Page 50 - Studio International - February 1974

UK Reviews in 1682, and seventy years after that
Richard Wilson, with whom the
Landscape in Britain at the exhibition proper opens, was himself
Tate Gallery, London, 21 November- in Italy, carefully unlearning his
3 February 1974. training as a portraitist by dogged
One of the things that are Not Done attention to the landscape precedents.
in English artistic circles, literary It is often remarked how italianate are
ones too, is to question the high Wilson's views of Wales. One might
status accorded to the native also add that there was something
landscape tradition. The Tate ill-sorted about his occasional
Gallery's major winter exhibition, attempts to import the ideational
Landscape in Britain 1750-1850, part of the Claude/Poussin formulae,
rather takes for granted the spirit of which provided for ideal and heroic
affectionate reverence with which branches of the art. Perhaps it was
the subject — hardly ever measured this that wouldn't travel ? It's
against European painting history as certain that derivative landscape in
a whole — is generally approached. England suffered generally by being David Cox machines with prominent figurative
Caernarvon Castle, undated, 5 7/8 x 11 3/4 in.
The show further presumes on our deprived of the muscle of intellectual content? The portability of
tolerance in this respect by the lofty content; which turned out to be his media, and we find him watercolour is often praised, but on
claims made by some of the latest lot doubly a pity, because the profitably experimenting with dubious grounds. Artists should have
of people to be professionally in compensatory freedom of using the soft-ground etching, aquatint and spent more time in their studios
charge of the period, a whole means of painting were not fully soon. These means certainly got reading French encyclopedias, living
sizzling New Generation of exploited. That is, when landscape back into his painting with liberating on their nerves and studying
watercolour scholars (Conal Shields, excluded history, portraiture, figure effect. As one would expect, some odd greatness. People shouldn't sneer at
Leslie Parris, John Gage, Francis groups, mythology, genre, what it things occasionally happened as a Haydon too much. They should have
Greenacre are the most prominent). had left was an excellently germane result of a change of medium. An more reservations about a familiar
Conal Shields's assertive introduction characteristic : the fact of being a example would be David Cox's composite image of another type of
announces the subject as 'among the relatively neutral vehicle for the lovely Rhyl Sands. Cox, a English artist; the wandering young
most remarkable episodes of cultural practice of painting, by which term I watercolourist all his life, took up oils drawing master in his stout shoes and
history', (wow; compared with what mean painting. Few artists had only when an old man ; this picture fresh young face, a flute in his
other 'episodes' ?) and invites us to enough sunny feelings in their fingers was painted at the age of seventy. knapsack along with the box of
believe that it constituted a 'revolution to accept this situation as an Leslie Parris's catalogue note paints, perhaps walking to Wales or
in taste'. But this isn't true at all, if the opportunity. One seldom feels, as one comments that continental parallels the Yorkshire Moors on sketching
word revolution is to have its usual always does with Claude, that the have often been sought (usually with tours that could extend for months,
meanings. The very first section of accepted limits of a formula were in Boudin, actually) and quotes Cox's especially in the summer. Hippy
the show proves the opposite. There fact an exquisitely demanding biographer : 'He frequently had vermin. They often turn up in
we have Claude, Poussin, Gaspard testing ground in which can be seen misgivings that his method of Victorian novels (e.g. The Woman in
Dughet, Salvator Rosa, et al, with what beauty, or beauties, might be working was not in accordance White) in which case they make it with
their clear prognostications of what produced. In England, more often with the accepted practice — he the sweet young heroine as well,
cherished the notion that there when her blimpy old father has been
were secrets which "the oil won over. Not a bad way of life,
men" would not tell him—and he all that, for an amateur, or for a person
was invariably nervous and fidgety with no artistic ambition ; but it was
when any of the painters in oil insidious. Leslie Parris says quite
approached his pictures to examine straightforwardly, perhaps not
them closely.' This is eloquent of the anticipating how widely his stricture
conservative nature of the status of oil might be applied, that a great deal of
painting. the watercolour business was
Here was one reason for the great 'a holding operation for the
advantages of watercolour. It had squirearchy.' Who, of the artist or the
alla prima spontaneity, but was also patron, came first, is not an
rapid-drying enough for successive important question in this context;
layers to go on quickly. It could be what does seem necessary,
flooded, but could not be buttered out metacontextually, is to say that
into volume with anything of the conventional, unimportant art made
sureness allowed by oil techniques. for proud little land-owning baronets
So it had that element of risk in it is not an interesting or important
which, in derivative oil painting, was topic.
John Constable than the guardians of the subject will subdued by the massive example set Some of the more cultivated
Dedham Vale 1802,9 3/4 x 12in.
admit, something went wrong with by the past. Further, in the lighter friends of landscape art also provoke
English landscape was to be the touch. It could be that the dry- values it went up to clear and brilliant a pshaw. One thinks of Joseph
centuries afterwards. What kind of arid-raggedness of Salvator's tones almost of its own accord, and Wright's Sir Brooke Boothby, a
revolution is it when a painting by manner, together with the prosaic this tended to negate the boring significant picture which is in the
Constable in 1802, Dedham Vale, application of Dutch painting a la Italian- academic light/dark rules. Tate, though not in the exhibition ;
faithfully follows a Claude of the Ruisdael, held back oil painting from So it had many things in its favour. that soft-faced man lying around in a
1640s? It wasn't even a shift the creative ease in improvising On the other hand, watercolour copse reading Rousseau, having
engendered by a strategic historicism. around set motifs, and all the decreased the scope of artistic taken his gloves off. This is an
English landscape is almost whispered fluidities; a way that ambition in a general way, and also, amiable old favourite; still, let us
quintessentially the art of status quo, comes naturally only to the very because there were easy ways of make a comparison with the
and the only thing about it that comes gifted, but is certainly developable in learning to do pleasant things in it superficially similar painting by
near to being radical belongs to an beauty-loving artists. This criticism allowed too many amateurs into the Tischbein, Goethe in the Campagna
outside agency, when new artists applies to Wilson, to Constable business. Furthermore, it may have (1786-7), which has the sage nobly
dropped it, around 1850. This was often enough, to the Norwich School, had a deleterious effect on even very recumbent on an obelisk looking out
after a longevity which had crept and to prentice or near-prentice good artists who were brought up on over the ruins— physically ruins, but
through Europe for some centuries. works like Gainsborough's it. For instance (here's a heresy) still culturally potent—of the Via
Claude was in Rome right at the Cornard Wood. One dragging could Turner have married his Appia, a relief with characters from
beginning of the split between trouble was simply that they were historical and mythological the Iphigenie at his feet. The crisp,
secular and religious art, and the trying too much to be old-masterish preoccupations with his painting marmoreal drawing, the light and
subsequent establishment of in oil technique. This led to stolidity. practice to greater effect if he had not placid colour, but above all the
landscape as a separate genre, in the Gainsborough rapidly realized the been brought up a topographer, if certainty that precise attention has
first two decades after 1600 ; he died advantages to be gained by mixing early on he had to tackle grandes been given to the implications of past