ART
Ceri Richards' starting point, as evidenced by his watercolours at the Redfern, is Picasso of the 'thirties. These drawings should probably be regarded primarily as exercises, dashed off at white-heat. Sections in nearly all of them—some of the cats, for example, which are superbly drawn, as are many of the individual figures—seem more completely successful than the pictures as a whole. The oils, on the other hand, which are very personal, appear to be the outcome of long consideration. In them is apparent a fundamental dichotomy of style, as between naturalistic convention on the one hand and either crisp and linear or streaming, flame-like abstractions on the other. It is thus at different levels of consciousness that one apprehends these cosmic dramas of creation.
At the Lefevre Gallery John Minton and Keith Vaughan step right into the forefront of the younger painters. In the case of Vaughan it is the first time we have had sufficient evidence before us to con- sider his progress since demobilisation. It is immediately apparent that he is very sure of his aims and his means. Technically, his handling of gouache is quite exceptionally capable—study, for ex- ample, the figure in No. 62—and in oils his treatment is not dis- similiar. At the moment he is restricting his palette to a very few colours—one might say " Sutherland green," yellow and black—but though he frequently uses the same language as Sutherland, he is not saying quite the same things. The older painter has not yet subdued the problems of the human figure, and this is one of the things Vaughan can do triumphantly. Such thoughtful and accom- plished paintings as Nos. 45 and 47 and half-a-dozen others merit the most careful consideration.
To bring the human figure properly into relation with its sur- roundings is one of the things which Minton can do also. Although in his case the parts they play are usually subsidiary, his figures are invariably informed by the poetic necessities of his conception. In the present group of paintings he has returned to the city, to the quays and wharves of the Port of London, the mysterious ware- houses, the silent and deserted streets that twist about behind the river and the barges on its surface. But while such subjects may be reminiscent of his earlier work, his romanticism has become less literary and more painterly. The boldest and brightest of colours are handled with complete technical mastery ; his ravishing textures are balanced and interlocked with the utmost cr ifidence. Here, surely, is Minton's most remarkable feat—to have translated an essentially elegiac vision into a closely-knit architecture of great firmness and richness without the loss of poetic intensity. His power and individuality are dearly developing steadily, and mark
him out as a most remarkable painter. M. H. MIDDLETON.
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