ART
Edward Burra. At the Redfern Gallery.
EDWARD BOMA'S pictures have many of the qualities of eighteenth- century oratory. They are impressive in scale, hold the attention, are careful in detail and wholly to the point as far as temporary fashions go. They state a case as if it were the only case. Above all, they are rhetorical. They are fashionable, and will date—in one particular especially ; in their horror-raising, spectre-raising drama. But even so they are original. Here is no common, contemporary- drawing-room surrealism ; no doubt-casting, kidney-shaped ideas that turn out to be disembowellings. These pictures are ungainly, aggres- sive, difficult to live with, careful and sincere—full marks for such self-commitment. But their forms and their drama are artificial ; too mentally worked-up and too little felt. Mexico, Spain, illness, a fascination for cruelty, Goya, Callot—all these experiences are poured out, and all too much personified, too little personalised. And there is a manner of using water-colour and the wriggly bounding line (like that of a deeply-bitten aquatint) that is already a mannerism. The baroque framework in which the ideas are packed sometimes fails to deliver the goods completely. And sometimes the packing-case is half-empty. All the same, these pictures are important, and should be seen before any other contemporary ones
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