BERNAT KLEIN

The Bernat Klein exhibition at the  Dovecot Gallery in Edinburgh has ended. It was a pleasure to see this retrospective devoted to the work of such a remarkable designer who sadly passed away last year.One could  see samples of his  multi-coloured yarns, some of the tapestries he made in collaboration with the Dovecot and some of the oil paintings he made whilst developing his  textile designs. He had a remarkable life-from Yugoslavia to Israel to Galashiels he followed his vocation in textiles with great determination and originality.

Bernat Klein Dress:Polyester, 1969 V&A. Not shown.

Detail from Bernat Klein painting. This one was in the exhibition and seems to relate to the dress shown above.

Bernat Klein painting-as shown

The paintings were mostly very attractive and the tie-in with the textiles obvious at a glance. The colour is rich,clean and luminous. It is obvious that the paintings have been cared for and it is delightful to see that some have been sold.

Bernat Klein painting as shown.

Published by Bernat Klein Scotland with Collins,
London 1965. (The colophon says that Collins were the distributors)

Double page spread from "An Eye for Colour" Showing on the left a painting "Seascape" and don the right the cloth known as "Velvet Tweed"-with a velvet ribbon for the warp and one of the multi-coloured yarns for the weft.

I first heard of  Bernat Klein, An Eye for Colour when my local library bought a copy. It wasn't that I had much interest in textiles or knowledge of them but here was a nicely produced book with lots of good colour illustrations and excellent typography. From what I later learned of Klein this could be no surprise. It was immediately obvious that he wanted quality in whatever he produced. In a word, the book stood out and was immensely attractive in itself. This was something to be treasured way back in the 1960s. There were numerous colour illustrations and of course I was delighted to find that Klein shared my fascination with Seurat. He names him as one of the inspirations of his multi coloured wool fibres and textiles.I cannot pretend that I read the book from cover to cover on first acquaintance. I did that a few years ago when I bought my own copy and my respect for the man increased considerably.


Klein's archives exist at Herriot-Watt's border campus (14 linear metres) and this PDF gives an idea of the range of items. For a sketch of his career and further illustrations  this item will be very helpful.You can see textile samples at the National Museum of Scotland here. The NMS will eventually be opening a gallery which will include Klein's work.

Seurat

I have been interested in Seurat since my schooldays. I cannot recall if my art teacher , Mr Hunter, mentioned his quasi scientific attitude, most probably he did. This interest was greatly helped when the Northumberland Library Service bought two books on the artist which I  requested and wanted to consult. They were Herbert's book on the drawings which was a very attractive book design for its time and Homer's book on Seurat's use of colour. I'm not sure how much of the latter I understood. I have been re-reading Homer and can see why it occupies an important but much criticised place in Seurat studies. It is too dogmatic  but it is also a useful collection of material for anyone interested in colour in C19 art. 

Discussing colour is extraordinarily difficult and optical mixture/fusion is as tricky as they come. One problem is that Homer, and most writers on Seurat do not seem to understand the importance of the size of the dot and the fact that this is crucial to the greying effects said to be observed in The Models and other  late works. We have problems in perceiving the colour of dots: they can only appear to be greyish at the distance where  fusion may be expected to occur. In other words the colour of dots seen at a distance cannot be clearly perceived by the human eye, at increasing distances their true colour cannot be observed and they will tend to look grey. Juxtaposed dots of differing colours will  function in a similar way and it seems to me that there will be a fusion of coloured greys. The importance of dot size has been known for almost 40 years though it is not mentioned in any of the standard works which I have to hand.Webster, in his well known article on Impressionism has nothing to say on this matter.

Homer is obsessed with the ideal viewing distance for paintings and may have derived this preoccupation from Webster. On that score I can only say that we experience paintings as we can. A wall-painting may force a distant viewpoint, a large canvas allows one to move about and to experience it in different ways. It would have been useful if he had avoided sentences like this.

"As a result of the growing  uniformity of Seurat's pointillist technique,  optical mixture could take place much more easily, and thus  his paintings tended increasingly to operate as luminous screens that emit colored light". (page 165)

 

"Seurat and the Science of Painting",William Innes Homer, The M.I.T Press, 1964

   

A Poor Sense of Colour

There is something distinctly old fashioned about much  landscape photography in Britain-especially that of the amateur with more equipment than he can manage. Photographers oftene seem to be lacking in any modern sense of colour. So much of what they produce relates more to a  landscapist such as J C Dahl than to Monet or Seurat.  There is considerable gloom along with occasional flashes of something more lurid. 

One of the problems is HDR. I'm not sure that it lives up to its name in providing a High Dynamic Range. I have rarely seen an HDR  colour image which wasn't weirdly lurid. Maybe Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh should be patrolled so that anyone carrying a tripod can be turned away .

The situation is made worse by the camera magazines which serve the  male concern for technical matters and a hierarchy of cameras which fit into grades such as "prosumer" (sickening isn't it ?), professional or amateur. Beginners, perhaps lacking confidence go on to repeat the latest cliches of the genre. Art students are no different and many of them never grow out of it. I am sick of  photographs which show a misty milky sea floating round some rocks. There is often a pinky/blue sky to confirm that the neophyte got up at dawn. Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh should be patrolled and anyone carrying a tripod should be turned away. As Degas might have said, "Landscape photography is not a sport". Never underestimate the herd instinct.

And another thing....that ridiculous remark to the effect that, "From today painting is dead". I could replace it with a question. There are times when I am tempted to ask,"When will photography come to life?"