Verriales 2011
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Monochromy
We chose Monochromy as the theme of this 2011 exhibition, not hesitating to set a most difficult challenge.
For the group of artists who present their works at the Verriales the brief this year was to create an artwork primarily in glass employing just one colour
Monochromy is a very ancient technique, an alternative to polychrome pieces, and one already applied to sculpture in Antiquity. Down through the centuries numerous painters have tested their skills with this demanding discipline: in its camaieu, grisaille or sanguine variants; all techniques exploiting the use of single-colour shades or tints, and without having the chromatic contrast available from black-and-white work. Often used in the Renaissance and by the Dutch Masters, camaieu painting sometimes imitated bas-reliefs, using a single colour and a variety of its nuances to simulate stone or marble textures.
The human spirit has an amazing capability of producing works with an infinite variety of tones, gradations, and luminosities, working with that one colour.
In more recent periods many painters have applied themselves to the principle, among them the Impressionist Claude Monet. At the end of the 19th-century monochromy was taken to a paroxysm with facetious parodies by Alphonse Allais and his canvasses bearing evocative titles like Apoplectic Cardinals Harvesting Tomatoes on the Shore of the Red Sea and Negroes Fighting in a Tunnel at Night.
These ironic jibes did nothing to prevent important creators of the 20th century from pushing their monochromatic research as far as the surprising and notorious White on White of 1918 by the Suprematist Malevich, then on to the “all-black” works of his compatriot Rodchenko. Pierre Soulages also built his fame on an obsessional use of black in his paintings. But perhaps the most famous in this artistic genre has to be Yves Klein, who in the 50s invented a blue pigment suspended in a crystal-clear synthetic resin – a blue that allowed his works to preserve an extraordinary brightness and intensity. It was successfully patented by him under the name of International Klein Blue (IKB).
These monochrome works are indeed the artistic expression of an exacerbated sensitivity, forcing the spectator to seek out their meaning and deepest significance. In this 2011 Verriales it is this sensitivity which is the striking, first impression. The colours of these glass artworks carry you off into your own imagination – opening up the realm of dreams.
Each of the artists has chosen a colour of predilection and then glorified it by exploiting the unique transparency and brilliant luminosity of glass. Some of them, freely inspired, have approached the Monochrome theme in a more philosophical, sensory, or musical way – a silent concert in which each colour combines with light to play its part of the score.
This rare artistic challenge and these unique moments of contemplation are what we share with you, with passion, each succeeding year.
Serge Lechaczynski and Jean Eskenazi
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