Art: McCahon's Answering Hark

By T. J. McNAMARA

There have always been sacred groves haunted by gods or by ghosts. In this almost circular room, paintings of huge kauri trees alternate with atmospheric paintings that carry texts that are like chants or prayers and make of the whole a grand, elegiac ceremony. The room and the paintings make a grove.

It is the most striking work in Answering Hark, paintings and prints by Colin McCahon, at the Auckland Art Gallery.

The elegy is inspired by the death of a dog but it has much more than a specific reference. It is a lament for all fine things that lived and have died. Its sombre magnificence is all-encompassing.

The poem is by John Caselberg and the paintings are by McCahon, part of the unparalleled collaboration of poet and painter celebrated in this show.

It is especially appropriate that the room which fits the huge, scroll-like paintings so well is in the City Gallery, where McCahon worked for many years.

The series is called The Wake and the dark grove evokes the vigil kept over the body during the night as the soul journeys to some unknown destination.

The poetry of Caselberg, as Peter Simpson, curator of this wonderful show and author of the book which complements it, writes, is unfashionable in this day of ironic, conversational verse, but here its wild rhetoric suits the subject.

McCahon had gained confidence from a trip to the United States and in The Wake he is working on a scale that is comparable to the big paintings of Jackson Pollock.

The first panel is a thunderous composition where the title of the work bursts forth in black; it is followed by a panel with a dark landscape shadowed by an ominous cloud. The next panel contains the first poem, which expresses in cosmic terms a sense of loss. Then comes the first towering kauri trunk that gives the work its New Zealand, specifically Titirangi, location. The kauri "punctuate" the work and the felling of forest giants is linked to the theme of death as "beauty murdered." As in all McCahon works that contain lettering, the words should be chanted in the mind, not just read. They are meant to be said aloud, as the painter said them as he worked. Panel 8 where the words begin

Orion Strides in the Firmament

The great dog at his heel

has the grandeur of the night sky, yet the tree in Panel 10 has the delicacy of a Chinese painting but on a grand scale.

Everywhere the work is both urgent and robust as a result of superb use of the technique of painting wet on wet for the background and the decisive use of strong, linear forms on top.

There is much else in this show that is exceptionally powerful although the paintings that use Caselberg's words are only a small part of McCahon's output. Most notable of all is Gate II where the painter uses the poet's words plus the images of a period when his own work was close to minimal abstraction to force awareness of the threat of nuclear war and the need for insight. His "gates" are like William Blake's "doors of perception" - a way toward spiritual insight.

Gate II is made up of 16 panels and the upper gallery of the Wellesley wing enables the panels to be shown, as they should be, in one long line. The work emphasises the often overlooked force of McCahon's colour. This is a work to be studied panel by panel, from left to right. It is, as many works by McCahon are, a progression from darkness to light.

The Wellesley wing also offers the opportunity to show the related works Here I Give thanks to Mondrian and How is the Hammer Broken. These are set at opposite ends of the gallery and can be seen at a distance, which demonstrates their great carrying power - notably the Mondrian painting, which is in no way like a painting by the Dutch artist but is a tribute to the way Mondrian showed in his abstract paintings that a limit had been reached and a gate to a more humanist art must be opened. McCahon's painting shows a way into a great space, a way forward.

The adulation of McCahon's work looks like becoming an industry. His unevenness as a painter is often overlooked but this show and the book, also titled Answering Hark, give moving insight into his struggle to make an inner light eternal.