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French to English: About the art of painting General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting
Source text - French « Chaque peinture est une flèche que l’on peut tirer » C’est ainsi que Bruno B. décrit le processus de création.
Dans l’intimité de son atelier, acharné et loin des regards extérieurs, le peintre Bruno B. étonne par la densité de son oeuvre autant que par la liberté de ses sujets. Chaque tableau est une longue procession d’intuitions, de superposition de traits, de couleurs et de repentirs. Il use de la toile comme d’un théâtre pour mettre en scène ses figures, mêlant symboles, références à l’histoire de l’art et éléments d’histoire populaire et littéraire. Bruno B. sait peindre la rugosité de la vie humaine, sa chair dans ce qu’elle a de plus sauvage et primaire. Il ne s’en cache pas, évoquant ainsi la sexualité, le désir élémentaire, la douleur de la condition humaine, le désarroi, l’agitation vive de scènes urbaines, et la béatitude de paysages marins ou champêtres. Son oeuvre est souvent monumentale. L’échelle et l’expressivité de ses figures imposent une anthropométrie viscérale de chaque sujet invoqué. Le portrait, souvent représenté en pieds, se dresse face au spectateur, d’égal à égal, en un jeu qui introduit d’une part la singulière perspective de sa composition et d’autre part l’espace extérieur au tableau. Bruno B. entremêle une variété de points de fuite, s’affranchissant ainsi des codes classiques. Il rend possible dans sa peinture la simultanéité de différents temps de la narration, faisant de son oeuvre une forme de mythologie contemporaine.
LE MOT DE L"ARTISTE
La peinture est un acte magique. Quelque chose, dont l’évènement dresse un phare dans l’ordonnancement du passé, quelque chose a été, que la peinture invoque, convoque et réactualise éternellement. L’émotion éprouvée confère un caractère singulier à ce qui a été vécu : l’image intérieure naît au plus profond, acquiert le statut d’une icône et se doit d’être célébrée. Jaillissement de l’être, de la présence au monde au sens où l’entend le poète Hölderlin. Joie aussi de témoigner de la trace laissée. Cette évocation peut avoir la cruauté exquise d’une captation, d’un rapt (n’oublions pas le caractère sacrilège de la représentation incarnée dans les religions monothéistes du Livre), tel l’étiquetage de l’entomologiste.
L’apparition de la forme se fait graduellement, impulsivement, à tâtons, à partir de sensations colorées superposées, composant une archéologie des couches dans le temps jouissif de l’élaboration, sous forme de masses atmosphériques aux températures variées et en lutte les unes avec les autres. La décision est ultime, l’avènement de la forme abolit le doute au terme du processus. « A la fin de l’envoi je touche ».
L’œil, l’organe acculturé par excellence, joue un rôle critique et correcteur, il n’est nullement à l’origine de l’intention picturale, ce sont bien plutôt le toucher, la saveur, l’ouïe, qui portent le coup sur la toile, puis la caressent. Ce phénomène se retrouve dans l’ontogénèse où, au début de la vie animale aquatique, certaines parties de la peau des organismes deviennent progressivement photosensibles et conduisent à l’apparition de l’organe oculaire. De cette prédisposition, quelque chose nous est resté. Imaginons un
sculpteur aveugle de naissance qui évoquerait le corps de sa maîtresse par tâtonnements mimétiques, puis finirait par recouvrer la vue et se mettrait à la peindre. Sa pulsion tactile soutiendrait sa vision et l’œil ne jouerait qu’un rôle correcteur a posteriori. Et on pense ici au poète russe Ossip Mandelstam évoquant « les doigts clairvoyants de l’aveugle qui reconnaissent à tâtons l’image intérieure du poème ».
Translation - English "Each painting is an arrow that can be shot." That is how Bruno B. describes the creative process.
In the intimacy of his studio, relentless and far from the outside world, the painter surprises as much by the density of his work as by the freedom of his subjects. Each painting is a long procession of intuitions, superimposition of lines, colors and pentimenti. He uses the canvas as a theatre to stage his figures, mixing symbols, references to art history and elements of popular and literary history. Bruno B. knows how to paint the roughness of human life, its flesh in its wildest and most primary form. He makes no secret of it, thus evoking sexuality, elementary desire, the pain of human condition, despair, the lively agitation of urban scenes, and the bliss of seascapes or countryside. His work is often monumental. The scale and expressiveness of his figures impose a visceral anthropometry of each subject invoked. The portrait, often represented full length, stands in front of the viewer, on equal ground, in a game which introduces, on the one hand, the singular perspective of its composition and, on the other hand, the space outside the painting. Bruno B. intertwines a variety of escape points, thus freeing himself from classic codes. In his painting, he makes possible the simultaneity of different narrative periods, creating a form of contemporary mythology.
THE WORD FROM THE ARTIST
Painting is a magical act. Something, which establishes a beacon in the ordering of the past, something that was, and that the painting invokes, convokes and refreshes eternally. The felt emotion gives a singular character to what has been experienced: the inner image is born deep down, acquires the status of an icon and should be celebrated. The emergence of the being, the presence in the world, as understood by the poet Hölderlin. Also, the joy to give a testimony to the trace left behind. This evocation can have the exquisite cruelty of a capture, a kidnapping (let us not forget the sacrilege character of the representation embodied in the monotheistic religions of the Book), such as the entomologist's labelling.
The appearance of the form is done gradually, impulsively, gropingly, from superimposed colored sensations, composing an archaeology of layers during the exhilarating time of the elaboration, in the form of atmospheric masses at various temperatures and struggling with each other. The decision is final.The advent of form abolishes the doubt when the process is completed. "At the envoi's end, I touch."
The eye, the acculturated organ par excellence, plays a critical and corrective role. It is in no way at the origin of the pictorial intention, contrary to the touch, taste, and hearing, which strike the canvas, then caress it. This phenomenon is found in ontogenesis in which, at the beginning of the aquatic animal life, some parts of the organisms' skin become progressively photosensitive and lead to the appearance of the ocular organ. From this predisposition, something remained in us. Let's imagine a blind sculptor from birth who would evoke the body of his mistress by mimetic gropings, then would eventually recover his sight and start to paint her. His tactile drive would support his vision and the eye would only play a corrective role a posteriori. Here, we think of the Russian poet Ossip Mandelstam evoking "the clairvoyant fingers of the blind who recognize by groping the inner image of the poem".
The deposit of this image in the depths of our being is driven by memory, which sorts the impressions received and shapes a symbolic order. This essential disposition is combined with the dreamlike game that the unconscious promotes, and the pictorial intention makes its way through these different strata up to the canvas, where it is revealed.
The will to say, to narrate, to tell a story, completes the picture. Such word with its phonetic charge can be essential in the desire for images. Thus the poem "Le Bâteau Ivre" by Arthur Rimbaud, learned by heart, first lead to a pictorial abstraction, and then, appeared unconsciously a few years later in the painting "The Sea". In the same way, some of Flaubert's or Mishima's works may have aroused the desire to paint, as it happened in the musical field, with Alban Berg's "Wozzeck" or Franz Liszt's "Jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este". The desire to give meaning, to evoke a subject, is the drive that exists before the act of painting. No formal speculation, though. Nevertheless, and despite my will, there are concerns and obstinacies from time to time, but likely postpartum.
As written by Debussy, "Every authentic work of art contains an idea within it. But this is not the way to start." What we start with is the desire. The exposure of the thought to a tireless quest in space and its ignition at the contact to the outside world to make it jubilant and sensual, in one word poetic, require a total exposure that is the purpose of my painting.
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