Page 40 - Studio International - July August 1974

Red Pink Cross 5973
Acrylic on canvas, 66¼ x 89 in.
Andre Emmerich Gallery, Zurich

at the outset and work to that size. The way the foot of the picture, while the other shapes hand side of the picture — all this might still
Bush brushes on his colour comes out as a diminish in size and drift to the right, leaving a not have been enough to fix these shapes on the
greater dependence on drawing. When, for large triangular area of ground at the top left. ground and into the format if they had been
example, Olitski puts colour at the edges of one There was a companion painting on show, brushed on in Bush's usual unbroken fashion.
of his fields, he is inflecting the total area in pretty well identical in every respect except The reason is that the configuration of Bush's
much the same way as Pollock did when he colour. Its grey ground is darker and its shapes brushed-on colour usually looks born, to a great
added another session of work to his allover are all painted the same red. The latter painting extent, of the impulse I remarked on, to
paintings. For Bush, placing is more important. is punchy and makes the varying of the colours declare the axes of his format. The
With it he brings out the sinews of the picture of the shapes in the former seem superfluous configurations in Red Bird and Green Bird are
rectangle. It is only his works that come close and debilitating. The intricate, cut-out- generated more externally to the painting.
to Olitski, such as Jac 4, that are regularly looking profiles replacing Bush's usually And if these therefore less abstract shapes were
amenable to cropping. The brushed-on colour baldly-brushed colour are strong enough embodied in Bush's usual, unbroken, brushed-
is bunched in one small area leaving an expanse without the colour coding. on paint, they would court the danger of flying
of ground, the rather modular streaks of which Although they have such inscribed edges, right off the painting. Because of the scumbled
suggest natural points at which to end the reminiscent of the late Braque and Matisse, paint, Red Bird has a meatiness I have never
canvas. What Bush has to do is choose the best. these shapes in Red Bird and Green Bird are seen before in Bush. It is more aggressive than
The other disappointing painting was the scumbled on roughly enough not to cover the lyrical: not making one of the very best
79 x 47½ inch vertical Green Bird. On to a ground completely. The grey keeps breaking paintings in the Zurich show but nevertheless
broken ground of greys and some tiny specks through, which helps identify the frankly a good, if an odd, one.
of blue are brushed, in ascending order: a blue referential shapes with the ground. In spite of Summer Lake, although from 1973, relates to
shape like a bird's spread wings, an olive-green the strong interrelation of the shapes, in spite those paintings of 1972 in which more or less
silhouette of a bird in flight, then a broad of the way they carve out strong negative areas straight, brushed bands of colour that have
orange and finally a broad pink circle. The from the grey base coat, and in spite of the way been masked along their two long edges mark
bottommost wing shape stretches right across they are stacked up against the foot and right- unhesitatingly the length and breadth of the
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