Art
Convulsive
John McEwen
For some years Frank Auerbach has tended to be presented as Francis Bacon's protégé, and now again they are paired in an exhibition of their recent work at the Marlborough (till 20 January). One way and another there can be no English painter of the post-war period who has not been influenced by Bacon, and Auerbach is no exception. In fact he has undoubtedly been more directly influenced than most, being a longstanding friend quite apart from anything else, but, except in his studies of reclining figures, there is little of this influence to be seen in his work. Bacon's idealism, his tastes in painting, even his clogged studios, are all things shared to some degree by Auerbach, but these things should not detract from Auberbach's achievement in withstanding the competition on this occasion.
The paint in Auberbach's earlier work was so constantly applied that the final encrustation qualified as sculptural relief. Today his method is no less painstaking but whereas before he continually overpainted he now scrapes off. This process is merely a measure of his own dissatisfaction and may continue in certain paintings for as long as two years. The final image, though guided by these previous failures, will have been completed as usual in a single session, the paint brushed, fingered, wiped and even squirted straight from the tube on to the canvas in a crisis of spontaneous effort. By these arduous means he hopes to 'celebrate the truth after having exhausted the stock of lies,, as one might find oneself telling the truth after a quarrel.'
As before, Auerbach paints what is most familiar to hjm. The same people if possible, the same cityscapes always. Primrose Hill, Mornington Crescent, views of Camden near where he works.
Even when he substitutes Rimbaud's portrait for the mural surmounting the chan cel of a baroque church, the interior is specific not imaginary. His views are no less so. A night study of Primrose Hill will have entailed numerous on site sketches at night, though the final oil painting will be done at the studio. This does not mean that the trees and colours will be naturalistically reproduced, but the canvas will only be abandoned, the truth celebrated, when it conveys a satisfactorily precise experience of the place, a place viewed from a particular point at a particular time. These details are also worth emphasising because, just as Auerbach is distractingly associated with Bacon, he is no less erroneously called an expressionist artist, though his colour is not symbolically emotive, nor are his brushstrokes psychological deliberations.
These paintings are his most free and expansive to date. The view of Primrose Hill seen from below the overhang or against the zig-zag of branches, and even flying birds, lose nothing of their spaciousness through the grip of such structural devices; the most disparate strokes and colours when viewed in isolation successfully combined in his challengingly angled portraits; and both the Rimbaud paintings are particularly successful, one of them echoing Sickert at his most sumptuous.
Both Auerbach and Bacon are scheduled to have retrospectives, Auerbach at the Hayward in the summer and Bacon at the Royal Academy in 1980. Then, with the benefit of seeing comparative developments, will be the time to discuss 'their work in greater detail. This applies especially to Bacon who can hardly be discussed in terms of the relatively new half-dozen or so paintings in the back gallery at the Marlborough. This is not to belittle Auerbach's achievement in holding his own in the front galleries, merely to keep things in proportion. On the basis of this limited sample Bacon is not as powerful as formerly. Male nudes, frustrated by their own convulsive energy, hold the centre of the stage, but while the shadows are oddly green and the pastel provides a feverish glitter, there is a feeling of lassitude. Volume and points of significance continue to be denoted by diagrammatic circles and arrows, the potency of the central figure dissipated by marginal props and activities. In the large 'Triptych', the big brother figures are relatively conventional, the background a view of the sea. Two distant horsemen come trotting out of Gauguin to the rescue. These are still grand enterprises, but for that beauty of the mutual antagonism of opposites which Bacon holds so dear, the small triptych of a head hidden away round the corner is the answer.
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