Wieneke Archive Book 4g : Art in Brisbane Presscuttings

2 ART NEWS AND REVIEW The Spirit of the Wood Block THREE LONDON EXHIBITIONS focus attention at this moment on the nature and development of wood -cutting and wood-engrav- ing. leaving us to reflect, perhaps with some surprise. , n the vigour that this form of com- bined art and craft still shows after enduring many ups and downs, including the severe com- petition of modern mechanical processes of reproduction. There is a centenary show devoted to that classic of the wood block, Thomas Bewick (born August 12, 1753) at Bethnal Green; a somewhat sketchy but nevertheless interesting historical survey at the Times Book Club ter- minating in quite a large array of contemporary books with cut or engraved illustrations; while, at the Crafts Centre of Great Britain the Society of Wood Engravers gives its own cross-section of current effort. Both as artist and craftsman Bewick, after a 100 years. still has a unique place. He was able (considering hint as artist first) to convey or make one feet an emotion about the places he knew and loved. No doubt if he had employed another medium his intimate love of the country would have appeared as strongly: yet this poetic sense is a main fascination of the famous vignettes in the "Histories" of British Birds and Quadrupeds. Much admira- tion has been devoted to the texture of feather or fur he was able to give in his detailed studies of birds and animals. We should not, however. depend on him. especially at this time of day, for the facts of natural history. More reward- ing is the poetry and humour into which he depicts some country lads flying a kite, a lonely traveller struggling over a rustic brislie in - driving rain or the atmosphere of a snow-laden moor. At the same time the nature of the wood block that as a craftsman he understood so well, enabled him to give a peculiar effectiveness to his tiny masterpieces. He explored the resources of the medium to a greater degree than his pre- decessors. Instead of merely cutting away the wood so that the remaining raised parts printed with a flat, linear result, he worked from black to whi.: achieving a grey tone by means of incised lines that when printed appeared as white lines and giving a new sparkle and mean- ing to the areas that in the prints were entirely white. Bewick, the provincial and rustic poet. is also the masterly technician of the "white line." The happy balance of means and expression did not last after Bewick's death. There fol- lowed that period in which art and craft were divorced; the artist was one person, the wood engraver another. In the Victorian age one finds neither the honest crudity of the linear cuts on which Bewick improved nor his sensi- tive exploitation of the further possibilities the medium offered. As with other forms of crafts- manship, elaborate skill was wrongly directed to the interpretation of works originally carried out in another medium. The typical Victorian wood -engraving has perhaps been sufficiently condemned already by critics from Ruskin onwards. There is much to regret as a waste of effort. It is rather sad to think of the skill expended by engravers in cutting out a myriad small lozenges to imitate the cross, hatching scribbled with a pen --by Millais, say, in an illustration to one of Trollope's novels. The true spirit of the wood block was lost, though even so the illustration of the 'Sixties struggled to magnificence, and certain illustrators, like Dore, gained a sooty impressiveness from their interpretors, that Dore's original wash drawings, for example, did not possess. Misdirection of skill reached its height, even though using the "white line" with almost uncanny resourcefulness in the late Victorian reproductions of paintings and works of sculp- ture. The Times Book Club exhibition includes an example where the wood engraver shows positive brilliance in his attempt to give the William Gaunt effect of a photograph of a work of art-an attempt inevitably unsuccessful. It was this sort of thing against which William Morris and his associates reacted so strongly. The books of the Kelmscott Press, in which he collaborated with Burne Jones were, from the graphic point of view, a return to the original linear simplicity of ilie wood block (though not to the spirit and method of Bewickl. They reasaerted its function as the close asso- ciate of typography, partaking of its nature. They also indicated that the work of hook artist and engraver was, or should be, one. The salutary effect on the art of the book can he directly seen in many splendid volumes illustrated or decorated by wood cuts and wood engravings from the 1890's to our own day -- of which the Times Book Club sets on view some choice examples. The "private presses" like the Golden Cockerel Press and the Gregy- nog Press have shown their devotion to the idea of the book as a thing of physical beauty and completeness. Artists like Eric Gill. Robert Gibbings and Blair Hughes Stanton have devoted themselves to the harmonious union of type and wood-block print-on the sound assumption that the spirit of the wood block is very close to the spirit of the printed page. Yet these happy results have not been arrived at without also giving rise to some doubts. Is there, one asks, something artificial in this revival? Anciently the wood -block print was a form of popular art, yet the Kelmscott books and hooks of the later private presses, have been the luxuries of a limited circle.. The question may be put more drastically by reference to the mechanical means of reproduc- tion. Did they render wood engraving obsolete. seeing that any black and white drawing could be given in virtual facsimile? Two related answers may be given to this question. Firstly, that the wood engraving has a sharpness and weight of line that no process reproduction of a line drawing can give, an inherent quality that substitutes like the scraper hoard (so closely imitative of the Bewickian "white line") cannot give. Secondly, that wood engraving to -day is by no means limited to "de luxe" editions but is found in all manner of works intended for the general public. The excellent portrait print of Bewick, by Miss Joan Hussall in the Society of Wood Engravers' Exhibition. figures in Mr. Montague Weckley's new Bewick biography. A series of illustrations by Miss Zelma Blakeley were designed for the "London Mystery Maga- zine". For head- or tail -piece or decorated initial, as Miss Hassell has ably shown, wood - engraving remains inimitable: and as Mr. Reynolds Stone's design for T. Swann proves, it can still give a special distinction to the trade- mark. It is to that extent a living form of art and craft that one sees in the books at the Times Book Club and the individual prints at the Society of Wood Engravers. The strong point of modern work as a whole seems to be a decorative quality, like that achieved by Mr. Robert Gibbings in his "Morse d'Arthur" and also a renewed sense of that exquisite quality of line that Bewick revealed. It evinces less of the original vision that dis- tinguishes Bewick or, it may be added, the emotional expressiveness that a greater contem- s- porary of Bewick. William Blake, imparted fusing a not dissimilar technique) to his illus- trations for Thornton's "Pastorals of Virgil." Some of the larger prints at the Society of Wood Engravers, intended as pictures rather than illustrations. while quite decorative, are disap- pointing in their lack of emotional content, even with the interesting addition of colour that still has its fresh possibilities to offer. The wood engraver of today has ability and a function: he could, one might suggest, do with more of the passion of modern art. Leicester Galleries VAUGHAN'S NEW PAINTINGS mark a real advance in his career. The mood of his pictures has not changed much with the years: it still stems from twilight or night: but the construction and technique have made much progress. The drawings and gouache paintings have always been beautifully realised: but in the past the oils have occasionally suffered from a certain awkwardness of execution. There are still dis- concerting passages in his paintings, but they are rarer. The colour is dark, but resonant and in his studies of figures in landscapes and in the landscapes themselves, Vaughan often achieves an extraordinarily dignified and massive poetic quality. Nan Youngman's first exhibition is promising. It consists of topographical paintings --the best of them appear to be of Wales-in which a genuine excitement over the feeling of a place has been disciplined by a firm sense of composi- tion and considerable subtlety in handling low keyed colours. By contrast, Humphrey Spender's pictures appear shallow and curiously pointless. They are not pure decorations, for some attempt has been made at solidity and perspective and the rather trite stylization robs them of any identification with a particular place or thing. The colour, also, is crude, and although the construction of ninny of these pic- tures is most felicitous and imaginative, in general they do not mike their point. Redfern Gallery MICHAEL AVRTON'S NEW pictures are very impressive in many ways. hut the colour is uneven in aptness and quality although occa- sionally, when it gets to the rational but heart- less pitch of p.intilliste intensity, it is wholly successful. Ay rton's images are often compel- ling and the draughtsmanship is, as always, really brilliant and less mannered than in the past. but the lapses in taste are disturbing. It is partly the colour and partly the quality of paint. But these pictures are all very seriously and carefully realised and the professional standard is high. Michael Rothenstein, show- ing at the same gallery, also maintains a high technical standard with his colour aquatints, but there does seem to be a decline in genuine in- vention and feeling. Bryan Wynter's pictures parallel in some ways those of Keith Vaughan. for both these artists are concerned with portraying the actual place as well as the lucidity with which they form an abstraction from a landscape. Wyn- ter's brightly coloured pictures fail because the colour is not really decorative and scarcely related to natural appearances; but the struc- ture of his work and the boldness of the com- positions are becoming increasingly effective. Bryan Robertson. The Victor Waddington Galleries 8 SOUTH ANNE STREET Dt 81 IN Exhibition of Recent Paintings By Jack B. Yeats 4-+ ---.-÷-- UNTIL OCTOBER 24 -++ ,- 44 - - +++++++ 44 ++4++ -- :kt \l,4. ling t,1111 sing i tunat beca and dom acq LI Ott of th of ti, His "Th Walk ing imm the n ing s calm, froc imat all Ir play a It whic descr glean of ea anil of a claim ben, it Cla tiom art poei, impr sente divi, that un and langli Swim the V the s: appri Is a cavil by A. 1916. But t the With, in tlic R. B. Moro, sense' great too, image the al Imp influe the ti Lady in EIL ninete us to inftniq other dennir rc BC