Page 26 - Studio International - September 1974

to give some currency to their work, at least painters in terms which make clear that it was had come to populate Sickert's painting a
among the fellow members of that collaborative, no easier then than it is now to conscript couple of years before his return to England
interested community. Sickert on to either side of the pseudo-war would have been accepted into British middle-
Sickert's prestige was of great importance in between Modernism and traditionalism : class society - even as characterized by
securing serious attention for the group of `. . . Mr Sickert has come nearer than anybody Virginia Woolf. The superb paintings and
younger painters around him, and his concern to concealing the inevitable discrepancy between drawings of nudes in interiors which he
for the survival of a certain dispassionate the facts and the medium. Or, to put it another executed in Venice in 1903-4, in Dieppe 1904-5
approach to subject-matter, a certain kind of way, to the theoretically impossible feat of using and in London from then until about 1910,
painting, was undoubtedly transmitted to them. paint realistically and decoratively at the same represent the high point of Sickert's career and
In particular it would be hard to overestimate time. It is only made possible by extreme one of the high points of modern British art.
the importance of Sickert's example in resisting selection of the facts and the nicest adjustment I describe them as nudes, but they are perceived
the move towards 'Oa prima' painting which of natural rhythms - by the same expedients as unclothed women and unclothed girls, and
the influence of Whistler and of the as good prose writing . . . In order to design they are painted with the same dispassionate
Impressionists (as their work was propagandized like Mr Sicken it is necessary to keep pretty but unconditional acceptance of fact as the
and received in England) had instigated among close to the facts. That his influence is no check portrait studies and theatre and street scenes
the majority of the new 'moderns'. The terms to originality is proved by the . . . fact that which he produced during the same years.
in which Sickert later came to express his several painters who have experienced it, These paintings are remarkable at once for
disillusionment with the art of Whistler are directly or indirectly, have afterwards developed their professionalism - their attention to
significant of the sense of a need for in a much more decorative manner. He compels facture, to considerations of tonality, touch
consideration which he brought to all his own the mastery of prose before experiments in etc. - and for their apparent lack of emotional
mature work: 'He accepted . . . the very verse. In view of modern tendencies he might overlay of any kind. In favour of the tonal
limited and subaltern position of a prima painter. be said to keep a hand on the brake of expression organization to which Degas largely adhered
These paintings are not what Degas used to call lest painting should run away into generalizations (and which is among the distinguishing
`amenées', that is to say, brought about by before it has made sure of its ground by the characteristics of Cézanne's late work), Sicken
conscious stages, each so planned as to form a study of particulars.'19 avoided the early-Impressionist tendency to
steady progression to a foreseen end. They were Marriot also praised Sicken for his `localize' subject-matter by making it entirely
not begun, continued and ended. They were a domestication of French influences : 'He specific in terms of time, place and weather-
series of superimpositions of the same operation, translates absinthe into beer'. 14 years later, the conditions. While the illustrative ingredients
Augustus John
Port de Bouc 1910
Oil on canvas, 9½ x 12¼ in.
Southampton Art Gallery

based on a hope that the quality of each new writer Virginia Woolf made use of a similar of the painting are generally specific - for
operation might be an improvement on that of metaphor: 'He makes us aware of beauty,' she instance the treatment of the individual painting
the last.'18 wrote, 'over the shoulders of the innkeeper . . . recognizes the presence of a particular girl
The assertion of the need for a context within The life of the middle classes interests him rather than hypothesizing a 'nude' - the overall
which deliberative criticism of the work can most - of innkeepers, shopkeepers, music- composition, and particularly the disposition
take place, in relationship to a teleology, has hall actors and actresses. He seems to care of tone, are attended to with the kind of
since Sickert's day constituted perhaps the little for the life of the aristocracy whether deliberation reserved for attempts to establish
central critique of the practice of painting of birth or of intellect.'20 From a member of the value independent of occasion. The facticity
under Modernism. intellectual aristocracy of Bloomsbury, the of the surface is openly established, almost
Charles Marriot, author in 192o of a history sister-in-law of Clive Bell, this was not flaunted, the paint is always substantial and
of Modern Movements in Painting, praised necessarily the straightforward compliment it opaque (notably so in the paintings produced
Sickert for his restraining influence on young might seem.21 In fact few of the figures which during his first four years back in England),
8o