Art
Means and ends
Alistair Hicks
Wyndham Lewis: The Twenties (Anthony d'Offay till 12 October) Henry Moore: Drawings 1979-1983 from the Henry Moore Foundation (Marlborough Fine Art till 19 October)
For centuries much of the Chatsworth collection of drawings sat in folders. The present Duke of Devonshire confes- sed, before the June sale of some of them, that they were only occasionally brought out after dinner, either when the whim took him or a friend wanted to see them. The Duke was expressing the old view that drawings were for the discerning few. Until the latter part of this century hardly any one thought of drawings as finished works of art in their own right. It was left to artists themselves and the great connois- seur to prize the drawing. Indeed, two of the greatest English collectors of all time were Lawrence and Reynolds. Much of the Chatsworth collection itself came through
the hands of N. Flinck, the son of one of Rembrandt's pupils. The Christie's sale,
however, when 71 of the Duke's nearly 2,000 drawings fetched £21 million, showed that drawings are now amongst the most highly valued works of art.
The art world is not yet so totally dominated by money that auction results
are the only way to measure a change in appreciation. Ironically it has been the British Museum, whose lack of economic grasp lost many of the Chatsworth draw- ings for the nation, that can claim much of the credit for the new public love of draughtsmanship by their excellent series of drawing exhibitions. However they are not the only organisations to display faith in drawing. Currently two commercial gal- leries, Marlborough Fine Art and Anthony d'Offay, are holding exhibitions based on drawings. Both galleries are confident enough to include the most complicated and difficult drawings that Wyndham Lewis and Henry Moore could draw. The phrase `the—iiieliirwithin' provoked angry response from Mr Seargill kn.d his striking miners, 'Vut Wyndham Lewis would have taken it as a compliment for that is exactly how he saw himself. Jeffrey Meyers, his biographer, believes that Lewis may have characterised himself as the Enemy because of his trench war experience and the persistent fear of 'what the other side was up to'. This certainly helps to explain his markedly paranoid behaviour, his constant recourse to masks and his vicious attacks on even the closest of friends, but his belief that creative life flourishes in a state of opposition was a deep-rooted idea that can be traced to well before the war. No one can deny that in the Twenties he became increasingly isolated and this is the main reason why his heavily interrupted artistic output of the decade has been somewhat neglected. By the end of this period he himself dismissed his paintings and designs as 'the fragments I amuse myself with in the intervals of my literary work'.
Lewis needed constantly to justify him- self in words, first to maintain his intellec- tual integrity, but also as a result of his poverty; he was always on the lookout for patronage. The profusion of drawings, caused by the lack of canvases, at Anthony d'Offay's exhibition clearly illustrates the harshness of the artist's lament: 'Almost alone among the countries of Europe she [England] has proved herself incapable of producing that small band of wealthy people who are open to ideas . . . and prepared to spend a few hundred pounds a year less on petrol or social pyrotechnics, and buy pictures or organise the success of new music or new plays.' Still, today's gallery-goer will not have much time to regret the lack of major works with the onslaught of drawings that greet him at Anthony d'Offay.
Some of Lewis's drawings are easy to look at! The work of Edith Sitwell's head shows that he had thought he had found some kindred spirit. She appears helmeted like a Renaissance duchess. There is no evidence here for Lewis's proclamation, 'The eye, in itself, is a stupid organ.' Even the Tyros, 'a toothy tribe' of figures he created at the beginning of the Twenties to assimilate a sense of machinery into his work, don't demand that strict a control of the eye by the intellect. Nor indeed do the eyeless women of 1921 drawn in the same spirit. There are, however, many beautiful- ly coloured abstract designs that appear consistent with his philosophy of the maintenance of the intellect over the eye and emotion. They are all tight, small compositions and one cannot help but think that the artist is fleeing from the viewer. He is receding into himself, com- municating with others only by the indul- gence of his own mind.
But paradoxically any success these drawings have as works of art comes from their intensity of feeling, the disturbing knowledge of a mind eating itself. For all his struggles, for all his tracts, his own art disproves his theories. Remarkably it is the jacket design for Paleface, a satire on the writings of men like D. H. Lawrence on the cult of the earth, the primitive and native, which makes the point most strong- ly. Showing an aesthete Aryan placed immediately above an African savage, the masthead proclaims, 'The Philosophy of the melting pot', but there is also a bold arrow dividing the chin of the white face from the painted warrior's brow and the words 'Colour Line' are emblazoned across it. The composition would fail without the powerful emotion created by the dark force!
Henry Moore's recent drawings are worlds apart from those of Lewis in the Twenties, but they also help explain why drawings haven't always been readily avail- able for public viewing. Traditionally artists have been loth to part with working drawings, not only because they need to retain them for further work, but also because they reveal so much about the workings of the artist's mind. Henry Moore at 86 obviously feels that the public know his work sufficiently well to be treated to such an insight, for over half the drawings in the Marlborough exhibition bear the inscription, 'Idea(s) for sculpture'. Unfortunately some people still feel the need to snipe at Britain's most famous artist and see this as an excellent opportu- nity to rant against the 'cult of Moore'. There is no cult; one shouldn't need to be young to realise that Henry Moore is already in the history book as one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century and it is useful to remember his words when visiting the exhibition. 'Drawing keeps one fit like physical exercises . . . and it lessens the danger of repeating oneself and getting into a formula.'
The drawings at the Marlborough show how much Moore has changed our visual vocabulary. He has bared the human figure and let us see ourselves in terms of pure form. He has made us examine our relation to nature and other human beings, particu- larly the family. Unlike the finished sculp- ture they often also give the additional hint to mood by use of colour. In latter years he has hardly ever used full-bodied daylight colours; his figures that have immediate affinity with prehistoric beings come out of evening and morning light. Moore is de- finitely at his best within his own vision. If it hadn't been his great niece who gave him the postcards of Rembrandt, I would sus- pect cruelty. Painters have invariably given Rembrandt a wide berth. Copies can look magnificent until compared with the ori- ginal. It is sadly true of Moore's drawing of Jacob Trip. It is to Moore's credit and our benefit, however, that he is prepared to show us his complete oeuvres.
The two exhibitions at Marlborough and Anthony d'Offay not only show an in- creased faith in the gallery-goer's discern- ment, they also display the range of func- tion that drawing can serve. The simple sketch stands by the polished work of art.
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