The Theatre of the Self: The Life and Art of William Ronald by Robert J. Belton (review)

356 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 stone. (RICHARD GREENE) Robert J. Belton. The Theatre of the Self: The Life and Art of William Ronald University of Calgary Press. xxiv, 176. $40.00 The stereotypical artist is unpredictable, dissipated, and a bit unstable. As a rule, art students adhere to this stereotype only until they enter the >real world= of jobs, bills, and families. Rules, though, need exceptions. And, as this biography shows, William Ronald was exceptional. Ronald sought innovation and adventure B and if he could offend a few people along the way, so much the better. While studying at the Ontario College of Art (OCA) during the mid-1940s, for example, he experimented with abstract expressionism, feeling that the putatively advanced Group of Seven was an archaic >curse.= This heresy provoked Carl Schaefer, a watercolour teacher and landscape painter, to declare during another instructor=s exam that he intended to fail Ronald. Although brash, Ronald took his art seriously, and this failure prompted two years of depression. Eventually, though, he learned to compromise and return to school. There, Robert J. Belton relates, Ronald >simply gave Schaefer what he [Schaefer] wanted, producing two of everything B one conservative and one experimental.= Evidently, Schaefer had not completely deflated Ronald. And Jock Macdonald=s presence at OCA meant at least one faculty member would encourage Ronald=s interest in the New York School: >From [Hans] Hofmann , Macdonald learned to trust his own instinct, to respect the integrity of the painted surface, and above all to resist the urge to be literary, letting the work of art stand on its own instead. All these things he communicated to William.= In other words, Macdonald taught Ronald the credo of abstraction as practised by people like Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Clyfford Still. Thus prepared, Ronald spent the next four decades investigating colour, composition, and touch in order to expand his artistic range without straying into story-telling, moralising, or representation. Seriousness notwithstanding, Ronald usually could not live on his art. Consequently, he took a series of day jobs. Here, too, he was an exception, eschewing graphic arts for broadcasting. In the mid-1960s, he anchored a television arts program called >The Umbrella.= Later, he joined CBC Radio=s >As It Happens.= On both shows, Ronald aimed (successfully) to irritate his audience: >CBC researchers discovered that about 61.6 percent ... [of Ronald =s 1.3 million] viewers tuned in precisely because Ronald was so infuriating. He became popularly known as >the most hated man on Canadian television.= Unaware of the truism that no publicity is bad, the CBC cancelled >The Umbrella= after two seasons. Nonetheless, Ronald=s exposure HUMANITIES 357 there and on >As It Happens= was enough that, by the early 1970s, his notoriety as a broadcaster overshadowed his renown as a painter. In fact, one of Belton=s two main points is that while (as he says in his opening and closing lines) >William Ronald was a painter,= other things often impeded Ronald=s realization of that central aspect of his personality. Belton=s other major argument is that this interference has impaired recognition of the quality and significance of Ronald=s art. Giving this œuvre its due is a considerable part of Belton=s project. This revision of Ronald=s reputation is valuable, and The Theatre of the Self generally is good. Nonetheless, I have two complaints. First, Belton employs biography, history, and speculation without connecting these modes B which conceptual muddiness occasionally leads to historical turbidity. For example, the chapter on Ronald=s student years begins with his antipathy to the Group of Seven and concludes with his indebtedness to Jock Macdonald. Macdonald, though, owed much to the Group of Seven: Fred Varley taught him to paint (they later opened a short-lived art school) and he sketched and painted with Lawren Harris. These ties mean that Ronald=s simultaneous hostility to the Group of Seven and respect for Macdonald requires comment, which Belton does not provide. Second, forty dollars is steep for only ninety-seven pages of text and eight modestly sized colour plates (the numerous, small, black and white pictures do not outweigh this shortfall). With additional text, Belton could...