IT IS AN awkward fact, not often acknowledged, that certain kinds of art are harder to argue for than others. Most people have very little difficulty in seeing why a Monet, or a Van Gogh, is a work of genius, but an equal number will tend to regard much of the art of the last 40 or 50 years with extreme suspicion. It is a state of affairs made more obvious in this country than elsewhere, perhaps, by the notorious British reluctance to acknowledge the claims of entire schools of post-war art - usually continental or transatlantic - to any sort of cultural significance. Their products regularly fetch millions of dollars at auction, a fact which seems to have assumed, for the majority of people in this country, the status of an occult mystery. The gap between tutored and untutored response would seem to have widened to the point where it is virtually un-bridgeable.
The problem is thrown into relief by the work of a young painter whose first one-man show opened at Waddington Galleries last week. His name is Ian Davenport and his paintings belong within a tradition of modern art that has never gained anything like full acceptance in this country. He's up against it, painting like this in Britain - but that gives me a problem too, since I happen to think that this is the most impressive debut by any artist I have seen.
The oddest thing about these extraordinary paintings is the fact that they were made by a very young man. At first sight they look nothing like a young man's paintings. They might, in fact, make more immediate sense were they the paintings of a very old artist - the coda, perhaps, to a long and distinguished career. This imaginary artist would seem...
