Page 32 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

SOME

NOTES

O\ HYPER-

REALISTS

The hyperrealist language depresses anyone who
finds in it a reflection of his own power, the
private nature of his frustrations, the futility of
the way he presents himself. This kind of
revelation emerges from all the elements which
make up a hyperrealist picture. The elements
themselves are easy to grasp because they are
kept to a strict minimum: reality — artist!
photographer — photograph — artist —
painting/sculpture. The despair comes as much
from the finished work as from the language
which describes it. Because the language is the
work stripped bare.
A hyperrealist work is a concrete unity, easy
to grasp. The subjects are well known. But
the pictures require a certain distance, not so
much between object and spectator as between
the subject of the painting and its location.
How then can one reach beyond the intuition Antoon de Clerck Tuinobservatie 1973. Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
of the spectator, who easily grasps the image
yet cannot say exactly what he feels about it? Antoon de Clerk detailed, the green stretches of grass remain
And how does one decide where the image The realism of Antoon de Clerck developed abstract and general.
starts and ends? One should look for this logically out of the 'new vision' of Roger
concrete unity outside the image itself. There Raveel and the Beervelde School. With Raveel Roger Wittevrongel
is a precarious equilibrium between the realism is mainly a pictorial phenomenon. The There is no unique theme in the work of
evidence of the image and its reincarnation in photographic image never intrudes through the Roger Wittevrongel. But he does have a
its original context, reality. This equilibrium skin of the painting. With de Clerck it psychologically motivated predilection for the
depends on the artist's mediation. As soon as penetrates the pictorial layer quite definitely, ambience in which objects are found. The
another argument is added — language, style, but not everywhere. The work of de Clerck theme is above all the climate of things, and
ethics either moral or political — distortions constitutes a stage between hyperrealism so the work approaches an essentially
appear, the edifice breaks down. The proper and the 'new vision'. Having taken the suggestive symbolism.
mathematical equation between reality and latter as a starting point and then pushed His works present us with used cisterns,
fiction is broken. Even the most clearly ahead, elaboration of the canvas takes place blinds long past useful service, garage doors,
established differences become nebulous. How around a small number of simultaneous old fences, factory walls and the decorations
then can the artist imitate that which, in contrasts. Contrast between the concrete and on rusty doors, scraps of floating paper
hyperrealism, imitates reality? the abstract, between dynamic and static hanging from a blind gable etc. In a word, so
At present fiction divides reality into two elements, between full and empty spaces, many states of crumbling, of decay, of
sectors: acceptance of the narrative value and between points of intense colour and the white withdrawal. An art manifestly introverted.
conflict with that same narrative quality. which dominates, between photographic It is from photographic transparencies that the
Acceptance sends you back to the model, that individualization and general areas. The fresh artist elaborates his image and draws from it a
is to say reality. It is all the references tones of these works are due to the detailed and icy representation.
together. The conflict is over the literalness of predominance of white, which helps create a Wittevrongel has a preference for severity of
the model's transcription into a painting. In feeling of space. structure and for the repetition of certain
this way any description, pictorial or other, is Side by side with this feeling of space can elements because they stimulate an abstract
subject to the subtle laws of the contest be detected a tendency to give the illusion of a and cold approach to objects. Which helps to
between the narrative and the conflict which tangible reality, expressed by the exactitude of explain the absence of the human figure from
keep penetrating into each other's sector. In the reproduction of material. The particular this universe peopled with objects. And if
conceptual art description is questioned. In technique of Antoon de Clerck seems to owe Wittevrongel does paint a woman, isolated
hyperrealism it is on the border between something to collage technique: his people from any hint of a context, he reduces the
acceptance and rejection. It is at this crucial always look as if they have been cut out of a image to the trunk only.
point that reality and fiction meet. white background. There are no blue skies or It has been said that, in his latest works,
Jean Pierre van Tieghem clouds in these canvases. The people are very the themes of Wittevrongel have evolved

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