ART
Scissors and Paste
THE sight of a whole exhibition devoted to collages and montages, such as that now on view at Guggenheim jeune, forces into the foreground of the critic's mind certain general notions which had long been lurking there, but had never before been driven into the open air. A fragment of newspaper, genuine or counterfeit, in a Picasso or a Juan Gris, a Braque or a Picabia, has become commonplace to the point-of invisibility ; and even an occasional button, or fragment of corrugated iron, can hardly be described as a stumbling-block at this stage of the world's history. But a whole universe of faded newsprint, steel-filing sponges, sandpaper, and breadcrtunb- graters : that is undoubtedly a problem.
As seen, then, by the dozen, collages and montages (or what one might call stictures for short) are superficially gay, in detail bewildering, and in the end unsatisfactory. For by definition they are a subterfuge : a device for evading the responsibility of unremitting pictorial invention. In an ordinary picture everything is made to measure : the paint is mixed and applied, both as regards colour and consistency, exactly as the will of the artist and the requirements of his subject demand. Everything is voluntary ; and the artist is entitled to praise, just as be must accept blame, for the finished article. With the sticture this is not so : it is a confectioned affair, a reach-me-down ; and if it does not fit, nobody is prepared to accept the responsibility. The materials take charge : instead of being passive, like paint, they have an aggressive, positive character of their own—the more aggressive, the better. There is a convention that paint interposes itself as little as may be (or at least to an exactly controlled degree) between the painter, the image, and the spectator. There are, of course, many steps between the absolutely transparent and self-effacing pigment of Holbein and the opaque and self-advertising pigment of Van Gogh ; but in either case it is the artist who controls with his own hand the physical effect he wishes to produce. The maker of collages, on the contrary, merely assembles ready-made substances, like a .factory-worker. Except for the fact that he personally chooses and contrasts the stuffs, and cuts them out according to his own fancy, his share in the work is purely executive. In this, no doubt, he resembles the embroiderer or the marquetry-worker ; but whereas they used natural materials not humanly predestined for other purposes, the collagist loves to pervert the humble human products of everyday life, such as newspapers and buttons and sink- cleaners, to fanciful symbolic uses. It is amusing suddenly to substitute a sponge for a breast, a breadcrumb-grater for a face : the whole point is in the unexpectedness of the simile. But once the analogy has been made, what then ?
That is, of course, the crux of the matter. That is why whimsicality (and stictures are only stylish whimsies) becomes so desperately boring after the first shock of surprise has worn off. There are certain mental jumps which can be humanly negotiated, and there are others which cannot : it is entirely pragmatical—either you get away with it, or you don't. It may be observed, however, that verbal jumps are much more easily managed than visual ones ; and poetical metaphors can run much greater risks than plastic metaphors. Words are both standardised and magical. They are valid for prose and poetry alike. The poet does not alter their everyday shape in order to make them do his bidding ; he merely combines them into new patterns, and the magic of poetry consists of finding familiar things in unexpected places. Perceiving this, the collagist has tried to use visual effects in the same way. Either he takes the most prosaic substances he can find and converts them into private nightmares ; or he cuts up realistic images of ordinary things and recomposes them, dreamwise, into extraordinary visions. The intention is perfectly legitimate, but the results are seldom encouraging : the reason apparently being that the eye is more receptive, but less accommodating, than the ear. Words and soinvis, we all feel, are more symbolic (and therefore more elastic) than sights. It is asking for trouble, then, to expect painting, or even scrapwork, to achieve by their own stiff-jointed methods what poetry and music can accomplish by divine right.
ROGER HINKS.
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