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Vie des arts

Note to Our Readers The Editor

Numéro 64, automne 1971

URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/57976ac

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Éditeur(s) La Société La Vie des Arts

ISSN 0042-5435 (imprimé) 1923-3183 (numérique)

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Citer ce document The Editor (1971). Note to Our Readers. Vie des arts, (64), 95–95.

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Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ wave that broke, from the death of eminently one of those. A plastician, he with a sensiitivity which suits an ambig­ Cézanne to the eruption of Dadaism, upset constructed his work strictly, felt repu­ uous structure. The strength, the firm­ not only art and taste, but challenged gnance at facility, built with the sobriety ness of the construction bring daylight the interpretative structures of estheti- of his masters, the fresco painters. It to this poetic dawn. cism. Picasso, Schwitters, and Marcel is useful to relate these characteristics This pictorial language new in its ap­ Duchamp, these three names establish to the work of Malévitch in Russia. We parent treatment, was related by the the break with traditionalism. At the note that towards 1909, the creator of obscure routes of heredity, the places he same time, non-figurative painting appear­ Suprematism painted oils with a concision lived, the Tuscan landscape, and Florence, ed. Artists like Malévitch and Magnelli, akin to those of Magnelli in 1913. Both, to the sources that Magnelli knew all the Delaunays, Kandinski, Kupka, and thus seem to reach constructivism by a about : Uccello, Piero della Francesca. We Mondrian come to the same conclusions, similar evolution, by the purification of could even go beyond that and follow Arp not knowing of one another, separated forms, as it were, by a classic approach who thought that "the black, brown and by sometimes hostile traditions, endowed contrary to Kandinsky, who reached the blue of Magnelli's canvases made one with apparently incompatible tempera­ informal by expressionist lyricism. The think of the colours of frescoes of the ments. route followed by Mondrian was different first Cretan eras. His works could furnish Magnelli has told us1" of the isolation again, an imperturbable logic led him an equivelent of these majestic and in which he lived in Florence during the to an absolute geometricism by the deep­ serene decorations". Crete, the Etruscans, years 1913-1914, when he produced the ening of a formal vision. Florence.... we go back through the first of his works in which figuration But the most uncompromising men ages; recurrent, Mediterranean classicism disappeared : no reviews, no reproduc­ sometimes have unexpected repentance. emerges, more absolute than in the ra­ tions, no contacts. If his relations with First Magnelli abandoned his haughty tional renovations of Antiquity. The the Futurists were friendly, they were serenity : the war came to an end, and chromatic as well as plastic equilibrium disturbed by the lack of understanding was over. Enthusiasm exalted him. A of Magnelli's compositions participate in of Marinetti's group towards growing non- more sensual effusiveness was manifest­ this perenniality of a world full of wisdom. figuration. By their adherence to epi­ ed in his compositions, a tumultuous The first Italian non-figurative painter dermic modernity. Now we must remem­ song overwhelmed him. The end of in the sense that we understand that ber that Magnelli who began to paint hostilities liberated in him a generous today, Magnelli settled in France in 1939. late, self taught — he liked to say — taste that overexcited colour, impassioned In the post war period when there were had fresco painters for masters : Giotto, form, which to this point had been so exhibitions of the first "New Realists" Paolo Uccello, Masaccio, and Piero della strict. He called a "lyric explosion" the Salon of 1939, of Drouin (1947), of Denise Francesca. His last figurative works re­ work of this warm period, a relaxation René (1949), Magnelli's position became veal this transposed influence; it may that preceded a questioning of the very considerable in Europe and in the United be seen in "Théâtre Stenterello No. 3", meaning of the work of art. Magnelli States. In 1950 he took part in the Venice which is reproduced. The Arezzo frescoes was to hesitate in the exploration of the Biennial; then all the national museums revealed to him "composition in a possibilities opened by his own approach : and the international biennials offered surface", made him understand, he said, he experimented by applying to his re­ him their galleries. Michel Seuphor wrote, "the interplay of empty and fully occupied search the work of the Futurist, Cubist, "the most important event of the new space". Beginning with Piero della Fran­ and Surrealist painters, without ever post war period was the appearance of cesca, he felt that his art, his pictures, giving in to their formulation. A powerful Alberto Magnelli.. When the war was "would always tend towards the archi­ temperament kept him from adhering to over, Magnelli's star rose. He soon be­ tectural". He rediscovered flat tint and whatever was not his fundamental in­ came the most important abstract painter removed the anecdote from the anecdotal. tuition. He experienced these teachings, in Paris".1" He was not far from thinking that the then moved away from them. With his death, the last man (Sonia taste for movement's taste, for machinery, In 1928 he reached an impasse : he Delaunay being quite alive) of the initia­ proper to the Futurists, was regressive. stopped painting. With difficulty two tors of the new art foreseen by Apolli­ That was happening in 1914. After a years later, he began to draw again, and naire passed away. His kindness, his gra­ brief stay in Paris, Magnelli returned to was reconciled with painting by discover­ cious humour, were mediating between Florence, where he was at the outbreak ing in Carrara, the language of unpolished the elders, the explorers of virgin lands, of the war. The studio that Apollinaire marble : with their transfiguration into a and the generations which, successively, had kept for him in the French capital series of canvases "Les Pierres", lyricism were to profit from their adventure, one was never to be occupied. What is more, made a last appearance in the work of of the most original known in the history meeting the friends of the poet, Picasso, the Tuscan painter. Beginning in 1937, of art. Magnelli surely occupies a prom­ Léger, Juan Gris, did not change his mind. the creative tumult was mastered, Ma- inent place which history reserves to "One had the feeling that art should re­ gnelli's work reached a state of serenity those who change it. turn to creation instead of being an that even the upheavals of the second imitation of something. Even cubism, world war were not able to shake. which is magnificent, which is formidable, "If one wants to produce something NOTES saw its creators start from an idea of absolute, one must be able to choose (1) Interview with Alberto Magnelli, by reality; they distorted the object, they what is necessary to realize this vision".''' Jacques Lepage, published in part in transformed it; they wanted to see its As early as 1912-1913, Magnelli deliber­ "Les Lettres Françaises" on March four sides. Whereas, for my part, one ately crossed the threshold of tradition, 12, 1964. fine day I wondered Is it possible that breaking it. He directly created his own I must make some sort of character when language, reinvented a new plastic vocab­ (2) Cf. Catalogue "Alberto Magnelli" I can have the freedom to create a can­ ulary, which the Renaissance and its edited on the occasion of the itin­ vas according to the forms that I need after-effects had hidden. His choice was erant exhibition of his works in within the rectangle of the canvas. And definitely made shortly before the second 1970. then I completely removed all that was world war, and his work, henceforth, was (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) real, even imagined, and I created can­ to join in with the non-figurative trend vases, the first abstract canvases. which held general attention until 1955-60. For forty years painters were to exploit Without merging with it however. Among the constructivists he remains on the this change in art that would be the NOTE TO OUR READERS great adventure of the first half of the fringe, keeping his distance towards century. Magnelli, like other inventors geometricism. A suppleness of form We deeply regret that circumstances be­ of non-figuration, would see his work which is not softness, assures his free­ yond our control prevent our not providing plagiarized for the benefit of followers, dom. "The straightest straight line is translations of the four following articles who often did not go beyond fraudulent that produced by the maximum straighten­ 1 on La Danse au Québec, Robert Savoie, imitation. That matters little. Imitation ing of the curve, ready to bend back."" Beaulieu de Montparnasse and La Collec­ gives way as quickly as styles. There This remark by Closon applies exactly tion Zacks. We trust our readers will remain only those who have added to the to Magnelli's works. If the rhythm is understand and accept our apology for development of knowledge. Magnelli is architectonic in its discretion, it is shaded this inconvenience. — The Editor.

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