It’s not quite daggers at dawn. But Galleries West consulting editor Jeffrey Spalding takes umbrage at the “relentless vitriol” of British art critic Jonathan Jones in this spirited defence of Canadian artist David Milne, whose exhibition at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery opened earlier this month. Spalding need look no further for allies than American art critic Clement Greenberg, who once opined that Milne was among the three most important artists of his generation in North America.
Spalding asks: Is Jonathan Jones the Roseanne Roseannadanna of art criticism?
David Milne, “Pink Reflections, Bishop’s Pond,” 1920
(National Gallery of Canada, gift from the Douglas M. Duncan collection, 1970; photo courtesy NGC ©Estate of David Milne)
I firmly hold the belief that confident, great art writers ‘present’ artists making art, while insecure, mediocre art writers ‘resent’ artists making art. Jonathan Jones, a writer for The Guardian, is clearly no fan of the work of David Milne. Fair enough. Not everyone can adore every artist. However, Jones does himself and the discipline of art criticism a grave disservice by the relentless vitriol of his attack.
In his Feb. 14 review of David Milne: Modern Painting, on view at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery until May 7, Jones writes: “Milne’s paintings are only modern if by that you mean a wishy-washy vagueness, depressed colours and complete lack of shock.” He goes on to call Milne’s work monotonous and dreary, noting there’s “very little sign of development” and it is “embarrassingly repetitive.”
1 of 2
David Milne, “Billboards,” circa 1912
(National Gallery of Canada, gift of Douglas M. Duncan, Toronto, 1962; photo courtesy NGC ©Estate of David Milne)
2 of 2
David Milne, “Columbus Monument,” 1912
(Milne Family Collection; photo by Michael Cullen, Toronto ©Estate of David Milne)
Jones contrasts the gritty urban realities of American realist George Bellows and the Ashcan School to Milne’s New York depictions, which he chastises as genteel, more akin to the Bloomsbury group. Well, funny enough, actually yes, this is apropos. Jones seems to mis-remember the rather slow and bumpy introduction of modern tendencies to Britain and North America. Painter and critic Roger Fry championed the avant-garde through his post-impressionist exhibitions of 1910 and 1912 in London. He was derided as a madman and perverter of taste. Last year, I had the honour of purchasing for a Canadian public collection a charming 1918 post-impressionist drawing by British artist Harold Gilman. Its modest adaptation of post-impressionist mark making is a more fitting companion to Milne than any reference to Bellows.
Despite their pioneering efforts, Fry and his Bloomsbury contemporaries, among them Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, were hardly the creators of radical barn-burners. They continued to make paintings of rather conventional subject, style and treatment. Vorticism, inaugurated in 1914, was an exception. However, pre-1945 British art could be summed up as predominantly subdued, tonal admixtures of colour (with an eye towards Whistler). We can witness some of the prevalent British artists of the day: Henry Tonks, Walter Sickert, Augustus John and Ambrose McEvoy, for starters. Even later, Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore stuck fairly close to the script of subdued near-monochromes in browns and greys (as did Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso’s analytic cubism). Their timbre and tonality signalled a form of rigour and seriousness of purpose that polychrome might have disrupted. So, Milne was right there in the hunt.
It’s also well to remember that one of the towering internationally celebrated British figures of the early 20th century was Sir D.Y. Cameron, the purveyor of endless paintings of highlands landscapes and lakes. Canadian art museums avidly collected and exhibited all these forms of work by British aspirants. Canadians study and know the historical place of British and American art within a world context. Jones does not display the same reciprocal courtesy to Milne or to Canada.
David Milne (photo by Craig Boyko)
Like Fry’s ground-breaking exhibition, the momentous New York Armory Show of 1913 was met equally with scorn. Duchamp’s nude descending a staircase was the de facto enfant terrible. Yet any glance at the exhibitors’ list would reveal the organizers were not attempting to corral modernism and ‘the modern.’ They were assiduously inclusive of numerous approaches to progressive art. There was room under their big tent for the French and international avant-garde, and a variety of American styles and artists, including American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, Arthur B. Davies, Abbott Thayer, John Twachtman, Childe Hassam and William Merritt Chase. Within the Ashcan School (The Eight), the compatriot to link with Milne is certainly not Bellows. Instead, more apt pairings could be made with Ernest Lawson or Maurice Prendergast. Landscape, still life and portraiture soldiered on well into the later 20th century.
Largely self-taught, Milne moved to New York in 1903 to study at the Art Students League. Just 10 years later, he earned the distinction of having five paintings exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show, an accolade that would dress any resume.
It is Jones’ opinion that Milne’s work is tediously repetitious. One could employ a countervailing observation: Milne was consistently dedicated to resolving a certain aesthetic quest. One could hardly imagine it was useful to observe to Piet Mondrian: “You know, there are other palette options than red, yellow, blue, black and white.” Good luck commenting to Marc Rothko: “More floating amorphous stained rectangles?” Or to Morandi: “What? Bottles again?”
David Milne, “Bishop’s Pond (Reflections),” 1916
(National Gallery of Canada; photo courtesy NGC ©Estate of David Milne)
Artists often become obsessed by one idea. The problem is they endlessly search for the best solution. Many times it eludes them, so they keep moving, making one tiny change or refinement after the other. Milne’s relationship with nature was unlike the bombast of Turner or the grandiose aspirations of manifest destiny of the American Hudson River School. His paintings never needed to shout. Yes, they are understated and introspective. But dreary they are not. Milne lived humbly with nature. Henry David Thoreau is a better match. Milne’s pool paintings are neither depressing, melancholy nor void of colour. Grey Pools is grey because, well, we live in Canada. It actually is often grey here.
However, in case any British readers were mistakenly poised to view Milne’s art, Jones quickly puts the boot in. He summarily declares that Milne was “unsuccessful in his own lifetime and little-known outside his own country.” Is this either factual or fair?
Milne had important exhibitions, was collected by the National Gallery of Canada, all the country’s significant public art museums and venerated private collectors. Atypically for Canadian artists of that era, he supported himself by selling his works via one of the legendary respected commercial galleries. His works were part of Canada’s representation at the 1952 Venice Biennale.
Milne’s work continues to inspire and influence Canadian painters. After his death, there were retrospective exhibitions, plus a solo show that travelled to the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Many prominent Canadian public galleries maintain permanent installations of his work. So, I’m sorry Mr. Jones, this is what success looks like for the legacy of a Canadian artist of the early 20th century. We long for the day when the finest achievements of Canadian art are consistently shown beside their international compatriots; but thus far, it’s all we get.
And it’s high time that the arts writer for The Guardian did his homework.