Exhibitions 1
The Scottish Colourists 1900-1930 (Royal Academy, till 24 September)
Missing the mark
Andrew Lambirth
The four Scottish Colourists whose work makes up this exhibition are Si. Peploe, J.D. Fergusson, F.C.B. Cadell and G.L. Hunter. Of these, Hunter is the least known, but all now enjoy a substantial rep- utation and record auction prices. Turn-of- the-century artists who gravitated artistical- ly, and in some cases literally, to Paris, the Colourists were friends rather than a clear- ly defined group with a shared manifesto. The name by which we now call them was first used publicly in 1948, but really took off as a convenient auction category in the 1980s, when these artists became big business.
The current exhibition at the Academy is intended to pay tribute to what has been called the first recognisable avant-garde group in modem British art. Unfortunately, the quality of work is disappointing, so either the selection is at fault, or the Colourists are nothing more than Post- Impressionist stragglers in the field (and thus useful auction-house fodder for corpo- rate or foreign investment). Is the show merely symptomatic of the perpetual strug- gle of the nation's galleries to find another crowd-pleaser, rather than a necessary reassessment of a neglected period of history?
For the exhibition is at first glance bright and cheerful, even (possibly) pleasing, until you settle down to look carefully at almost any of the pictures. It's not so much the lack of originality as the sheer dullness of the work which strikes home. It doesn't matter that you can track the influences (Manet, Whistler, Matisse) so easily — indeed this adds to the exhibition's attrac- tion for the amateur painter — but when the results are so uninspired and so unequivocably minor, hunger for some- thing more substantial is difficult to quell. So often the colour is misjudged, and ends up being garish rather than vibrant. (Wit- ness the fact that throughout the show there is a superabundance of that most meretricious and misleading of colours, Royan', 1910, by J.D. Fergusson orange.) These artists are renowned for their expressive line and decorative colour; yet here the colours seemed brash and the draughtsmanship awkward rather than powerful.
Is this an injustice? The Colourists reproduce quite well in books and cata- logues, but we all know how misleading photography can be. There are, for instance, several comparative images illus- trated in the catalogue — such as Peploe's 'Isle de Brehat' and Cadell's `St Mark's Square, Venice' — which seem to be rather better examples of their art than what's on show at the RA. Perhaps what we need is a larger exhibition to demonstrate their full range. In the meantime, let's look to their strengths. They obviously share a certain painterliness, an interest in the expressive- ness of paint and its unavoidable presence on the canvas or board. There are areas of lively and even fine paintwork in many of the pictures: for instance, a four-inch swathe down the left side of Fergusson's 'The Blue Hat', or the top right corner of his earlier painting 'La Terrasse, Café d'Harcourt'.
But these passages cannot stand alone, and the rest of their respective pictures lets them down. Somehow the paintings here just miss the mark — repeatedly. Perhaps it is a failure of sensibility against ambition. The Colourists succeed when at their sim- plest and least ambitious. Hunter's bright beach scene at Etaples, depicting a couple conversing in deckchairs, is wonderfully eloquent. Three small luscious oil on board studies by Fergusson, 'In Paris-Plage, Night' (1904), 'Pont des Arts' (1907) and `Royan' (1910), are informal but telling, and make a stronger impact than many a larger work.
Of the others, Peploe's best works are the more geometric still-lifes, such as 'Tulips and Cup (c.1912) and 'Still Life' (c.1913). The firmer structure helps to compose them, though the colour still edges towards the vulgar. Similarly, the unusual bounding structure of Fergusson's 'Damaged Destroyer' results in an alto- gether more successful boldness of state- ment. Of the four, Cadell is the least appealing, with his feathery but fudged early style. The fashionable piffle of 'After- noon' and 'The Black Hat' relies totally on a romantic narrative to distract from the sub-Sargent slickery and the weak drawing. And it's Cadell whose palette then under- goes a sea change and turns acid if not fluo- rescent. What is undoubtedly seen by some to be one of the masterpieces of this exhi- bition, 'The Blue Fan' (c.1928) by Cadell, is a striking example of just how jarring and inharmonious the Colourists could be. If you get past the glare of the colour, crude- ness of conception is joined to clumsiness of handling to sink the picture anyway.
Too much of this exhibition is derivative or insensitive. Are these artists really so mediocre? On this showing, they don't live up to their reputations. If you want a Scot- tish artist with a real sense of colour, look at Craigie Aitchison. He can make colour sing.
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