Page 42 - Studio International - June 1974

PRINCIPLE, APPEARANCE, STYLE

`But if my stroke should liberate the bunch America, the thread of continuity with the past why my works offend English taste - remember
through a profound shock' (Mallarme). is so clear. What is so lacking in England is that I have the temperament of a peasant, I
I note that our ever-late journalists and both the eyesight to see it and the insight to am melancholy, harsh and savage in my works,
painters, the pedantic fraternity of the fat interpret. it is only in the long run that I can expect to
cigar, are still employing canons studiously The perennial fascination of the great artists please, and then only those who have a grain of
gleaned from the literature of the 6os, as of the nineteenth century lies mainly in the fact indulgence; but the eye of the passer-by is too
filters to protect their eyes from the new. that whereas most artists concern themselves hasty and sees only the surface. Whoever is in a
Criticism seems to be falling further and with matters of technique and style, they knew hurry will not stop for me. As for the young
further out of touch with the quiet but that the issue is really one of expression - to misses, touched, alas, with the modern
persistent advance of painting. The truly find sources of expression in oneself and, in neuroticism, they are even worse, the romantics
startling changes in what paintings can look like, cultivating these, to engage matters of were much less ferocious. If they looked into the
enforced by recent American art, fall upon fundamental principle. By this means, past they would see to how slight a degree the
apathetic eyes on the few occasions on which technique becomes subservient to principle, old masters were - how shall I say - precious,
we see them. But the day of the complacent and development a continuing readiness to for they were indeed elegant, in the artistic
smirk is passing. Many an artist has been re-learn, or un-learn. 'Technique grows in sense of the word. I have just concluded my
accused of perpetrating 'false relations' by those contact with nature. It develops through series of paintings, I look at them constantly.
whose livelihoods thrived on falsity of feeling. circumstances. It consists in seeking to express I who made them often find them horrible. I
Fortunately history is more generous; in what one feels, in organizing sensations into understand them only at rare moments, when I
England now, woe betide the ill-advised mole personal aesthetics. I believe in the logical have forgotten all about them, on days when I
who shoves his snout above the crust of development of everything we see and feel, feel kindly disposed and indulgent to their poor
inertia and torpor, the soil of our culture, 150 through the study of nature, and turn my maker. Sometimes I am horribly afraid to turn
years of accumulated visual debilitation, graphic attention to technical questions later' (Cezanne). round canvases which I have piled against the
art and literature - this feeble soil which Cezanne's work has become the chief testing wall; I am constantly afraid of finding monsters
nurtured the spindly artists of the 6os, and the ground for the would-be formal analyst of where I believed there were precious gems.
trivializing, scholastic or plain ignorant painting . What is often overlooked is that Thus it does not astonish me that the critics in
criticism which served them so well. How cosy Cezanne was no logician. What counted for him London relegate me to the lowest rank. Alas,
it must feel to know that no one is going to get above all was his intuition of plasticity, the I fear that they are only too justified. However,
up and apply standards born of their own painting itself, and its own life. at times I come across works of mine which are
experience. England's painters keep their `The painting has a life of its own' (Pollock). soundly done, and really in my style, and at
defence mechanisms as well oiled as they do `When willpower fails, resort to stubbornness' such moments I find great solace. But no more
themselves. Brandish a few chauvinistic (Matisse). These seemingly incompatible of that. Painting, art in general, enchants me.
slogans here, a smear campaign there; a long- statements contain the whole kernel of truth. It is my life. What else matters ?'2
standing service medal - or if that doesn't Matisse is talking about intent, Pollock is To try to come a little nearer to the present,
work a committee appointment - should talking about process. Finding a way of bringing consider some of the expectations which an
neutralize any thorn in the flesh. They still go expressive needs into accord with general informed modern audience might bring to a
on extolling the same old Anglo-Saxon principles of organization, and the consequent new show of paintings. Every schoolboy knows
attitudes, as if nothing had happened since the release from the confines of 'style', characterizes paintings must be flat, but every painter worth
Pre-Raphaelites set the clock back. Consistency all good work. The ability to disturb and his salt knows they must not. Go into any
and idiosyncrasy the supreme virtues; the noble abandon hard-won fluencies of hand and eye, modern museum any day of the week, and you'll
individualist ploughing a lonely furrow up a repeatedly, is what distinguishes the growth of find someone waxing eloquent in front of
blind alley; 'evaluate my art on its own terms', a truly adventurous, tough-spirited artist. Matisse: 'See how completely flat they are' -
last refuge of the coward; paranoia in a cultural In Pissarro's words 'Each one of us has paintings which in fact are bounding with
backwater - 'don't rock the boat, we're all in several facets. The surface often appears more plasticity, depth, space and light. Plasticity
this together' (appeal to professional etiquette important than what is inside, hence the errors is fundamental and general. It applies
reinforces the pecking order); amateurish in art, of those who judge carelessly. How many times to representational art and abstract art,
professional in PR, a fatal confusion. has that not happened to me. The surface is with different emphasis, or different mechanics
It is said that artistic advance is made when often complete in some people from the very (as does illusionism). Plasticity means more
an individual temperament, with its own beginning, but not the possession of their own than the reciprocal pressure and influence of
expressive needs, reacts to a climate of sensations. From this come errors. Some part upon part. It also involves a spatial
expectation and taste created by the art of the natures achieve the surface very slowly; this is conception which allows for floating, swimming,
past; but what if there are no expectations, no the least danger an artist runs. So one should a spatial interchange of parts at distances across
standards based on a momentum of indigenous not think of the surface, or the appearance, but surface (or in sculpture, across real space).
painting ? Most of the great paintings of the concentrate on what is inner.' `It took me forty years to find out that painting
past hundred years remain almost completely Pissarro again (1883): 'You tell me that if I is not sculpture', Cezanne told Renoir. Renoir
unassimilated either by taste or judgement have a show in London, I should send my best interprets, 'That means that at first he thought
in England - by those in the art-world I mean,1 works. That sounds simple enough, but when I he must force his effects of modelling with
not the public at large, who can hardly in the reflect and ask myself: which are my best things ? black and white and load his canvases with paint
circumstances be expected to know anything. I am in all honesty greatly perplexed. Didn't I in order to equal, if he could, the effects of
It always seems to be necessary to go back send to London my Peasant Girl Taking Her sculpture. Later, his study brought him to see
to the very beginning every time one engages in Coffee and my Peasant Girl with Branch? that the work of the painter is to use colour so
discussion, to wearily plod from the all too Alas, I shall never do more careful, more that, even when it is laid on very thinly, it gives
easily forgotten roots of contemporary painting finished work: however, these paintings the full result.'
in Europe, up to the aching void of today. And were regarded as uncouth in London. Hans Hofmann referred to the two problems
yet, when one comes to look at painting in So it is not improper selection which explains of opticality and plasticity jointly as the 'depth
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