Page 31 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

Left, a painting of a transitional phase, c. 1946,
and (above) Camocim 1949, oil on canvas, 63½ x 51 in.
When taking stock of his work immediately after the
war, Vasarely says that he realized that he 'could
have become an Estève or a Bazaine'.

tions, I soon discovered that it's not so easy to rid oneself passed by and only a few crumbs remained. Anyway,
of figurative forms deeply rooted in the unconscious. It's beautiful as they were, these Mondrian became repeti-
a real struggle. I draw a line: it turns into a horizon, a tive and slightly boring. They were divorced from life. It
background, and takes on atmosphere. How many times took America to put life into them again in his final
have I discovered in my paintings the gestures of the "Boogie Woogie" period. Malevich ended up with a zero,
Virgin Mary and Christ, or a landscape, a totem pole, a a white square on a white ground. Mondrian too led into
phallus? Look at this—you can see clearly an angel with a cul-de-sac and I didn't want to follow him. I didn't want
outspread wings. They're there whether I want them or to add to the number of navel-contemplating works. This
not. I call them my phantoms. I can't keep the pests concoction of poetical, rarified, perfect specimens seemed
down.... At least I'm all right if I limit myself to circles out of touch with the problems of modern man.'
and squares: it eliminates association....' Two other factors were to push Vasarely ahead. Having
It was with a vocabulary of pure circles and squares that learned some basic science and astronomy from several
Mondrian and Malevich, those fathers of modern art, popular books on the subject, the veteran graphic artist
attempted to express a spiritual vision of the world — was suddenly overcome by a sort of modesty in the face of
simplicity, nobility, balance, away from the impurities the complexity of the universe. Almost naively, con-
and rush of daily life. As Freundlich said, 'Through con- sidering the vastness of reality, he felt fall away the
structive action, mankind modifies nature and the in- traditional pride of the artist, of the creator, so typical of
evitability of birth and death. We are not slaves of life the Renaissance, to be replaced by the knowledge that
but pre-eminently its creators.' he was no more than an accidental speck in the cosmos.
Vasarely has long shared this opinion. True to his `We now know', he wrote in 1955, 'that our physical
generation, he was one of those rebellious heirs to Mon- constitutions are no more than a slight material variation
drian who reached the age of painting at a time when between the two extremes of infinity. And our psychic
that stubborn recluse had already pushed the problems existence ? No more than a cluster of waves in the immen-
of geometric art to their limits. Through his sobriety, sity of nature.'
dignity and asceticism, his continuing esoteric semi- Here he is caught up in a great cosmic tumult, mere
mystical search and systematic use of ultra-austere means, dust on the fringe of the galaxies: 'The artist', he says,
Mondrian had more or less cut the ground from under the `can no longer be a familiar observer of beings and
feet of his successors, and Vasarely, who joined the geo- objects. He is involved by the very fact that he is a
metric artists with his Belle-lie canvases, soon felt the material—albeit infinitesimal—component of nature and,
limitations of this particular heritage. 'Mondrian is both like a tree or a cloud, is drawn into the material whirl-
the apotheosis and the end. He has finished easel painting.1 pool of energy and movement, time and waves.' But
A lot of people have tried to follow him. But the king had where in this limitless expanse in a cosmos, the centre of