no frames on bare walls in themselves simple but which
entrants from fourteen countries, and exposed boldly to the public eye. forgotten. They have been used with contain timeless symbolism.
about one in six got by the exuberance in the service of the
international jury, which was Three years ago although he was emotions and allowed a freedom in There are scenes of courtship,
presided over by Emile Langui, the already a recluse, the author was still line, colour and form which would serenades and lovemaking ; the
elder statesman of the Belgian art- alive and answerable for the have been inappropriate sixty years cavalier reappears dressed in all his
world. rebellious, penetrating assault he was ago. He has used methods which are vanity and clutching that male symbol,
making on the sensibility of festival intrinsic to painting and which make guardian of life and death, the sword,
A first circuit suggested that Roger goers. Now, in silence and in a flood this art as powerful in its influences the hilt of which resembles the cross
Nellens's outsize and meticulous of sunlight we are faced with his last on the eye as music can be to the ear. and also Picasso's initials. Of the
paintings of machine-tools were will and testament or rather a codicil It is in this domain that Picasso has same order are the Goyaesque
the strongest works that had been to the great legacy he has left. The put himself to the test here. portraits of bullfighters. But, in a
submitted. M. Nellens comes of a most recent of these works was different mood there are several
family at Knokke- Le Zoute which has painted about nine months after his With the candour of an artist who has versions of maternity, one of which
a long history of inspired patronage ; ninetieth birthday and only ten no fear of criticism and nothing he contains a surprising reminder of the
and his paintings have a commanding months before he died. Still a rare wishes to hide, he demanded when ephemeral and anonymous quality of
presence, even if they do not efface degree of invention and spontaneity the exhibition was proposed that all life. In this monochrome painting, the
the memory of those masters of this dominates, although the colour may the paintings he had done during this face of the mother holding her child
century who have adapted the be less high pitched, the eroticism period of twenty-one months should has enigmatically been painted out.
machine-idea to poetic uses. less joyous and references to death be shown without selection. It would
Eventually, however, M. Nellens was more evident. Throughout there is the not have been unlike him to insist on It is above all in his commentary on
edged into third place : another characteristic blending of tenderness this so as to cause confusion among the human head and its multiple
Belgian, Jacques- Louis Nyst, came with cynicism, of love with anguish, those who buy only for the signature. expressions that this exhibition
second with a group of most of contemplation with impatience. There is, in consequence a striking excels. There is great variety in his
elegantly doctored photograph- There are paintings that can rank inconsistency in quality which at interpretations of the eye,
pieces, and the first prize went to as portraits of friends but more often times enhances the strength of the communicating a wide panorama of
Michel Tyszblat, a Parisian who uses they have symbolic references to the more important works and is often human emotions. Full face or with
the apparatus of everyday life to moods and actions that are the revealing in giving clues to his both eyes conversing together on the
bring out affinities with the machine, essence of our lives. methods. It also emphasizes the same profile, they greet us with the
on the one hand, and with the impatience with which he sinister grimace and the
human anatomy on the other. It has become fashionable recently to became increasingly obsessed as he vacant doting of old age, with
Picabia rides again in M. Tyszblat's accuse Picasso of having run out of felt his end was approaching and the grotesque distortions of heads and
work, and he had just the necessary subject matter in his latter years, a time he needed to unburden himself hats that gyrate in unrestrained fury
charge of ambitious professionalism, taunt which I find absurd since there of all he still had to say was lacking. or with the hieratic authority of an
to carry the day. is no theme more persistent and empress. Everywhere eyes engage us
capable of infinite variations than the We are presented with the 'cri de in conversation revealing their
It is difficult to characterize exactly a observation of human life. The coeur' of the dying artist, the almost animation, their desires, their fears.
show which ranged in style from a conversation Picasso entered into daily revelation of his thoughts, his Time and movement, like night and
numerous rearguard of geometric with his subject was a long memories and his desires. There are day, can exist in the same face with
abstractionists to a carefully planned consideration of those three gifts, paintings that can only rank as urgent the sparkle of an eye that shines
and plotted project for 'the life, love and death. What is comments, rapidly begun and soon while the other is dead, an empty
application of a drop of transparent disconcerting is not the lack of abandoned. It was not unusual black hole—the negative of sight.
lubricating fluid on the precise spots subject matter but the way he for three or four paintings to appear in
of intersection of the earth's surface presents it. I have written at greater a day. Yet in spite of considerable In relation to the great legacy left to us
and its imaginary axis'. Perhaps it was length elsewhere about Picasso's shifts in the intensity of each work by Picasso, this final celebration of
largely for geographical reasons that attitude towards the subject in there is an extravagant richness of his genius at the Palais des Papes is
the unmistakeable set-faced fantasy painting. He has said more than once invention in the methods he used to like a last stormy salvo from the
which we associate with the Low that in our time, the subject, formerly convey his emotions. He handled setting sun, illuminating a troubled
Countries was finally predominant. the 'raison d'etre' of a work of art, no paint with a dexterity only made sky. Signs of cynicism, pessimism and
longer dominates it in the same way. possible by living with paint since his the unfathomable greatness of the
From this country, Stephen Buckley 'When you look at devils in medieval birth, smelling it in his father's studio unknown are present, disquieting and
was the most familiar entrant; but sculpture' he once remarked, 'you are and later mixing colours, producing yet saturated with his personality and
among the colour-painters present no longer frightened'. Painting had to magic effects of texture and his ultimate faith in humanity. The
the Australian Kerry Kennedy received find other less literal means of transparency, drawing with tenuous Avignon exhibition is the counterpart
a gold medal for work which had both remaining close to reality and yet or heavy line, spreading flat surfaces to the work of his youth which can
freshness and conviction. Dick increasing its emotional appeal. of colour and scratching, smudging, now be seen in abundance at the
French's Picnic, set in a calamitous scraping with movements that had Museo Picasso in Barcelona, they are
industrial landscape, also got under Behind the paintings at Avignon from early days become perfectly the take off and the landing in the
the guard of the Low-Countrymen. there is a life time of discovery. The controlled. It is paradoxical that flight of an eagle. q
JOHN RUSSELL inventions of cubism have not been Picasso, who has persistently been ROLAND PENROSE
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