Linear Image: The New Vitruvius

Conceived in 1965, the same year that the Tate Gallery held a major retrospective of Pasmore’s work, Linear Image: The New Vitruvius shows a confidence of execution and handling of materials that can be found in these mature constructions. The combination of oil and wood with simple but incisive sweeping gravure lines, has a balance and purity of form that Pasmore had long been searching for in his desire to create a truly abstract work of art through the synthesis of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Since the beginning of Pasmore’s exploration into the non-figurative in the late 1940s, the titles of his works have always remained purely descriptive. Purposefully mundane, in a reflection, maybe, of the mechanised anonymity of the constructions, or indeed a respectful acknowledgment to the work of Mondrian, Malevich and the Bauhaus. However, in the present work we see the introduction of the far more emotive title Linear Image: The New Vitruvius. This is a direct reference to the ancient Roman architect, Vitruvius, and his treatise De architectura. From this came Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of what became known as Vitruvian Man. Pasmore first explored this historical and iconic subject in 1963, and then again in 1964, in a similar work, although interestingly both these works adhered to his purely descriptive titles; Linear and Space No. 20, and Symbolic Abstract. Both were selected for the Tate retrospective, the same year that the present work was produced and chosen for the São Paulo Bienal. Pasmore’s direct reference may refer to his belief that abstract art was a new start or beginning, stating that, ‘The solid and spatial world of traditional naturalism, once it was flattened by the Fauvists, atomised and disintegrated by the Cubists, could no longer serve as an objective foundation. Having reached this point the painter was confronted with an abyss from which he had either to retreat or leap over and start on a new plane. This new plane is `abstract art’’ (V. Pamore, quoted in A. Grieve, Victor Pasmore, London, 2010, p. 78). Pasmore was this 20th Century’s Vitruvius, the first architect of this new age, working on this new plane and championing the destruction of rigid skill classifications between artistic disciplines and the sciences.

Although Vitruvian Man is obviously representational in appearance, its purpose is to explore correlations between ideal human proportions and classical orders of architecture. Mathematics and geometry are used to investigate the science behind beauty and order; the relationship between the microcosm of man and the macrocosm of nature. In Linear Image: The New Vitruvius, the essence of a figure can be distinguished in the simple gravure markings of arms and legs stretched out within a pure white circle surrounded by the physical square of the wooden board relief. A strong black horizontal line extends into this space and is counter balanced by the curving vertical existing outside the sacred Vitruvian square. It is separate yet vital to the proportions and unity of the construction as a whole. Indeed, their coexistence is critical to the works equilibrium. Pasmore, inspired by the ancient Roman architect, has created his own 20th Century Vitruvian Man, as enigmatic and beautiful as Leonardo’s most famous homage.

In the Introduction to Pasmore’s Tate Gallery retrospective in 1965 Ronald, Alley wrote that 'Athough Pasmore has covered a great deal of ground in his time there are certain qualities which are common to all his work, such as lyricism, extreme refinement of taste, and a feeling for light and space. There is behind his work a restless, inquiring intelligence which is constantly probing in different directions but, nevertheless, the work has an underlying unity’ (R. Alley (intro.), Victor Pasmore Retrospective exhibition 1925-65, London, Tate Gallery, 1965).

Ronald Alley could easily have been standing before Linear Image: The New Vitruvius when he wrote these words. The beautiful lyricism of line and oscillating pure white light is hypnotic. A deep knowledge of the past, viewed from the perspective of the present, gives this work a timelessness and romanticism rarely seen in Pasmore’s 1960s abstracts.