An edited excerpt from something I wrote in 1971 (Leonardo vol.4)
I have clung to the figure because I find in it a model of great complexity with a wide variety of jointing, scale and mass, and one with which we are all familiar. We not only know what it looks like from the outside: we know what it feels like from the inside. The slightest deviation form the expected norm is noted and questioned. Every human eye is attuned to the figure more precisely than even the educated eye is attuned to mathematical proportions. When one adds to this the geometric, architectural and rhythmic associations that have accumulated around the figure during its long evolution, it become clear that there is a widely available basis for understanding the purely formal meaning of figurative sculpture, which I find lacking in non figurative work. Figurative art is capable of dealing with human emotions in a simple and direct way.
One of the tragic side affects of non figurative art, in my view, has fallen upon art education. We are producing art students who have little or no interest in the art of the past, thus destroying the communion of artists: that sense of partaking in a timeless communion certainly gives me a sense of well being. Indeed, it seem to me to be the only certain reward for the serious study of art. Moreover, I am convinced that the sense of belonging to a privileged circle with access to inner meanings is an important ingredient of the aesthetic experience. If my view is right, estrangement form the past is surely too greater price to pay for the understandable dissatisfaction with the old academies of art.
Communication in art, as in everything else, must be based on a collection of symbols that are commonly understood. I realise that new forms sometimes have to be invented to express genuinely new experiences. However, the huge transformations in art that have taken place in the last fifty years have all but disintegrated the slowly evolving complex of commonly understood visual symbols. More important, does not the effort of making language describe our experiences force us to re-examine and refine the experiences ourselves? Surely only when the present language proves inadequate for our expression can we allow ourselves the indulgence of linguistic invention. To me a newly invented ‘form’ is simply a novelty. Originality must contain a new insight which may or may not need a new ‘form’ for its expression.
I apologize for not answering my critics sooner, I have only just become aware of them. Allow me to explain my point of view more fully on Serota.
Our way of life is changing more rapidly than ever before. Art has to change as life changes. But the white-hot revolution which Harold Wilson (once Prime Minister) foresaw as a great leap forward in opportunities for leisure has in fact put a great deal more stress into human existence; life has speeded up rather than slowed down. Advances in medicine have certainly prolonged life expectancy with the result that the care of the aged now requires far more expense than the pension funds can stand, so pensionable age has to go up. The world population explosion is upon us much sooner than Malthus foresaw. The human population is overwhelming all other species and the planet’s ecology. Climate change etc. etc.
I mention these very real challenges to point out that it is not that easy to predict the future. Yet in art we have allowed Serota with no particular qualifications to dictate the course of art. His “challenging art” does not remotely correspond to life’s challenges as I see them. On the contrary his “cutting edge” is an absurd diversion from what we should be focusing upon.
I see art as an education in seeing what is out there. The more one observes the more one becomes aware of the mental obstacles to seeing. Our survival as a species depends more on the sense of sight than on any other. Serota and his team live in a world of fantasy that does not amuse, it frightens me.
He is a great propagandist but then so were the Nazis, who proclaimed that if you are going to lie, make it a big one. Serota has learnt that lesson well. (see The Jackdaw). He has initiated the most disgraceful episode in the history of art, anywhere. I want to stop him in his tracks. Unfortunately there are a lot of people making a lot of money temporarily out of this financial bubble, so instead of seeing the disgrace, the art establishment is considered a success!
“New Humanism” is my answer to what has gone wrong with art. I respect the Stickists for what they have done to bring about change but I long for a different direction of change, one in which observation figures big again.
Just the other day 65 million pounds ($104.3 million) was paid for one copy of an edition of 6 bronzes of Giacometti’s “Walking Man”. I feel personally indebted to Giacometti as the one among the mega-buck heroes whose drawings should be venerated by posterity.
But surely in a world that is suffering economically and teetering on the brink of climate catastrophe this “investment” by a bank is a disgrace. It can benefit no living person by reward for work or ideas. It brings nothing new into the world. It simply locks up money that could be spent positively. Investors in art might turn their attention to struggling living artists whose ideas they cherish as of probable benefit to mankind in the future.
I first saw Giacometti’s work at an Arts Council exhibition around 1955. As I wandered round the exhibition I was a bit perplexed by the works but within a week my understanding of Rembrandt’s works took a great leap forward.
Giacometti’s drawings are exclusively about space. His attention is always on what I call the space clues: the section round the forms created by the neck-line, waist-line and drapery passing over the thighs or arms. He defines the air/space by the pattern of chair legs and sculpture-stands across the floor or the pictures on the walls. He did not seem to care about anything else.
Through his concentration on space I came to realize that Rembrandt used the intimate space between his characters. It is this intimate space that is the key, I believe, to the expressive quality in Rembrandt’s work. Previously I had been so enamoured of the solid, sculptural quality I had not noticed that space also speaks.
Because of this important insight I received from Giacometti I will always revere his drawings; I do not really understand what people see in the sculptures. They seem to me far less grand than the Etruscan work on which they are based. “The Walking Man” seems to me particularly feeble.
The aim of this blog is to create a forum of discussion on the present state of art in Britain. Britain seems to be leading the world in the charge of the Gaderine swine.
I am aware of two forums where resistance to “State Art” is strong: the Stuckists and The Jackdaw. But while I salute the splendid spade and foot work both have done in drawing public attention to the gross dishonesty and self-interest of the present regime at the Tate, I feel there is a great need of a third forum where an alternative evolution can be discussed and eventually put in place.
As a former student at Camberwell (1955-7) I look back on that training as a golden age compared to what is available to art students today. I have been revisiting Roger Fry, his Last Lectures, as I regard him as the grandfather of the particular philosophical ambience that distinguished the Camberwell tradition in my time. His influence on Coldstream (head of Camberwell before he went on to the Slade) was crucial to that ambience.
Fry’s insistance on the importance of the abstract or architectonic aspect of a work of art was most apposite to the art of 1900 but I feel that the pendullum of fashion has swung so far in that direction that it is high time to give it a good push towards Humanism. Fry could not have foreseen the depths to which this aspect of his doctrine has sunk: I see the present state of art in Britain as a colossal insult to the intelligence of the majority of us who work or suffer in the dark shadow of the State Art’s massive publicity, so rightly dubbed “Art Bollocks” by The Jackdaw.
Old “Humanism” was the driving force of the Italian Renaissance. It was based on a recognition that Greek art and philosophy had much to teach them about the human condition. I have chosen “New Humanism” as a name in the hope it will bring about a similar renaissance. I mean it to include any art based on observation. The survival of the species depends to a large extent on our ability to see and understand what is going on out there.
Artists tend to be politically naïve or lazy. We have allowed art historians to step in and direct the public face of art, with the result that The Turner Prize, for instance, is only of interest to a favoured few who dominate the public face of art in Britain thereby. I hope this blog will become a forum where alternatives can be intelligently discussed and eventually replace the present horrors. Any ideas?
Please participate and inform your friends.
Yours truly, Nigel Konstam
STOP PRESS A NEW FILMLET ON YOUTUBE
Mirrors used by
Rembrandt for his two paintings of
The Adoration of the Shepherds
ALSO available is Nigel’s 5 minute film on The School of Adrea Verrocchio – Renaissance Sculptor who “restored worth and value to Florentine art at a time when those qualities were on the point of extinction”.