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Thursday 16 October 2008

Self styled

Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and his circle
Ben Uri Gallery, 108a Boundary Road. London NW8, until 8 June

The creative dilemma of any painter–poet (and one immediately thinks of such a contemporaneous figure as David Jones) must be, which aspect comes first in the individual scheme of things — painting or poetry? The curators of this enjoyable exhibition suggest that ‘ultimately, Rosenberg’s greatest problem as a painter was that his yearning for self-expression was more readily fulfilled in poetry’. Certainly in 1911 he was described as being ‘depressingly self-absorbed’, and his greatest pictorial achievement is in fact the long series of self-portraits he painted and drew. (In mitigation, it might be said that Rosenberg was too poor to afford models, though other artists have nearly always managed to find friends and family to pose, as well as using the mirror.) I wish there were more paintings of other subjects on which to assess him: the two small landscape panels here show a real gift for the evocation of other aspects of nature besides the human face.

The exhibition begins with a group of four self-portrait oils, swiftly followed by three more, a trio of trilby-hatted images, including the best-known which is borrowed from the National Portrait Gallery. It isn’t a common experience to enter an exhibition to find seven self-portraits by the same artist ranged upon one wall. Their concerted regard could be considered rather intimidating. As it is, I can imagine that an unwary viewer might feel overwhelmed and inclined to view the serried ranks of Rosenbergs as somewhat supercilious-looking if not directly confrontational. (It may be the long upper lip.) In fact, the three-quarter profile he favours does tend to make him appear slightly foxy, particularly in the harshly brushed ‘Self-Portrait in a Pink Tie’ (1914). This painting, which looks more European expressionist than its fellows, with its almost savage vertical brush marks, chiselling the features as if from a block of wood, may simply be unfinished. Compare it with ‘Self-Portrait in a a Red Tie’ (1914), altogether more strongly modelled, in which Rosenberg lifts his chin significantly higher. The look here is more knowing than questioning, more sensual than sensitive.

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