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Vie des arts

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Numéro 67, été 1972

URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/58978ac

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Éditeur(s) La Société La Vie des Arts

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

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Citer cet article (1972). Texts in English. Vie des arts, (67), 81–95.

Tous droits réservés © La Société La Vie des Arts, 1972 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/

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/ In his recent book, The Teaching of Painting (Seuil), Marcelin Pleynet points out that "the difficulties one faces in attempting to consider the various movements which constitute paint­ ing, and more generally modern art, occur, to some extent, as a result of the definition one might give to the specific history of this art. It is as though this (modern) history existed on a single chronological plane on one hand, and as though the origin of this chronology, on the other hand, could only be considered as beginning at a point when a conclusion had been reached in the evolution of (another) history coming from another chro­ nology." Most people think of art in terms of chro­ nology. When challenged, this method of classification may still seem useful, but it re­ quires a new approach. In order to decode the artist's system, it is necessary to use a system that takes into account the sociological and ideological as well as the psychological factors. Pleynet succeeds in presenting a clever demonstration in his analysis of the system of Matisse. One can hardly push scientific exactitude further. But after all, how CARICATURE: FROM ANCIENT FIGURINES necessary would this be? TO THE QUEBEC CARTOON Another question which was explored was whether or not to teach the history of Can­ By Robert LAPALME adian art in the context of general history. The teaching of art out of context met with The origin of caricatures is traced by some violent opposition but a very small group who misanthropists to the creation of the world. gave the impression of being anti-history was It is certainly very ancient. well as anti-art strongly defended their po­ In 1968, the inaugural year of the Pavillion sition. There was unanimous agreement only of Humour, it was possible to view remnants on the rarity of documented evidence, the of the Sumarian civilization, and fragments of difficulty to getting to sources, and the limit­ the Egyptian frescos. These ceramics were ations of the artistic experience itself. Finally, lent by the London National Gallery and by in addition to a scientific method, historians Le Louvre of Paris, which testified to their of the future will need an awareness of his­ antiquity. Thanks to the archeologists, 6000 torical context and of ideological environment, years of humour were brought together that and the wide-ranging curiosity of an epistemo- summer! 6000 years which has also brought logist, this to be sustained by poetic intuition. out the laughter of the Assyrians, of the What is the position of the art critic in Greeks, of the Romans, of the French, of the relation to the historian? Like the historian, English, of the Americans and finally of the TEXTS IN he is essentially an informant, but his inter­ people of 60 countries represented at that vention is not as direct. He is less concerned festival. with all the facts than with a few facts which Meanwhile, before the Renaissance, only widen his own perspectives and sustain his the names of three sketchers of humour were need to anticipate what is to come. His real known: Pauson, of the 5th century B.C., Bu- ENGLISH activity is in the world of ideas, sensations, palus and Athenis of the second century A.D. he operates on the tight rope of approximation. Vasari, the Chronicler of the artists of the One of the participants at the conference sum­ Renaissance doesn't mention any. He could at marized this well as "the art of sleeping with least have acknowledged Settignano, author of elephants". Considering the great variety of the life-size sculpture which can still be seen critics, the elephants are not always the same. in the gardens of the Palais Pitti in Florence. Which comes back to saying that what changes The word caricature is of Italian origin. It the most for everyone is the idea of the comes from caricatura, which becomes cari- avant-garde. The bohemian avant-garde seems WHEN IT COMES TO ELEPHANTS . . . care a term which originates from the school completed, another mystico-scientific avant- of the Carraci. The Romans had named the garde is slowly taking form. graphic satire 'grill' (from graticula; small By Andrée PARADIS Meanwhile, whether good or bad a new grill) because at night satirical drawings were Art teaches certain things, but there is underground art is happening, at least that is tied to the grills of public buildings. Always Iso something to be learned from a meeting where attempts are being made to define ob­ carried out illicitly, the practice of caricaturing f those who are involved with teaching art jectives: to counter established art which is acquired its letters patent of nobility in the t the university level. Hence the importance being taught whether we like it or not. On Reformation during the religious wars of the f the conference held in Vancouver from the other hand, we may note that on the 16th century. The parties in question bom­ larch 1st to March 4th, under the auspices campus all is not rosy between theorists and barded each other with some pretty grotesque f the University Association of Arts in Can- practitioners concerning the necessity and the engravings which were very distorted and very da and presided over by George Knox of the means of the teaching of art, but, happily, popular. Offices and duties rather than indi­ Iniversity of British Columbia. there is a time of readjustment where it is viduals were caricatured; for example, the The purpose of the memorable discussions finally possible to measure what art teaches. pope was a monster, half woman and half t the Classical Joint and the Medieval Inn The conference in Vancouver was a success bird of prey; the king was depicted by his the program included the rediscovery of at the level of communication of ideas. In an royal attributes; and so on. iastown, the old section) was the sharing atmosphere of genuine relaxation the sounds It is only in the 18th century with Town­ f information about the problems in the his- of cultural agitation were muffled but the shend, the first Canadian caricaturist, that the >ry of art, the changing approaches of crit- conviction that the most profound manifest­ pictures join in. Hogarth, because his work :ism, and the real history of studio training, ation of the present time is in the area of has remained with us, is considered the father ince the definitions had been dealt with, the language and forms of thought remains. of English caricature. He is an inspired mo­ tain task of the conference was to determine ralist. The great museums of the world quarrel olicies for implementation. (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) over the honour of owning his beautiful en-

ll gravings. He works with more diligence than 1758, Townshend had already signed charges 1865. In Quebec, Jean-Baptiste Côté, al his predecessors. Thanks to his qualities, against certain of his illustrious compatriots. Grospérin, was setting up the Scie, a fur Hogarth has raised the caricature to the level It can be said that he is the precursor of the journal embellished with wood engravin of the most prestigious painting. Before him, satirical caricature high-lighting individuals. done by the gifted sculptor, famous for 1 it was a craft, a minor art. In England, Row- There had been complaints about his cruelty. rendering of movement. Côté engraved p landson attacks John Bull's private life. His A letter published in 1765 in The Public Ad­ sonalities who seemed to have lost none engraved caricatures, which are sold by pic­ vertiser denounces him in these terms: "He their likelihood by being distorted. His Hec ture dealers are very amusing. The end of the has dealt grotesque cards from house to Langevin au parlement engraved on wo( 18th century brings the war against Napoleon. house, from Town's end to Towns' end. Is shows us the Democratic leader in very sm Gillray, a remarkable sketcher puts his pencil there a great general of highest rank and most dimensions. Using a minimum of lines, C< to use for England against Bony, against his eminent military abilities? If the size of his delivers us, set forever, an historical p own king, George III and against the Regent. person as well as fame should be larger than sonnage more real than life. Hidden in the capitals of cathedrals or in ordinary, this malicious libeller at three strokes Confederation was for the Canadian h some illuminated designs, there have always of his pencil scratches out his figure in all morists a favourable ferment for satire, been some grotesque French drawings. But the ridiculous attitudes imaginable. . ." Town­ was to be the building of a trans-Canadi apart from Callot, who in the 16th century shend is therefore the first one who has ap­ railroad. Our artists did not lack subjects did some very amusing and excellent things, plied ridicule to individuals identifiable by censure. Meanwhile, the reproduction proce there are practically no names to remember. their faces. remained costly. It was necessary to wait 1 It is only after Napoleon that the caricature During the winter preceding the fall of the invention of photo-engraving for the loc truly manifests itself. Quebec, he made several caricatures of Wolfe, to be opened. That precious machine was p But then, c'est le coup de tonnerrel Phili­ his superior, whose plebeian origins he des­ tented in Europe, around the 1860's by Firrr pon, a talented journalist and caricaturist, pised. To the amusement of the members G i I lot and it was not until fifteen years lai launched the Charivari in 1834. Daumier of the headquarters he would circulate his that the Gillotype was to be used in Montre (1808-1879) entered and the century of the drawings at the table. He showed General and Toronto. caricaturists began. From Cham, Gavarni, Dan- Wolfe as a tax-collector, as a seducer of the In Canada, Bengough is the first caricatur tan, Caran d'Ache, Toulouse-Lautrec — I young local virtues, and so on. Wolfe took to make use of this invention. He publish could mention more — to Sem, Sennep, Rou- these jokes with a "sour" smile until at one his famous Grip in Toronto from 1873 veyre, all sign their masterpieces. The social moment he lost his patience and seized one 1894. His caricatures are today an author climate of that era can never be studied nor of the drawings, crumpled it in rage and in the history manuals. It would be impossit understood without their testimony being re­ threw it on the ground. That drawing and to write anything serious about John A. Me tained. England suffered the after-effects. eight others are today on display in the donald without referring to his testimony. B Punch (sub-title 7"v>e London Charivari), which McCord Museum of Montreal.' it cannot be said that Bengough is a gre permits Tanniel, Du Maurier and Doyle to One must wait approximately eighty years artist, esthetically speaking. His drawing come forward, at the same time as Cruik- after Townshend for the humoristic Canadian clumsy and often vulgar. On the other har shank Spy, Ape, Beerhom up to Low, is drawing to be produced seriously. At that his animation, his political sense, his wor published. In Italy, let us retain Virginio- time, and for a long time to come, it was with current events make him one of t Teja, Redenti, Mariette, Musacchio, Sacchetti necessary to use engraving to print a drawing; masters of editorial caricatures in Canada. and finally Garretto. The Germans launch a slow and difficult procedure . . . and as far In Montreal, a journal which was to m« their Punch with enthusiasm. The caricatures as I know there were not enough engravers in an époque appeared in 1877. Edited by Hed of Oberlander, Schleich and Bush among Canada. Fleury Mesplet would have liked very Berthelot, Le Canard was a huge success a others can be admired without reservation. much to have a good caricaturist attached to asserted itself with much authority. This ve Simplicissimus was founded in 1896 to the the Gazette which he founded in Montreal talented 'fin de siècle' bohemian was as go great joy of satirists. One must more than with Benjamin Franklin. The "picture" in these a writer as he was a sketcher. His first ca mention the caricaturists of Spain, of whom times of illiteracy, would have been a precious catures were engraved on wood by Vi Goya, of Portugal and of Mexico, where Po­ vehicle of propaganda to lead the "Canayens" Cassan who engraved them with such sk sada, whose style is morbid and cruel, chas­ to revolution. It was necessary to wait for talent and taste that they are works of l tises the establishment. Not to be overlooked Punch in Canada, 1848-1849, to finally have often worthy of appearing in the Charivari are the Scandinavians whose masters are of some political caricatures. They were drawn Paris, next to Daumier's immortal engravin; a caliber to rival the greatest. by John Walker and engraved by Welch and Alas, later when Berthelot commited his dra The United States vegetates since Ben Matthews. They worked until the terrible fire ings to the Gillotype, his caricatures drav Franklin, who drew the first political caricature of the Canadian Parliament which sat in by pen — although still superior to anythi South of the border. Taking advantage of the Montreal at that time. The drawings of this else at that time — lost much of their su War of Secession to launch himself, Thomas great-grandchild of Philipon's Charivari were telty, their spontaneity and their poetry. Nast, the father of American caricature, makes done with skill but in a style borrowed shame­ At that time news arrived from Europe thr his appearance. The creator of the Tammany lessly from the London Charivari. They convey and four weeks late. In the winter, the ci Tiger, of the Democratic Donkey, of the Re­ no effort of originality nor innovation. The was almost closed. Hay loads were the or publican Elephant, of Santa Claus, he is the real breadwinner for these artists was in the things which continued to arrive from the ot one who decided on the costume and the illustrations of news in brief. They had to skirts. Isolated, the townsmen lived in a poi goatee of Uncle Sam. The mouvement is depict spectacular fires, portray deputies and where Le Canard provided food for the mir launched. Influenced by Gillray, Keppler, Gill- bishops, and show British princes who passed Berthelot only had to say one thing agair amn joined the game, followed by Gibson. through here. In short, they had to work quick­ some distinguished person and the whc Kirby, Bellows, Fitzpatrick, etc., even to Art ly and by hand without taking the time to stop town burst out laughing. The victim cou Young, John Held Jr. and others just as ex­ to cultivate a carefully nurtured personal treat­ only react badly. Berthelot found out what cellent. ment. was all about. He was condemned by t This birth does not come without pain. At that time in Toronto, two journalists Courts for having questioned the virility Philipon and Daumier were imprisoned for were signing drawings under the pseudonym a politician because he remained a bacheli offending the authorities; Nast was tried and of Rostap. Robinson and Staples were suc­ (He, himself died a bachelor.) For havi an attempt made to buy him. Young was os­ ceeding in publishing caricatures in which the laughed at a senator, he was attacked by t tracized. But nothing stops the denunciators of only funny thing was current events. Since senator's two sons and beaten severely administrative abuse. A good caricaturist is the events of that time escape us, their Fortifications lane. the one who interprets emotions. He makes humour is lost today. We ask ourselves why After Berthelot, Montreal had Henri Julie the cause of the oppressed his own and is it took two of them to put those things to­ an illustrator who did caricatures withe revolted by injustice. Because he is right gether. A hundred years from now we may being a caricaturist. A very skillful sketchi he is always found on the political left. well ask the same question when we see the he provided us with funny pictures, but caricatures signed by Derso and Kelen, who did it more by the decor than by the satiric THE CANADIAN SCENE worked in Geneva, in Paris, and in New York distortion of faces, which were always phol In Canada, the first known caricatures were during the thirties. The movement was launch­ graphically reproduced. drawn by Brigadier General Townshend, later ed. John Innes, Kars, Sam Hunter, draftsmen- The turning of the century doesn't seem Marquis Townshend. Second to Wolfe, he re­ reporters of the vV7a/7 and Empire provided the have been influenced by the Art Nouvel turned to England after the victory of the satirical newspapers the Sprite and the Pick Alonzo Ryan and Vézina debated well enou Plains of Abraham. Before coming here in of Toronto with caricatures around the year in the Star and La Patrie and in some politic

82 eaflets. In 1908, Julien was replaced by weekly Vrai and was to become one of the Robert LaPalme is Canada's gift from lacey on the Montreal Star. At the turn of great names of contemporary cartoons. Hu- heaven. To compensate for their tragic nature, he century, a fierce periodical raged in Paris. don's imagination was not quite equal to the gods have sent us a prince of humour. V rage which had a thunderous effect here . . . his talent as a sketcher, which was very great. It is true that what I am saying today will not hanks to a few issues which entered Canada The collection of pictures in his album A la be recognized until the year 2500: one is lue to the negligence of a few customs offi- Potence are of a remarkable quality. On the never truly appreciated in one's own time. :ers. It is L'Assiette au beurre (1900-1910). anglophone side, Norris is under the influence LaPalme's career is unique in this country. los Charlebois must have seen a few. He of Giles. His humour is possibly superior to The influence of the churches, of New En­ >ublished a small magazine filled with draw- that of his master and his sketches are at gland, and of our own national conservatism ngs directed against the Irish bishops who least as good. Booth, Jeff, Wright, Collins, create in us a serious side that borders on efused, understandably, the use of French Chambers and Ting are reasonably good solemn frigidity. Thanks to LaPalme, Leacock, p the French schools and parishes of New cartoonists. Collins is a master of the alle­ Henri Julien, Ferron, and a few other inspired England. La Bêche contained naive caricatures gory. Then, Macpherson appeared; an inspired satirists, we are less unfeeling than such a vhich defended the language and the faith, sketcher who turned up his nose at style, history would have it. Before venturing forth rhey were short-lived publications! It should he reinstated Tanniel-Du Maurier's school of in the ship of humour, let us meet its >e mentioned that at that time each weekly Punch. He echoed the Victorian era and his captain. iad its caricaturist and inversely each cari- work influenced Levine of New York and Robert LaPalme was born in Montreal: his :aturist had its weekly. One of these was brought us Aislin and many others. Reidford, first challenge. One is not born in Montreal ounded by Raoul Barré who drew poorly after Kuch, Paré, Nuno, Leduc, Daigneault, Hunter, if one is not a bit of an adventurer. His ^aran d'Ache. He later spent some time with Chartier, Blaine, Peterson, Pier, Whaley, Wicks childhood however, was spent in Alberta. His 'at Sullivan with whom he worked in New are professionals who do honour to Canadian professional life began with his collaboration fork. caricature. No doubt I have forgotten some. on the Almanach de la langue française and Aldéric Bourgeois, as is Berthelot, is a pro- André Monpetit was one of the few 'avant- on the newspaper of Olivar Asselin, L'Ordre. ninent figure in the history of caricature in gardists' among the sketchers where Wright An amazing and indefatigable man, he worked Canada. Associated to La Patrie then to La and Simpkins were already active. American in New York, Quebec city and Montreal, and "resse. for almost 60 years, he amused with competition hindered the growth of this very was simultaneously a cartoonist and professor, lis drawings and his writings (he was of the modern communication here. founded the Municipal Gallery of Quebec, school of Caran d'Ache) three generations of Like the French who have their Reiser, we painted murals, and still found the time to ) people 'without history'. One day his bio- have our Girerd. This young North-African is make a dream come true: a museum devoted jraphy will be written and his work will be a great caricaturist, humorist and sketcher. to humour. In turn, he went on to become the discussed. That book will be most interesting He has an analytical spirit which makes him staff cartoonist of Le Canada, and to work at f the milieu and the era which he mocked a fine political commentator, although some­ Le Devoir, in television, at La Presse, at Nou­ s well described. We will relive the first times somewhat of a demagogue on days veau Journal as well as doing many other :ive decades of 20th century Montreal. when his inspiration lags. Then there is Miche, things. Afterwards, he participated in cultural The Armisticel 1918, the end of the war completely apart. His sculptures and his 'col­ undertakings (for example, the Sainte-Adèle jrought young people who danced the charles- lages' are at this point vulgar, as much by Art Centre). He was the art director for ;on, while playing with prohibition which the subject as by the manner in which they Expo '67, for the city of Montreal, and for aged elsewhere. Like Rudolf Valentino, the jar one's senses, but they are amusing for a the International Salon of Cartoons. He con­ joys pasted their hair with vaseline and car- distinguished and sophisticated audience. tributed to the murals which decorate the •ied a flask in their hip-pockets; the girl It is to be observed that the more a people metro stations and he is the curator of the iriends wore sac-dresses "to high on the is developed the more it appreciates carica­ Humour Pavilion. "And that's nothing", as aottom and too low on top"; they wore their tures. Take a glance at the production in the Devos would say. Every year, he wonders, lair in a boyish cut and they wore necklaces United States, in England, and in France as what is there to do next? which went down to 'there'. In short, the un­ well as in other large nations and compare it It is impossible to describe or summarize fortunate caricaturists had lost the peaceful to the production in underdeveloped countries. in a few paragraphs the contents of every and subdued clientele of the Victorian era. While keeping in mind the demographic pro­ exhibition at the Humour Pavilion since 1968, Lemay and Letondal worked, one on his portions, it is certain that Canada plays a but we can recall the great moments. 1968 Timothée, the other on his personalities. They leading role in the art of caricature and car­ gave it a roaring start. With the support of «ere not made for this profession. Lemay had toon. In 1840, the British government invited the Louvre, the National Gallery in London, nothing of the humorist in him and Letondal artists to submit tapestry cartoons in order to the Musée de l'Homme, and the Guimet and iA/as an amateur. Our good caricaturists had decorate Westminster. Punch borrowed the Carnavalet Museums, LaPalme was able to lumped the border and had become stars in idea and published cartoons in the spirit that present the history of humour ranging from New York: Russell Paterson who started at one can well imagine. Ever since, cartoon the day "God created man in his image and La Patrie and Richard Taylor of Toronto. has been a word in the English language likeness", to our own time; this he did with Then it was the 1930 crisis. I came on the which is missing in ours. the help of authentic Sumerian (4,000 B.C.) scene influenced by cubism although I knew 1 A. LANGDON, Un curieux épisode de la con­ figurines, Egyptian bronzes, etc. At the Fifth nothing of its existence, and by Garretto, the quête du Canada, in Vie des Arts, Vol. IV, International Salon of Cartoons featured also great Italian caricaturist. He had become a No. 18, pp. 30-32. a mural by Normand Hudon and sculptures by friend of Mussolini and had designed the (Translation by Viviane Giroux-Edwards) Jim Lauder. uniform for the Duce's guard. Since then I have evolved and I think I have developed a In 1969, there was a modern version of style which is truly mine. Paul Leduc of La Bruegel's painting: The Blind Leading the Patrie published an album filled with very Blind. The author was Ed McNally of the Star. fine and very amusing caricatures. A shrewd THE HUMOUR PAVILION AT There were also papier mâché sculptures by Gerald Scarfe and bold caricatures by Miche. observer, he amused while illustrating the MAN AND HIS WORLD troubles and tribulations of the average Cana­ In 1970, Lauder was represented again (sculptures made from agricultural imple­ dian. His work was the living testimony of By Paul GLADU an era. Jacques Gagnier made a name for ments), Pierre Merlier (wood sculptures), Co- himself at the Quartier Latin. He published Buckminster Fuller used to say: "Ye who varrubias (colour photos). Low and Garetto. La Plume au vent which was very successful. are too serious, do not enter here". To This time the featured mural was by Berthio, An artist who was as talented as he was readers of VIE DES ARTS who feel the shoe who had imitated The Raft of the Medusa by conscientious, his drawing was cold, a tribute may fit, let this quote be a warning. Géricault. Also, a small room was devoted to the Bauhaus style by which we were all Indeed, being intelligent and human implies to Stephen Leacock. influenced, and since he was a nice chap, having a sense of humour. Animals do not In 1971 it was a mural by John Collins his gags were without malice. The A bomb laugh. On the other hand, the expression of which welcomed the visitors. It parodied a punctuated the end of the war of the 40's. humour in civilized man ranges from mild famous painting by the American artist Curry, The returning soldiers provided a pleiad of amusement to hearty laughter. Besides, it Tornadoes in Kansas. We were delighted to young men with talent which television, a also distinguishes man from the gods and welcome back the International Salon of new invention at that time, introduced in our accounts for his superiority. The gods may Cartoons. On a moving screen the history of homes. Bastien, Feyer and Hudon were in­ disappear because they themselves are above the cartoon strip unfolded, supplemented by fluenced by André François. Berthio began the laughter. But man is able to laugh. an important collection of original drawings

IJ by the masters of the cartoon strips. This attention of the entire world, as attested by collection, first shown in the Metropolitan the number and origin of its visitors as well Museum of New York, was enriched and as the increased communication with the rest expanded before becoming the property of of the world. the Humour Pavilion. On the main floor, an We can affirm without doubt that it satis­ extraordinary retrospective of the various fies a fundamental need of man. It is the creations of the Parisian Jean Effel revealed opposite of ignorance and morbidity. Humour his prolific creative imagination. Finally, trick is the ray of sunshine that penetrates the mirrors transformed the visitors themselves clouds. into living cartoons. (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) This year the presentation measures up. All those who followed the evolution of the Humour Pavilion noted that its curator, Robert LaPalme, used almost all the art forms, all THE 9TH INTERNATIONAL SALON the means to illustrate his favourite theme. OF CARTOONS It would be difficult to be more contemporary. Film, mobile sculpture, new materials, lumi­ By Paul GLADU nous or kinetic effects; he uses everything. The 9th International Salon of Cartoons is The International Salon of Cartoons which opening its doors. A new mural decorates is holding its ninth exhibition from June to MONTPETIT ON POLITICS the entrance. The cynical and witty Gerald September 1972 in the Humour Pavilion at Scarfe — one whom some consider the Man and His World began officially in 1964 By Patrick HUTCHINGS greatest caricaturist of our time — is repre­ as a result of the joint efforts of mayor Jean sented by his sculptures (we will recall his Drapeau, Robert LaPalme, and Jean Dupire, The "ambiguës", the series "two cultun incredible sculptures of Nixon, the Pope, and who at that time was Public Relations Man­ one nation" and the series "you don't nee the British Royal Family last year). A Scarfe ager for the Montreal Parks. The Salon really to die for that", are obviously meant to be film called: Will the real Mr. Hogarth please started in 1948 when students of Saint- once innocent and pretty, and spiritedly sa stand up? is projected. Laurent College invited LaPalme to exhibit castic. The word "ambiguë" is, one suppose We recognize the statuettes by Miche, his cartoons there. The artist-cartoonist in turn a pun on the name of the old Théâtre c whose talent for the bizarre oscillates between proposed to make this a group display having l'Ambigu in Paris, where life-sized puppe trivial things and great humour. Then we see a national scope. This was done successfully, played opposite human actors. And this pan The Seven Capital Sins, metallic sculptures and repeated in three other years. nomasia, one feels, ends up, itself, as i by the famous Milanese artist Renato Bassoli. LaPalme is tenacious. The International emblem. A film retraces the history of caricature in Salon of Cartoons took on unhoped-for pro­ Politics is a business for busy dolls: it France. The extraordinary collection devoted portions. Last year 600 drawings from 60 a stage play stocked with grave personage to the cartoon strip is still present, fortunately. countries were displayed. More than half a whose wisdom is no more than a libretto < The fantastic characters and wild techniques million people visit the Salon every year; this slogans and rallying cries. And 'you don of John M. Gilbert, who creates models on represents a total of some 3 million visitors have to die for Thatl" which he then bases films, constitute a fluid to date. "O.K. 'two cultures one nation'; O.K., bi and coloured world. For obvious reasons, most of the partici­ we don't have to die of itl" In addition to the above — and I didn't pants are Canadian. But the five judges, who The insect-frogs of canvas 3c in the série mention everything — there is an exhibition are experts from Canada and abroad, submit 'Tivo cultures, 1968" are just like the ridici called Humorous drawing from the 15th cen­ all the drawings to the same standards for lous people of whom Bergson writes in hi tury until today, which is not only an unusual evaluation: they take into consideration the essay On Laughter; that is, they are utterl and fine display but also a rare opportunity style and form, the technique, the text (if reduced to a mechanism. Their arms hav for visitors to Man and His World. This there is one), and are on the lookout for turned into cams or reciprocal levers. Th exhibition, organized by the Bibliothèque plagiarists, imitators and copiers; they must insects are facing one another belligerently Nationale of France, comes to us directly also bear in mind the context and so on. A and like Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Alic from Paris. As a commentator said: "No humorous drawing is not judged in the same Through the Looking Glass they have 'agree doubt it is the first time it is possible to way as an ancestor's portrait or a realist land­ to have a battle'; but these two 'autonomous see the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci side scape is. It is a delicate task which requires frogs are no more than two parts of the on by side with those of Sempé, Chaval rubbing reflection and sensitivity. machine. "One nation" by jovel shoulders with Rembrandt." We can admire (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) In Montpetit's work the large forces c French, German, or Flemish medieval engrav­ Canadian politics — and Canada here stand ings as well as modern caricaturists, English for the world — are seen as the two head humorists of the XVIIIth century and masters of the Pushmi-pullyu, the oddest of the ani of the Japanese print. The themes are those mais in Dr. Doolittle's Circus. You don't a which inspired cartoonists of all times, nota­ all need, you unfortunate Canadians, to hav bly, fashion, money, politics, the absurdity of more than one head. Two cultures is on conventions. In short, a complete panorama culture too many, and you'll end up b of humour over four centuries. In fact, we thinking too hard; you will rush a mari usqu also see a sort of parallel history of the ad mare like lemmingsl graphic means used by critics of Western "Where are you now?" Montpetit asks yo society. Finally the visitor to the Humour in a soft voice from among his leaves, rei Pavilion can bring away, in the form of a and green, yellow and orange, (cf. color plat carefully prepared catalogue, the treasured to Beaux Arts Exhibition catalog.) moments of what he has seen. "All you need is love", dammitl In organizing the Humour Pavilion, Robert Montpetit's "Ambiguës" always have LaPalme realized the wish of a great number kind of innocence which brings back memc of people. The pavilion became, in a few ries of childhood. At the same time they hav years, the humour centre of the world. Indeed the second thoughts which afflict grown-ups it is the only museum devoted to humour. For Montpetit life is a toy, but it can be ai Its library is incomparable and vast. It illus­ infernal machine as well, a trap painted ii trates one of the most lively and vital aspects bright nursery colours. of the mind. There are so many causes of To escape dying like lemmings, to get awa sadness in life, that a place such as this one, from Tweedledee and Tweedledum-style bat which exists because of the efforts of a ties and all that nonsense, "All you need i Canadian (and the organizers of Man and love". His World, of course) can only arouse interest "O.K." Montpetit replies, "but what is love and enthusiasm. eros. agape, or just something nice am In fact, the Humour Pavilion attracts the sexy?"

84 Montpetit, like de Rougemont, offers us of symmetry x y. The small triangles of the in essay on Passion & Society: and the essay, GUY MONTPETIT, right side are also arranged in a similar ike love itself, is full of ambiguities: leaves, A PLASTICIAN? COME NOW! manner, their median corresponding also to a or examples, seem, in a flash, to turn them virtual vertical axis. The arrangement of the •elves into breasts and buttocks: see as an By François GAGNON triangles on the left side responds to two nstance the image which decorates the top opposing imperatives, on the one hand sym­ »f the picture "Sex Machine Series E, No. The Museum of Contemporary Art is show­ metry, and on the other the hierarchy of 10". These are the metynomyies of concupis- ing six recent works by Guy Montpetit: four surfaces within an envelopping form. Thus :ence. Let us look at these pictures. triptychs and two paintings. Following the the horizontal axis p q plays the role of an presentation of 21 works at the Montreal axis of symmetry for the two triangles on the vlontpetit and grown-up games Museum of Fine Arts from August 11th to top, and we expect that the median axis r s It's a fact, if a bitter one for an art critic, September 15th, 1970. and at the Museum performs the same function for the gestalt hat the value and authenticity of a painting of Quebec from October 14th to November formed by the two triangles a and B as the ire quite independent of any verbal explica- 1st, 1970, this new Montpetit show risks position of the triangle C seems to indicate. ion of the painting, and, quite independent giving rise to the same ambiguities as the This expectation is frustrated. The E triangle >f any sort of verbal formula at all. One says preceeding one. The present article attempts rests on its base and not on its peak, as we ibout a painting, not what needs to be said, to clarify at least one of these ambiguities. might expect. For it yields to the other >ut what one can. Neo-plastician formulas are being imposed imperative, that of the hierarchy of surfaces. To analyse the full aesthetic power of a with so much force and persistence in our It will have been noted that the square C D :anvas by Montpetit one ought, perhaps, to region that there is a tendency to see them contains not only two triangles similar to ake a formalist line: just insofar as the values everywhere, to class young painters like Guy those of A B, but also 4 small isocèles if Montpetit's style are formal ones, so one Montpetit as plasticians merely on the basis triangles oriented in the same way, only a >ught give them a 'geometrical' analysis, of appearances. It would not be an exaggera­ part of which appear on the surface of the vlontpetit's paintings do not tell stories, and tion to say that, in relation to the dogmas of painting. If we extended the sides of triangle he critic ought not make stories up out of the plasticians, Montpetit's case represents A towards the bottom, the two diagonals hem. Political and moral musings are. in the major heresy. He conscientiously breaks each obtained in this way would almost coincide ast resort, beside the point. of their commandments and must seem de­ respectively with the left and right angles of Léo Rosshandler wrote, about the Mont- viant to those plasticians who consider them­ the isocèles triangles of D, creating a hierar­ >etit exhibition at the Montréal Museum of selves at the peak of achievement. Whether chy of composition on the left side within a :ine Arts in 1970: "Montpetit is a painter who, Montpetit's works may reveal on the contrary, kind of pyramid, whose base would extend absurd as it may seem, simply paints; truly a that imagic painting has not yet "exhausted beyond the sides of the painting. 'are bird in this day and age of technological its powers of revelation" is another question... The small triangles of the right side (FEG) decoration. Furthermore, he remains within the Let us analyze more closely a recent tableau consider only the treatment of symmetry. They 'ramework of Montreal's peculiar style, the by Montpetit. A more precise example will belong to the layer of isocèles triangles. Op­ inique holdout in Canada and even North give us a better idea of how his approach posing them in A B, are two series of forms <\merica of the ideas of the plasticiens (lack strays from plasticism and opens a completely as contracted on the top as they are dilated if sentimentality, impersonality, pure colour different field to creative exploration. The on the bottom (cf. Figure II). statements, well defined shapes, rhythmical example I have chosen belongs to the series Further superimposed on this group, there •epetition of forms, all of this geared to clarity of the "Sex Machine" works. It was specified is a third or even a fourth tier notably in the snd away from expressionism)." as the 7th one and dated 24/7/69 at the bottom, occupied by linked elements, remi­ This is absolutely true. Museum of Fine Arts exhibition in 1970. It is niscent of the rod like elements much asso­ But: art is always, if not expressionist, then, a large painting (80" x 64"). It seems to have ciated with Montpetit (cf. Figure III). Those :ertainly, expressive. Expression is something been constructed in the following way. on the top attract the centre. Those on the that can not be got rid of in art. Magnificent- The blank canvas was first divided into 3 x bottom half repel, then attract. The right part y plastic though they are, and formal and 4 = 12 squares, having almost equal sides. (FEG) which we have not discussed simply geometrical — almost in a sense Cartesian — Of the 31 sides of these squares, 5 will echoes the left part. The zig-zag of rods the point of Montpetit's pictures is to com- remain virtual in the final treatment of the superimposed on the triangles harmoniously nunicate something. You might want to say canvas, presenting rather a series of 5 rec­ unifies that which the left side of the painting that the titles for Montpetit's pictures are a tangles of which 4 are arranged in tiers on superimposes in two different registers. eg pull: "sex machine" and "all you need the horizontal on the left and one, on the Up to this point, we have analyzed the s love" are jokes. Say so if you like: but vertical, is positioned between two squares, schematic structure of only one of Montpetit's iokes, as Freud and the other magi have on the right. Let us agree to designate by the images. We have seen that its construction shown us, jokes have their own logic. And, letters A, B, C, D, the horizontal rectangles obeyed laws of precise composition, causing this being so, Montpetit is caught up in his from top to bottom, let us use the letter E to interact the successive structural axes, the MM leg-pulling. As a painter he is in league for the vertical rectangle on the right, and symmetrical or hierarchic arrangement, the with a prankster; that is to say with himself, F and G for the squares that contain E, F, tiering, the superimposition, the movements /vho, in a moment of weakness, has written on top and G on the bottom. A and B are of expansion or contraction and repetition. for a catalog titles like, "you don't have to treated in a clear tone (lime green and This schematic vocabulary conforms to that of die. . . " orange), whereas C and D are in a dark tone the image and the recourse to this vocabulary Words, however, are written for catalogs: (brick red and maroon) which creates two would be sufficient in itself to remove Mont­ :atalogs are only there because of the paint­ superimposed squares by 2a on each side. petit from the domain of plasticism. The ings. And we must look at the paintings. The rectangle E is painted white and the essential principle of the plastician's aesthetic Certainly we must look at them. And they squares F and G are in black. The tonal is the abolition of the object, the negation of speak to us. Not in words, but in colours and opposition on the left is transposed in value the distinction between figure and ground. shapes. Their plastic values make them elo­ on the right (cf. Figure 1 ). Consequently, the superimposition of a figure- quent: and the plastic arrangements of Mont- The surfaces thus delineated create two plane on a background-plane as we see Mont­ aetit are magisterial. His forms have a magic axes x y and w z, the first is virtual, the petit constantly doing, is unthinkable. Only snd a mana which are quite extraordinary. second apparent, which structures the rest of the the juxtaposition is retained as the organizing There is — one finds — a certain polarity composition, with x y as an axis of symmetry principle of the planes. So that even the setween the important shapes which Montpe­ and w z as the periphery of a second virtual remote suggestion of the object be avoided, tit paints for us, and the tricks which he plays pictorial area. every factor tending to arrange the surface an us by letting them speak in the slang, the This structure having been established, the hierarchically is refused. On the contrary, demotic, of the everyday world. But the artist object-forms are superimposed in several Montpetit does not hesitate to employ the is privileged: the secret craft of plastic forms, layers which we will now examine. The procedures of hierarchic composition, as we snd high jinks, these are all one to him. squares A and B and C and D enclose first have seen . . . four equilateral triangles with rounded corners The essential reason for all the differences proportional to their surface. They will be that we could find between Montpetit and echoed in the smaller triangles of the same the plasticians comes from the fact that shape in the right side of the painting. The Montpetit seeks to construct images, whereas triangles of the left side are tiered, in such a the plasticians move in pure abstraction. The way that their median corresponds to the axis approach of Montpetit has nothing to do with abstraction. It functions as a language and 64") should be read from left to right. In the its symbols refer back to a mental reality left part three human silhouettes are conceal­ beyond the painting. Thus, in the painting we ed (the second in particular emerges only on are presently discussing, as the title of the close inspection), in the central part they series to which it belongs — "Sex Machine" appear clearly, superimposed on each other — indicates, the diagrams have an erotic and advancing towards the viewer, and in the significance. right side, they are reduced to two, facing The gestalt of the square A B. superimpos­ each other, the bottom silhouette is reversed, ing contracted forms and with a tightening slightly off centre, revealing a long white movement is masculine; the gestalt of the triangle above, as if we perceive the wall TOBIE STEINHOUSE: square C D, superimposing the inverse of through this interstice. If we trace mentally SONGES ET LUMIÈRE dilated forms with a repulsing movement is the axis of each of these series of silhouettes, we will observe they distort the surface in feminine; this is true if, in the rods we see By Virginia NIXON the stylized representation of thighs, and in opposing directions. On this group, Montpetit the forms, genital symbols. The compositional has superimposed elements that are connect­ Perhaps it is the combination of poet structures such as the tiering, the symmetry ed, habitual, separated on the left, disjointed, sensibility with utter honesty which is at th on both sides of the horizontal axis, the in the centre, almost symmetrical to the right. basis of Tobie Steinhouse's uniqueness as hierarchical arranging of elements within the The exhibition of the Museum of Contem­ painter and as a printmaker. same envelopping form, unite the two mas­ porary Art thus permits one to get an idea of Her paintings show this combination i culine and feminine gestalts in what could where Montpetit is currently, and lets those their solidity of form, the firm roundness < certainly be called a "position", as they say who have followed his development since the bottles on the studio windowsill which or in those little manuals of sexology in popular end of the 60's until the present time, appre­ senses underlies the shafts of breaking golde use. In the right part (FEG), which is super­ ciate the internal coherence of his work. The and pearl grey light on the surface of tin imposed on that of the left, the "position" is article by Mr. Patrick Hutchings brought out canvas. The first impression in a Steinhous consummated in union, the postures of the this coherence on the level of the meaning painting is one of delicacy but further acquaii partners being animated in a single climactic of the works of Montpetit. I think I have tance shows the clarity of structure beneath. rhythm. outlined only one example of the kind of In her colour etchings the _two qualifie formal analysis that would be necessary for work together somewhat differently. Th We may pursue that analysis and see, as the entire series of works by Montpetit in does our colleague P. Hutchings, in the super- colour is noticeably more brilliant than in th order to bring out a similar coherence on the paintings, yellows, oranges, vivid blues. I imposition of the genital symbols on one level of forms, signs, and compositional hand and the mechanical transpositions of the "Songe d'une nuit d'été" the green a| structures. This analytic work would surpass proaches irridescence. And the forms, thoug legs on the other hand, which form masculine considerably the scope of a brief magazine and feminine groups, an intention to unite basically abstract, are more defined, circle: article. It would be sufficient here to have angular forms and those organic shapes th; paradoxically two opposing semantic levels, indicated the direction. But, in the meantime, the sacred and the pornographic. These levels seem to follow their own course through th for goodness' sake, let us stop making a metal. The subtleties are at work in th are less contradictory or opposing than one plastician of Guy Montpetit. might think and coexist easily, in the cultural background, in the minutely worked surfac field, as all of the agrarian cults of antiquity (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) of the plate and in the precise modulatior would show sufficiently. We may think that of the colours. modern pornography has borrowed elements Printmaking is the special preoccupation t from ancient agrarian cults that aimed at this Montreal artist at the moment — sh sanctifying sexuality. Like ancient religious recently finished a retrospective portfolio c symbols, pornographic images mythologize colour etchings for La Guilde Graphique - human sexuality, create an interval of bad but painting was her first love and she conscience between man and his act . . . with eager to spend more time on it. Next ye« relation to pornographic descriptions of sexua­ she plans three exhibitions and these wi lity, we are all culpable . . . and prevent the include both prints and paintings. perfect coincidence of man with himself in Tobie Steinhouse is not a ready-made pe the act of loving. son. Ask her a question. She does not repl The irony that we think we perceive in the with a prepared opinion. Like the "ambiance forms of Montpetit might signify that with so important to her in her home, and whic relation to the contemporary sexual mythology, she seeks to create in her work, things mui he intends to take a critical position, denounc­ be built up gradually from a solid foundatior ing its mental character, or its technique, if After a brief pause the answer begins we wish, which amounts to the same thing. careful yet relaxed, trying to approach th The observations that we have just made truth as closely as possible. She never seem are not as marginal as we might think, at the to be impelled forward by an over-impetuou exhibition of the Museum of Contemporary ego. Though, if it's relevant she may com Art. Except for the triptych entitled "Hommage up with an opinion, a thumbnail sketch of to Québécois Patriots", all the works which person perhaps, which is startlingly and ur are exhibited retain the sexual theme that we expectedly candid yet quite without innuendc have outlined in one painting from the Sex This ability to say what she means, to b Machine series. The large triptych of August truthful (which is accompanied by a dissati: 1970 entitled also "Sex Machine" is in the faction when she's not able to do it) can b same tradition and synthesizes the outlines seen even in the early paintings from th and themes of the entire series. "Love Trip 2", beginning of her stay in Paris between 194 "Love 3 (to the cube)", and the two paintings and 1957. There is a surprising maturity an of series V entitled "The Time to Live" renew economy in these views of the courtyar the symbolic vocabulary of Montpetit, but outside the apartment, the studio, the caroi remain thematically consistent. The two paint­ sel in the Luxembourg Gardens, never a strok ings (no 1 and 2) of the series V abandon put in merely for effect. the mechanical suggestions of the preceeding These fruitful ten years in Paris followe series and push the research into the direction a period as a scholarship student at the Ai opened by the mural that Montpetit has just Students League in New York, where, give done in Saint-Henri Ward. the choice between traditional and moderr If "Hommage to Québécois Patriots" refers she opted, like any young artist out to chang to another thematic universe, the composition the world, for the latter, and learned how t outlines and the arrangement of elements are paint in the current stylized manner. consistent with what we recognize elsewhere Before that, during the war she earned he in the style of Montpetit. The large triptych living as an engineering draughtsman, illus (the three parts measuring respectively 80" x trating the RCAF manual on the Anso

86 lircraft, at the same time studying engineer- Atelier Libre de Recherches Graphiques, the ng drawing at night. The war over, she companion enterprise which Richard Lacroix leaded for New York and on the train there operates along with La Guilde Graphique, one net her future husband Herbert Steinhouse, gets some further ideas about her work. hen a post-graduate political science student, "Lacroix started in 1965. I was the first tow with Radio-Canada. one to work with him and I've been here off After their marriage the young couple and on ever since. I met him in Paris. When ixchanged their wedding presents for a jeep we came back to Canada I got out of the ind saw America. Then the jeep was trans- English ghetto, working and getting to know ormed into boat tickets and they set sail for what goes on in the city. It's been a great :rance. experience all in all. And if I hadn't had this In Paris her most important studies took workshop where would I have worked? (She ilace in the studio of Arpad Szenès, husband is hoping though, to set up an atelier in her of the painter Maria Elena Vieira da Silva, own basement.) (vhom she admires tremendously. There she The wholesale move towards silkscreen jnlearned her styles and learned how to see, doesn't impress her, and in some cases she something unfortunately rare in today's reacti­ sees it as a trend towards expensive repro­ ng, she feels. (Szenès, to avoid undue influ- ductions and little else. "There is nothing snce on his students, used to turn his own that can replace handwork," she says firmly. paintings to the wall when they came in.) "It's part of you that remains on the plate." Although a painter of light Tobie Steinhouse To a craftsman the tools are not only of is not an impressionist. "In a way it's a sort the utmost importance in getting the job done, t>f mysticism rather than an end in itself, but they're also a source of delight in them­ want to go deeper than surface prettiness. selves. The writer has his sharpened pencils, "It takes time until one finds oneself. I felt his white paper and the comforting move­ in France I had done a lot of work and I felt ment of the typewriter carriage clicking ef­ I had suddenly found my way. If you have fortlessly, errorlessly across the page. Here something to say that's you, no matter how in the atelier one picks up something of the small, that's authentic. Before my Paris exhi­ continuing spirit of the craft of printmaking bition (at Galerie Lara Vincy in 1957) I was (it's an art too, of course) in the tools: rollers FERNAND DAUDELIN: alone. I worked day and night for three months hanging from the ceiling, the old presses, all AUTOMATIST TAPESTRY and did thirty paintings. It was a big turning different and each one with its own quirks point. You have to find your own personality. and virtues, the tins of ink, the purity of By André PAYETTE I'm not preaching but I do think it takes time. imported hand-made paper maintained some­ People are not ready to do it any more, to how by scrupulous ritual amid the clutter and As there are painters who weave, there is take time, to go through the apprentice stage. ink-stained hands. at least one painter who uses a crochet tech­ I feel that now I'm finding out what I wanted In some ways the atmosphere seems me­ nique to create wall hangings. He is Fernand to say about light." dieval. The room might also be compared to Daudelin. He is fascinated with the possibi­ Yet despite the fact that her work has an old-fashioned kitchen, the kind with lities of a high warp texture, but of a crochet many dedicated admirers, the prizes she has bunches of onions hanging from the ceiling weave, in tapestries fifty feet square. Like the won, the collections and shows which have and an excellent but temperamental old wood one he is now making, as a result of a bur­ sought her, she feels the public is not really stove in the corner. sary from the Quebec Department of Cultural ready to listen to her right now. "A quiet Tobie Steinhouse sits on a stool and bends Affairs. And like the tapestry he made in voice with its own distinct tone," she says over the hot-plate rubbing the green intaglio 1967, that measures thirty feet by seven feet of herself. "I'm not in the popular style for background into "Songe d'une nuit d'été," and which is now hanging in the hall of the today. But one has the confidence that what one of the prints in the portfolio. Then she Sept-lles School of Technology. one is doing is right. And shouting will not wipes the plate carefully, cleans the bevelled Only thirty seven years of age, Fernand make the work any better." edges and puts it on a counter. She rolls on Daudelin has already experimented with all "Songes et lumière", the portfolio she did turquoise ink, then violet, followed by brisk the creative crafts and has produced many for La Guilde Graphique, contains eight colour spot rubbing to let in the light. works, before concentrating on tapestries. In etchings (she prefers W.S. Hayter's term The finished gravure is stunning and poetic, the heart of the forest in British Columbia, "colour gravure"). The earliest is her very all green but lightened by added transparent where he had sought tranquility after a long first one "Forêt", a dream of the Canadian ink, and modulated by the violet and tur­ and tumultuous stay in Mexico, Daudelin forests, which she did in Hayter's Paris ate­ quoise. There are suggestions of natural forms, began to make tapestries after observing log­ lier in 1962. The most recent is the 1969 a moon behind trees perhaps, shrubs, an open gers knitting during their free time. This grey "Resurgence." The plates for all of them had grassy place ideal for dancing or chasing, a and black tapestry which was abstract, but been made but the editions were never finish­ lightening at one side that might be ap­ "resembled a landscape" would determine ed, hence the possibility of a retrospective proaching dawn. his means of expression in the future. "It runs portfolio. It was at Hayter's in 1961/62 that Satisfied, she does a few more prints before in the family. I wanted to create, but in my she first took up printmaking and she uses his breaking for lunch. Making tea and sharing own way." Fernand is the younger brother technique for colour gravure. her ham and cheese sandwiches she wonders of Charles Daudelin, painter and sculptor, "I usually start from a definite idea in about the things she's forgotten to tell me. and Georges Daudelin, landscape-architect. drawing. Then I destroy it and try to work There are many things we did not go into. "There are women who do very beautiful back to it. I'm always in a state of looking Her professional biography lists international crochet work. My technique is similar; my at things, light, shapes, trees, the park." exhibitions, prizes, collections, societies, all of subjects are different. But I think that many The park is across the street from her them, in part, testimony to the foundations of these artisans have an excellent technique. home. In the winter her eight-year-old younger which undoubtedly help to safeguard the Perhaps one day I shall be tempted to try son Adam takes skiing lessons there and the integrity of her artistic explorations. something figurative". For the time being, Westmount dogs, the leash law apparently Poetry is one of Tobie Steinhouse's chief Fernand Daudelin has stopped making tapes­ being seasonally rescinded, run gaily across inspirations and perhaps not surprisingly one tries from preparatory sketches. His large the snow. The trees display their beauty ac­ of her most admired poets returns the favour. tapestry for Sept-lles had first been chosen cording to the season and the lighting, and She had asked Louis Dudek if she could use by the architect from the preparatory sketch. all this reaches the inside of the studio exerpts from his poetry for a frontispiece for After that Daudelin sought refuge in the through a filter of fishnet curtains. "When "Songes et Lumière " . In his reply he paid Eastern Townships far from the cares of the you're not looking there's a block somewhere tribute to the continuing quality of her work. city; there, with the help of a local craftsman, . . . you can't get through. I used to have "... I find that the only poems of mine that in an old house set up as a studio, he spent someone I could talk to when I felt like that in any way fit your pictures are the high six months carefully finishing his work. In all — Anne Savage. Miss Savage, the Montreal points of my poetry, i.e. where I get at the the time he worked, not once did he step artist and teacher who was her first teacher ultimate and, one might say, incommunicable back to view his work as a whole. Only in and much-loved friend, died last March. essence. . . I'm astonished that you can stay the spring when the dry weather came, did Watching Tobie Steinhouse at work in the at that kind of intensity." he unfurl the long woolen band, target-like.

87 on a hillside. Then he turned around and ran is that in spite of its long farming era, Frenc to a spot about a hundred feet away. "I had Canada is considered by sociologists to be been hard at work for six months. Then, as basically urban nation, whose mores and OM I ran I was afraid. To the point, perhaps, of toms did not differ from those of the cit> not turning around and looking." Daudelin the town, the village or the family farm" stopped, turned around, and looked. "It was Urban influence touches all of Quebec. exactly what I had wanted to do. I danced Finally Pop is democratic art in the broac with joy in the spring meadow." est sense. In America its influences wer Now, eight hours daily, in front of his from the well worked out Action paintin loom — a wooden frame covered with can­ movement, with its abstract and figurativ vas — which he himself constructed in the wings (Pollock and Tobey; De Kooning large third floor studio on Cartier Street near through the successful assemblage of protc LaFontaine Park, Daudelin weaves the daily Pop artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper John diary of his feelings and moods. His tapestry whose work continued alongside Pop art wit is like a literary diary; created of patterns and that of Kienholz, Segal and Jim Kline. Whs colours set against light areas, it reveals the this meant was that Pop Art was still a hig artist at grips with his materials. For his first art form (though it has come under cor tapestries, which he calls rectilinear (lumi­ siderable fire from the "high-art critics' nous rectangles and squares marked with Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg). But Po yellow and black), he used preparatory sket­ more than any other movement was also a ches. Today his work is a spontaneous out­ instant turn on for non-art masses. It is thi burst of colours. "All the colours appear last fact that is behind the development o there: as I live alone, I need to live with Quebec Pop art. colour." Colour appears everywhere on the The "Refus global" was the beginning o fifty foot square surface. "I was getting lonely high art in Quebec. Remembering Bordua for colour." and his friends' interest in complete socia After his rectilinear period, Daudelin took revolution, this seems surprising. This is les a trip to Greece. A year later, he had com­ so when one realizes that though they wen pleted only one tapestry, using beiges, whites, basing their feelings on their views of Quebei browns, and few bright colours. On his return QUEBEC POP society of the 40's, their answers were eclectii to Quebec, he hesitated, remained unproduc­ and imported. The dichotomy of the Quebe tive, went to Morocco and quickly returned By Michael WHITE art situation, in which artists were filled witl home, finding a lodging on Colonial Street in a need to communicate with the people ant Montreal. Then there came a whole series of Pop-Quebec or Quebec-Pop is the name of an the fact that they were working with importet exhibition that opened in March at the Saidye tapestries in which shades of white create Bronfman Art Centre in Montreal. The show is ideas (and still are in many cases) has mean oppositions and harmonies; he plunged into centred around the works of Pierre Ayot, Gilles a serious dilemma for Quebec art or mon Boisvert, Michel Fortier and Marc Nadeau, Mont­ uninterrupted production. "When I work, I real artists in their early 30s whose work to a specifically art in Quebec. For some it hai work very hard, without a break. Then I need greater or less degree have the qualities that fit meant going whole hog for "international art" them into the idea of Quebec Pop art. The show This has been the criticism of Montreal': to get away again, far away. Or else I change also tries to evoke the qualities of the influences my lodgings. I always have lodgings where and parallel movements that have helped create "Plasticiens" levelled most virulently by Sur Quebec Pop: New York Pop Art, British Pop Art, realist playwright, the late Claude Gauvreau the rent is not very high. I remain freer to and the objects and activities of the Quebec do what I want. My moves — they are always movements of the 1960 s, "Ti-Pop" and what I at Guido Molinari in the brochure of thi have called "activist art". This is a preliminary Vaillancourt, Péloquin, Cornellier event "Li numerous — always mark a change in periods statement rather than an exhaustive study because for me. Formerly, I often changed jobs. Now, the show itself, which was in preparation at the Califore", a latter day Surrealist happening I always remain faithful to tapestry. I satisfy time of this writing, is part of the study; in fact Molinari had previously accepted nominatioi Quebec-Pop is a proposal. to the anachronistic Canadian Academy. my restlessness by the moves and the trips." A Pop Person is Pop. A Pop artist cannot really The large tapestries are commissioned or be Pop in his art because he becomes conscious of Pop and therefore is no longer pop. What This was in 1966. the result of a bursary. Like the one he is Pop Art does is to affirm Pop in life. Quebec Pop Positive popular art had been developint currently making. The others are the size of art affirms Pop in Quebec lite. from at least 1959. This year was importan paintings. "After all, I must be able to sell because it was the beginning of the Quebei them". Basically Pop art is a form of realism. It quiet revolution era. For young artists the Yes, to sell them to make an old dream begins with observation of phenomena of our most important development was the creatior come true. He sees his studio set up in the technological urban world and distils the evo­ of a well endowed Ministry of Cultural Affairs country, a large studio where he could have cative images from this world. in 1961 with its greatly increased support te several workers with him. To continue creating Pop is basically a positive realism. The the Provincial fine arts schools in Montrea his own tapestries. But also to work from the positiveness comes from an overriding sense and Quebec. What it meant was that younç preparatory sketches of other painters. "What of freedom. This is Pop's big difference to artists could attend the provincial schoo frightens me about this undertaking is con­ Surrealism and Expressionist Realism which almost free. tinually having to meet people to establish begin with a sense of predetermination and The first group of young artists to begir contacts. Working in the studio excites me, of stress, based in political, psychological or to play with popular ideas included Marc but knocking on doors does not." Until now, technological diminishing of man's freedom Nadeau, Michel Fortier and worked at the Fernand Daudelin has been satisfied with a to live. How the sexual imagery content of apartment studio of Louis Forest. Pop foi simple and austere life. "I am a loner. To a hot dog limits my personal freedom is the this group included jazz, the comic strip, the launch myself in this venture that I know I point. The same kind of thinking goes into automobile and generally a light and imagina can handle, I would need some kind of agent the U.S. car and the IBM computer, the super­ tive view of life, nationalist politics and anti who understands what I am doing and espe­ market, the blonde and the movie themes of clericalism. cially what I want to do." North American life. The one overriding qua­ But more important for the deepening o' With a simple crochet like technique, Dau­ lity of American life is its relative freedom drawing and cartooning was the arrival at the delin has discovered an astonishing range of of choice compared to Europe. graphics studio of L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts o possibilities, pictorial effects, different reliefs, The problems of American life begin in the Albert Dumouchel. Dumouchel brought dis superimposed layers, as in painting. exercise of freedom and of the potential power cipline, technique and a deep involvement ir Born in Granby, this man, Fernand Daude­ that freedom gives. The interesting thing is liberating the arts from academic approaches lin, who briefly managed — when they were that Pop Art is aware of this power and the More important was his own personal search in fashion — a boîte à chansons. Baratin, is many overt and covert forms it takes. Speed, for meaningful new images and his accept an artist of promise. In 1965, he obtained the power, violence and materialism are part of ance of anyone who wanted to join him ir first prize in the Quebec art competition for the excitement of the Pop attitude to life. that search as an equal. applied arts with a tapestry he had called Pop is basically urban art. This presents a Dumouchel, with his experience in Paris Bête sous la neige (Creature under the snow). problem when one looks at Quebec with its at the Stanley Hayter Studio and elsewhere I have not yet met anyone that is unmoved apparently rural tradition. The fact that Quebec provided what New York's Pop artists goi by the woolen voyages of Fernand Daudelin. Pop is mainly confined to metropolitan Mont­ from the Abstract expressionist school, the (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) real is part of the answer, but a second fact proto-pop artists and from the critical interesi 88 of the New York art scene. This was both caused more populist critics like Claude Jas­ technical and ideological discipline. min to dismiss it as a "petit-bourgeois thing", All but one of Quebec's artists interested as he did in a conversation with me. Jasmin in Pop work at one time or another passed and fellow Montreal critic Yves Robillard through Dumouchel's Beaux-Arts studio. Pierre prefer a more activist and more political, but Ayot studied lithography and finally taught considerably less aesthetic kind of art. under Dumouchel before opening his own Running parallel to Quebec-Pop; "activist Studio 12 on Montreal's Marie-Anne Street. art" is another intentionally democratic form The energetic Richard Lacroix, though never of art that springs directly from Borduas. Its a Pop artist was another of Dumouchel's course included the semi-political demon­ most important students. His Atelier Libre was strations of the sixties. Ti-Pop of the mid- the meeting place for most of the younger sixties was a strongly ironic and satiric re­ ARCHAMBAULT: Quebec Pop people from its beginning in velation of the nature of popular life in SERENE AND MONUMENTAL 1964. Here Michel Fortier and Marc Nadeau Quebec. It drew in some of the Quebec Pop worked before and after Expo 1967. Here also artists, from time to time. According to art By Guy ROBERT one of the enigmatic figures of Quebec Pop historian Marcel Saint-Pierre, "Ti-Pop est un André Montpetit, who continues to work with esprit par lequel on magnifie certains signes Born in 1915, Louis Archambault received a the comic strip motif, carried out several ou symboles de notre aliénation collective et bachelor of arts degree in 1936, and a diploma printings. And Ronald Perrault began his first nationale"121. Unlike Quebec Pop this feeling in ceramics from the Montreal School of Fine Arts in 1939. In 1948 this discreet man drew experiments with silk-screen that were to have of alienation was expressed in many media: attention for the first time when he won the first an important impact in the development of in writing, Pierre Maheu in the review Parti prize for sculpture in the Quebec art contest. In 1953, he obtained a bursary to do his own work Quebec Pop. Pris, the theatre as well as the multi media in France. In 1958 one of his large compositions "événements", modelled in part on the New was chosen to decorate the Canadian pavilion at The adoption of silk-screen process by the Brussels International exhibition. In 1968. he young Quebec artists was one of the most York "Happening", which was America's ac­ was awarded the medal of the Order of Canada. tivist movement, that finally dissolved into Since 1940, Louis Archambault has been teaching, important factors in the creation of Quebec first ceramics, then since 1949 sculpture at the Pop art. Serigraphy was itself a popular rather avant garde theatre, actual demonstrations Montreal Fine Arts School. Better known outside and the apathy of object rather than action of Quebec perhaps, he has specialized in monu­ than an artistic medium. The adoption of it, mental sculpture in a way, and especially in with its simple use of photographic repro­ conscious public. sculpture integrated in architecture, warmly wel­ comed by English Canada. A great retrospective duction processes and with its emphasis on A central figure of "activist art" was Mont­ exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in mechanical graphic art processes, was taking real sculptor and artist Serge Lemoyne. In a Montreal in the fall of 1972 will finally permit the public to become better acquainted with the place in England and America about the same richer, happier time this man would probably extensive production of the artist, as patient as time. have made a good Pop artist. Instead Lemoyne he is modest. It also marked the beginning of the linking has been involved in popular art that has had of graphic art and the poster. Michel Fortier more than its share of anxiety and alienation. The sculptural language of Louis Archam­ and serigraphist Ronald Perrault set up per­ Lemoyne, with Claude Péloquin and others bault can be grouped into three major stages haps the first screen printing art studio in have continued through the sixties to repeat with ill-defined limits. Ceramics first inspired 1966. the kind of iconoclastic "happenings" and in him forms that were elegant, imaginative, 1966 was the year when American and poetic gestures that echo the "Refus global". impregnated with a poetry that judiciously British Pop influence arrived in Montreal. In A newer movement, centring around the re­ blended humour and joie de vivre, in a this year, probably helped by the preparations organized Ecole des Beaux-Arts, taken over by remarkable economy of plastic means; this is for Expo, Francois Dallégret set up his Labo the Ministry of Education after a series of the period of Dames-lunes (moon ladies) and Gallery above the elaborate discotheque and student demonstrations and integrated into the the great steel Oiseau (Bird). Soon a few drug store that he designed and Robert Roussil new University of Quebec, has taken a more themes appear, like those of maternity, the embellished with his huge welded steel struc­ analytic and didactic form of happening-envi­ couple, the family; in 1954, Un jeune couple ture on Mountain St. in Montreal. The little ronment, using pop and activist ideas and (a young couple) condenses the main pre­ gallery of the Le Drug complex showed prints impact statements. These Saint-Pierre feels occupations of the second stage, by showing of Warhol, Lichtenstein and other Pop artists are the beginnings of a native Quebec art with a roughness of the surfaces in the bronze and and the first multiple sculptures to come to roots in the "Automatisme" of Borduas. The an aggressivity of lines which will be found Canada. Dallégret himself, more designer than basis of Saint-Pierre's belief, and of others again in the great sun birds of Place des artist, was involved in devising objects and involved in developing activist art in Quebec Arts, in Montreal. But at the same, or at ideas for a Pop world including his series of is that socio-political involvement is the pur­ almost the same time, the procession of the cars, more Camp than Pop in their traditional- pose of art today'31. six personages for the Ottawa airport, whose ness and decorativeness. This was also the Quebec Pop exists on a different basis, typology is clearly archetypal, combines their great year for posters in Montreal, among both as art and as an expression of an attitude variations on the inexhaustible theme of man them the work of Vittorio Fiorrucci, whose to life. The weakness of the art scene in and woman, with the rough modulations of clean, bold colors were definitely Pop but Montreal and its lack of a real media diffusion surfaces which present an astonishing con­ whose imagery was not. system is the reason that Quebec Pop has trast in relation to the steel bird with very Colour is one of the main elements of Pop. remained a timid parody of its robust Amer­ schematized forms which accompanies them. Its function is to arouse attention and emotion. ican father, or at least big Uncle. It works not unlike the mating plumage of The proof of this is in the work of Robert "/ was born in 1968" certain birds. Because of this function it is Charlebois, perhaps the most important Pop The counter-points which developed during often symbolic. Claes Oldenburg realized this artist of Quebec who unlike the plastic artists twenty years in the work of Louis Archam­ when he was working on his early "Store" has been able to make use of the popular bault, between the two sculptural fields of the piece and decided that he would limit his media to create the same kind of impact that textured and aggressive forms, and the refined palette to the range of colors manufactured American Pop has created around the world. and calm forms, are remarkably reconciled in in enamel paint by one company. Quebec Quebec Pop exists. It is realist and it is Personnages which was displayed on a ter­ Popists have been more influenced by intui­ democratic. It has the possibility of being one race of the Canadian Pavilion at Expo '67. tive rather than idealogical choices of Pop of the forms of bringing sensibility to many On one hand, these personages propose an colours, giving their work a generally sweeter people. It is based in the richest elements of at once rich and compact synthesis of all the look. Quebec, its own modern, north-americanized elements that Archambault had integrated into Quebec Pop has been mainly confined to popular life and its American European artistic his sculpture up to that point; on the other painting and serigraphy. Even today when dialogue and it can build from there. hand, we see in it the affirmation of a set there is considerable interest in plastic, the purpose of simplification, or refinement, which final goal of Quebec art, hanging on the wall "' Marcel Rioux, Notes sur le développement intensifies the archetypal dimension and re­ of a middle class home or apartment, controls socio-culturel du Canada français — From La duces the degree of aggressivity working in the objects of Quebec Pop in a way that New Société Canadienne française, Montréal, Édi­ the texture. York artists were able to break out of. This tions Hurtubise HMH Ltée, 1971, p. 177. The year 1968 was spent in a reflection middle class orientation is one of its serious 121 Marcel Saint-Pierre, A Quebec Art Scenic and a research on plastic language. Instead limitations. Tour. Unpublished article, p. 26. University of exploiting a repertory that was already It is the optimism and the relative softness of Quebec. producing a stylistic identification, after twenty I3) of the works of Quebec Pop, so far, that has Op. cit., p. 65. years of work, the sculptor returned to sour- So ces, made a clean breast of his acquired skill human figures), or more simply to the theme remove the misunderstandings between sculp and re-examined the basics of sculptural lan­ of sculpted columns, which also attracted ture and industry, and the work entitlet guage. This is what he meant when he told sculptors like Brancusi: we shall return to Modulation No 1 is the result. Created b' us recently: "I was born in 1968". this. Another path of thematic filiation is chance, this work was improvised in reply ti Indeed, the forms that he has been develop­ read more simply between the tradition of an invitation to participate in an exhibition ii ing since then, in the proliferation of models birds in Archambault's work and La Flèche Legnano, in Italy, in 1969. The sculpto that transform the tables of his studio into (The Arrow) whose wood prototype was fi­ thought the model for a large work suitec an eloquent laboratory, as well as in the nished during the summer of 1971. This the invitation well, but it would have takei monumental affirmation of some new works, Flèche could also have been called thrust, half a year to produce it according to the would lead us to consider the third stage that or bird or airplane, so broad is its thematic usual methods, and no airplane would have these forms inaugurate as being very distinct opening; it is this very scope that permits us been able to take it on board in one piece from the two preceeding stages. And yet, to refer to archetypal sources without ever the idea for a take apart piece came during continuity seems to prevail, a subtle, profound having to exaggerate the relationship. About a weekend and it was possible to product continuity, whose meaning and rejuvenation is the birds, the sculptor will declare sponta­ the three great pyramids and ship them ir shown to us by Le second couple hiératique neously: "I clearly have the impression of twelve identical plates in ordinary sized crates (The second hieratic couple) of 1970. Related having once again fallen into their clutchesl they were then reassembled in Italy, ther to the Jeune couple of 1954 or even the These birds have been fouling me up for a taken apart and returned to Montreal. Personnages of 1967, the Second couple hié­ long time. The couple suits me very well; This Modulation No 1, limited for the timi ratique of 1970 stand out clearly in the rigor but poultry, flying things, and especially birds, being to three parts, could be proliferatec of its profiles, in the austerity of its surfaces, it just isn't rightl I thought I had rid myself and thus it constitutes an important linguistic and more in its hieratic presence; it is hiera­ of them, but no: they come back! Perhaps articulation in the sculptural expression o tic in its solemnity, its monumentality, and this Flèche is a flying machine, more than a Archambault. There is a great possibility fo also its formality, the two columns seem to bird? In any case it wants to get off the plastic exploration, but other ideas attrac become poles. Here the man and the woman ground, it reaches up, but I am not saying the sculptor who, incidentally, underlines the are no longer the astute results of a slow it is a bird." fascination that numbers exert on him, espe simplification effected on human psychological Indeed it reaches up in spite of its sixty cially odd numbers, apart from the couple. reactions — and to make its emergence, its foot size! The plastic purpose is established Les Neuf colonnes (The Nine Columns appearance, clear (the term "epiphany" would in the horizontal order, but in a dynamic, no constitute another area of fertile research be more suitable to the preceeding term of longer static horizonality, in a horizonality first, an impression of reassuring stability hieratic) we can hardly avoid delving into the whose tension consists in breaking away and inertia emerges from this group of mas mysterious realm of archetypes. from the inertia of the mass, in escaping, in sive columns (which leads us back to thi Let us put the question to the sculptor. He flying away. All of the plastic language of "pillars of the universe", to the atlantes does not read much, but his wife, on the Archambault to this point gave privilege to caryatids of ancient Greece); but a dynamiza other hand, reads a great deal, and enjoys the a vertical attitude favourable to a dynamic tion of the series of columns is soon revealec work of Jung whose fertile research into the reading of the given sculpture, but here, the by the interplay of the numerous possibli great layers of the collective unconscious and horizontal mass of La Flèche proposes a still relationships between the elements, whicl archetypal thought are familiar to us. The stronger power for flight. can be combined according to inexhaustible Archambaults often converse about these sub­ Considering the recent works we under­ series; it is moreover possible to facilitate jects which are, however, for the sculptor stand better why the artist says he does not this combination by setting up columns 01 only sources of unexpected confirmation and live in a Montreal suburb, but in America; spheres, or by furnishing them with mechani not sources of information or inspiration. In and if the tall hedge of his garden conceals cal mobility; thus, the public could intervene sum, it is after having created his works that neighbouring houses from him, they invite and move these mastodons about by pushine, Archambault learns their frequent archetypal him on the other hand to have a feeling for a button ... A new Baudelairean forest woulc foundation, his plastic approach quite freely the universe; he has already said he felt in appear, which would give these universal anc unfolding on a scale that has nothing in com­ some way "expatriated" from his own coun­ trans-historical images an appreciable rejuve mon with that of psychoanalysis or the try, and he is careful not to grow smaller nation, a new communicative actuality. The re symbolic. corresponding to surrounding pettiness; in­ cent sculptural language of Louis Archambaul With great detachment, Louis Archambault stead of closing himself in cocoon-like, the is based on the sign, and the thematic or arche will speak of his "instinctive searchings" and sculptor tries to take in as much as he can typal reading that can be made of it doe: the "security-giving verifications" that they of the whole human heritage and the present not in any way distract him from his research find, after the fact, in the relationships that day happenings in terms of the dynamic and "My main concern was to draw away frorr are proposed to him. Considering Le second positive things they have to offer; he squarely the archetypal context; when I was asked te couple hiératique, he will say that it is cer­ considers the present time, and affirms it, create a work or present a project, I had the tainly not a self portraitl And he will add that without yielding to the solicitations of fashion, impression of returning to a void every time the male personage, for example, was done to the facilities of a chaos that indifferently and having to invent a new writing and ever about ten times over before arriving at this welcomes the worst turpitudes and the most a whole craft . . . Since 1968, I feel somehow astonishing equilibrium; the group of these salutary contestations. settled into a serenity that I had never knowt two standing forms suggests another harmony before. The elements of my new language are all here, around me, in my studio, anc between the conscious and the unconscious, A communicative serenity they can be immediately involved in the between logic and intuition, or between ani­ The theme that Archambault explores in solution of such and such a project, of suet mus and anima as Claudel said. his recent works seems to us of a masterful and such a work ..." simplicity and follows a process of refine­ A thematic continuity ment. His intuitions are immediately trans­ Louis Archambault has never been a veri In spite of the sculptor's affirmation that he lated into small volumes of paper, then nervous person, of course, but often we fel was "born in 1968", we are struck more by examined in enlargements made of cardboard he used to be tense behind his apparen the continuity which emerges from a reading forms pasted together; already, the work of stolidness; the mask of absolute contro of all of the work sculpted by Archambault. exploration is of such an engineer-like pre­ sometimes cracked. For two years, Archam Le second couple hiératique becomes pivotal cision that beginning with the four foot model bault has been completely at ease with his if we wish; but to the theme of the couple, for La Flèche, the sculptor was able to provide new serenity. Where does it come fromi which already includes that of maternity, the his carpenter with instructions that permitted "From age", he replies with a smile tha family, the community, we may still relate by him to make the wood prototype sixty feet contradicts the passing of the years. He will symbolic affinity the theme of the bridge long, with only imperceptible variations. however, confess he is hypersensitive tc (which unites two opposite banks, become This precision emphasizes the meaning of noise, to all that is going on around him ir complementary), or the theme of the "pyra­ the recent work of Louis Archambault. And the daily world; but in his creative approach midal chain" which we shall find again a bit why would the poet not be able to perfectly he remains serene, imperturbable. further on. measure the flow of his speech? There is no And no doubt his new work draws wisdorr The fact that the two poles of the Le contradiction at all between the engineer from this, which makes it in fact a monu second couple hiératique are of equal height, and the architect; there is only the ability or mental affirmation, on the scale of America topped by a plane surface, relates the work the inability to create beautiful forms. Thus invested with a sense of space, a rare thine, also to the theme of the atlantes-caryatids Louis Archambault put to very good use the in the examples of the work of today. (TR: here, supporting columns in form of male grant of the Department of Education, to (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson 90 challenge which he does not simply accept, the different "views" which it offers, all as, in a sense, he imposes it on himself, is independent: a series of aspects on the whole to include the element of surprise as far as centrifugal (hence the advantage of an abso­ possible. If the sculpture is placed obviously, lutely non-figurative art which allows greater on the top of a hill, for example, everyone liberty for associations of this kind). will see it, become accustomed to it, but Each separate "view" enjoys a privileged nobody will react to it as a work of art. If, relationship with the space it looks onto. on the contrary, it is situated in the hollow Kosso's sculpture at London refers first of all of a hill, those arriving at the top will have to two elements: earth and air. It is from the surprise of discovering it. At the same these elements that the sculpture's composi­ time, it is desirable that the sculpture should tion derives: the mound is, of course, of change in appearance as the viewers ap­ earth; it is covered by a lawn and in this way proach: a variation on the answer to the same connects with the space around where grass problem. has been sown, only more freely. The mound Even at London (Ontario), where Kosso's then, both by its composition (packed earth) latest sculpture stands (incontestably, one of and by its covering, is a concentration of the his most accomplished works), the flat site terrestial element. would seem to preclude any effect of surprise, The piece of wood, on the other hand, and yet, such an effect is achieved. In fact, as points to the sky, to the open, one might say, Kosso explains, the car drivers on their way as Kosso has deliberately not directed it to the airport take in the sculpture's strange towards the buildings of Fanshawe College. Not that there is any break between the ter­ KOSSO ELOUL: form only after a certain time-lag and then, restial, chthonian element and the element NOW! surprised, look after having seen it. What is important here is that, having created a of air, but a natural transition thanks to the sculpture which does not proclaim itself as ramp, a launching-ramp, and to the gravel- By Jean-Loup BOURGET such, with none of the conventions which path, a pier ... a pier whose angle with the An art intruding into space, sculpture can point to the artefact, Kosso does succeed in horizontal ground is not contradicted, but be bewildering, for its principles are less drawing our attention to the work. We regis­ opened wider by the wooden blade. On the secure than those of painting. Painting, being ter it as a work of art, with the freshness of December day when we visited this sculp­ two-dimensional, plays on the illusion of a a look which is at first disbelieving. Thus we ture, it stood out against a background of third dimension, it establishes a space of its are called on to reeducate our numbed a cloud-covered stormy sky, and in the wind own, which is separated from "real" space sensitivity. which swept over the plain, it swayed gently by its geometric format, if not by a gilt frame. A further characteristic of traditional sculp­ back and forth. It implies the presence of a spectator who ture, especially if it is displayed in a gallery, If earth and sky are the chief elements faces the work, and who, at any rate, is the is that, unless it is a bas-relief, it establishes involved here, water and fire are in no way bearer of a third dimension which is psycho­ a distance between itself and the viewer, lacking. A great variety of sea-metaphors logical (he gives the picture a "meaning") as somewhat similar to that created by a picture. come spontaneously to mind. The blade is well as spatial. André Pieyre de Mandiargues compared a made of the plywood used for boats, the Sculpture is not only three-dimensional, it statue to a snake which mesmerizes and side-view has the form of an oar, the path is situated in a space which is simultaneously around which the viewer circles at a respect­ is a jetty which leads to the "open" spaces imaginary and real, since it is also the space ful distance. Kosso's work however, foils of the air, as do others to those of the sea. in which we move. Consequently, it is signi­ this expectation, at least in part, since in his The mound with the wooden blade swaying in ficant that the majority of Kosso's sculptures case one may find oneself surrounded by the the wind is reminiscent of a rigged ship should take on geometric shapes, apparently sculpture itself. It is the work rather than the sailing on the sea of the plain. One is also simple and pure, although in reality frequently public which becomes environment. Witness reminded of a bowsprit. Photographs of the subtle, and that they should seem to defy the twin slanting parallelepipeds at Greenwin sculpture, taken during its construction in gravity. These two characteristics reinforce Place (141 Davisville Avenue, Toronto). Walk­ October, 1971, show a frame similar to a our impression of dealing with an autonomous ing around them, one can see that the steel ship's bare ribbing. Finally, the concrete space system. On the façade of JDS Invest­ surface directly opposite one is always matt weight buried in the mound which keeps the ments (llll Finch Avenue West, Toronto), a and does not, therefore, include the observer wooden blade in place changes the sculpture parallelepiped juts out at an angle of 45° in a mirror-relationship as does painting. At into an iceberg whose continued mass we with the vertical and is suspended from the the same time, the lateral surface reflects the can sense under the water-line. house-front by the smallest of its narrow surrounding apartment-blocks. Consequently, As for fire, its presence is implicit through edges. Outside Dunkelman Gallery (Prince the viewer is, as it were, enclosed by the other metaphors associated with the air, a Arthur Avenue, Toronto), a trapezohedron sculpture, the apartment-blocks serve as a golden arrow, a rising flame. It will be remem­ seems to have come to a miraculous halt on backdrop and become an implicit projection bered that Kosso is the creator of sculptures the slippery incline of a second trapezohe­ of the sculpture. entitled "The Eternal Flame" (Jerusalem), or dron. Inside the gallery, some small-scale Moreover, Kosso's "monumental" and "en­ "Silent Thunder" (Palm Beach). The vivid models of Kosso's sculptures can be seen. vironmental" sculptures, in addition to their yellow in which the wooden blade and the These give an idea of the paradoxical geo­ inherent element of surprise, offer the advan­ path's border are painted is a "man-made" metry of the works, if not, of course, of the tages of a great variety of vistas. This is colour, "not natural", as Kosso says, the qualitatively different effect which their monu­ particularly true of the London work. Firstly, colour of a signal which cuts across the other mental proportions produce in an open-air we are in fact invited to climb the work, if elements like a Promethean fire. When snow environment. not to enter it, as a path of white gravel, like covers the plain, the sculpture "emerges" like Moreover, inasmuch as sculpture is a part that in a Japanese garden, leads unto the a great human body. of our daily space, we often pay little atten­ mound. Also, the same piece of wood can be Indeed, one of the fundamental aspects tion to it as we are mentally not prepared to seen in, at the least, three totally different of this open-air sculpture is that it follows find a "work of art" in the street. This state­ ways, according to the viewer's position. Seen the rhythms of the seasons. Significantly, it ment is easy to verify. Many people will admit slant-wise, it looks like a kind of oar, narrow is entitled "Now", and like the gnomon of a to never having noticed a particular sculpture, at the base where it comes out of the earth, gigantic sun-dial, it tells none but the passing placed in front of the very building which they and gradually widening. On the other hand, hour. The reasons for choosing wood and enter every day. Now, Kosso, as it happens, from the front it resembles an arrow, wider gravel, rather than steel and concrete, are not only has to solve this problem like any at the base and ending in a sharp point. A probably financial. It was easier for Fanshawe other sculptor, but he does not look for a third view is that of the whole, where the College to allot a small annual budget for loop-hole, being, as he told me, indifferent to shape of the wooden blade is less important its upkeep rather than to pay a much greater artefacts which are buried in drawers or hid­ than its relation to the mound from which it initial sum; but the result is that the sculpture, den in private homes. For him, any art, but soars. We have here a series of metamor­ needing partial renovation from year to year, particularly sculpture, is a social experience phoses, since it is always possible to imagine will all the more resemble a living organism which should take place in a public square further intermediate stages, each sufficient and will live up to its title and its function and contribute to the city's everyday life. unto itself. The piece of sculpture appears as more fully. environment in as far as it is the sum of Kosso's answer to this new challenge, a (Translation by Eithne Bourget)

91 of "The Watcher" and "Visitors Are Invited Forrestall's compositions are as tangibh to Register" are two church interiors in Nova as Colville's are cerebral. Notwithstandini TOM FORRESTALL Scotia, the former being 'St. Edward's Church', the volumetric compression of the figure ane Clementsport (fig. 3) and the latter, 'Church the slightly perplexing perspective due to I By Ian G. LUMSDEN of the Covenanters', Grand'Pré, both of which lack of foreshortening, the young boy witl were built in 1790. the binoculars in "The Watcher" (Forrestall': From 1954 to 1958, Tom Forrestall was a "Visitors Are Invited to Register" is con­ eldest son, William) is very much of thi Fine Arts student at Mount Allison University tained within a traditional rectangular-shaped physical world in contrast to the fugitive younj in Sackville, New Brunswick. Among his panel. Forrestall has arranged his compo­ man in Colville's composition. The very fac teachers was Alex Colville. an official Cana­ sition of "The Watcher" in a modified Greek- that one is actively doing while the other i: dian war artist, who had received his teach­ cross-shaped panel with the arms of the quietly reflecting is significant of a majo ing appointment at Mount Allison in 1946 cross rounded off to form a series of scallops, difference in attitude between pupil ane shortly after his return from Europe. somewhat akin to a four-leaf clover. teacher. Colville, a graduate of Mount Allison him­ The fortuitous selection of the basic Greek Forrestall, a Maritimer by birth, is firmh self, was working in a realist style in the late cross-shape has an obvious, if unconscious, rooted in the soil and without any intellectua 1940's toward what was to become popular­ symbolic relationship to the subject. For­ pretensions. One would never find that preg ly known, albeit somewhat misleadingly, as restall's multi-shaped panels generally pre­ nant and graphically powerful opposition o "magic realism". Colville entered his present cede the subjects of the paintings that will locomotive and black horse in Forrestall': mature style in 1950 when he began to work be contained therein. Often the very shape imagery. His iconography consists of an as consistently in tempera in a manner more be­ of a panel will germinate a painting. For­ semblage of images which produce a quasi holden to the late 19th century French "poin­ restall's prime concern is to succintly arrange documentary evocation of times past in hi: tilliste" idiom of Seurat and Signac than the his composition within a predetermined shape own locale. There is an overwhelming sensi publicly-touted Thoreauesque school of An­ rather than any regard for the psychology of of the passage of time in his work. Some o drew Wyeth. what a shape connotes in relation to the his most successful paintings such as "Thei Colville's spiritual conviction to this newly subject of his work. Memory" (fig. 2) are devoid of human lifi evolved style manifested itself in more ways The shape of this panel not only symbol­ but consist of objects which indicate a humai than the production of carefully-realized, slight­ ically reinforces the subject but visually reiter­ presence sometime in the past. ly surreal paintings. Colville has an added ates the action of the figure in the painting The element of selection is as important te legacy in the body of a school of painters who is focusing in upon an unseen person Forrestall as it is to Colville. It is the select after his own manner, most of whom were or object. The viewer of the painting is afford­ ivity and the highly refined renderings o students of his sometime in the 1950's and ed an almost telescopic close-up of the young those selected objects which elevate thei early 1960's. boy with the binoculars thereby strengthening work above the level of mere photographii Christopher Pratt, D. P. Brown and Tom our appreciation of the boy's experience. realism. The New England rural philosophe Forrestall are all exponents of the "Colville Forrestall has snugly arranged his compo­ and poet, Robert Frost, states: There are tw< style" although their individual differences sition within the chosen shape. By placing types of realist. There is the one who offers from one another are almost as great as those the romanesque-style window of the church in a good deal of dirt with his potato to shov from their teacher. What is significant is that the upper arm of the cross, he is estab­ that it is a real potato. And there is the oni their point of departure is the same. lishing a type of symmetry with the lines of who is satisfied with the potato brushed clean Pratt and Brown adopted this "super-realist" the balcony parapet, and the floor boards I am inclined to be the second kind. To me technique while still at Mount Allison. For converging on a distant vanishing point. This the thing that art does for life is to clean it Forrestall there was an incubation period of symmetry is offset by the wainscotting run­ to strip it to form.' Forrestall tends to thi almost five years as his work at the time of ning off the right hand side of the panel; second category as well. his graduation was strongly expressionistic however, this potential imbalance is amelior­ The selective approach is best reflected ii somewhat resembling Graham Sutherland's ated by the scallop shape of the right wing Forrestall's water-colours in which he treat: organic paintings of that time. of the cross which reintroduces the eye into the object or objects of principal importanci Forrestall's earliest realist works of 1962 the painting. in a fully three dimensional manner and thi and 1963 were executed in oil and were laid Colville has established a complex network remainder of the composition is worked ii out in flat, clearly-defined areas of a single of intersecting verticals and horizontals, all a loose, precursory fashion. This method o colour, unrelieved by shading or the intri­ part of the interior structure of the church in heightening the interest of the key element! cate brushwork cross-hatchings evidenced in "Visitors Are Invited to Register". He has of the water-colour study is often noticeabl' the egg-tempera medium to which he later 'framed' his composition with the black cur­ absent in the final temperas which are un switched. tain on the left and the pulpit stair rail and relieved due to the same attention to detai It is in their brushwork that one finds the diagonal support beam in the balcony on the throughout. The laborious process of applyinj first of the many points of departure between right. A little to the left of centre the com­ the tempera leads to a certain hardness anc Forrestall and Colville. Forrestall applies the position is completely bisected by one of the flatness as well. tempera in quite a loose and vigorous manner, supporting columns in the church. Colville reduces his compositions to a few an indulgence the medium permits due to its This maze of pews, beams, railings and clearly conceived objects through the elimin translucent nature. In effect, Forrestall lays windows does not become jarring because of ation of extraneous detail. It is the purgatior down one web of colour over another allowing the monochromatic, mottled treatment em­ of all irregularities in Colville's compositions underneath layers to radiate through creating ployed in applying the tempera. The almost which impart them with their surreal quality quite a lively, vibrant quality. Colville's method stippled application of greys and blues imparts Every dot or stroke of colour is important. of putting the tempera pigment on panel is the wood of the church with a soft velvety Regardless of the philosophical and tech more deliberate and calculated. In the manner patina indicative of its age. The harshness of nical discrepancies in the work of Forrestal of the pointillistes, Colville applies uniform the solidly-treated black curtain and white and Colville, both artists are motivated by i dots or small strokes of colour all worked in window panes stands in marked contrast to rejection of the materialism and mechanizatior the same direction to mould the contours of the muted interior. of this technological age. It is this disquie the objects in his compositions and hence The light in Colville's work differs greatly that propels them to uphold the simple plea create the almost tactile volumetric quality of from that in Forrestall's. A cold, surreal Can­ sures of country life and people. Those objects his figures. The resultant effects of these two adian light bleaches all the objects in a Col­ which animate their paintings embody the quite divergent techniques appear in Forrest­ ville composition. It is largely this quality of values of the pastoral tradition. all's "The Watcher" (1970) (fig. 4) and light which endows Colville's work with a Colville's "Visitors Are Invited to Register" feeling of other worldliness. This atmosphere ' Untermeyer, Louis, Come In and Other Poem: (1954) (fig. 1). is enhanced by the vapid almost spectral real­ by Robert Frost, Henry Holt and Company Inc., 1943, p. 33. Forrestall and Colville now enjoy very si­ isation of the pensive figure combined with milar life styles. Both devote themselves to the brilliant white void outside the church painting entirely (Colville resigned his post windows. Forrestall's light is warm and natur­ as professor in 1963), Forrestall living and alistic, allowing shadows to exist which en­ painting in Fredericton, N.B., in the winter hance the rich register of mellow greens, months and Colville in Sackville. Both main­ browns and yellows that illuminate the picture tain homes in Nova Scotia as well, where plane. These warm, earthy tones imbue his they spend most of the summer. The subjects work with its underlying romanticism.

92 been an exhibition of new painting in January, one of the first shows at the new Winnipeg Art Gallery, and one of water-colours at Gal­ lery III at the University of Manitoba in March. The water-colour exhibition was also seen at the Edmonton Art Gallery and Simon Fraser University. Last fall Ken had shows at Mont­ THE SYSTEMS AESTHETIC: real's Galerie Godard Lefort and in Toronto A HOAX OR SERIOUS MATTER? at the Dunkelman Gallery. Ken's new style is a result of a one-year By Henry LEHMANN sabatical leave during 1970 and 1971 that gave him time to reflect on the direction that • THE ARTIST • A DOUBLE AGENT • his painting was taking, as well as giving him We bear witness to the emergence of a time to develop new techniques. He has re­ new art. This new art falls under a category placed the brush and roller with the spray appropriately known as the systems aesthetic. gun, which he uses at time to cover large At first glance the coming together of these areas and at other times as one would a two words produces a terribly awkward mar­ pencil. Lochhead staples his unprimed canvas riage. The myriads of associations attached directly to the floor of his studio and works to each of them incite a latent hostility towards around it in the style somewhat reminiscent their combination. Systems often evoke wholly of Jackson Pollock. unaesthetic images of dehumanizing technolo­ The paintings and drawings are more at­ gical process. The ominous portent emanating mospheric than one is used to seeing in Ken's from the apparent incompatibility of these two work and there is a definite move away from words crystalizes in the fear that the artist the Hard Edge tendencies of the past. They whom we expect to play the role of free are more painterly than post-painterly. Ken prophet has succumbed — that in fact he has admits a debt to the American painter Jules become a double agent betraying what we Olitski, but it is more in spirit than in content have left of the human, while pretending to for the physical resemblance is slight. If any subvert or neutralize the dehumanizing trend parallels are to be drawn it would have to in our society. be with oriental painting as he is not inter­ LOCHHEAD AND HIS SPRAY GUN ested in holding or maintaining the surface • PHOTOGRAPHS • DIAGRAMS • of the canvas as so many of the painters of • TAPE-RECORDERS • the Greenberg School are or were, but he Art of the system aesthetic is characterized By Virgil G. HAMMOCK gives the impression of deep space in an by the display of photographs, maps, crude Ken Lochhead remains an enigma to many — oriental fashion. The composition is oriental diagrams, turned on tape-recorders, typed ex­ one group hails him as a champion of Can­ as well — one is reminded of scroll painting planations. We can quickly sum up by saying adian painting, while another claims that he and parallel perspective in these new works. that its major characteristic is documentation. is a sell-out to the American brand of Inter­ Of course these tendencies come directly from What we can see in the gallery is there to nationalism. Many Eastern Canadians think Ken's use of the spray gun, but he has told explain how to do a specific thing (anything) of him as a Western or Prairie artist; con­ me that he has been looking at oriental paint­ or it informs us on something that is, was or versely, many of his Western colleagues see ing in the past year and has, ". . . been quite could be. It nearly always deals with a process him as an Easterner. He is, of course, a fascinated by the atmosphere . . ." consisting of several distinct steps. There is combination of many things and no one label Lochhead freely admits his roots from Amer­ an appalling absence of composition; the sole can type-cast him. ican colour-field painting of the late 50's and intention in the arrangement of objects is to Born in Ottawa in 1926, Lochhead went early 60's. He constantly refers to Olitski, convey the message as clearly and succinctly on to receive his basic art education in the Newman, Lewis, and Noland and naturally the as possible. But though we are instructed how United States in the immediate post World critic Clement Greenberg, but in my opinion something is, was, or could be done, the War II years at the conservative Pennsylvania he has outgrown these influences even if he product is of no importance. It is by the Academy of Fine Arts (this was the school or his Canadian nationalist critics refuse to nature of its systematic creation standardized that in the late 19th Century fired Thomas admit it. and hence not unique. No one bothers to create it. The system or process is everything, Eakins for using nude models). Returning to Ken's physical isolation from the main the product is nothing by itself. Canada he went to Regina in 1950 to become stream has worked in his favour. It is self- Director of the School of Art at the University imposed and far from complete, as he does of Saskatchewan, then Regina College, where travel to galleries in Eastern Canada and the • MEANS • ENDS • he remained until 1964. Regina in the 1950's United States often enough to know recent • AND THE ART OBJECT • was hardly an artistic centre. Lochhead helped painting in the flesh rather than through the Formerly, the artist exploited his means. fill the void by founding the Emma Lake Work­ unhappy medium of art magazine reproduc­ He used his materials and whatever ability shops that brought many important artists to tions that are, sadly, the Bible of many pro­ and knowledge he had to build, paint, and Saskatchewan and into contact with Prairie vincial Canadian artists. But the fact is that sculpt. In the end this process was swallowed artists. He was also a charter member of the his paintings are about the great Canadian up. Everything the artist had employed meta- so-called Regina Five: Doug Morton, Ron Prairies and are more Canadian in their feeling morphosized into a work of art. The artist Bloore, Art McKay, Ted Goodwin, and Loch­ than a whole army of so-called Canadian Pop gave all he had for an end. And this end head, all of whom have gone on to make Art, the Maple Leaf and all. Lochhead has was the effective surprise of creation. names for themselves in Canadian art, al­ not escaped his environment, nor should he, In Systems art the means is the end, at though only Goodwin and McKay continue to and we are the lucky ones for it. least in terms of what is tangibly present. live in Regina. In conversation Lochhead has In an age where painting is called out­ John Cage has said: "We are getting rid of told me that he would expand the Five to moded and irrelevant by the Avant-Garde, a ownership and substituting use." We should Seven by including the Regina architect figure like Ken Lochhead could certainly be ask: "Use for what?", since it appears that Clifford Wiens and the painter Roy Kiyooka. placed in the role of the chief bogey-man the products of the systems aesthetic have no Both were instrumental in developing a new in an Academy whose sole purpose is to separate meaning. Of course, it is true that spirit in Regina, but both, through no fault keep progress out of art. The real Academy we are indirectly getting rid of ownership of their own, have been omitted from credit. today, unfortunately, is the so-called Avant- in art through the persistent dissolution of Since 1964 Ken has been at the School of Garde and their branding of painting as passe formalist values. Consider the emergence of Art of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg is the best thing that has happened to painting soft sculptures whose pliable contours mock where he is Professor of Painting and a col­ in a very long time. One does not have to objecthood. Consider minimal or ABC art in league of mine. gaze at one of Ken's paintings very long which different units are interchangeable and What, of course, is more important than before one realizes that they are a thing of in which as a consequence the external order this capsule biography is Ken's painting, which beauty, and hopefully painting can find a imposed on the form assumes greater impor­ continues to grow in stature and maturity with place, if not in relevance, in beauty. We ask tance than the form itself. We discern in this each new exhibition. The most recent have too much of it if we ask for more. movement away from formalist values art's 93 effort to integrate the universe. The systems themselves in new ways. The artist seemed aesthetic is in the forefront of this revolution. trapped forever in this physical displacement It marks the point of greatest friction and its context. pulsations illuminate the movement in recent art toward the abandonment of the art object. • FORM AS VERB • The systems aesthetic succeeds in undoing • LOCUS OF SIGNIFICANCE • the bonds which fasten significant form to The "what" against the "how". The aban­ tangible objects. Significant form is allowed donment of contour, the serialization of form, to live but it becomes an intangible. In other the progressive usurpation of tangible form by words, for the artist form is redefined. New external orders — we observe the transference premises are established upon which to base of the locus of significance away from con­ future inquiries. Traditionally art has main­ crete objects and the transformation of this tained a delicate balance between the sub­ significance into abstract systems to which art jective and the objective. The new art points objects adhere. (Eventually we find ourselves to where the two converge. with the documentary paraphernalia which is The fabrication of art objects implies hierar­ tangible but seems totally devoid of aesthetic chy because one form has to be chosen over value.) another. This choice is eliminated in the sys­ tems aesthetic since for the systems artist, • NO FEELING • form is process and process is universal. Art defines itself visually through becoming Form used to be a noun, now it is a verb. form. The feelings evoked through the arti­ Since the systems artist no longer wishes culation of aesthetic conventions describe its to create tangible significant form he moves nature. Form and feeling figure in the under­ directly to the source, the micro-universe standing of the meaning of art. Though "sig­ which is the essence of each human indi­ nificant form" is a term much elaborated it is vidual. Like words and letters whose shapes a convenient way to speak generally about the are only significant in terms of conveying gestalt an artist creates in order to evoke the message, the symbols of the systems feeling. Now we may return to the question artist -— i.e. tangibles with which systems introduced in the beginning of this paper. How artist works — act as components of ex­ can the aesthetic — i.e. significant form — be perience which elicit a consciousness of the reconciled with the systems approach, espe­ universal processes which cannot in them­ cially if the systems are external to the art selves be physically presented, hence the un- form and eventually eliminate tangible sig­ aesthetic documentary character of the new nificant form altogether? It seems that we are art. faced with a culmination of art's search to dissolve the object and to integrate the uni­ • THE INTERIORIZATION OF THE verse. But this culmination is abortive if in­ UNIVERSE • AND A SENSE OF PLACE • deed there is no significant form and con­ At the very heart of the systems aesthetic sequently no feeling. is the belief that nothing is static, that the idea of stasis in painting is a conceptual ab­ • WRONG PLACES • BEWILDERMENT • solute which plays no part in reality. To un­ Could it be that this judgment is premature, derstand this art is to realize that one is a that in fact we are looking for significant form man on whom and in whom the universe in the wrong places? Could it be that the unfolds itself. This understanding is analog­ role of our perceptual faculties is placed under ous to a young child's developing relationship such stress when considering the systems to his environment. When a two year old aesthetic that we may be inclined to make ceases to be at odds with gravity by devel­ oping greater mastery over his body, he is NEW THEATRE AT hasty conclusions? Perception consists in the THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE postulation of hypotheses based upon visual said to experience an interiorization of space. cues. It is essentially the process of verifying The systems aesthetic involves much the same what we expect in the first place. The dis­ phenomenon. Only we must replace the word By René ROZON tance between what we expect to see and "space" with the universe and the child with the external reality is distressingly vast when ourselves. Following the World Festival that marked the official opening of the National Arts Centre, in it comes to viewing and understanding systems Ottawa, in June, 1969, the utilization of one par­ art. The habitual cues and tip-offs are just • OUR SKINS • ticular hall of the three in this complex left a great deal to be desired; this hall, the Studio, not there and consequently we often feel The interconnectedness of all existence had been designed for experimental theatre. After threatened. through process and the growing conscious­ the period of wondering, groping, and the inevi­ table slip into traditional patterns, in the final ness of this reflected in systems art allows analysis, full advantage of this new polyvalent man to emerge from his tiny niche and feel instrument was not taken. To put an end to this • PAST FAILURE • DISPLACEMENT • unfortunate situation and in the intention of We are used to thinking of form, not just at one with the universe. The power of our thoroughly exploring the possibilities of such an significant form, as being something tangible. senses is so vastly extended by modern elec­ exceptional hall, Jean Herbiet was named artistic co-director of the Studio in May, 1970. Subse­ Where it occurs it displaces a given volume tronic technology that our physical selves be­ quently, he assumed the position of associate of space. It precludes the existence of other come insignificant when viewed against the director of the Theatre Department, which was created in the spring of 1971, and is responsible form in the area within its contours. This radius of our expanded realm of dominance. for all of the theatrical programming of the concept is an extension of man's conven­ Does this development not alter the impor­ Centre, including that of the Studio. Jean Herbiet, professor of theatre, producer, and dramatic tional relationship with his environment. The tance which we attribute to that barrier, our author, has kindly consented to convey the result human being occupies space. The space which skins? How do we define ourselves? Where of this experience to us, discussing the methods and implications, the possibilities and also the resides within his contours becomes positive does a personality begin and end? These are limitations of experimental theatre. form. This man has sense organs and these questions with which systems art comes to perceptual tools are used to bridge a given grips. Dealing with them has meant allowing space outside the man and alight upon a the creative process to turn in upon itself. VdA — So-called experimental theatre en particular other-form. Thus we see that we The creative process has become engaged in ploys the same procedures as convention: have so called negative areas to be bridged a kind of self-contemplation. It seeks to under­ theatre. Settings and costumes, lighting an by our senses and positive concretions which stand itself through the analysis of its own music, are subject to the requirements of are defined as form. In his quest the artist anatomy. The systems artist is impelled to staging aimed at emphasizing gesture an has always been involved in the redefining stereotype the process of creation, to con­ speech. But using these elements in a ne' and reshaping of this relationship. But in the struct little systems of equal and interchange­ way, the experimental theatre nevertheles past has always failed because the barriers able parts. We are invited to remove each manages to reverse traditional structure between inner and outer, between object and part separately and to contemplate the empty What, exactly, are the rules of this ne' space have come apart only to reconstitute spaces where the connections formerly existed. theatrical aesthetic? J.H.—To begin with, allow me to tell you ble inconstance by Marivaux. Because for me, enlighten. The man in a situation arises from that there is no term more misleading than new theatre is not necessarily a new work or the actor and his interpretation. He does not "experimental" theatre, although the term is the modern adaptation of a classical work. It need a slide as background; he can say currently in use. There is no "experimental" is true that I interpreted the work differently, everything with his art, his body, his voice, painting or sculpture; why, then, would there but without falsifying it. I emphasized not his silences. That is what Béjart does best, be an "experimental" theatre? Every crea­ the "marivaudage" (witty and affected style) when he emphasizes his dancers to the ut­ tion is the result of an experiment. That is of the author, but rather the inexpressible most. Besides, insofar as we are participating why, with respect to repertory theatre, it is element of the work, which depends on the in an art, we can only participate to a certain more exact to speak simply of creative or relationships among characters. Basically, point. In making love, we cannot think of the new theatre. love, in Marivaux's works, is self-love. That office or preoccupations. Obviously, the ap­ Having stated that, what differentiates is what I focused on. The very style of the purtenances are secondary. And the theatre, creative theatre from conventional theatre, is XVIIth century costumes was respected, in­ as far as I am concerned, is first and foremost precisely the lack of rules, its total freedom. spired by Watteau and Fragonard. But the man in conflict. The rest is superfluous. What the new theatre attempts to do is not most difficult thing in Marivaux is to create Having stated that, I nevertheless stressed unlike new painting: to contest creatively a setting which facilitates the staging of the Femme and I struggled to convince people what has been done before. And we can have work. Now. if I did not give the Marivaux a that an environment play at the Studio was anti-theatre or anti-painting, not simply to be modern staging, I nevertheless modified the something that had to be done. I believed "ami", but to be in harmony with one's time. stage-audience relationship. In conventional in the integrity of the author, Maurice Demers, Why use verse? Why not start with the end? theatre, it is unthinkable to decorate the and his play reflected a tendency of the XXth It is up to new theatre not to deny the rules, whole theatre. In the Studio, I had an instru­ century, that is to say the integration of all but to create a new language. There is a ment that allowed me to create not only a the arts. fundamental difference between wanting to visual tableau, but a total environment, so VdA — In fact, what role does the new thea­ renew what exists and creating afresh. In that the audience would be immersed in the tre reserve for the plastic arts? short, there are no rules. To express oneself setting (in this case, the courtyard of a J.H. — Every art is a system of signs. In the in one's time, with the means of one's times, XVIIth century chateau) created for the dra­ beginning the theatre uses signs that are its is the essential feature of new theatre. matic work. The theatre of Marivaux is own, but which it must borrow from the other VdA — Is this tendency in harmony with your Italian Proscenium arch theatre in which the arts: movement from dance, light and colour own concept of creative theatre? stage-audience relationship is clearly estab­ from painting, organization of space and J.H. — I have no concept of new theatre lished. Whereas here, we did theatre in the stage setting from sculpture and architecture, where everything is permitted and nothing round: the hexagonal walls served as a word from poetry and the dramatic structure observes the conventions. Theatre is not an setting, and the audience was seated in from the novel. That is what was traditionally art unto itself, it is social, but it functions tiered seats around a central playing area. borrowed in the theatre. In this respect, on its own terms. And if the public does not The main action unfolded in front of the nothing is exclusive to the theatre, in its many like it, if they do not come, there is a proof spectator, but the actors arrived from behind affinities with the other arts. But as soon as that it is not working. Nevertheless, there are him, from the galleries. That is an example there is a question of over-emphasising one two types of men in the theatre today: the one that attests to the ressources of the Studio. of these arts, there is conflict. Let us take the who interprets and the one who creates. We We cannot create such a production else­ plastic arts for example: they are not inte­ can stage a 300 year old text. Or from where without encountering high costs. A grated into the theatre, they are used, and nothing, we can stage improvisations. Be­ production that also showed that we can only on the condition that they are necessary. cause of my training and inclination, I have always draw new effects from an a priori New or conventional theatre is the art of until now opted for the first alternative. conventional element. appearances. On stage, my office would be a Because, for me, the theatre is first a text; There remains the play, Aspects du Québec, very poor prop; to make it effective, it would I serve the written work which is to be staged that could have been done in another hall. have to be modified, accentuated. For no and which is waiting to be animated. But we wanted a sense of Quebec's presence visual and plastic element has intrinsic value VdA — Could you describe the multiple res- in the National Arts Centre and we grouped on stage. On the contrary, it should serve sources of an experimental theatre like the all the events under the same roof. Just the The Art of the Theatre, become part of an Studio, as well as any special features pecu­ same, we realized that the Studio is well organism whose nervous centre is man in a liar to it? suited to every medium — theatre, dance, situation. I do not need a Louis XV chair, J.H. — What is noteworthy at the Studio is cinema, and so on. It is a polyvalent hall that but one in the style of Louis XV. A costume its hexagonal form and limited size permit­ can be organized with a minimum of effort serves only to dress a character, but by ting a greater intimacy with the public. There to fulfill the most divergent functions. itself is never, and should not be, a master­ is also a trap in the centre of the room that VdA — What has struck me so far, is that the piece. That is why it is dangerous for the sinks down to 12 feet under the floor and Studio productions concentrating on dance, plastic arts to enter the theatre. Such an rises 18 inches above it. In that way we music, and film have existed only on the peri­ integration is made possible by the interven­ can make a whole set disappear in nothing phery of the theatre. Is this formula desirable, tion of decorators who understand theatrical flat. considering that the real identity of the new contingencies. A setting is a place inhabited by an actor. If the plastic arts distract us Moreover, the Studio is not just one hall. theatre must be situated at the convergence from him, we are on the wrong track. And Incorporating all the elements required by a of all these elements whose support it when the plastic arts invade the stage, they modern theatre, it is unique working tool. Its requires? always win because their finished form exer­ technical equipment is such that we can J.H. — If we try to emphasize these different cises such fascination. Now, we cannot stage explore as widely as possible; Proscenium means of expression in establishing a scena­ a play as we make a tableau. The theatre is arch, Shakespearean apron stage, or theatre rio, we are no longer talking of a written an ephemeral art of time and space; the in the round, are all possible. The scenic text; we depend on a succession of these tableau is an art fixed in space. We cannot setting is thus optional, the seats being elements to form the new theatrical work. thus, integrate fixed objects into an ephe­ moveable, and in this way we can reorient For example, a slide becomes as important as meral art; rather it is necessary to transform the stage-audience relationship at will. We the dance which evolves before our eyes. them according to theatrical requirements. As could even place the audience in the balcony, Basically, I think this way of proceeding, a matter of fact, theatre being a representa­ not a very practical option really, since we do using all the means to constitute the work, tional art, it needs not concern itself with not wish to limit the number of spectators to is doomed to failure. At least that is what doing anything new in the area of the plastic such a point. A multiple choice thus, which I think for the time being. For the dramatic arts. is perhaps not infinitely flexible, but never­ form that corresponds the most to our time, theless, one in which the possibilities remain is that of all times: the art of showing man (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson) very interesting and very numerous. In fact, in a situation. Going back to Aristotle, the every play to be staged is a new challenge theatre is the art of the man who performs to the imagination of the producer. It is very the action. Now if we wish to show the man stimulating. who performs the action, we do not need the VdA — In reality, considering such possibili­ other arts to do it, but an actor. For the ties, what are the experiments that have been essential element of theatrical art is an undertaken since you assumed charge of the instrument called the actor, and not the Studio? projections, the serial music and all these J.H. — I chose a classical play first. La Dou­ other agents which confound more than they

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