SEAN SCULLY IN NEWCASTLE-THE ARTIST AS PERFORMER

Sean Scully, who studied in Newcastle has two  exhibitions of his early work on show at the Hatton and the Laing until May 28 2018.The Laing also has a roomful of his early-and very negligible drawings.I have seen both and found that I came to the following thoughts and conclusions regarding his early work and his later  statements about his ideas.

It is obvious that Scully was very ambitious and determined to produce work which fitted the cutting edge of abstraction as it was seen circa 1970. He succeeded in this to a considerable degree. Within the very limited possibilities of abstraction he has produced some pleasing designs-but nothing more. Abstraction while it may sometimes be fun does seem like a sterile cul-de-sac to me. But Scully was entering into a cult and the cult was flatness, and the cult was New York.This place was the residence of the chief mystagogues and unto it  the young Scully did repair. The cult was the white studio with its inmate as hero.Vir Heroicus Sublimis indeed! (That was Barnett but it could be you too!) We need a philosopher/sociologist such as  Ernest Gellner to analyse this preposterous tendency: just as he did the shabby world of psychoanalysis.

 For an artist of Scully's age the paintings of 1970 are often quite mature. Scully was only 25. But the several paintings which look like the full-frontal elevations of boring modernist blocks of flats are indeed very tedious  and colourwise uninteresting.

I used to think that he improved with age but now I am not so sure. In later work his personal colour scheme seems frequently to be melancholy and sombre,with tarnished yellows and wine- like reds etc. Muted colours  abound.His walls of colour are too much of a muchness. The interventions which may seem to float or hover in front of some of the blocks of colour  just make one think, if these are important developments  then how impoverished is the  imaginative world of  such a painter ?

His best early paintings as shown in these exhibitions have certain illusionistic qualities which make them interesting. That was a surprise to me. There are not too many of them. East Coast Light#2 is good example. The amount of work and thought which has led to their construction is quite considerable. The illusionism is not accidental. In the best of them there is a kind of depth. Part of this is obtained by the use of spray paint which darkens but does not disguise the area behind broad assertive bands of colour which cut across the canvas, There are bands and there are stripes.In one case the stripes are toned in their centre which suggests a certain three dimensionality. But in the end it is just a giant form of basketwork.A pleasant form of basketwork it has to be said.

Scully likes the bridges over the Tyne which may have slightly influenced his work. It's the diagonals you see.

 There is variation in all the paintings  if you look long enough at them. I have to wonder if some of them are in effect palimpsests. If you work over an old painting with perhaps a general overpainting to produce some vague textures and then add broad stripes etc you get some variety in unity.

Projection of spiritual experience onto, for example,  the Tate  Rothkos or a painting by Scully is entirely in the mind of the beholder-as it must always be. But here you have to wonder how many have really thought about the problems of abstraction.One feels that people are saying what they are told to feel by the art establishment. To me abstractionist painters are deluding themselves if they believe as Rothko did that that they are painting about human lives and emotions. If they feel that they are doing this it is up to them. But if so many reject the message it does not mean that they are deaf to  it and the artist misunderstood.The idea of self-expression should certainly be questioned.Perhaps the medium cannot convey the message.

In writing this piece I have looked at some interviews with the artist. I was rather surprised by them. Scully  comes over as an oracular broth of a boy who emerged from extreme poverty, familial violence, a life of petty criminality and animal healing as a belligerent self-mythologiser. I conclude that he thinks of himself as some kind of performer. Time after time-ad nauseam- he mentions his own difficult past. Or maybe he is just playing to the gallery.In itself this will this give a thrill to intellectuals and journalists.You may well say that interviews, like obituaries always cover the same ground. Journalists read the cuttings and so know what buttons to press, but it is in the end the interviewee's choice of how to respond.

Here are excerpts from one of his most priceless,  self-regarding interviews -refering to Ai Wei Wei.The interview  is from VICE magazine.It is one of the few where Scully is seriously challenged by his interviewer.The interviewer, Jenny Stevens says;

You taught Ai Wei Wei in New York. What do you think about his work? He's obviously very critical of China.

It's an entirely different idea about how to improve the world. I'm not saying he's not trying to make the world better. His work deals with the symptoms – it's reactive to specific situations. My work deals with the the cause. Because abstraction – well, the best abstraction, not those nice big dopey paintings hanging in hotel lobbies – is about inner structures.

Of abstraction he says..... it's very difficult to censor it, because you can't really ever say what it is. This is where abstraction is very powerful – it's free. What's really interesting to me is that in England, there's democracy, but they can't really understand abstract art. I've always had a problem in England.

My work deals with  the the cause. Well, there you go! Artists are obviously powerful. Especially abstract ones.What sort of reaction does he really expect to an enormous piece of sham profundity as this? My politer answer  to him would be that abstraction isn't powerful at all. What are these inner structures? How can abstract painting  communicate, if that is the right word, about anything other than  what it is itself? Perhaps it will be objected that music is abstract also.That topic often comes up. But there is a traditional language in music which was part of common culture. It developed over centuries and was perhaps not so much invented as discovered. There is no such thing for abstraction and probably no possibility of there ever being such a system. As such it can easily be ignored by the powerful. In China for example. Scully's works may be closer to those nice big dopey paintings than he realises.
As he does not enlighten us about the nature of his profundity but merely claims it, one is forced to speculate. He seems more like one of the "inner necessity " brigade. Kandinsky has a lot to answer for.But if you make the vague and  grandiose claims that Scully does then you might be asked to justify them-and he is never challenged about this.But if you did challenge a mystagogue, what would you get but either, more waffle or expulsion from the group? He is certainly saying that his art is more profound than Ai's which deals with more superficial matters.But he does not say how his paintings work to that end. There is no explanation of how his paintings deal with causes or how abstract paintings can do so. If he can tell me how abstract paintings do this I will be very grateful. I don't much care for Ai's work as an artist but his work can certainly be seen as relating to the world as it is.

If abstraction is some kind of pure aesthetic experience then it couldn't deal with anything profound at all. Perhaps painters should just shut up.We can enjoy the purity but cannot do so for long before it will inevitably pall. It says nothing about the human condition.

When he is questioned about dissidents Scully refers to them as people who might want to bring down the state. And the Irish were a slave nation and he doesn't really understand what Ai's grievances might be and isn't really sympathetic anyway. He also refers briefly to he subject of Ai's alleged tax evasion.This is the ultimate naivety. The authorities cynically accused Ai of one of the very crimes in which they themselves specialise.Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn't, but I'll tell you one thing, the charge was surely brought to put pressure on Ai and to discredit him. In a country where there is no independent legal system anything can happen.Habeas Corpus-forget it!

In the same interview Scully is reminded that Ai was locked up. But Scully implies that he visited him during this period and not in jail. I wasn't aware of this but then I'm not an Ai expert.Here are the quotes.
But he got put in prison.I went to see Ai Wei Wei when he was locked up. I go all the way out there to see him and he's not locked up at all. He's got this huge place. We go outside and get in this limo, go to this nice Japanese restaurant and drink sake all afternoon. That poor suffering boy.

Hang on, that was when he was incarcerated for 81 days?
Yes... We went out. Look – I can't speak about it with authority, because it's not my life. I don't know how it was with his father, I don't know what all these old grievances are. I don't have a lot of pity for it – the Irish were basically a slave colony for hundreds of years. I can't weep for somebody making a lot out of their past*. But if you go to New York, to Parsons where I taught him, you've got to be able to pay for it. There's difficulties in all the world. I remember the police in Britain used to hunt down homosexuals – and it's not that long ago.
He is quite right about the behaviour of UK police in times past. Thus he is positing a moral equivalence between the UK and China. What does Scully have to say about the position of homosexuals in China? The difference is of course that legislators could get the law changed in the UK. In China the "law" is mostly a tool for the Party.

Here from another interview is how he reacts when it is implied that there may be something unethical about exhibiting in Beijing.This is from the Irish Times.

"The Beijing show is the first major retrospective by a western artist in China. When asked if he’s concerned about having a show in China given its treatment of his fellow artists, he bridles."

So I should have a show in America, then . . . Is that okay? To have a show in England, where they invented the slave trade? Keep going and you could only have a show in Ireland,” he says. “There’s only one f***ing country in the world you can show in, then, because there’s only one f***ing country that never did anything to anybody, and that’s Ireland.

But "England"-actually the U.K. did not invent the slave trade. It certainly profited by it. And of course "England" -actually did something about it. And it still does try to combat slavery which exists in so many forms in the modern world.

He is quite keen on modern China but he is vague about Chinese history. Let him read something by Simon Leys whose texts are quite short and pungent.They originate before China's economic lift-off but are still relevant. There are plenty of Chinese writers and artists who have suffered at the hands of the communists. And it still goes on. For a modern view of China he could read Richard McGregor-The Party.In China, to ask for decency and openness in relations between citizen and state is to invite  threats, intimidation and abduction. One thinks of the case of  the helpless victims of the Sanlu milk scandal. Or indeed of Ai Wei Wei.....

*my italics!

HOWICK HAVEN-WHERE THE TADORNE WAS WRECKED

Howick Haven: gouache by James Holland


Here is a gouache I did one day last Spring. I have painted this view at least three times. You can sit in the lee of some of the masonry which remains near the site of the old boathouse. The painting measures about 29X39cms.In the distance you can see part of the Tadorne's boiler. I am convinced that I can remember another part nearer inshore-but I could be wrong. It is a tranquil enough place in my painting but what you can see is just how close inshore the ship must have been (presuming that the boiler hasn't moved very much).
(My review of the interesting recent booklet  about the tragedy by Mrs A Meakin can be found here.)

MARTIN LUTHER KING AND OTHERS- GOOD AND BAD IN MODERN MONUMENTS

Dr Martin Luther King, by Nigel Boonham,.University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2017.

 I am  certain that  public sculpture is in a bad way in Britain. Almost without exception railway stations and public places are becoming infested with the trash which modern sculptors are producing. Whether it is a sentimental portrait of a well known middle-brow poet and architecture critic or a crass memorial to a battle from the Second World War, London in particular is being deluged with rubbish. But there are still exceptions which crop up now and again.

Dr Martin Luther King, by Nigel Boonham,.University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2017.

Nigel Boonham's sculpture of Martin Luther king was recently unveiled at the University of Newcastle to commemorate the visit which Dr King made in 1967 on the occasion when he was awarded an honorary degree.In its quality it is certainly an exception to the current trend.

The sculpture stands in a small, quiet courtyard and it has only a minimal plinth. The focus is on the Doctor in Dr King who stands, dignified, in academic dress, confronting you at the entrance to a building.He is leaning slightly backwards and the work is slightly larger than life size. The scale is appropriate to the small site. His thoughts are inscribed on the pavement surrounding the figure. This sculpture is the second by Boonham in Newcastle. His earlier figure of Cardinal Basil Hume stands outside the Roman Catholic Cathedral near the Central Station. Boonham is working very much in the tradition of figurative sculpture. in terms of conception and symbolism, But the modelling shows that it is of its time.The head is crisp and modern. Or should that be crisp and traditional?

It is interesting to note that Boonham was an apprentice of Oscar Nemon and learned his trade by hands on work. He is better than Nemon in many ways. He probably could not have obtained appropriate training in a British art school.

Boonham has really gone to town on the complications of academic dress, indeed he is on record as searching for someone to model the figure,gown,cap etc.He explained that he needed to work from photographs because the folds of  an academic gown change all the time even with the models slightest movement.He has made the academic dress work as a way of giving interesting form to the sculpture.It is quite convinvcing as the clothing of a human form.

Dr Martin Luther King, by Nigel Boonham,.University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2017.

Dr Martin Luther King, by Nigel Boonham,.University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2017.

As a portrait the modelling is bold and clear. As a likeness it often seems to show a good resemblance.  I am confident that Dalou would have recognised this to be the case. And here to set a standard, so to say, is Dalou's head of Delacroix which was made for the monument in the Luxembourg gardens. Let me remind you that makers of monuments usually do not get the chance to work from life. Not Boonham,not Dalou. But is both cases the modelling is clear and frank.

Dalou: Head of Delacroix.

I would like to compare these  works with the recent sculptures by Gillian Wearing in Birmingham and the new work which is to go in Parliament Square in London.They illustrate a somewhat different view of the idea of a public monument and how it is produced.To me it shows  the acceptance of mediocrity because; well, because nobody involved seemed to know any better.

An Ordinary Birmingham Family by G Wearing.

Ms Wearing chose the subjects to represent an ordinary Birmingham family.This seems to be the third in a series including, An ordinary Trentino Family, and an An Ordinary Danish Family.

Ms Wearing is of course a conceptual artist and the choice of two lone parents, single mothers was probably meant to be challenging. They are indeed ordinary Birmingham people with no claim to fame or national recognition.The only males are their young children.Conceptually that is fine by me. Why shouldn't ordinary folk be honoured just as much as the famous? There aren't many public sculptures in which one of the figures is pregnant.

As far as I can learn Ms Wearing, as a conceptual artist and is most unlikely to have had any training in  sculpture such as modelling the human form, visualising how to plan a figure for casting and so on. Perhaps she would not want it. Perhaps she doesn't think it necessary, because as far as I can learn the work was made in China by unnamed craftsmen-or women.

 My guess would be that photographs were sent to a firm which specialised in model making for the film world, or perhaps some organisation which is still able to produce work tableaux such as  communist propaganda used to require.Or perhaps there is some sculpture department in China carrying out this kind of work. You could of course use 3D computer apps such as filmmakers also use for 3D effects etc.This tableau, like Ms Wearing's other "Ordinaries" seems to me to have something of that kind of banality.

But as a sculpture it is seriously deficient in portrayal of form. Compared to Dalou or Boonham the Birmingham group is banality personified.The modelling of the clothes is blandly uninteresting.All garments seem to be made out of the same material. The boots and the skirt.The artist maybe a conceptualist but the visual intent is surely traditional. As photographs show it the group seems to be modelled out of lard.It is not frank and powerful-as in the Dalou head of Delacroix. It seems as if the conception is so powerful to the artist that nothing else matters.

 My thoughts on Ms Wearing's latest public sculpture-the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square can be found here.

CADELL'S PAINTING TECHNIQUE-IN HIS HIS LANDSCAPES

I was fortunate enough to visit the excellent selection from the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation which was shown last year  in Berwick. Naturally enough I was drawn there because of the Cadell landscapes. The Dunara Castle at Iona and the lovely Loch Creran. This gave me the chance to look closely at his painting technique.

Both paintings are on board and measure 15"X18" a landscape format common in Cadell's work.( Most books give the measurements in inches.)

The Dunara Castle at Iona, Fleming-Wyfold Foundation

Firstly it is commonly said that he painted on gesso because it helped give luminosity to his work. Alice Strang in her catalogue for the Cadell  exhibition at the SNGMA speaks of the,"dry, chalky finish that.... enhances luminosity"* and sees this as particularly appropriate to the Iona landscapes. This seems to be received opinion on the subject and as far as it goes it seems reasonable. (She also says that the gesso ground absorbs the paint, this is not strictly correct, what is absorbed is the binder which holds the paint together and the medium-perhaps a traditional oil/turps mix which may be used to dilute the paint.)

But I am not sure if that the "luminosity" explanation is a sufficient or even a strictly realistic explanation. A varnish-which Cadell emphatically rejects-can deepen and enliven the darker colours on a painting and  give a greater dynamic range.A glossy surface usually does this-in painting and photography.But many artists  from Impressonism onwards have avoided a traditional glossy varnish on their paintings.I think that like them Cadell preferred the chalky surface and the unity he could obtain with it. He also may have enjoyed certain aspects of painting onto  absorbent gesso and the way in which it modifies the normal handling experience of painting onto a relatively non-absorbent ground. Having in the past painted onto gesso grounds with oils I can vouch for the difference.The paint does not dry much quicker than  work done on a normal ground; instead it remains greasy.

If FCBC had been a cack-handed incompetent who couldn't compose with colour then his work wouldn't have been luminous at all, gesso or no gesso. He deliberately chose his color range.It is certainly true that from the evidence of Cadell's own instructions on the backs of his gesso paintings that he did not want them varnished. This would have altered the chalky surface to an academic gloss. In those places where the ground shows through the colour would have become yellow as the varnish aged.So might the impasto areas where varnish would likely fill the hollows left by the hog hair brush bristles.

Also of course, it is easier to transport gessoed panels rather than canvases and this might well have been a factor in their frequent appearance as supports for the Iona paintings.
.
And you can get a pure strong non-yellowing ground with gesso. And by gesso I don't mean the stuff you can buy in tubs in art shops nowadays. That isn't gesso as Cadell or Mantegna would have understood it.

Detail from Dunara Castle showing typical brushwork on a gesso ground.

If you paint in oils onto a raw, unsized or lightly sized, chalky gesso ground, as Cadell seems to have done, then a fair part of the  binder/medium in your paint will be  sucked immediately into the ground. It becomes difficult to manipulate the paint, to push it around. And Cadell was nothing if not a fluent painter.The painting does not dry that much more quickly for it will still remain greasy. But you can drag some more colour over it to get  a broken effect or work into it because it does set up a little. This can be seen quite noticeably in Cadell's treatment of the hills in the  Loch Creran. It may be that Cadell liked the heavy drag of paint and brush.Your brushwork will be more fluent if you use a medium-perhaps a traditional linseed oil/turps mixture.It seems to be quite clear that Cadell used such a medium in the blue construction marks in the Loch Creran. These construction marks are sometimes reinforced or added to at a later stage in his paintings, perhaps with the brush he used to sign his work.They can appear under or over the patchwork of pastel colours  for which they are the scaffolding.A good example of this work can be seen in the painting which was illustrated in Bourne Fine Arts'  2005 booklet as Sandy Creek, Iona. A detail is used as the frontispiece and you can see construction marks and the thinness of some of the artist's brushwork.

Detail of man in foreground of Dunara Castle showing  different paint qualities- a wetter, more squelchy pink in the

background and  perhaps a drier mix in the back and hat of the figure.

Loch Creran

Detail of the painting above-middle distance on right. Shows Cadell's use of blue to construct a basic composition (under) and then to reinforce it (over) when completing the painting. The area just above the words "rough textured brushmarks-a kind of "stuttering"  texture could, I believe have only been produced by the drag of a brush on a highly absorbent gesso ground.

Here just out of interest are a couple of snaps taken at or close to Cadell's viewpoint on the South side of Loch Creran.
The first was taken at a time near to high tide. Cadell's viewpoint was probably higher and behind my own in one of the fields at Dallachullish.

*F C B Cadell, Alice Strang, Edinburgh 2011, page 79.
An earlier post on the same topic is here.