(34)
(35)(34)(35)
THE PAINTINGS OF JOHN LOFTUS amaze and nourish me: I consider them among the strongest of our time, but I find it hard to say anything about them. Thisis not surprising; they are not "literary" paintings at all. There are no allusions in them, no jokes or games, no psychological ploys, no statements ofpolitical or religious propaganda. It makes little sense to discuss them from within the concerns of modern fashion; they are created far outside it. These works make the largest claims on us by standing by themselves and being beautiful. They have the courage of hard-won complete simplicity and demand that from us; their silent splendor calls to whatever in us is silent and splendid.
Yet there are, perhaps, certain things that can be said about these landscapes, without diminishing them. They represent 30 years of work; to walk through the rooms of this exhibition is to participate in an imagination astonishingly capable, as honest imaginations are, of self-transformation. Loftus' landscapes of the 50's and early 60's have a restlessness--even,sometimes, a violence--that he has distilled in his later work into images of harmony and balance. It is hard not to see such a journey as a spiritual pilgrimage of one kind or another, much as Loftus himself dislikes all such talk of "spirit" or "pilgrimage."
In each of the stages of his work, Loftus has achieved powerful statements,but I have no doubt that it is the latest work that is the most extraordinary. The Seasons of 1977-1981 combine the monumentality of Abstract Expressionism with the intimacy, the subtle humor and tenderness of the Chinese landscape masters who Loftus so loves. There are no paintings I know like them; they are majestic without pomposity, images of peaceful process that have not excluded violence but transmuted it. They have achieved, seemingly without effort, the fusion of Eastern and Western art that many artists in different fields are now striving for.
Rilke wrote in 1907 to a young German poet, "It often strikes me how much art is a matter of conscience. In artistic work, one needs nothing so much as conscience; it is the sole standard (criticism is not one, and even the approval of others active outside of criticism should only very seldom, under unmistakable conditions, acquire influence). That is why it is very important not to misuse one's conscience...not to become hard at the place where it lies. It must remain light through everything."
John Loftus has not misused his artistic conscience; he has followed it unswervingly. It has remained, the works show us, "light through everything,"light and noble, resilient and clear. We should be grateful.
Andrew Harvey
[Contents] [NextPage] [ListOfPlates]