Page 81 - Studio International - May June 1975

to a second network, and then to a exhibition of neo-classical Jupiter & Thetis joins the description with a valid language
third, fourth, even a fifth - each canvases at the Grand Palais. thronging premonitions of a pop of representation; and his
successive grill of brush-signs This extraordinary rich selection culture to which Guérin and distinction between verticals and
being perfectly woven into the parallels the Royal Academy's Prud'hon contributed their fair horizontals imbues this oeuvre
succeeding, or preceding, grill or earlier attempt to illustrate the share. However, it would be idle with the physical validity which
network, so that finally a texture of achievement of Neo-Classicism as well as misleading to dwell on gives metaphysical insights their
semi-transparent 'curtains' of but special considerations gave merely one facet of what turned passion and potency. Everything
brush-signs emerges. It was this this anthology an altogether out to be prophetic phenomena. by Soulages modulates from
passion for exploring pictorial different and distinct air. Nor was Romanticism introduced black towards light (which is
space, literally 'in depth', which this due merely to the fact that the exaggerative commitments and colour) and from illumination
lay at the heart of Bryan Wynter's Frenchness of the occasion was so their outrageous demands back into black again - which
lifelong activity as a painter and, emphatically underscored; there disclosed almost every feature of thus becomes a colour in its own
latterly, a creator of kinetic mobiles is a great deal to be said for the future's predicament. The right. The shifts of his very special
whose very raison d'être was the isolating the craft of easel road from David to Delacroix spectrum move along axially
making visible of spatial depth in painting from its sister arts in encompasses every station colliding curtains through which
terms of moving colour - mobiles order to demonstrate that between static grandeur and infinity appears as a series of
which seem to me never to have something irrevocable happened dynamic energy. It illustrates the rents - much as Mondrian's
been approached, in the entire at the end of the eighteenth range of optic illusions by whites - but in Soulages nothing
field of kinetic mobiles, for their century and the argument would juxtaposing Hubert Robert's is allowed to disguise their
radical invention, the range of lose a good deal of its force if it faded symmetries against emptiness and he succeeds in
possible areas of discovery they did not concentrate on the Géricault's diagonally attributing terror to the vacancy
open up, not to mention the sheer characteristic event - which triumphant violence which beyond the field of conflict. A
beauty of their actual occurred within the two- imbues the brushstroke with the primal grandeur is arrested in his
configuration. They perfectly dimensional context of thrills of an abstract designs and it gains meaning from
extend Wynter's interests in representing illusions. expressionism. In fact, the artist's the discipline imposed by the
pictorial space: as such, they Architecture caters for illusions attitude to his work is new. He measure of interpretation. The
complement the paintings, rather only at one remove; sculpture looks at the composition as a means of etching and engraving
than contradicting them. But in caters for them on a notional problem which can be resolved are ideally suited to demonstrate
Wynter's spatial obsession - that level. Only the graphic arts pictorially and the stance is that his art is by no means
is, in his singleminded pursuit of incorporate them in their own altogether modern - even though arbitrarily inspired - because
deep space, as opposed to shallow texture and, therefore, the neo- it is seldom conscious yet. Only the craftsman's laborious
space in painting - one also finds classical painting begins to have a in moments of aberration and in processes implicate the arts in
perhaps the clue to his special significance in the instances of sheer genius does it translating a primary impulse
comparative isolation. He is the historian's retrospective strike the spectator as willed but into considered resolutions; and
odd man out, in this very respect, discipline. An immeasurable gap it is different from the technique- these considered sources attest
among his friends and colleagues separates the vision of determined modes of innovation the intellective resources of his
of the British 'middle generation', Fragonard from David's and no which characterized earlier power in the masterpieces which
most of whom can be identified ordinary change in sensibilities periods and the difference is he has contributed to the
with at any rate a shallower space can leap across the division which evident in the sudden printmaker's art. The depth of the
than one finds in Bryan Wynter's divides the two. The jump comes multiplication of styles (which inking contributes the rich
works. It is hereabouts, too, that as the result of an end of an age - parallels our own plethora of associations of the oil painting
one finds the strongest an age which culminates with the conflicting and unrelated styles). to some of these staggeringly
justification for dissociating knowledge that the arts have The catalogue, compiled by beautiful prints.
Wynter from such painters as exploited all existing possibilities giants of contemporary Leonardo Cremonini is a
Mark Tobey - to whom Wynter and only the impossible remains scholarship like Pierre classical realist. His canvases
was often compared (a to be conquered. Fragonard Rosenberg and Robert (on view in the Galerie du
comparison which rightly employed his sweetly knowing Rosenblum, is a masterpiece of Dragon) commemorated
exasperated him). Tobey's entire brushstrokes secure in the belief its kind. symbolically potent moments in
idiom, with its extreme and that in painterly ways nothing As for the living, the the sun. Even his interiors
consistently shallow space and its could be added to the grand retrospective showing of prints by respond to an exposure of this
undeniably limited range of signs, discoveries of Piero, Rembrandt Pierre Soulages, at the Galerie kind and an unstated horror
takes on the aura of a miniaturist and Rubens, but the true de France, provided the most observes the detailing of his
by comparison with Wynter's far romantics looked beyond the moving testimonial of triumph. episodes- as though every event
more plastically robust and varied reach of pigments and invaded a Soulages is, without doubt, one wore the aspect of a tragic
statements. fresh territory of convictions - of the two living European artists illumination. However, his true
The tragedy of Bryan Wynter's where death of a kind or whose work rivals the achievement domain is the conflict between
early death is the more acute unexpected dangers awaited of the great Americans - (Jean flesh and stone which may be
because, in spite of the neglect he revolutionary aspirations. Dubuffet is the second). During illustrated in echoing formal
was experiencing - no national Incompatible and self- the last three decades he has allusions and the graphic
newspaper or weekly noted the contradictory episodes marked evolved a special gestural precision of his allegories is
existence, even, of his final large the course of advance. Strangely inconography which is rooted in responsible for the power of his
exhibition of kinetic mobiles at grandiose themes or definitions French lyrical abstraction art. He is a virtuoso who can
the Waddington Galleries last disguised the real eagerness to without remaining provincial or recreate every vibrancy of the
year - his work was moving into a depict a new age - and we are in the minor key. The major moving air and the ripples which
new phase. In fact, he had tempted to confuse their emptiness stature of his imagery is closely trouble surfaces of water; but his
returned to painting. And just as with the boredom of later related to the force of his signals. imagery remains a series of
his first mobiles, over fifteen years academicism. There is a They employ huge verticals and frozen weights in their troubled
ago, extended existing features in sculptural glory in the best diagonals derived from dynamic environment. The rigidity of the
his painting at that time, so the instances of David's art which brushstrokes and their dark human volumes in his canvases
latest canvases of the past year should irradiate a sympathy for chromaticism reproduces comes also from the severe,
or so seem to be a new and further even the weaker composition harmonies from the recognizable quasi-constructivist divisions
commentary on aspects of visual and it is high time to push back reaches of empathy. The blacks, which separate the compartments
sensation developed hitherto in the beginnings of modernity to browns, and blues of his palette of his composition. He borrows
his final kinetic mobiles. these halting and often are clearly derived from the the characteristic verticals and
misconceived canvases - which phenomenal world of storm-and- horizontals of architectural
display the first manifestations of stress. The poetry of it employs features to stress modular
a new sensibility even in their graphic signals to describe elements with their exaggerative
Paris failings. Ingres's case is, probably, recognizable events in abstract and violently employed divisions.
the most revealing. His ideograms and it manipulates These abstractive struts combine
craftsmanship was superb and in calligraphic quantities in order with the metaphorical use of his
The season, which embraces the sphere of technique no one to recreate phenomena of awe in a imagery to imbue his protagonists
Christmas and the New Year, was could have excelled his mastery painterly narrative. His patterning with a haunting anonymity -
devoted to showing the big guns but the yearning for pomp imposes the sonnet's discipline which brings the rock's, the
in Paris. Even the museums sometimes deluded his sense of on an account which deals in skull's and the skeleton's forms
commemorated what was judgment to such an extent that precise visual phenomena and to the mind. Even limbs glimpsed
arguably one of the most glorious his designs reproduced premature eschews concern for arbitrarily through water carry the grave
moments in the history of French caricatures of Hollywood- exclusive pictorial values; it implications of the dissevered
painting (1774-1830) with the nurtured sentimentality. His coordinates the measures of object in his new work and they
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