SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

132 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
Nevertheless, the skalds seem always to have followed this
rule; their poetry and form is almost always condensed.
This goes for the rimur poetry too. If we turn from
poetry to the world of art, we find that the cubists of all
the painters were most concerned with strict composition.
My colleague, Dr Christopher Gray, author of Cubist
cesihetic theories (1953), thinks that some of Matisse's
pictures made of scraps of coloured paper might be better
examples of tough composition than the cubist paintings.
Thus their art in two respects resembles the art of skaldic
poetry, first in its strict composition, second in its great
deformation of nature.
Since deformation or distortion of nature seems so
obvious to thelayman in modern art, it is rather interesting
to observe that my chosen specialist in painting, Maurice
Grosser, author of The painter's eye (1955), does not have
the word distortion in his index, much less a chapter on
the subject. This omission strikes me in the same way
as if Snorri should have omitted any discussion of the
kenning in his Edda. Fortunately for me I found another
art critic, Mr Patrick Heron, who was not afraid to start
his lectures on art with a chapter on "The necessity of
distortion in painting" 6 One can see the reason why
critics friendly to modern art would avoid the term
distortion, since that would be the first cry of its enemies.
Likewise the kennings could also be blamed for their
distortion. But in both cases I would prefer to call
a spade a spade, feeling that we have here to do with an
important artistic principle, of great effect both in
skaldic poetry and modern art. What would Guernica be
without distortion of its forms?
This principle of distortion makes modern art - like
skaldic poetry - as unclassical, unnaturalistic and
unrealistic as possible. It is therefore rather peculiar, to
say the least, to find a great modern master of painting,
like Picasso, called realistic. But that is what our
• P. Heron, The changing forms of art (1955-58).