Jackson Pollock reviewed

There is an interesting review in the latest issue of Jackdaw (Sep/Oct 2015, No.123) of the Jackson Pollock's Black Paintings exhibition at the Tate Liverpool.  The reviewer is Alexander Adams, who explains how Pollock turned to black and to images of conflict, war and death as a riposte to the accusation of insubstantiality after negative criticism from his 1950 show at Betty Parsons Gallery.

"All the time Pollock painted the Black Paintings, he had to struggle with the problem of representation as seen through the prism of critical debates of the era.  How could an abstract  artist prove he had skill and seriousness without resorting to conventional figuration? ...... Pollock's ambivalence is here on the canvas in front of us.  Pollock was no sooner making images than he was veiling them.  He struggled with contrary impulses ;to make powerful imagery and prove his skill and a need to maintain his stance as a committed abstract artist." And further on in the text: "De Kooning's Women encompass ambiguities whille Pollock's figures have none: fear, flight, strife, suffering and death are at the centre and there is no periphery.  Examine his figure paintings from his earliest years up to his last, Portrait and a Dream, and you will find that the bleakness of Pollock's attitude towards humanity is unparalleled by any other great Western artist."

Interestingly, in a further article in the same issue of Jackdaw, Lynette Roth reviews the show of Max Beckmann paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum.  She notes that "Beckmann's presence in America had a great impact on American painters, with his paintings widely reproduced and praised.  Beckmann's status as his own artist (meaning?) and an opponent of Nazi persecution meant he was lionised as an individual over and above his qualities as a painter.  Beckmann's presence in the USA is a critical (and largely overlooked) factor in the genesis of de Kooning's Woman series (starting 1950, and Pollock's Black Paintings (starting 1951).

I am not convinced about the last sentence in the quote above from the review of Pollock, but it was something else that struck me about these excellent reviews.  It was the artists' self-consciousness regarding their reception within the art establishment, not just in relation to self-promotion and status 'as an individual', but actually as a dictate over the inner creative voice.  The pressure of this tyranny no doubt mitigates against complacency and in  the work of de Kooning and Pollock it forged a dynamic of remarkable breadth and vigour. Great work was the result.

But to what extent and for how long can the creative imagination be restricted to the formulaic boundaries and performance criteria which theory and patronage demand?  What if the urgency of inner voice demands a 'retrograde' step?  Invention for invention's sake is theoretically approved and effective as marketing device, but isn't obedience to inner voice the real challenge and essence of creative renewal?

Mother and Child in St. Mary's Church, North Tuddenham

St. Mary's Church in North Tuddenham is a fascinating church to visit, with a medieval painted rood screen in remarkable good condition, some medieval stained glass, and a unique Victorian decorative scheme. Definitely worth a visit!
I, along with five other artists, will be exhibiting work in the church over the weekend 12th and 13th September. The exhibition has been organised by the Friends group to raise awareness of the church and perhaps some restoration funds! 
Illustrated: Mother and Child, balsa wood, 2015

The Great Earth Goddess

Head of Inanna, cement,1994, by B Heriz

I was delighted to watch Dr Amanda Foreman's programme "The Ascent of Woman", shown on BBC4, 2nd September, in which she recounted with great clarity the high status of women in many aspects of pre-Hellenic society.   She  looked at the earliest human settlement in Turkey where there is no evidence of hierarchical difference between men and women, and where statuettes of the Great Earth Goddess abounded. (This is true also of the earliest settlements in Pakistan, as related by Sona Datta in her programme "Treasures of the Indus", BBC4, 31st August - good, old BBC!!!!)  

Even after the cult of warrior hero became dominant within communities obliged to allocate resources to defense, the enterprising and majestic Inanna was still worshiped by the Sumerians, for whom priestesses continued to play an important role and women had rights under law.

It was the Hellenic Greeks who invented the idea that the female sex was a different and inferior species to man, and as male property had no rights in law and no role in public life.  Women of citizen class were subject to the dictates of male "honour", a more precarious status I imagine than that even of mere slave. As such it was a necessity to wear shawls and veils when entering public space.  Women of lesser status were either actual slaves or prostitutes, and the latter were of course actually forbidden to wear shawls or veils.

Thanks to Alexander the Great and other factors, this concept bled into the cultures of the near east and from there was adopted by Islamic and Christian practice.  However, it was not fully embedded in the cultural norms of the northern Celtic societies, nor that of the Scythians, where women, in spite of the warring nature of their societies, remained significant players, had rights of inheritance and the ability to hold power.

These exceptions demonstrate how the delegation of women to inferior status was not an inevitable progression.  Yet it came to be believed that humanity is defined by the 'heroic' warrior ego able to realise a determination towards combat for supremacy, followed by entitlement to plunder all resources, human and natural, for its own benefit.  As clans, tribes, nations, and now whole continents compete for possession and control of resources, any group not geared up for war and competition has been and still is desperately vulnerable to pillage.   Nevertheless a yearning for alternative beliefs and aspirations has always existed and is it not stronger than ever, thanks to the environmental, economic, political and social challenges that  face us all on an international scale?

It is astonishing to think how it is only so recently that women (along with low-status men, serfs and slaves!) have gained the right to vote in the democracies of the West, have gained property rights, legal representation and 'permission' to play an openly public intellectual, creative and political role.  But when one considers the millennia over which the human species has evolved, even the last three thousand years is only a fleeting moment: the flexible human mind is surely capable of modifying its narratives, however deeply embedded they may be, and inventing new metaphors (and, indeed, new words) that can transform behaviour and attitudes.  The archetype of the Great Earth Goddess has potential surely for reimagination?