Page 61 - Studio International - October 1967

PARIS bered, and their already familiar iconography— that is central to European painting today: a
Vitebsk, Paris, floating clock and pale bride—was
dialogue between the first person singular and
commentary by a matter of thought in progress. The Riviera night whatever forces, languages, devotions, may lie
was still revelation, and Vitebsk in the snow still a beyond ego. Reams are still being written on the
Paul Waldo Schwartz
living memory. More to the point, it was all subject because free will has become something of
painting, every square centimetre of it. Whether an albatross, and the prevailing pressure on origi-
or not Chagall wept over those works, he sweated nality well nigh stifling. The implication is that
to produce them. art, at this point in its development, has evolved
Chagall's Message Biblique at the Louvre, None of which ever entirely disappeared, except itself into an impasse, with Dostoevsky's Grand
Dubuffet at Jeanne Bucher and Musée that the halo engulfed the pilgrim a bit, and the Inquisitor at the end of it. But if one man has been
des Arts Decoratifs; 'Primitive Art in the legend overwhelmed the passion. Instead of distil- particularly fruitful in the drive for some respite
Artist's Studio' at Musée de l'Homme; ling all his great painting into a few paintings, from humanism triumphant, he is Jean Dubuffet.
Tinguely at Alexandre lolas; Severini Chagall began spreading a little of his great GALERIE JEANNE BUCHER is showing the most
at Musée National d'Art Moderne painting over a lot of paintings. So that Chagall recent Dubuffets— Utensils, Dwellings, Stairs—and
present now turns up amid vast strophes of the ill-named MUSÉE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS has hung
Chagall recalled. The climax, thus far, is his a retrospective (gift of the painter) from his first
`Message Biblique', temporarily in Paris at the probings into the subconscious, circa 1944, to the
That Picasso stayed home surprised no one, and LOUVRE. present.
yet there were scarcely any painters at all for The series takes the form of seventeen immense The word recherche looms large in Paris now, and
Chagall's lavish birthday party at St Paul de canvases of the late fifties, and thirty-eight highly the course of Dubuffet's work does describe an
Vence. Andre Malraux sent a telegram epically muted gouaches of the early thirties. All of them intense exploration into mind and matter en-
signed, 'Votre ministre enchainé', and Chagall illustrate the Old Testament. (Chagall has given twined. But the word is insufficient, for Dubuffet
prowled the lawns of the FONDATION MAEGHT, and them to France, and they are to be installed in a has the vision, the presence and the insight of
cast the blush of the humble but secretly divine special Chagall museum near Nice.) The paintings what may ultimately be a realist. Otherwise, the
shepherd at a barrage of cameras. At 80, Chagall are virtuoso works, Tintoresque in scale and even recherche would have defeated its own aims as it so
has become an institution and prophet-at-large. in composition, with many a poignant passage in often does in other hands. It would at least have
Which is why the artists stayed at home. and about the programatic material. But the fallen short of the Art Brut anthology which the
Understandable, but a bit harsh, given that the earlier gouaches, with their modest scale and un- museum showed prior to the Dubuffets, and which
Maeght exhibit would have justified the visit even limited devotion, are very much the authentic Dubuffet himself organized. These were the wan-
while sustaining some of the objections. The thing, the immediate Chagall touch and Chagall derings and intuitions of bereft souls, many of them
selection covers 150 paintings of 1947 to 1967, the religion. In other words, Chagall being—not play- on the edge of schizophrenic darkness and many of
post-war, Cote d'Azur years. And how moving ing—Chagall. them distressingly eloquent. Dubuffet found sub-
those Chagalls of the late forties and early fifties Yet, indirectly, the Chagall story—which is a stance in the possessed, their tortured convictions
were. Their colour was evinced rather than remem- personal metamorphosis—parallels a generic issue and secret logic, and he knew precisely how to

Far left
Marc Chagall
Le visage bleu 1967
oil on canvas
51 x 38 in.

Left
Cino Severini
Nature morte 1913
collage