2 JUNE 1979, Page 30

Art

Totemic

John McEwen

On the basis of the Cyril Connolly test, that if a work of art stands on its merits after ten years then it must be of some significance, Allen Jones should be well pleased with the result of the retrospective exam of his paintings at the Serpentine Gallery (till 8 June). JOnes is 42, and a good proportion of the work of his twenties, about half the exhibition, remains fresh and extremely enjoyable, some of the best and most typical pictorial symbols of the exciting youthfulness of Britain in the now over-maligned Sixties. The rest has not had the opportunity of settling down to a position in time and may one day catch us out by symbolising the studious self-consciousness of the Seventies no less aptly, but it seems unlikely.

Ironically it is his notorious subjectmatter of women as fetishistic objects in these later paintings that has brought him a public audience and correspondingly aroused the moral indignation of the art world. He is one of the few painters whose style has had the distinction of being aped by advertising, while conversely he remains prbbably the most-respected postwar English artist still to be bought by the Tate.

Europe is less self-righteous in its attitude. He is included in the collections of most of the major modern museums and the present exhibition has been co-sponsored by the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden. Too much learning seems to be the cause of the damaging stultification of the later work. The paintings that first brought him fame dovetail figurative imagery with the latest developments of abstract art much more successfully than do his earnest efforts to achieve the same thing later on with softporn totems as pictorial catalysts. Jones reminds us in the catalogue, one of those dreadfully thorough academic removal jobs that one just hopes he will survive, of famous instances in the past when artists delivered sexual shocks to open people's eyes to profounder visual truths.

But his own shock tactic of using leatherbooted girls, venereal mouths, flexed thighs and bra-plumped breasts as eye-catching introductions to the more formal concerns of painting in the abstract is unconvincing. Not only because he protests it too much, but because the formal lessons delivered are too banal as insights or technically beyond hsi powers of expression as a painter. To emphasize that painting is the art of illusion by terminating a lovingly silhouetted rubber-hugged leg in splodges of paint supported on a shelf at the foot of the canvas is not enough, and trompe effects of materials that do not depend on colour gradation or shining highlights, marbling in one instance, a leapord fur in another, are beyond him. The early work may be less ambitious, its soft handling and dry paint, even aspects of its imagery, narrowly derivative of the artist's mentor at the Royal College, Ron Kitaj. But the control of his large paintings of a colour-shunt traffic jam and a colour-field aeroplane and two joyfully spontaneous celebrations of the Battle of Hastings are independent achievements, superior in scope at that time to the similarly inspired work of his most gifted rivals at the College, Peter Phillips and David Hockney.

As for the future, he can take comfort from some stupendous colour effects in the later work, particularly the reds of 'Command Performance', suitably emblematic of the scarlet lady they announce; the equally complementary spatial illusions of 'The Magician'; and, now that he seems to be at the outset of a post-porn period, perhaps he should consider reviewing his original 'Bast. ings' painting for the third time. It seems his talisman.

The last two Summer Exhibitions (Royal Academy till 12 August) suggested, through their inclusion by invitation of several not: able contemporary artists, that Sir fitign Casson intended to make a serious effort to rebuild the bridge, down since the 19th century, between the Academy and the various battalions of the avant garde. This year's show suggests that Sir Hugh's enthusiasm for such a scheme has alreadY been exhausted. There are very few things, either by subject or style, that disturb the comforting illusion that time has stood still since somewhere round about 1920. Nor is there much to disturb the equally comforting realisation that, given a bank holidaY weekend and a paintbox, there is nothing t° prevent you doing just as well yourself. Sales and attendances prove that the formula is as irresistible this year as ever before. The prize for the picture of the exhibition has been presented to the veteran RA, Roger de Grey, for an outstandingly dull triptych Of estuary. Much more worthy of the award would have been Craigie Aitchison, whose debut as an ARA includes two large figura' tive paintings that are far more daring in their use of space and colour than any of this year's very poor abstractions. The acadelnY, is clever to have offered him a place atiu lucky that he accepted.

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