jean dewasne: the work
THE PAINTINGS
The work will be defined essentially by the network of interactions in which it participates, expressing the conflict of a geometric situation in a dynamic system.
Jean Dewasne
Une création mathématisée
by Lydia Harambourg
Historian Art critic
Correspondent for “l’Institut, Académie des Beaux-Arts”
A major figure in French constructed abstraction, Jean Dewasne discovered concrete art after the war and recognised it as the only path for modern painting.
His first abstract paintings featured cut-out shapes assembled in rather dark tones.
His first mural, La Joie de vivre (1948), was followed in 1952 by Prométhée (Donated by Daniel Cordier, Centre G. Pompidou) and Bataille de Marignan in 1953 (Arp Collection, Basel Museum) essentially contain his ‘Traité de la peinture plane’ (1949), published in 1972 (Institut de l’Environnement).
Structural, the line is associated with fundamental colours according to his theory of plane and form, involving the optical illusions of chromaticism. Thus, when blue and red touch, a small coloured line can be seen at their intersection, causing a pinkish, purplish vibration. The theory of four colours, which offers artists the possibility of ‘stepping outside’ the frame of the flat surface to work in curved spaces, is sufficient to increase the coloured surfaces and move directly to true pink and purple.
La première passion
1949
Oil on canvas
The chromatic power reaches its maximum intensity with the use of industrial paints such as glycerophthalic lacquer applied in flat areas with a spray gun, clearly delimited by its topological construction, without any material effect on an unalterable support that makes him abandon canvas in favour of hardboard.
He experimented with this in 1951 with Apothéose de Marat, a pivotal work. An immense painting on wood, 2.50 metres high x 8.335 metres long (purchased by the State in 1982. On loan to the Musée de Grenoble. Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne/Centre Création Industrielle).
The paintings on hardboard and gouaches from this period reveal a specific formal vocabulary consisting of straight lines and curves, sinuous bands, underpinned by the chromatic power of glycerophthalic lacquers, which also blend with the metal.
Apothéose de Marat
1951
5 panels
Glycerophthalic paint on wood
250 x 833,5 cm – Dimensions of each panel: 250 x 166,70
Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou
Colourimetry
Alongside his work as a mathematician, his research into colourimetry was also essential to the development of his artistic language.
For the artist, there were two ways of understanding colour.
Light colour, extracting pure colours from the solar spectrum.
Material colour, given by the chemical colours of tubes, particularly for greens and blues.
Having observed that there are solid colours and fleeting colours, he studied the works of engineers at Philips. He regularly visited the Maison de la Chimie, where he studied the colours used in industry, such as liquid plastics.
His artistic vocabulary was transformed, revealing new sensory emotions through the enrichment of colour chemistry and the theory of vision. He made a fundamental observation: that the three primary colours are not red, yellow and blue, but red, green and blue, with yellow shining through by oscillation.
His paintings, gouaches and silkscreen prints were a parallel activity to which Dewasne devoted the utmost attention.
The monumentality of his painted works integrated into architecture similarly permeates his paintings, which were always prepared with drawings and sketches focusing on structure and colour. They can be described as easel paintings: La Clé ou l’Architecte (The Key or the Architect) 1959, lacquered painting on hardboard, Col. Lahumière; Prométhée I (Prometheus I) 1952; Grande Ourse (Ursa Major) 1958, two oil paintings on hardboard (Daniel Cordier donation, Centre Pompidou).
Some are truly monumental: Badia La Grande (Jean Dewasne donation, on loan from the State to the Cambrai Museum). Aurora (on loan from the State to the Musée de la Poste, Paris) in connection with the stamp that was issued in 1983.
His silkscreen prints disseminate his monumental works such as La Grande Marche, 14 silkscreen prints on paper, 1969. Publisher: Galerie Lahumière, Paris.
Monumentality has imposed its rule.
The chapter on monumental works lists these spectacular creations, remarkable for their spatial scale, in which painting and colourimetry renew a dialogue with architecture.
In collaboration with Renault’s headquarters as part of a collaboration with contemporary artists (Arman, Vasarely, Dubuffet, Soto, etc.) initiated by Claude-Louis Renard, the car manufacturer, Dewasne created forty metres of paintings and glycerophthalic lacquers on wood in the computer room at the headquarters in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 1974.
That same year, he received a commission for the Hanover metro (Germany): two works, each 10 metres long. The rebuilt city where Leibnitz lived was a springboard for his thinking.
From 1977 to 1979, he created a 580-metre fresco that can still be seen in situ at the Jean Vigo secondary school in Millau.