Edited by Steve Bamlett, Sunday, 13 May 2018, 18:58
Describing HEWING
These are notes related to work I’m doing on Tom McGuiness’
wonderful painting The Hewer (1995).
I’m fascinated at the moment by the role of description of
visuals, especially of spaces and objects that aren’t widely known – either because
they are from the past but also because they belong to cultures that were truly
marginalised – such as mining cultures were. When represented, and when these
representations are reproduced, they stereotype (sometimes in idealised forms –
Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer) their subjects or view them
in contexts associated with community life rather than labour (later Norman Cornish).
McGuinness was known to believe that Henry Moore, an artist
he admired, got ‘some things wrong’. One if those things, in my view is the
attempt to know or cast light on miners. This emerges in the very unreal light
sources utilised in Moore’s mining pictures.
The issue for McGuinness was to make ‘darkness visible’ in
the words of Milton. This is done by imaging darkness through combinations of
colour and contours between figure and background. It does not utilise ‘picture
depth’, in this picture but variation of surface form. Depth is seen as a ‘void’
and is easily mistook for something solid. To do this McGuinness in my view
utilises the names of mining roles –
where painting is about scraping off and removing paint where necessary (‘hewing’)
– as it is about building colour up. Such light as was there was a material
light that utilises contrasts of reflective and non-reflective surfaces and
this may be some explanation of his use of glazes.
Some thoughts.
These descriptions have a lot to do with the representation of masculinity in coal-mining. In war-time and post war recovery under nationalisation the myth of heroic male potency was a useful source of positive stereotype - but stereotype none the less. McGuinness limns male vulnerability. For analogue see Bella Dicks (2008) 'Performing the Hidden injuries of Class in Coal-Mining Heritage' in Sociology 42 (3) 436-452.
Describing HEWING
Describing HEWING
These are notes related to work I’m doing on Tom McGuiness’ wonderful painting The Hewer (1995).
I’m fascinated at the moment by the role of description of visuals, especially of spaces and objects that aren’t widely known – either because they are from the past but also because they belong to cultures that were truly marginalised – such as mining cultures were. When represented, and when these representations are reproduced, they stereotype (sometimes in idealised forms – Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer) their subjects or view them in contexts associated with community life rather than labour (later Norman Cornish).
The issue for McGuinness was to make ‘darkness visible’ in the words of Milton. This is done by imaging darkness through combinations of colour and contours between figure and background. It does not utilise ‘picture depth’, in this picture but variation of surface form. Depth is seen as a ‘void’ and is easily mistook for something solid. To do this McGuinness in my view utilises the names of mining roles – where painting is about scraping off and removing paint where necessary (‘hewing’) – as it is about building colour up. Such light as was there was a material light that utilises contrasts of reflective and non-reflective surfaces and this may be some explanation of his use of glazes.
Some thoughts.
These descriptions have a lot to do with the representation of masculinity in coal-mining. In war-time and post war recovery under nationalisation the myth of heroic male potency was a useful source of positive stereotype - but stereotype none the less. McGuinness limns male vulnerability. For analogue see Bella Dicks (2008) 'Performing the Hidden injuries of Class in Coal-Mining Heritage' in Sociology 42 (3) 436-452.
Steve