Queer Mixture Of Styles In Paintings

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31781, 11 September 1968, Page 18

Queer Mixture Of Styles In Paintings

Exhibition of paintings by Yuri Gershevich; C.S.A. Gallery, 66 Gloucester Street; until September 21. It is now fashionable to dismiss decorative painting as of no consequence. Many critics consider it too ephemeral and too escapist to be taken seriously. The word “serious” is a key word today and woe betide anyone who kicks against it. It is fun sometimes to swim against the current and I applaud the Canterbury Society of Arts for arranging the present exhibition of decorative paintings by Yuri Gershevich. It is a pity the works are not of better quality. The exhibition, which will remain open until September 21, reveals a queer mixture of styles and paintings containing very disparate elements. The dominant stylistic influence appears to be classical Chinese painting. If this is so, it is nowhere more apparent than in four paintings of bamboo (30, 31, 32, and 39). Unfortunately, Mr Gershevich’s pictures lack that order, clarity and serenity we have come to associate with the splendidly disciplined masterworks of this tradition.

A second group (24 to 27) contains passages of exquisite loveliness but they are almost totally lacking in structure; I have tried without success to find some reasonable explanation for the presence of several styles and lack of coherence in these pictures. I refrain from commenting on the whimsical subject matter of many of them. In Europe there is now a boom in botanical drawings, especially seventeenth century Dutch engravings,

although early Victorian hand-coloured prints are also rocketing in price. Chinese and Japanese paintings and prints, of good quality, have become exceedingly scarce. No matter what the experts say, good decorative painting is very much in demand. Mr Gershevich’s greatest danger, as 1 see it, is that he may become too succesful too soon and before he has worked out and solved the stylistic problems at present affecting his work. The “Canadian Patterns Exhibition” is open on the first floor of the Canterbury Society of Arts new gallery and is worth visiting; admission to both exhibitions is free. —H.J.S.