Page 18 - Patrick Scott Scrapbooks

FRIDAY, lUNE 4, [965
Use of gold leaf I•ll
sl1ow
P A TRICK SCOTTS style seems to undergo constant metamor- phosis, more so than any painters Iin the country except Colin Middle- ton and Gerard Dillon. That may sound a banal remark, and it is
/ irrelevant enough in all . conscience. I
I
. ings of refinement and style, and given time they emerge with con- , siderable subtlety.
Apart from the innovation of I using the gold leaf (in flat, panel- like areas) the tonal range i> drasti- ' call y limited- a selection of greys and the colour of the unprimed canvas, large areas of which are left bare. Shapes and motifs a re of the simplest and barest; mostly patterns of rectangles ·broken by bands, with now and then Scott's favourite disc shapes. There is a recognisably landscape (eel about some of the pictures. but in general their theme is themselves-their' subject is their own compositifJn.
I know no better way t;>f putting it than that.
Scott has a thoroughly modetn sensibility, and in investigatin th tensions between areas of colou he is workinl! in one of the most in- terestine contemporary tracks. How to make parts of the canvas emerge and recede. how to engage neigh- bouring areas of colour in per- petual give-and-take-this is an exercise which is engaging a great many artists at the moment, and to do it with such a muted palette i, a real achievement. I don't find these works among the most vital I have seen. but thev are the pro· duct of a real oainterlv intelligence. Scott. bevond argument. is a stylist who has a rare sense of formal balance, and is not afraid of the strictest symmetry. Econom y and taste never desert him, and he
knows just how much he can eliminate .
There is a mild but genurne poetrv about all this, a kind ".f chamber-music symmetry. There 1s I
also a breath of modernistic fresh air. and an interest in experiment which is to be lauded. At their best the component parts of these paint- ings fit together with a kind of muted inevita.bi:ity. They are per· haps a limited vein and it is not at all sure that Scott will slop the weaker works in this show are close to being tasteful decor panels 1>ith an added element soft vib- rance in the colour. But generally they investigate a strictly painter'.y dimesion. and they all have style,
Is this too much
for a painting?
RECENTLY it was reported that the National Gallery-with money . from the Shaw bequest-intended to pa)' approximately £500,000 for a Van Eyck master- piece. ls this an exhorbi-
tant pdce, even for a masterpiece ?
Patrick Scott
(ARTIST)
We have a duty to buy Old l\lasters but it does seem a lot to pay in propor- tion to the resources of the Shaw bequest.
Anne Yeats (ARTIST)
Though I do not know the painting myself, I do think it is too much. I could think of more im· mediate priorities-the im- provement of die lighting in the gallery itself.
Gerry Wheeler
(PRESIDENT, IRISH EXPORTERS ASSOCIA· TION)
I think it is excessive. Could we not have got perhaps five masterpieces from different schools for £500,00 .
.· 8 Kay Petersen
(FASHION DESIGNER)
I think we will be lucky to get the Van Eyck for half a million, and Mr. White has my unqualified approval to do so.
Dan Stephenson
(AUCTIONEER)
To buy a masterpiece of this kind - and Irelaml should buy them-one must be prepared to pay:<i.;500,000.
'
His present show at the Dawson is in the same manner as bis recent one in Belfast, that is to.say, in his tempera-and-gold-leaf period. These works do look a little forbiddingly bare at first, and some of them frankly just elegantly decorative panels. Thev are, however, paint-
real style.
B.P.F.