From VICTOR PASMORE
Ben Nicholson’s observations relative to my article in the Sunday Times on abstract art provided a valuable contribution to your symposium in the July issue of The London Magazine. It was a pity, therefore, that Nicholson’s account should have been prefaced by an editorial interpretation of one of the corner-stones of my article which, through exaggeration and oversimplification, is misleading. Had I written or implied what you purported me to say in the last sentence of your preface, I cannot imagine that Mr Nicholson would have bothered to reply. For instance I did not write or imply anything so narrow as: ‘Constructivism is likely to replace flat-surfaced painting as the abstract artist’s most effective instrument of expression.’
The necessity for abstract painting to extend into the realm of actual three dimensions would involve the whole range of three-dimensional technique including sculpture and architecture — a fact which I stated quite specifically. But unless this conception is related to a large perspective it obviously makes nonsense. For instance nobody in their senses would regard the future of abstract art as being identified merely with constructivism.
EDITOR: The misapprehension is Mr Pasmore’s not ours. Constructivism in its original authentic sense related to a combination, never previously realized, of painting, sculpture, and architecture. (As Gabo said: ‘We called ourselves “constructors”, from the Russian word, “postroyenia”, meaning construction. We built into space out of our imagination in the same way as an engineer does when he builds a construction.’) Constructivism in this sense could be applied as much to a project for a whole town as to an object that could be held in the hand. The fact that in this country it now has a narrower, more provincial implication does not invalidate its use in the original, wider sense. Mr Pasmore laid claim to ‘the whole gamut of physical dimensions’ for the full and ‘ultimate’ realization of ‘an abstract work’: and it still seems to us that ‘some form of constructivism’ is, as we said, most likely to result from the exploration of that gamut.
Page(s) 95-96
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The