Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

REALITY OR RELIGIOUS FANTASY? Roy de Maistre and Herbert Badham Heather Johnson Facing page Roy de Maistre Australia/England 1894-1968 The Garden of Gethsemane c.1950 Oil on canvas 140x109.8cm Gift of Lady Trout 1981 Queensland Art Gallery Above Roy de Maistre Christ is nailed to the Cross 1958 Oil on canvas 152x112.5cm Purchased 1973 Queensland Art Gallery I n her catalogue Herbert Badham, 1899-1961, Christine Dixon links and - at the same time separates the names of Badham and Roy de Maistre: 'Seen against the early colour experiments of de Maistre and Wakelin, these works are very literal'.1Similarly the linking of de Maistre and Badham in the present essay and within one genre of painting — religious imagery — seems at first an almost impossible joining of the spiritual, religious and romantic with the pragmatic and the real. In spite of intentions, backgrounds and beliefs, however, the religious works of de Maistre and Badham have unexpected commonalities both in the artists' aims and in their styles, although this is not immediately apparent — de Maistre being largely known as Australia's first abstract painter and later as a modernist religious artist and Badham's subject matter being described as 'always the everyday' and having the 'matter-of-factness of a social reporter'.2 Although de Maistre was raised a staunch Anglican, his early forays into abstraction were closely linked to a search for the spiritual that transcended formal religious beliefs. The late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century 'western' interest in the transcendental, and the way it influenced artists, is becoming of increasing importance in the study of modern art.3Movements such as theosophy, anthroposophy, spiritualism and the occult are now recognised as a major stimulus in the move to depict abstract ideas in a visual form: artists sought the spiritual and aimed to depict it in a way that bypassed recognisable imagery.4 In Sydney, de Maistre, partly influenced by overseas ideas but more so by the cosmopolitan and worldly atmosphere of Sydney during and immediately after the First World War, undertook a similar spiritual search. In 1919 he wrote that colour was the means of understanding 'the deepest underlying principles of nature, the source of deep and lasting happiness ... the song of life ... the spiritual speech of every living thing'.5 De Maistre also sought a formalised method of using colour to depict the essence of life. Believing as Wassily Kandinsky and others did that spirituality was to be found in inner harmony, de Maistre, with his colleague Roland Wakelin, devised charts in which particular tones of colour were allied to precise musical notes, in order that the colours which corresponded with harmonising sounds would then themselves harmonise.6The colour charts and scales were used to produce a series of small works, such as Wakelin's Synchromy in Orange Major 1919 (The Art Gallery of New South Wales) and later fully abstract works such as de Maistre's Rhythmic Composition in Yellow Green Minor 1919 (AGNSW) where the flowing forms swelling around the darker central vortex and enhanced by the rich blue and green tones are suggestive of a life force. The 1920s atmosphere of postwar conservatism resulted in de Maistre becoming disillusioned by the unsympathetic reception modem art received in Australia. Unable to make a living from art, he left Australia in 1930. Almost immediately on his arrival in England a few months later, he was perceived as a modern painter of some note. Within three months he had a solo exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London, which was reviewed in Apollo magazine,7and had held an exhibition with the English artist Francis Bacon, which was recorded with photographs in Studio ® In 1934 he was one of the first artists to have an exhibition in the Mayor Gallery, newly opened in 1933 and recognised as a leading forum for modem art in London. The artists preceding de Maistre with solo exhibitions were Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Eric Gill, Paul Klee and Picasso.9 De Maistre also had work reproduced in British poet and critic Herbert Read's book Art Now: An Introduction to the Theory of Modern Painting and Sculpture in 1933. By the end of the 1930s, however, de Maistre's star was on the wane. His association with the Mayor Gallery ended and his workwas dropped from the second edition of Art Now in 1936. He retreated into a world of private patronage, exhibiting in provincial or small London galleries. At this time he also started 218 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965