SALVAGE
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morning cityscape calls to mind something of the psychological power
of Sartre's
La nausee
(I 9
38), in which we feel all too clearly the noth–
ingness in the core of modern life.
Helion builds on his concern for balance and structure like an archi–
tect, but he also pushes color for maximum impact. Whereas in previ–
ous works he used a muted palette to represent the scales of tonal value,
in
La belle etrusque
(I948)
Helion employs a hot orange hue for almost
the entire surface of the canvas, and creates tone with flat areas of pale
pinks, yellows, and warm browns, using chromatic brilliance rather
than lights and darks as Veronese did in late works.
In
this daring
painterly feat-bizarre subject matter, outrageous color, and downright
wacky drafting-he again invents stasis, teetering on the brink of new
possibility.
In
the early
I950S,
the tone of Helion's work changes to detachment,
to a sense of withdrawal and philosophical musing. These works are
mostly somber, pensive studio scenes of still lifes, models, and self–
portraits. Instead of viewing naturalism as a detente in his career or a
slackening of inventiveness, Helion consciously employs realism in the
service of unorthodoxy, as abstraction itself was becoming restrictive.
In
I9
5
4,
in a realist self-portrait entitled
Le peintre,
he depicts him–
self in the act of weighing. He wrote about his uncompromising inner
motivation: "Painting becomes an avowal of faith in the validity of exis–
tence."
In
Le peintre,
we find the genesis for
The Last Judgment of
Things
as Helion seems to weigh the intangible against the material,
abstraction against reality, the sacred against the profane. Here, he is
not only "the painter," but also the thinker, the philosopher.
In
this full–
length self-portrait in oil on canvas, Helion places himself in front of an
easel flanked by two others in a large studio space. His left foot abuts a
small stool, while his elbow, resting on his knee, supports his chin in the
classic "thinker" pose. A blank canvas is on the easel directly behind
him, while the flanking easels are bare. The act of pondering is juxta–
posed with a profusion of objects scattered around the room. Helion's
logic for compositional balance prevails again as assorted furnishings
and objects-a bench, a cot, stacked canvas stretchers, a plant-are sit–
uated in the foreground of the studio, while on the left a staircase winds
upwards onto a terraced landing.
Le peintre
is a first foray into Chris–
tological subjects, and foreshadows his
Last Judgment
of twenty-five
years later. People transfixed in a moment of thought as Christ turns
water into wine, a proliferation of objects, and staircase with landing
are also major elements of
The Marriage at Cana.
