ARTS
Exhibitions
Je suis le Cahier: The Sketchbooks of Picasso
(Royal Academy till 19 November)
Michael Rothenstein (Redfern till 8 October) Gabriel White (Sally Hunter & Patrick Seale till 3 October)
Private thoughts
Giles Auty
Like many good, and almost all great artists, Picasso helps us understand our own condition. When art ceases to be illuminating it generally ceases to be in- teresting either. This is why many intelli- gent readers lose interest in contemporary fiction by the time of their middle years. When the reader understands more than the writer, the latter's credibility flies out of the window. Picasso, by contrast, holds up a relentless mirror to the human soul; Je suis le Cahier is an exhibition from which almost everyone can learn.
The display consists of 250 pages drawn from 45 of the 175 sketchbooks the artist left behind him. A total legacy of some 70,000 drawings indicates that Picasso averaged about three drawings a day throughout his long working life — an example any aspiring artist would do well to follow. London is lucky to be the first city of many to enjoy this finely presented show which was organised by the Pace Gallery, New York, and generously spon- sored by American Express. While deeply thankful to the latter, I would feel even more grateful if sponsors would in future avoid making uplifting statements with which to preface exhibition catalogues. Such addresses should be saved for the boardroom or annual reports.
The sketchbooks on view show that Picasso's relationship with the artistic muse was no less complex and ambiguous than his dealings with the earthly muses of his life: his wives, companions and mistresses. The sketchbooks are revelatory — remem- ber these were privately kept visual diaries — in the light they throw on the artist's working methods. Apparent spontaneity, accident or excess were deliberately, if subconsciously, worked for. A deep vein of artistic common-sense runs through Pi- casso's graphic experiments and research, however great their apparent looseness and freedom. Here Picasso differs radically from many figures of the 20th-century avant-garde who tried regularly to excite their inspirational muses without the necessary foreplay. This is why, when compared with Picasso, their productions so often seem flaccid and arbitrary spontaneous, admittedly, but spontaneous and bad. Picasso was wilier and more knowing in his courtship. On the inside of one of his last sketchbooks he wrote: Tainting is stronger than I am; it makes me do what it wants.' Picasso's right to inven- tiveness was largely earned.
The title for the exhibition is taken from the cover of sketchbook No. 40 from 1906-7. In this incomplete form — without the explanatory `appartenant a Monsieur Pencil and watercolour (1905) Picasso peintre etc' — the title might appear to be one of those artistic claims which both suppress their author's perso- nality and dismiss possible frailties. In this sense 'I am a Camera' later suggested an almost quiescent inevitability. Yet the truncated title is appropriate because Picasso expects to be able to see clearly simply because he is not interested in anything less. Even the self-mockery evi- dent in his late sketches of an ageing artist with beautiful, uninterested model is alle- gorical of the wider human condition. In mocking the old man we laugh also at our future selves.
Sensibly the exhibition at the Academy is not divided just into chronological periods but deals also and in depth with specific projects. Generally these latter are large paintings or series of works of known historical impact, such as 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'. Eight notebooks cover this one enterprise alone and reveal the artist's tireless willingness to refine or even de- stroy, where necessary. Such self-critical confidence springs from trust in knowledge and technique rather than reliance in luck and accident. The unsure artist will not erase for fear that he or she cannot repeat the desired image. Picasso's notebooks show, through long series of related draw- ings, how his demonic energy drove him to harry pictorial possibilities almost to ex- haustion. Then, almost immediately, he would be off hunting afresh.
Picasso's artistic stamina closely echoes his psychic and sexual energy. Indeed, the semi-autobiographical nature of his sketch- books gives them a status not unlike that of written diaries. Already certain visual as well as jotted entries have made notable contributions to scholarship. The diversity of the artist's imagery and the comparisons which can now be made with major exhi- bited works cast further important light on his studid procedures. One miniature note- book, complete with blunt, workaday pen- cil, is made particularly poignant through one of the images it contains: a tiny composition as exquisite as Ben Nicholson at his finest, but probably the work of seconds.
In youthful poverty, as in subsequent affluence, Picasso stuck to vital artistic priorities. Neither wealth and security nor war and adversity for long affected his life's purpose, which he pursued with unflagging determination. The further insights now provided by his sketchbooks make Picasso seem still more human and, at the same time, exemplary — nor is there any para- dox in this. Because the work on display at the Academy is so approachable, I feel this exhibition is one which even his en- trenched detractors could enjoy almost as much as his armies of followers. It would take a most determined visitor not to be affected by this latest first-hand experience of Picasso's industry, humanity and endur- ing humour. His place in 20th-century history has become, if possible, even more eminent.
In a month of major exhibitions, in- teresting work in a rather lower key be- comes easy to overlook. Through being out of London last week I have not yet seen the exhibition of new watercolours and prints by Michael Rothenstein at Angela Flowers (11 Tottenham Mews, W1). If it is half as interesting as the exhibition of the artist's earlier work running concurrently at Red- fern Gallery (20 Cork Street, W1) it will be excellent. Rothenstein's nervous but often exuberant images are pulled directly from the world around him but transformed by the artist's inner excitement. `The Park Bench' (1941) is one of the more unforget- table works: two squirming demi- mondaines sharing the monstrous lap of an outsize grasping male. If the subject sounds odd, the treatment surpasses it but I preferred less obvious ideas such as 'Essex Landscape with Cabbages' (1947). A desolate, wintry scene with neglected vegetables and collapsing fence is made more chilling by a strange face looking over the palings — malignant yet with some of the kind humour of a drawing by Lear or Ardizzone.
Those who remember Gabriel White's energetic days at the Arts Council will be charmed by the quiet, reflective warmth of his paintings and drawings at Sally Hunter & Patrick Seale (2 Motcomb Street, SW1). As this week's painters make plain, there is no retirement age for artists.
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