ARTS
Public art
Aux armes, citoyens!
Alan Powers considers the nervous French reaction to a Scotsman with Revolutionary ideas The chief monument of the first centen- ary of the French Revolution was the Eiffel Tower. Hardly a commentary on the founding myths of the Republic, it was, nonetheless, a grand and inspiring gesture. The event planned for 14 July 1989 is the projection in lasers above Paris of . . . Notre Dame.
It is understandable that the French might find this unavoidable bicentenary problematic, but one might have expected some attempt to bring to the nation an understanding of the nature of 1789-94, not an avalanche of kitsch. Admittedly, the English are sidestepping the Glorious Re- volution of 1688 as too potentially explo- sive and concentrating instead on the Armada. Compared to these, however, the French Revolution contains such revela- tions of the heights and depths of human conduct as to render it suitable material for a modern epic treatment. But since artists have long since ceased to act as imaginative Interpreters of history, 'epic' has become a term applied to long and expensive films. History and art are, for the public, a subsection of tourism.
Why, then, did I find myself on the steps of the side portico of the National Gallery of Scotland on 21 April, surrounded by caps of Liberty on poles and emblems of `Pax Canoviana' while French poets de- claimed about the execution of Louis XVI and the Revolutionary martyrdom of Lepelletier de St Fargeau? The event due for Paris next year was apparently taking place too early in the wrong city.
The reason is that one poet-artist in Scotland, Ian Hamilton Finlay, has not dodged the responsibilities of public art, but in so doing has rendered himself unacceptable to the comfortable bien- pensant liberalism of the cultural establish- ment in France. The gathering in Edin- burgh was first planned for a symposium on questions arising from Finlay's rating dispute with Strathclyde Region over the legitimacy of his Garden Temple at Little Sparta as a religious building. This impor- tant event in the Little Spartan War was, however, overtaken before Easter by more catastrophic happenings in France. What- ever their misgivings about the Revolution, the French government had, to general applause, commissioned Finlay to prepare two landscape projects to commemorate 1789, one at Versailles on the site of the National Assembly, for the Declaration of the Rights of Man signed there, the other on the A86 autoroute, for the 12 members of the Committee of Public Safety. The cancellation of the first and the artist's withdrawal from the second were the cause of the two-hour demonstration and per- 'Les sans-culottes': poplars to represent the people. From a card issued by Wild Haw- thorn Press.
formance in Edinburgh, with the actress Tilda Swinton and the French singer Tami- la taking leading roles, finishing with the Little Spartan anthem and the release of balloons bearing the message `L'Ordre du Present est le Desordre du Futur — St Just'. According to the Finlay scholar Yves Abrioux, the cancellation reflects proceed- ings which are 'incredibly complicated and totally undistinguished', but the consequ- ences, and the reaction of the media, are a matter of concern on both sides of the Channel, seeming to justify Finlay's view that liberal democracies are incapable of producing public art.
In the first place, there can be no doubt of Finlay's suitability for these commis- sions, as an internationally acclaimed land- scape artist and perhaps the only artist in any medium for whom the French Revolu- tion is a vital source of inspiration. Nor is there any doubt that the project for Ver- sailles, with the landscape architect Alex- andre Chemetoff, beautifully and fittingly celebrates the hopeful dawn of the Revolu- tion when, in Finlay's words, 'the ribbons were still on the haycocks'. The principal features are poplars, 'the people'; cherry trees, for the members of the assembly; a lime tree, 'Arbre de la Liberte; inscrip- tions from the historian Michelet, and other features combining poetic symbolism with practical use. Enclosed by a high wall, it would be just the place to reflect on actions and their consequences, even if the tourist trade of Versailles continues as if the Revolution had never been.
In cancelling the project, Francois Leotard, the minister of culture, has not objected to the ideas or form of it. His action has been an appeasement of a powerful art faction in Paris which finds in Finlay's work references not only to the Revolutionary Terror but to the Nazi terror, and takes these literally, denying any artist's right to be distanced from the symbols he uses. To the magazine art press, chief instigator of the witch-hunt, Neo- classicism and pantheism are immediately incriminating. Added to this is a dispute with a former artist-collaborator of Finlay, and letters from which isolated and mis- translated excerpts were enough to raise in the tense pre-election period the spectres of racism and anti-semitism from which the French Right, and Francois Leotard in particular, were anxious to be dissociated. Disclaiming belief in the substance of the allegations, the 'atmosphere of con- troversy' was deemed sufficient reason to cancel without giving Finlay or Chemetoff notice or leave of appeal.
Of Finlay's innocence in the affair, the weight of the British cultural establish- ment, from the director of the Tate Gallery downwards, must be taken as reasonable proof. He is no stranger to controversy (see my earlier article, The Spectator, 12 September 1987) and his habit of recalling the guardians of culture to their duties has not always been taken kindly. He is an- xious to stress, however, that his Wars are not for personal gain or publicity, but are an attempt to rescue an ailing culture from what he has called the Secular Terror, the cynicism which tolerates everything but reverence.
The events in France are proof of the existence and power of this terror. Finlay is now taking legal action in France, but already the Mayor of Versailles has sup- ported a royalist proposal for the National Assembly site. It remains to be seen whether anyone will take up Finlay's ori- ginal suggestion for the bicentenary of the Revolution: a Revolution.
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