Page 45 - Studio International - June 1974

upon the ambivalently located ground band. reestablish surrace unity by building up
I know that Hoyland must be tired of equivalences of saturation, and a balancing out painting so urgently.
reading adverse comparisons of his work with of values, a weighting of dark against light, So invention in colour relationship is
Hofmann's, but really, there could scarcely bright colour tempered by whitened inextricably bound up with the sensations of
have been a more startling object lesson than neighbours, or warm and cool adjustments, and space which colour gives rise to. This is how the
their side-by-side hanging in Waddington's there are some old-fashioned tricks in his bag, means of expression is constantly re-vivified.
recently. The derivation of the one from the especially when it comes to value adjustment Without a sense of how pictorial space can be
other makes little or no difference to the case. and the multiple usage of white, to mute colour, changed, no real invention is possible.
If the dating of the pictures were reversed, as a primer under colour, and as a general What has taken the place of 'nature' as
could one imagine such a thing, the issue would enlivener. All this is the natural equipment of understood by Cezanne and Matisse, the `motif',
be the same, namely of quality, depth, risk and a natural painter, and Pollock has the courage the ever-rich source of inspiration for colour and
boldness with colour and drawing. The more to make no bones about it, but in his weakest form, the release into unselfconscious
one looked (I checked on several visits) the paintings, he seems to think that this weighty absorbtion in the visual which enabled such
stronger the Hofmann grew, initial effort to use many colours, to balance them out, heightened perception as they had ?
comparisons forgotten, within itself. What at and achieve a rich surface through difficulty is `As a painter, I am becoming more lucid in
first had seemed raw, excessive, crude or dull, what it takes to make major painting. This is his front of nature, but the realization of my
became at prolonged looking an essential resting conventional side. Again I come down in intentions is always very painful. I cannot attain
point, animated by the scorching highlights of favour of the the more relaxed, fresher and to the intensity which is revealed to my senses.
primary oppositions set against white. The more airy paintings in the show. I have not the magnificent richness of colouring
sickly monotony of lurid pastel and fluorescent To try to draw some of the threads together which animates nature. Here on the banks of the
which was the Hoyland's lot became unbearable now, imagine the plane of a painted surface river, the motifs are plentiful, and the same
to watch. The same goes for the Golding show as a sequence of light-reflecting and light- subject, seen from a different angle, provides a
at the Rowan. Both artists share a deep-rooted absorbing zones, and remember the trampoline subject for study of such powerful and varied
timidity when it comes to the broader issues, a effect without necessarily the restriction of interest, that I believe I could occupy myself
fact thinly disguised by their favoured methods opacity. One can visualize colour operating as with it for months without moving, by leaning
of handling. What comes across is fabrication, a a sequence of light modulating baffles, at once a little more to the right, at once a little
lack of genuine emotional commitment to somewhat in the way that a complex of windows, more to the left.' (Cezanne, 1906.)
abstraction. Golding has not gained ground some closed, some ajar, some frosted, some Cezanne remained a realist to the end;
with this show. He cannot hope to animate large opaque, would reflect, deflect, obstruct or Matisse never entirely abandoned the 'motif'.
surfaces without giving full emotional rein to permit the passage of light, but only as far as What corresponds to this external stimulus in
colour. the plane of the ground of the picture sensed present-day abstraction ? It is only the sense
By contrast again, the first London exhibition as datum. It is perhaps some intuition such as of the field of light created by the expanse of
of paintings by Fred Pollock at Garage Art this that led Noland to the translucency of the canvas, and its spatial modulation by colour.
Ltd had several very good paintings, which broad band plaid pictures, the 'light shaft' From both within and without the known
open up possibilities for advance into areas pictures of 1971,7 as Bannard calls them, but experiences of painting, subliminal sensations
where no one else has been, and more what in esssence I am describing is a very are pressing for a place in this field of light.
importantly, evince a sense of individuality and general and flexible blueprint to suit the differing Writing somewhere about Jackson Pollock,
adventure in colour placement and relationship demands of many a painter. I am aware that I Clement Greenberg talks of the intractability
which was a joy to see. Some of the most am tending more and more to blur together both of form and content, 'the literalness
forcefully related paintings tended to suffer Monet-Matisse-Hofmann-Noland into one of his emotion', which gave such depth to his
from that flatness and brittleness which I have great generality. With the successive loss of the successes when they came. The same is true
already mentioned. The paintings I liked were specific qualities of each in my search for a of Cezanne. In a way there can be nothing more
the thinly painted ones, which seemed both general description of plasticity, it is sounding intractable in the context of present-day painting
more active spatially, and to be more tautly more and more as if they are all doing the than the sensations of substance and form
drawn as well. They tended to be smaller, and same kind of thing. I wonder why ? The provided by the masterpieces of Pissarro,
had a sense of continuity of touch from framing expressive qualities of the art of each of these Cezanne and Monet. And yet Matisse was able
edge to edge which gave the drawing and edging artists is needless to say bound up with their to absorb so much that is good in these artists,
within the paintings a swiftness and fluency specific, primary choices of material, process to say nothing of Van Gogh and Renoir, and to
greatly to their over-all advantage. The most and technique, and their individualities of transmute in terms that are his own the
original spatial effects occurred in those paintings temperament and character, but it is also true perennial force of great painting. In the
in which narrow incisively brushed free-hand that in some sense all great art does aspire broader horizons in which present-day painting
bands of colour were contained at either end towards the same sensations, the same is set, there is so much that could serve as an
of a horizontal format by areas of colour close disruption of the fixed enclosed separateness of eye-opener if one is in search of principle,
in hue and value to those in which the things, of identities, of individuals. rather than appearance. q
horizontal bands were set, thus containing the Painting stands or falls now by the quality of ALAN GOUK
bands, but allowing them to float, without their invention in colour, a question more of choice
Sickert, Matthew Smith, Bomberg the elder, Heron
being abruptly cut off by the vertical framing than of quantity. But colour is only the means. the younger — does anyone else count ?
edges, or, as in some of the larger paintings, by It works towards the creation of sensations of The Tate's superb Pissarro, in the recent
coloured vertical borders cutting across and space; otherwise it remains 'just colour', and to Impressionist show at the Royal Academy, is even
differing in hue from the bands. These latter evoke new sensations of space requires an today seldom hung. Why ?
3 The Tate has one Noland, no Hofmann, no Olitski,
paintings had the effect, in a way which recalled imaginative leap, such as Cezanne took when he and has held no exhibition of the work of any of
Jack Bush of some years ago, of isolating the harnessed the method of impressionist colour these three artists, indeed has obstructed the
central bands of colour like a tie upon a shirt. to the task of building an optical equivalent for possibility of their showing. Why ?
Artforum, Summer 1969.
Unlike Noland, Fred Pollock does not accept sensations of volume, or Monet, when he looked 5 Speaking of Louis's Unfurled's, Greenberg talks of
the canvas surface as a datum for gentle into the mirror of the lily-pond at Giverny, and their 'opening up pictorial space from behind'.
6 Artforum, June 1971, 'Touch and Scale in Abstract
persuasion, but begins by pushing paint saw reflected there the sky, the overhanging Expressionism'.
impulsively across the surface. He has to foliage, the banks on which he stood. Never KennethNoland's Recent Paintings', Artforum, 1971.
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