ART
Perking up
Evan Anthony
Art reviewing isn't just looking at pretty (or pretty awful) pictures, you know. There are what I suppose one calls the perks of the profession that help to keep one happy on the job. In that category, and very high on my list, the mushrooms fried in garlic batter and served at the Heim Gallery's openings deserve acclaim. As though they weren't compensation enough for braving the elements last Wednesday evening, invited guests were treated to the elegant presence of the beautiful Princess Alexandra to open the show. Gazing at her admiringly as she swept by, a gentleman to my right sighed, "Her mother was my girl, and she's got it all, too."
So you see how rewarding an evening it was: garlic mushrooms for me, HRH for him, and for us all, the hardly negligible pleasures of Venetian Drawings of the Eighteenth Century — an exhibition organised to aid the Venice in Peril Fund. As someone else remarked, any city inspiring such fine work deserves to be kept above water. Drawings by Tiepolo, Guardi, Canaletto, Piazetta and Ricci, among others, make a very special collection indeed. The caricatures, the landscapes, the studies for paintings are exceptional examples of superb draughtsmanship and sensitivity. Part of the enjoyment to be received from drawings is the clue they give to what an artist is trying to do and what he is capable of doing. The technical concern with composition, use of line and treatment of light becomes quickly discernible; it is like se! ing the battle plan of a master tactioan, explained with great clarity. Even thooP you will have your own favourites, sPorel special moment for Tiepolo's Caricature a Woman seen from Behind and Pittoro3os Study for S Filippo Neri among the 1 clamouring for your attention. At the Lumley Cazalet Gallery in Davie,5 Street there are thirty-one watercolours ole a delightful collection painted by th, twenty-nine-year-old English artist, flphei'd Bates. Here, too, are pictures crainole, with fascinating detail, a wealth of obser, vation and lovingly presented images. Theilt are romantic pictures, wittily telling the' stories in highly concentrated fashion. 3 While I would not necessarily apelatid,. man who can paint pictures on ched,`""e stones, I confess to being impressed bY scale of the paintings: they are ro.t''''; small, about the size of book illustration Bates displays dazzling skill in definiOg te blade of grass or in detailing the rog3t10d shapes of a wire fence. He has desir's elaborate borders for many of the nictue„e5; and there is much in patterns and his of colour reminiscent of eastern art. ,te, Leon Kossoff's exhibition at the W11,1.0t, chapel Gallery is another kettle of P3'.fle Impasto ' would not adequately descroil v Kossoff's technique: he uses the stuff 35 four-year-old uses ketchup — I refer. 00 course, to quantity, not quality. We arel.te. the dark side of the moon at the Whiife chapel; the paintings made me feel el:n't tense and claustrophobic. Offhand, Ic-rry, think of a time I've left an exhibition W. °Ic'irji ing about the artist as much as thl,r1'011 about his work. Will he cut off an earctiorl he pluck out his eyes? If a strong re3 nels suggests a great painter, Kossoif 0011;rty the stamp of approval. But some paintings don't work at all. The P°r`; are more grand guignol than grand. hu"pir scenes of Willesden Junction and tbeo! tures of demolition are undeniably p0w'114 and one or two are disturbingly beau-1_,.ac', few more shows like this and I shall entio, to see letters to the Times Pr0t,e5 against violence in the galleries. G°'
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