Page 61 - Studio International - July August 1974

The popularity of a particular work. The spatial architecture is the almost impossible. They are a very
Wyeth painting is not irrelevant to the basically linear. Overall, tone is used to delicate pair of apothecary's scales,
rest of his work. Wyeth is a populist differentiate one area from another embellished with a copper-plate
painter, unlike his equivalents in mass for dramatic composition rather than engraving which reads : 'if only you
appeal in reproduction in this country : to make space or describe light. Hue could see yourself as clearly as we
David Shepherd, Montague Dawson serves to tint and accentuate detailed let you see us.' If we weigh ourselves,
and Ron Folland, who are middle- tonal form and to give the local just fora moment, on their balance,
brow painters, consensus painters. colour. In the one tempera painting in our judgement becomes our sentence
Wyeth is still fighting for an this exhibition, Ides of March, the too. Our all too swift assessment of
indigenous American painting not lightness of the in-light dog is them is a light upon our own
'intellectually mongrelized' by exaggerated in relation to the peculiarities. Their philosopher's
Europe and the Big City. He is anti- darkness of the fireplace against stone (for me) is the absurdity of
aristocratic in that his people are which it appears, making a graphic civilization. Their images are our
exceptional only in exemplifying the incident rather than a plastic realities. Their relationship, their
virtues of 'plain people'. He appeals relationship concerned with a dress, their Nature, their Art, their
not to those 'gifted' with a capacity for consistent allusion to light and space. pleasure (drinking), their life are all
aesthetic emotion, nor to the specialist The tonal range of the water-colours a little bit larger than our pedestrian
vocabulary of the high art community, and dry brush paintings invariably priorities. Gilbert and George
rather he evokes the childhood stretches from black to white, with selected them as an allegory or a
capacities of his viewers to tell
Robert Adams Double Fin 1974 stories and to empathize, and calls
Bronze. 16½ x 18½ in.
upon their 'everyday' abilities to
to bone forms, most obviously in the understand people. His nostalgia is
Col Development of 1972. In addition for a world in which an individual
the treatment of the patina in the two mediates directly between himself
Cavetto sculptures suggests a cutting and nature. The means of mediation
into a soft natural substance which is physical work and Wyeth's
quickly darkens. paintings are populated by objects
The most satisfying work is Double recording the dual wear of human
Fin of 1974. Like many of the other usage and natural decay. The
sculptures it deals with forms placed relationship to nature is unsentimental,
slightly askew. It takes the outline of even if its depiction is : it was nature
the Vertex repeated and linked by a that crippled Christina. The much
thin band. This is folded over : there repeated contrast with Andy Warhol
is a strong reminiscence of Carel is telling in as much as Warhol may
Visser's interest in bending material, be seen as depicting the effects of
but because Adams is working in culture on human beings, whereas
bronze rather than iron it is essentially Wyeth depicts the effects of nature Andrew Wyeth Ides of March 1974 parable but for you and me theyare our
Tempera, 24½ x 41½ in.
illusionistic. Here as elsewhere the on people and their objects. Warhol's world, our life and ourselves. They
idea is toned down by its execution disaster series could well have hues serving primarily as tonal are such a well bred pair of arty
and material. Nevertheless, it has a included the fatal crash in which intermediaries. Any ambiguous anarchists that they never tell you
stronger kick than the other pieces Wyeth's father's car was hit by a train ; swishes and washes are firmly about these things, but, by god, they
and has something of the subtle this was the trauma that Wyeth located in the context of linear certainly show you.
disposition of the plane surfaces claims gave birth to him as a serious drawing ; for example the undergrowth What you think of Gilbert and
which was a feature of Adams's painter. Virtually the only products of in 'Knox's Artillery' is readily George really does have a lot to do
earlier work. technology appearing in Wyeth's explicable by the linear drawing of with what you Oink of yourself. To
John Glaves-Smith pictures are anachronistic or the cannon. what extent are they seers and to
vernacular, such as the clapboard If art history and criticism are what extent are they charlatans ?
house. There are no telephone wires, accounts of the changing tastes of Ask yourself the same question, but
Andrew Wyeth at the Lefevre no tarmacadamed roads, no railway the wealthy 'vanguard public', then not just yet. Let's stick with Gilbert
Gallery, London, 23 May— 22 June lines. The scenes of his boyhood — Andrew Wyeth is inconsequential. If and George for a bit. Obviously they
With the possible exception of the Wyeth was born in 1917 — have been they are concerned with the affective are charlatans, in every possible,
dry brush watercolour Alexander obsessively retained. life of our times, then he is of superficial way—they are as stupid
Chandler, it is unlikely that the current Like David Shepherd and many immense importance. This first small as they come. That's why they are so
Andrew Wyeth retrospective British painters popular in one-man exhibition in this country, of sucessful ; but they are telling the
exhibition in Toyko has been reproduction, Wyeth did not attend recent works, is obviously an truth, they are giving us what we
qualitatively diminished by the art school. He has not given up the insufficient representation. Wyeth is a asked for. Their paradox is right there
absence of the twenty-two works in values of his professional peers ; he serious populist painter and exposes on the surface. All we do is sit
this show. However, by the afternoon was never in a 'high art' community. the reactionary nature of populism : around and pat ourselves on the back
of the opening day only four His populism is the tradition in which he depicts poverty as being pictureque for having noticed it. They actually
paintings remained to be sold. It will he was brought up and which he has and the poor as passive, just as thought of it.
be interesting to discover if Wyeth's refused to leave. Whereas David populism, in praising intellectual Gilbert and George were not in the
immediate popularity with certain Shepherd's oil paintings attempt to passivity, hides the necessity of beginning of conceptual art, but they
sections of the wealthy of this attain an aura by being ostentatiously changing the world and endows the were the most perfect blossom of the
country— £30,000 for Alexander encrusted with paint, Wyeth's water- status of 'natural' on the assumptions second season. They reopened every
Chandler—will, as in America, find a colours and temperas are of bourgeois culture. question that was beginning to
popular parallel in sales of comparatively plain. The nature of the Andrew Brighton tarnish and left us breathlessly
reproductions. Will Christina's technical tradition in which Wyeth anticipating the new art. Their
World, which hangs in the Museum works, gets its essential characteristics Singing Sculpture not only asked the
of Modern Art in New York, have from being initially designed for Gilbert and George, at Nigel right questions, but it asked them
in reproduction, if widely distributed mechanical reproduction. Wyeth's Greenwood, London, June. with perfect decorum. It asked about
in this country, the mass appeal it has teacher and father, N. C. Wyeth, was a 'It is almost impossible to persuade values. Idealistic theory is free but
in America ? This appeal is ambiguous. painter and illustrator trained by others of faults that to us seem idealistic practice is expensive. We
Is it popular because it can be seen Howard Pyle. Pyle was one of the obvious : if they do not agree it is now move on to another plane where
as a picture of a young girl sitting in first illustrators to paint for four- because their values do not coincide we can ask the charlatan or seer
rich grass, looking up the slope colour half-tone reproduction. The with ours and our criticism leaves questions again. Only this time we are
towards the family farm ? Or is it ways to overcome the unpredictability them untouched.' Gilbert and George not asking it about Gilbert and George
popular for what it actually is: a of reproduction as regards hue and to would no doubt agree with but the whole movement to which
picture of a middle-aged polio a lesser extent tone, and the ways to La Rochefoucauld and his they belong. They embraced its
cripple, crawling across a field near satisfy the demands of the printed enlightenment but they have spent spring, now they too must suffer its
her dilapidated home? page, can be traced into Wyeth's the last few years tampering with deflowerment. The artists taught us