ART AND US
La Tribune de Tanger, Morocco, May 1951
 |
Little
Boy Blue
by Jean Tabaud
(See Artwork H-29) |
I remember when I was about twelve years old I spent hours watching
a painter at a seaside resort working out of a kiosk in all kinds
of weather blithely ignoring the crowd of spectators looking on. He
had an Olympian belly, and with a cigarette butt dangling from a corner
of his lips, he would take a brush and tock, tock, tock, rapidly dab
red paint on three different canvases, one next to the other. Then
it was a green paint brush, then white, etc. Or he would paint a bouquet
of poppies. Or it could be a rock in a blue sea, creating three perfectly
identical paintings as he worked. All this before the astonished eyes
of the onlookers, dressed in their customary blazers and straw hats.
In the evening, these canvases would be sold at auction before a very
animated crowd of people. After the seascapes were sold came a large
series of paintings of cats playing with a ball of yarn. Then there
were those of a Cardinal seated by the corner of a fireplace, his
face benignly illuminated by the burning logs, and with a bottle of
burgundy within easy arm's reach. Such tender winter scenes easily
erased, in everyone's mind, mine included, the powerful odor of vanilla
in the air, coming from the nearby waffle vendor's booth, or the sound
of the nearby waves beneath the starry August sky above! Anyone who
made fun of this daily event would risk having his straw hat jammed
down on his head hard enough to reach his tie.
Later, as a teenager, I visited museums and, like everyone else,
I stood respectfully before each masterpiece, moving slowly from one
to another. Even the most blackened and smoke-damaged canvases filled
me with admiration. It was only later that I began to distinguish
the difference between veneration and love. In any event, I left the
Louvre firmly in the grip of these initial feelings.
These two vivid memories, among many similar ones, stayed with me.
I would not deny to anyone the sincerity of the emotions I experienced:
the fullness, the warmth of those moments, and the contentment, the
inner peace, they filled me with, whether they were legitimate, justifiable
feelings or not. Such pleasures, such joys stay with one forever.
The farther away I go from my mother's house, the more I long to once
again see the canvas hanging on the wall of the dining room since
I was an infant. Little kittens playing in a fruit bowl. I would prefer
to find it there rather than a Braque or a Matisse. When I was sixteen
or twenty years old, in a moment of excess zeal, I thought of replacing
it with something better. But I was dissuaded by my grandmother who
did not want to have her two little kittens replaced by something,
in her opinion, that was absolutely outlandish.
Trouble begins (the devil steps in) when people become aggressively
critical (point their umbrellas at) modern painting. When tolerance
disappears, theorists become dogmatic. And theorists, in art as in
politics, have only the ability to convince. One agrees or one does
not. Such thinking is an affair of the mind and of our culture, whereas
art is, first of all, a question of temperament.
If one decides that painting is more of an action media than a delicate
way of passing the time, one must admit that this requires, like all
major actions, an enterprising spirit and a certain amount of courage.
The real artist, even if he doesn't know it, is a pioneer, like all
adventurous men who engage in the search for virgin places. Isn't
art the need to escape from the daily, habitual routine of life? In
a crowd of men there will always be the majority of whom live their
lives in the reassuring shadow of routine, while only a few will explore
the unknown.
Sometimes the practice of art produces nothing more than a delightful
feeling, as does a peaceful siesta after dinner. Or it can be as shocking
as a winter bath in a glacial sea.
But art that is pleasurable to the eye, can also have many disconcerting
aspects. For instance, a landscape by Bonnard, obviously oscillating
between happiness and sensuality, can be disconcerting to the general
public with its quivering polychromes, where the cloud can be Prussian
blue and the tree rose-colored. Just as music, which delights the
Chinese, can make many of us grind our teeth.
All depends upon what we are accustomed to. Art has nothing to do
with logic. In a Corot landscape, for instance, the air which is circulating
among the leaves directly touches our senses by a phenomenon, which
seems very simple to us. But which is not as strong as the emotions
we feel when viewing the impressive geometry of the pyramids, or a
mysterious Polynesian idol. The senses are immediately shocked - and
whether they are intrigued more than pleased - they need time to adapt,
as does the retina of the eye when it passes from shadow to light.
One can say that at the height of civilization, when the mind (the
spirit) reaches its full potential, is when art weakens. Cultural
growth levels off by stifling man's deep profound feelings, which
are governed by his purely physical nature. But the refinement of
taste, the realization of scientific achievements, the societal stamp
of approval on his feelings, lead, little by little, to a form of
original art, wherein fervent doubt takes the form of mystery as it
represents something definite, positive, before the Appellate Court
(of art). Without a doubt, for the first time in our civilization,
artists have begun to follow the road of this natural turn of events
and come back to the elements of art. Or they simply change things
around in order to once again infuse life into art as it was in the
beginnings of mankind - in order to fulfill their role as executors
of the legacy that the first "primitive" artists left to
their trust.
Does this signal intellectual despair? Esthetic guile? Or for some,
resurrection? Who cares how many believe in the inspired isolation
of some, their return to the source, and the convoluted perspective
of willing followers…..? This mixture of feelings occurs in all
intellectual movements. Christopher Columbus, the great adventurer,
the only visionary among a crew of men paralyzed with fear and a thirst
for gold, discovered America, yet he started out searching for India.
Cézanne, who wanted to "redo Poussin and draw from nature,"
patiently gave his masterpieces to the world, which were vigorously
maligned by art critics. Thus he created a revolution in the art world,
which led to cubism. All the equipment that Cézanne used to
accomplish this revolution was a little compass that he called his
modest "feelings." That mankind uses an easel or a caravel,
these two instruments can be said to have led to equally world-shaking
achievements. Columbus died in misery, and Gauguin like an animal
in a Tahitian straw hut. I can take little comfort, therefore, in
the wise words of Elie Faure: "Ingratitude toward great men is
the sign of great people."
Jean Tabaud
