Page 45 - Studio International - November 1974

and their nature appeals to the nerves the nineteenth century, landscape Greek islands. On occasion he makes Empathy invades the paint's tactility.
of one's fingertips. The eight heads represented a revolt against the use of a lyrical and unusual sense of This isn't primal smearing with
stand on an elevated bronze square and stifling academicism of the history colour rather akin to that of Edward vicarious delights, but truth to
are related to each other by sketchy painters. Now the wheel of taste has Lear, washing in a swathe of orange to materials applied to paint. How much
lines on its surface as if a ruler had been turned once more and landscape evoke the burning heat of a stretch paint can continue to just be paint once
pressed into the wax original. I painting has become virtually of desolate rock or a streak of violet out of the can is a debatable point.
wondered at first if this wasn't rather synonymous with academic art. to vividly illuminate an evening sky. Perhaps more optically biased paintings
an irrelevant gesture but came to the Because of this it is difficult to The structure of each scene is set out are false in that they imagine the
conclusion that, like the uprights at the approach contemporary landscape with swift-seeming precision, leaving pigment to be immaterial, but you
corners of the mirror pieces, they are without any prejudice that it is bound blank large expanses of the paper. A could equally say that that sort of
raw devices, and yet they do not to be boring and banal. Interestingly village of flat topped houses is deception was what art was all about.
distract from the fragile presence of enough one way of trying to rid reduced to a cluster of sparse Here the paint is transmuted into a
the busts. They add something of a oneself of such preconceptions is by rectangles, while a few summary sculptural substance where sophisticated
disciplinary note to the almost reverting to a traditional tool of curves are used to indicate the visual dynamics re-invest its physical
whimsical air of the pieces. conventional art history — the complexities of Buddhist architecture. properties. His aspirations derive from
The column that I described earlier, consideration of function. It becomes This elegant economy of style is Pollock and Louis (it's no shortcoming
again has that duality, the immediacy apparent that not only is a primarily displayed to best advantage in the that he hasn't covered his tracks with a
and reticence, though extended in decorative intent no longer the norm scenes of Venice. Disdaining all the trade-mark): to paint on a large scale
another form. At the top of the piece but also the distinction between conventional landmarks, he shows with the spontaneity of drawing: to
stands a small complete figure, hands public and private work is usually no instead a few bare poles stretching out give the surface the autonomy of a
held loosely, poised by her side. And longer necessary when very few across the grey water towards a natural surface. The divergence
in the squares (as if they were slabs of artists carry out specific commissions. sketchy jumble of buildings on the between paint actively manipulated
stone) described by indented lines, But it is still important when looking high horizon. It would be misleading, and passively supervised is the dialectic
small figures or backs emerge, fade in at the work of an artist who suddenly however, to suggest that these he deals in: pictorial statements fuse
and out and even beyond the surface. appears to discard all ambitions to be drawings are more than little agency with materiality.
It is slender and tall and still and, in its considered within the context of notations which display a certain Form then is less what shape and
own way, monumental. It isn't great twentieth-century art and shows work imaginative flair and elegant colour do, more how the paint-surface
art and it doesn't exactly define the which is not only completely dexterity of means. Although is formed. There's a naturalistic bias
human condition. It does, however traditional in format but also seems to admittedly unpretentious, it is that prefers the weather-worn stain on
stir and move one's consciousness of an have been produced on a primarily nevertheless true that this work is the brick wall to the imposed design.
aspect of being human. And this is private basis. likely to appeal only to those who Put mechanically, the physical changes
why I called Robert Graham a newly Teddy Millington Drake showed enjoy the most undemanding kind of gravity and evaporation effect on
arrived sculptor for, in his own way he large scale abstract works recently at diet. paint's liquidity become more authentic
the Galerie Schreiner, Basle. The Fenella Crichton
invites the human body beyond its own than wrist-pivoted brush movements.
drawings on view in this exhibition are
self-touch sensation, everyday There's taste behind such abdications
perceptual space and the learned straightforward representations of of taste of course, but they only
physical reaction. I don't know where some of the places he has visited on his Basil Beattie at the Hoya Gallery, become degenerate when the preferred
one ends up or if one does end up extensive travels. Formerly the London, 4 — 26 October; Brendan effects are cultivated for their own
anywhere specific, but one does primary concern of topographical Neiland at Angela Flowers Gallery, sake. On the credit side, this approach
experience a shift of consciousness, and, drawings, however, was that they London, 18 September — 72 October. does achieve visual complexity pretty
not insignificantly, a great pleasure in should impart information about the Basil Beattie, like a lot of painters at painlessly, with a good range of marks
the made object. place they represented. This function the moment, is scrutinising the surface, linguistically available, accidentals
Penny Hawkins has obviously been rendered probing the paint and canvas for all the serving as drawn detail.
superfluous by the invention of the qualities that can be exposed: dropping, But here is where the autonomy of
camera and there are several pouring, running the paint down the the form becomes critical. Drawing,
accomplished photographers who canvas in cascades: pummelling it and however loose, is an instrument of
Teddy Millington Drake at the DM have produced work which not only
Gallery, London, 3 — 26 October. dragging it across like chocolate spread. intention in a way that gravity and
tells us exactly what a place looks like Brush and palette are phased out and evaporation are not. The linear
It is a well-established fact that the but also manages to convey its flavour the mixing happens on the canvas. incident that the splashing and dragging
history of British painting is closely and atmosphere. It would appear
bound up with the development of therefore that landscape artists would
landscape as an independent category do well to provide a personal
of painting, of equal status to history interpretation of the places they
and portraiture. The way was paved at choose to represent. Millington Drake's
the end of the eighteenth century by sketches however are not so much
the publication of a few obscure interpretations as generalised
treatises, which put forward the impressions, executed with a certain
theory that a 'sublime' or amount of dash and bravura. Often
'picturesque' landscape was an the drawings suggest elegant designs
ennobling and elevating concept. The for stage sets.
effect of these ideas of Uvedale Price Using a soft pencil, he describes
and Richard Payne Knight is still the contours of the land formations
with us now, dissipated into a with broad even strokes. A predilection
thousand picture postcards of local for wedge shapes recurs throughout,
beauty spots. Today it seems both in the massed cypresses of
extraordinary that at the beginning of Tuscany and the jutting rocks of the