ART
CHRONICLE
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6.
Are the shapes and colors you employ usually governed by any factors
beyond their function within the canvas limits?
The colors act the same way as the forms, depending upon the
variation from one painting to the next, from one part of one painting
to the other, and from the condition of forming a definite coloration.
Their balance in the composition is often logically controlled, but
their origin is mostly unconscious; the principal colors come in my
sketches instinctively. Beside giving body to the structure of the forms,
they weave different rhythms upon it, thus transforming it.
To function within the canvas limits is for the shapes and the colors
only one phase of their activity, a certain condition put to them.
7.
Do you believe that the tradition of the Stijl
(
M ondrian, Van Does–
bourg) etc.) can be perpetuated?
This question comes a little abruptly. It is a matter of my conception
as opposed to that of Mondrian's and the rather different one of Van
Doesbourg, or that of Vantongerloo; or any other expressing relations
with rectangular systems.
To speak only of Mondrian, whom I admire much, there is no
contradiction in principle that new artists could adopt his position and
means, and produce excellent work. Yet the extreme limitation of the
means which, with tpis painter, is the final conquest of a long evolution,
does not permit much further evolution for the follower without break–
ing the formula of "no form." It is like .the top of a pyramid; any move–
ment leads out of it.
8.
Which of the following do you think should most logically interest a
young artist today: Tintoretto) Poussin) Memling) mosaics at Ravenna)
Phidias) David) Delacroix) Maya sculpture) Chirico) Van Gogh) Ma–
tisse) Manet) Arp?
Taking for granted that the young artist is aiming at giving body
to his own irrepeatable sense of beauty, and at developing it, what lesson
can he receive from the artists you name? He may recognize types of
composition, coloration, forms, technique, bringing out in their works
qualities that he admires or seeks. But to make effective use of them
he must himself work with means compatible, even from a distance,
with theirs.
A
man belonging, let us say, to the neo-plastic school, can make very
little use but verbal of the tradition of Memling or Poussin. There is
always something to be understood in any work, but how much can be
taken is the important factor. No painter of the past answers my own
point of view, as built up by my intentions, feelings and means. Yet my
technique would allow me to study coloration with Tintoretto, composi–
tion with Poussin, especially continuity through variations of all kinds,
"modenature" with Maya architecture, light with Matisse, tense rela–
tions with Mondrian, for example.
One chooses what fits best one's own possibilities and needs. To take
Memling alone as a tradition would mean to paint figures, in similar
