Text X Paris Commentary

Since the formation of the School of Paris, at the beginning of the century, the art of portraiture has almost ceased to exist in France. By way of comparison1 I reckon that there must now be no more than one so-called official portrait painter in France to twenty or more in Britain. Hence the reason why it gives great pleasure, 'stepping backwards',² as they say in French, to visit the very fine exhibition of portraits of known and unknown per­sons, now being held at the Galerie Cailleux. This is entitled Ames et Visages de France аи XVIII-ème siècle?

Here are exhibited portraits of famous people by famous artists, as well as smaller portraits by smaller painters, nevertheless enchanting in their own way.

Starting from the top we have the portrait, by Boucher, of Mada­me Favart, the celebrated actress and wife of the playwright Char­les-Simon Favart who got into trouble with Le Marèchal de Saxe⁴ because he fell madly in love with his (Favart's) actress wife. There are three portraits by Fragonard, one of which is of Fanfan, his son. La Jeune Savoyarde⁵ is a typical example of the sugary portraiture of Greuze whose irritating problematic studies of children have always left me cold. Another painter of children who appeals much more is Huet. His Garconnet en bonnet a plumes⁶ is full of the charm of the 18th century. As for family groups, there is a rare and striking composition by Lancret wherein, it would appear, that the gentleman in the centre the happy family group is none other than⁷ the author himself.

After this exhibition of 18th century portraits at Galerie Cailleux in the Faubourg Saint-Honore,⁸ it is startling to say the least,⁹ to visit the show at the small but well appoint Galerie Europe, over on the Left Bank, of recent paintings by Philip Weichberger.

Not centuries but immeasurable passages of time separate paintings on view at these two galleries. For Weichberger's com­positions, one of which is reproduced here, are interplanetary by way of subjects.¹⁰ He paints sputniks, flying saucers, atomic reactors, giant missile ranges, and the most weird space machines. One cannot imply that he lacks vivid imagination!

Weichberger, who is twenty-four years of age, was born in Bremen, but he now lives and works in Brussels. I was curious to enquire what an artist who paints such hallucinating, out of his world¹¹ compositions had been inspired by at the outset of his career. While I find natural enough that Weichberger is against action painting¹² it is strange, at the same time, that he should admire Poussin, Corot and Manet. He told me that when he works he forgets all about what he has seen by these orthodox masters. He creates what he paints or, one could say, he paints the image of his creations. He invents the world in which he lives, a world which is not inhabited, hence no figures appear in his pictures. Weichberger draws inspiration for formal inventions from technical processes. He has an innate sense for lines and their| arrangement, whether he arranges them in parallel, diverging or intersecting patterns, form a well balanced composition. As for his palette, he employs subtle tonalities. At first glance his compo­sitions appear to be merely black and white. Actually, they are of subtle soft hues, his grey and black varying in remarkable depth.

Again by way of contrast,¹³ there is a very important and саг fully retrospective exhibition of paintings and pastels by Vuillard being held at the Galerie Durand-Ruel. This will remain open until October. Here seventy portraits, landscapes, still-lifes and intimate bourgeois Victorian interiors resume the delightful, de­tached universe of Vuillard. One of the most typically intime¹⁴ compositions is his Lit-Cage¹⁵, painted in 1902.

What a difference in feeling and expression between the world of Weichberger and that of the relaxed, gay, carefree age of Vuil­lard! The former exploits the theme of wide-open, limitless and alarming space, while the latter does the exact opposite. All Vuillard's genius is concentrated in giving expression to the dark, boxed-in, ambiance intitne¹⁶ of the French family in the security of their homes. The enclosed atmosphere of Vuillard's interiors is-made all the more pronounced¹⁷ by his use of matt colouring and dry texture of somber hues of the wall-paper, the carpets, curtains, chairs, screens and bed covers. As far as light is concerned,¹⁸ I know of no other artist who has succeeded with such apparent ease in describing the effect of electric light in a crowded family interior. The last dated painting (1935) on view at the present exhibition of La Reliure¹⁹ is a typical example of his extraordinary feeling for la paix et le calme chez soi.²⁰

Vuillard's striking simplicity of expression and the manner in which he could express the maximum with the minimum of means is characterized in his charming, ever so delicately painted Bouquet de Pensees.²¹ This freshly picked bunch of humble flowers from the back garden, arranged unpretentiously in a vase set in front of a carafe of water, reminds one of similar spontaneous flo­wer pieces by Bonnard with whom Vuillard founded the Nabi movement at the turn of the century,²² when this delightful little study was painted. Much of Vuillard's great qualities can be sum­med up in the well-known remark made by Maurice Denis, ano­ther of the Nabis who, inspired by Gauguin's advice to paint in flat, pure colours,²³ said 'remember that a picture, before being a horse, a nude, or some kind of anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in certain order'.

At the Galerie Durand-Ruel, one feels that here expression is given to the essence of things and that the painting defines the love of painting.