 The World of Abstract
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Abstract Masters
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Shortly after coming Fautrier and Dubuffet, heralds "a different art," from 1945, shortly before, in 1948, Lorjou, friends of HommeTémoin L ', and co-winner, Bernard Buffet, it was the year 1946 at the Salon of New Realities who claimed some form of reaction against the art of Bazaines, Esteves, the Gischias the Manessiers, the reaction of abstract painters.
At that time, abstract painting was nearly forty years, it is true that his oldest events first appeared in 1909 in the work of Picabia. But after a dazzling childhood, he spent a quiet youth during the two world wars - at least in Paris, where, as we have seen, the activity of a man like Herbin was more or less pushed a side. The arrival of Kandinsky fled Germany and Nazism did not cause great glory (1933), but the departure of Mondrian, who left Paris in 1938 for England and the United States, had not seem to be his death note. For a period of twenty years, abstract painting led a modest life (which is not to say sterile) overshadowed by the noisiest movements around him. But suddenly, he would have his revenge and move immediately into the ranks of the news.
Warning signs had announced the explosion, but they were heard only by those who have already been warned and aware of what was happening. A modest gallery, The Sketch, with rare courage had presentation on the work Ile de la Cité The abstract before liberation, and in 1945, René Drouin was presented as the charming "Concrete Art" an event involving the first champions of this art, from Kandinsky to Mondrian via Delaunay and his wife, Arp, Herbin, etc. At that time there were no young painters, though their number was legion, and c ' is the important fact - a year later at the Salon of New Realities.
Picking a name that was due to Robert Delaunay who have already, in 1936, spoke of "New Realities", an antique dealer, Fredo Sides that, under that name in 1939 had organized a demonstration at the Galerie Charpentier, founded in 1946 the new show that not only pays tribute to Delaunay, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Kupka, Picabia, Gleizes and Villon, opened its doors to hundreds of young painters of all countries. Immediately abstract painting emerged as a sure sign that the world and, even more than in France, had already been developed in the United States, where the Association of American Abstract Artists was created in 1936, and the inauguration of the Guggenheim Museum of Non-Objective Painting of the following year. Summary of inspiration very diverse schools springing up everywhere, the most interesting being that, in California known as the "School of the Pacific." The fear of being behind the Americans, who talked with their arrogance progress - has attracted the School of Paris, resulting in an influx of young painters to abstract art and, soon after, a crowd of collectors for their production.
Galleries suddenly increased focus exclusively on their champions or make a nice place for them alongside their other painters. Gallery Colette Allendy, courageous and always looking for talent, offering a chance to many young artists of the vanguard, the Galerie Denise René became the sanctuary of geometric abstract painters, the Galerie Lydia Conti revealed Hartung and Schneider the public before they weretaken by Galerie Louis Carré, where they were joined by Lanskoy, Nicolas de Stael and Soulages. Galerie Drouin revealed Wols. In 1947, the Maeght Gallery organized an exhibition of work of Atlan, followed in 1949 by two events: The First masters of abstract art, paradoxically patronized by the director of the Museum of Grenoble, Andry-Farcy, who don ' had not yet admitted to their collection. In the same year, the May Salon opened its doors to young painters hired to abstract art, after accepting Schneider as a member of his committee. Finally, an international exhibition of abstract art took place during the summer of that year in Aix-les-Bains.
New names were revealed defended by critics such as new Charles Estienne, Leon Degrand, Michel Ragon, etc. A review, Art of Today, was launched headed by an Algerian architect, André Bloc, who worked as in abstract sculpture without any good results. It was not merely some abstract painters subject of the School of Paris, but took pleasure in revealing to the French abstract artists from abroad, particularly in countries where the review would attract the largest audience: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, North and South America. Finally several books reminded or taught publicly in the past of this art and its prime contractors. And if in 1948 the Association of Friends of Art, led by Gaston Diehl, founder of the Salon de Mai, published a little book ou pour Against the abstract (Summary for or against), which greatly contributed to spread his ideas among artists and youth, and in 1950 Michel Seuphor, the hagiographer of the movement, gave his book The Art Maeght abstract, backgrounds and SES His first masters. In just four years of abstract painting has won the right to settle in the pictorial life of Paris.
Not much time was required before abstract art asserted its imperialism youth: now the main galleries of Paris was one of "their" quota painters more or less important to the abstract. Exhibitions of this tendency in art has grown to such an extent that it is hardly necessary to mention all. We would like to name the exhibition organized by Charles Estienne in the Théâtre de Babylone in 1952, the entry of various abstract artists - Atlan, Hartung, Poliakoff, Schneider, Soulages, etc. - in October 1955, in the pompous Charpentier Gallery for the exhibition of the School of Paris; affirmation rather monotonous international character of this painting in the exhibition organized in 1956 at the National Museum of Modern Art James, John Sweeney, director of the Museum Guggenheim, etc.
The succession of Art Today, which ceased publication in 1954 has continued, even before he disappeared by the beginning Cimaise published by Galerie Arnaud in November 1953. The favorable reviews to abstract art grew in number and have made increasingly hear - among them were foreigners, as Roger van Gindertael and Mrs Herta Wescher. One after another, several books were published with the art object as they studied with a partial understanding often enough: The Adventure of Abstract Art (1956) by Michel Ragon, Abstract Art by Marcel Brion (1956) The Dictionary of Abstract Art (1957) by Michel Seuphor, the champion of Mondrian that during the same year, he dedicated a monument of fervent admiration.
Have abstract painting won a final victory? Far from it: a resistance against it has grown in proportion to its success and that, far from disarming, became daily more marked. Despite some exceptions, official circles to be wary of her face. For the most part, critics of major daily newspapers and those of the weekly remained implacably hostile: include, among twenty others, Claude Roger-Marx in the Literary Figaro, Maximilien Gauthier in Literary News, in Raymond Charmet arts, which was undoubtedly the publication of the most relentless attack with perseverance avant-garde painting and periodic announcements, death.
Writers who have obeyed the dictates Communist cut into pieces in 1948 and saw in it the art of "reaction" that "was not based on the popular forces" and "no use value in social progress. "They set up the art of Man-Witness against abstract art and the Hall of Less Than Thirty Years' against that of New Realities, while advancing Lorjou, and the creation of Time Exhibition of Painters From Their quality control is the Ripost of those who, if they do not share the views of the extreme left, were not far to go along with its aesthetic - an aesthetic and that was esentially bourgeois.
Books increased in which abstract art has been attacked, more or less openly, more or less skillfully: The Contemporary Painting by Robert Genaille (1953), The Modern Painting by delirious Watelin (1957) and especially the pamphlet, Against the Abstract Art by Robert Rey, who, following his opposition to the avant-garde painting, which had already been felt during the occupation in his booklet The e Peintare Modern Art without the profession (1941), brilliantly ensures the continuation of Camille Mauclair. A new avatar of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, between classic powdered wigs and romantic long-haired, between Impressionism and Art Fair, the battle of abstract art against its enemies clearly shows various that war is far from over, despite these unexpected conversions like that of Jean Bouret in his book The Abstract Art, origins Siques Struggles Siques his presence, published in 1957.
But to assert itself - and simply continue - abstract painting could not help to break different styles and, for that very reason, we can easily distinguish three trends: a geometric and architectural another "informal" and another which is quite difficult to define because it is not distinguished by recognizable characteristics and is not, fortunately, a "happy medium" between the other two, but that seems to follow both the rigor of plastic form and the outpouring of poetry.
Born of neoplasticism of Mondrian's paintings and Herbin - the first is also indebted to Magnelli, and Kandinsky in its last phase - the latest trend is the oldest of three. Already in 1945, Galerie Denise René it is felt to have discovered the art of today as the tribune. Its main champions were Dewasne, Vasarely and Dane Mortensen, with, although to a lesser degree, Deyrolle, the unorthodox group, the only, moreover, that has allowed himself some escapades in the field fantasy and poetry.
"What I seek," he writes, "is the multiplicity of forms and combination to achieve multiple meanings ... During the reasoning of work does not stop interfering, everything seems intuitive. There is no reason to get excited beyond theory, almost all painters cheat more or less consciously to her ... This cheating is a phenomenon of constant invention and it nourishes the evolution of the artist and the art prevents hardening. "Everything seems to call for their development of rigor impassive purity of an architect. Color with equal knowledge of these surfaces are accentuated by lines applied made pleasing to the eye by their strong tones, often very frank and happy, which are arranged in flat areas composed of small parts without burrs or intrusion beyond the accuracy of lines and edges dry.
Deyrolle avoids making any intimate services through the use of light and shade, there is no light, and there is the slightest desire to suggest space of any kind. In fact, there is nothing but flat shapes, perhaps for fear of falling into the proscribed allusions to reality. In these surface forms, where he is reminded of the most traditional of classical Euclidean geometry, he enjoys combing, no cost of imagination, a series of closed forms on themselves, which, with a mean accuracy s adapt wonderfully in the restricted area. In short, the painting is a collection, a comprehensive two-dimensional, consisting of a flat architectural style. To this aim exclusively plastic, complete lack of novelty (it marks a mere continuation of Neoplasticism), lacks neither logical nor grandeur, the artist deliberately sacrifices sensuality, that goes without saying, but also sensitivity, imagination, lyricism. It is in the light of cold reason, a method and a relentless desire puritanical that this painting is located.
The result is an inaccessible pride is not without beauty, but its borders form on its stiffness and qualities of mind that the legendary sword of Charlemagne: Deyrolle art, like the emperor's sword, is hard , flat and deadly. Go so far in his search for purity, it ends up no longer recognize it, while at the same time, it yields to the temptation of disembodiment, of worldliness, forgetting - which is a surprising omission in the country of Pascal - he wants to be an angel.
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