ART
THE most interesting event of the week has probably been the account by Mr. Alan Houghton Brodrick in The Observer of the paleolithic drawings in the Lascaux caves near Montignac, in the Dordogne. Rumours concerning the chance discovery of these caves ih 1940 by four French boys had been percolating across the Channel for eighteen months or more, but this was, I believe, the 'first eye-witness descrip- tion to appear in this country. Evidently the Lascaux paintings— more ancient, it is said, than those at Altaznira—are the most remark- able of all those known to us in south-west Europe from the Old Stone Age period. Their staggering vitality survived translation into half-tone and newsprint sufficiently to whet one's appetite for more— and in particular one is anxious to see for oneself the last enigmatic scene described by Mr. Brodrick. Certainly It is to be hoped that a full photographic record will be made available to us in the not-too- distant future.
Clearly the impelling compulsions that produced such work as this were very great. The artists were in the grip of all-powerful forces which could be released in no other way. A saunter round the London galleries in the first week of 1947 reveals most of our con- temporary painters and draughtsmen in the grip of nothing more than a polite talent and a need to pass the time in one way or another. At neither the winter exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists nor the 21st exhibition of the Society of Graphic Art do the pictures appear to have been forced into being because the artist just had to express an emotion, a reaction to something seen, a moment of eternity. At best (one is forced by their variety to speak of them generically) they are seldom more than pleasant pieces of furniture for the spare room ; at worst they display a really shocking insipidity and a lack even of paleolithic man's ability to observe and depict realistically.
Concurrently with the latter show, at the R.W.S. Galleries, may be seen sculpture by Josephine De Vasconcellos—at its best in such straight-forward monumental groups. as Refugees and the unnamed portrait head, No. 12. Minor artists in other countries usually exhibit a more highly developed taste than their counterparts here, and this may be seen, I think, in the new show at the Redfern, where there are several pleasantly unimportant works. I liked the market scene Somewhere in France, by Cecil Michaelis, and Lil Laubeuf's lean de R. Jeroen Voskuyl seems to be a natural illustrator and designer who is over-anxious to be up-to-date. In spite of, or because of, the employment of every technical trick, his gouaches don't seem to add up to much more than rather jolly revue backcloths. Among the French paintings upstairs, the Soutine should not be missed. M. H. MIDDLETON.
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