Reflections in a Quiet Pool: The Prints of David Milne by Rosemarie To veil (review)

Books 327 themes an attack on the presumption that there is a superior or leading ‘modern’ style. A number of interesting and well chosen personal statements by artists describe the experience of creating, the nature of painting and sculpture and the perception of art. Here one regrets the absence of illustrations, especially of works by the less well-known artists. The last part of the book, The Social Responsibility of Art, includes writingsby artists with political connections and fromthe workingclass who wish to make a socially relevant art. There are also several comments on women and art. Those given the last word, however, do not talk about overt political content or an active role for art in society, but stress the separateness of art from other concerns. Despite its stated aim to show‘theusesof art in post-war Britain’, this book is not very helpful to anyone trying to understand the uses governments, corporations and individuals make of art, the interaction between‘high’art and the mass media, or the idea of cultureand its role for the public. To present these issues would require that the editors reveal their point of view and focus their material more critically. The book is most interesting as an anthology of writings by artists about making art. The short selections are illuminating on both individual artists and the creative process. The editors have tracked down writings in out-of-the-way publications; their bibliography, in addition to these selections,should prove useful to the student of recent British art. TheArt of GrahamSutberland. John Hayes. Phaidon, Oxford, England, 1980. 190pp.. illus. €20.00. ISBN: 0-933516-18-5. Reviewed by Edward R. Pope* This book is the second comprehensive monograph on Graham Sutherland, who died in February, 1980,just before its publication. A long-timeadmirer of Sutherland‘s work, the author had worked closely with him from 1974 to the 1977 opening of the Graham Sutherland Retrospective exhibition in London at the National Portrait Gallery, where he has been Director for the past seven years. A 35-page introductory essay proceeds stepby-step through Sutherland‘s career between 1923and 1979.Though the landscape wasa predominant, constant motif in his work, he developed in a pluralistic manner, expanding from the meticulously rendered etchings of the 192Os,top the symboliclandscapepaintings of the 1930sand l940s,to his characteristic paintings after 1946-metaphorical, totem-like transformations inspired especially by plants, animals and rocks. Also described in detail is Sutherland‘s involvement from the mid-1940swith portraiture and religious subjects. The text is heavily dependent upon formal description and biographical anecdote. Other than including more of the artist’s own statementsand foursummary pagesconcerning his activities during 1960-1979, this essay adds hardly any information essential to understanding the artist’s career which cannot be found in Douglas Cooper’s The Work o f GrahamSutherland. 1961.The author’s intent ‘to provide a clear and balanced account of Sutherland‘s career and achievement’ simply is not realized, in large part because his aim was ‘expository rather than critical’. The writing assumes Sutherland’s achievement and becomes an unqualified paean to the artist. How can one clarify achievement without a critical review? Sutherland’s sensitivities and abilities at plastic organization are substantially documented; however, his originality, so often proposed in the text, is not persuasively stated. There are only brief remarks that certain artists-including Grunewald, Picasso,Matisse and Bacon-influenced Sutherland, but no real elaboration on these influences. No mention is made of artists whom Sutherland may have influenced; nor is his relationship to other major contemporaries, especially British artists such as Alan Davie, Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore or William Scott, explored. Thus I am convinced by the essay of Sutherland‘s idiosyncrasy, but not his originality. How an artwork exemplifies a certain class is another concern used conventionally to mark an artist’s achievement. Thus conspicuously absent is any substantial discussionof Sutherland’s inter-relationship to other major tendencies, for instance, Surrealism or Expressionism. Hayes concludes that ‘his art in general defies classification’, but certainly the reasons given-his personal vision, private symbolismand fresh pictorial solutions-do not exclude the artifacts themselves from comparison with others in terms of idea...