by Enya Li
Georges MATHIEU
Hommage à Watteau
Painted in 1974
Oil on canvas
150 × 500 cm
“I never reject anything. Artists shouldn’t just paint for a certain group of people. I want to bring happiness to the entire human race, even if it was a very small amount.”
— Georges Mathieu
A group photo of Georges Mathieu(first from left), Pierre Loeb(second from right), Zao Wou-Ki(back left),Vieira Da Silva, Jacques Germain(back right), Jean-Paul Riopelle(front right) in Paris, in 1950.
In 1958, the Surrealist poet Alain Bosquet hailed Mathieu’s paintings as “the most intricate and incisive in contemporary art”. Thirty years later, Le Figaro called him the prophet of art. As early as the 1940s, Mathieu already drew from geometry, music and literature and progressively captured the potential of calligraphy in abstractionist painting, underscoring the spontaneity and abrupt power of art. He brought surrealist imagination and execution to Western abstract art and pioneered integrating both the contour and connotations of Chinese calligraphy into Western art.
Georges Mathieu holds a commemorative coin desgned by himself in 1977.
A Transformative Movement
Pioneer of Lyrical Abstraction
In 1947, the art critic Jean José Marchand described Mathieu’s works exhibited at the fourteenth Salon des Surindépendants as ‘Lyrical Abstraction’. Inspired by the term, Mathieu set up the first Lyrical Abstractionist group L’Imaginaire and gathered together 14 avant-garde painters, including Hans Hartung and Jean-Paul Riopelle, for the first exhibition on Abstract Lyricism. He also brought back Abstract Expressionism from New York to Paris to bridge the two capitals of art, which is a significant contribution that marks his dedication to artistic movement and his unshakable position in post-war abstract art.
In the late 1940s, Mathieu got to know Sanyu, Zao Wou-ki and Xie Jinglan at Montparnasse. As they made close friends, Mathieu started incorporating oriental calligraphy and philosophy into his creation and established a new style of ‘calligraphy plus splashing’ in 1951. “Enfin un calligraphe occidental!” exclaimed France’s first Minister of Culture André Malraux in the 1960s after appreciating his works.
Huai Su
Autobiography
Tang Dynasty
Collected in Taipei Palace Museum
Chen Rong
Five Dragons
Song Dynasty
45.2 × 299.5 cm
Collected in Tokyo National Museum
A Visual Chanson:
The Artist’s Largest Item Ever in Asian Auctions
At his career prime in the 1970s, Mathieu’s paintings featured magnificence and elegance, and he was considered to be the official representative of French artists. Mathieu was also talented in graphic and architectural design. The most famous creation that rendered his works accessible to the widest audience was his design of 10-franc coin. 100 million copies were minted between 1974 and 1987. Based on the historically significant design, Mathieu produced Hommage à Watteau. As the artist’s largest item ever in Asian auctions, this 5-meter-long painting is full of colour spurts that add to its vigour. The powerful energy unleashed by the visually appealing painting qualifies Mathieu for the icon of Western Lyrical Abstraction.
French coins designed by Georges Mathieu.
Georges Mathieu
Hommage à Watteau
Mathieu believed that there were three levels of creation, namely figurative depiction, connection to external world, and self-exploration, each of which corresponds to his three signature elements—symbols, energy and confidence—respectively. French cultural symbols are the most widely seen components in his paintings, especially in Hommage à Watteau.The main colours find their way back to the striped blue-white-red national flag of France. The pattern on the right is based on the aforementioned coin design. Its hexagonal shape represents France’s territorial contour. The centripetal lines pointing to Paris at the centre are like light beams that emit dazzling light. The coin pattern is placed at the top layer. RF, the acronym of the Republic of France, generating impressive visual effect. This is the only piece that includes a complete reproduction of the classic design, a precious manifestation of his devotion to the country.
Georges Mathieu creates a work in Tokyo in 1957.
Homage to Watteau
After outlining the vast expanse of France’s territory, Mathieu thought of incorporating elements of the 18th century, including Rococo, which emerged over that period, and Watteau, a leading figure in French art who epitomised the glorious days of the former Kingdom. The pyramidal composition of Hommage à Watteau echoes that of Fêtes galantes, a classical piece of Watteau. The S curve that links the two sides is a distinctive feature of Rococo art. “Freedom is emptiness,” said Mathieu. The blank space at the centre may remind the viewer of the freedom-loving white-clothed actor in Watteau’s The Italian Comedians.
The Beauty of Speed
As early as the 1950s, Mathieu pioneered introducing performative dimension to his painting. This far-reaching innovation has inspired Allan Kaprow’s Art Happenings and Yves Klein’s Anthropometry series, and provided the key impetus to the then fledgling Japanese Gutai movement.
In the expansive space of Hommage à Watteau, layers of horizontal short strokes are teeming with vigour with traces of abstract art, and the vertical paint drips carry uncontrollable power. When the two dimensions meet, they discharge glaring light like the knight medal.
Jean-Antoine Watteau
The Italian Comedians
63.8 × 76.2 cm
Thinking Before Painting
Localizing Eastern Calligraphy
The artist tended to think carefully before he painted, which was somewhat consistent with the think-before-you-write philosophy in Chinese calligraphy. The cloud-like magenta paint, as it travels across the sky, gradually transforms into elegant purple curves. The calligraphic lines, similar to those of Huaisu, meander across the canvas like a fast-moving dragon, which may remind the viewer of the vitality of Chen Rong’s Five Dragons. The painting has reproduced the grandeur of monarchy and witnessed the prime days of the artist’s career.
Nostalgic as he was, Mathieu identified human limitations as a rational philosopher and transformed abstract art with his Lyrical Abstraction as a discerning and forward-looking artist. With his introduction of Chinese calligraphy into Western art, Mathieu became a source of encouragement for Chinese artists in France to blend occidental and oriental elements. For us, to follow the footsteps of Mathieu, we should look back at the history, closely review the legacy of master artists, and create a new glorious history same as Mathieu has built for us.