PAINTING
HOWARD HODGKIN: LARGE PAINTINGS 1984-2002
Britain’s greatest colourist
‘Strong colour in painting since the pre-Raphaelites has been almost disallowed . . . no artist is truly taken seriously if he uses strong colour. Rubens has caused a lot of trouble. It’s only that his drawing is so obviously miraculous that he’s got away with it.’ (Howard Hodgkin, 1998)
If Hodgkin’s comments are true then colourists are really getting away with it at this year’s Edinburgh festival as major exhibitions by both Rubens and Hodgkin feature at the National Gallery and the Dean Gallery respectively. The first UK exhibition of Hodgkin’s work since 1996, this Edinburgh exclusive has been organised as a follow-up show to the 1991 exhibition of small, intense paintings of the period 1975—89 at Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Modern Art.
‘Because Hodgkin’s paintings take a long time to complete, exhibitions of his work are relatively rare,’ says curator and exhibition organiser Philip Long. ‘He is interested in working in different scales and the idea behind this exhibition was to have a show of large-scale paintings. Twenty paintings will be on show, representing a substantial part of Hodgkin’s output over the last 15 years.’
Selected by Long, gallery director Richard Calvocoressi and Hodgkin himself, the exhibition will also show some of the artist’s most recent works. ‘lt’s very exciting to have five new works which haven’t been seen before in public,’ says Long. ‘In fact there are two or three which even I haven’t seen: they’re still in the studio. All the paintings are stunning, but it’s particularly interesting to see the development of Hodgkin’s work over the last 15 to 16 years.’
Described as ‘the greatest colourist at work in Britain today’, Hodgkin’s approach is far from typically Anglo-Saxon. His romantic sensibility in the use of expressive colour to convey emotion, an interest in compositional framing devices, and his use of ‘leading’ titles draw comparison with the
68 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 1—8 Aug 2002
A Nude Youth Turning Towards the Left, after Michelangelo
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Chez Stamos, 1998
American abstract expressionist tradition, although the abstract ‘tag’ is one he questions, describing himself as ‘a representational painter, but not a painter of appearances’.
Hodgkin is undoubtedly a painter’s painter, unconcerned with fads and fashions in his efforts to paint ‘representational pictures of emotional situations’. Like Rothko, Hodgkin’s intention is to engage the viewer utterly ‘to paint pictures where people didn’t care what anything was, because they were so enveloped by them’.
But as Hodgkin knows only too well, colour, as opposed to form, has long been regarded as too sensual, too emotional, to be truly aesthetic. This summer Hodgkin and Rubens draw up the age-old Rubenistes v Poussinistes battle lines again to challenge this claim. Who wins? You decide. (Susannah Thompson)
I Dean Gallery. 556 65:30. 7 Aug—6 Oct, £3.50 (£2.50).
DRAWING AND PAINTING RUBENS: DRAWING ON ITALY
Rubens' artistic re-workings 0..
With the 'Iook don't touch' attitude that is drummed into us from childhood. Rube/Is: Drawing on Ira/y comes as something of a shock. After training in Antwerp. Rubens spent long periods of time in Italy studying the work of Old Masters. But study to Rubens was not as it is today. Although deeply reverential towards Renaissance greats. he felt no compunction with taking a knife to their work and re-touching parts which he deemed to be lacking clarity. The exhibition is a fascinating exploration of artistic re-working and the use of sketches as working models for development. But it does seem close to butchery at some points. At a climactic moment, Rubens' copy of Ora/Ia and Cash/lo is hung next to Titian's original. The colours are much more gaudy (look at the dog's tongue) and Titan‘s subtle tonal range Is lost. His original sketches. however. are works of exquisite delicacy. A Nude Your/I Turning to the Left betrays his tender and subtle talents in bringing life and warmth to a surface and reflect undeniably the benefits of 'study'. (Ruth Hedges) I Nat/'ona/ Ga//ery of Scotland. (324 (3209, I/rItI/ I Sep, £73 ([72).
IMAGE © BRITISH museum