ABSTRACT PAINTING IN FRANCE
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Since the time of impressionism, painting has shown proofs of vitality, of inventive power, of a spirit of discovery that are admirable, and may at first have seemed inexhaustible. We well know the series of transformations which occurred through the various and sometimes conflicting movements: an awareness of its own powers that led painting logically toward abstraction. In fact only a superficial view-point would regard the beginning of abstraction as an accident. Rather has it been the result (I would even say the foreseeable result) of a liberation of 'painting by painting' that started with freedom of color by the impressionists -- even before that with Turner, Delacroix, and a few others still more removed from us.
It should be noted, however, that it was with the impressionists that the whole thing really began; it was they who undertook the liberation of' color; they rejected the 'subject'; they abandoned pompous historical scenes to devote their attention to the most ordinary and everyday aspects of nature; seeing the tree merely as a colored mass, they were endlessly decomposing and recomposing these colors against a changing background (with equally varying hues) that is called the sky. Van Gogh and Cézanne further minimized the subject, painting artificial instead of real flowers, or even a pair of worn-out shoes. I imagine you will agree that such contempt for subject-matter undoubtedly heralded a time when the latter would be denied completely; when men would become aware of the specific power of color as color, or rhythm as rhythm, and of shapes as shapes.
Aside from cubism, in which the connexion is far too obvious, I think that Picasso's genius-mania for assassinating the appearance of things (to give them a supra-appearance instead) has ended not with the negation, but rather with the exaltation of the subject: the ultimate effort, the ultimate jump of the subject to hold us. Since his cubist period, all Picasso's work has expressed the final attempt, the last cry of nature to draw us back to her, in the same way as some people commit suicide to draw attention to themselves. This fascinating and derisive effort is one of the most winning aspects of Picasso's work.
The will-power and spiritual tension that enabled the first abstract painters to think in terms of' abstraction and to acquire a technique for painting appropriate to the novel emotional language, was truly formidable. Day after day they had to do their utmost in order to renew and develop the scale of their new expressive means -which, as soon as it started, was threatened with sclerosis and gratuitousness because there was a risk of 'repetition' and of 'recipe'.
At present, when abstract painting demonstrates that it has at its disposal an expressive keyboard as wide and as eloquent as that of music or poetry (in proportion to its own field, of course), I believe modern artists have now an opportunity to take advantage of all the possibilities offered. The painter today is freed from that choking halter which is the threat of nature's unexpected reappearance; it can negate his very will to paint, obliging him every day to practise new inventions in order to baffle her and to liberate himself. This explains the schematic appearance of certain work; by schematic, I mean devoid of poetry. In such cases, invention has preceded the inward impulse, intention has preceded emotion. But we know such attempts were an answer to a vital necessity. We know only too well that it was a question of 'life or death' not to be touched by it. If they are lacking in that poetry which now seems quite natural to abstract painting, such work nevertheless carries an emotional reflection of that struggle.
We are led to draw a conclusion from these facts: being able to breathe an abstract atmosphere which is at least breatheable, we modern painters are now in a position to exploit with a maximum intensity all 'offered' possibilities. This is what I meant when I said: I am convinced that our own period is one of deepening and lengthening.
Some artists -- such as myself and a great majority of French painters -- may be more impressed by the lessons of clarity, of balance, of controlled eloquence, that we owe to the more recent period of Kandinsky's work, to Kupka, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, and Delaunay; or rather, as in America at the present moment, many are attracted by Kandinsky's more impulsive first period, or by Marc or Macke's expressionism; but that is not the point. It is not my task here to judge and compare these different tendencies; I would be very pleased if critics, museum directors, collectors, and even art amateurs would not judge too systematically either. In my opinion, no real distinction can be made on the level of formal appearances, but only on the basis of the poetry contained in the work.
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