Leonardo

My Painting and the Impact of a Different Culture on ItAuthor(s): Maurice LangSource: Leonardo, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter, 1983), pp. 46-48Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575045 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 46-48, 1983 Printed in Great Britain

0024-094X/83/010046-03$03.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd.

MY PAINTING AND THE IMPACT OF A DIFFERENT CULTURE ON IT

Maurice Lang*

1.

I am an Australian artist, living and working in France since 1957. My original home was in Perth, on Australia's west coast, about 3000 km from the major east coast cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. I look upon Perth as being in frontier country, isolated not only physically by sea and desert but also culturally. When I lived in Perth, there was no civic orchestra, and the local art museum possessed perhaps 200 paintings, mostly watercolours of landscapes by English painters. Art classes were given at the University of Perth and at a technical school. I attended some of the classes on a part-time basis and did watercolours at weekends while holding a job as a commercial artist preparing illustrations for farmers' catalogues.

In the years immediately following World War II many immigrants settled in Perth. Their coming from different countries, I am sure, had a stimulating effect on the cultural life of the city. In my own case it had a profound effect. In particular, I made friends with a Greek family, a relationship that helped enlarge my interest in the arts and create a desire to go to art school in Sydney. But to do the latter I needed first to earn the necessary money. So I went to work as a sheep shearer, a job that involved much travel about remote inland areas.

My term of two years as a student at the East Sydney Technical Art School was an exciting cultural experience for me. At that time I even studied opera singing under an Austrian Jewish immigrant. It was he who led me to appreciate the continued practice and learning required to sing well, and I realized that this applied to painting as well. But this happy period came to an end. My funds were exhausted and I returned to commercial art. In this period I began dreaming of making a break, of going to Europe, to cities steeped in centuries of cultural development. At last, at age 26, I arrived in Europe; I moved from Rome to Amsterdam and finally to Paris.

2.

In the early years in Paris, 1957-64, I attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts, danced professionally in a folk dance troupe, married and began to raise a family. I feel that I really got my start as a painter when I made a series of oil paintings that reflected my fascination with Parisians and with typically Paris scenes, such as in cafes and bistros. An example from this series is 'The Barmaid and the Cashier' (Fig. 1).

Another of the series is 'The Potato Eater' (1964), which is based on an experience with a White Russian taxi driver. The picture shows a huge bald man hunched over a dish of potatoes. I was inspired to make the painting by memories of the man and our animated conversation about food when my wife and I travelled across Paris one evening in his taxi. When we arrived at our destination, we invited him for a drink and it was then that I noted.his great stature. Experiences such as this, very different

*Painter, 37 rue de Chartres, 92200 Neuilly sur Seine, France. (Received 8 March 1982.)

from those I remembered in Australia, impressed me deeply and provided many subjects for my painting. Paintings from this series were exhibited in 1969 at Galerie Claude Levin, Paris.

In the late 1960s I experienced a kind of reaction to the diverse works by other artists about me. I turned to drawing with pen and ink. My subjects were frolicking nudes, mythological figures, as well as my wife and sons. Then, and on various occasions thereafter, I made sculpture: papier-mache objects. By a very slow process of applying successive layers of glue and paper (without metal armatures, which tend to produce rust spots), I constructed full-scale human figures, plants, etc. expressing fantasy and humour. Some of my sculpture had symbolic themes, for example those that were individual issues of Time magazine and of telephone books, each standing up on edge and opened showing stiffened pages, containing collages made from magazine cut-outs. In these works I was commenting on the vast amount of diverse printed matter that we experience today.

In looking back upon my early work in commercial art, I am aware that it was done with a certain skill and flexibility. But the driving force was external. In my oil painting the driving force was internal; it was not dictated.

Fig. 1. 'The Barmaid and the Cashier', oils, canvas, 110 x 90 cm, 1964.

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My Painting and the Impact of a Different Culture on It

3.

In 1970 I turned to abstract painting. This I found much more demanding; it required more planning and preliminary study than my earlier painting. In my abstract work I limited myself to the use of a small number of geometrical shapes and several colours. The style was characterized by flatness, and the shapes were outlined in heavy black paint. The use of thick outlining reflected, I think, a deliberate attempt to establish a kind of discipline.

I continued in this vein until one summer day in 1972 in the south of France when it became too windy outdoors to complete a painting. Indoors, sheltered from the mistral, I passed my time making a pencil drawing of a view of a tea towel hanging from a peg on a wall in the foreground and, through an open doorway, of the garden and distant mountains. The next day, in the flat style with heavy black outlining, I made a figurative painting showing the same towel, doorway and scene beyond (Fig. 2). The ease with which I returned to figurative painting, with the new discipline, encouraged me to continue in the same manner that summer. I painted scenes in their natural colours, but with flat uniformly coloured areas outlined in black. I considered the colours secondary to the black lines, as in the abstract works.

In the following winter, back in Paris, my separation from nature began to exert an influence. Although I continued to paint summer scenes, my depictions became more delicate and detailed and the black lines became narrower and less

dominating. I was enjoying this work because I felt that a continuing evolution was possible.

In the coming spring I did sketching in the Bois de Boulogne near my home. On the basis of these sketches I made rather large acrylic paintings. In the years that followed the black lines

Fig. 3. 'Cedar and Chestnut Trees', acrylics. linen. 130 x 130 cm, 1979.

Fig. 4. 'Spring Sunshine', acrylics, canvas, 130x 130 cm, 1979.

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Fig. 2. 'Tea Towel', acrylics, canvas, 130 x 90, 1971.

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Maurice Lang

became thinner and finally disappeared, and colour exclusively was used to define shape. Figure 3, 'Cedar and Chestnut Trees' (1979), shows a painting in this style made without outlines. Paintings from this series were exhibited at Galerie Langlois in 1979 in Paris.

I soon became preoccupied with light and shadow. This was very satisfying; I felt myself free to express subtlety, yet with a feeling of exuberance and some flamboyancy. My aim was to produce reality without losing a certain painterly quality (Fig. 4).

I continue to paint scenes in nature, particularly in the summertime (Fig. 5). In recent winters I have also been drawing and painting nude figures and portraits. My family and our friends who are willing to pose serve as my subjects. Perhaps most surprising is that I have returned to using watercolours. My early art classes in Perth were in watercolour painting. Could it be that the impact of life and art that I experienced after coming to Europe has been assimilated and that I am now painting in a more personal manner?

Fig. 5. 'Evening Light'. acrylics. canvas. 80 x 90 cm. 1981.

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