SAY SO

I had a list of tasks for the morning, and had to take my books back to the University Library. The wind blew cool on the upper deck of the Seaflyte, a bit too cool. After I'd got everything done, I remembered that the Auckland Art Gallery is hosting a show of William Hodges paintings -- and chalk drawings -- of his travels with Captain Cook to Capetown and to the Pacific, and his later paintings of India. One art-dealer friend I met as I'm going in, tells me that he thinks Hodges is better on the small scale and not so good on the grand scale of the landscapes he painted on commission for the Admiralty. This is, I guess, the modern preference for the sketch. I enjoyed the paintings, quite a few of which I haven't seen before. Yes, the smaller oil paintings are sweetly painted, but the larger paintings are also impressive.

But what perturbs me is the insistence of the wall-texts that the paintings are somehow caught within a classical tradition of landscape. At worst this leads to an appraisal of Hodges painting as suddenly inspired by the 'Pacific light' to break out of an era of rigid formulaic landscape. This would be almost plausible, if it didn't miss almost completely the complexity of mid-eighteenth century landscape painting. Richard Wilson, who taught Hodges, was clearly aware of Venetian mid-century painting and also of Aelbert Cuyp, as well as the range of Roman 17th century painters, usually thought of as classical. Could he paint a Hadrian's Villa like the one in the Gallery's collection without being aware of Marco Ricci's landscape paintings? Wouldn't it have been impossible in mid-century England not to have known of Joseph Vernet's harbour scenes? Several of Hodges' seem to me to re-work some 17th century Dutch painting, Cuyp almost certainly. There's even a Ruisdael look about the waterfalls. And the fluid calligraphy of many of them is closer to Francesco Guardi [ though coarser ], than to Claude or Gaspard. In England there was no lack of interest -- though the wall-texts suggest otherwise -- in chiaroscuro and effects of light, or effects like rainbows, in Joseph Wright of Derby's paintings for one major instance. However, the rhetoric of show -presentation is just a familar annoyance and it is not difficult to ignore it when the paitnings are as good as these.

At the far end in a smaller room was one of three smaller complementary shows, McCahon waterfalls, several from private collections. That revived my attention. Especially a small triptych of them, painted in white and black, leaving bare areas of board for a third colour brownish-red.

By the time I got to the show of works from the Chartwell collection in the New Gallery I was beginning to tire; and going upstairs to the Hei Tiki show I could do no more than wish I had more time and energy for what looked as if it could be a good show for a full day.