art
Traudi Allen
Laura Murray Cree and Nevill Drury
Australian Painting Now
Craftsman House $95.00hb, 344pp
185 plates in colour, 90 5703 252 X
In any compilation there are artists whom each reader would wish were present and similarly those whose inclusion she or he might query. Equally, given that eighty artists are covered, each reader will probably make a welcome discovery regarding the inclusion of an admired painter whom it is felt has not been granted sufficient status elsewhere. In the case of this reader there was satisfaction in finding work by Bruno Leti, David Rankin, Howard Taylor, David Wadelton, John Young, Rick Amor and Vivienne Binns, among others. As well as senior and so-called mid-career artists there are also those who are scarcely known at all. But despite the range covered there is a discontinuity about this book, a lack of clarity as to exactly what its purpose is, that appears to relate to its genre. If a comparison is made with Joan Kerr's Heritage: the National Women's Art Book as an impressive, (however difficult to emulate) model the aim was clearly to recuperate undiscovered work by women.
The definition on which this book rests: Australian Painting Now suggests a compilation drawn from the most innovative end of the creative continuum. But given the inclusion of John Coburn for example, with a painting in his signature style, first seen in the 1960s, a 1981 landscape by Arthur Boyd, a landscape by John Olsen and a Surrealist-styled work in the well known manner by James Gleeson, this book does not convey the implied promise of its title. Similarly, the 1994 painting by Fred Cress could pass for sixteenth century Netherlands painting, and Cressida Campbell's watercolour still lifes, and gum tree studies could have been painted in Australia at any time this century. There are other such examples. Consequently, the 'now' of the title appears to refer to the more general notion of artists who are currently working and exhibiting, rather than those demonstrating innovations that might be pertinent to say, postmodern or post-colonial preoccupations.
In the introductory essay the editors explain further: 'The task addressed by this book is a simple one, for it is based on a single question: How vibrant and alive is Australian painting as we enter the new millennium?', thus raising this same expectation of a treatise on recent innovation, as expressed in the title. Given that the book does not appear to have as a sole aim the interrogation of the latest in painting, the question arises as to whether the painting medium is not all that well after all, and, contrary to the protestation of the editors, might in fact be dying -- perhaps from neglect in favour of experimentation in other media. Of course, conservatism may come to be seen as the very latest in art, but some of the artists included would themselves argue that they were at their most 'vibrant' forty to fifty years ago -- Colin Lanceley is an example in this regard.
Along with an extract of text on velvet by Susan Norrie and Valerie Tring's place names on glass, among other novel examples that give the book its main strength, there are other absent lesser-knowns who could have brought enough new subjects and methodologies with which to fill a book. Alternatively, is it necessary for an art book to be this big, this beautiful and this expensive to be commercially viable? Do small books with fewer illustrations fail to appeal to a viable readership? Since the list of earlier, similar Craftsman House compilations is extensive, volumes of this kind are presumably commercially successful and have helped to sustain this publishing house to the extent that it has acquired a virtual monopoly in Australian art publishing. There is always the possibility then that these books are being bought because no others on Australian artists are available.