ABSTRACTION IN PEACE TIMES (1945-1975): PAINTING BELGIUM

APPEARANCE OF A NEW ABSTRACT ART WITHIN LA JEUNE PEINTURE BELGE

The current exhibition organized in Brussels by the Galerie La Patinoire Royale Bach, presents an exceptional view of Belgian abstract art between 1945 and 1975. The first abstract manifestations appeared at the core of the non-profit organization Jeune Peinture Belge (1945-1948), established in Brussels by the art historian Robert Delevoy, that included twelve founding member artists, then another thirty. A growing preoccupation could be seen amongst these artists: transforming reality based on purely artistic criteria and with a much greater emotional subjectivity, right up to the point of playing purely with the emotive strengths of form and color. As personalities asserted themselves, it became evident that abstract art was to organize itself into two almost hostile groups: the first, Apollonian, was moving towards construction, geometry and a flat use of color; the second, Dionysian and called lyrical, deferred primarily to emotional instincts and a voluntary self-abandon to the vigor of splashed color, at the same time applying a free gestural brushwork. Jo DELAHAUT (1911-1992) was the first, in 1946, to be converted to geometric abstraction, using spatial planes created with layers of flat color, unequivocally stating that the subject is nothing other than paint itself, a creed that he was to follow in diverse variations for over fifty years. Gaston BERTRAND (1910-1994), one of the star-founders of La Jeune Peinture, attracted to architecture and mathematical representations, was trying out compositions as early as 1946 which had a single objective: the poetry of geometric forms. The ensuing abstractions resulted from a decanting and sublimation of the sites that Bertrand observed and made notes on, during his many travels.

As for the lyrical type of abstract art, this was begun in Belgium in 1947 by the other star of La Jeune Peinture Belge, Louis VAN LINT (1909- 1986). Particularly sensitive to nature of all sources that resided in its most essential forms, the artist was to adapt this over forty years into a loose form of writing belonging only to him, with a lyricism carrying the voices of the earth and the cosmos. The appearance of this lyrical abstraction can be seen in the work of some of the other members of La Jeune Peinture Belge, and then in the Cobra group movement (1948-1952), mainly in the work of Pierre ALECHINSKY (1927), whose extraordinarily expressive lines, doubtless influenced by Far Eastern calligraphy, have bestowed him with an international aura. This abstract option of lyrical essence can likewise be seen in the work of Jean MILO (1906-1993), whose only desire was also to find artistic equivalences faced with the emotion of the natural world; likewise with Anne BONNET (1906-1960), who aimed to extract the themes she was working on, out of their figurative casing. It can be seen too in the work of Mig QUINET (1906-2001), a young proponent of lively, contrasting color, whose rough brush marks sweep across her abstract compositions, capturing a hard light.

A CERTAIN ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

Lyrical abstract art went even so far as to meet what was called ‘abstract expressionism’. This was the case of Antoine MORTIER (1908- 1999). As seen from 1950 in the big dramatic strokes and vigorous gestures of his drawings, the artist was to pursue the primitivism of the sign with masterly exuberance in his brushwork. The same can be said of the younger Englebert VAN ANDERLECHT (1918-1961) who, working the pictorial field, attacked his surfaces with a daring monumental stenography. This can also be said of his friend, Serge VANDERCAM (1924-2005) with whom he ‘shared’ certain paintings, and for a while too of the younger artists, Pierre LAHAUT, Charles DRYBERG, Gisèle VAN LANGE. The work of Maurice WYCKAERT can also be put under this tendency, whose abstract landscapes were to sing with the brightest contrasting colors.

THE ATTRACTION OF ‘MATIERISME’ (MATTER ART) AND PREDOMINENCE OF ‘SIGNE-ECRITURE’ (PICTOGRAPHIC WRITING)

During the years 1950-1960, some of the Belgian artists entering abstraction came together through their use of diverse materials, often mineral in origin such as sand or plaster, which they integrated with traditional pigments. This was true of Marc MENDELSON (1915-2013), but also of the older artist René GUIETTE (1893-1976) who continued to incorporate sand into his informal abstractions of signs and graffiti inspired by Zen thought. Likewise with Berthe DUBAIL (1913-1984), Suzanne THIENPONT, Luc HOENRAET, Bram BOGART. Yet even more so with the younger artist Walter LEBLANC (1932-1996) who, besides the use of sand, combined other matiériste methods such as sewing with thread, pricking with needles, leading him to his dynamic alignments entitled Twisted Strings.
In these new means of abstract expression, sometimes line and writing would predominate all the rest. In this respect, one example stands out above all others: the work of Christian DOTREMONT (1922-1979), the creator of the Cobra movement. The poet began to make artistic transpositions in Indian ink of his own poems, creating what he called Logograms. Following his lead, Jacques CALONNE, a musician and composer, did the same. But when it comes to writing and signs, surely the first to come to mind is Jules LISMONDE (1908-2001)? With a preference for charcoal, by 1958 he was making abstractions in a purely personal dialectic, combining the stasis of straight lines with the patterns of curves. Not to mention his multiple calligraphic Signes drawn in ink from 1960 onwards.

RETURNING TO GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: THE GROUP ART ABSTRAIT, AND MORE

The work of Luc PEIRE (1916-1994) who found his expression in ‘the haughty celebration of verticality,’ forms a major part of the geometric abstract art movement. But in 1956, Jo Delahaut and Jean Milo grouped together about twenty Belgian artists, of mainly geometric tendency, that they simply called Art Abstrait. Many exhibitions were organized under this heading. But there was also a new tendency that they disregarded, that could be defined as ‘minimalist’. Thus emerged the work of such artists as Dan VAN SEVERN (1927-2009), Marthe WERY (1930-2005), to whom can be added Jef VERHEYEN, Raoul DE KEYSER and Mark VERSTOCKT. This is without taking into account other Belgian subscribers to abstraction, such as Elie BORGRAVE, Roger DUDANT and Gabriel BELGEONNE.
– Serge Goyens de Heusch

HOW TO ...  

The exhibition offers an evolutionary path, going from one pole to another, starting from absolute minimalism, passing through the geometric, and leading to the most expressive lyricism, or vice versa, depending on the direction of the visitor, on either side of the nave of the Patinoire Royale. On the ground floor and upstairs, there are more works gathered according to medium or ways of expression.
A small explanatory film, in the basement of the gallery, reiterates the words of Constantin Chariot and illuminates the exhibition.
The personal exhibition dedicated to the sculptor Jan DRIES (1925-2014), in the room under the glass roof, adds to this painted abstraction a sculpted complement.

THE SCENOGRAPHY PROPOSAL

L’Art et le Vivant, by Art&Build Architect, Brussels - Paris

Biophilia, from the greek « bio » (life) and suffix « -phile » (one who loves), is the act of loving the living.Therefore, the architecture focuses particularly on the feeling of well-being activated by the perception of every natural things : light, materials, vegetals, water...The emotional brain, here positively stimulated, nourrishes the cognitive brain and encourages creativity, interraction between indivuals, personal and collective fullfilment.
In the same way, art participates in this sensitive and cerebral alchemy, favourable for the complexity of human beings. The scenography plays with this analogy between art and the living.
The vegetal accompanies the wandering, to create a well-being feeling through colors, materials, perfumes. The architecture structures the museographical idea of the exhibition.
The walls are rigorously organized. A fonctionnal frame, but also, free of constraint, favorable to expression, the one from the artist as well as the visitors. A free path full of diverse perspectives and therefore, surprises. A sober and clean scenography that let the imagination flows.