Author: Thomason, A.L. A Lively Conversation: Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons Reviewed.

One of the most important recent exhibitions of an Australian artist has to be Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons, a retrospective of many of his significant works1. Williams is best known for his Australian landscape paintings, and his semi-abstract style, which signalled a major shift in the Australian art world. Reviews of this retrospective in Australia's major newspapers and art journals seem to follow one of two trends. The first is a focus on the exhibition itself as curatorial event, for instance John McDonald's (2011) review for the Sydney Morning Herald - largely featuring the exhibition's curator Deborah Hart - and Hart's own write-up (2011-2012) in Art and Antiques. The other dominant theme has been the Australian landscape - or more specifically, Fred Williams' treatment of, and relationship to it. Patrick McCaughey (2011), Peter Conrad (2011), and Alan R. Dodge (2012), among others, examine Williams' ambivalent relationship to the landscape and often to his own work. Together, these add up to something of a conversation. For some reviewers, however, this conversation has taken a heated turn. This essay considers two reviews that are part of this more lively exchange: Robert Nelson's (2012) review for The Age newspaper, and that of Mark Dober (2012) in Art Monthly Australia.

Nelson's (2012) review is for the most part non-academic in style, as expected in a newspaper. However, the language is often casual or colloquial, evidenced even in the title: "Dogged dabs of a blobby dazzler" (n.p.). The word "blobby" then repeatedly describes Williams' paintings, while "dogged," "cack handed" and "not a natural painter," describe Williams himself (n.p.). Adjectives like "scrubbing ... dabbing ... disconnected blobs", "blobby contrasty studs of colour" and "dull spotty things" (n.p.), read so awkwardly as to create an impression of Williams and his art as similarly awkward and ungainly, a notion that is underscored by the heavy onomatopoeic sounds of the words themselves. The review thus reads as a personal assault on Williams' art and technique, using language that is inflammatory and derogatory. In contrast, Dober (2012) begins with a measured and evenhanded summation of the various contributions to the debate thus far, and then uses this brief discussion to launch his own much more sustained and nuanced discussion of the retrospective (p.16).

At the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in 2011, and in 2012 at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Author: Thomason, A.L. Both reviews thus to some extent appropriately address the target audiences for their particular publications. Dober's tone is academic throughout, as befits a scholarly art journal. Nelson, on the other hand, is a little less in keeping. Although this is a newspaper review that is, not a scholarly journal - it is nevertheless the "Arts and Literature" section, and furthermore, Nelson himself is an academic. So it is perhaps not only Nelson's opinions that are a "suprise" (Dober, 2012, p. 18) but also that in this particular newspaper, in this particular section, Associate Professor Nelson has written a review that reads more like a tabloid rant.

One of Nelson's (2012) chief complaints about Williams' paintings is that "spatially, they are incoherent" (n.p.). Dober (2012) counters this with the comment that "[i]t is worth querying this question of space (or its absence)" (p.16), and he does so, both from the perspective of Williams' own aesthetic milieu (Modernism) and then through a historical and visual analysis of three particular paintings, as examplars of the retrospective as a whole. Dober further claims that, "[t]o seek naturalistic or illusionistic space in these landscapes may be viewed as a retrograde reading ..." (p.16), and indeed there is an air of both anachronism and generalisation in Nelson's assessment, since, with the exception of one passing reference to Sapling forest, he refers neither to particular paintings nor to the context or period in which they were produced.

There is also a marked difference in style, quite aside from the issue of vocabulary. Nelson (2012) simply asserts Williams' "spaceless expanse[s] of background supporting episodic gestures in thick paint" (n.p.), whereas Dober (2012) seeks to understand how this functions in the work, for example in Yellow Landscape, where "thick/impasto markmaking is scattered upon [a] ground in keeping with the drier and less forested landscape of the You Yangs ... and the artists increasing tendency to an ever more minimalist abstraction" (p.17).

Interestingly, both authors employ some similar strategies, although ultimately to very different ends. For example, both use Williams' words to support their own arguments. However ,where Nelson (2012) reads Williams' comment that "I couldn't say that I loved the bush ... I simply wanted to paint pictures from it" (cited in Nelson, 2012, n.p.), as proof that "Williams had little affinity for landscape, and he knew it" (n.p.), Dober (2012) refers to very similar quotations - "Williams' direct experience of the landscape is vital to his art," (p.18), and "I basically think in terms of paint" (Williams, cited in Dober, 2012, p.18) - but comes to

Author: Thomason, A.L. a very different conclusion: that for Williams, "[p]ainting was primarily about what you could do with paint" (Dober, 2012, p.18).

In another similar move, each critic toward the end of the review takes the discussion 'beyond the frame' as it were. Dober moves outward to a discussion of the painting as situated in the gallery - the way the viewer is not invited into the painting, but rather that "the work's objectness" (Dober, 2012, p.18), sets up what could perhaps be called a productive tension in "the space between yourself and the painting" (p.18).

In Nelson's case, the move outward is to an Indigenous appreciation of landscape. Reprising and rebutting Ron Radford's introduction to the Exhibition catalogue, Nelson claims that "(f)or indigenous people, no part of country is repetitious or afocal. Every part ... is meaningful and full of pathways" (2012, n.p.). The last two short paragraphs are complex and interesting and it would have been enlightening to have these elaborated, while condensing the much longer first section. Dober's ending on the other hand is as neat and scholarly as the rest of the review - although in his regret that "a more considered discussion about issues of space and construction" has not been forthcoming (2012, p.18), one can read a slightly tongue-in-cheek assertion that this is, of course, precisely where his own "considered discussion" (p.18) lands.

Reading two such critical reviews gives an interesting perspective on the differences between writing for a newspaper and for a scholarly journal. Although Nelson's (2012) review is couched in terms that have been described as both "insulting and inaccurate" (Millar, 2012, n.p.) it is perhaps for that very reason an interesting study of what is permissible in the popular press. Nelson's review was written first, while Dober's examinations of Williams' work are mostly excerpted from his own longer review for Overland Literary Magazine, so they could be compared as standalone texts. In this case, however, it has been productive to consider them in relation - to allow the texts to speak to each other so that long after the critics have gone home, the conversation continues.

Author: Thomason, A.L. Works Cited

Conrad, P 2011, "Under the skin: Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons", Monthly. Aug, pp. 5455, viewed 06 September 2012. <http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=201110509;res=APAFT>

Dober, M 2012, "Fred Williams's 'spaceless' landscapes: A response to recent controversy". Art Monthly Australia, No. 251, July, pp. 16-18, viewed 04 September 2012,<http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=670217585391206;res=IELLCC >

----, M 2012, "Fred Williams: Engaging with Landscape", Overland, 22 June, viewed 8 September 2012 <http://overland.org.au/blogs/loudspeaker/2012/06/fred-williams-engagingwith-landscape/>

Dodge, AR 2012, "Fred Williams - the poetry of paint". Art Monthly Australia, No. 248, Apr, pp. 24-27, viewed 21 August 2012 <http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=321576060179026;res=IELLCC>

Hart, D 2011-2012, "From nowhere and everywhere: the visions of Fred Williams (19271982)" World of Antiques and Art, no.81, Aug 2011-Feb 2012, pp. 8-11. viewed 4 September 2012, <http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=201109972;res=APAFT>

McCaughey, P 2011, "Back to the Gum Trees". Times Literary Supplement. 7 Oct, viewed 6 September 2012, <http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/reviews/other_categories/article791847.ece>

McDonald, J 2011, "On New Territory". Sydney Morning Herald. 10 Sept, viewed 20 August 2012, <http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/on-new-territory-201109081jyan.html>

Millar, R 2012, "Critical vision cloudy." The Age. 17 May, viewed 8 September 2012. <http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/critical-vision-cloudy-201205161yr29.html>

Author: Thomason, A.L. Nelson, R 2012, "Dogged dabs of a blobby dazzler." (Review: Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons). The Age. May 9, viewed 4 Sept 2012, <http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/artand-design/dogged-dabs-of-a-blobby-dazzler-20120508-1yasv.html>