Page 63 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

the space in between, which even in the sometimes drastically, as small
thirties has at best a certain deco major British artist at all costs' .... a
linear works is the metre by which one brushmarks endeavour to push paint
stylishness, as in his groups of Riviera comment on Cohen at the Hayward,
gauges balance. 'Form' would seem to out to the limits of the canvas, finally
bathing belles. Scott being an antithesis.
indicate that S6ott is constantly succeeding. The most urgent activity
J.D. Fergusson spent almost half Gimpel Fils shows 19 more-or-less
mentally referring to the solidity of seems to occur where drawing and
his working life in France, where he recent Scott canvases and 17 drawings.
those objects in which he found painting coincide ... at the edge of a
produced most of his best work. This is The man who does pots and pans
inspiration from the very beginnings of 'form', and it is here too that Scott
perhaps one reason why he may have continues to flatten the outlines of his career as a painter. The resultant
been unfairly ignored by admirers of everyday kitchen utensils onto his depth of a flat plane is the miracle emerges as the tonal painter. A simple
the Scottish colourists as the catalogue surfaces, softly reducing the complex worked previously by Velasquez (the darkening or lightening of the ground
suggests. It seems unlikely however jug (teapot?, kettle?) to a figure which black areas behind his standing colour ensures that a black form
that the French will ever claim him as is perfectly at ease with the pigment doesn't become a hole, that the flat
their own and therefore it has been left which surrounds it, a colour field which portraits), Whistler's larger areas, and plane is maintained no matter how
to us to reassess his status. The Fine is often far from 'dreamed' onto the of course most Japanese art. There is a strong the tendency of the form to
Art Society has provided us with the canvas. Scott's abstraction from things space within Scott's canvases: the eye play an illusionistic trick.
actually enters the canvas, the space
best possible opportunity to do so seen is not of the slick, fast and nasty between the 'forms' leading the eye in A prime exponent of the tentative
through an exhibition which includes variety. The kitchen still-life is an old and around the drawing — and out to touch? A colour-field painter? An
almost all his finest paintings. friend. (Scott has been painting for the extremities. Hitherto not classed as edge-painter? A compositional painter?
Ultimately his claim for recognition about 45 years.) His handling of shape one, Scott must be described as an A tonal painter? Scott is all these
rests squarely on the shoulders of his apologizes to the plate (dish?, bowl?) things. Asked about his affinity with
splendid nudes. for having been taken out of its natural 'edge' painter. American colour-field painting he
Fenella Crichton habitat, the three-dimensional world, Drawing is, and has always been, of answers; 'Long before I ever knew
and spread onto canvas. Small prime importance to Scott. One looks American painting ... I was doing the
at the charcoal and pencil works at
concessions are made: the frying-pan same thing ...' One knows that it is
Gimpel's along with the paintings,
shape may disturb the colourfield, the truth. With muted colours, a
rather than as an interesting aside. One
small irritated brushmarks indicating restrained palette, Scott quietly
or two of them are working towards
William Scott at the Gimpel Fils Gallery, the presence or possibility of form, but forecast a lot that was to happen in
London, 3-28 September showing an unwillingness to enter into, the medium of lithography, a medium America. Meanwhile he was telling
or associate with in any way, the lie of which calls for a sureness from the himself that he was only doing what
outset, the sureness of which these
William Scott, classified by an illusionistic painting. The paintings are many painters had done before him.
American mind as the strength of configurations, flat against flat. Scott is worked and reworked pieces of paper Tony Rothon
Malevich or Ben Nicholson, softened a compositional painter in the old- don't speak. It is useful to quote Scott
•by the romanticism of Rothko or fashioned sense. 'I feel that if the in an interview with Terence P. Flanagan
Whistler, is a painter whose work I spectator looked at one of my paintings (The Arts of Ireland) talking about his
would choose not to bully into crude and felt like moving one of those forms drawing. 'When I make drawings they Summer prints, at the Kinsman and
categorization. Not long ago (1972) his even a quarter of an inch from its are not made for visual data for a Morrison Gallery, London, Frank Stella
status as a principal figure of British neighbouring form, the balance of the specific painting, but for my paintings Print Retrospective, at the DM Gallery,
painting of this century was confirmed painting would be thrown-out.' The in the plural. I draw to shock myself London, 5 September-28 October.
by his Tate retrospective, a modest word 'form' used by Scott is interesting out of a too easy rhythm. I begin with
show, worlds apart in spirit from the as he describes the flat shapes which no conception whatever. An image The print is a seductive medium for an
pushy 'paranoid attempt to create a are drawn as opposed to the larger area, emerges, almost always any image that artist. It allows him to advertise his
I am obsessed with. I rub it out and wares just noisily enough to remind us
begin again, searching for its counter- that his ideas are alive and kicking and
part. When it appears, I invariably find just unobtrusively enough to prevent
that the thing I draw is at my elbow; it us from over-stepping the bounds of
is out of the window, or has been our passive role as captive audience.
standing at my front door for a long For captive we are, lulled into ready
time.' My choice of working in submission by those neat perspex
charcoal and soft pencil has, I think, for planes, so easily embraced in a single
its origin the ease of correction that glance.
can be made, and yet the correction Thus it is that many artists, perhaps
remains an integral part of the drawing. with the sneaking feeling that we don't
I have often in mind Leonardo Da expect too much of them other than
Vinci's famous words: "Drawing is the the satisfaction of a famous name for a
art of correction". My drawing is linear; couple of quid, dodge the issue, blandly
and I attach a good deal of importance clamp their signature under the
to making the marks in the drawing perspex, and sit back. Where, however,
relate to the format of the whole sheet, an artist faces the limitations of
as I might make a painting printmaking and works with them,
Egyptian Series No.3 is one of the small masterpieces may be produced,
larger paintings in the current show. which is so evident in the work of the
Some time in the 50s Scott started to ancient Japanese printmakers.
include a shape based on an ancient Whilst unwilling to call any of the
Egyptian hieroglyph in his work. It is prints I saw at the Kinsman and
vaguely triangular and appears twice in Morrison Gallery masterpieces, I would
the central but irregular configuration readily admit great admiration for
of this painting. (Scott's configurations Caulfield's The Poems of Jules
are never regular.) There are five other Laforgue, Earthenware and Two
shapes or forms. An over-all muted Whiting. His images look so thoroughly
orange earth-colour, laid on in a turps proper to the scale and scope of the
wash, leaves just two forms to register medium and at the same time escape
the white or off-white of the ground. A that glassy smugness or affected
yellow-ochre leaves the remaining five funkiness which is all too evident in
forms untouched, the only other trace many modern prints. Certainly
(Top) William Scott Pears and Knife of the first wash being a strip at a slight Caulfield's painting style is readily
1973 Oil on canvas, 25 x 25 in. angle on the top edge, a hint of the transposable into the medium of the
(Right) Green Still Life 1973 Oil on table-top theme of many of Scott's print, yet one feels that his aesthetic
canvas, 24 x 24 in. abstractions. The ochre colour becomes decisions are backed by a suitably
the colour-field, the manner of reticent caution without any coyness
application peculiar to the artist. or resort to cuteness. This exhibition is
Scott seems to merely 'touch' his certainly not without its modern
canvas with the brush even when 'greats', but why did they bother with
covering large areas, and likes to printmaking at all? Perhaps this is a
describe his activity in this way. It is a naive question... witness the appeal of
way of doing things to which American the bland Hockney prints. Nice
abstract painters award no marks; they enough they may be with the same
are gesture-makers. If they do 'touch', little intellectual sneeze and perfectly
it's with a heavy hand. Scott's particular neglected panache of his paintings,
touch compels one to look closely at but how weedy they seem in the
the surface of the painting. The presence of the Toulouse-Lautrecs.
character of the surface alters, The Lautrec prints on show are