William Boyd on Schiele
Boyd, writing in last Saturday’s Guardian Review, praises Egon Schiele (Courtauld Gallery exhibition opening on 23rd October) as a “phenomenal draughtsman”; fair enough, but he then goes on to revisit his argument that only great draughtsmen – there are only men in his list – can be “truly great” painters: “I believe that you can’t be a truly great painter if you’re not an excellent draughtsman.” He cites Robert Hughes in support of this proposition: “..the naked figure, male and female (is) the ultimate test and validation, so the critic Robert Hughes has stated, of any artist.s merit and painterly ability.” He (Boyd) goes on to single out Pollock: “Jackson Pollock, to name but one giant of modernism, is a pre-eminent example – he was a shockingly inept draughtsman – but there are dozens of others.” From the work of Pollock and these others, Boyd can tell – and so can we, he says – that there is something “fundamentally lacking”.
Surely, this is nonsense. How can you tell from Pollock’s “Lavender Mist” that he was a bad draughtsman? Bridget Riley? John Hoyland? Joan Mitchell? Gillian Ayres? Rothko? All great painters, I would argue – but I’ve no idea if they could do a good figure drawing (apart from Rothko, who was no great shakes, I know).
To drag in Hughes is misleading, too, if you are going to have a go at Jackson – Hughes leaves little doubt in his essay on Pollock in “Nothing if not Critical”, that he regarded him as a true great, in spite of his limitations as a “draftsman”: “When he set up a repeated frieze of drawn motifs, as he did for Peggy Guggenheim in 1943, the result – as drawing – was rather monotonous. But when he found he could throw lines of paint in the air, the laws of energy and fluid motion made up for the awkwardness of his fist, and from then on, there was no grace that he could not claim. Compared with his paintings, the myth of Pollock hardly matters”.
The Schiele looks good, though; but a bit freaky, as if made for repro as posters for student bedrooms. I think you’d soon get sick of them, despite the “phenomenal” skill involved.
Richard Tuttle at the Whitechapel Gallery
I went to the private view, sunk the regulation three glasses of fizzy wine, and now I’m going to be ungrateful; I found this exhibition of the US minimalist to be very disappointing. There are some beautiful prints, lithographs, or maybe monoprints, reproduced below; didn’t like the rest. Tiny wall plaques with ticky-tacky little constructions stuck to them – one looked like a bed of cress; a sort of Schwitters construction like a giant mousetrap; bits of string in shapes on the floor; a few paintings combining blue and red marks on a white background with a lower section in black, oil stick maybe; sagging lumps of fabric, cut into odd shapes; some pieces that looked broken or collapsing on themselves (someone did similar stuff in a Turner Prize exhibition some years ago-can’t remember the name). And poems, I think, on the walls, to go with the exhibits. Didn’t read them.
Sculpture at the Whitechapel
Don’t miss this. There’s a de Kooning mud figure, a Schutte head on a tripod, some flayed figures by the Polish guy who was at the Biennale last year, a Louise Bourgeois that looks like a sawfish blade, a Henry Moore reclining figure…
Downfall
Had to watch it when it was on last week; third time, I think. Goebbels and Magda are terrifying, Mohnke is great (the actor, not the real man; implicated in murder of British POWs at Wormhoudt) – and Traudl looks lovely in the German helmet…
Julia’s Eyes
Del Toro film, with some ludicrous bits, strongly relying on three “horrific” scenes: a knife through the mouth, a needle through the eye and a throat- cutting suicide (not as shocking as the one in “Hidden”). Below, for your pleasure, I reproduce the needle moment and the eyeball cutting from Un Chien Andalou, by way of comparison.
I think Chien still has the edge (pardon the pun).
Shark, Will Self
So, you’re reading away, inside someone’s head, hanging on and understanding maybe 70% – then, it all goes pear-shaped. You’ve gone into someone else’s head without a signal and you might go a page or two without realising. Then, you go back to look for the bit where it changed… most annoying, but that’s experimental writing for you.
Samonas
Blackpaint
11.10.14
Tags: Bridget Riley, Downfall, Egon Schiele, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, John Hoyland, Julia's Eyes, Richard Tuttle, Robert Hughes, Shark, Will Self, William Boyd
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