ARTS
fellow critic told me that once in a while he wishes he had spent more of his life with horses and rather less with art. I had forgotten this amusing confession until last week, when I found myself confronted by the 219th Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. On a warm, airless after- noon I was seized suddenly by a similar regret. In my case I wished momentarily that I had pursued a career not in art but in full-time sport. This ungrateful hankering may sound irrational but is not altogether fanciful. Earlier in life I had a number of chances of a sporting life. What prompted these strange yearnings in me and in my philhippic colleague? I don't think that looking at too many Paintings was to blame entirely. Days spent in the National Gallery, Prado or Rijks- museum have never dragged, but this is because one is faced with the incontestably great art of previous centuries. I think what saddens me sometimes when looking at contemporary art is the sensation of anar- chy. Most gallery-goers learn in time that arbitrary art is dispiriting art and do their best to avoid it; critics are not so lucky. Similarly sport becomes pointless without clearly defined rules. Grey areas may exist but these seldom interfere with the clear- cut simplicity of winning or losing. For those who don't care too much for the latter option, there is always work to be done on technique, stamina and applica- tion. The aspiring athlete has targets to work towards. Art, so we are led to believe, is not quite as simple. Today the unsuccessful artist may often look at the successful without believing there is any real gulf between their respective abilities. Without apparent rides to guide or any critical consensus, a suspicion grows that many successful artists are simply making the game up as they go along, This kind of supposition is intensely depressing, especially for young artists, who need genuine standards to strive for. Looking round the Summer Exhibition it seems sad and inconceivable that the works chosen to hang are really the top ten per cent of all the thousands submitted — indeed few selectors even bother to pre- tend this is the case. Where, then, is the merit of this long-lived spectacle? Or, to put it more bluntly, who stands to gain from its continuance? In previous years I have supported the idea of the RA summer show consistently even when a majority decried it. Now I sense there may be something basically wron.6. with the set-up. As things stand, the Principal beneficiaries of the summer spec- tacular are the Academicians and Associ- ates who enjoy an open door to what is, for
Exhibitions
219th Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy, till 23 August)
Rules of the game
Giles Auty
them, a cheap and dependable market- place. All too often the wares they submit discredit the privileges they enjoy. Yet if all Academicians and Associates exercised their full rights, their submissions alone would account for roughly one third of the whole exhibition. With guaranteed hang- The Window Seat', by James Lynch ing and the very low commission charged on sales, the Summer Exhibition has be- come an ideal shop window and money- spinner for the members. But what of the rest, who send in the other 12,000-odd works submitted, and simply take pot luck? At £8 a throw these works provide a most welcome £100,000 boost to the Academy's overheads. It seems it is the non-members and no-hopers, with little or no realistic chance of hanging, who pay much of the cost of running this exclusive club. Looking at some of the present work on the walls, one might question whether the club is worth joining. Such a superb artist as John Constable struggled for years to become a full RA. Try to imagine what a few paintings by him or by Turner would do to the appearance of the present show. How would works by present RAs and Associates stand up to such competition? The thought hardly bears examining.
Some of the least distinguished work in the present exhibition is by established Academicians. Among those who emerge with credit I would name Peter Greenham, John Bellany, Bernard Dunstan, Sir Robin Philipson, Michael Sandle and Eduardo Paolozzi. Too many of the rest have become lazy and complacent, producing more or less identical work year after year, safe in the knowledge that they cannot be excluded. Some members even seem to reserve their worst work for the Academy, as if to prove how little they care for its declining prestige. Frequently works fail to answer even their own limited, ephemeral criteria, let alone measure up to anything longer-term. The now familiar hodge- podge of academic mannerism, sloppy abstraction and autobiographical melo- drama hardly adds up to a heady broth. To find complimentary labels such as plural- ism to describe what boils down to lack of standards strikes me as dangerous practice.
Those who now seek to smother the Academy in praise probably care less than I for its future. The Academy's image in recent years as a grandmother in a mini- skirt is the least dignified possible; even granny in a crinoline would probably be better.
On the credit side, certain non-members continue to contribute good work to the Academy, year after year. Looking through my reviews for the past three years several names recur: Helen Clapcott, Diana Armfield, Catherine Goodman, Andrew Hemingway, James Lynch. On the whole their work is small-scale and unpretentious. This year James Lynch's Hereford Bull excited more comment, in my hearing, even than the contributions of the Royal Heir or Sarah Armstrong-Jones, both of whom paint pleasantly. Lynch's stirring bull and wistful figure in The Window Seat have touches of great beauty; his third work, a still-life, was less charged with feeling but still excited the interest of dealers I saw. Other gentle offerings which might easily be overlooked amid the welter of fashionable primary colours include works by William Yeo, Helen Elwes, Geraldine Knight, Margaret Green, Mark Clark and Anne Brooke. The latter's evocation of Wensleydale, a place I know well, is an object lesson in observant response to landscape. Simon Palmer's similarly good painting of a stand of trees is entitled, somewhat mysteriously, The Con- tractor Man, Tractor, The Tractor Man. Perhaps some arcane humour is intended which, like the television programme The Last of the Summer Wine, is comprehensi- ble only to northern ears.
To ease the brain, I am going out to hit some tennis balls.
Previous page
