Page 17 - Studio International - November 1974

racing fraternity but also legitimised the rich by Sir Alfred J. Munnings Going to the start (Top) Simon Elwes Sir Richard Sykes, 7th Baronet
suggesting the continuity of inherited, land Oil on canvas. of Sledmere. Oil on canvas, 35 x 27% in.
(Centre) Sir Thomas Monnington Reciprocity
based, wealth. The feudal myth continues. In
Oil on canvas, 36 x 51 in.
his portrait Sir Richard Sykes, exhibited in (Bottom) Peter Greenham Jane and Mary
1968, Simon Elwes RA allows the master and Oil on canvas, 20 x 15% in.
his dog elegant elongation, the servants
remaining in villainous and God-given
proportion. In his portraits of fey and faded
beauties Elwes's work has a Waugh-like
eccentricity, tragicomic and anachronous. And
the consensus has moved on. Now Elwes's work
looks 'abnormal', it is a snobbish reproach to
the arriviste ethic. The media men have no such
myth. Their nostalgia is for people with
traditionless wealth like gangster Clyde Barrow.
The nature of post-war traditionalism in
painting has rarely been made theoretically
explicit. Like all consensus painting,
traditionalism rested on a body of tacit
assumptions: most of the RA members, as
graduates of the Slade and the Royal College
inherited a naturalist tradition of disallowing
intellection as determinedly as did its local
opposition, the aestheticism of Clive Bell and relegated and their historical models demoted.
Roger Fry. However, a kind of synthesis Sir Thomas Monnington's change from
between the two adopted by Allan Gwynne- zealously crafted figurative work to paintings
Jones RA, in his writings of the late forties, did with grids behind the picture plane floating in
have sufficient critical edge to suggest the a tonal space or diving back into perspective
existence of a tradition marked by its use of infinities, suggests that for one traditionalist
certain formal ingredients, departure from painter only the shell of conventional space-
which led to a dead end. Picasso had strayed making remained. This was not misunderstood
down this cul-de-sac but the European tradition neo-plasticism but naturalist plasticism shorn of
was not over. [4] By the sixties, Bernard its objects. It came from a religious metaphysic
Dunstan RA, writing from much the same of naturalist space and was thus outside the
synthesis could dissolve the critical capacity of consensus.
traditionalism and reduce 'all good pictures' to If traditionalism could no longer assume an
shapes that 'will fit satisfactorily both with each important or actively dominant role, there
other and in relation to the picture rectangle'. remained acquiescence and the subtleties born
In fact this quality may be the only one which of undifferentiating passivity, explored either
links works as diverse as a Russian ikon, a cynically or with public inconsequence and
Charles Keene drawing or a Jackson Pollock.[5] private integrity. The portrait painter Norman
The collapse of traditionalism as a publicly Hepple RA, for example, has exploited a form
defensible body of assumptions was partially of board-room portraiture which aspires to the
caused by its institutional erosion. The post- matter-of-factness of a company magazine
war growth of state patronage administered by photograph of the managing director. The
staff virtually invulnerable to inexpert public seditious association of art with sensuality,
taste saw the rise of the patronising power, via imagination and emotion are suppressed. Only
the State, of the 'highbrows' and 'experts' the portrait as a sign of traditional institutional
belaboured by Munnings. By the early sixties, wealth remains. An alternative to this is the
the historical view of British painting which lay pervading sentience of Peter Greenham RA's
behind state patronage was broadly one that small domestic scenes and landscapes. His
devalued Sickert, John and the Slade tradition painterly tonal technique informs the painting
to the level of a provincial backwater. Likewise, with an intimacy of facture when concerned
in art education in the early sixties, the with appropriately private experience. In his
Intermediate Examination in Arts and Crafts formal portraits Mr Greenham's informal
and the National Diploma in Design were phased technique becomes an inappropriate fog.
out. These diplomas had required in their The formal portrait has become increasingly
examinations some standard of initiation into unfashionable because of its social realism. In
a craft tradition of figurative painting. Their the impersonal painting of a man for his
replacements, foundation courses and the institutional activity, the institution itself is
Diploma in Art and Design, had no such specific celebrated. By portraying him in such a way as
requirement. Areas such as the teaching of life to make his social role apparent, the painting's
drawing and painting, dominated by very dullness points to the fact that it is neither
traditionalists and previously central to art its intrinsic merit nor the subject who is
school activity, became subsidiary. The means important, attention is drawn to the social script
of transmission of values and techniques of that confers importance on such mediocrity.
traditionalism to the next generation were The myth of the efficient meritocracy enriched