Reports    Published 17/02/11

Watercolour

Tate Britain, London
16 February–21 August, 2011

by Dr JANET McKENZIE

Contemporary art’s preoccupation with concept over object and process over finished product has perhaps prompted Tate Britain to stage an exhibition devoted to the medium of watercolour. Some of the most important works of art in their collection are watercolours – JMW Turner’s Blue Rigi, and William Blake’s River of Life, in particular, spring to mind.

The Tate holdings of watercolour works number thousands, yet this is the first time that an exhibition that focuses on the medium from its origins in illuminated manuscripts to the present day has been staged. From traditional landscapes to Edward Burra’s large and somber Mexican Church (c1938), to works by artists such as Patrick Heron, January 9, 1983: II (1983), Tracey Emin and Anish Kapoor, the curators address the potential for watercolour to be used as an immediate, expressive, poetic medium, amplified in scale in recent years, yet still a favourite for subtle and diaristic images. They are keen to rectify the notion that watercolour is all too often viewed as an amateur activity. Numerous factors have contributed to the increased status of and interest in watercolour painting.

Historically, the practice of watercolour, like that of drawing, has been represented as a means to an end, rather than an art form in its own right. Watercolour has for centuries been the most suitable medium for work in areas such as botanical illustration, topographical depiction or as preliminary works in colour for subsequent development into major works. However, by the 20th century, watercolour became a medium in its own right, being prized for its pure translucent colour and fluidity. In the work of Paul Klee, for example, these qualities made it a perfect medium for expressive linear work, rather closer to ink or wash drawings, with ponderous pools of exquisite colour. Helen Frankenthaler, whose late watercolour works were exhibited in London last year contributed significantly to liberating and elevating the status of watercolour from a private study to a major work. Characterised by their exquisitely pure hues, her works range from pools of watercolour with few or no marks, created with great control and perfection, to experimental works that appear to have formed by complete chance on the surface – such is the apparent ease with which they inhabitant the picture plane. The works of Patrick Heron whose painting, in the Tate show, reveals the seductive powers of colour and form, almost placed by chance on the surface of the paper. Artists such as Rebecca Saltire acquired an understanding of the potential of watercolour whilst studying in Japan. Her calligraphic works provide a momentary vision of nature, a joyous surprise. In a global world, the influence of Chinese and Japanese art and design has never been more influential.

Watercolour in a contemporary setting provides an antidote to sophisticated technology that dominates everyday life and much art practice. Once a mark is made in watercolour it cannot be erased or over-painted. Accidental effects for many artists are embraced as part of the creative process. Just as the revival of drawing is symptomatic of the rejection of a rigid hierarchy in the arts, where history painting occupied the highest place and flower painting, the lowest position; oil paint was deemed superior to pastel or works on paper; contemporary watercolour can in fact free the creative process for many practitioners. It possesses an innate immediacy and sensual quality, and when it is amplified in scale it thus possesses great emotional resonance. New forms of paper manufacture, improved methods of transporting and storing fragile or awkward works of art, have contributed to works in watercolour being viewed afresh. Yet Tate Britain’s Watercolour exhibition has disappointed certain critics, as The Daily Telegraph reports in “A watercolour washout” (15 February 2011). Richard Dorment describes the first three galleries of Tate Britain’s vast survey of the rich and complex history of British watercolour as succeeding in elucidating that history “with clarity and flair” – covering every conceivable genre from typography, landscape and botanical illustration to miniature painting and portraiture. Up until this point the exhibition is a thoroughly forensic exploration of the medium itself. Problems however, arise in the gallery devoted to war artists, and it is in the shift to a thematic hang that the quality of work inevitably becomes uneven. As the show moves into the 20th century, it becomes a disappointing experience, with notable exceptions. Despite the exhibition’s stated intent to explore the medium, the work from the 20th century is inevitably a collection of works by artists who worked primarily in another medium. The quality of the show is not maintained nor is the cohesive quality of the 18th- and 19th-century work, watercolour’s Golden Age.

Although attempting to challenge the viewer’s notions about the very stuff of paint, the inclusion of a large abstract work in acrylic by Sandra Blow denies that there is something unique about watercolour itself. Artists have been asked to speak about the position of watercolour in their art practice, and some of these responses are most interesting. Peter Doig, for example, enjoys watercolour’s ability to be left “very open like a sketch or thought”. Anish Kapoor says it is watercolour’s “ability to induce a dreamlike reverie” that he finds appealing and Sophie von Hellermann is refreshingly pragmatic, admitting that watercolours are supremely portable (lightweight, compact and only needing water!) and enabling her “to translate mental images or dream … anything of transience, … and drama [such as] stormy clouds”. Tracey Emin travels with watercolours, “and fills sketchbooks like a picture diary”.