Pierre Soulages PDF

of his paintings had been balanced
against contrasting areas of white or

reds, ochres and blues, from this time
onwards Soulages worked exclusive-
ly in black pigment, only reintroduc-
ing other colours from the mid-1990s.
This reduction to a single colour
was precipitated by dissatisfaction.
What had appeared at first to be a fail-
ure – a canvas so over-saturated with
black that no glimmer of surface or
background remained – turned out to
Pierre Soulages be a revelation. As the artist attempt-
ed to salvage the painting by scrap-
Louvre Museum, Paris ing away the excess he noticed that
11 December 2019 – 9 March 2020 the gashes and grooves that emerged
captured and reflected the ambient
Ten years ago the Centre Pompidou light. What resulted was a painting
hosted a major retrospective of the whose material was not black paint as
work of Pierre Soulages to honour such but light reflected, transformed
an artist considered by many to be and transmuted through black.
France’s greatest living painter. This The crucial thing about this first
year it is the turn of the Louvre as it painting and those that followed is
celebrates the 100th birthday of ‘the their receptiveness to light. Through
painter of black’, the title by which a combination of different textures
he has been known throughout the – gouged, scored, smooth, striated –
greater part of his long career. The and different finishes – glossy, matte
exhibition in the Louvre’s Salon Carré – they capture the changing light of
is a much smaller affair but it serves their surroundings. For this reason he
to introduce the viewer to represent- coined a neologism to describe them:
ative examples of the centenarian’s outrenoir. In English texts on Soulages
work across the decades, beginning this portmanteau is frequently trans-
with early fragmentary works of tar lated as ultra-black,¹ but this misses
on glass right up to the present with the point entirely. It is not the black-
a duo of canvases painted in his sig- ness of the works that matters; it is their
nature all-over black acrylic specif- more- or other-than-blackness. It is
ically with this exhibition in mind. the way their blackness, without ceas-
Born in 1919, Soulages has been ing to be black, reflects and emanates
exhibiting since the 1940s, always light as a tangible and ever-changing
abstraction, using a restricted palette phenomenon, a double nature the
built around the predominance of the viewer cannot fail to notice as they
colour black, delivered in thick ges- shift their viewpoint within the space
tural strokes of ink, paint or brown- of the work. This inseparability or,
ish-black walnut stain. In 1979 his better said, coexistence, of blackness
visual language underwent a radical and light, is by no means secondary to
shift. Whereas previously the black the works but indispensable to them.
12 Art and Christianity 101 Spring 2020

This painter of black is thus equally tal paintings have a sculptural more of British art institutions that he re-
a painter of light, which explains the than painterly facticity, reminiscent mains so relatively unknown in this
exceptional public commission that of Neolithic stelae or Romanesque country. We can only hope that the
came his way in the 1980s to create 104 architecture (precedents frequent- attention he is currently receiving in
windows for the Romanesque abbey ly applied to his oeuvre), in rich, France will also be felt outre-Manche.
of Sainte-Foy, Conques. That event, thickly viscous acrylic. Although the
with-out question a tour-de-force of pigment is homogeneous – a single, Jonathan Koestlé-Cate is a Teaching
modern stained glass, does not fea- glossy, black foundation – the effect and Research Librarian at King’s
ture in this exhibition, but is indirectly is anything but, expressing a dramatic College London
present through the paintings he con- variety of chromatic effects, impossi-
tinued to make throughout the seven ble to convey in reproduction. Take 1. Although literally true, if we take outremer
years of the project’s evolution, one of Peinture 390 x 130 cm, 10 aôut 2019. (ultramarine) as a guide, Soulages makes it
very clear he is thinking of outre-mer (over-
which – Peinture 324 x 362 cm, 1985 – is From one angle it is entirely sombre, seas), signifying another territory, an au-delà
included here. This four-canvas, hori- a simple contrast of wide flat areas de noir or beyond black.
zontal polyptych demonstrates a clear with darker furrows. But from an-
family resemblance to the window other it fairly explodes into life re-
designs, underlining the evident lin- vealing hitherto unseen textures, lin-
eage between the outrenoir paintings eaments of animated light capturing
and the uncoloured, opaque yet trans- every imperfection in the pocked and
lucent glass. As Soulages is always at knotted surface, highlighting each
pains to remind us, the one illumi- scored indentation or fibrous brush-
nates our comprehension of the other. stroke applied in sweeping bands.
Soulages’s pursuit of a single Soulages’s resolutely independent
guiding idea these past 40 years can spirit, built upon early success cou-
appear formulaic but in truth it dis- pled with a steadfast vision and sheer
plays a dogged persistence that pro- longevity of career, has accorded him
duces im-pressive results, as can be a unique place within the pantheon
seen in the final paintings from 2019. of French painting. Considering his
Working in a narrow vertical format stature in France and elsewhere it is
unusual for him these monumen- a significant oversight on the part
Right: Windows at the Abbey Church of

Sainte-Foy, Conques. Photo: Vincent
Cunillère © Pierre Soulages / ADAGP,
Paris 2020
Pierre Soulages, Peinture, 324 x 362 cm,

1985. Collection of the MNAM, Centre
Pompidou, Paris © Pierre Soulages /
ADAGP, Paris 2020 / Courtesy Perrotin
Art and Christianity 101 Spring 2020 13

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of his paintings had been balanced

against contrasting areas of white or

12 Art and Christianity 101 Spring 2020

Right: Windows at the Abbey Church of

Pierre Soulages, Peinture, 324 x 362 cm,

Art and Christianity 101 Spring 2020 13

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