Page 86 - Studio International - September October 1975

elements by explicitly each visiting group member's David Jones 1895-1974 generalizing conventions of a
de-emphasizing subject-matter recollections of having lived in the Anthony d'Offay, sub-cubist style. There is a debt to
which isolates minimal events or Indian community, and the 28 May-20 June Bernard Meninsky, whose life-
accidents as the basis for certain expectancy of arrival in the class Jones attended at the
mediational/formal articulations. community is established by Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, Westminster Art School shortly
A gradual shift in Lamelas' film intercutting interviews with film 8 August-7 September after the First World War. More
and photographic works has of them travelling in a car towards This exhibition, held several obvious is the affinity with Paul
taken him away from juxtaposing the desert where the Indians live. months after David Jones's death, Nash's paintings of the early
and contraposing materially Everything about the film, from does not review his entire 1920's. Rows of suburban houses
determined content to making an the now typical 'before and after achievement. There are no and fences are drawn in echelon.
appeal to less concrete structures sequences' (of expectancy and manuscripts or memorabilia of The slanting fences of Suburban
of narrative and sequential remembrance), down to the zoom the poet, no engravings and no Order (1926) evoke infantry
photography. Structuralist and change of camera position in lettering. Instead, twenty-seven parading. Analogies, 'that trees
cinema, and a great deal of the 'everyday' interviews, is paintings celebrate David are men walking', lurk even here.
photographic work which has identical with the norm of Jones's distinction as a The constriction of Brockley
generally been included under the documentary individuation of an watercolourist. and of a hard style of drawing was
term 'conceptual art', has event. This reinforces belief in the The bulk of the paintings dates loosened by two experiences.
operated as a kind of blatant reality of the depicted event until from before his first breakdown of One was the discovery of water: the
formalist device in which elements the closing sequence reveals its health in 1932. The concentration streams of the Black Mountains
of the material form become artificiality by breaking our on early work is welcome because in Wales, the sea surrounding
explicitly referred to as a part of expectancy of a filmed encounter of a tendency to see David Caldy Island, and a little later
the content, whilst in other cases with the Indians. We are thereby Jones's achievement in the light the sea near Brighton. The sea —
the significance of the represented made to realize the dissonance of his poetry and those of his later its tides, its manifold reflection of
content is minimized by between the intercut expectancy drawings which are similarly the light, its expanse, its rhythm
developing a material opacity of sequence of the car trip and the allusive. I believe that both poems and its power to refresh —
form. Both devices are formalist 'remembrance' sequence of the and drawings are best inspired many of David Jones's
means of distancing from iconic interviews by the inclusion in the approached not through learned finest paintings and most
content. if aspects of these former of a disaster which makes exegesis but through sustained poetic images. Water
characterize Lamelas' earlier the latter narratively impossible. sympathetic recognition of the is the medium of the
work, his more recent activity The allegory again appears to springs that fed his imagination. watercolourist. Turner explored
depends upon the reverse. His relate to the immediate practical water more than any other artist.
However imaginative and
film The Desert People and his standpoint and position of His work was an inspiration to
however recondite his art in word
photographic piece The Violent Lamelas as an artist. The film and image, its origins and David Johes. It taught him that
Tapes of 1975 are, on the level of allegorises his involvement with every painting must have
strength lie in the affection he has
presentational form, as iconically cultural forms and structures by felt for animals, objects, places movement.
'transparent' as Hollywood films. literally realizing the impossibility and traditions that by chance and The other experience concerns
Nor is the nature of the depicted of escape from the hermeneutic providence he has encountered. Wales. His extended visits to
events any longer arbitrary. The circle which cultural structure The early watercolours record Eric Gill's 'monastery' at Capel-
rhetoric of the understated event imposes. The subject-matter of all these affections and their growth. y-ffin, in a wild valley north of
is replaced by an immersion in the the conversations is cultural Consider The Sitting Room, Abergavenny, introduced him to a
rhetoric of commercial cinematic differences (between the visitors Howson Road (1926). It is one of a landscape that was the
plots. Finally, his earlier use of and the Indians) and yet the number of drawings of David antithesis of Brockley. The
different media as a means of narrative precludes the imposition Jones's parents' house in rhythms of the steep hillsides, the
placing a materialist emphasis on of one cultural form (the Brockley, a suburb on the Kent wind-bent trees and rushing
cognitive relativity (the media) is documentary) onto another streams, taught David Jones new
fringe of London. Pencil shading
no longer used to point out society (the tribe). ways of making a pattern upon
emphasizes the changes of plane
differences. Now it does not seem Although the allegorical with hard-edged precision. his page. The drawings of Wales —
to matter whether the form is still content is present it is Something of the jutting Tir y Blaenau, Horses at Water,
photographs, video or film; the underplayed, and the involvement angularity of Vorticism survives. Mr Gill's Hay Harvest — are
adoption of different media seems with cultural form remains There is dynamism in the angular animated by circular rhythms that
to be a matter of practical isolated or distanced from confrontations of furniture and climb the borders of the page,
expediency. normative content. Both works bringing near and far together.
the criss-crossing of shadows on
Having thus emphasized the thus involve (or consist of) the floor. The mood of this The inspiration of the Honddu
changes in his work, it nevertheless formalist devices, the formal Edwardian room, outwardly valley, where the rise and fall
seems that certain of Lamelas' structure being transposed from genteel, is expectant and keenly of the land impresses more than
primary motivations remain the that of the material balanced. Teapot and tray its recession, is evident. More
same. The Violent Tapes consists characterization of media to the intimate human presence, but profoundly, they reveal a new
of a series of photographs more complex cultural structures. chairs and plant-stand hold the attitude towards illusion.
depicting structures characteristic This is certainly to be welcomed stage. Furniture, plant, curtains, In Wales Jones recognized a
of spy films. Each signifies a likely as it is a characteristic common to teapot, appear in a formal landscape of historic presence.
'episode' in the acquisition and all the most interesting work hierarchy whose members hold The historic awareness springs
loss by the characters involved of going on presently in Britain. conversation. first from an excited response to
what might either be audio or However, I feel that Lamelas' The eye is drawn to detail. A strangeness of shape and rhythm.
video tapes obviously containing residually formalist motivation is characteristic signature winks at Tir y Blaenau is tremulous with
vital information, and which seem an obstruction to more incisive us in the simplified ionic volutes this excitement. The anatomy of
to involve murder, car and engagement in the sphere of on the cross-bars of the chairs. the land evokes a slumbering
helicopter chases and an cultural meanings he has chosen Its repetition on the capital beast, the gnarled trees its shaggy
assortment of the kind of hard- for his activity. Nevertheless these supporting a shelf on the left fur. The ponies that graze on the
men and women who frequent are probings into a new area of art recalls its derivation in the slope embody the historic or
the current popular genre of activity which is being tentatively classical orders. It is typical of 'inward' continuity of the site.
amoral, violent films. The fact established by a number of David Jones to seize upon this David Jones's animals are
that the object of the intrigues and artists and which certainly merits detail and engrave it with a bold not shown as subservient, but as
the life-and-death fantasy is itself support, even if for the moment line. In doing so he recovers the historic creatures, long inhabitants
the competitive acquisition of a its products do not excite primitive sense of ornament as of the land, and reminders of
weapon of the media, doubtless applause. sign. Whether it evokes eye, or man's affinity with their
has allegorical significance, Rosetta Brooks breast, or horn of ram, the spiral kingdom. In the Middle Ages it
though Lamelas' preoccupation casts a spell. was believed that animals were
with the social stereotypes defining How incongruous to attribute quicker than mortals to sense
the action-packed serial of this to a Victorian chair! Yet this spirits or magic. Like Balaam's
episodes remains formal. was how David Jones's Ass, Jones's creatures possess this
The Desert People, by contrast, imagination grew. In the front instinct.
is a film modelled on the norms of room of his parents' house he Between 1924 and 1930 the
documentary cinema but which discovered the signs with which, appearance of David Jones's
involves actors playing media- fifteen years later, he built watercolours underwent changes
conscious interviewees who, the Aphrodite in Aulis. that can be followed year by year
film implies, are to go and live These drawings of Brockley in this exhibition. Gradually the
with a certain tribe of Red present an ordered suburban illusion of the physical object and
Indians. The interviews consist of world that slipped easily into the of defined space becomes less

162