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British School at Rome
The balmy pleasures of spending a recent weekend staying at the British School at Rome were spiced somewhat by learning on my return that my humble tal- ents as a writer had been vilified roundly in my absence in an interview reported in the weekend section of the Independent. I have no objections to the frank opinions of oth- ers, of course, and mention the fact now merely to illustrate the extreme polarisa- tions which seem to exist today in critical attitudes to art.
One of my alleged misdemeanours was the unusual one, for an art critic, of being a Little Englander. One cannot help wonder- ing if this really what the interviewee meant and whether our supposedly shared mother tongue comes to him altogether naturally. However, my more odious crime appeared to be that of a general unwilling- ness to respond positively to, and thus endorse, a number of the newer or recently rehashed practices of contemporary art, such as a return to conceptualism. Natural- ly my unwillingness was presented as stem- ming from obstinacy and lack of imagination, rather than thought or experi- ence. While I do not deny that a great many students at fashionable art schools in the Western world have fallen, of late, under the posthumous influences of Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys and Andy War- hol, it needs pointing out that numbers, on their own, have never been proof of any- thing. A critic's job is to evaluate rather than simply enlist in current crazes.
The British School at Rome was founded in 1901 as a school of archaeology. Eleven years later a Royal Charter created the present institution as a source for the study of the archaeology, history and literature of Rome and Italy and for the practice of the fine arts. Lutyens designed the original, impressive building which has been a mag- net for aspiring scholars and artists ever since. My reason for going there was an invitation extended by the director, Richard Hodges, to see work done during the past year by the latest batch of Rome scholars in architecture, painting, print- making and sculpture. I was invited also to ponder plans for a projected extension to the school and to consider its present and future roles. Above all, I was asked to com- ment freely.
Perhaps I should preface my comments about everything connected with the British School by an admission that Rome is a city I regard with great affection and which stirs up a lot of poignant memories for me. In days when artists were deeply interested still in the external world, the sights, smells and sounds of Rome must have seemed overwhelming to those travel- ling there for the first time, even if they understood little as yet of the cultural reso- nances of one of the world's great cities. If ever a city lent itself to the deep pondering of beauty, history and timeless achieve- ment, that city is Rome. Nor can any city lay claim to a longer or more significant role as home to the religious belief which has informed Western culture for nearly 2,000 years. Rome boasts extraordinary buildings and major works of art in great quantity while remaining still of modest size. While sartorially smart and fashion- able, the city's continued existence mocks the superficiality of fashion in other, more significant forms: in thought, scholarship and artistic practice, for instance. In this sense it is, or ought to be, a rallying point for a thoughtful traditionalism which is perhaps the last truly radical alternative left to us in Western cultures, for far too much of the rest relies on a modernist rhetoric of peculiar mindlessness, often bearing little analysis. This rhetoric is char- acterised by a complacency in the Inevitable efficacy of the new. Paradoxical- ly, the appeal of much avant-gardism in art is no longer to the original mind but to fol- lowers of a herd instinct. The revival of conceptualism falls squarely into this cate- gory.
The postgraduate art scholars showing at this year's mostra at the British School at Rome (Contrappunti: artisti e architetti bri- tannici, till 23 June) were five in number • and were joined by an older artist, David Leverett, who has performed the role of fellow commoner at the school. I have writ- ten about Leverett's work before with some degree of admiration. In broad terms it concerns landscape, perceived from the somewhat unusual perspective of a trans- cendental hang-glider. As we soar over copses and ravines we find ourselves sus- pended between the tangible and ethereal. The experience is credible and moving and is presented via oil paint and canvas and an equally old-fashioned system of aesthetics. Such traditional means of practice have been rare, however, at the British School in recent years. During that time, advance- ment for young artists through scholar- ships, fellowships, bursaries and the like has depended far too much on conformity to artistic modes which others decree to be relevant. Indeed, nowhere is the presence of a herd-manipulating mafia more appar- ent or undesirable than in British art schools, unless it be on those pedagogic boards which decide the destination of most or all of the perks of the trade. While, so far as the last context goes, scholarships to Rome fall into the category of fairly small beer, those who seek to run art in Britain will ensure, almost certainly, that even most of these go to dedicated follow- ers of internalised art fashions rather than to those who might benefit from them much more directly. In recent times, sever- al successful applicants for Rome scholar- ships have barely stirred from the environs of the British School during their entire stay there. Unwillingness to reassess their thinking and practice in an unfamiliar and demanding context is symptomatic of its weakness.
The school's annual exhibition includes material from architectural scholars as well as artists and I was impressed most favourably by the seriousness and originali- ty of the research projects chosen by the two architectural scholars, Jane Burnside and Hugh Petter. Does a discrepancy exist between the standards demanded in the different disciplines: architecture and archaeology, for instance, against those in art? I fear this has become the case and blame for this the fashionable acclaim, to say nothing of rewards, granted to empty artistic practice accompanied by impover- ished expressive language. My known posi- tion on this led, in fact, to the recent outburst against me reported in the Inde- pendent. In essence my position asks for mental rigour on the part of artists and the development of a rich and adequate lan- guage for the expression of ideas. Novelty is no bonus at all when new language proves inadequate to its aims. Only one of the Rome scholars in art, Renny Tait, responded to his environment visually. His vision and work were fresh and direct, but the latter could have gained from better training in drawing and painting skills. The artist's boldness in tackling problems could not overcome technical deficiencies of which he was possibly unaware. But where might a better art school training be obtained these days?
The four other young artists, Sam Crab- tree, Christopher Nurse, Nicola Petrie and Andrew Sneddon, continued, for the most part, with concerns which might have been pursued as profitably in Stockport or Stockwell. Each is engaging and conscien- tious yet is bound to the wheels of a mod- ishness which ensures that their art will never become the inherently rewarding activity that most art practice was once. Would you leap from your bed each day to mix cement with polluted sludge and pour the resultant mélange into a rubber mould you have found by a riverbank? Or place expensive foodstuffs under glass until they putrefy, as a supposed metaphor for bour- geois self-indulgence? Those seeking to comment on the self-indulgence of others place themselves in positions of peculiar vulnerability. Christopher Nurse's work had humour, at least, on its side.
The British School is seeking funding at present for a major and necessary pro- gramme of new building. It is an institution with a wonderful past in scholarship and achievement but one which must seek to hold on to comparable standards in the future. Belief in durable standards can bring hot coals on one's head, as I have recently found, yet endless flirtation with the ephemeral is much more costly in the long run. To support shallow fashionability within the confines of a unique and ageless city would be not just paradoxical but per- verse.
`I miss the potency of cheap music.'
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