Page 56 - Studio International - June 1967

Two details of Liquid
reflections 1966
perspex and water

is strange', she remarks, 'how groups or families if only the reflections could be coloured without preconceived idea as to what they might be. There
of balls stay together, while pairs separate, as in having the whole painting coloured.' She hoped to is something like the controlled experiment : testing
life.' These moving balls not only reflect the drops do this by means of prisms but could not see how an hypothesis. There is the goal and the attempts
under them, but also the drops reflected in each the colours could be isolated. Then one brilliantly to reach it; the new direction given by a chance
other. Here is how she describes the effect: sunny morning last year in Paris, as she was col- discovery; the solution of a problem by means
Water trapped in transparent disk condenses, forms perfect lecting materials to take to Greece, and feeling which all the time have been lying ready to hand.
spherical lenses alive and changing with temperature depressed, her eye was dazzled by flashes of pure There is the same imaginative activity, the ability
and movement. Pressure of heavy ball on thin perspex colour from a shop on the other side of a broad to make connexions, see and seize on possibilities.
surface makes contact with water leaving trail of vibrat- boulevard. The shop sold prisms. So it was possible There is even the intuitive grasp—as in the case
ing drops. Dewdrops become lenses, reflections in rotating to isolate colours. Her depression left her. She of the sequence of prisms—of principles which
ball are magnified. . . . One sphere finds its lonely could not afford to buy those prisms, but in Greece science arrives at by other means. But the whole
orbit reacting to different forces.. . . In it is echoed she found the secret of isolating colour with purpose of this activity is different from that of the
the interior life of the disk. When there are two spheres ordinary prisms (Rays). 'I found the way to place scientist. Liliane Lijn expresses it when she writes
they seem to play with each other, as if attracted. The the prisms in sequence—they look like opposite of her prisms :
small one rotates around the larger and in the large patterns—I found it by chance but saw immediately Tonight I love these prism paintings I have made—I love
sphere see the reflection of the small as it passes, small that the prism took on its own brilliant light. to see them around me. During the day they did not give
and far, and then filling up the whole of the larger and Placed together in sequence the prisms transferred off much colour but now they have been shining. I know
swallowing you too. light like diamonds—They find their own life— that it is due to the incidence of light waves but it makes
Ever since 1963 Liliane Lijn has wanted to use There is a certain mathematical symmetry in- me feel that they are alive and moody—and I like them all
reflected colour as well as pure light. But she did herent in crystals—find it—breaks up the light in the more for the surprise.... I am really going into the
not want to reflect the whole spectrum or to flashes.' heart of LIGHT. I become familiar with it like a
colour the surface of the perspex. 'Colour is a Following Liliane Lijn's progress we find that it friend, it speaks to me. Especially the three prisms, they
problem', she wrote in her notebook, 'I want to does resemble scientific research in many respects. talk in colours instead of sound—red words and blue,
split the ray of light and use the colours of the There is what might, be called trial: trying out, dazzling me as I walk into the room.... There is
spectrum; isolate the blues or reds, pulse colours, seeing what effects will be produced without any warmth between us. I find out their secret life.

Far left Echo-Light 1967
perspex
Left detail of Cosmic Flares
1967 perspex