Art

Return of Masson

By NEVILE WALLIS virttl°s° hittY of continuous resource. 1 of his canvases painted during the last four years, now shoWg at the Marlborough are as exhilarating Gaol' as SOrneri: ANDR1 MASSON is a saults performed on the ° wire by a wizard wil°ss insouciant air is as instinctive as his nerVou energy. That is the immediate impression givedj! by these free, calligraphic fantasies.frc" A hide-aa_, e;

, seek surrealist imagery usually merges these swirling arabesques of colour, played by Masson's cursive and buckling strokes "

black. aft

At first elated, visitors co

might i gohft alisntaylltiys h ; Let them perpend. Contemplating the finest dissatisfied by the heartlessness these paintings--particularly one from his prLis°,re series of 1961—Masson can be seen developed a new depth, both optical and emo- tional. Here we have a lyrical vision of a central aisle flanked by luminous storeys and ranges of transparent barred cells, peopled by tiny symbols. The very liberation of this lightest style, en grisaille wonderfully suggests the captives Only sustaining hope. The graceful, runic script Of La Prison puts one in mind of Mark Tobey. Certainly that American's orientalism has in- fluenced Masson, as also, in his turn, he has studied Jackson Pollock., whose automatic, calli- graphic mode of abstraction was affected by European refugees to Now York in

war-time. among them Masson himself. Generally Andre Masson's recent conceits are organised as dazzling surface arabesques, con-

centrated and dynamic in design, at times im- Plying space in depth. But the spectator has no feeling today, as he had ten years ago, of find- ing himself in the middle of the picture, within a space become animate, flowering, ripening, vanishing, to use Masson's own words. Turner's nebulous effects no longer absorb him. The feathery impressionist brushwork, softly caressing as plumes drawing us right into the spray of an iridescent waterfall, has given place to a ribbony scribble which recurs throughout Masson s Metamorphoses. Seldom have his colour con- flagrations been so beautiful 'as in Sorciers, painted last year with sly Mini-like pothooks flitting about over incandescent bronze. More important, seldom has his image been so potent or his design so 'strong as in the glowering SisYphe, his arms raised in unavailing labour.

Admittedly, Masson's surrealist mythology has

seemed more compelling, when he has been deeply moved by such experiences as the Spanish Civil War. The Cold War period, indeed, pro- duces nothing more dire than the mischievous fe-fl-fo-fum of Les Ogresses. That is not to Undervalue, however, the different kind of emo- linn stimulated by `l'instant hettreti.x.' and ex- Pressed in these impulsive, yet assured, inven- ,`Inns. There are no gimmicks, no razor slashes. The Materials used here are purely conventional: On and tempera applied with the brush, a passage Occasionally worked with the palette knife, and the paste now and then stiffened with a little snd yet

aabstract su m. Masson still dominates the field of rrealis as fertile in invention today

Was around 1927 with his automatic drawings traced on sandy grounds. Confronted with an exhibition of Masson's or Dubuffet's, oni

New realises the futility of speculating whether w York has indeed snatched the authority r. has Paris today, as certainly as the New World os manoeuvred the limelight.

ne

of the most visually exciting things I r eve .n recall was Masson's pyrotechnics explod-

Imgo over the free-standing white partitions of nsieur Kahnwciler's airy gallery in Paris. But Irefn eniber also the Masson exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1955, and most gratefully the series of one-man debuts in London of Euro- pean masters Introduced at the Leicester long before that. Now these • following the ese ga cries are o %westward drift, and tar i moving to Audley e n January. Their current exhibition of the r rancophile John Napper, and the vanished Peripatetic -Londoner Paul Maitland, deserves , before the last civilised lamp is es- ti') •

gutshed in the Square.