A Modernist Sensibility and Christian Wit in The Work of Tom Gibbons BY PHILLIP ANTHONY McNAMARA (Master of Fine Art; Bachelor of Education). This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia, School of Architecture & Fine Arts, 2006. This thesis is original and has not been presented for a degree at this or another University. Some of the material that forms the basis of this thesis has been used in articles and catalogues published by the author during the writing of this thesis. Such material, as well as information from other sources used to support the thesis, is clearly acknowledged within the text, bibliography and appendix. - 1 - ABSTRACT This thesis is an investigation of how spiritual ideas have contributed to West Australian academic and artist Tom Gibbons’s approach to Modernism. Against the backdrop of the local context I show how Gibbons’s 1950s undergraduate and 1960s post-graduate studies in the area of the occult and esoteric influences on Early Modernism provided him with an atypical perspective on Modernism itself but that this perspective resulted in his development of a Modernist sensibility particularly suitable for the type of questions asked about art in the later part of last century. My thesis traces Gibbons’s development of an integrated aesthetic “theory” that bridged for him the gap between a host of contrary sources. For Gibbons the bridge between divergent views on art, from the Modern period to the Renaissance period, is an ahistorical perspective based on Christian Immanence. He thus adopted a perspective that redefined the metaphysical aspects of Modernist abstraction through a particular approach to realism which celebrates the everyday world because of the Christian structures that for him condition it. I argue that his sensibility, which combines the stylistic features of a Modernist literature – witty juxtaposition, irony and paradox – with the concept of Christian Immanence, resulted in an oeuvre which can be read as a particular example of what Ken Wilber in the late 1990s termed Integral Studies. I argue that underlying Gibbons’s use of Christian Immanence is the Integralist’s understanding that the world’s great philosophical and spiritual traditions approach consciousness and experience through similar ideas. The argument presented, in agreement with writers such as Wilber, is that Gibbons’s capacity to develop a sense of life’s irony and metaphor, and to then use this as a capacity to embrace the beauty and outrageousness of the whole, is a mature spirituality that provides an integrated perspective filled with joy for the ordinary. I conclude that his art provides a particular example of how the loss of meaning felt by Modernists may be addressed. - 2 - “We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.” W.B. Yeats: ‘Anima Hominis’ “And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot: ‘Little Gidding’ “There is always the danger that one will see as faults in works of art what are in fact the limitations of one’s own sensibilities…” Patrick Hutchings, The Critic, Vol.5, No.13, p.110. Acknowledgements Before the reader starts my thesis I wish to take the opportunity to briefly comment on the research process and to thank people who assisted me in my research. Although this specific thesis began in 1996 I have been researching local history since 1979, with a particular focus on art from 1984/85, made formal in 1991 when I enrolled for a Masters Preliminary at the University of Western Australia (U.W.A.). My research has always been carried out around activities such as achieving my first degree, working full time as a teacher, starting and bringing up a family. While this has meant long gestation periods and time-lines for my research, I feel that what I have found has directly benefited from such a drawn out process and such benefits are often forgotten by Universities insisting on tight time-lines. In particular, it has allowed me to know my subject on a personal level and to use interviews with him and others of his circle as a primary means of research. To interview a subject well requires the interviewee to know his or her subject well. What interviewee’s divulge is directly dependent on the preciseness of the questions and what they want to tell you. Preciseness only comes with knowing what information you seek while what will be divulged is dependent on what the person being interviewed thinks you already know. I believe my long acquaintance with local art history – some 20 years now – has been of immeasurable benefit in the writing of this thesis. - 3 - I wish to quickly outline the difficulties and adventure of research for any future student who may read this thesis. Two examples will suffice as examples. My first attempts at researching local history were with both sets of my grandparents. Each side of my family – Bateman and McNamara’s – has formidable roots back to early settlement here. Tom Stannage made me aware that much of history was lost when participants died and thus I endeavoured to at least record some of my family history before such loss occurred. Some of the information gained from the paternal McNamara side is relevant to this thesis and used where appropriate, however even with co-operative grandparents some information only came my way through luck. For example one of my most exciting interviews with Lorna and Jack McNamara concerned naturalism and debates within The Worker’s Guild that included discussion of the Linton’s, Norman Lindsay, D.H. Lawrence and classical Greek culture. However I had interviewed and talked with them a great many times about the Guild, Pritchard, Molly Skinner and Lawrence without the information getting anywhere as near specific as it did until Jack one day, in response to my run-down health, gave me a pamphlet from the Guild on natural juice therapy. Lorna said that for best results I should grow my own fruit and vegetables and get more sunshine and Jack joked that I wouldn’t be able to garden in the nude in suburbia like (Betsey) Currie and (James) Linton had. The source of the pamphlet and the revelation gave me a series of questions that led to some interesting information on naturalism in the 1930’s. When asked why they had not mentioned such things before the reply was that such debates were part of particular circles and, as they might be considered scandalous by those with no understanding of the philosophies behind them, there seemed no reason to discuss them. Similarly I interviewed Cliff Jones many times between 1986 and 1992 about George Duerden without him informing me that George had first decided to learn art while serving a sentence in prison for cattle stealing. While I had for a period of six years asked him many times what had prompted George to take up art and frequently drive from the country town of Harvey to classes by Henry Froudist in Perth, the real reason was never given. It wasn’t until I sent out letters, for the third time, to people with surnames the same as those who had placed obituary notices for Duerden, that I received a reply from the farmer whose cattle Duerden had stolen. He wrote saying that he was prompted to write because of his wife’s recent death and that he now realized that any information might be helpful. He went on to say that George had completed his sentence and agreed to restitution but had only made a few re-payments before going up to Perth to be an artist. When at the next - 4 - interview I asked Cliff about George’s prison experiences he angrily replied, “Who told you?” He had known all along of Duerden taking up art in prison, then following this up with Albany summer school lessons where he met Froudist, but Jones had not wanted the information to be recorded as he thought it sullied his friend’s name. However once I had some of the information and knew what questions to ask he was co-operative about helping me research the earlier period. Research is thus an interesting but time- consuming process of burrowing under the status quo and hoping that the silences don’t win. Of course if there is no other documentation then once those directly involved die, the silence wins forever. Enough of how fascinating I have found the process. There are always many people to thank for their help in getting a thesis completed and I would like to thank all those who agreed to be interviewed or at the very least suggested relevant people to approach. I would like to draw particular attention to the encouragement of Ted Snell, who supported my original decision to approach Tom Gibbons; David Bromfield, who supported the development of a critical local culture, initially encouraged me to write about local art history, and who was my first supervisor; Tom Gibbons and Miriam Stannage, who welcomed my many visits and phone calls; Anna Gray and Christine Lewis who supported and helped me develop Gibbons’s 1998 retrospective at The Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery; Patrick Hutchings, who agreed to write a preface to the retrospective; and Ian McLean who persevered in helping me reduce a 250,000 plus word thesis draft into a manageable thesis by insisting that I stop researching and complete the task! Last but not least, I wish to thank my family.