“ IRISH ART CRITICISM A PROVINCIALISM OF THE RIGHT? Tom Duddy ‘One of the most extraordinary pieces of writing ever published on Irish art was Frances Ruane’s introduction to The Delighted Eye catalogue in which she wrote that Ireland is a fundamentally dif ferent place from New York ot Los ‘Angeles and that consequently Irish artists remain fundamentally different as well The rural landscape, Ruane argued, is probably the most important element that distinguishes leh art from the international ‘mainstream. Irish artists are more likely 10 ‘adapt the ‘regular organic shapes of hillside than the minimalist geometry of machine parts. The work of Colin Middleton. Camille Souter, Bartle Cooke, Brian Bourke, and Maria Simmonds Gooding may’ appear expressionistic oF abstract ina modernist sense but 1s ally quite rural in its content, The land and its landscape are the primary points of departure, not any close acquaintance with the work of artists from abroad. This is what she had to say of Barre Cooke “On the surface, his paintings are strongly tied to American Abstract Expressionism, which was indeed on influence. But Cooke departs from the New York School in his underlying Later stil, Blan Fallon, in his catalogue on Tony O'Malley, wrote that trucking 10 international fashion Is usually the trade:matk of an endemically provincial culture which always follows in the wake of what hhas already happened elsewhere. Com paring O'Malley with Peter Crayon, “a born intemationalist”, he suggested that fone cannot overstress “the sense of place both shared, the consciousness of having roots in the region * He concluded that however much a certain kind of fashionable, Journalistic rationalism many ridicule such things as the ‘Celtic nature mystique’, “they remain a realty which bet arfoces inthe mot epee tworks of art.” Even Ireland's leading ‘internationalist exit Dorothy Walker would not let for rmalism or modernism have their way What she described as @ paradoxically “informal formalism” can be seen as for back as the great carvings at Newgrange through Bronze Age artifacts in gold and bronze, through the spectacular Early Christian art where “the exuberant Irish spirit can be seen s0 clearly batting with rigid Roman ideas of orders “* Of Patrick Scott she whote that he “consistantly com bined open-ended linear geometric com: postions wih the organic beauty of natural matenals such as gold and hnen.? And in Charles Tyrrell we find “the recurring Ish combination of formallam alled 10 netural or organic materials,” The need to place, locals, reglonabse naturals, ethnicise, root’ Ish artists has been accompanied by a comparable need to identify “a. strong. native impulse” native genius which is ultimately expicable interms of an elective affinity between the sensibiity of the artists and the special qualities inherent in the Irish landscape Hence O'Doherty’ observation that the bes ish artists display “an independence that is not obtuse, avoiding the provin Cialism of the right (nationalism) and the provincial of the left (modernism) ‘The future of Irish artes, appears, with “the successful local artats” !? In Cynl Barret’ 14th Congress paper the point is made mote exphtly” “The Ish arusts of the 1970's ore individual artists There no-one anywhere who works lke Seamus Coleman, Michoe! Craig Martin, Colm Harrison and Bran King” ! Most recently, Brian Fallon has declared that what matters inthe long run is not whether an artist works in. a “national” of “international” style but his personal stature. Many artists, he says, feed the stimulation of the cy but “others mature in elative lation on relatvely Ttwould seem to me that the tendency by influential Irish cris to impose a con: tent on Insh art, specifically to read off landscape motifs or signs of the Celtic past from a variety of images. to stop short at the point of recognition of an ethnic Zeitge'st, is a protectionist, reactionary fone. Firstly, in attempting to force particular content upon Irish painting it Insinuates, In a racist sense, that the sensibility of lish people, including artists, Is not disposed to express itslln concep. tual, formal, or abstract modes, and has ‘ot lent itself easly to interpretation in such modes. The notion of pathological reluctance, or culturally-induced inability to deal with concepts, of construct and paint in abstract modes, need not be inked to Suzi Gablik’s questionable hypothesis that “progress in ort i progress towards ‘ever increasing conceptualisation ” We may take it, however. that formalisation fn visual artis analogous to, and a func: tion of, abstraction in perception and knowledge generally. The notion that the Inah eye is focused on the particular, the local, and the natural s not @ compliment to the extreme beauty of the objector the ‘extreme sensitivity ofthe eye. Rather itis {an insu to eye and mind — these faculties cannot, ast were, see further than this curve of hillside, this angle of cutaway bog, this colour of dancing sky. To be tunable to abstract from the particular shows 2 weakness of intellect and Imagination, not a power of perception It might be argued that the sheer beauty ofthe particular overwhelms eye and mind but this only compounds the insult — to bbe taken in by the beauty ofthe object qua object suggests not only intellectual weakness but moral weakness as well a weakness of the wilThe hypothesis of landscapism, of regionalism. of provinciaism, coupled with the hypothesis of the native impulse, is reactionary in a second sense It's ‘symptomatic of a refusal to acknowledge the imperialistic imbalance in the art ‘market. a refusal to recognise the material forces which determine, in the last Instance. the dominant visual ideologies, the location of galleries. the location of influential dealers, cries, and art journals, and the formation of artists themselves, The ‘materialist’ concepts of economy, market, commodity, visual ideology, ‘and ‘consumer awareness’, or level of onspicuous consumption. ge way to ‘romantic’ concepts of place, atmosphere, native impulse, local genius the Celtic imagination ‘What is acknowledged, # only implicitly, 's that Ireland, as a marginal economic ower, cannot provide the buyers, the the exhibitions, the dealer-crtie ‘system of New York ot Paris, a system in which the dealers effectively ‘produce’ the Asis, and the crs oten serve as Publeiss But in order to pre-empt the Pessimism or cynic prompted by this Scknowhedgement of powerlessness the idealists the romantics the nats: the transcendental regionals, the informal formals hove decided that Ireland can stand alone. indeed can do no other than stand alone. celebrating and exposing ts insularity" and the impulses of ts local geniuses But the tragedy of insulanty and marginalsation i thet no artist who re- ‘mains in reland can become great. ish aists cannot become great nor have seaines thrust upon them. Greamess has Eonnotations of marketabily. scale and scope of publicity, level of Conspicuous Consumption in society. degree ot fetshia tion of art commodhy. competitiveness among money colleciors. The aesthetic ‘mer ofthe work of art tsi i determined inthe context of these al pervasive Powerful veriables. lish cris, however, Rave done trish artists» diaserice by Promoting delusions of grandeur. by ursuing a line of interpretation which derives from a provincialism of the right in ODohery’s sense. The provincialsm of the crites reinforces and Is reinforced by the often self-conscious provincialism of both amists and public ‘The small art-buying community in Ireland is. of course, part of the inter national art-market It knows the cexchange-value of whatever commodity it deals in, including works of at, but it tends tolack the knowledge and coherent visual ‘Ideology of the ‘international buyers. due ‘mainly to lack of access to regular exhib tions and the whole milew of connoisseur ship. Artists in Ireland have tended to respond accordingly, producing derivative: Wy, taking due account of the modest Informed sensibilities of their potential Hence, in this period of ‘moder there has been the need to bur the to lose the object for a tokenisicspelin the ‘medium, to become more or less abstract.” but sotly, softly. This deicate manipula tion of the somewhat indelicate sensibilities ‘ofthe fashion wary, value conscious buyer hhas contributed more to the ‘atmospheric ‘mode’ of several decades of lsh painting than any influence of climate ‘or any restless fix on the unimportant, or some Celtic nature mystique iter t some, truth, in, Clement ireenberg's last words at the 14th Con. ‘gress. “decadence sin the publ; t's with taste, and notin the studios. *"* It must be ‘added, however, that there is also some decadence in the studios. thought itis not ‘caused in the fist instance by decadence Im either the public or ertical miew. Its caused by the material realities which determine the more oF less one-way flow ‘of commodities, fashions, and ideologies, ‘Rot to mention carpet-baggers. The pert parca wre nad mom ray by Jorge Glusberg at the 14t where he rejected both progressivism, which sees vitue in the fact that local art ' fed continually by ideas from abroad, and abstentionism. which assumes that everything foreign is bad. He advocated Instead a circulation of information which would enable avant garde artists in local ‘communities to avoid the dangers of towards cosmopolitanism, art presents & radical problem: the transmission of art involves substantial financial resources in connection with exhibitions, galleries, private collectors, and the generation of Ideologies and cultural models. The transmission of artistic trends takes the form of a process of reproduction. That is to say, itimplies a form of production, in terchange. ‘and consumption in which “antsts are local promoters of an imported ‘art ideology... The frst act of consumption 's thew own Glusberg went on to conclude that art Istic reproducers ofthe local communities tinge thei re-productions with the colours (of their historical backgrounds: “We are basically saying thatthe imported ats not ‘merely copied but is transformed in some ‘way?*!” Transformed in some way? We ‘may as well turn to Slavka Sverakova's feconomistic truism: “The economy is ‘again the winner”. "* ‘The only plausible solution to the dler- ‘ma of the international vis 6 vis the local 's that erties and artists should make do with a provincialism of the left. They should especially abandon the hope of ‘greatness, a hope that has been entertain- ted by both ‘progressives’ and ‘absten- tioniss. To abandon the hope of greatness requires a realistic materialistic understan. dling ofthe term ‘greatness’ itself. n using the term I have in mind the postion of Nicos Hadjinicolaou who argues that “the ‘idealist question ‘What i beauty?” must be replaced by the materialist question, By whom, when, and for what reason was this work ' thought beautifull’""? What Hadjinicolaou says of beauty can, with even more justification, be said of greatness,90 carton, ach Yeas Pt 4 Pe! Aaya tn ty te erect elements — size of market, size of museum Sirocco Sateen Sia ne Br wad Spot ow: ateacie Spe Seeoract raed foe Senses, Tact cee ee Ss semiology of Celtic naturalism. Byatt Sn eerie es ee ettoceten tage seaman the attitude of Cyril Barrett who saw user Sort ne Soenarete ioe ciehe aime censure Soatoeretn tine boagerronlore rtd up an ancient thread”, of Frances Hct Se het “forever focusing on elements that tie con- Troe» vaath Parts © PTR femporary man to the ancients", of Michael Farell who has said that “no pe tures of any value concermed wth the eal problem of plcture:making have been ‘mode in Ireland since the Book of Kel. “2 Ina more postive sense, a provincial ‘ofthe left recognises the margnalty of Ish ariss, producers of an art incapable of taking’ an impact on the intemetional ‘mainstream. yet incapable of ignoring it incapable of going i slone except very cxitically and very canny, without Selensiveness or deference. The extra artistic factors, which need to be taken into account do not necessarily exclude signs of landscape or even ancient crafts ‘manship but should also include broader, mote explanatory, sci, cultural ‘economic, and Wdeologeal faciors without which an adequate understanding of lish at isnot possible. A mode of art ertcism based on a narrow protectionist Irish naturalism ught tobe avoided, f only 9 ‘acknowedge the element of truth in Herbert Read's assertion that “decadence ‘s usually associated with the of ‘naturalism, keeping in mind that the ‘naturalism in this case is in the eye of the rarer Haty gi 2? ef Artins’ Statements {Dun 1979). page 20. 25, Hevert Rend, The Philoophy of Modern Ar. ‘London, 1968). page 1. ts someuhat wn Seri to note tht thie same bok, Read ‘Spee ha the Cate win nthe Engh ce “presang us on. 0 Mathew Amoi’ mod, 29 ‘the mpapaie, the ea” te cnn of our (nga) ompcience dh higher ones oe ple ot” page 264 ‘Tom Duddy has taught at the National