Figurative Painting
XXI st. Century art navigates without chart or map : anything goes as long as it is talked about
and bought at high prices. During the whole last century, a very simple question occupied the
mind of artists and artlovers alike : what is Art ?
Everyone tried to take a go at it, and the results were bewildering, stimulating, provocative,
revolutionary, new… and ultimately leading to confusion.
We may never know what Art is, but I’ll risk saying that it is possible to say what Figurative
Painting is.
- It is done by hand, by an individual who takes full responsability for what there is to be
seen.
- It is made of different imprints on a surface of brushes and other tools loaded with paint.
- Traces, blotches, scratches, lines, washes, strokes… constitute the basic vocabulary of this
art.
- Everyone of these markings has its own colour, with near infinite variations.
- Their accumulation leads to a coherence that it « recognizable » : the image.
- Each painter has to find his or her own way to lead to this coherence, it’s called style.
- Every aspect of a painted image can be subjected to analysis, and a connaisseur can always
recognize the authenticity of the impulse to paint images.
- Knowledge of painting has very little to do with what’s going on in the artworld, and a lot to
do with a grasp of the timeless quality of a figurative painting.
Such criteria make it possible to outline a specific field of creative activity within which
quality judgements can be made. Thus, with Figurative Painting, we find ourselves at the
opposite end of the contemporary anything goes. Chichi, Bling Bling, Hip, Cool and other
loose ways to coopt would be artworks may prevail in today’s cultural landscape, but it has no
foundations. Instead, Figurative Painting is built upon an accumulation of masterpieces
through the ages and through different cultures.
Anyone who cannot see it is blind to art. Let’s pity the poor suckers who want to be in tune
with what’s in today!