Born Under Saturn and Jupiter: The Inescapable Conflict and Contradiction of Arthur Boyd by Kate Challis
Trinity Papers Number 12
Trinity College
The University Of Melbourne
Ms Kate Challis is Tutor in Fine Arts at Trinity College, and the holder of a range of prizes and awards. For many years she lived in Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s London home. She delivered ‘Born Under Saturn and Jupiter’ at Trinity College on 26 August 1999, as a personal tribute to Arthur Boyd, who died on 24 April 1999. While providing a general outline of his life and work, it argues that, throughout his life, Boyd vacillated between idyllic landscape painting and deeply troubled images.
This paper represents the twelfth in a series prepared by Trinity College which focuses upon broad issues facing the community in such areas as education, ethics, history, politics, and science. Copies are available upon request from the Tutorial Office, Trinity College, Parkville, Victoria 3052 Australia.
For my grandmother and my mother who taught me the things that count
Introduction by the Warden of Trinity College, Professor Donald Markwell. Sarah, Sir Zelman and Lady Cowen, Deputy Chancellor Dr Norman Curry, Professor Sharwood, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen It is a pleasure to join with Sarah in welcoming you to this afternoon’s lecture, and to introduce to you our tutor in fine arts, Kate Challis, to speak on Arthur Boyd, whose death earlier this year Kate felt deeply, as did others who also knew him and many more who simply knew his work. Kate Challis is a remarkable member of a remarkable family. Her grandfather is the pioneering art historian and critic Bernard Smith; and the annual RAKA awards for Aboriginal artists are given in memory of Kate’s late grandmother, whose name she bears. But membership of a remarkable family does not make an individual remarkable. What makes Kate remarkable are her own talents: energy, liveliness, grace and sensitivity to others. Her academic research has been highly specialised, with an Honours thesis in 1994 in this University and, now, a doctoral thesis nearing completion on Flemish manuscript illumination of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Amongst several other publications are entries in this particular field of specialty for The Oxford Companion to Western Art. But Kate’s interests in the arts have been wide-ranging, with active involvement in opera, much work researching Victorian women poets and much else besides. Kate’s broad horizons have gained from living for several years in Germany and later for some years in London. Here at Trinity, she tutors in German and cinema studies as well as in fine arts and art history, and she has had a considerable impact as a stimulator - a lively, thoughtful energizer - of students and colleagues alike. It is a great pleasure to call on Kate to speak on the title ‘Born Under Saturn and Jupiter: The Inescapable Conflict and Contradiction of Arthur Boyd’.
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Sarah, Warden, Sir Zelman and Lady Cowan, Dr Curry, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be given this opportunity to talk at Trinity College on Arthur Boyd; the exceptional artist, philanthropist and visionary. I am particularly honoured to be speaking this afternoon, an afternoon which celebrates Professor Robin Sharwood, his artistic bequests and the significant impact he not only had on the spirit of this college as Warden, but continues to have. Welcome Professor Sharwood. ------A little known fact about Arthur Boyd is that he made an exceptionally good cup of tea. After not having seen Arthur in years, you’d wake up one day to the sound of the kettle boiling and you would know he was back in town. During the five years I lived in Arthur and Yvonne’s Georgian terrace house in London, I had the pleasure of encounters with them: cups of tea in the garden; chats on the stairs; and walks on Hampstead Heath. Over the last 25 years of Arthur’s life, he and his wife, Yvonne, divided their time between England, Australia and Italy. Not an easy task when you do not fly. They would spend enough time in any given place for word to get about that they were back and then they would be off, like partners in crime on the run. Of course, they were not escaping the law but, nevertheless, something just as harrowing: the pressure of public life. I am sure that the fear of flying was not the only reason they insisted on travelling between Australia and Europe by boat. It gave them weeks of solitude away from the urgent phone calls, fax machines, art dealers, journalists and curators; only books, conversation and contemplation to attend to. No-one really knew when Arthur and Yvonne would appear, so we became good at guessing. Or so we thought, yet they would out-wit us every time . . . and . . . just when you had given up, you’d hear Arthur whistling in the kitchen and sound of the kettle. In April this year, the news of Arthur Boyd’s death spread across the front pages of the national Australian newspapers, pages usually reserved for politics and sporting victories. Never before in Australia’s history has the death of an artist received that kind of attention. Attention which, incidentally, Arthur would have hated. He was one of the least ego-driven people I have ever met. So, it is perhaps ironic that in this age of self-promotion that Arthur had such a high public profile. In 1995, he was named Australian of the Year and this year he became the first non-sportsman to be deemed an Australian Legend by Australia Post. During Arthur’s life and his death he was continually referred to as a great Australian. John Howard declared him “a giant among Australian artists”1 and Brian Kennedy, the Director of the National Gallery of Australia “one of the greatest artists Australia has ever produced”.2 Now, I must be honest, I found these statements unsettling. Apart from the fact that Arthur felt particularly uncomfortable with notions of nationalism, for he was a believer in humanity what irritated me was this: when you build someone up to be significant nationally and locally, you inadvertently diminish their international importance. Arthur was not just a great Australian artist. He was one of the most significant twentieth century artists and belongs alongside Picasso, Beckmann, Bacon, Pollack, Warhol and Beuys. When Picasso died no-one proclaimed him to be Spain’s greatest painter or Beckmann a great German painter, yet we as
I would like to thank Andrew Hollo, Dr Leanne Habeeb, Professor Donald Markwell and Dr Damian Powell, who in various ways, helped bring this paper to fruition. Above all, I am indebted to Gary Willis for stimulating discussions and his thoughtful insights, both which were invaluable. 1 2
Katrina Strickland, “Greats exit with the century”, The Australian, 27 April 1999, p. 4 Catherine Taylor, “Lament for loss of great artist, humanitarian”, The Australian, 26 April 1999, p. 5
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Australians still have this need to justify ourselves nationally, but that is another matter and maybe not for this talk. Arthur’s death was a great loss on both a microscopic and macroscopic level. Those who knew him, lost a loving friend, but the loss is also great for those who did not. Yes, he was virtuosic painter with a rare poetic vision, but that is not what made his death the tragedy it was. His paintings will continue to charm and challenge generations. What did make his death an unspeakable sorrow was the loss of a person like Arthur in the world. Journalists spoke of this morality, but that sounds high faluting and self-consciously constructed and Arthur was not that. He was one of those rare people who was genuinely interested in others. He had an uncanny ability to make everyone he met feel special. I may sound sentimental here and perhaps there is an element of that, I do not deny it. He led his life with integrity and humility and always put people before possessions. He would often say, “Kate, invest in people, not paper”. This is, of course, easy to preach but hard to practice when success, money and fame come knocking. In this lecture, apart from introducing you to his work, I would like to give you a sense of what he believed in and what made him the exceptional person he was. Let me begin by mapping out Arthur’s life and oeuvre. He was born on 24 July 1920 into a family of artists, architects, painters, potters and novelists. The artistic Boyd dynasty began with his grandparents, Arthur Merric and Emma Minne Boyd who were both painters.3 Contrary to popular belief the Boyd family was not abundantly wealthy; the real inheritance handed down from generation to generation was their love for art. As a young child Arthur occupied himself in his father’s pottery workshop. At the age of 14 he left school. Having failed in his dream to work in Melbourne’s Efeetee Film Studios, he found himself employed in his uncle’s industrial paint factory. 4 During his spare time, more as a hobby than anything else, as that is what one did as a Boyd, he would paint the landscape and portraits of family members. In 1936, at the age of sixteen, his grandmother Emma died and Arthur moved to Rosebud to live with his grandfather.5 Over the next three years Arthur produced what are his earliest surviving works: the impressionistic peninsula landscapes of the late 1930’s, such as the Jetty at Rosebud (1938; private collection, Melbourne)(fig. 1). So in his late teens Arthur began to paint full-time, an activity his grandfather happily supported, setting up an account for him at Norman’s, the local art supply shop.6 During this time they developed a touching bond, depending upon each other for support and friendship, yet remaining separate and giving each other space. The significance of this move upon Arthur’s future career should not be underestimated. Our mutual love and admiration for our grandfathers is something Arthur and I shared and often chatted about. In my late teens, just after my grandmother died, I moved in with my grandfather, who happens to be an art historian. Up to that point we had a caring, yet distant relationship. I was studying art history in my first year of University but, like most first years, was really just going along for the ride, not certain where I would land. Art history became our bridge; it was art that we discussed, argued about and giggled over. His interest in what I was studying and, therefore, me, was without a doubt significant in my choice to continue studying art in second and then third year, before I knew it I was doing my Honours degree. So, I can’t help but wonder whether Arthur’s time living with his grandfather had a similar impact upon him. It did not make him an artist, but did it commit him to the idea of being an artist?
Franz Philipp, Arthur Boyd, London, 1967, p. 21 Interview with Arthur Boyd, “Arthur Boyd. The Testament of a Painter”, Don Bennetts (dir.), ABC, 1994 5 Barry Pearce, Arthur Boyd. Retrospective, exh. cat., Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1993, p. 11 6 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 11 3 4
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If so, what then made Arthur an artist of serious reckoning? It certainly was not the sweet impressionistic works of his late teens but rather the dark, troubled images which were to follow and expose humanity at its worst. The first signs of this appear in the painting Two Laughing Heads, (1938; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra).7 The intellectual, Max Nicholson, who had been a friend of the family’s since the late 1920’s, became Arthur’s mentor, stimulating and challenging him. Arthur remembered with great fondness that Nicholson, “visited us every Sunday evening for many years, always bringing some book he had just got hold of, and would read aloud. He introduced us to Kierkegaard, Rimbaud, Joyce, Emily Dickinson and Kafka . . . Beckett”.8 It is well documented that Two Laughing Heads was inspired after reading Dostoyevsky, whose works Nicholson had introduced to Arthur.9 While it is not terribly well conceived, it is important as it signals Arthur’s shift from one mode of painting to another. It also derives its inspiration from literature, which is in itself significant. Throughout his life, Arthur’s muse was the written word. Unlike American abstract painting which is inspired by music, or contemporary art which dances to the tune of theory, throughout his life Arthur drew upon biblical stories, ancient myths and historical and fictional characters for his inspiration. The following year, the influential Herald-Sun Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art had a huge impact upon the young Arthur and his contemporaries. In it works of van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, Dali and de Chirico were shown for the first time on a large scale to an Australian audience. 10 One to one contact with this modern work made Arthur realize that his mode of painting belonged to an earlier century. Even though literature and the general artistic climate impacted upon Boyd, his main interest and influence throughout his life came in the form of people. Arthur had a tendency to gravitate towards those who were on the edge, outsiders, who needed support and friendship. And so, in 1937 when the artist Yosl Bergner, a young Polish Jew, arrived in Australia and Max Nicholson introduced him to Arthur, the two became great friends. Yosl, who initially teased Arthur about the naiveté of his quaint landscapes, began to tell the young Australian horror tales of the Holocaust and encouraged Arthur to paint what he felt.11 Yosl also encouraged Arthur to look at the work of the German Expressionists such as Ernst, Beckmann and Grosz who unfashionable for political reasons. These influences manifested themselves in Arthur’s “war period” work (painted c. 1941-45) seen in the harrowing painting entitled The King (1944; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra)(fig.2).12 In May 1941 Arthur was conscripted to the Army. After several months of training as a machine-gunner, he and John Perceval were transferred to the Melbourne Cartographic Company in Swanston Street. During their lunch breaks the pair visited the State Library and pored over books on the great European masters such as Rembrandt, Bruegel and Bosch.13 Over the following years Arthur worked on a series of paintings set in the inner city areas of St Kilda, Fitzroy and South Melbourne, a theme also painted by his contemporaries Sid Nolan, John Perceval and Albert Tucker. Arthur’s images focus upon the outcast, the victim and the frustrated lover. They are disturbed, full of despair and pain, yet they do not contain the bitterness and absolute pessimism of Tucker’s Modern Evil series. Events Arthur witnessed in the streets are transformed into dream-like trances, creating mythic and poetic images. In this series certain symbols appear for the first time in Arthur’s work. These images which now form part of Arthur’s unique iconography and recur in paintings throughout his life. He saw “a For a reproduction of this painting and others cited in this paper refer to Philipp, Arthur Boyd or Pearce, Arthur Boyd 8 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 12 9 Philipp, Arthur Boyd, p. 27 10 Richard Haese, Rebels and Precursors. The Revolutionary Years of Australian Art, London & Ringwood, 1981, pp. 61-5 11 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, pp. 12-3 12 Philipp, Arthur Boyd, pp. 26-7 13 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 13 7
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South Melbourne woman taking her dog for a walk, holding up its paralysed back legs” and recorded it in a notebook (Notebook; c. 1941-43, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide).14 Arthur returned to this image throughout his life (fig. 9). The South Melbourne works also introduce features which were to became “Arthurisms” such as the black ram, the skate, the barbed wire and the lost lover. In 1941, he also met the painter Yvonne Lennie whom he was later to marry. His posting in Bendigo with the Cartographic Company facilitated secret meetings with Yvonne in the bush. On one particular amorous afternoon, they were discovered by an army general.15 Understandably this was a rather humiliating moment for the young couple. The theme of discovered lovers, being watched or worse still being persecuted recurs throughout Arthur’s oeuvre such as Two Lovers (1944; Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne), The Orchard (1943; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), Angel Spying on Adam and Eve (1948; private collection, Melbourne), Persecuted Lovers (1957-8, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide)(fig. 6) and Lovers in a Landscape (1961; private collection, London). When Barry Pearce, the curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of NSW, first revealed this in a video made in 1993, I was watching the tape with the family, who told me that Arthur was indignant at the suggestion. Maybe it was just a little too personal for it to be publicly discussed and known. During the mid to late 40’s another shift occurred in Arthur’s work. It became bleaker and darker still (fig. 3). He produced a terrifying series based on the biblical themes of The Mockers, (1945; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), The Mourners (1945; Savill Galleries, Sydney), The Golden Calf, (1946; private collection, Melbourne) and Moses Throwing Down the Tablets of the Law (1946; private collection, Melbourne). Yet, these are not narrative religious paintings. Arthur took themes of hatred and anger and transformed them into compelling images which reveal the artist’s feelings about events in Europe. They were a protest against the rise of fascism and have been declared “the most ambitious statements about the war by an Australian artist”.16 When they were, however, first exhibited they did not receive praise, being described as “wholly distasteful” and “misguided”.17 One of my favourites in this series is Melbourne Burning (1946-7; The Robert Homes à Court Collection, Perth)(fig. 3). It is such a powerful, uncompromising image of death, destruction and utter despair. After the intensity of a seven year period painting such bleak images portraying the cruelty of humanity, Arthur ceased painting temporarily to concentrate on pottery. When he began again the following year, the paintings which emerged were idyllic landscapes such as the Boat Builders, Eden (1948; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra)(fig. 4). The influence of Bosch and Bruegel so clear in the Mockers, had also transformed his vision of the landscape. In late 1948, he also received his first commission. The patron was his uncle, the famous novelist Martin Boyd who had returned from England and asked Arthur to paint murals in the dinning room of his house in Berwick. Arthur covered the walls with floor to ceiling images of the Susanna and the Elders, the Prodigal Son and the Assumption of the Virgin. In what must be one of the greatest disasters of Australian art, the house was demolished in the 1960’s - and with it Arthur’s murals - to make way for a quarry. 18 For the following decade Arthur lost himself in the landscape. He experimented with technique and began grappling with the relationship between person and landscape, culminating in the Wimmera series such as Irrigation Lake (c. 1950; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne)(fig.5). It was really in this period that he came to terms with the “empty spaces of Grazia Gunn, Arthur Boyd. Seven Persistent Images, Canberra, 1985, p. 23. For reproductions refer to figures on p. 15 15 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 16 16 Haese, Rebels and Precursors, p. 271 17 The Herald, 23 July 1946: cited in Haese, Rebels and Precursors, p. 271, n. 3 18 Philipp, Arthur Boyd, pp. 52-8 14
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the vast interior” 19 and the Australian sky. He felt that the sky is the most important element of a Australian landscape; once you get the sky right everything else follows. When Arthur painted the landscape he would usually start with the sky. In 1951, wanting to see and experience more of the landscape, he headed for Central Australia. Of his trip Arthur said: “It was extremely hot, and seeing the Aborigines in such a bad state was depressing. I had prior to my trip, only seen one Aboriginal, a chap around Melbourne who played a gum leaf… At that stage the plight of the Aborigines wasn’t known to most Australians . . . I was quite unprepared for the Simpson Desert and seeing people live like that… I was amazed that in 1951 no one seemed concerned”.20 So, what was to emerge from this trip had nothing to do with the representing the mythic Australian landscape. A more pressing subject captured Arthur’s imagination and he immediately began work on what were to become his most famous paintings, the “Bride” series or “Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste” (fig. 6). He worked intensely for a twelve month period in his Beaumaris studio, exhibiting the results in April 1958. These are a mixture of mythic, poetic and tragic and are totally devoid of the landscape. They are about the degradation of Australia’s indigenous people, but also about outcast love”.21 The exhibition at Australian Galleries in 1958 was neither a critical or commercial success. In the same year, when, he was chosen to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, it was not the Bride series the curators selected, but rather the more idyllic safe landscapes which were exhibited with Arthur Streeton’s work.22 Late in 1959 Arthur and his family headed for London, with the intention of staying a short time. The following year the Brides were exhibited at Zwemmer’s Gallery. Reviews were favourable but, again, sales in London did not reflect this. News of the London exhibition and reviews were, however, met with an extraordinary amount of interest in the Australian press.23 It was only at this point that the Australian collectors began buying what is now his most sought after work. Shortly before and directly following the Bride series, Arthur continued painting the landscape. 1962 proved to be another good year with a retrospective at the Whitechapel, London. He visited the National Gallery regularly to study the European masters and travelled across the continent visiting all the major galleries. A series of work based on the ancient myths of Ariadne, Diana and Actaeon followed.24 They are magical, poetic and for the first time embed figures within the mythic landscape. They are earthy and recall the Aboriginal dreaming-time, that is, the idea of the land comprised of spiritual beings as seen in Lovers with a Blue Bird (1962; private collection, Melbourne)(fig. 7). The first monograph on Arthur was also published in 1962. It was written by the Viennese trained art historian and Reader of Fine Arts at Melbourne University, Franz Philipp. Arthur was only 42. Over the following years, Arthur busied himself with various projects in Europe. He designed ballet, theatre and opera sets for various productions including Elektra at Covent Garden, London and the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. By 1965 he and Yvonne bought the Highgate house they had been renting.25 It was during this period, at the time of the Vietnam War, that Arthur began working on one of his most powerful series, which recalled the strength and rage of his earlier work (fig. 8). The theme he choose was the Old Testament character Nebuchadnezzar, the king of ancient Babylon, who was a great builder, embellishing Babylon Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 20 Gunn, Seven Persistent Images, p. 56 21 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 20 22 Barry Pearce, Janet McKenzie, Hendrick Kolenberg, Arthur Boyd. 30 Paintings 1985-1994. 23 Etchings 1993, sales cat., Melbourne & Sydney: Australian Galleries, Melbourne & Sydney, 1994, p. 59 23 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 23 24 Philipp, Arthur Boyd, pp. 93-110 25 Pearce, McKenzie, Kolenberg, Arthur Boyd, p. 60 19 20
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with an ostentatious display of authority and pride and thereby dared to challenge the greatness of God. 26 Late in his life, Nebuchadnezzar was plagued with nightmares; these were of such power that “he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with drew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws” (Daniel IV:33). Arthur represented his plight in Nebuchadnezzar Eating Grass (1969; Bundanon Collection, Nowra).27 Nebuchadnezzar’s story is traditionally seen as a punishment for “placing self-aggrandisement before God”.28 So, it is a tale of self-delusion, of someone becoming too grand and succumbing to the vanities of public success that are seen in Nebuchadnezzar Sitting on Gold (1969; Savill Galleries, Sydney).29 Pearce also observed that Nebuchadnezzar is also a metaphor for “an artist who could be in danger of foresaking his muse just as Nebuchadnezzar forsook his God”.30 This theme is further explored in paintings of the early 70’s such as the piece Paintings in the studio: ‘Figure supporting back legs’ and ‘Interior with black rabbit’ (1973; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra)(fig. 9). It shows an artist being held up by the hind legs, clutching paint brushes in one hand and a pile of gold in another. Images such as this, refer to Nebuchandezzar’s plight and biblical sources such as Ezekiel VII:19 “and their silver and gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity”. Arthur explained, “You really don’t want to hang onto possessions. You want to hang onto concepts. Concepts involve the future whereas possessions don’t”.31 Arthur, who always was a believer in actions speaking louder than words, presented, in 1975, two years after this was painted, over 3000 works on paper, canvases, ceramics and etchings to the Australian National Gallery. 32 This was the entirety of the artist’s own accumulated work. This action reveals a lot about who Arthur was. In 1975 also, he and Yvonne moved back to Australia after acquiring a large property near Nowra in NSW called Bundanon. From that year onwards they would divide their time between Australia, England and Italy. From the mid-70’s the themes of Arthur’s work mainly focused on, or were set in, Bundanon. As a result the profile of Pulpit Rock and the Shoalhaven River are etched into our memories. The magical landscape is captured in Flame Trees, Horse’s Skull, Black River (1983; private collection, New South Wales)(fig. 10), which Arthur painted in homage to the little girl who lived at Bundanon before Arthur bought the property. The child’s chestnut gelding called “Flame” became caught in a mound of barbed wire in the paddock. The family found the pony and tried to save it but it eventually died in the hot Australian sun. The girl’s father buried it and planted flame trees on its grave. 33 This story was told to Arthur when he acquired Bundanon. These landscapes combine the real with the mythic and, thereby, take on spiritual proportions and recall the work from twenty years previously: this idea of the physical presence embedded within a landscape. -----In reviewing Arthur’s work, I have hoped to make clear that he vacillated throughout his life between the hard-hitting, bleak images to the beautiful serenity of the landscape. And herein lies the inescapable conflict and contradiction of Arthur Boyd. So, now to explain the title of this lecture: Born Under Saturn and Jupiter. T.S.R. Boase, Nebuchadnezzar. Arthur Boyd, London, 1972; Ursula Hoff, The Art of Arthur Boyd, London, 1986, pp. 57-63 27 For reproduction please refer to Gunn, Seven Persistent Images, plate 17 28 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 25 29 Boase, Nebuchadnezzar, plate 14; The Works of Arthur Boyd, sales cat., Melbourne & Sydney: Savill Galleries, Melbourne & Sydney, 1998, no. 15 30 Pearce, Arthur Boyd, p. 26 31 Interview with Arthur Boyd, “Arthur Boyd. The Testament of a Painter”, Don Bennetts (dir.), ABC, 1994 32 Gunn, Seven Persistent Images, p. 13 33 Sandra McGrath, The Artist and The River, Sydney, 1983, pp. 236-41 26
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I have appropriated the title from a book written in 1963 by Rudolf and Margot Wittkower called “Born Under Saturn. The Character and Conduct of Artists” which proposed that “no outstanding intellectual or artistic achievement is believed to be possible unless its author was melancholic”.34 In the preface the authors plainly state their theory: “artists are, and always have been, egocentric, temperamental, neurotic, rebellious, unreliable, licentious, extravagant, obsessed by their work, and altogether difficult to live with”.35 The notion of the melancholic genius is not new, it was first developed by Aristotle and later expanded upon in the fifteenth century by the influential humanist Marsilio Ficino and is beautifully illustrated in a manuscript called The Medieval Housebook dated c. 1475 (Wolfegg Castle, near Ravensburg). The calendar of this codex illustrates the temperament of the people born under each of the seven planets, for example, the folio of the children born under Venus. The equestrian figure at the top represents the planet, the two signs of the zodiac on either side, here Libra and Taurus and then the activities, profession and temperament of the children born under that planet are underneath. Each of the images is accompanied by an explanatory poem. As Saturn determines the melacholic temperament the poem reads thus: I do much damage by might on sea and land, by day and night… …my children are vicious, dry and old envious, weary, wretched, cold…36 The drawing represents despair, debauchery, murder and death (fig. 11). I would argue that this recalls Arthur’s South Melbourne series, the Nebuchandezzars and the Brides which show human nature at its most bleak and depressing and shows the artist as the melacholic hero. Yet, as we know Arthur’s oeuvre consisted of more than just that and this is where the planet Jupiter comes in. The children born under Jupiter are the exact opposites, as the poem reveals: Fortune smiles, they’re just and wise, rosy faces and laughing eyes. Well-mannered and well-clothed, refined, with hound and bow they hunt the hind…37 The drawing shows people enjoying themselves in a lush countryside, lovers hawking, practicing archery, engaged in intellectual pursuits and a fair judge and ruler (fig. 12). This is also a vital part of Arthur’s temperament: the pleasure and joy in life, in people, art and music as reflected in his landscapes. His work wanes from being influenced by dark, despairing Saturn to the joyful, charming Jupiter landscapes. Thus, Arthur was born under both Saturn and Jupiter. Herein lies the paradox between the work for which Arthur is known, that is, the work that the critics, art historians and academics discuss, and the work which sells. The majority of the artbuying public do not want his Saturn works on their walls best to leave that to the galleries instead, they go for the comfort of an exquisite landscape. Arthur knew this and images such as Chained Figure and Bent Tree (c. 1972-3; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra) deal with Arthur’s feelings about this (fig. 13). This painting has been interpreted by Patrick McCaughey as the “artist trapped in a world which is irreducibly carnal and bestial”.38 I would, however, argue that it is about something else. Arthur once said to the artist Gary Willis, “When you are an artist people like to think that you are stupid… if you want my advice, it’s best to let them”. The painting shows the artist being silenced and churning out work. This is a self-portrait, reflecting the artist’s position in a commercially-driven world. Rudolph & Margot Wittkower, Born Under Saturn. The Character and Conduct of Artists. A Document History from Antiquity to the French Revolution, London, 1963, p. 104 35 Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, 1963, p. xix 36 Christoph Graf zu Waldburg Wolfegg, Venus and Mars. The World of the Medieval Housebook, exh. cat., Washington: National Art Gallery & New York: The Frick Collection, Munich & New York, 1998, p. 28 37 Wolfegg, Venus and Mars, p. 30 38 Patrick McCaughey, “The Artist in Extremis: Arthur Boyd”, Australian Art and Architecture. Essays Presented to Bernard Smith, A. Bradley & T. Smith (eds), Melbourne, 1980, pp. 210-20, p. 214 34
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One way Arthur dealt with this was to make fun of the whole idea of the marketplace and the high value placed on a signature. One of his tricks he proudly announced one morning over tea. “Yvonne”, he said with a wicked smile on his face, “does the best Arthur Boyd signature”. The commercial aspect of Arthur’s Jupiter work is very real and rarely discussed, as if acknowledging this undermines him as a painter. We do not want our artistic heroes to engage in such activities, yet it is nevertheless part of Arthur’s work. The cynic would put it down to the drive for income, but I don’t think that it is as simple as that. Arthur was always a deeply optimistic human. Even though he painted humanity at its worst, he believed in people. The intensity demanded of the despairing Saturn work needed to be counter-balanced and this is the function of the Jupiter work. These were enabling periods in which Arthur lost himself in the landscape. At regular intervals he jumped between the two. So, it is more a need for a balanced, optimistic perspective and Arthur relied on the landscape to provide that. He would lose himself in the act of painting as a monk would in worship and meditation. Throughout his life Arthur had a love affair with his medium. He painted mainly with his fingers, tubes of paint directly onto the canvas. For Arthur the act of painting was particularly physical. He sculpted the paint like clay with his bare hands. The influence of his early training as a potter had a clear impact upon Arthur’s handling the paint for its sensuality. Looking at his works close up they are vast fields of colour, almost abstract in their nature. He painted on vast a scale and constructed his own tools to help him; easels, paint-brushes with long extensions and special palettes. He painted everything, he painted from life, from his imagination, stories known and unknown, people, animals, landscape and, in the process, he created his own unique vocabulary. The relationship between this painter and his medium was a unique one. At the beginning of this lecture I began rather sentimentally talking about Arthur as a great man. Why do I say that? It is simple. He lived his life with integrity, humility and genuine interest in and concern for others. He dealt with the guilt he felt about the amount of money for which his paintings would sell by creating his own income redistribution scheme. He would take any given opportunity to give money to people he liked and believed in. During the five years I lived in Arthur’s London house, a constant stream of actors, writers, academics, musicians and an occasional painter would drift through, some of them more permanently than others, some more promising than others. All were given a place to stay and a cup of tea. The young cellist Richard Jenkinson, who won the Lord Mayor’s Gold Medal at the Guild Hall in 1995 and subsequently went on to make his debut at Wigmore Hall in 1996 lived up-stairs during those years Arthur bank-rolling his first CD. I lived at Grove Terrace with my partner, the artist Gary Willis. Arthur provided Gary with a studio, a flat, a stipend and also became an enthusiastic collector of his work. His Tin Drum (1991; Bundanon Collection, Nowra) Arthur bought in the early 1990’s. Arthur insisted on paying more than twice the asking price and advised Gary that he had to start asking more for his works, otherwise people would not appreciate them. Over a period of five years, I was able to witness the very special relationship between these two artists. Gary’s painting Honour of Following (1992; artist’s collection)(fig. 14) shows Don Quixote as an artist; the stretched canvas in the background suggests the famous wind mill incident. The knight kneels, offering his weapon to the Divine One before him. Draped around his neck, like the albatross and the ancient mariner, is the weight of one of Arthur’s most famous symbols, the scapegoat. The painting is really about Gary’s gratitude to Arthur, his deep respect for him as a person and as a painter, but also about his fear of not being able to live up to Arthur’s belief in him. One afternoon Arthur took Gary to his old studio and while fussing about suddenly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of 50 pound notes and thrust them into Gary’s protesting hands saying “I want you to do something for me. I want you to go Madrid to see the Velazquez exhibition”. Looking at the stash of money Gary replied, “That’s far too much”.
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“No, no,” said Arthur, “I want you to do something else for me. I also want you to go to Amsterdam and have a look at the Van Gogh centenary exhibition”. It was difficult to say no to Arthur. Arthur spent his life giving things away. His acts of generosity were both personal and visionary. His 1975 bequest of over 3,000 works to the Australian National Gallery was small in comparison with the gift of his Australian home, Bundanon, with all its contents to the Nation in 1993. There are those of you who might say, “well, . . . it’s easy for him, he had so much”. But Arthur knew the personal cost, “If you give something you have got to lose something, that’s what I reckon the whole thing’s about”.39 When I first moved into Grove Terrace, it was a particularly difficult time of my life, Arthur and Yvonne provided me with unconditional support and stability. I later said to Arthur, “How can I ever repay you and Yvonne for everything you have done for me?” Arthur looked me straight in the eye and said, “I don’t want you to, but one day do the same for someone else”. This was a very definite statement coming from someone described so many times in his obituaries as elusive and I quote, “what you got with Arthur was marvellously frustrating unfinished symphonies of incomplete sentences, deep thoughts left hanging mid-phrase, pixielike smiles, raised eyebrows, playful gestures, grandfatherly warmth and kindness, and tiny glimpses of the private world inside his head”.40 This was the Arthur many people knew. They experienced the embodiment of his advice to Gary, the artist pretending to be stupid. If you gave him the space and did not expect or impose yourself on him, the Arthur you encountered was a clear thinker, sharp and insightful. He was able to finish sentences, when he wished. Since his death, I have wondered what his tea-making secret was. I suspect it was simply that during the making and drinking of the pot of tea, he was there for you, in that moment. Nothing else mattered, except you and him and the tea.
39 40
“The Testament of a Painter”, 1993, video, ABC Janet Hawley, “He let his brush speak for him,” The Age, 26 April 1999, p. 6
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Jetty at Rosebud 1938; oil on canvas board; 23.5 x 32.0; private collection, Melbourne The King (The Deluge) 1944; oil on canvas on composition board; 87.8 x 111.0; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Melbourne Burning 1946-7; oil, tempera on canvas; 90.2 x 100.5; The Robert Holmes à Court Collection, Perth Boat Builders, Eden 1948; tempera, oil on composition board; 85.6 x 101.7; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Irrigation Lake c. 1950; resin, tempera on composition board; 81.3 x 121.9; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Persecuted Lovers 1957-8; oil, tempera on composition board; 137.2 x 182.9; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Lovers with Blue Bird 1962; oil on composition board; 160.0 x 183.0; private collection, Melbourne Nebuchadnezzar on Fire Falling Over a Waterfall 1966-8; oil on canvas; 183.5 x 175.9; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Painting in the Studio: ‘Figure Supporting Back Legs’ and ‘Interior with Black Rabbit’ 1973; oil on canvas; 314.2 x 433.7; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Flame Trees, Horse’s Skull, Black River 1983; oil on canvas, 200.0 x 245.5; private collection, New South Wales The Housebook Master, Saturn, The Medieval Housebook c. 1475; Wolfegg Castle, near Ravensburg The Housebook Master, Jupiter, The Medieval Housebook c. 1475; Wolfegg Castle, near Ravensburg Chained Figure and Bent Tree c.1972-3; oil on canvas; 152.4 x 122.0; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gary Willis, Honour of Following 1992; oil on canvas; 66.0 x 106.0; artist’s collection
Jetty at Rosebud 1938; oil on canvas board; 23.5 x 32.0; private collection, Melbourne
The King (The Deluge) 1944; oil on canvas on composition board; 87.8 x 111.0; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Melbourne Burning 1946-7; oil, tempera on canvas; 90.2 x 100.5; The Robert Holmes à Court Collection, Perth
Boat Builders, Eden 1948; tempera, oil on composition board; 85.6 x 101.7; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Irrigation Lake c. 1950; resin, tempera on composition board; 81.3 x 121.9; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Persecuted Lovers 1957-8; oil, tempera on composition board; 137.2 x 182.9; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Lovers with Blue Bird 1962; oil on composition board; 160.0 x 183.0; private collection, Melbourne
Nebuchadnezzar on Fire Falling Over a Waterfall 1966-8; oil on canvas; 183.5 x 175.9; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Painting in the Studio: ‘Figure Supporting Back Legs’ and ‘Interior with Black Rabbit’ 1973; oil on canvas; 314.2 x 433.7; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Flame Trees, Horse’s Skull, Black River 1983; oil on canvas, 200.0 x 245.5; private collection, New South Wales
The Housebook Master, Saturn, The Medieval Housebook c. 1475; Wolfegg Castle, near Ravensburg
The Housebook Master, Jupiter, The Medieval Housebook c. 1475; Wolfegg Castle, near Ravensburg
Chained Figure and Bent Tree c.1972-3; oil on canvas; 152.4 x 122.0; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gary Willis, Honour of Following 1992; oil on canvas; 66.0 x 106.0; artist’s collection