Page 17 - Studio International - April 1974

it was an artistic response to industrialization, Correspondence (New York, 196o) as a 'study for' and not as a
the degree to which it was due to moves for `later version' of the head for Woman in Front of
reform within industry and the degree to which Mirror. These two works are reproduced
it developed ideas about the nature of art which visa vis (plates 182 and 183). Each of the six
cannot be shown to be contained within either casts of the Head bears the artist's signature and
system. I suspect that a good deal of the the date '1913'. If she is referring to the
Ruskinian critique is capable of being explained possibility of a later date for the casting of the
within the terms of the fine-art system the Head, she should know that it is common
mediaeval context of Morris and the Arts and practice for sculptors to cast a work several
Crafts Movement for example. For Morris years after the date of the original project
could not revive the guild system. Rather, he (the idea).
held up models of mediaeval excellence to ANDREI B. NAKOV
inspire studio-craftsmen. This was surely an Paris
extension of the academic mode of art
production to the minor arts of personal Unintentional misrepresentation
adornment and domestic living. Morris, we I appreciate that this letter is rather delayed, but
might say, succeeded in elevating a select I hope nevertheless you will publish it, as it
group of crafts to the level of academic art, and sorts out a factual error which occurred
so performed for them what the Renaissance regarding my article in the February Studio. In
masters had achieved earlier for the your notes to contributors you said I lectured at
academic triad. In broad terms this might be Birmingham Polytechnic. This is not so - and
seen as a successful academic response to an the discrepancy is significant. It stands against
industrial challenge. Instead of being produced the background of reaction to the sort of work
solely by industrial methods a number of the article was about and that I'm engaged in.
favoured crafts came to be produced in two I've tried, along with other people, inter alia, to
modes : a cheap industrial mode and a more Archipenko broach issues concerning art education - both a
expensive studio-handicraft mode. Although In a letter to Studio International (March 1974, critique of the substantive aspects it has
this elevation of some crafts into the realm of p. 103) Mrs Janszky Michaelsen qualifies my devolved into and the ideology that devolution
the fine arts did not, as Morris ruefully opinion on Archipenko as a 'misrepresentation' represents - in the pages of this magazine, in
realized, provide an answer to the problems of the contacts between Russian and Italian discussions at colleges, and in other unpublished
which so troubled him, its significance is not to futurists. Unfortunately, her comment reveals work. For some time I tried through orthodox
be under-estimated. The arts and crafts once again a well established erroneous belief in channels to get a job of the kind you reported
movement cannot be said to be in a state of the supremacy of Western artistic patterns me as having. I did not get one; not least -
decline. Certain social and psychological based on total ignorance of the Russian art obviously - because of the interface between
consequences of industrialization have scene of the beginning of the century. So, for incumbent ideology and my attitudes (liberal
continued to promote its development on a the simplification of her PhD, Archipenko has to protestations really do seem to lack a base in
world-wide scale. belong only to the Parisian milieu exclusively. practice - but that can't be gone into here), but
I suspect that there are some aspects of the With this apriorical restrictive view of the also because I didn't get involved in any
critique of industrialism that cannot be artistic world before 1914, she can easily exclude backstairs intrigues of the kind which make
subsumed within the system of beliefs and from her study the Russian contacts. colleges look like rotten boroughs. Far from
values of either the fine-art or the industrial What surprises me is that a Columbian `lecturing at Birmingham Polytechnic', I am a
system. They are linked with Schiller's student's opinion is supported by such lorry driver for a firm of export packers. This is
contention that art originates in play and superficial gossip material as the Severini not ipso facto regrettable: my present status
Ruskin's contention that art is a kind of memoirs of 1946. Does Mrs Janszky itself constitutes a critique of the academic
fulfilment in work. The critique certainly owes Michaelsen know that Severini is responsible Poulsonism rife in this 'activity'.
a good deal to the fine-art system itself, with its for the myth of the 'first trip of Marinetti to The mistake might have been inconsequential,
stress upon the liberating aspects of the free- Russia' in 1910 (sic!). had I, say, been lecturing at some other place.
play of invention. But the fine-art system also The Archivi des Futurismo she mentions in her As it is, the spectre gets raised that as a
stresses both the pursuit of excellence in the letter are well known to me, as I have referred to contributor I couldn't be thought of, in the
making of art works and the associated it in 'Alexandra Exter' (Bibliography, p. 55; absence of concrete information, as other than
conviction that creative invention springs only Paris 1972). My 'misrepresentation' is based on `professionally' guaranteed - an inference of the
from genius, or at least from a gifted few. So the critical examination of several documentary order 'lives there therefore teaches there'. You
that the burden of the Ruskinian critique sources, and among them on the Ester see, I hope, why I have to clear this up: my
becomes a proposal for the democratization of correspondence with Kulbin (see 'Alexandra present situation naturally accrues directly from
invention at the expense in some degree of Exter', p. 11, note 10), which in no way is my beliefs and past actions, but that situation is
other. contradictory to the Carra letter she cites but radically different from your representation of
excellence on the one hand and of utility on the
should be seen as a complement. it, however unintentional that was.
BERNARD SMITH As to the date of 1913 for the Head with PAUL WOOD
Crossing Planes, the Columbia student makes Birmingham
such a revelatory statement that 'this work is a
See George Kubler, 'The Shape of Time', 1962, later version of the head in the destroyed Wobbly hard edges
to whose analysis of production as a sequential construction Woman in Front of Mirror, 1914.' I am concerned at some apparent inconsistencies
process I am much indebted in what follows. It is a pity that for such an important discovery in Patrick Heron's article in the February issue
Kubler's notion of 'prime objects' however, in my
view, greatly weakens the value of his analysis. she does not support her assertion with new and of Studio International.
See Richard Kuhns, 'Art and Machine' ;Journal revealing factual evidence. This Head has been He makes the statement that the first four -
of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Spring 1967, pp 259-66 published by the artist himself in his book formal statements in a painting are the four
for an excellent discussion of the relation of fine-art
production to human heritage. `Archipenko: Fifty Creative Years, 1908-1958', boundaries; each straight edge. He later says
163