« In THIS faith I shall live and die »

As over the years I unlearned how to rest – and I didn’t leave time to time no more, but I myself guaranteed the arrangements of times in the tasks of my life and in life itself – never again was I capable of inactivity… So I was always strenuously active and – when it was not the struggle about « to be or not to be a always waking Walden companion » – I found it really difficult when I did not set myself to painting every day (mostly in the afternoon / in the morning the “writing” was done). However with that came unfittingly the fundamental obstacle of the drying process of the paint so that I sometimes had up to four (or even more) pictures on the loom. During all that time of years I did not understand, that this amount-of-artworks-going-on was a dispersion of forces. Seen afterwards (NOW) it seems to me that the symptoms of entropy and unhealthy doubts about my qualities – while coinciding with an ever changing view and an ever changing understanding of the painting qualities and the intrinsic value of my works – brought along lots of “uncertainty” … which thus had that dispersion of forces as its cause (as you can see a lot of mind and brain gymnastics was needed in order that I not lose the thread)… Every day I was standing before a different canvas (a different contemplation) and when after so many days the paint was dry enough so that I could continue on the same canvas (the picture of days ago), than there was – during the days that had passed – the effort-presence of painting and the atmospheres of the other pictures had come in between for de-concentration towards the continuation of the evolution (the next phase) of the painting-on – over the by now already dry-enough paint – on the same canvas. And I did NOT understand (for years), that this, finally, was NO natural, nor spiritually healthy concentration for me (considering my original Dionysian « à-la-prima » temperament). But gradually during these last times, I found, that NOW it had been quite enough with the painting-answer to the question that I had asked myself: « painting, what is that? »… that question (1950) that had chased me away from my primary à-la-prima temperament! Formerly, you know, I did not ask myself ANY questions at all … because all I did in painting… I mean painting for myself… – unknown from Master Storie – came to be in an extremely spontaneously way, in a very natural way, as a matter of course and with a great deal of motivation and movedness… with this there was no place for matters or question of what ever kind there be… « die roze ist ohne warumb » (Angelus Silezius). (there was a lot of asking, of course, during the learning period spent in the studio of the apprentices of Jose Storie concerning the painting à la Storie and the copying of the work of the old masters) (Until end years 1940. From my 13th years up to my 23th years, I sojourned in the « Studio Storie » (in Bruges - Flanders - Belgium) simply in order to have some extra earnings through copying (from J. Bosch to Fragonard) the paintings from the Royal Collection (J. Storie was the painter of the Belgian Court) . After this period I disappeared from THAT world and I have copied never again.

In a word, NOW, these last times I got the immense need to turn around the page (of the painting- painting as such) 3 and again I wanted (only) à-la-prima-portraying and to give preference NOT to the painter in me, but to the artist… on the understanding that I did NOT deem it necessary (NOW) to continue painting in one brush, uninterruptedly with, … à-la-prima… in order to finish the canvas in fast tenacious concentration at one go (as I always did until the end of the 1950s!) because – considering my age – yet every time, NOW, I dreaded to commit such super acts! Furthermore, taking the decision to go on with only one canvas (attention: the drying process), gives me every possibility for concentration, even if the à-la-prima painting should continue for a few days. (Désormais: La vie est un long fleuve tranquille… ). So from NOW I am going on easy !… and still in total concentration, movedness and motivation. And then came to exist the question about the AFFIRMATIVE and it appeared that this fact is difficult to be expressed in words. It has something to do with the strange question that the painting is even difficult to be seen «very good» by the painter himself. The affirmative was at first pointed at the wish that once my « Figuration Autre » art of painting would be “accepted” as a-matter-of-course as this is a fact with the modern figurative landscape or still-life, so that there would be no historical gap any more between the modernism – from impressionism and predecessors – and the non-figurative art of painting… and… from this wish followed, as a mater of course, the question: « what is an affirmative work? ». As an advance to the answer I first point at the opposite; namely to the changeability conditions which (in me) ALWAYS happened when looking at one of my paintings (taking into account, on the one hand, with the fact of the (former) dispersion problem, on the other hand, with the progress syndrome which (continuously) makes me have difficulty with former work , this is “The Masterpiece temptation», because of which the quality of my work does or doesn’t enter well into me… of course, the light conditions have – during the observation of a painting – a lot to do with that, too! BUT (I pondered) when that which I call affirmative « power of conviction » is truly present in a work, then it appears to me that the already originated whims and uncertainties – at the time of viewing a painting – are being converted by themselves into a matter-of-course and conviction. So here we have the AFFIRMATIVE condition, painting and painter are becoming «adult»… The work speaks for itself whatever the condition ”the observer” is finding himself in. Finally, concerning the absolutely convincing – which (in Museums) sometimes beams toward the observer from a real work of art – I dare to state, that IT is SOMETHING so affirmative that it CANNOT belong to the world of sensual eagerness neither to the properties of «a thing of beauty». At the realization of an absolutely affirmative work, there are different (spirituality) forces « à l’oeuvre ». Those different forces are supposed to have their source in the artist soul who does NOT have anything to do anymore with the karmic world of the sensory.

My à-la-prima movedness still goes NOW more and more together with my final “resistance” as a painting-painter driven by the during years and years incarnated knowledge of the laws of that which is painting (de-coagulation of the shape / pictorial and spiritual restructuring of the de-coagulation (les plans superposés) / color-thinking / multidimensional notion of space / sfumato / light en clear-obscure through color-thinking / « Figuration Autre » / the painters eye, etc…) AND finally, it is NOT anymore the painting- painter who receives preference (NOW)… for the artist (in me) again wants to come to realize the strongly animated and the highly motivated movedness in my present « Figuration Autre » work. If I, with MY strong sensing of the “animatedness” in all “things”, would stand before a figurative item (landscapes, houses etc etc. namely all that which I become aware of while seeing), then this sensing together with awareness of the animatedness of “things” would be more than sufficient to get to a convincing (affirmative) result (see my preferred ‘peintres maudits’) Soutine, Kikoïne, Krémegne, Ebiche, Antcher, Tuculescu, Czobel). However doing the non-figurative painting I am standing before something that has yet to come, better say, something « which is on its way » (not visible already). That which is the meaning of what is on its way, must become evident then from that which (sometimes even in the first instance) appears on the canvas. There does exist something like an intention force… Very often comes to exist a kind of (unconscious) numinous intention which works in such a determining way that it stamps a seal on the course of the realization of a work. Afterwards – when that intention (which I do NOT wish to understand) has “appeared” more or less clearly on the canvass – I break lose, à-la-prima, in a way as if I were standing before a clearly recognizable figurative item. The intention sensed by me and the « pictorial traces » thereof on the canvas, stand before my eye and my heart, as if it were a visual figuration « where I can depart from while painting » (just as if I e.g.. were standing before a figurative landscape). Furthermore I already FEEL-KNOW what may come yet, as a result of the becoming aware of the spirit of the intention-energy… this is the clear «for-feel-seeing» that is the maieutic-intuition (see Socrates). I deflect now here for a while via a somehow image thinking philosophic insight as follows:… in order that in the course of evolution the very first human animals would become animal humans, it was necessary for them to discover that they dreamed. Also the purely material existence, obtained – via this discovery – (being the very first traces of the NOŬS) the possibility of a spiritual “level”. This spiritual element – such as this was (and is) a fact for the material – now also started its social-darwinistic evolution. I deflect a little bit again NOW in order to state that the everywhere known « mental association » is the purely material result of the automatic (physiological) working of the brain (… if man does NOT interfere by philosophical- and self-thinking). This materialism of the brain-automatism (which very easily responds to the formatting-working so that a kind of physiological intelligence comes into existence such the technocracy is the case in our “system” or in artificial intelligence) is also thus (just like the NOŬS) a kind of energetic force (there exist, thus many kinds of forces and many kinds of energies)(Gods). This physiological field of forces (egregore) is present in everything… it “moves” the instinct of animals, it moves all brains etc…. and thus, everything is IN that all, which is included in everything. Existence does NOT go beyond the material – dreams (also the daydream-condition of being (mostly) without consciousness) are (and are in the course of the social-darwinistic evolution) most of the times NOTHING else but very capricious forms of all kinds of mixed « mental associations » (and mixed feelings) – until the moment when the still very anthropoid being, that formerly was called « an aborigines », discovered the « dreamtime » of the beautiful dream and that thus the evolution of the spiritual world (spiritual sensibility) dawned, which as he went along brought the anthropoid being closer to « the human being ». So our ab-origines had thus discovered that he too could dream BEAUTIFULLY (initiatic dream and he found this so divinely-extraordinary, that he did not desire anything better than to make his way of life into a « dreamtime » (my beloved lady entitles this condition with the expression « Amour Etoile »).

The ‘spiritual sensibility’ (beginning in the dreamtime) therefore comes from way back ……

Some (so-called) primitive tribes find their higher life in the dream happening. They clearly establish the difference between their two lives. Their daily physical lives as well as their dream- life are both discussed enthusiastically. Much time is dedicated to this REAL communication… and from early morning’s wakening they tell each other their dreams, and if about someone they had dreamt something that was NOT GOOD, they confessed this and bashfully and in deep shame they asked for forgiveness. At a material level, dreams are nothing but the highest possibly attainable high frequency which manifest themselves in the “space” of the “time” (no-time!) which takes the mental associations to make a dream (e.g. we can dream a whole life in a fraction of a second) in their confused rambly caprices and carp-leap-like purely mental trains of thought (solely understandable in the dream). That frequency is NOT slowed down in the dream by the tardier workings of the senses such as this slowing down certainly happens in the dailyness, unless it is a matter of unconscious « over-consciousness ». But through and in the tardiest working of the senses, this no-time-eternity-time goes his way always ! Thus two “spaces” of “time” in us, like the opposition between the yes and the no. This is a situation which leads to labyrinthic dimensions (only a mystic (real artists, painters, poets, composers…) have developed the so necessary “over-senses” to find herein his way) (In the surrealistic concepts a trace of the oneiric corresponding can already be found, sadly they (by their hubris) immediately lost their bearings and ended up at the « « poisson soluble » nightmare and they only brought forth purely literary picture-postcard-artiness / old frumps-would-be-art / something like the « Image d’Epinal »). In that which everyone knows as being « such a beautiful dream » (something like the initiating « amour étoile ») the CONFUSED dream happening has become a strange filled-with-light DREAM-CLARITY which truly can be called « the oneiric corresponding ». The spiritual part (spirituality energy) in the brain, thus had come into existence via that beautiful initiatic dream and the aborigines human became aware of « spiritual sensibility ». HE made it his dreamtime… his essentiality… also his intellegĕre (intellegĕre: seeing en being in each thing!) became the one and all pure saga-poetry and elevated inner music of the exteriorization of the metanoïa becoming dreamtime-energy (the « oneiric-corresponding » created by the beautiful dream – The “Imagination créatrice” of the Sufi)) (something like the conscience of over-consciencious). From this fabulous saga oracle- miracle these – stimulating our very highest intuition-understanding – divine significance becoming human, originated, afterwards – in behalf of eternity and social-darwinisme – all sorts of philosophal spiritual movedness (and for the rest also the whole culture) such as (e.g.) the by man’s contrive-ings created « creation-imagination » of the very earliest god- en religion-conceptions… (e.g.) the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead, The Veda, (etc)… and all of the then already existing Muthos philosophical consciousness thereof and thereabout. Also came to be Hinduism up to Buddhism in its most pure form (Gotama’s sermons, Confucius, Mencius, but above all Huang Po) there came to be Sufism (cf. Imagination Créatrice - Ibn Arabi) and (more western) the religěre, the intellegěre, the NOŬS, and furthermore the Christian mystique and also the spirit of Master Eckhart and sister Katri etc. etc… The clearest vision of man’s conceptions about God and Buddha we find in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and also with Huang Po and Sister Katri (see Eckhart). In a word; everything religious, idealistic, spiritual… and all ideologies on the one side, all life-philosophies, poetry and true art on the other side have originated from the dreamtime-condition of Mister Aborigines, excluding all the conceptions which led to our nefarious technocracy and all the shadow-thinking such as some sort of surrealism, of occultism and/or theosophy (including the often insincere in Blavatsky) (source of inspiration for Kandinsky and Scriabine (for him near black magic)] in addition to which one finds some correction again in anthroposophy (always theos versus anthropos etc etc…). I NOW return again to the line of thoughts which brought me to the statement; « I feel-know what else can come, following the sensing (maieutic intuition) of the spirit of the intention-energy». Well, now, already at that moment are the traces of the intention-energy – very firstly and fore mostly spontaneously originated on the canvas – READABLE for me … I feel-know what THIS tells me … it is totally oneiric-corresponding and dreamtime-poetry and hereto I add the creation-imagination of the ab-origines. Those traces… these not yet deliberately « coup de pinceau » bringing along all kinds of “charged” color-spots … those color spots, (as if it were) dreamtime-poetry or music. Color by itself whispers quite a lot to me and I, as a good Akousmatikoï, can hear it! The little smudge shapes tell me entire stories and I as a good intellegĕre lector can read it. (Akousmatikoï… intellegěre, together make the possibility of «lire une peinture ») (I remember I once wrote that a smudge can have the ambience of an abandoned soccer field and a stripe next to the smudge could be a tree at the foot of which I can lie down in the shadow… attention, this has NOTHING to do with Rorschach-fantasy, because my color spots are already charged by the intention and it is THIS charge which I can experience just like in the old days, when I – by my figurative works – departed from the « animatedness (energy) (the Gods) of things » and everything animated in all corners and sides and between tables and chair legs). So I « read » these fabulous ab-origines stories and Muthos which – via my little color-spots – bring me a paradigm … and, in enchantment I discern the possibility of the creation of the parallel pictorial ‘gestalt’ of it. Imagination créatrice! To create is to call something into existence… ab-origines… Only in THIS way – co-creating with the hole creation – a man fulfills the further coming into being of the spiritually (the origines-force) alive. Our death thereby is only a transition towards the perfect absorption into the «all that is in all». Mallarme’s saying: « tel que, en lui-même, l’éternité le change » means, that before a human being will have become a real HUMAN-MAN, a lot of time will have passed by! (The « antiques » (Greek philosophers) sometimes speak about mankind-in-general as of «le bétail des Dieux» and about a human being as of someone « who has no soul yet »)). However the true artist, HE, who has the maieutic intuition at his disposal, HE HAS already become a spiritual being. HE already IS « tel qu’en lui-même »… and he IS this… in the most INSTANTANEOUS WAY OF BEING. As to say it with Huang Po (Master Tch’an VIIIth century): « It is YOUR weakness that prevents you from taking THAT leap-into-the-INSTANTANEOUS. Whether this takes you three, five, or ten years of time STILL thou shall come to experience THAT lightning-experience … the notion will follow afterwards as a matter of course !»

Actually, there can be NO talk of it that ever any REALITY (unless thou thyself maked it) can be found. To find oneself consciously in THIS spiritual ambience, is to give evidence of a perfect having-been-awakened-condition. Understanding THIS, one KNOWS that the way of Buddha and the way of (God and) the devil… are both equally UNTRUE and false (cf. Huang-Po!). The immediateness-condition of the maieutic-intuition (and the awareness thereof) IN which a true artist spends his living and creating, IT is the « all is in all » state of mind of THE « man-him-self-integration » in nature and cosmos (faith!). THIS is for someone who little by little is becoming a human being at last a becoming to be a spiritual-living HUMAN! (some kind of mystic!). Religion-belief is in fact only the relative reality of the existential world (“believing” it self doesn’t need proof!). The scientist is his oppositorum... HE doesn’t need to “believe”… HE can always try to prove his science-imagination (e.g. quarks)… and his contributing to the richness of the ideas and the conceptualization of the intellectual world. The real artist (e.g. here: an artist-painter!) doesn’t deny religion or science but HE doesn’t need them…. HE has a regard for the more direct way of immediateness. He IS in all things! (religěre, intellegĕre). He IS in that « all is in all ». He IS an ab-origines! THAT IS the 'gestalt' of the faith itself ! And, finally, in order to mention clearly de creation-imagination of the « god-man-vision » such as it is written in the Tibetan Book of the Dead: « When all existing phenomena, radiating as godly shapes and radiations, are recognized as emanations of ones own knowing-capacity, at the moment-itself of recognition, Buddhaship will be realized ». [Et tu seras un Dieu toi même (Pythagoras) (also see sister Katri’s movedness).

Seen in the light of such a reality one can, rightly, ask ourselves the following question : « How did religion an church fit herein… ? ». The answer here of course is the following: Religion an Church are moral oppositorum-behaviour-patterns;… socianismes. They are oppositorum-worlds because: on the one side of live there are mystics, prophets and some sapient church fathers… on the other side (oppositorum) the Inquisition and the damning ex-cathedra dogmatists and conversion urge (à la de Layola!). But: as ALSO the enlightenment must finally be « incarnated », for all religions (ALSO) applies Mallarme’s declaration in the following meaning (see Avreli Augustini) 17 that IN « the communion of the believing souls » the Buddha-Christos thought must BECOME a universal reality. This existential C-B reality liberates itself, gradually, from the «Pisces-period-believing». In the Aquarius era THIS will lead to a liberating true « in-faith-living »… an ab-origines-thinking. That is the sense of being, in which real artist are living !

x x x

In the light of their own theories of free-thinking, it is a strange situation that the technocratic "specialists", when they discover, about ART, a meaning that does not have its source in their peer group, they automatically, call this meaning : « a kind of amateurism ». ART-ideas always are « avant la letter » "before" ALL ideas! The ART-genius is a «pre-cognition» state of mind (avant-garde) ! There is a curious interaction between « art-avant-garde and technocracy ». Both contest situations of stagnation, decay and overwhelming ideologies (politics, religions, and all the « human all too human » mentalities, etc ... ). Both are looking for a more cool, a more "pure" thinking ... Technocrats, to indicate this « new attitude », use the word 'professionalism'. And indeed, by comparison with this "newcomer mentality" all the rest seems to be « old fashioned » (yes, something like a kind of « vieux jeu » amateurism!) ... which we no longer needed... as a passed mode… we throw the baby out with the bath-water! Pure thinking! This is the mentality of the modernistic age. Tabula rasa! Yes ! and then it is too late to speak about traditional values which perhaps NOW could be understood again in a (r)-evolutionary approach. Too late! Yes! Founder of Davos, Klaus Swab, once he had the comprehension of the dead end that globalization was taking, regretted his technocratic 30-points-plan. Too late. Too late. The heavy weight of the disaster remains now (for some generations) really on the shoulders of the eternally young, naïve Americans. Globalization!? Indeed... changing certain national obstacles, stay in the way of reform, is needed! Indeed... the economic relationship needs to be re-structured without delay and put on a higher level. For example at the level of the reality of those who have to carry out (in a entrepreneurial way) the new realities of life and existence 22. And of course there is always an urgent need for real emancipation! (no longer labyrinthic stagnation; eternally staying between NO-YES and bureaucratic management). But technocracy – this anti-establishment protester – "pushing" his meaning; in a technocratic way, also taught us some WRONG things!!! namely: 1. technocratic globalization is unavoidable ... there is NO other SOLUTION! 2. Technocracy is not really doing what it seems to be doing... it is NOT a leadership... it is only a very masterly fine way of managing. But! YES, yes and yes! YOU know very well that you always have a lot of possibilities! You can still complicate your thinking (being) in the way of a technocratic maniac of the peter-principle-destructurization and by the favor of « calculations of probability » making the so well known «absurd-decisions»... and... nevertheless... claiming that this is a result of the 'evolution' of the search for "pure" thinking (and nothing else). Thus: you can have the opinion that « a thing of beauty » has to be (far away from all behavior of the world of «the human all too human») a very modernistic-isme-product of "pure" thinking. Also you will introduce a "pure" professional "non-human-feeling-state" in the art... that you will call the "pure" non-art. In the mean time you develop the generalizing opinion that all other art is dusty amateurism and that all the other ways of thinking are a « out of time » NON-"pure" form of thinking (there is NO other SOLUTION !). Yes, of course, in a certain defensive regressive position, you can have some reasons to – even NOW – believe in globalization and technocracy... and, even so, believe in all the quickly succeeding (always strongly supplanting one another) modernistic realizations in the Art-sector. But! Yes, yes and yes ! You can also try to make up your mind in connection with « the way of the natural intelligence »... so, you will find in the Art-sector some real creators (real artists and real painter-painters !) who testify about the fact of being (in all real life and feeling) in a totally different way than the so called 'normal way'... to be « human all too human »… or technocratic or contemporaneistic. Yes, you can think : HE (for example Van Gogh) is a genius! But you can also accept that Van Gogh lived in the way of what Socrates said when HE was speaking about « living in the Daimôn state of mind », - yes, you can think that this state of mind never shall be yours. But you can not hinder that this kind of high-qualitative-way of being is already in your dreams or in the expectance of your sub-conscience. - yes, you can have the opinion that you have to "translate" all questions – of thinking and living – in the 'karmic way' of YOUR own feeling of « desire or no-desire »... and with this mentality – when trying to understand a non-figurative painting – YOU will see THAT which you like (or want) to see... and thus projecting yourself, so that you are convinced that you are 'right' in your approach of the art. But you can also learn to develop empathy and knowledge (about many things of thinking and being) and say to yourself : I know in a real objective way (as a connoisseur) how to acquire the knowledge of the quality of wines 25, cigars, cloths, cars... So on the contrary of what is declared in the following proverb : « tastes and colors can not be discussed », still I can speak objectively about the different qualities of wines, cigars, etc. with other persons ... thus... why should it be impossible to learn to have the real empathic approach of the content and the laws of painting-art and color. The oenologists have developed a whole vocabulary so that they can – in every nuance – describe (and discuss about) quality (so, why should it NOT be possible to invent such a kind of language to speak about painting instead of the technocratic vocabulary?). Regarding myself, I, Serge Largot, have always developed this simple way of thinking... this way of 'evident approach' which Descartes called : « the reasonable soul ». In this state of mind I have loved thousands and thousands of art-creations (specifically in painting) in hundreds and hundreds of museums and galleries in Europe, North Africa and the States... I can say that I know and remember all of them... and that not one of the paintings (with which I had an encounter) escaped to the persistence of my loving attention. Really, when empathy is on its way to full development (not only a word !) , we can feel what the artist was feeling, and when we have finally learned really « to read a painting » (for example a Soutine of the Ceret period) than we can also learn to read ALL the paintings ! Solely we have to develop our way of "hearing" ... (akousmatikoï) because art "speaks" to human beings. Not only I have learned to feel what the artist felt (and also read his paintings) but – as a painter myself – I have copied (from Bosch to Fragonard) a lot of works of the old masters. I have copied and learned to acquire the knowledge of their marvelous technique of opaque, translucent and transparent paint-matter; for example how to use, in a glassy manner, their painting-material, and thus make « subtle » all matter... until it becomes, in the shadow parts, like a transparent glaze In Bruges (Flanders where 1 was born), lived a portraitist named Jose Storie (he was the painter of the Belgian Court in the Regency period) (he was a disciple of my grand uncle Flori Aerts, who pretended to be a descendant of the recently re-discovered old master Pieter Aertsen(sen)(son of Aert). His sons (painters) were named Pieter and Aert Pieter(sen)… The son of Aert was named Aert(sen) etc.etc. About Pieter Aerts (16th century) cf. article from Charlotte Houghton “This was tomorrow” in The Art Bulletin 2004 College Art Association. This disciple became a Master and he had (based on the authentic manuscripts of Karel Van Mander 's «Great Painters Book» 16th century) invented different mediums to dilute the paint-materials. So, in order to be sure of the efficiency of these mixtures, it was me who was the first one who did ALL the experiments of painting with ALL the different painting-mediums (of course... there exists a lot of anecdotes) I was coming in on age of 13 and I left the Storie atelier when I was 23 years old. I never made copies again. So (in this text), the conclusion about meanings and knowledge is as follows; any one knows that we can be a connoisseur of wines, cigars, cloths, cars... so, in the same way, I, Serge Largot, can present the following simple idea, that: if we take our time to learn, we can also learn to acquire the most profound love and knowledge about the art of «painting-painting ». We must not have to follow the modes, trends and -ismes. Solely, first of all, we have to throw out all our personal pre-conceived meanings regarding what we love and what we think to know about art. And so, after I had (personally) acquired all the knowledge of « what painting is » (a painter only learns this from studying paintings... and of course, a painter often «speaks painting» with other painters). I noticed that I was ready to be an old man... so that I could decide that I had learned enough. That means, that, after all these years of study and painting-realizations, all this knowledge was really incarnated... I had at last become painting itself... so that I no longer had to ask the Daimôn question : « By God, painting what is that ? », – question which produce mental entropy – but that I could, from now on (at my ripe old age) concentrate all my attention on the other question, the more imponderable question, like this !!! « I... as an artist ? ». The entire evolution – from the quest of the old masters (their never ending « study ») to the beginning of modern art – is based on « the choice to make » between these two totally different questions, namely the choice of the « mastership » and/or the choice of « the artist-feeling and being » (this was the huge problem to conciliate Apollo and Dionysus (Nietzsche)). I have to say, that at the same time that I was (very young! ) working in Storie's « atelier », I painted (for myself, unseen from the Master) like a young Soutine... That means that I exteriorized – « à la prima » in a state of holy madness – my Daimôn way of feeling! Yes ! And I do remember too... that I always felt the presence-pressure of real animated life happening in the room-corners, in the shadows under the tables and the chairs etc... etc... all this great loneliness IMPONDERABILIA... I was translating this – on the canvas – in a kind of colorful « no thinking at all » action-painting. Yes! I was a little bit CRAZY! It took me a whole life to understand how the artist meets the painter and what it means to be a artist-painter who has the great creating-force to realize all this "feeling" in a real tactical way (pictorial and formal) and not only in a "impression" way or in a « à la prima » super-act way (Van Gogh, Soutine, Van Anderlecht). Now that I can think that I am really an old man... Thus: that I can think to know, finally, how to give a real (painted!) answer to the question : « painting, what is that ?» ... NOW ? Yes ... now I have, already, learned to create the «sfumato» / the color- thinking / the Cézannian-discipline of the « plans superposes » / the de-coagulation from Boudin (Museum of Modern Art in Le Havre (Fr)) and the painters eye from Rik Wouters. The light-painting as a result of the most heavy simultaneous-contrast / the clair-obscur as a result of color-thinking / the 'non-perspective' way to feel the space (it is not in a frame with perspective lines!) (it is everywhere; above, below, on the right, on the left, behind you, before you and even IN you) and, first of all, THE requirements of possibilities to the FUTURE... namely the « FIGURATION AUTRE » result of the art of painting itself and the richness of the imagination of the subconscious… it is something that « appears » ! It is a link farther… on the chain of tradition… so it is at the same time avant-garde and ab-origines ! So, I cannot stop to study… Indeed, I discovered something (like a big « ground swell » coming out of the collective sub-conscience) concerning this « FIGURATION AUTRE » which is, already (by the effect of social Darwinisme ?) in a state of a decisive 'new beginning' of a natural fact of evolution.... That means that I have got to make the observation that I am NOT the only one who has the pre-cognition of this real « painter-painter » quality... which certainly shall influence the future of mankind (like the modernistic-ismes did !!!) We can make the observation that « Figuration Autre »-paintings are NOT REALLY represented in the NYC galleries or musea. Because, most of the (gallery) directors still hope that the « big solution » is already in that what they ……….. …… and they cannot yet already accept now the reading of an other phase of the « book of nature»... and history, namely the Aquarius «meaning». After all, they are enclosed in the damnation of mental restriction and they cannot accept what is not known already. A Flanders proverb says : « we are at the end of our LATIN ». Yes, exactly, that is the situation in the to day Art-World ! "They" have speculated about each invention of each possibility of fantasy and « hinein-interpretation » and "they" lived now in the very dangerous situation of the so called « retour de flame »…. Yes! That is the dead of the modernistic way (the contemporanéism)… the way of the « merde d’artiste » or of the «the merde producing machine»! And what shall we do NOW ! Would it be an unreasonable question to look to real values (valeurs sûres!) ? And yes ! Even not accepted, even ignored of the official art-deciders, still always the right way is going on at the same time (but occulted) with all that extremely dangerous pseudo-experimental mentality of destroying all human values in Art in Life in Love! And yes, there shall be (there is !) coming again a painting-painting-art that we shall call «Figuration Autre» (figuration otherwise) because the NON-figurative painting reveals the maïeutic source of « the transmission of the recognition » of our essential « ab-origines » being. Yes, looking this sort of paintings we shall not "receive" « une merde d’artiste » but something marvelous that we really recognize and never have seen before… AND THIS KIND OF FIGURATION SHALL ALSO BE CONVINCING US, AS WE WERE, WHEN ADMIRING – IN THE OLD DAYS – THE MESSAGE AND THE CONTENT OF THE FIGURATIVE ART OF PAINTING LANDSCAPES, PORTRAITS, STILL LIVES OR MAGISTERIAL COMPOSITIONS. SO ! THAT IS THE NEW WAY ! « NON FIGURATIVE FIGURATION AUTRE » … All subconscious source in contact with mystic source. During the last decade, many economic-philosophers told us that the technocratic collectivism (the so called, only possible way) named the globalization is DEAD ... because of the revival in some countries of the political feeling based on pride and love for the country, nothing to do with the closed-mind of extreme nationalism. So it means that this way of living (and the economy of the intra-market) is still stronger than any think-tank progress… Together with these philosophers I think that the angel of death found, at last, the fundamental extermination-reason (to make from the globalization really a starving thing) in the big constellation of the always changing-times which make, always, place for other eternities... Indeed it has – during the past 60 years – being my pre-cognition that the concept of globalization was nothing else but a hyper-application of the experience of the (during 20 centuries) diabolic «divide et impera» of the Pisces period (globalization: « the dragon's tail » of pisces...!). Indeed, my pre-cognition is a logical result of time and history… And I am, now (in this time) waiting for the first sign of the Aquarius-effect. But I will not see it... I cannot wait 40 more years! On the other hand, it is also logical that the DEATH of globalization does not precisely lead to the death of his acolytes... Thus we all still have to wait for "the moment" (2050) that – for mankind – the self-thinking qualities (inherent in the Aquarius period) shall be incarnated (a little bit). We know also that there is, at least, ONE sociologic element, which precedes all speculative visions about the future. I am speaking about ART ! An artist has to be an « antenna » ! Do you remember the "change" (60 years ago!) namely the way of ultimate thinking about « a thing of beauty is a joy for ever ?»... All intrinsic-imponderabilia were considered as nothing else as subjective amateurism and were replaced by the convincing SIGN. We know, now, that this "change" prepared the coming of the peter-principle-absurdity namely the way of technocratic thinking… birth of globalization... Yes, we know, now, how it destroyed the «intellegĕre» the « religěre », the intuition, the economy and the true politics, during the last decades. We also know, now, that: what this world once presented as « official art », was in total parallel with the mentality (pseudo-anti-establishment protests included) of the deadly-way of the mind destructive globalization project. SO ! I SEE WHAT I HAVE TO SEE ! I remember, for instance, what Duchamp wrote to his friends in France: « Here, in the States, you can make them believe all the non-sense-thinking you want ... ». And I, Largot, asked : «Does this what Duchamp says, mean a living way of being ?». I also remember, how (under the influence of Matta and Masson and the Hoffmann-(Cozens?)-dripping (tachism of Alexander Cozens (1700th) and the Hoffmann, Breton and the Cage theories), Pollock "changed" his Soutine-admiration (see his paintings anno 1936-37) for a state of mind of alcoholic psychic-illusionism (HIS "dripping"!). And, I, Largot, asked : « But then, is that NOT searching a way of death ...?» Of course, always and everywhere, (± a decade after the birth of the Aquarius-era) we still find many mentality-meanings of « globalization-acolyte-thinking », e.g. like this what I read yesterday in a old but very serious magazine, written by a Frenchman, about non-figurative painting: « the non-figurative painting has got its big success until 1960 before it was supplanted by the American art !!!» I believe that the author of these words means, that not the art, but its mode-success has been (concurrence of course) eliminated by the American way of thinking (of CIA) ! I remember that in the years 1950-60, (because of the period of the real anti-establishment protests against what we called : « la culture de papa ») in certain European countries the traditional European experience of art was supplanted (?) by the so called culture of originality-searching of daddy's sons... in America (following critics as Cage, Kaprow, Greenberg and plastic artist Reinhardt). Merde! (reading that French article) I asked myself : « if art and culture are NOT totally degenerated, how can art supplants art and culture... we only (suddenly) "change" or "enrich" our opinions, isn’t it? » Speaking of degeneration in art and culture... of course this is now the big moment to ask the real question, about all « the non-art modernistic-ismes » that we have inherited from the globalization-technocrats. Because : still this period of the « divide et impera » resists, still this dogmatic-technocratic "authority" never wants to answer the imploring question: Open, Sesame! Open mind!. Still, it seems there have to be winners and losers! And, the devil ! Why... if the SUCCESS of the one sort of art is defeated by the other, does that mean that the former is no longer worth to have the epithet of art and quality ? Does usual-meaning and mode-meaning always have to take all the space of living ? (that is NOT the good intelligence!). There is something of absurd-decisions-situation (or simply false naivety!!!) in ALL questions (and answers) which are, finally, not based on reality but on temporary habits of thinking and the so called 'social contact' (we know each other! we can NOT know those we know NOT!) Also when (NYC) collector Dubrow (naïvely) wrote : « I looked at the pictures of Serge's work and I think that he is quite a real good painter. However in the 1950 and 1960, when this kind of work was new, there was only a French market for the work and no American market at all to speak of. I think if Largot wants to find a dealer, he should find a dealer in Paris because he might find French collectors who wants to buy his work ( ... ) ». Of course I will let the analyze of this "Dubrow knowledge" in the hands of the time and historical specialists. Often I speak about the similarity between the Cézanne-vision (and the young Ensor, and later Rik Wouters) from the theory of « plans superposes » and the « transmission of the re-cognition» which is 'incorporated' in the (real!) evolution of ALL times! (that is the good intelligence!). Did one way of HUMANISTIC « recognition » supplants the other way ??? No, no and no !!! (Yes, but only in the business-struggle-for-live world!) (and in all deadly totalitarian ideological systems). Yes! Yes and yes ! By the way of justice, complementary-thinking will come, like Yin and Yang have the possibility to exist « at the same time ». It is not really the « opinion of men » who dictate the deadly preference for the one thing or the other (THAT is despotism !). This is the 'technocratic dictat' of divide-et-impera-meaning-dictators. No, no and no! this is NOT «the meaning of men»! (on the contrary! ... ) For instance : (about modern art!) while those who "distillate" (out of Impressionism, Fauvism and other anterior periods), this kind of « painting-painting » like the non-figurative art in France… we know, that at the same time in the States (in the same generation of the Frenchie's, born end 1800s, beginning 1900s) we find really brilliant artists, who, later on, allegedly, have been «supplanted» by younger, more modish creators in the state of mind of Reinhardt and that Pollock-isme etc… Regarding the real U.S.A.-artist, we can study and love (very much) the work of all those who (oh, happiness!) are collected and conserved and again promoted by different wise gallery directors (do you see what I mean? Are you in recognition?). But what about the future ? Yes, yes... some ideas which could make REAL FUTURE could, already, be found (in an other form !) in the past, SO THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE « PLANS-SUPERPOSÉS-TRANSMISSION-OF-THE-RECOGNITION » IN ALL ETERNITY ! We have only to be lucid enough and to have love enough to study and to search quality and realty... and neither the mode... nor the influent relationship of this kind of mental-incestuous-social contact like the (by themselves) so called « the contemporaneistic NON-ART »… nor the question how « to be or not to be » (pseudo-paradoxical !) a successful 'arrivist' artist! Because the fateful DEGENERATION, present in the modernistic-ismes, the Museum-directors and the collectors have (just like our politicians) the « only possibility of the following position » to be behind the "go-getting" of brain dead technocratic curators and art dealers and extreme probabilistic-speculators. But ! again and again, WE (nevertheless) ALWAYS have the possibility « NOT to be diabolic short-sighted, trying to be « up-to-date » (that means, play the game of the, so called, 'social-contact' «we are the champions»). Continuing to follow the flag with the arrivistic-winner-expression : « the period of painter-easel-pictors does not exist anymore, painting-painting is dead » is making from now on total impossible that good high experimental art products and real art can live together, at the same time, as it was about Cubism and the real influence of Cézanne… as Dada and Bonnard. Yes, we can always GO towards beauty and towards the quest of the transmission of the re-cognition and the reality of the truth ! (Yes, truth is possible !). Each hungry-for-beauty soul..., always has to make the eternal pilgrimage as an art-lover, just like the way of the sacred loneliness of the real creator himself. Each generation is looking for his Van Gogh. The 'plans-superposés' (transmission of recognition) of times, shall bring us NOW (Aquarius) a real big « ground swell ». The evolution (on which the future way of living will be based) of this real new art of « FIGURATION AUTRE » is already potentially « omni present ». Never and never, till now, we had any idea of this eternal new and always further progressing tradition-possibility (the “dream” of Van Gogh)... so, this will make a lot of comments !. .. Providing the role of the KADOSH! P.S. l : Antonin Artaud wrote about Van Gogh that HE was (a naive) « suicidé de la société » and I, (writing this impossible text), have got a phantom in my mind, that tells me that (the naives) Pollock and Guston were also « des suicidés de la société… des beaux-arts américain ».

I think that there are different kinds of naivety ... and there is one which brings death !

P.S. 2 : The French Painting (cf. also Mathieu end 1940) was very well known (and loved) in NYC ... till the moment that characters like Greenberg "expelled" the Frenchies ... but THEY had already sold tons of their paintings (cf. P.G. Persin). We remember trotskist Greenberg and his edgiest « grand écart » between the ALL of action painting and the NOTHING of color field. We also remember his pernicious naivety ... when he claimed (his own words) that, : « because modernism («making marks on a flat surface», this expression is from Maurice Denis : (…) « une surface plane recouverte de couleurs » (…)) is the most pure and essential of all, the work of Pollock is the climax of Cézanne, Monet and cubism». (Conclusion ... we do not need the French art... because it is in Pollock !).

x x x

I started composing this booklet to soon because at this time the moment is not already there to place a definitive stamp on my life as an artist. But at last I STILL found that which I had been searching all my life (up to now), that is the perfect coincidence of the artist’s full dedication with the painter’s complete knowledge, however «NOW» with priority for the artist. « La part de l’artiste est aussi grande que la part du peintre, mais l’artiste parle le premier ».

Seeing that in the last 2 works painted in Paterson, SOMETHING had been released and I am following that ”surprise” very closely.

« SOMETHING WAS RELEASED »

Once more I firmly took up the thread of the creative youth energy... (that thread has been lying low (up and down) since my youth (after action painting) (1958)) and, now, near the end of my days I finally managed to have all the data available, and NOW these coincide so that FINALLY I shall be able to commence. I have arrived at MY style. NOW can be treaded – AT LAST – the right way towards the great reality in my art of painting. From now on I have NO comment anymore... I DO it (« Die Rose ist ohne Warumb 50» (Angelus Silesius)). By the way, all those years before 1958 I did not ask myself anything after all (do an die). I lived THEN as a animal-child-artist and did not even ask myself how to make a living for myself. During long decades and decades this condition, concerning the material issue of working for a living, has remained the same as during my youth... so I did NOT work for a living but the panic which this total freedom (being an artist and nothing else) brought along, made me a “clever man”. And by means of quite acrobatic interventions (and even some sale of my work) I have finally been able to safeguard myself in a material way for the NOW still coming 10 years... for I need another 10 years to fulfill the promise. Furthermore: to complete my entire literary creation and for all branches of art (even four... there is also photography and drawing) to attract again (perhaps) the attention of the world in a way that my mission (calling) might finally gain entrance. Because I believe that my « will for spirituality-energy (faith) » as a road, is of interest NOT just for me alone, but that I can contribute to the course of history, because I am able to give a lot of positive and spiritual energy. It very clearly appears to me NOW, that in this exercise in writing only the story of the course of the transition period is told preceding the final BEGINNING which only NOW in May 2013 (excellent date) is commencing. THUS in May 2023 I shall really be able to determine what will have become of it with me and with the world (in the light of the date of 2050 which I predicted being a period of world-comprehending of Aquarius-mind (com-passio)). We shall see what, in the future case of writing, « the ins and the outs of the matter are ».

Still one last word about Largot’s past (who has been in hiding for so long)... (who still has any recollection of that FELLOW?) so THEN I DID HAVE TO push forward in one long haul... I thought THEN that my artist’s obsessiveness was after all only a task of the moment which at some other time might have produced a different result. Looking at it afterwards (NOW) I come to the conclusion that it was not a task of the moment after all, as my (each!) CONDITION THEN has been the steady core of the matter all the same. Yes ! now I exhort myself to never again become victim of hurriedness because « I have (even now) ALL the time »...« la vie est un long fleuve tranquille (maintenant) » and YET it is possible to attain what one wants to attain and to elongate life (by NOT shortening it for instance) until one has fulfilled that which one has come for !

Finally one last (?) word yet, and it concerns the famous Frenhofer syndrome (cf. « Le Chef d’oevre inconnu » by Balzac) – it is this terrible insanity of the entropy that makes the creativity of some artists such great torture and from which also Cézanne suffered a lot – well then, I am, as far as my entropy-syndrome is concerned, about sure NOW that this finally was (for a part) the result of the fact that in my « imagination créatrice » especially (during a half century) I YET quite certainly have suppressed the Dyonisian-artist in myself in order to place the Appolonian-painter in the foreground (but always as a painting-painter, in a « à-la-prima » state of mind)... and THIS, as a result of the oppressing historic question (born in 1959-1960) (that has been “solved” NOW) « PAINTING, WHAT IS THAT? »

Keeping in mind his « peinture couillarde » (ballsy youth painting) there is no doubt that, AFTER this artist-emphasis-period Cézanne also asked himself the famous question, this resulting in his suppression of his « couillarde » (youthful ballsyness) (suppression including the result of it in his sexual depressions) and that thenceforth came HIS entropy... because HE, Cézanne, was the one who brought forth the new modern Appolonian-painting art and who took it to high classicism... and hereby made the sacrifice of the Dyonisian-FELLOW who he was ! Which has for me been a constant example and if Cézanne thought about himself to be a primitive of this new classical direction, then, finally, I could come to the conclusion that I with my « nonfigurative-figuration-autre », the plain-pied, in that modern classicism ALREADY stand, and that, AFTER my WORK, the next ones will further realize this... but (for the observer) in a just as evident, accepted and understood manner as THIS is the case with the work of the modern figurative masters! THAN it will totally have become a matter of course and – considering the Aquarius-evolution – readable for everybody (of course the need to read a picture is a human necessity ! like to read his own subconscious). It is nearly certain that NOW the too modernistic contemporaneistic period – of the much too forward-falling (degenerated) so called art forms – is coming to an end... It has been a negative experiment-period in behalf of the emancipation. In the course of time between Cézanne and Largot the positive step has been made from the figurative through the non-figurative toward the « Figuration-AUTRE ». If one climbs high he cannot hinder to be dizzy. If one lives constantly with in mind eternity, immensity, numinosity, imponderabilia, no wonder that he shall loose some “world-notions” and that he will have to pay for it because he is not an angel. In this light it is comprehensible the problem exists to live in a state of mind of entropy. I think that – even if it is crazy – a real artist-painter will NOT be delivered from this entropy because it is the shadow of his light There exists something like « the schizophrenia on behalf of the unification » (Constantin Huygens (Descartes friend) that is the « consiliatio oppositorum » (Sufism) namely the complementarity which comes into existence via the «coïncidentia oppositorum» and the lyrical oneiric corresponding. This schizophrenia on behalf of the unification is (thus) an imaginatio, an art-imaginatio, an « otherwise-figuration ». But as imaginatio is highly-energetic, it can cause fluxes (like magnetic sparks/see ghost photography) which can be motive for the realization of tangible creation and reality-gestation in the cosmos, in nature and in humanity (this is the imagination créatrice of the Sufi) (the galvanism of Novalis). However, schizophrenia on behalf of the unification of (let’s says) the marriage of Dyonisos and Appolonius was utterly misunderstood and mis-approached during the Pisces period; giving motive for devaluation of all values and for massive wheel-round processes. This of course is the game of death and life... but: via Nazism and fascism, Bolshevism and communism, and via the Roman Catholic Church (and the sectarian, so-called Christianity) and all the further sectarian... AND... finally via the consequences of all these, namely the negative quintessence of all the former ideological – of all THIS historic « divide et impera » happening – namely, the utterly intellectualistic, ultimately sterile stagnation, technocratic thinking and the Peter-princip… that the purely mercantile globalization and (in the world of art) the all-over-modernisticism has brought forth... both altogether, being « ce malin génie » (Descartes) which in our era spawned that damned conciouslessness and lifelessness in art, politics and in humanity... and which ultimately tore down the workings of the « consiliatio of the creative imaginatio »... and made it to mere demonic materialistic usurpation of nature and of the cosmos under the form of defilement-turn-round processes and equilibrium-disturbing contamination and atomic-damnation (Pisces period!). SO NOW it has – in this Aquarius period of self-thinking – become clear (in 2050) to everyone, how pernicious the influence of such a kind of « technocratic being » has been for humankind, nature and cosmos. And after all it will STILL become clear to man that to put the pursuit of gain (and power) first and foremost – over and again and ever more – is totally absurd and that this leads mankind linea recta over and over again to «the abyssus abbysum invocat». It is over now, it has got his time only during one century (1950-2050).

In the coming period of self-thinking the task for Aquarius-humankind will be enormous CONSIDERING THE CLEANING-UP of the Augean stable (etc!).

Back to the art of painting. He who, still being young, has already reached the skillfulness of the truly creative force while NOT YET having behind him the maturity-experience of sufficient years... and nevertheless has already been RECOGNIZED by the world (of the so-called art scene) well then... for that kind of person it were better to die young because the influence of the so-called art scene and of success (and the money) are demons that exert a strong influence on the « SECRET COURSE » which must reveal and fulfill itself in the true creator and THIS quest must run its course undisturbed and undefiled in loneliness, in order that the creator might come to (as they call it) « close the circle ».

For nearly a half century (nevertheless it has passed by quickly) I have had to wait and work in solitude (seul avec le seul) before I ever came to the knowledge, insight and realization of that which is the deep significance of the real «comprehension» of this superior thought namely : « the circle is closed ». Modern times have in general, but especially toward this end of the Pisces period, run their course much too brusquely and the question of coming to maturity in stillness and time in order to acquire knowledge of what is called the « MYSTERIUM INEFFABILE » (amongst others of the closed circle) had been, as though it were, deleted temporarily. (I am very aware of the fact that I DO NOT write for the Pisces-man but for the Aquarius-man) The Pices period is the period of this sort of « faith » that by the church was called : «the believing on the saying of someone else» (the authority of the revelation !). This lack of thinking-power goes back all the way to the «admirers» of Aristoteles that vow-taker on the word of the master instead of independent inquiry.

But there is actually NOT a thing like a MYSTERIUM at work... THAT use of words is, here, only «in a manner of speaking».. but, indeed, the imponderable and unspeakable could – for those who do NOT (yet) know the evidence of the reasonable soul belongs to the mysterious or the mystique... for me however this Descartes « âme raisonnable » (Plato / Epicurius / Stoa / Augustine, etc.) is a ab-origines matter-of-fact.

I interrupt this flow of thought in order to establish (in myself) that I have friends whom I have never personally known, for example Cézanne, Soutine, besides friends whom I DID personally know, like Bazaine and Van Anderlecht. With those whom I did not personally know, I got – via the experiencing and studying of (and identifying myself with) their work – so close to them that the bond of love-friendship became a extra-temporary-earthly reality ! Now where it concerns examples, there are amongst my friends (I also have some who are part of the old immortal masters such as Greco, Magnasco and Titian the Elder (and more)) two kinds namely those who had to experience EVOLUTION, Cézanne, Ensor, Boudin, Monet, Bazaine and those who in their divine circle were locked up in themselves such as Soutine, Van Anderlecht. The painter with the most famous painters eye, Rik Wouters is a class to himself, died too soon to arrive at maturity (or involution).

The closing of the circle exists in the question whether this one or that one at the end of their lifelong quest did or did not return to the state of ab-origines... This is a kind of « schizophrenia on behalf of the unification » because it is SOMETHING (Mysterium?) that lives like a deep tormenting « urge and driving-force » at the bottom of the soul of a creator and with which he has to straighten things (entropy) out for himself. Unification (complementary – conciliatio religĕre) thus with the oneself and the EVERYTHING which is the original condition of « le petit garçon nu » (Maître Eckhart) … who as a matter of course becomes aware of this condition but which he CANNOT YET take possession of.

To further elaborate on « the closing of the circle » namely the conciliatio of beings, I will probably have no time anymore... (no more than for the thorough deepening and corroboration of my statements) the end of my days IS coming nearby NOW. Let someone else pick back up the rope of the circle-mysterium ! I have all the time but I need it for myself now !

BUT: naturally I still NOW have, as a matter of fact, time to cast a glance at the world of that which is so “preciously” called « the art scene», namely the whole of that world which is related to art and surrounds art in a way in which art itself is hardly mentioned anymore!... Yes! THEY assigned the name NON-ART... to these « simulacres » (shams) (immediately consecrated in every museum !) so that – in that world – there cannot be any talk of something like the Mysterium ineffabile.

x x

« Imagination créatrice »   and   « Figuration Autre »

1. These two significances are difficult to translate. However... the closer investigation of this significances gives us the possibility to gain insight... as follows: (e.g.) take a look at Rorschach test blots... Observe blots, cracks and crevices in old walls... watch the clouds... and conclude that all which «appears in there » is what YOU see in it. Project your vision (and which?) IN THERE and conclude, that this state of mind is something which has a relation with «the oneiric» At times it looks familiar (figurative); at other times they are vague (informal) atmosphere loaded spots which cause vague recollections to surge up (from subconscious).

2. The painter – who wishes to stay in the universe-of-the-informal – places spontaneously (in the first painting phase) some color dots on the canvas. To the painter each color and each dot has its own atmosphere.

3. The painter “recognizes” this atmosphere and « absorbs it ».On the principle of this he brings (in the second painting phase) the «color-thinking» into existence and now he has at his disposal the possibilities of imaginatio as described above; Rorschach, clouds, walls, etc. THESE facts stand apart from the personal; AND THAT thus is the question relative to that which the painter had already put on the canvas in the first phase, for as he had already «recognized» the atmosphere… his color-thinking already has «significance» in itself.

4. He thereupon “reads” (in each subsequent phase) this SIGNIFICANCE. It becomes as it were a dialogue between him and what he (by the grace of his imaginatio) « feels and sees » happening on the canvas, as a result of the phase after phase «becoming» significance. The painter paints (in every subsequent phase) purely empathetically, and without preconception, what he « feels-sees » concerning the significance. Thus, gradually, it is getting clear to him what the significance signifies to be. As a result with this, long forgotten atmospheres and recollections come surging up, THAT then can be read clearly by means of the (finished) formal painting-phase. Klee once said: « The painting is looking at me... and then it IS there ». The non-figurative painter ALSO has similar experience as a guide. At times, from the form-appearance, a visualization surges up which reminds of more or less known figuration-“things”;… or sometimes, ALSO new and emphatically « other figuration » which convince us about something that we recognize (« Figuration Autre ») but never have seen before. Figuralism in music brings us atmospheres which we “recognize”. We «feel and see» it hereby in a different way. Figuralism in painting likewise opens up a world to us that we recognize notwithstanding us not owing this “knowing” to figurative data.

Conclusion: such a work is, as it were, an accumulation... a strong concentrate of «imagination créatrice» such that hereby “something” IS BEING CALLED INTO EXISTENCE which can serve to the conviction, the insight of the observer (l’amoureux de l’art). THE INTENTION IS THAT, IN THE FUTURE, THE « FIGURATION AUTRE » PAINTING – TO THE OBSERVER – LOOKS AS MUCH THE MATTER OF COURSE AS THE TYPICAL FIGURATIVE PAINTING FORMERLY DID (E.G. AN IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE).

                                                   « FIGURATION AUTRE »

1. If during the evolution of life and career, I, from time to time, had to deal with the art scene (as it is called so pleasantly) then it was solely because of cooperation with the need of re-membrance of the (finally) everlasting values – in the art of painting – so that the correct development would be effected. Since a few decades I have dwelled in « splendid isolation ».

2. Infinite herewith is the reflection concerning everlasting values. Muthos is the basic order of the Universe (Heraklites). Creation is to bring something into existence.... hereby REALITY is founded... This is: initial participation in the already existent creation... co-creatorship through deeper intuition and the grievous ecstasies of empathy with everything and everybody.

Simultaneously however, alas, between the yes and the no, Muthos takes us to the farthest point of thinking namely the paradox. We do not know, or we never know in the absolute way (as otherwise concerning the ability to bring into existence the ever further evolving masterpiece) if we can com-prehend THIS... even if we have day and night – in the utmost inspiredness of the situation, like the one of an alchemist – lived for that purpose... the Frenhofer (Balzac «Le Chef d'oeuvre inconnu» ed. Livre de Poche).

3. syndrome nevertheless always lurks at us (aphasia ... entropy) so that the intuition becomes overheated... and will become hybris.

4. Where the correct further development is concerned (that is, the forging of the next link in the evolution of the everlasting values) it often happens that the thinking of one person comes to the aid of the reflections of the other person. Thus, for example, recently fell to my share the clear truth and excellent deep knowledge on account of J.E. Muller (Joseph-Emile Muller: « L' Art et le non-art» ed. Aimery Somogy) and some of his theses support me.

5. In order to give direction to the concept of « correct further evolution » I herewith cite the “thought” of Mr. Muller, who (when describing the “other” direction) says it as follows: « Nearly everybody who calls himself an artist is constantly searching for immediate success and in order to conquer THIS he seizes hold of the generally accepted tendency which is in everybody’s mouth ! and with that he (that so-called artist) also knows at the same time that “those” who defend this contemporaneistic tendency, do so including anything that, from a distance or form nearby, makes matters “illustrious…” mediocrity thus has all the opportunity not to be forgotten. » The mediocre creative one finds, here, thus, the justification of his « kunstwollen » by the fact that the bidding is with the tendency to which he sticks.

Critics love to stick labels. Each critic has, as if it were, as his purpose to find a “label” that will make history, in order that the memory of that which HE held above the baptismal font, as well as of himself, be preserved. Morality: The more the so-called creativity seems to be « what ever it be » ... the more “generous” are the comments there about. There are « permanent » psychological realities, without which a human being would NOT be what he is. NOTHING makes it imperative to say that art – in order to stay « alive » – MUST turn away from « consorting with this ». Beware of these people who –through the pretext of living the full life IN our times – amputate you from an essential part of your being. »

                                                                                                           (end of quotation of this Muller “thought”).

Yes ? Isn’t it true little mister Kaprow…! Everyone is creative and « quand un artiste crache c'est de l'art » etc... etc... the democratization of art, yes, even the effort to make it disappear – in order to make place for (so-called) « pure-thinking » – has (with the retrospect now possible) been catastrophic in all kinds of matters.

6. Now, let us go back to item 1: The need of re-membrance. Yes ! My original everlasting values... Pathos (until end 1958) is there... more or less between Soutine and Van Gogh, however in a non-figurative way. SOUTINE, Van Gogh, too ! THEY express it as follows: « ... about the spacious intense things ... that rise in me... those things of color, those endless things ... ». And that which van Gogh makes us experience in these words, is the mystery (Muthos); it is the substance of the substance, WHICH LIKE SOME SORT OF « MATIÈRE POÉSIE » (imponderabilia) THUS vibrates in a canvas, making it to a work of art (without this vibration a work is nothing more than a documentary item!.) These words of van Gogh are eternal and whether the sense of these is to be found back, NEVERTHELESS ALSO in non-figurative work THAT is the question ! Until the end, 1958 thus, in me, the Dionysus “transformed” into the exuberant ecstasies of the (a kind of informal fauvist) color-thinking really painted action-painting. Nor is under discussion the matter of the difference (?) in quality (?) between that which is painted « à la prima » , or this work, which, after repeated and repeated stages, came into being (and stayed for ever fresh).

7. But by the beginning of the 1960 THE painter came to dwell inside me with the relentless question « PAINTING, WHAT IS THAT ?». Right ! ... yes ! The artist...« those spacious endless things » .................................... Right ! But the painter asked me: «...how should this be presented ?... how... under which technical form or painting... IN THE NON FIGURATIVE ? ». And then I remembered that everything I saw, I did not really look at but rather “sensed” it ... as if I were spying on it with nearly closed eyes and became aware of everything which I saw in the form of little spots of light and color. It was then that I understood what a real PAINTER’S EYE is and this understanding coincided exactly with the insight of the artist who LIVES INSIDE the sensation of the spacious endlessness of “things”. So, his painter is his eye... « the painter’s eye »... The “seeing” ... is not the result of that which one already believes to know about what one sees (recognizing and ordering intellectually) it is just not quite true either that one sees what one thinks to see (each person sees it a different way – perception !). THUS there really remains for us nothing but «the sensation». The artist LIVES “therein”. The painter SEES “it”.

He “sees” ALL material and ALL spiritual sensations in the OPTICALLY DE-COAGULATED state... as if it were in the form of « with synesthesia charged » spots.

THUS, THIS IS THE CORRECT TACHISME OF THE TRUE PAINTER.

8. However, between BEING and SEEING lies the Nietzschean « wille zur macht » ... the reconciliation pathos (exuberant extasy) between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. ... everlasting real values... isn’t it!

REALITY: the tachisme of the painter’s eye is reality, but sometimes it is like a mirage, because a painting is, thus seen, something like a surface of teeming water in which light is reflected ... it is always itself, but it never manifests itself in the same way. A reflection in a rippling water surface is « unseizable », so the painter-artist creates a reality from all the blinding and nightmare... « to create is to call into existence ». And thus the great question « does one see what one sees or doesn’t see » or « does the work look better than it is ? » becomes a daily obsession.... because: IT – AGAIN AND AGAIN – LOOKS DIFFERENT ! So the obsessive question is: « How is it possible to determine “standpoint certainty” in order to orientate oneself... and “what” about quality ? » And the subsequent question is, « how something which is NON-FIGURATIVE/INFORMAL so, essentially does not have FORM(... can be represented as being a de-coagulation » ? (thus the painter’s eye)(de-coagulation is not a problem for the figurative painter because he deals with the three-dimensional and THIS is – according to the painter’s eye-vision – de-coagulated into spots).

Is there form(s) in an informal pa... (or is this a question of « solve et coagula »).

And finally the last question: « how – concerning these professional matters and intrinsic qualities – is the observer watching nearby? » Answers: to this last question there is an immediate response. To the other questions there is no answer, for these are in an occult way intertwined in the pictures of my seeing and being. Concerning the last question, the following can be brought forward (in short).... In former evolutionary conditions the human being saw less colors than NOW... seeing colors gradually came into existence, also the « recognition » and the actual incarnation of perceptions. Thus, the “reading” of a « figuration autre » picture will once be the normal property in the future of the loving observer. For the rest it is of common knowledge, that, in former times, people had difficulty in discovering what there was to be seen in an impressionistic painting... and then they found the colors also so-so...

9. What does the painter see and what does the observer see IN a painting? Hereby I remember the remark which I made before my friend Jean Bazaine; HE, who every time when analysing a non-figurative work always precisely went to look for “unintentional” figuration, unintentionally caused by the working of the brush itself (such as all kinds of unsavoury little figures, animals or faces)... « THIS (Bazaine said) ... which surges up from the dark of our subconciousness is fodder for Freud... this self forgotten acting does not fit the painter... he has no dealing with this Ego or the like..... » To which I responded that the artist besides his CREATIVE faculty also possesses a VISION/IMAGINE faculty and when Jean asked me what precisely I meant I was not able to give him clarity about this because it was, at that time, to me merely a very subjective sensation of a kind of « Figuration Autre » which still came about as a result of the painters act. A whole de-coagulated world of, as if it were, clear expression of vision.

10. In Vincent’s utterance (and others) there is something of a kind of oneiric « being expression » as this : « enormous masses of “beings” inside us / of beings that are or are not / lyrical existential rage and accumulation of power knottings and unknottings / either here, or in the so called other world, being an insatiable ordeal / and everything which is creatable concerning the never realizable » (cf. Michaux). That ALL has a FACE (identity) showing us the vision of « Figuration Autre ».

« Figuration Autre » can, NOW, hardly be found in the world of the non-figurative art of painting. It is something of the hardly known and hardly distinguishable, which – by means of the painter’s act itself – has welled up from the lyrical oneiric domain of the subconscious ... namely: scenic cozy molding (kindling the“imaginatio” of the spectator!)... constellations of form and space (spots) which reminisce about the great compositions with multiple figures (of the old masters) ... peculiar scenic “atmospheres” reminiscent of regions and places where once (wandering) I had dwelle... ... compositions, as if it were, which appeared to be filled with falling and ascending beings (Jacob’s ladder) ... that is, an art of painting which consisted of spots and colors loaded with «imponderabilia», in light and dark reflections in disclotted (de-coagulated) combinations of form (« l’impondérable de la tache, l'ineffable de la tâche !»). Considered in more detail this is – after all – a question of memory. IT came out of SOMEWHERE (past) (but as if it were “filtered” by itself). Thus it becomes a kind of transubstantiation of very close experiences. I now do absolutely nothing else anymore than dwelling in the uttermost feeling of the well contemplated… so! the painting paints itself!

The “technique” that I achieve « Figuration Autre » with (that is: realize the painting) consists solely of interactions of colors. EVERYTHING (on the canvas) consists of sheer optical phenomenons ! EVERYTHING exists in +-iridescent condition and there the flickers of light also occur... the meaningful atmospheres of light... the atmosphere of distance and adventure which come forth as if it were from my « being alive » itself.. directly from my life forces.

11. And NOW that the era of religious faith (being “acceptation” towards the saying of someone else but ourselves) is behind us (Pisces) HOW SHALL WE SAIL ON ?

REMARKABLE is, that after all, something like an inventory (in the art world) NOW gets going before the NON-ART exertion of power of that which is now still going on in the museums. Just a glance back in time: (exhibitions) a) « Aux origines de l'abstraction » in the Musée d'Orsay in 2004 (Paris). This is the first review of the works of Balla, Boccioni, Bomberg, Bruce, Charchoune, Chladi, Ciurlionis, Sonja en Robert Delaunay, Ender, Exter, Friedrich, Gontcharova, Hartley, Itten, Kandinsky, Klee, Kupka, Larionov, Macdonald-Wright, Marc, Matiushin, Monet, Da Volpedo, Picabia, Redon, Runge, Russel, Schmalzigaug, Schonberg, Severini, Signac, Survage, Turner.

b) « L'envolée Lyrique » in Musée du Luxembourg Paris - 2006. Atlan, Barre, Bazaine, Bergman, Bertrand, Bissiere, Bitran, Bott, Bryen, Debre, Degottex, Dmitrienko, Doucet, Elvire Jan, Esteve, Fautrier, Fichet, Francis, Feito, Gauthier, Germain, Gillet, Guitet, HantaI, Hartung, Hosiasson, Istrati, Jenkins, Koenig, Lagace, Lanskoy, Laubies, Le Moal, Mathieu, Michaux, Marfaing, Nallard, Poliakoff, Raymond, Reichel, Riopelle, Schneider, Sima, Singier, Soulage, de Stael, Szenes, Tal Coat, Ubac, B. Van Velde, Vierra da Silva, Wols, Zack.

c) « Peggy Guggenheim and The New American Painting » in the Church of San Marco (Arte Vercelli - Italy) end 2008 (until march 1st 2009) (about the identity of American Art) : Baziotes, Francis, de Koning, Gorky, Gottlieb, Guston, Hartigan, Hofmann, Kline, Motherwell, Newman, Pollock, Rothko, Stamos, Still, Tomlin, Tworkov.

d) Now, maybe, it is getting time to start the difficult searches in order to provide some historical gaps with data.

Dadaïsme and the abstract art / amongst others Hans Richter and the ± non-figurative in 1911 (etc). Weie and Isakson (already ± non-figurative) laid in the years 1920/30 the foundations for that which later is called COBRA. To the same tendency (non-figurative) also belong Gudnason, Ortvad and Alfelt (the years 1940). Chritian Rohlfs (1849-1938) already made non-figurative works in 1930 and Ernst W Nay in the early 1940 years. Pollock painted his abstract expressionism (before dripping) in 1936-37 on Soutine’s influence. In England (School of St Ives) Hitchens ± end 1930 already painted non-figurative (also see the other ones of St. Ives). Bazaine worked non-figuratively in the years 1940 (see Bissière's works before those of Bazaine) . Also see « 20 Jeunes Peintres de la Tradition Française » in 1941 in Galerie Braun in Paris. Examine « Groupe des 8 » in Italy.

Yes ! Yes ! And there is still much more ... still to “observe”.

HOWEVER, all the names here mentioned, belong to the past. But... is THAT also like this concerning THIS kind of art ? the past ?… once and for all surpassed ?… is it coming to his end which means out of value ? (for those who constantly insinuated that this true art of painting was DEAD!) If we also go in search for what is called « la relève » sources : e.g. the magazine Artensi... then we must, anyhow, conclude that (as it is called) « une lame de fond » concerning the non-figurative has come to exist (in the wake of the elders) amongst the younger generations. But nobody gives some attention because they say that the painter easel-painting is dead and that « anyone is creative », nevertheless, since 60 years we see the same kind of work from merely some ( a few) named the « contemporaneists » (official art).

Finally : formerly, in the beautiful Parisian years, there they said « à soixante ans on est jeune peintre » (and furthermore they did not say anything else). So, the assumption is, that – at his eightieth birthday – he has come of age.

Serge Largot