Page 95 - Studio International - May June 1975

observant of the continental Armstrong's life. But the idea
modern movement, Synthetic would be worth little without the
Cubism in 1929, de Chirico and qualities of the design and
Lurcat around 1930, and execution: the maze's taut
Magritte in the later thirties, pattern of jagged lines and the
while among his English firm application of the
contemporaries Nash, Wadsworth tempera paint, buff walls to the
and Spencer seem to have been maze and a rich crimson floor
important. But Armstrong always that complements the subject's
responded with a certain reserve, sense of risk and threat. Few of
sensing that, for him at least, the the pictures are so obviously
truthful realization of his personal and shortly after, in a
emotional response to situations series of 1929 open-air still lifes
did not have to exist exclusively Armstrong switched to oil paint
within a framework of stylistic and achieved richly textured
modernity; there exist, for surfaces reminiscent of synthetic
instance, repeated references to cubism and containing an
quattrocento painting, not used element of extroversion that
apologetically, as if for want of a might have benefited him if he
contemporary way of saying the had developed it further. But he
same thing, but deliberately, as returned to tempera, and the
purposeful references: in Pro paintings of the early thirties, like
Patria (1938) the undressing On the Balustrade (1933), arc
figure borrowed from Piero della rather less convincing, and show
Francesca's Baptism and the Armstrong uncertain, as several
Mantegna rocks which seem to other painters were, how to unite
relate specifically to the National an authentic talent for image-
Gallery's Agony in the Garden making with what he felt to be the John Armstrong Labyrinth 1927. Oil on canvas
suggest that Armstrong wanted to requirements of abstraction.
compare the kinds of activity and Armstrong worked through the
commitment he saw in those thirties on designs for ballet and
pictures to the situation in which films - he did the costumes for
the Spanish Civil War and eight Korda films between 1933
European events in general put and 1937 - and for a short time his
himself and his contemporaries. painting probably suffered
Such references do not make for because of it. But in the second
popular painting, and Armstrong half of the decade his work shows
is not an easily accessible artist. the full range of his mature
His pictures bear the imprint of an talent. The 1938 Dreaming Head is
industrious intellect and of clear a very considerable achievement.
planning. He liked to formulate Armstrong's handling is gentle
an entire composition in his mind and at the same time precise,
before painting - but he also liked enabling him to realize the images,
to paint directIy from mental like the girl's head and the
images and was not at all a convolvulus flowers distinctively
prolific draughtsman. In the and personally, while the
thirties, and especialIy after the colouring with its cold blues
International Surrealist theatrically overIaid with a kind
Exhibition in London in 1936, of pink filtered light identifies the
dozens of English artists sought scene as being in the reserved
in Surrealism a platform for world of dream. His remark,
the expression of their growing quoted in the catalogue, that 'as
despair at the European situation, a child I loved everything
and their results were frequently painted because it was painted Merlyn Evans The Protestors 1939. Oil on canvas 30 x 36 in.
weak and repetitious, not and not real' expresses the sense
necessarily because their motives that this and other paintings of The exhibition of ten surely gave Evans the idea of
were insincere, but more the time convey, that conventions, paintings and some drawings dividing the canvas more or less
generally because they lacked masks, disguises, things which by Merlyn Evans (1910-1973) at in half horizontally so as to give
intellectual resource and camouflage common reality but the New Art Centre follows the the sense of landscape, but to
knowledge of the fabrics in which still depend on it for the substance Victoria and Albert Museum's colour 'he halves evenly and non-
passionate despair could be of their form, can convey emotion retrospective in 1972, mainly of representationally (strong green
clothed. Armstrong's inteIIect, his with a power that common reality prints and drawings, the fuIl scale above strong yellow) so as not to
classical learning and his is denied. retrospective last year in Cardiff establish the event too literally.
understanding of the meaning of The imaginative quality of and Glasgow, and the print show The 'protestors' stumble and
tragedy, were his sustenance. Armstrong's painting in the late at last year's Bradford Print cower before the attacks of
Wyndham Lewis, like Armstrong thirties is carried into his early Biennale. The New Art Centre's predatory birds, and belligerents
a devotee of classical culture, and war pictures of partly ruined exhibition was too small to show and victims are alike clothed in
in general not at all lavish in his buildings (several pictures of the whole range of Evans's work, colours and patterns that are in
praise for his contemporaties, 1938-41 are given different dates but included one painting of great themselves so engagingly
singled out Armstrong and Nash in the catalogue from those on the distinction, The Protestors, dated decorative that the artist's depth
as the two substantial painters of paintings, so it is not absolutely July 1939. Evans's indignant rage of feeling is recognized only in the
English Surrealism in his 1939 clear which are wartime ones), but at men's cruelty to one another is way it works gradually to
essay 'The Super-Natural versus to some degree he lost his never in doubt, but he did not contradict the momentary
the Super-Real'. sureness from the mid-forties; always find it easy to make his sensation that the combat is
The Academy's exhibition was certainly the quality of his work anger concrete. Here it is clothed nothing but a piece of jesting. A
put together fairly quickly and is much less even after that. with a violent brightness of second major painting in the show
does not claim to be complete; Armstrong was imaginative, colour, untypical of Evans's work is Victims of Demolition, dated
many pictures could not be intelligent and for the most part as a whole but carefully controlled May 7, 1940, a record of the
traced. The first years (1926-1930) was able to make paint do what he and altogether untouched by the Russian invasion of Finland in
come over strongly and include wanted. His most serious defect careless anarchy with which some 1939. The use of colour and
one particularly impressive was a slight evasiveness, a other artists painted their political depiction of space are more
picture, Labyrinth (1927), in which reluctance always to face his protests. The picture draws naturalistic here, and the
the Minotaur bears Armstrong's audience directly. If there is one frankly on continental Surrealism, expression of tragedy
facial features, and the overriding disappointment in this on Dali in the main figures, on consequently has to be more
spectator can reasonably imagine most stimulating exhibition it is Picasso in the detail of some of direct.
that he is seeing, though probably that many of the pictures seem too the forms, on Ernst, with whom Andrew Causey
only slightly comprehending, one small to convey the strength of Evans had particular affinities, and
of the darker corners of their content. most essentially on Miro; the last

243