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Vie des Arts

Texts in English

Volume 17, Number 70, Spring 1973

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Publisher(s) La Société La Vie des Arts

ISSN 0042-5435 (print) 1923-3183 (digital)

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Cite this article (1973). Texts in English. Vie des Arts, 17(70), 85–95.

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ THE CHOICE BETWEEN A STONE WALL AND A BRIDGE

By Andrée PARADIS

Big exhibitions are expensive. Too ex­ pensive, some people say. This is a point of view. The other attitude consists of question­ ing oneself on their necessity and of finding the means to bring them about. This is the policy adopted by the two largest museums of the West, the Museum of the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum, which have just announced a huge program of exchange: TEXTS IN works, men, information, exhibitions prepared jointly and presented simultaneously in Paris and in New York. Thus, we shall be able to see, at the end of autumn 1973, the great tapestries of the Middle Ages and of the ENGLISH Renaissance sharing the walls on both sides of the Atlantic and, the year after, it will be the turn of a first-rate exhibition of Impres­ sionism. The same necessity for interesting a public always more numerous and more demanding tÊ^ÊààâââM is present in the decisions of the National Gallery in Ottawa and obtains for us excep­ tionally large exhibitions such as that of Fontainebleau, the most important since those of Rubens and the Arts of the Courts of France and England. It goes without saying that other private Canadian museums would also sup­ port such programs if they were better main­ tained financially and morally. It is not difficult to agree upon the neces­ sity of large exhibitions. The attendance figures of the museums are eloquent. In 1947, a million visitors attended the Metropolitan in New York; in 1972, 3,500.000 visitors were recorded (the same number as at the Louvre). FONTAINEBLEAU, An increase of about five per cent a year TEMPLE OF ART therefore seems normal for museums which have a dynamic policy, which do not fear to innovate and which at the same time are Philippe VERDIER concerned with educating and preserving. To democratize, to open the museums to all The Exhibition of the Fontainebleau School citizens, these are hollow words if they do grouped in Paris, at the Grand-Palais, from not signify the basic purpose; to educate. We October 18 to January 15, seven hundred five realize with regret that our Canadian museums objects representing the plastic and decora­ lack personnel in the educational sectors. tive arts of the French Renaissance with a Only one or a handful of persons have to concentration on drawings and engravings, so fulfil crushing tasks. For example, again, the valuable because they stake out the origin of Metropolitan, whose department of education the works and emphasize their repercussion counted four persons in 1967 and which has and still more because they revive all those fifty in 1972. This is not luxury. These people which have disappeared. Because, today, pro­ educate in their turn the high school teachers grams of decoration imagined at the palace of who educate the pupils. And the wheel turns. Fontainebleau by Le Rosso in a period of ten And the museum is inhabited, alive; it is the years — he died in 1540 — and by Le place of the enriching experience where we Primatice, invited in 1532, then by Niccolo can see, confront, read, reflect, refresh our­ dell'Abbate, right hand of Le Primatice from selves, write, live. Whether temple or com­ 1552 and for twenty years, the frescoes of munity centre, it matters little, this question the Pavilion of Pomona, of that of Stoves, of no longer exists. the Low Gallery, of the Room of the Baths, The problem is to assure the life of the of the Grotto of Pines, of the chamber and of museum. The finest collections, the best the cabinet of Francis I, have disappeared and presentations, information on recent experi­ can no longer be recalled except through ments, audio-visual means, television, adver­ accounts, descriptions and graphic documents. tising technique and even the computer, all Of the Chamber of the queen, Eleanor of these are very costly. Large funds, imagination Austria, there remains only the mantelpiece. and initiative are necessary for success. The cruellest loss was that of the Ulysses Gal­ Otherwise, we are up against a stone wall lery, demolished in 1738-39, thus named and can progress no further. because fifty-eight subjects of the story of We can never repeat enough the necessity Ulysses occupied the piers; on a length of of developing cultural sectors and the impor­ one hundred fifty metres, the ceiling was tance of the credits that must be given to divided into fifteen bays, painted on a back­ them. Culture is a thing which is constructed ground of grotesques, mythological subjects like a bridge. With as much care, patience distributed symmetrically in cartouches. All and savoir-faire. we have to console ourselves for this loss is (Translation by Mildred Grand) the Livre de Grotesques of Jacques Androuet

ss du Cerceau, some water-colours of Rubens, the Leda and the Swan, painted in 1529-30, ical, caricatural, abstract fantasies proliferated some drawings and engravings of Van Thul- but already spoiled "by the spitefulness of like the younger branch of these margins of den and six paintings of Le Primatice or of his time" before 1642 (Père Dan: Le Trésor des grotesques and moralities of painted gothic studio which copy the themes of the story of merveilles de la Maison royale de Fontaine­ manuscripts passed from France, from Flan­ Ulysses. Two of these paintings, the Rape of bleau). At the exhibition of the Grand-Palais ders, and from England, to Italy, at the be­ Helen (Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle) and the big model of the Leda and the Swam, ginning of the fifteenth century. The basic Ulysses and Penelope (Toledo Museum of attributed to Le Rosso, was hung beside the element of the decorative cartouche of Fon­ Art), by mysterious, misty lyricism, bring Pietà, painted shortly after by Le Rosso for tainebleau: the carved scroll, remains an thoughts of an anticipation of Prud'hon. The High Constable Anne de Montmorency, this enigma. It perhaps derives from certain Ger­ principal pieces, which have continued to Comparison presenting sacrilege only by its man engravings. But would not the catalysing exist at Fontainebleau, are the Gallery of exterior, since the sensual ecstasy of Leda, factor have been the importing of Aztec sculp­ Francis I — except the Cabinet, destroyed in invested with a cosmic value, is next to death tures? America, which had just been discov­ 1785 — of which the thirteen frescoes of and universal suffering. ered, was not missing from the grotesques. abstruse iconography intertwine the good luck The Fontainebleau School was under the The Indian feather masks are placed beside and the misfortunes of the reign in the be­ control of the Italians, who had arrived in the grin of the satyrs and besides they had ginning plan of cultural reform, the Chamber two waves at the head of large enterprises already been sculpted on the tomb of Cardinal of the Duchess d'Étampes, mistress of Fran­ — first that of Le Rosso, of Luca Penni and Georges d'Amboise, in the cathedral at Rouen, cis I, who by a transparent allusion, is deco­ of Le Primatice, who grafted onto the French and on the pilasters of the palace of the rated with the story of the loves of Alexander stock the Italian mannerism which, since the prince-bishop of Liège. and the Ballroom, painted under Henry II with death of Raphael, had been developing in Fontainebleau decoration, through a chain mythological frescoes in such a decorative Rome subsequent to the stanza of the Vatican reaction, set the fashion for all decorative line that the arabesque becomes musical, with and in the palaces of Mantua and Genoa. arts: tapestry and the work of goldsmiths, the theme of holiday or diversion coming back Niccolo dell'Abbate, a native of Bologna like engraved armors, illuminated manuscripts, as leit-motiv. The paintings of Niccolo del'Ab- Le Primatice, who combined in the same illustrated books, bindings and enamels. En­ bate in the Ballroom, spoiled by being painted manner as his predecessors the instinct of the graving had to be the propaganda means par over in encaustic under Louis-Philippe, have monumental with the feeling of ornamental excellence of the explicit idiom of the man­ been restored to their first freshness through writing in the decoration of large works, was nerists. The engravings of Durer had intro­ the will of André Malraux. The recent resto­ in addition a landscape artist. He arrived duced into the art of the High Renaissance ration has also rid the female nudes in stucco twenty years after the pioneers, enriched by in Italy the fatefull "clinamen" which imme­ of the Chamber of the Duchess d'Étampes of the exquisite cadences of the Parmesan. On diately caused it to deviate toward the the sanitary towels in which the prudery of a Salviati and on Ruggiero de'Ruggieri who anxiety of an unsatisfied spirituality of a ra­ middle-class reign had dressed them. followed him, we are reduced to guessing the tional definition of the image of man and of The second Fontainebleau School will sanc­ tracks of their passage in France. The Master his environment. The painted enamels of tion the re-establishment of the unity and the de Flora, a changeable term, perhaps masks Limoges in which, from 1520, the subject is works of peace after the recantation of Henry an Emilia painter, the son of Niccolo or almost never imagined any more but which IV and the granting of freedom of worship to Ruggiero. After the two Italian waves opened is confined within the imitation of an engrav­ French Protestants by the Edict of Nantes the trench of religious wars, dug even at ed model, copy not only Marcantonio and the (1598). More notice was taken of it than of Fontainebleau around the palace in the form Maître au Dé, prolongers of Raphael and of the first in the decoration of the castle. There of moats which, under Catherine de Medici northern raphaelism, but the masters of the remain six of the eight compositions of Dubois and Charles IX, transformed the temple of Renaissance of the north: Schongauer and of Antwerp illustrating the loves of Tancred and arts of Francis I into a bastion. The second Lucas of Leyde. Fontainebleau School is Franco-Flemish. Be­ Clorinda (about 1605) and, in the Cabinet de Almost a third of the expedition of the tween the two Fontainebleau Schools are Théagène, which became the Louis XIII salon, Fontainebleau School presented in Paris is found Frenchmen of very original talent: Etien­ are still in place, with some changes, eleven going to be on view at the National Gallery ne Delaune, a Protestant, who had to flee the of the fifteen pictures of Dubois recalling the of Canada from the second of March to the court after Saint Bartholomew (1572), de­ loves of Théagène and Chariclée. And above all fifteenth of April. We must congratulate our­ signer of the stature of an Ingres, the some­ the Trinity Chapel, which Philibert de l'Orme selves that this exhibition, which took ten what stingy presentation of whose works at had finished in 1551, presents almost intact the years of efforts to assemble and study, should the exhibition at the Grand-Palais might be imposing program of the altar with its altar- take the road not of the United States on the regretted, and Antoine Caron, prophet of the piece and its stuccos framing in the ceiling, American continent, following the route of surrealists, whose art is the model of this a renewed vision of that of the Sistine Chapel, very many preceding ones, but that of the looseness of refinement and cruelty which was which Martin Fréminet painted in oil on plas­ capital of Canada, in the spirit of cultural in style under the last Valois. One of Caron's ter from 1608 to 1619. This art is pre-baroque. co-operation achieved between France and pictures, representing the entrance of Francis Under Henry IV the atmosphere changed radi­ Canada. The first school of painting which I into Milan in 1515, recently acquired by the cally. Sensitivity directed itself toward the was set up in France, at the same time as the National Gallery of Canada, will be one of the romantic: programs were inspired in the first explorations in New France, is coming poles of attraction of the Ottawa exhibition, Cabinet of Clorinde by the Jerusalem Delivered to visit the friendly nation after a long histo­ beside the drawing of the same subject lent of Tasso, and, in that of Théagène, by the rical detour. It was inevitable and fortunate by the Louvre. Histoire Aethiopique (or the loves of Théa­ that the Fontainebleau School should establish gène and of Chariclée, which Amyot had Italian art transplanted to Fontainebleau itself around the Italian genius. Devotion to translated from the Greek in 1547). On the became international, there, under the influen­ the universal, which is the most authentic other hand, the Catholic church had regained ce of the royal and aristocratic milieu and French tradition, had a need in the arts of control of itself at the Council of Trent thanks to the transfusion of the nordic tradi­ Italian contribution, which represented a form (1545-1563). The Trinity Chapel is witness tion brought about by the French and the of higher civilization, in order to enter more to the new mentality, serious and strong right Flemish who collaborated with those beyond completely into the current of European re­ into the effects of a theatrical mysticism, im­ the Alps in a team spirit which had no fol­ naissance at the time when letters, linguistic posed on religious art by the post-tridentine lower in France since the communal erection and religious studies had taken in France a church. But it also gives evidence of the of cathedrals. A symbiosis more than a meta­ stride without precedent since the return of triumph of Michaelangelo, who had never morphosis, which took its place as well in the Francis I from his captivity in Madrid. ceased casting a spell on the Fontainebleau linear structure of works of art, more pure, School since the beginning, through the Fontainebleau, royal hunting lodge in the more austere than anywhere else in Europe as Middle Ages, offered its favourable climate, magnetism which he exerted from Florence in the fantastic vitality communicated to gro­ and Rome, strengthened by the works which its cultural tabula rasa to the artists and its tesques and emblems. The stuccos invented thickets to the dryads and the nymphs of could be seen and touched in France: the by Le Rosso and by Le Primatice took on two Slaves of the tomb of Julius II, the en­ mythology. An Olympus of a grace and almost more importance that the scenes which a fantasy without known ancestors and with­ gravings of the fresco of the Last Judgment, they framed. Fontainebleau decoration does and, at Fontainebleau itself, the marble Her­ out posterity came down to bring life to the not subordinate the margin to the subject, new walls. An original ideal of feminine cules, a work of youth (about 1492), mounted which it multiplies further as it centres it. The on a fountain beside the pond, which disap­ beauty became incarnate in the nude bodies imagining of the ornamentation is impossible of women, huntresses and swimmers, long peared after 1714, and is now known only to dissociate from the allusive iconology of through a drawing attributed to Rubens, and and pearly, with coiled gilded hair, too much the politically-implied themes. Plant, zoolog­ goddesses or too sports-minded to fall into

86 the commonplace trap of eroticism. And yet the Jesuits. His characters are, furthermore, it is at Fontainebleau, still more than in Italian most of the time, without a face (without engraving and than with Jules Romain, that being), otherwise the faces are blurred, undis- eroticism received its letters of credit in the cernible. By means of them one is referred history of art, but redeemed by ingenuousness to the social strata which they symbolize (Les or by a healthy alertness. In an art of the Notables, Le Braconnier, Le Bedeau). This court, the scandals of the court weave the coldness of vital absence joins with the ex­ texture. The works which are going to be panses covered with snow as far as the eye presented at the National Gallery of Canada can see and with the sky neutralized to the are for the most part graphic. They appeal to greatest degree. Total uniformity, because the imagined reconstruction of their context. vertical forces are silent. Even the protago­ But their originality of technique and execu­ nists who lead us to suppose, by their position tion is surprising. The Italians brought to in space, that their view is directed toward Fontainebleau drawing with red chalk and the other characters (often in a unilateral way) do wash-tint of red chalk, in pen and in brown- not communicate; a powerful and nihilistic wash. Etching was the medium par excellence look. Powerful, when the child (in Le Départ) of the engravers of Fontainebleau. Fantuzzi is going toward the horizon without an exit handled it with extraordinary verve, often because it is too immense. Nihilistic, in substituting for mytho-political subjects copied Schisme, when the bishop looks at the cha­ from the frescoes of the Gallery of Francis I racters and when, in a parallel direction, the immense cartographic landscapes, with vi­ distance seems to increase with the group. sionary outgrowths, which cause an effect of There is in that a deeper denunciation than unreal escape, crushed, in the middle of that of the hierarchical church, being itself, giant cariatides, of Herculean terms, of heavy when all is said and done, a copy of what garlands of fruit and of children reproducing remains intrinsic in society. the stuccos of the framing. Delacroix asked This universe of solitude and silence is himself nostalgically what must be the colour close to that of Lemieux. But this relationship effect of the Titians in their freshness. Were in his perception of the world (Prévost speaks the frescoes painted by Niccolo in the Gal­ of "a same sensitivity") is embodied dif­ lery of Ulysses according to the models of ferently in painting. As much by the meticu- Le Primatice more mysteriously radiant than lousness with which he paints — should we these wonderful festoons of flesh, as lighted not see in the angular folds of the garments from inside by a night-light, of the drawings a logical harmony with the sharp reliefs of of Le Primatice, with the shaky line, a vibra­ glaciers? — as by the surreality which trans­ tion of a string stricken by a divine light? pires from it (shadows under a sky without (Translation by Mildred Grand) sun, for example). ANTOINE PREVOST: Other elements graft themselves to this SILENCE AND REALITY theme, but elements which always resolve around the same symbol. In this sense Jeux des enfants possesses, at its source, an By Pierre DUPUIS ambivalence made up of phenomena of attrac­ tion and rejection or, at the least, of a ques­ The year 1972 marks for the artist his tioning of the innocence of their games. This permanent attachment to painting. In a little is not without recalling certain verses of Saint- village of the lower part of the river (at Denys Garneau (whom he knew well): Cacouna, more exactly) where he was living They have a snare for the last year, Prévost painted about forty With an incredible stubbornness canvases, of which about thirty were exhi­ bited in the Morency Gallery last autumn. They did not leave you The blossoming of the form which his Before having won you. painting reflects is partially explained by his Then they left you education (town-planning and fine arts). But The treacherous ones abandoned you the astonishing fact remains that he should Ran away laughing1. have reached after a few rough sketches — qualifying them himself as "Sunday painting" The compositions of Prévost are inscribed — the point of producing coherent and per­ equally very well in the romantic universe of sonal works. And this in spite of the almost Anne Hébert (cf. Kamouraska). Their com­ instinctive comparing which we do, a priori mon origin determine the similarity of their with Jean-Paul Lemieux (whose influence he works — transposed in a different medium. does not deny, as well as that of Wyeth and The awareness of emptiness will influence of Colville). The awareness he has of this him to suppress completely the separation will then favour a thoroughness of his re­ between earth and sky. In Les Notables, there search since different intentions preside at is no longer the slightest spacial reference, the point of departure. outside a fence of barbed wire; a plastic The material which he uses almost exclu­ requirement first, but, especially, a semiologi- sively, today, is water-colour. This limits his cal importance which it is easy to imagine. work to canvasses of small dimensions: they In closing, let us speak of the exception cause the spectator to look attentively at each which proves the rule: Le Bedeau. This bust, detail of the work without, for all that, losing hemmed in a closed environment (a belfry), the whole from view. This evidence, which is completely impersonal. One perceives it as might seem commonplace brings no less, element of the setting. In this work, Prévost in this case, a major importance: each ele­ continues in some way the question which he ment being a symbol and, in this frame (the has already raised, to know a dehumanized canvas) they are significant each in relation­ world like this conflict of appearances and ship to the other; this thematic reading pro­ reality. And, through a graph conditioned by motes the understanding of the work. Thus, his childhood, he reinstates, once more, Saint Denys, in the water-colour which bears existing uneasiness. The imaginary carries the same name, is deprived of his mitre and him away. Poetic work above all. has no head. He does not exist, or, if you will, (Translation by Mildred Grand) he lives in the appearance which his clothing (1 ) Regards et jeux dans l'espace, in Complete Poems, presents. A return to the years of youth among Fides, p. 45.

S7 he diligently followed the teaching of Kimon has been painting more and more actively. Nicolaides at the Art Student League. He also Allan Harrison recognizes the fact that he had the opportunity of admiring the exhibi­ is "not a prolific painter", and he adds: "I tions of Matisse and other great contempo­ know also that I am not a revolutionary painter raries, which decided him in his choice of and that I have always loved good traditional vocation. Back in Montreal, he attended art, from Corot to Cézanne, from Matisse to L'Atelier, an art school directed by John Lyman Marquet and Vuillard, and, perhaps, due to and André Biéler, where he fulfilled the duties circumstances, I have always thought that in of student in charge. In 1933-1934, thanks my case I had to attach more importance to to a gift from his family, he spent some time quality than to quantity. I have spent half my in Europe and divided this between London life hating the superficial character of acade­ and Paris. In London he studied particularly mism and today I deplore the notion that in museums, in the British Museum, at the simple decorative compositions are accepted National Gallery, at the Tate Gallery; he as abstract art. I was preoccupied for years worked at advertising art free lance and took by the problem of the world of three dimen­ a job as clerk in two art galleries. He met sions ... I doubt it little now. I admire the personalities such as Wyndham Lewis and mastery of it which Vuillard had, while still Louis Marcoussis and, on Sunday, he attend­ doing away with it partially." ed lectures on political science that Harold Aside from Vuillard, Allan Harrison admires ALLAN HARRISON, Laski gave at his home. In Paris, he took AN UNAPPRECIATED PAINTER Giorgio Morandi, Marquet, Manessier, Vieira classes in sketching at the Colarossi studio da Silva, Arpad Szenès and several other and at the Grande-Chaumière and he often painters; he has an eclectic taste and he is By Paul DUMAS went to the Louvre and the Jeu-de-Paume faithful to what he admires. Museum. There he acquired as well a good His work consists of oils, water-colours, knowledge of French which he has still retain­ pastels, drawings in charcoal and in ink. Painters of quality are not always recogniz­ ed since that time. ed or in style. The opposite proposition, Spread over thirty years, it does not at first knowing that painters in style are not always Having returned to Montreal, he found em­ appear abundant, doubtless because a good good, is perhaps equally true. Meissonier, ployment for a year as a salesman at the part of it is scattered in other countries. Nor Bouguereau, Gérome, Détaille, Dulac and Scott Gallery, then located in the building has the painter created large-scale works, or Alma-Tadema, so much praised in their time, which the 400 Restaurant was later to occupy acquired mannerisms whose mechanical repe­ are much forgotten today. Among the eminent for many years, and to make a living he took tition would make his work recognizable on artists of Canada, James Wilson Morrice was up commercial art. He returned briefly to the spot. The connoisseur who tries to take recognized only after his death and Ozias France in 1938, travelling on foot from Lyons the measure of the work of an artist likes to Leduc, who died in his nineties, knew fame to Marseilles, and brought back several beau­ know his filiation and to find similarities or only at the end of his life, thanks to the tiful sketches and water-colours. In 1939, he points of reference to him. The paintings and enthusiasm of his pupil, Paul-Émile Borduas became, as he puts it, "a Sunday painter", the drawings of Allan Harrison are inspired and Maurice Gagnon, the critic. Such good being occupied all week by his advertising by various subjects but always sober, por­ artists are by nature discreet, produce little, work. At this time, he became connected with traits, interiors, still-lifes, landscapes, the lat­ and are sparing of their exhibitions in art gal­ many artists: John Lyman, Goodridge Roberts, ter painted in Canada, in the United States, leries; often they carry their easel and their Alexandre Bercovitch, Jean Palardy, Jacques in Brazil, in France and in Italy. On account sketch-book toward far-away horizons, the de Tonnancour, Jeanne Rhéaume, and exhibit­ of his cosmopolitanism and the reserved ac­ public of their country forgets them or does ed for the first time at the Contemporary Art cent of his art (Graham Mclnnis has spoken not recognize them and the younger critics do Society founded by John Lyman and would very justly of the "suave understatement" of not even know their name. It is the privilege exhibit each following year. In 1946, he Allan Harrison's painting), the painter belongs of connoisseurs to find them, to rediscover spent some time in Brazil where he met in the rank of Morrice, still more than in that them or to remember them. Jori Smith, Jack Arpad Szenès and Vieira da Silva, who had of Lyman, whose pupil and admirer he was. Beder, Benoît East, William Armstrong, Allan taken refuge there during the war. He found For Harrison, the subject of the picture is Harrison are among these. them again in Paris in 1947-1948 and worked only a pretext, only a point of departure, to The career of Allan Harrison was eventful with them. From there, he often went to Rome create a composition, an arrangement of forms and woven with contradictions. Of a middle- where he became friends with Pericle Fazzini, and colours which expresses the shades of his class family and grandson through his mother Renato Guttuso and Emilio Greco. Back in emotion and his personal conception of the of a well-to-do manufacturer, he early chose Canada in 1949, he soon went to New York, harmony of the world. adventure and emancipated ideas, but did where he would remain until 1959 and where, The refined simplicity and the successful not find satisfaction in this political aware­ not allowing himself to be absorbed by his layouts of the commercial artist have been ness. A man of taste who believed that advertising work, he would draw with enthu­ praised. These qualities existed before in his perfection is found in simplicity — as it siasm. He lived for some time in the famous painting and are still found in it. The painter should be — he created posters and design Chelsea Hotel and he had the opportunity of brings back the real in some chosen forms, in of the first rank in the domain of advertising. meeting many artists — Franz Kline, the de a few essential lines, he excludes from this He was therefore classified, labelled once and Koonings and, naturally, Paul-Émile Borduas. any superfluous element. His restrained style for all as a designer, when he was first of all In 1956 he returned to France and Italy, recalls that of Corot and of Marquet, two a painter and wished to be and considered attended the André Lhote studio for some painters he admires greatly. Upon occasion himself as such. months and made excellent sketches in the he makes use of light or brilliant colours, but cities of Paris, Nîmes, Carcassonne, Rome he generally prefers the relationships of duller A Montrealer, Allan Harrison belongs to and Venice, which he exhibited at Agnès tones, minor chords. Setting himself a new this little group of artists faithful to what is Lefort's in 1957. problem with each picture, he does not repeat real who, after Morrice, have fought acade­ himself and seldom takes up the same theme mism and have defended the cause of living He came back to Montreal in 1959, taught twice. A painter of the second half of the art: John Lyman, Goodridge Roberts, Philip graphic art at Sir George Williams University day, he likes the contrast between dense Surrey, Stanley Cosgrove, Jori Smith, Jack from 1961 to 1965, then drawing and graphic shadows and the light of afternoon, slanting Beder, Eldon Greer, who are united under the art at the University of Quebec, from 1969 to and raw, and from this he gives a special vague label, Montreal School. 1971. He also gave courses at the School of smooth texture to the forms placed on his Allan Harrison was born in Montreal in 1911. Architecture at McGill University in 1971 and 1972. canvases. This precious tactile quality is At the age of fourteen, he went to work at found in his interiors as in his landscapes; harvesting in Saskatchewan and, for two Allan Harrison took part in several collec­ tive exhibitions in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, it is very noticeable in Intérieur, rue Cres­ years, he travelled in the West and on the cent, whose transparent chiaroscuro recalls Pacific coast, going as far as Panama and, Rio de Janeiro and Jerusalem and held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts in the golden lighting of the intimist scenes of from there, to Cuba. On his return to Mont­ Jakob Ochtervelt, the Dutch painter of the real, he found employment in the shop of a Montreal (1945), at the Institution of Archi­ tecture of Rio de Janeiro (1947), at the Agnès seventeenth century. This velvety relief is sign painter and took evening courses in the one of the great attractions of Harrison's art. École des Beaux-Arts, where he drew from Lefort Gallery (1957). at Macdonald College of McGill University (1957) and at the library It has seemed to us so far that his painting, the antique. A small inheritance from his grand conceived and executed in the light of the mother allowed him to go to New York where of McGill University (1957). Since 1964, he

s s declining day, expressed wonderfully the me­ But since Gaucher became a professor of lancholy feeling of the fragility of things and engraving, he no longer engraves. Just as, of time which is passing. Perhaps it trans­ after having written a great deal, he no lates more simply the nostalgia of lost happi­ longer writes. The silence of the virgin canvas ness and of a classic order banished from has entirely taken possession of him. today's world. It is in 1962 that he becomes aware in The drawings of Allan Harrison possess the Paris of what the music of Webern is. As same conciseness as his painting. They say others have had their vision of the world much in few words. A few touches of shadow, upset after seeing a Cézanne exhibition, a few lines, even if not the line alone, are Gaucher, after his encounter with Webern's enough for him to give us the expression of music, is no longer the same. Quite naturally, a face or an attitude, the engaging atmosphe­ he attempts to transpose the dodecaphonic re of a favourite place. These are, for con­ musical language into painting. He even noisseurs, choice pieces. works in the electronic music laboratory of True painters have the privilege of trans­ McGill University. But he quickly perceives figuring by the magic of their brush the that transposition is impossible and that one most humble objects of everyday reality and YVES GAUCHER: achieves only relative equivalences. investing them with poetry. This change is REVERIE OF THE ABSOLUTE Failure? No. Because Yves Gaucher emer­ often the source of keen delight. The feeling ges transfigured out of these experiments, of it is of a quality all the more unusual and out of this confrontation with the musician By Michel RAGON lasting when its accents have been more who is without doubt the most difficult and subtle and more discreet. Such is the special the most perfect of the twentieth century. In quality of Allan Harrison's art: he does not Yves Gaucher is typically the kind of painter 1965 he works at square pictures, presented expose his secret right away, but his mastery, whose work one either likes or does not like, in the shape of diamonds, on the point of one an accomplice of time, follows the space of but concerning whom it is difficult to write. side, and in which appear only yellow geo­ a peaceful and ingratiating crescendo. The painting of Gaucher is also impossible metric lines. In 1966, a painting, eloquently (Translation by Mildred Grand) to photograph, since it is impossible to tell titled Silences, is all blue with green and gray about it. To challenge the problem of the bars (the gray becoming maroon through its reproduction of his works, the catalogue of nearness to the blue). In 1967, Gaucher his exhibition at the Vancouver Museum, in creates a last coloured painting, very large, 1969, opened with a studio photograph where of a brilliant yellow, in which thirteen little six large neutral paintings were shown; that is rose and blue bars play their chamber music. to say, with forms and colours not set by the But after this bold stroke. Gaucher devotes film, erased paintings, since they were not himself to gray. Big gray pictures, painted able to be reproduced. with a roller. Some of these gray paintings are Leaving after the name: Yves Gaucher, a huge (4 metres by 3). Thin little white bars few blank pages to the free disposition of are the only interruption which occurs on meditation or dreaming of the reader is equal­ these monochromatic surfaces. ly tempting. But if Gaucher is always at the In 1969, he again questions everything, a limit of the almost nothing, of what is almost large red picture being produced at the end without colour, of what is almost without of the year. After this new painting which form, there is nonetheless something, some breaks away from his usual work, the forms colour, some form on his canvases. And now which appear on his paintings are only hori­ I have been given the difficult task of trying zontal. These bar-lines are lengthened so far to translate this into words. as to divide the picture into three parts. Yves Gaucher is connected with Hard-edge, Gaucher plays on the theme of the two tones with Suprematism, with Monochromism. He divided by a white line. Some pictures are sometimes makes us think of a Rothko who composed of five parallel tints, from white to might be geometrical, of a Barnett Newman gray, on a bluish background. Three lines, two who might be clear. That is, that he places gray; two lines, three gray. An optic illusion himself, in technique and in expression, com­ is formed, a space rythm. Colour, although pletely at a pole opposite from that of Rothko not very strong, finishes, in the later can­ and Newman. But in the reverie of the abso­ vases, by becoming invading, possessive. All lute, they meet. Yves Gaucher is a painter the more encompassing since it is extremely of restraint, a quiet painter. His canvases unobstructive. It is the separation of tones or are big beaches of meditation. If one does of colours which divides the canvas, not the not like it, one finds that it is all empty. If line-bars reduced to a simple white harmony. one likes it, one is invaded by it, possessed From his engravings on the theme of We­ by it. Personally, I like the painting of Yves bern's music, Yves Gaucher achieved his Gaucher very much. effects by a process of reversal and turning To say how he works can clarify his work. back. Later, he came to the opposite of sym­ In his studio he has three or four canvases metry. Now his painting is more equivalent to upon which he paints at the same time, rest­ problematical music. ing from one by working on another, taking Such perfection in pictural language is advantage of the changes of scale, using a possible only with the great slowness with same range of colours. Each painting is taken which Gaucher works; but also by reason of up repeatedly, to thirty coats of paint one his exigency. A week after finishing his pic­ upon the other, without the result giving an tures, he goes on to cruel destructions. To impression of material. He stops only when such an extent that his exhibited production the three or four canvases on which he is is extremely limited. working at the same time are ripe: only when No titles for his recent works. Nothing he, the painter, has in any case the impres­ which seeks to attract the spectator. Some sion of maturity, of not being able to go any Quebecers believe that they find northern further, of having reached his limit. grays in the painting of Gaucher. This is a The work particular to Yves Gaucher begins way of attaching oneself to a naturalism in 1963 with his engravings on Webern. which here seems to me beside the point. Strange engravings, at the same time in inta­ Indeed, Yves Gaucher, if he works in Mont­ glio and in relief, which were to give the real, could as well be elsewhere. His painting artist a serious reputation as an engraver, is beyond time and place, as can be that of leading him to become professor of engraving Mallarmé, Webern and John Cage. at Sir George Williams University in Montreal. (Translation by Mildred Grand)

89 castle itself marks the structured halt of an always act in favour of true democratization, impetus into time. which is not necessarily a synonym of unifor­ On entering the rooms devoted to the mity and multiplication. works of Vasarely, a sudden rupture is pro­ In the purely plastic domain, Vasarely duced, a leap in time which transports us into revolts especially, as do many other contem­ another age. Here, the twentieth century as­ porary creators, against the artisan aspect, serts its presence in a special form. First there accidental and even inspired, of the work of is mobility. The works are displayed on panels art. He wants it to be, on the contrary, a swept along in a continual and rythmic move­ simple plastic joy for the eye, an accompa­ ment. Already, art no longer appears to us as niment of scientific knowledge, a discovery everlastingness, but as movement. of the structure of the real. The display, contrary to traditional retro­ What interests him is the elaboration of a spectives, does not go from the oldest to the coded system which allows an incalculable newest. It is reversed. We work our way up number of permutations starting from simple to the origin. The conducting thread is a elements like the circle and the square (with composition which we rediscover even in the all their variations towards the oval and the first works, a grouping learned from the Bau­ parallelogram) and the contrasted use of haus and which will arrange itself right through black-white or complementary colours. He the years, passing through the disposition thus obtains, as in chess, an almost infinite of stones and through geometric abstraction, series of moves or possible games which through the checkered board and photography, come into being in as many different works through the positive-negative of black-white, to which are yet similar. It is at the interior of form-colour union and to the system of trans­ this reasoning of unity and contradiction that position which will later form the alphabet and he develops the accomplishment of his work. the syntax of his recent work. If he does not win every time, he invents There is in all that evidence of fidelity. necessarily, because by definition he cannot, One feels that projection does not come while transforming one of the elements, ob­ about by chance and that research builds up tain two absolutely symmetrical results. from an art which could be taken for a craft It will be said that chance, in informal to an art centred on science and technology. works, produces the same diversity and this Besides, the artist becomes aware of it as is true. But what is completely different, in VASARELY: his creation develops. His Notes brutes, of a planned or structured work, is the gestalt: VIBRATION AND IRRADIATION which some are quoted in his first mono­ for the fuzziness of outline, for the psychic graph, establish this route. Thus, in 1959, impulse which relates to the soul, one subs­ he writes "Scientific popularizers have the By Gilles HENAULT titutes the pure plasticity which first produces great merit of working out a Common lan­ a visual shock before reverberating in the guage which makes the things of the world brain which must recombine the whole ac­ and of the universe understandable to us if cording to an almost mathematical process. He is called the father of Op Art. For more than forty years he has been taking part in most not exactly, then at least intuitively. To feel From this there would, therefore, result a of the big international exhibitions. In the sixties, things in an exact way is already to know mental pleasure, and one which is at the he even influenced the style and the designing of printed cloth. Last summer, television devoted a them a little. Is it not essential in a world same time more transparent, since the work major broadcast to him. The Museum of Con­ necessarily partitioned to establish osmosis, does not offer intuitive mystery, but a sort of temporary Art, in Montreal, had put him. in the program of its exhibitions. Recently, the Editions to shatter the obscure, to allow the confirma­ critical route which allows us to understand du Griffon, de Neuchâtel, in Switzerland, publish­ tion of a movement approximately identical how it is made and why we feel pleasure in ed a second album on his art in the prestigious collection Arts plastiques du vingtième siècle. In in all the sectors of human activity?" seeing what is presented to us (if there is the old castle of Gordes, in Provence, he has his This way of seeing was to lead him to a pleasure). In fact, the lag operates from con­ own museum. In brief, Vasarely, like him or not, is an artist who counts in our century. coded art of which the artist is simply the templation to the simple delight of a plasticity designer, but which is executed by assistants which appears as an enigma to be deciphered. before being carried out by computersl They Some would say that it is a matter here of a "The stake is no longer the heart, but the have cried sacrilege, hoax . . . morose enjoyment. "What a bore", a painter retina, the wit becomes a subject of experi­ Vasarely answers, in 1960: "The star artist said to me who is the exact opposite of mental psychology. Sharp black-white con­ or the solitary genius are so many anachro­ Vasarely. trasts, the untenable vibration of complemen­ nisms; only groups of seekers, collaborating And yet, there is, in these works tending tary colours, the dazzle of rhythmical networks with scientific and technical disciplines will toward the negation of poetic affectivity, a and of changed structures, the optic kinetic truly create." That was the aim of the Group certain attraction which arises from the irra­ quality of plastic compositions, so many phy­ for Research in Visual Arts ot the artists of diation and the vibration of coloured surfaces, sical phenomena present in our works, whose the Denise René Gallery, a group which would from the ratios of light, from the capricious, rôle is no longer to amaze or to plunge us dissolve after a few years of work in com­ unexpected or aggressive geometry of blacks into a sweet melancholy, but to stimulate us mon. After that, these artists became either and whites, from moving grids, in brief, from and to obtain wild joys for us." stars or solitary genii. It does not seem that colour and form which speak a purely plastic It is Vasarely who is speaking. This extract Vasarely has escaped this fate. language. from one of his texts could be his creed. This does not ignore the fact that he has (Translation by Mildred Grand) These lines summarize better than I can the exercised, by his art and his thinking, a con­ reasoning of the artist. siderable influence on the artistic orientation It was by a long route that Vasarely arrived of a whole generation. His ideas are essen­ at this awareness and this orientation. My tially generous. In 1961, he notes, "How far purpose is not to apologize for this attitude, we are from 'art for the sake of art' — plas­ but to demonstrate briefly its possibilities and ticity is food, due to all as the same right as its limits. knowledge, song or vitamins". Whence come When one takes the little winding road its struggles for social art, for the polychro­ which mounts toward the Renaissance castle matic city, for form-colour unity usable by which houses the Foundation at Gordes, the all like a game of checkers or chess, for eye does not tire of admiring the fields of vines multiples, for the integration of the arts and and the groves of cherry trees which rise to their democratization. However, all consider­ attack the steepness crowned by the elegant ed, this is hardly new. It is a long time since construction. In the valley, one's gaze deci­ the integration of the arts into architecture was phers not only the modulated space of one of achieved in cathedrals, since graphic arts and, the beautiful corners of the Provençal country, even, sculpture or tapestry produced multiples but also, on account of the different buildings and since the buildings of certain countries and the arrangement of things, as a true arran­ have been polychromatic. In other respects, gement of the tiers of the centuries. The the snare of production-consumption does not

yo forth, has given it a dynamic dimension, as witnessed by its many achievements. Because GAP is a very productive group, if one judges by the sum of its work at the end of its first year of existence, marked by exhibitions and by projects both in common and individual. By displaying its works in the very locations which inspired them — at the french-fried restaurant Chez Georges and at La Grange de Séraphin tavern, in November 1971 —• confronting the regular customers of these establishments with the reflection of their own image, the GAP has adequately ful­ filled its rôle of individual and social aware­ ness. The GAP also exhibited in more official places during the course of the summer of 1972: in the picture gallery of the National Film Board in Ottawa, as well as participating in the Montreal, plus or minus? exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal (on this subject see the article titled La Ville au musée in Vie des Arts. No. 69 (Winter 1972), pages 29-33). Finally, last December, the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Montreal, devoted a special exhibition to GAP. With regard to individual projects, let us mention the principal ones accomplished since the beginning of GAP: photographic displays de­ voted especially to workers (see Image 10, published by the National Film Board, Octo­ ber, 1971) held at LaFontaine Park (see, on LEARNING TO SEE: page 32, our photographic reproduction illus­ THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ACTION GROUP trating La Vie au musée), and to the inhabi­ tants of Charlevoix (see La Région de Charle­ By René ROZON voix in Vie des Arts, No. 62 (Spring 1971), pages 46-49). As for collective projects, let us consider that of Opportunities for Youth Habit veils observation. After a certain which consisted of photographing different time, one no longer sees his environment, no aspects of life at Disraeli, a small rural com­ more than the people who animate it. Reality munity of the Eastern Townships, whose do­ becomes dreary, uniform, monotonous. Only cuments will be gathered into a volume to be the appearance of an extraordinary element published under the title: Disraeli, a Human — be it a thing, a person or an event — and Photographic Experiment; and a second manages to bring us out of our apathy. Never­ project presently under way, entitled Montreal theless it was this reverse step which the as it Is, with the collaboration of the Montreal Groupe d'Action Photographique (GAP) was group Photocell, which intends to compile an to take. important photographic documentation on the But at first did this group come about city of Montreal, a project which could even­ spontaneously? Not completely. Let us quick­ tually develop into the creation of a photo­ ly go over a story which is very simple. Three graphic agency for the urban community. young Montreal photographers — Michel Campeau. Roger Charbonneau and Serge Lau­ These are, as we can see, numerous rin — were working separately, each in his activities, but never detrimental to the qua­ way, until the day when chance united them. lity of the work. The GAP contains six names, They realized than that they had purposes six names to remember, because they are in common and created the GAP in October, guarantees of talent. Let us open our eyes, 1971. Shortly after, three other photographers in our turn, and, with the sight of these ima­ « » > ->- ->' of the metropolis — Claire Beaugrand-Cham­ ges which we are offering to you, let us bring « « * pagne. Pierre Gaudard and Gabor Szilasi — ourselves out of the boredom which threatens EZBI sharing the same tastes, joined the developing us more each day. Then only shall we realize, group and, in February 1972, the GAP was like the GAP, that the everyday common­ formally set up. place is a myth, that it exists nowhere for the Now, what is this common purpose which person who knows how to see. And if in any unites them, in spite of different personalities? case one were to be mistaken, if there were It is inherent in their method of work which everyday dullness, just the same one would consists of capturing man and his environ­ have at least to admit, thanks to the GAP, ment alive, without disguise, without altera­ it remains an inexhaustible source of disco­ veries, that it hides and encloses unsuspected tions, without idealization. They draw from SAM TATA: wonders. the everyday, from the usual life of ordinary AN ARTIST SEEN BY ANOTHER ARTIST people and their environment, the basic mate­ (Translation by Mildred Grand) rial of the film. Ingredients which normally By Geoffrey JAMES belong to mediocrity. However, to judge by the results of such a procedure, nothing is further from the commonplace. Asked by Queen Victoria whether he felt It was a wager, and the GAP has succeeced his livelihood endangered by the new medium in this feat: to begin with the ordinary in order of photography, the fashionable French minia­ to rehabilitate it in our eyes. Because, by ture portrait painter Alfred Chalon replied, means of their photographs, we rediscover in memorable Franglais: "Ah, non, Madame, the real, the most basic real, that is to say photographie cannot flattère." Poor Chalon. the most essential: Life or this sense of life It soon became apparent that photography which we have forgotten, refuted or lost. By was indeed an ideal way to flatter les bour­ taking on the everyday, GAP has brought it geois; and the first to suffer were the minia-

91 turists. The threat to the older art came not ive), of his themes which are always the from the small daguerreotype, whose unique, same, orchestrated with a poetry which is a silvered image was as delicate and inviolable therapy of the mind of its author. Due to as a butterfly's wing, but from later negative- the setting, Delvaux will never stop intro­ positive processes, which had the advantage ducing us to the mysteries of the city where of being cheap, repeatable and retouchable. his childhood was spent. He sets up lamp­ Once given the embalmer's power to cover posts, electric and telephone wires, rails, level up the blemishes of the human face, photo­ crossings, trains which continue to call forth graphers did not hesitate to cater to their departure towards a mysterious destination, sitters' vanity. The results, almost invariably, the nameless journey to a lost country. In the were an abomination. city, he seeks tremendous perspectives: It is something of an oversimplification - esplanades, palaces, temples of Greco-Latin though one which contains some truth - to architecture; we discover an omnipresence of say that the best photographic portraits have pavement, whose contact is icy under the been taken when the photographer goes in feet of the passerby. The painter also paints search of the sitter, and not vice versa. In middle-class interiors whose doors open on the history of the medium, a remarkably large a familiar and out-of-date setting; one finds proportion of the most memorable portraits in them furniture without distinction, brass have been made not by commercial practi­ lamps which rest as well on mantelpieces as tioners but by inspired amateurs or by photo­ on the tiling of the floor or even directly on graphers who have earned their living outside it, in the middle of streets fit for escape the studio. Consider a few examples. The first (Les Lampes, 1937). A whole closed world of great body of portraits was executed by a objects deprived of frivolity and attraction is Scottish painter, David Octavius Hill, a tech­ offered to us, objects whose relationships nical primitive whose photographs were made with their surroundings are peculiar, at the largely to be used as aides-mémoire. Julia PAUL DELVAUX: least. Margaret Cameron, whom I consider to be the TIME IN SUSPENSION strongest of the English Victorian portraitists, was also an amateur and a primitive; she was Women Statued By Xavier MARRET a wonderfully eccentric and effusive lady With Delvaux, the movement of thought, a who took up photography in middle age and constant element at grips with the materials who so badgered her renowned sitters (and Paul Delvaux was born in Antheit, in 1897, of the setting, creates an environment per­ friends) that, perhaps out of exhaustion, they in the district of Liège, a dreary country of meated by dreams and anxiety where the yielded up little pieces of their souls. Of the glacial colours, with immense horizons fur­ skies of night or of metallic blue twilight are French 19th century portrait photographers, rowed by rails, bristling with aerials and combined, moonlight which hangs over the the greatest, Nadar, was admittedly thoroughly lamp-posts which give off a bleak light at all-powerful reign of the mineral and punc­ commercial. Yet even Nadar was selective night. tuates the striking character of his composi­ about whom he photographed. As a republican Timid and repressed, he lived in a family tions (Le Temple, 1949). In the midst of he refused to take the portrait of anyone con­ circle until the age of thirty-one, a fact which this encompassing setting, nude enigmatic nected with the French court. And as a had many consequences on his work. He women move about slowly in the streets, reformed caricaturist he realized that he could lived under the domination of a mother who distorting their gestures which, suddenly sus­ never satisfy the vanity of women, so he put him on his guard by teaching him the pended, show a certain choreographic ampli­ never photographed them. (Fortunately he equation, "Woman = danger", which would tude (La Belle du couchant, 1945). Or else excepted the very beautiful Sarah Bernhardt later reveal his obsessions. From 1920, he these women are immobile, taking fixed and the very talented George Sand.) studied at the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, in poses, hieratic as if turned into statues; The list can be extended endlessly: Alvin order afterwards to give free rein to his seated on absolutely rigid chairs, reclining Langdon Coburn's enthusiastic pursuit of passion for painting, with greater mastery. on sofas, lascivious, their limbs sometimes Edwardian literati, Alfred Steiglitz's intense twined with clever draperies (La Voix publique, 1948); or again taking root in the portraits of his friends, August Sander's Catalyst of Magritte and De Chirico extraordinary collective portrait of the German true sense of the term in Femmes arbres. people. Perhaps the point can be pushed too For a long time, Delvaux sought his course, 1937. At this juncture, sensual vocabulary far, but it does, in a roundabout way, suggest in search of his identity. During this slow joins itself to that of plant life; with Delvaux one of the reasons why I admire the portraits development of the work, it came about that flowers and foliage often appear on the very of Sam Tata. Tata is by profession a photo- his first canvases had Post-impressionism as flesh of women, a symbiosis which raises journalist, and as such he is frequently asked their pole of attraction, then little by little his them to the rank of ancient divinities. The by editors to photograph the famous or the pictures revealed a certain expressionism, a faces are devoid of emotion, the eyes absent, passingly notorious. But the pictures here faith which he quickly renounced (Maternité, the look is lost in emptiness where, if it were made by choice. They are part of a 1930). The discovery of Surrealism, in 1934, comes upon an object, it seems not to per­ continuing, personal collection of portraits of would be for him a way out thanks to which ceive it; the breasts are heavy, the hips Quebec artists - a term that Tata rightly he would assert himself. Among the sur­ wide, the prerogative of a perfect feminity; interprets broadly. They are unpretentious realists he found a prophetic language which further, the artist does not neglect to show photographs, quiet and deceptively simple. would take the rôle of catalyst in his painting. the pubic tuft which crowns the sex. Without obvious stylistic flourishes and car­ The discovery of René Magritte and, especial­ The graphic arrangement is strict. Delvaux ried out with the simplest of means, they yet ly, of Giorgio de Chirico set him ablaze; he uses a smooth cold paste; the use of the flat bear an unmistakable autographic stamp - grasped a pictural model in his contempora­ stroke gives to his preconceived model of what Tata's mentor, Henri Cartier-Bresson, ries. Then his enthusiasm was without res­ woman a petrifying nature but not less has called "a certain identity". Where the traint; he began the spell-bound period of his evocative of luster. The relationship of the police photographer can make any man look painting in which gravity and fervour were body curves and the sharp lines of the like a criminal and where Yousuf Karsh can combined. Nonetheless, he would still place architecture motivates the pleasure which this make any man look important, Tata allows himself at the edge of Surrealism, because painting provides. The lines of these female his subjects to speak for themselves. To there is an evident devotion to solitude in bodies are drawn with a disconcerting sure- dwell on the individual merits of the Delvaux. ness, the range of colours of their flesh varies photographs would be superfluous, for the When one applies himself to reading the from rosy to gray; in it there is a whole photojournalist's work finds full expression in pictures of Delvaux with vigilance, a noc­ scale of chromatics contrasting with the reproduction. Perhaps the best thing one can turnal idealism and a mystique of the dream intensities of light, the transparent quality of say about these pictures is that they admira­ are revealed; it is a whole poetry of the image the skies and the opaque waters of the sea bly achieve Tata's own aim of "showing what that one succeeds in deciphering. Now we often present in the background (Les grandes people look like and how they live". It may must define the field of the possible sirènes. 1947). The severity of the form, the seem a modest goal, but it is one that has approaches of this painting and take inventory academism of the style and the mastery of been the basis for many of photography's of his world, of his syntax which calls upon the subject, like coloured notations, come most lasting images. signs (mirrors, lamps, the plays of perspect­ together towards the unity of the work.

1)2 Introverted Men at the level of the significant combinations of lines, gestures, attitudes, stiff as they may GEORGES BRAEM: These creatures, nymphs or goddesses, in be, which call upon the meaningful level CLOSER TO DELVAUX THAN REDON? the course of their wandering, pass, full of which is the incommunicability of human the explicit physical charm of women, in front beings, their solitude, their dreams and their By Pierre PARET of men dressed in the most severe fashion, anticipation. Delvaux has never done any­ nose plunged with austerity in a newspaper, thing but reflect through different environ­ I knew Bernard Palissy: he was called or absorbed in the observation of tiny objects ments a same beauty as he brings to the Georges Braem. That was about fifteen or which they scrutinize with a perseverance world. In Formes et significations, Jean sixteen years ago; he was living on the quai without apparent result (L'Entrée de la ville. Rousset tells us that "the artist of genius des Chartrons, in Bordeaux, on a fourth storey 1940). What impresses us in these persons marks himself by a revealing monotony; that the rats themselves had deserted. From is this intentness of mind on futile things. typical phrases, identities of structure are the windows that looked out over the boat-houses While loitering, some seem to be preaching signs of his creative originality, being the of the port, we watched boats leaving and in the desert, to converse with several others disjointed fragments of a strange universe." dreamed of journeys. on illusory subjects or to devote themselves Always the same work, therefore, under dif­ Thus we felt less keenly the biting cold that to disconnected remarks. Sometimes one of ferent figures, combined in variations which became increasingly aggressive as we went these men strangely resembles the painter allow the same themes to be recognized, further towards the inside of the house. (My himself, as in La Ville endormie, 1938; placed transformed and adorned. wife owes her worst chills to our prolonged at the edge of the picture, perhaps he is At a time when exploration of new tech­ stays in this paradise, but she will never questioning himself on the obscure fate which niques and new means of expression are admit it.) After a brief respite, invisible shafts will be that of these actors confined in a uninteresting ideas for Delvaux, one can ask of cold soon stung our ears and we went off rôle of dramatic inwardness. One of the types himself how this painting can please. in search of a piece of furniture. one meets the most often, notably in Les By all evidence, it is not on technique and — Not that one: the kids put their toys there. Phases de la lune. 1939, is Otto Lidenbrock means that we must question ourselves but — What about that chest? of Jules Verne whose illustrator was Edouard rather on the meaning of this painting, the — Why not? Rion, from whom Delvaux borrowed the model implications of the signs of which it makes It was old, rickety, worm-eaten, we found without the slightest alteration. Curiously use. all manner of fault with it, we had to make a enough, only a nude adolescent shows himself fire, the children's teeth were chattering, ours awkwardly, with an emphasized innocence of Death and Sexuality too. manifest anxiety, in the midst of all these The fire served two purposes, first, heating, adults who are paying no attention to each First of all, Delvaux translated a state of always a relative and short-lived heat, and other (L'Aube sur la ville, 1940). No rela­ reverie, a contemplative state and a sort of cooking. tionship is created between the male and fanciful elation to which we are all attached. We did not roast suckling pigs on charcoal female persons, if it is not incidentally a On the other hand the artist stigmatizes the as in Polynesia, we were content with a tip of a hat or vague gesture on the part of lack of communication between people, due coarse milk soup. When the chairs and cup­ these automata, one might say, considering to their futility, to their sterility and above boards began to run out (I forgot to mention the restraint of emotion which they feel at all to the forbidden. All people are in a that the aunt who was putting her nephew up the sight of the woman exposed to their view. state of expectancy whose object we surely in this unrentable apartment, had had the lack Each of these persons, men and women, lives do not know, if it is not vague probabilities, of conscience to furnish the immense rooms separately an individual life. vague promises of sin which we lend to with everything she had not the courage to The joining of a masculine and feminine their imagination and which the theme of get rid of and which, in fact, was not worth structure is unceasingly deferred, with a few death subtends, often recalled by the much), they were replaced by old newspa­ near exceptions. Although there is a relatively appearance of skeletons in the midst of them pers. When the andirons were exchanged for hardened look of the described people, a (Vénus endormie, 1944). The forbidden five or six kilos of bread, they were replaced whole theatre of gesture is decanted under linked to death is one of the most con­ by two racing bicycle handlebars salvaged the paint-brush of Delvaux and in his art of temporary themes. One can quote Georges from the scrap heap. representation as much as that of the visual Bataille on this subject: "If in essential for­ Braem was going through his Bateau-lavoir transcription of a poetic state. We think of bidden matters we see the refusal which the period. He did not like having a rough time the plays of mirrors in which women look at human being offers to nature (the body) for the sake of it, but he did not compromise. themselves, of processional marches, of move­ viewed as a corruption of live energy and as He wanted to paint and he would paint, ments which precede flight, of Sapphic an orgy of destruction, we can no longer whatever it cost him. embraces: Les Demoiselles de Tongres, 1962, make a difference between death and The apartment, although it began to look or yet of the embracing of a marble bust of sexuality." more and more deserted, was no less of a a man by an impassive woman in Pygmalion, In the pictures of Delvaux woman poses caravansary. Friends passing by stopped off 1939. We can observe in this connection and creates a feeling of distance and even of at this place where it was authorized for that the female ideal of Sacher-Masoch absence; the attitude of man is refusal, he nomads to stop, ate what they found, spent appeals to an essential coldness. "Corps de rears in order not to follow the movement a few nights and disappeared forever. marbre", "Vénus de glace", "Femme de which attracts him. Nonetheless, one can cal­ A beardless Van Dongen pierre", are the favourite words of Sacher- culate in these persons the idea of a becoming In Bordeaux, a lethargic city where, to be Masoch and his characters willingly fulfil taking place in a hidden temporality which, important, one must have a house of one's their apprenticeship with a cold statue under in the end, does not systematically close the own, go to church on Sunday, and wear a the light of the moon (quoted by Gilles pictures. It is a matter of a time of stopping fedora, paintings were selling badly. The Deleuze in Présentation de Sacher-Masoch). and not of a last immobility. Chartrons'1 > hardly appreciated this tall fellow (Translation by Mildred Grand) who looked like a beardless Van Dongen, and strolled about in the middle of winter in blue Freudian Themes jeans and a turtleneck pullover. How could All these scenes centre our reflections on these rather insensitive middle-class people the creative undertaking and semeiology; they have understood that Braem preferred poverty assume a network of references to the equi­ to an ill-paid job in their badly heated offices? valence of basic idea and form. Jointly with They said he was lazy because he turned the simple perfection of the design, the down employment that would have turned portraits of Delvaux are fed by mental him from his calling. A hasty judgment that reservations of a psychological kind, moral prevented easily alarmed conscience from and perhaps psychoanalytical to a greater being upset. degree. The return to the subconscious is One day a merchant marine commander of fulfilled by means of Freudian themes. The a generous nature, asked him to carry his exercise of this painting seems to have wood up from the basement to the third or exorcised little by little a libidinous fantasy, fourth floor of an apartment building that the inward fears and the Oedipus of its obviously had no elevator. When the work author. was finished, with a gesture of compassion­ Speaking the language of linguists, we find ate simplicity, he slipped him a ten francs

93 coin — at the time, charwomen were being certain that God welcomed those people into people who are made ill precisely by the paid twenty francs an hour — which Braem His paradise: he only acknowledges His own. fear of living. returned to him with a few well-chosen words. — I never lacked good advice. I was told I Ingres danced with joy . . . I knew him to be a candle maker, a should speculate in auctions to boost my — The universe you paint, as opposed to that projectionist, a decorator of candy boxes, and selling price. It is easy: you put one or two of a painter like Magritte or Tanguy, to goodness knows what else? It never lasted canvases up for auction. Friends acting as whom you are closely related in pictorial very long: just whatever was needed to bring "barons" make the bids go up, buying quality, abounds in nudes . . . home a few loaves of bread, to buy some paintings for two or three times their worth — This is because I think that the nude em­ colours and possibly, to pay off a debt. and, when the operation is finished, you bodies the individual rid of the travesty Today, everyone will say they never doubt­ pay the auction fees, and give them back of society's trumpery, whose weight smo­ ed he would be a success, but how many of the amount of the bid . . . thers him. He is thus completely freed us were there who believed it at the time? It has also been said that my pride would from his phantasms and inhibitions. More Now, he owns, on the basin of Arcachon, be my downfall and that, if instead of than that, a fine nude is beautiful . . . See­ a "real bargain" house which he set up — or neglecting social events, I were to shine ing it, painting it, makes me glad to belong upset — the way he liked. He built himself up to a few people of good position, I to the species. Ingres did not think other­ a cosy studio, warm and well lit, watched would rank among the first. wise when seeing his models arrive dress­ over by a cat and a turtle-dove. The studio is He does anyway, without having wasted his ed as Eve, he began to dance with joy. HIS room. You can find everything there, time in hypocritical politeness and in ko­ — Do you consider that eroticism, of which even a bed with tough springs and one of towing. What is admirable about him, is the you are sometimes accused, is a stimulat­ those little braziers used at the turn of the constancy with which he pursued his calling ing value? century in the Landes (TR: area in Southern without ever turning away from it. He had — I am sure that eroticism is a value of France, below Bordeaux) to smoke swarms obstinacy and a will to succeed. Doubts too, progress (let us not forget the word of bees and force them to leave the trees of course, but the assurance that one day he eroticism comes from Eros, god of love). and be gathered. Pinned to the wall, between would reach the point where his art would I think that it is just as important to use two canvases, is a cluster of photos of nudes, finally flourish. it as it is not to exploit it. It is as regret­ as lovely as statues, and more likelife than A distressing change table to see it flaunted everywhere as to reality. When I knew him he was painting like keep it hidden away. It is a fiery force that That is where he dreams, paints and smo­ Rouault. Then, gradually freeing himself from one must be able to control to go fast and kes his pipe. Silence is indispensable: only inevitable influences and developing in skill, far. the birds perched under the roof, between the he executed somewhat bold works which beams, have the right to speak. And so does today he calls bourgeois. More like Delvaux than Redon the fire, which tells tales of the time when Persevering in a path where fame is joined — You live in the south west of France, but the tree trunk was a quivering sapling, scarce­ by material success assures his security. He you are of Flemish origin, and for the last ly taller than the green grass sea. At night was finally beginning to earn a living, but this two years you have been making lengthy elves danced a round in his honour and join­ success which was relative after all, left him excursions in the region of Anvers, which ing in, the moon cast yellow beams on the uneasy. has produced a certain something in your art — perhaps mainly a pictorial quality ballet in which a young girl indulged, an After having taken a break from his work, — that places it in the great Nordic tradi­ Ophelia or an Yvonne de Galais, nude and he resumed it without worrying about the tion. Do you believe in the influence of immaterial, holding in two fingers a white good advice heaped upon him by those who race? egg beaded by the dewy freshness of dawn. saw a culmination in this painting which The pipe goes out and silence enlarges the hereafter was put aside and repudiated. — The individual is always the result of here­ room where a Rhenish burgh now stands fac­ The time for new research had come. To dity. I bear the mirages and phantasms of ing a red hill overlooking the river. From the finish it successfully, he needed solitude, my race, this liking too for what Péguy, top of her rock, a blonde Lorelei sings to a peace, and serenity. The Landes offered the whose origins, however, are different from fisherman dazzled by her death song . . . ideal atmosphere for this return to his roots, mine, called "work well done". The first Braem has left for the unknown and en­ this plunge into silence, this voyage to the thing that we must require of a painter, is chanted land, but always, the carnal aspect of depths. to be a painter and the best painter he life commands attention, rejecting obscenity For four years, almost nothing was heard can be. and giving new dimensions to an eroticism of him, and the works of this period attest to More like Delvaux than Redon in his view that is his alone. a perturbation in which memories clashed of woman, we also find, in Braem's work, a What have I not heard about this painting with rather confused promises. In this lengthy tendency to be a miniaturist ... on a large that offends those who cannot paint, shocks period a slow but definite change occurred. scale, and this love of completed work that those who cannot see — especially see into During this time of introspection where he gave intimacy and denseness to his canvases themselves. willingly gave up the clientele he had so much that are open onto infinity as well as those of — I hate uproar, internal combustion engines, difficulty getting, during these years when he strange scenes, condensed in geometric areas crowds, mottos, and verbiage. again knew the difficult times of his youth, or filling universes, whose walls or skies seem He also detested humming machinery, he never had a thought to return to the man­ to be listening. pawnbrokers, the smug rich, and advisers. ner of painting whose dangers he knew. The time has now past when, in the house But he liked real bread, wild plants, large And then there was an explosion. Erotic on the quai des Chartrons in Bordeaux, straws houses that sprawl in the sun, trees that have surrealist: the revelation came to him when were drawn to see what furniture would be lived long, the fogs of the harbour, and large he understood that each person carries within burned to heat the milk soup and give, at the bowls of milk. himself a baroque and strange world, marked same time, a bit of warmth to the large rooms overlooking the almost deserted port. He thinks that if a picture can be explained by social obligations, a rather unavowable it isn't good and that people who are always world. There are things one says and things Braem's painting is now well established, trying to understand are those who will never one does not say. He will try to express the at least in the opinion of some people whose be able to feel. Thus, he has few friends. He latter. naturally equivocal prudishness does not turn believes that the work must surpass the work­ — In reality one is what one does not say. away from elementary truths. Far from stimu­ man, and that if work is worthwhile in the He will thus paint life, such as it exists lating these doubtful complexes which afflict precocious old people, his surrealist scenes long run, it is always worthwhile. Mainly for behind the façade, an irrational life, elusive, and psychological landscapes give out bound­ the satisfaction it gives. baffling, the life of the dream, the subcons­ less peace and serenity. He lives from his painting and paints his cious, and the instinct. life, thus he does a great deal of work: about — Does surrealism not play a large part in Consumed by the turbulence of cities, the thirty canvases a year, worth ten times more your pictorial process? fever of speed and hammering of noise, our than those of artists who do two a day. He — If you mean as a school, no. If you take age aspires to this kind of peace and serenity only shows those that say something, on the the term in the sense of surrealism, which more each day. condition that they do not speak to just any­ means beyond reality as well as within the (1) The Chartrons, who were castigated by Mauriac one. Those who found his art too racy and unavowed oneiro-reality, then yes, it does. in Préséances, are the inhabitants of the Pavé des Chartrons: an area formerly set apart for rich vulgar fare, were people envious of him, and — Then you run the risk of scandal? people, today generally impoverished, but that several of them were crushed when about ten — I accept all risks; living is a risk. I say continue to live in the manner of their ancestors of the XVIIIth century, whose ways they have of his works — including a colour cover — living and not existing. As for scandal, I conserved. appeared in full pages in Plexus. It is not think it is the self-protecting reflex of (Translation by Yvonne Kirbyson)

94 nection, the sculptor Kelly Morgan raises among artists and between artists and the strange relationships between the different public; b) integrate the works of people of nature of natural elements. With wood, he other discipline (music, poetry, dance, thea­ fashions savage forms, sensual and queer. tre, etc.) which also need a locale different He uses the photographic method to give the from existing institutions: c) give a greater appearance of stone to other wooden forms. priority to the needs of each artist in what Gunter Nolte works directly in the space concerns the space and the time for their where he decides to set up his work. His exhibitions, which present institutions do not way of working is joined in a certain sense to or cannot do; d) contribute to the education that of the happening without, nonetheless, of the public at large on the subject of art, by containing the element of collective participa­ inviting schools, universities, artistic groups tion. For example, he will spread liquid colour and the public to visit the premises; by on a floor covered with vinyl. The natural working actively with them; and by giving action of the liquid on the floor will build up them the most possible information concern­ in itself a fascinating plastic outline. Serge ing the internal and external activities of the Tousignant creates sculptures which treat place; e) create an environment, a comfort­ problems of illusion in different ways. Some­ able place for artists and public, which would times, by means of a simple gummed tape promote dialogue between the different forms applied to the wall of a room, he carries the of art and their respective publics." setting of the work of art into the frame of There is certainly no need to mention that the everyday. Bill Vazan, with his topogra­ a system of educative dissemination, similar phical work, uses the geographical facts of to that of the Groupe Véhicule necessitates the planet, at a level as much practical as financial resources. Up till now the group has conceptual, to bring his research to fulfil­ been able to count on the help of the Canada ment. For her part, Milly Ristvedt continues Council. As the cooperative centre has a non­ to work on the traditional surface of canvas THE OPTION OF THE commercial aim, it seems to me normal and without, in any case, her work being consi­ GROUPE VÉHICULE greatly to the credit of this state organisation dered essentially traditional. to support this social enterprise. The cultural Without mentioning the work of Gary and conservative power exercised by the com­ By Gilles TOUPIN Coward, Jean-Marie Delavalle, François Déry, mercial system of galleries is finally offset Dennis Lukas and Henry Saxe, it is possible (in part, certainly, because the effort of There is an idea which has been occupying here and now to state from this more than Véhicule would need to be repeated by many the mind of the public for some years, at summary review that the Groupe Véhicule other persons) by a freedom of exhibition. least in great part, and which seems to me does not exist in order to defend a very The system of alternative jury made up of timely to demystify. I am often asked what is defined plastic ideaology. Even if, in general, three members of whom one is outside the happening in art in Montreal with this into­ the spirit of the research tends to become group permits, even if it is not perfect, many nation which hopes, almost begging, for an grouped under a questionable awareness of young artists to exhibit for the first time. immediate approval: "Since Borduas and the traditional data of art as discerned by the Véhicule is in its introductory phase. It will since the plasticians, there is nothing more, official networks of diffusion, the existence of expand, without doubt, if it is definitely al­ is there?" It is very evident that, for those the Groupe Véhicule is justified according to lowed to continue its work. Not only will it who do not follow the Montreal scene each much more practical aims. It was, however, be able to become an important point of week, the absence of movements toward very important to be, somewhat, acquainted with reference at the level of its immediate terri­ precise idealogies and toward heroic social the creative activity of the members of the tory, but it will be able to stretch its tentacles problems seems to be a symptoms of total group. The fact of knowing who are exactly over the world scene. It is thanks to immer­ apathy. And yet the art of groups does exist those who spark such an undertaking clarifies sion in research movements in the whole among us; it exists under this idealogy which its objectives in one way or another. The world that we will have the option of recog­ consists of not having any, in the plastic implied spirit in the creative research of the nizing and identifying our roots. sense of the term. It is at the very heart of members of Véhicule is not used for the By establishing itself as to space, Véhicule, this pleonasm which a historic sequence purposes of cultural control. One cannot, by its aims, becomes a sort of source of (which, at the least, will become historical however, deny that they are inscribed at the energy. The flood of artists frustrated by the because at the moment it appeals to no his­ heart of a new creativity here. And as the inadequacy of a system will find in it a toric past) is arising little by little and is group, in spite of its being open to all forms beneficial exit; finally, an alternative. claiming this right to communication. Now of art past, present or future, wishes that the (Translation by Mildred Grand) either the art of the plasticians is made dissemination of "art which questions the official and recognized fifteen years late, other norms already established" should come about creators have come forth to form in the it offers itself as a support of this new emptiness a new artistic reality, pulsing with creativity. life, which does not even have the pretention It is of the first importance not to interpret of naming itself as such but which none the falsely the goals of Véhicule. I therefore allow less continues to exist in spite of mockery myself to quote the text which exactly defined and general lack of understanding. the aims of the group: "We would like to offer We would not be able to catalogue the a centre without a financial goal and without new awareness of the Quebec creators of the political aims, directed by and for artists, Groupe Véhicule under arbitrary labels of which by its very structure of functioning, known international movements such as those would remain open and available to all the of Land Art, Conceptual Art or Process Art. forms of art in evolution; and which would be Among them there is a little of all that but, an active and vital place for artists and the especially, a diversification of research which public. We want this place to go far beyond prevents their regrouping under a same cate­ being of advantage to the artists of the group. gory. The art of a Tom Dean, for instance, In so far as the initiator of this project, it is in this blunt retranscription of certain social evident that each of us would use the place stereotypes — especially when it newly marks from time to time but we also want this place in a sort of establishment certain newspaper to serve as large a group of artists as pos­ clippings, clippings typical of the spirit of a sible, which would allow us to reach a greater society — establishes a process of communi­ public. cation with direct annotations. André Dutke- We believe that with the structures of wich with his works of minimalistic thought functioning which we have established we is on another track. Suzy Lake with her ban­ can: a) offer exhibition space to a great num­ quets in process explores the action of man ber of artists in visual art in Montreal and in the course of time and the changes which the rest of the country, which would be of use he brings about on things. In another con­ in strengthening the lines of communication

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