ART IN THE HUMAN BEING



ART IN THE HUMAN BEING

LUCAS or the signature of life

By presenting the complete set of 150 paintings by LUCAS, including thirty large format (220x250), the Veranneman foundation, in Belgium, introduced the artist spectacularly into the art world. In this prestigious place, an international art center where all contemporary movements converge, the painter showed how excessive he could be. Rarely inclined to show his work, he had up until then persistently refused to exhibit. Apart from a few names in raw art, this attitude is still quite unusual. To be recognized by collectors was enough for him. Lucas was waiting for the great deed. It was thus with spectacular turbulence that he entered into the hall of the greats.

A tremendous project, an act of faith

As an introduction to his method, LUCAS wrote :

«Kill so as not to die was the law of the first men who inhabited this earth. Frightened and fascinated by the great black aurochs, prehistoric man painted it bigger and more impressive than any other animal species. A myth was born and during the ensuing thousand years, the bull entered into the imagination of men. Today, only the bull-fighter perpetuates these ancestral rites, whose profound meaning comes to us from the dawn of humanity. When entering the ring, this man changes his existence into destiny and the talent of being is in destiny.

So, I intend to make large format paintings, the theme of which will be the bull and the bull-fighter. In each picture, I will leave a blank geometrical figure which will become the essential and vital point of the painting. The bull-fighters I have chosen will paint this free part of the canvas with « bull’s blood » and write their names at the bottom of the painting. These men will take as important a part in the creation as the painter, thus adding the final touch, without which the painting would remain imperfect. Simultaneously, this geometrical figure painted by the toreador will stand out of the composition of the painting and have its own life, thus becoming a work of art in its own right. »

A tremendous project which the mundillo and art circles received with the greatest reserve and a lot of scepticism. « A most remarkable idea but hard to realize » Jean Cau considered. « An act of faith » had predicted Pierre Restany, the world-wide art critic, who only wanted to see.

Magical moments of intense emotions

The man from Sanlucar de Barramedas, from the marsh of the Guadalquivir, the Spanish myth of the eighties, is here… He has come solitary and alone… The huge paintings arranged on the easels form a vast fresco dedicated to bull-fighting. The atmosphere is electric… The bull-fighter, solemn, his cheeks marked with two deep lines… The artist, rigid, extremely tense… In a state of total concentration, Paco Ojeda fills the geometrical spaces that LUCAS has reserved for him in his paintings… It is a strange scene… A religious, inexpressible moment. The star of bull-fighting has fully grasped how symbolic a gesture the artist has asked of him is, and for two hours is to take an active part in the painting. Having succeeded in getting the torero to take part in this ritual is nothing short of a feat. Such magical moments and intense emotions will be repeated with Espartaco, Jose Ortega Cano, Litri, Juan Mora and Richard Milian.

« More than a diverse allegory of a bull-fight, we have to deal with a real puzzle which takes its roots in the origins of the immemorial tradition of human expressiveness. There is somehow the permanency of this original fundamental relationship between man and beast… » sums up Pierre Restany in the preface of the exhibition catalogue. Then he adds : « LUCAS’ project has the dimension and the power of a legend within a legend ». For the human and artistic aventure which LUCAS experienced was certainly extraordinary but had produced unexpected repercussions.

From Lascaux to Lucas

Denis Vialou, one of the world’s greatest figures of paleontology, gives us a new interpretation in the light of his knowledge :

« The black bull of the ring and the « man of enlightenment» perpetuate this duality of life and death in an intimacy of gestures of fascinating beauty and an ephemeral overlasting fluidity. That is what LUCAS paints with magnificently moving, tragic depth... But now there’s a diamond-shaped red spot, staining his work with blood. Everything was apparently easy to understand until this sign breaks immediate comprehension ! The imaginary bestiary of Lascaux is also inhabited by signs, by simple or complex geometrical shapes. The signs of Lascaux together with the red quadrilateral figures in LUCAS’s paintings associate, in a single vision, man, beast and their meaning, which remains inaccessible to the purely rational eye… They invite the spectator to perfect them with his own eyes, hence bringing meaning to what is carefully hidden… the geometrical abstract linked to the figurative, metaphorically standing for the vital ever-mortal relationship between man and beast. »

The artist had rediscovered, by intuition alone, an action dating back the earliest men of humanity. Incredible ! Enough almost to make one forget that the basis of this adventure is a magnificent and great quality painted work. Jean Cau wrote on the subject : « I admire your undertaking, your asceticism but I repeat, without the majesty of your talent –a word I do not use lightly-, the song of your ceremony would not shake the vault of the temple.»

The event of the biennial art exhibition in Dakar

One could justifiably wonder whether LUCAS could follow-up such strong work.

« But what are you going afterwards ? » asked Jean Cau. The answer, which was dazzling and climatic, was not long in coming.

Senegal, first biennial event of the arts.

A quarter of an hour away by boat from Dakar where the event takes place, LUCAS settled in a unique place : the house of slaves on the Island of Goree which from the XVIIth century was the starting point of the slave trade and thus, one of the most poignant settings in Africa and indeed for the history of mankind. The operation was prepared in the greatest secrecy for months and LUCAS was about to make the news. The press and television made the right choice that day and left officials bustling about in the capital.

In a vaulted room, with sand for a floor, the artist hung three immense canvases on which he painted two symmetrical wrestlers : these paintings represent the fight of the black people against injustice and the lack of understanding which have ruled the world from the outset.

In each painting, he has kept a blank triangle which Joseph, warden of the house of slaves for forty years, is to paint.

The living symbol of the incommunicability ot the human being

LUCAS remembers : « Joseph, the last slave on African soil… Today, beside him, I am the last white slave, the last free man. As he, I still bear chains because both of us have kept the dream of freedom.

Joseph carries all the world’s misfortunes on his handsome face. Apart from sudden, loud explanations about the history of this house to a clutch of visitors, the rest of the time his appearance is solemn and impassive. He speaks in a muffled voice so as to respect the peace of the souls which live here.

Kneeling down, he held out his wrist to me. It had to be a symbolic drop of blood but I hurt him when I cut his vein. I hurt his body and his heart and then I hurt myself even more as though to exorcise the physical and moral suffering which I had just inflicted on him. After a long while, still in a state of shock, he painted the blank geometrical space. First he went around the edge : it was his life he was portraying before beginning to fill the space. At this moment in time, it was no longer his hand, it was the spiritual continuation of the invisible occupants of the house, the instrument by which they were vicariously engraving the history of a people, its suffering, its revolt, but also its dreams of freedom. This red triangle is not only the receptacle of their miseries but also that of their hopes and dreams of freedom. »

Without a doubt Goree will remain one of the essential links in an entire works, in which one can profoundly feel the basis in a network of intimate correspondences and vibrating symbols of truth.

When we wrote that « the integration of a space in the painting for men –bull-fighters- who have devoted their lives to the ring, introduces a new problem for the plastic arts and new horizons for art in the 21st century », we could not imagine how appropriate those words were. Through this ritual celebration using the traditional support of painting, great in its respect for shape and object as Rene Huygues put it, LUCAS provides us with a sensational demonstration of the creative power given to true artists.

Henry Perier, art critic, biographer of Pierre Restany, « the pope of the new realism ».

Lucas by Lucas

The entire composition of my painting is ordered in a geometrical way. In each picture I leave a square or rectangular blank or another geometrical figure which will become the essential and vital point of the painting. I ask outstanding individuals to paint this free part of the canvas with « blood » and write their names next to mine. What captivates and fascinates me about this idea is that for the first time a man other than the painter plays a part in the creation commensurate with that of the artist, thus adding the final touch without which the painting would remain unfinished.

In art, the idea and the philosophical reasoning behind this idea count as much as the creation itself.

This small painted part of the canvas will form the heart and the soul of the painting. At the same time, it will stand out from the composition and have its own life, thus becoming a work of art in its own right. When this man takes the paintbrush and adds his own personal touch to the picture, he will exceed the realms of the painting and the gesture itself. At that particular moment, not only does the «man of enlightenment» express himself but also the more secretive one, the one bearing all those years of poverty, when nobody looks at you but when you have to stand up straight, the one bearing tiredness and dust. The one from all those dazzling times and the one of doubt, the one of suffering and secret fears, the one of solitude and misfortune… What you are signing is your life together with your most crazy hopes, your haunting fears, your past and future dreams. Like a child, you will paint this blank red but when you do so, you and I will portray in a secret language our past and present history and also that to come.

By drawing this geometrical shape spiritually, man delimits the space he appropriates himself and conveys the story of his life in a secret language. Because an entire life cannot be contained within a geometrical shape, closed on all sides. The essentials, man and the spirit of man reduced to their simplest or most elaborate forms of expression, since they are endless. A universal, fathomless message and, because God resounds in each human being, here more than anywhere else It is barely hidden between the lines, inside each square and rectangle. The immeasurable, surrounded, captured, the inaccessible dream of humanity.

The important part is just beyond what your eyes can see. The visual representation is abstract, the essential point can only be seen by the heart. It is not visible, and yet, there it is, in the centre of the painting, calling out to us…

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