Page 13 - Studio International - November 1974

most effectively employed by the fauves. Soutine, de Kooning, Bacon, etc. There is also (Top) Morandi Still Life 1946. Oil on canvas,
In Matisse's Open Window at Collioure a fascination with physical defects, with 143/ a x 18 in. Tate Gallery, London
(Bottom) Morandi Still Life 1956. Oil on canvas,
(1905), nature is used as a framework on which sickness and with expressions of horror. So
12 x 12 in. Edinburgh Museum of Modern Art
to act rather than as a model to be depicted. despite the apparent freedom of gestural
The white unpainted canvas establishes a kind painting, the range of feelings expressed is
of open space that is then agitated by limited to the dramatic. The main aim of
spontaneous, overtly gestural drawing. Marks Expressionist painting is the presentation of the
are only loosely attached to objects and the image; thus, this kind of painting has to be
effect is for them to flow freely across the limited in terms of form. Formal inventiveness
surface. The colour around the edge of the would inevitably dilute the dramatic effect of
painting is violently non-naturalistic; bright the subject matter. The figure is often centrally
complementaries red and green, orange and placed with everything else acting like a stage
blue, affirm the flatness of the canvas. Colour set; it may be highly coloured to set the mood,
as bright as this and drawing as free, meant that as it often is in Francis Bacon's paintings.
volume could no longer exist within the same Along with the central figure is another
painting. expressionist device, the 'frontal figure',
If surfaceness, high intensity colour and creating an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation
gestural drawing were not enough to finish off with the viewer. This theatrical device takes
naturalism, an even more fundamental erosion care of any questions of meaning and although
came from the logical outcome of Cezanne's gestural Expressionism is unpopular at present,
work. His manipulation of vision had many far frontal Expressionism still persists in the work
reaching effects. Cezanne's paintings are, of Chuck Close and Alfred Lesley for example,
amongst other things, to do with 'looking' in an even though it is thinly disguised by
analytical sense, not in making an idealized photography. Expressionist painting, because
fixed representation of nature. He of its very nature, is formally inert and therefore
systematically altered perspective, tilted planes, no use as an alternative to mainstream
flattened volumes, expanded spaces, and modernism, whose strength lies in its ability to
dislocated symmetry in such a way that his renew itself from within.
paintings have to be looked at in pieces. The Surrealism as a force for figuration is no
surface was fractured. There are pockets of longer very strong. Its weaknesses are similar
different ways of seeing, differing degrees of to Expressionism's; it also is to do with
focus and peripheral vision. These pieces do not presenting loaded imagery. In the work of René
mutually co-exist, they push the eye around Magritte, visual puns and spatial tricks take
making the viewer continually reassess the place in a stage-set like situation, which is, of
nature of spaces and volumes. What had necessity, morphologically very simple. The
happened was that the 'still-gaze' of earlier art events are depicted on different planes which
had been replaced by a living organic surface, may overlap and contain ambiguous visual
dispelling the comforting certainty of all information. Because the edges of planes are
previous painting. Cezanne's disruption of usually sharp and clear, the technique is like an
consistent space/mass depiction was of course illusionistic collage. (The same kind of visual
continued by the cubists. Paintings were effect of overlapping planes, but without they can be seen as genuine attempts at
eventually made of planes flattened into very any literary overtones occurs in some paintings figuration in the face of an obviously healthy
shallow spaces, and by the time late Cubism by Richard Estes. The duality of reading, in abstract art. Their approach is very different
was developed, volume was ironed out. this case, is made possible through photography; from that of the few conventional naturalist
The roads from Monet, Cezanne, and Matisse, but the painting device that orders them is still painters who have worked successfully during
therefore, all lead in the same direction — up to based on collage.) the period from Cubism to the present. Two of
the surface and away from depicted volumes. The use of collage type structure in Magritte these artists, Giorgio Morandi and Edward
The evidence against volumetric painting is very is very similar to the combination of neo-cubist Hopper managed to produce a strong body of
strong and at first it appeared not to have design ideas and graphic images used by several work that does not ignore developments in
survived. Several types of figurative painting pop/figurative painters in the 1960s — artists modernist painting, but maintains almost all of
did emerge despite the developments I have like Rosenquist, Kitaj, and Wesselmann come to the pre-nineteenth-century conventions. By
listed, and have enjoyed some popularity. A mind. This combination of ready-made looking at their work it may be possible to see
look at some of the main categories of figurative structure (cubist grids, compartments, collage), a viable way for figurative painting to proceed.
type painting, shows their weaknesses in the and ready-made ironic content (photographs, Morandi's paintings rely on the modification
face of mainstream modernism, but more bill-boards) has only a short period of efficacy. of a box-type space in which domestic objects
importantly also shows that Expressionism, Within the whole area of painting which stems are carefully arranged. These objects have
Surrealism, and Photo-Realism, do not from Johns and Warhol and includes much simple contours and clear almost geometric
adequately establish a basis for the re-emergence photo-realist work, where technique and subject volumes. They are painted with soft edges and
of a strong figurative art. matter are alienated or are set up to deliberately light colours reminiscent of Impressionism. The
In twentieth-century Expressionism the negate each other, there is no more future than set up is the classic still-life situation involving
figure is used as a container for violent states of within the expressionist or surrealist approach, one horizontal plane (the table top) and one or
mind of either the artist or the subject. To as a way forward for figurative painting. This is sometimes two vertical planes (the back wall
enhance this 'psychologically powerful' image, for slightly different reasons because in pop/ and the front of the table). This shelf of space
the figure is distorted, the paint applied in photo-realism the idea of non-development is has to be compressed to come to terms with the
violent, stylized gestures, and painted in bizarre knowingly built into the work and held by some single flat vertical plane of the canvas surface.
colours. The tradition can most simply be to be one of its virtues. Confronted with this dichotomy, Morandi
shown by listing the artists: Nolde, Kokoschka, Despite the limitations of these approaches manages to have the best of both worlds.
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