| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Art Reviews |
Fall 2001 |
Stanley Spencer / The sacred and the profane
By Alidë Kohlhaas
There is something very modern and yet old-fashioned about the paintings and drawings of Stanley Spencer, an English painter not too well known in this country. Some would use the word eccentric to describe his work. I first encountered this painter's work many years ago at the Tate Gallery in London. One work that stuck in my mind was his large canvas, The Resurrection, Cookham 1923-7. There were others that attracted me, but perhaps at the time I was too young, too eager for the very latest to really appreciate Spencer's work. His style can be called chunky, and in his early work one can perceive the influence that Gauguin had on him, and his later works may nominally allude to some German Expressionists. Today I look at Spencer with new eyes and find that he has much to offer. No matter what his style may have been influenced by, it is his very own. No one can mistake his works for anyone else's.
This artist's works are now on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario as part of its 100th anniversary line-up. Some may perhaps feel that the AGO is bowing too much to its European origins (its very first show 100 years ago featured then modern Scottish painters) by bringing this show here from the Tate. To me it is a fitting show because it leads into another show that opens October 12, Canvas of War. Spencer served as an official war artist during WWII. Though none of his works in the current exhibition are directly of that genre, three pieces lean in that direction: Burners, 1940, Welders, 1941, and Study of iron pieces - wartime shipbuilding c.1940-45. The first two mentioned belong to the Imperial War Museum, London, the latter to the AGO.
Throughout this exhibition it becomes clear that Spencer constantly battled internally with the sacred and the profane. At the same time, one sees that he had an extraordinary sense of home, which might give him a label of regionalism, yet there is something very universal about his work. He was born in Cookham, a small Berkshire town not far from London. He left it to attend the Slade School of Art, where he learned . . .
To Read the full article, go to our ABOUT US page and click on Contact to request the item.
Copyright © 2001-9 CamKohl Arts Productions