Page 84 - Studio International - January February 1975

between Andrews and some of his detail and compartmentalization and potentially dominant. This is prominent copper orange of
contemporaries is that with of the subject derived from the checked by an adjacent black ring, Eternal Scholar is similarly edged.
Andrews's work a heady technique which Andrews has which projects. The tension is Both paintings have a crucial
psychological undercurrent invented, presumably in order to levelled out by subsequent bands complementary region at their
overwhelms the triviality of the evenly montage a collection of of Indian red and light blue. The base. The pressure is applied to
motif. His success depends on unconnected photographs. outer edge of the blue is loosely the lower edge in order to spring
leaving a trace of atmospheric He first assembles the bits like brushed. This softened edge locks the central colour, to release it
obscurity within the picture puzzle pieces until the whole the image into the surrounding into a state of maximum flow. The
frame, a non-consumable dream composition can be reproduced area of unpainted canvas. bands along the top edge
world which even he occasionally using stencils. The stencils serve In contrast to the circles, the continue the initiative. Without
spoils by too many finicky to confine the sprayed paint and chevron paintings actively these conditions at the
details. control the pattern in a way incorporate the shape of the boundaries the main colour would
comparable to a weaver's support. This adds a conspicuous trail off at the edge, would be
jacquards. As with the woven weight to the structure and elicits diffuse. The perimeter stripes give
product this method produces an a different role for colour. In the the central area a powerful
image slightly out of focus. The outspread Trans Flux, painted in projective force. The colour
sum total of the composition is 1963, the chevrons are separated sensation is unmitigated.
inorganic and flattened. by wide intervals of canvas. The There are several opposed
Furthermore the soft canvas bands, stopping short of the lower considerations in Helen
reacts like blotting-paper to the framing edge, unfold from the Frankenthaler's new paintings
diluted acrylic paint, spreading central vertical axis, and sweep which lessen the immediacy of the
and absorbing the figuration. back to the upper edge. The work. These involve a scaling
The blending of background spread threatens to fade out or
Michael Andrews down of internal parts, a
The Pier Pavilion 1973, 5 x 7 and subject accorded well in this weaken at the top. This is opposed subsequent tempering of the
series with the civilizing effect of by the low-keyed colour which, artist's familiar openness, and a
The most unusual painting in the soft luminous colours, blues in effect, stamps out the design greater reliance on structural
the show, The Shadow, avoided and yellows, and the slow and projects the bands to the revision. In their reduced scale,
looking overly calculated. In fact gradations in the tones. Such surface. In 2, from 1964, the the present stained areas tend
it contained contradictions gentle harmony is new to chevron pattern is centred on a toward isolation and
dependent on factors as chancy Andrews's work and was square support. There are six inconclusiveness. This is opposed
as the various particles formed by reminiscent of Japanese- contiguous hues. The upper triad by the addition of reinforcing
the dried paint. It was a painting inspired paintings by the Nabis. is hot, intense, and ambiguous; elements which serve, a little
with presence therefore difficult Both styles can verge dangerously the lower sequence is cool, terse, academically, to integrate the
to recreate in the mind's eye. towards the decorative. and emphatic. This complexity is disparities. The large cup profile
The background to The Shadow The most luxurious and characteristic. The downward in It Was There is cut into the
was painted in an ordinary dignified of the recent series was thrust of the V is reversed by the ground and is conspicuously a
sequence using bands of the mural painting The Spa. warmer hues at the top, which silhouette. There is an attempt to
subdued colour. Vertically they Here the distant coastline was initiates a further play of forces. reduce the dominance of this
progressed from light sky-blue to bathed in romantic cocktail- The large chevron in Prime shape with various projecting
deep turquoise to a streak of grey lounge midnight-blue accented by Course, from the same year, tilts devices, but these remain
which denoted the shore, and delicate beads of white coming to the left. The bands are somewhat incidental. The
finally into the bottom two-thirds from the artificial lights shining in primaries, sliding diagonally. The absorbent areas in several
the evening. Several different diaphanous colour appears to
which was a mottled mustard- paintings are reinforced with
coloured area of sand. The fabric images had been compressed expand the image. linear elements which
origin of the canvas was together to create a graceful There were five horizontal conventionally reiterate the
deliberately underscored so that deep-space. The composition was stripe paintings from 1968 framing edge. Occasionally,
structured around an arched through 1970.In each painting
the cotton threads looked as Frankenthaler's vitality will
though they had been harshly diagonal line that linked the the parallel bands are co- exceed the standard design. In
distant coastline, the Triborough extensive with the pronounced
rubbed with grit. Against the Just Before a stack of irregular
illusionistic divisions of sky, sea Bridge and the rain-soaked horizontality of the support. The bars centres on a light yellow
highway in the foreground. bands vary in size from wide to
and sand there appeared the side- ground. The bars are muddied
on projection of a gas balloon, or Previously Andrews used a narrow to very narrow. The blues and browns. The centred
sweeping curve in his panoramic canvas plane is extremely taut.
more precisely the shadow of an shape is potentially isolable but is
invisible balloon in front of the paintings; in All Night Long the 'The thing is to get that colour countered spatially by a thickened
twisting staircase echoed the down to the thinnest conceivable
picture plane. To its left there was pool of indigo in its top right. The
a snarled trail of paint, like a wet expansive, sensual mood of the surface, a surface sliced into the indigo flattens the shape and
painting. Here the highway air as if by a razor.' In Trans
thread, which upset the original assimilates it to the surface by
pretence of naturalism. cascaded down into the Varies, the bands rake across affirming the canvas plane. A
spectator's lap. the surface. The painting's
The simplicity of the format put couple of paintings in the show
the traditional illusionistic Catherine Lampert predominantly dry scheme is have an extended horizontal
problems in elementary terms threaded with warmer hues. This format. The format encloses a
which paradoxically were very KENNETH NOLAND forces a series of exchanges in parallel collection of glazed and
baffling. When, as with Balloon, At the Rutland Gallery, London which the momentum shifts modelled parts. Each painting has
the object itself is a floating November constantly. The enormous Atoll a median band of light. The
shadow there occurs a profound HELEN FRANKENTHALER Sun has a built-up repeated lambent area is important. The
denial of the viewer's empirical At the Waddington Gallery, pattern of high-valued colour; the best and largest painting in the
experience of scale, light source London repetition is necessary to carry show, Sky Island, is decidedly free
and the projection of three- November the scale. Free Measure and of adjustments. The centre of the
dimensional objects on flat The sixteen paintings at the Eternal Scholar have a dominant painting is an irregular mushroom
surfaces. The frightening aspect Rutland Gallery comprised a single hue. The intense viridian of shape devised of gold, yellow,
of this painting was just how small retrospective. The earliest Free Measure is bounded at the light green, and light grey blue.
hallucinatory such a large lowly works were a couple of concentric top and lower edge with narrow The paint is occasionally
hung painting can become; it circles from 1960. The show tracks of contrasting colour. The transparent. The varying
looked as though it were a view included examples from the later opacities blend the shape into the
seen from a real precipice. chevron and horizontal stripe larger enclosing area of light
The pier and turreted pavilion series, and added one of the recent ochre. The painting has an open
in The Pier Pavilion were obviously 'plaid' paintings. The exhibition complexity which is fluid,
borrowed from photographs of was obviously first-rate. The continuous, and casually exact.
the real things. They were seen concentric circles began in 1958. R. J. Rees
from the air with the shore at an There is a strong polarity in these
oblique angle to the vanishing paintings between the flat RICHARD LONG
horizon of the sea. Thus the set-up geometric format, anchored to At the Lisson Gallery, London
reproduced a typical postcard the centre of the canvas, and the 1- 30 November
subject which was adhered to in colour, which is tense and mobile. 'Truth to nature' is a familiar
considerable detail down to a row The coloured rings advance and concept in the history of art,
of miniature people situated along recede, singly or in alliance, to which plays as significant a role in
the beach which the artist maintain a constant pressure on Richard Long's photographic
represented by angular grey the surface. In Ember, the Kenneth Noland recollections as it does in Ruskin's
Prime Course 1964, acrylic on canvas,
brushmarks. The simplication of centred light vermilion is intense 91 x 104 in. mimetic transcription of
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