Up the Clyde in a banana boat

STANLEY SPENCER must be spinning in his grave. Not only does Glasgow's

Kelvingrove exhibition, Canvassing The Clyde: Spencer and the Shipyard,

insult and trivialise this great painter via an over-elaborate

pantomime-stage-set display which makes it well-nigh impossible to see

the work; it goes on to denigrate him as an artist. It is without doubt

the most unsympathetic presentation of any artist I have ever seen.

Deconstruction is currently all the fashion in the arts, especially in

literature, philosophy, and painting, so now it's Spencer-bashing with a

vengeance. Instead of praise and appreciation for one of Europe's finest

draughtsmen and most profoundly imaginative painters, there are

nitpicking complaints and misguided criticism. Spencer is said to be

''technically inaccurate'' because he gave his burners only one cylinder

and let his welder hold the rod in his hand. Worse, he eschewed serious

issues like strikes and sectarianism; used a ''worm's-eye view''

unsuited to towering cranes; and overall ''did not so much ignore the

shipyards as try to imagine they were something else''.

What rubbish. Are the organisers blind? Have they never heard of

artistic licence? They miss the point altogether. When Spencer was

commissioned to paint Lithgow's for the War Artists' Advisory Committee

in 1940-46 he did not plan a mundane, pedestrian, exact copy of the

shipyards. Photography can do that. His gift lies in interpretation; in

melding spit and spirit; reality and reverence.

He was impressed by the people, their humanity, strength, humour, and

compassion. He admired the physical activity; the sheer hard work -- but

also saw its beauty: in the sculpture of welding masks, pipes, or

furnaces, the patterns made by ropes or templates, and in the spirit of

the workers.

Riveters and burners are encircled with metal as if metaphorically

implying their absorption in the job. ''Each man seems wedded or welded

to the part of the ship he makes . . . the Burners are youths of 16-20

who draw chalk lines on sheets of steel with an assurance that tells me

what artists they could be.'' In actual fact Spencer's delineation of

each job is more detailed than was required.

Spencer's aim was to present the totality of the Clyde, its ''hallowed

effect'' via metaphor and allegory. This he did brilliantly. If his

labourers carrying steel sheets look a bit like angels surely this was

apt. During the war many saw Clydesiders as angels of mercy building

serviceable merchant ships to serve the Allies and beat the enemy.

Spencer's work is heroic, quirky, moving, thrilling. Each Black Squad

trade is captured in elegant line. His dramatic oils exploit the

chiaroscuro light and shade of fiery furnaces, molten metal, white-hot

oxy-acetylene torches and glinting goggles. He may have been a ''scared

wee man, very small'' looking like a tramp whose clothes didn't fit, but

his Clydeside series immortalises a great era with feeling, dignity, and

humanity, celebrating shipbuilding in a marvellous way. It is wrong to

do him, or it, down. For the exhibition also patronises Glasgow and its

past. ''The Clyde shipyard's mammoth effort now seems a tragic waste of

human energy and resources,'' we are told. Moreover shipbuilders, who

produced the greatest tonnage in Britain during that period, deserve

better than this grotesque, strident peacock blue and red rust

second-class window display of a few chains, thin metal grids, cheap

rough raw wood, dim orange lights, hammers, photographs, and old

bowler-hats. Even Harvey Nichols would have done it better -- and

perhaps more securely. Heaven knows what the health and safety people

think.

Spencer is popularised and patronised in the misguided view -- I

assume -- that it will bring the punters in. Art for the people. Yet is

this really what Glaswegians want? Must they be spoonfed? Are west coast

folk unable to take their art neat?

This Port Glasgow series is strong, important work, able to stand on

its own. It doesn't need theatrical props or contextualising via social

history. If you need documentation for schoolkids, that's fine. But put

it in a separate space. Two shows in one may be economical but it's also

self-defeating.

All but two of the 55 works belong to London's Imperial War Museum.

This is the last occasion they will come to Glasgow, so curator Angela

Weight told me. ''They are destined for the new permanent Imperial War

Museum of the North at Hartlepool. They toured to Third Eye in 1975 but

I felt they should be seen in Glasgow one last time.''

She is no doubt regretting her generosity, given the treatment meted

out to them at the hands of Glasgow Art Gallery. At least you could

study and enjoy these wonderful works at Third Eye where they were

perfectly displayed minus distractions. Now even Spencer fans will find

it hard to focus on his work, lost as it is amid ungainly clutter and

unnecessary staging. Sad.

Canvassing the Clyde is sponsored by The Post Office and is at Glasgow

Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove to August 7.