The painting nonfigurative (or “not-figurative”) is at the 20th century one of the most important currents of the news École of Paris which develops at the end of the Années 1940, is its greater success in the Années 1950 before being supplanted, in the Années 1960, by American painting.

Ambiguity of the definition of the concept

The concept of absence of representation is ambiguous in its definition as in its extension.

In its definition the absence of representation is opposed to former pictorial approaches: traditional realistic figuration but also the steps Impressionist and Surrealist in which the table, in a general way, returns to an identifiable spectacle, object, figure or landscape, reality or of an unreal world born from the only imagination of the artist. She is opposed in addition to the socialist Réalisme which appears little of years after its emergence and, for ideological reasons (Stalinisme), confuses it with the abstraction.

Not-figurative painting is not less opposed to the Abstract art which, at the beginning of the 20th century is released radically from any representation (after for example Kandinsky or Mondrian), painting building a parallel universe without any connection with immediate reality.

It is also distinguished from the gestural painting , appeared appreciably in the same years, for which the traces of the gestures of the painter constitute only reality to what its fabric returns (for example at Hans Hartung, Georges Mathieu, or Gerard Schneider, Roberto Soler even Pierre Soulages). It is different as much from the apology for the matters for often named painting “matierist” (Jean Fautrier, Jean Dubuffet).

More positively, the concept of absence of representation would imply the persistence of one report/ratio in significant reality but in a connection which exceeds the simple figuration. It is in this direction that one could speak about abstract paysagism (or of abstract impressionism), the not-figurative painters preserving a relation at the landscape but of another kind that of description.

It would be possible, from this point of view, to bring closer philosophically “not” to the absence of representation of that of the geometries “not” - Euclidean or of physics “not” - Newtonian of Einstein (analyzed, before the appearance of nonthe figuration, by Gaston Bachelard in “the New scientific spirit” or “the Philosophy of Not”). The absence of representation, in this direction, would not be only one negation but englobement of the figuration, putting in perspective it like a simple particular case inside a whole of more complex reports/ratios of expression of reality.

Ambiguity of the extension of the concept

With the direction more limited the concept of nonfiguration is primarily used in connection with works of Jean Bazaine, Roger Bissière, Elvire Jan, Jean Moal, Alfred Manessier, Gustave Singier, but also Maria Elena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes. From initially vigorous structures, inherited the fabrics which Charles Lapicque in 1939 paints, then in their easing on the end of the Années 1950, whatever the formal variations which appear during the “time” of their work, these artists are indeed remained, of end of the year 40 with their last fabrics, in the same step, their paintings expressing constantly a report/ratio, more obvious or more diffuse, with the lights, colors and the shapes of the natural universe.

These not-figurative painters, obviously, were not always it - they were not it before end of the year 40 and their invention of this report/ratio new all at the same time with their language and the world - but remained it. Other painters, meeting the not-figurative step, integrated it (Eudaldo). Others still, being registered for a time in the absence of representation, gave up it. Thus a not-figurative step, mainly in the Sixties, appears one moment in works of Jean Bertholle, of Mario Prassinos (in her Paysages or, with a gestural component, its drawings of the Alpilles ), of Raoul Ubac (in his fabrics of end of the year 50 but also, with a component matierist, of its later Labors ), of Stanley Hayter (in its paintings of Ardèche), of Zoran Mušič (in its Dalmatian grounds ) or Jean Villeri.

This nonfigurative step, in the same way, is found in the painting of artists sometimes hardly younger or in some their periods, in particular Louttre B., Louis Nallard, Maria Manton, Marcel Bouqueton, Marcel Fiorini, Michel Humair and Jean Coulot, Nelly Marez-Darley or Colette Lussan, but also in works of some of the founders of the modern Algerian art, Mohammed Khadda, Abdallah Benanteur, Abdelkader Guermaz, Mohamed Aksouh and of good number of European and American painters (for example in Norway Kjell Pahr-Iversen or Halvdan Ljosne), all and sundry having remained or being installed in Paris. A nonfigurative dimension is still readable in the work of painters born in the Années 1940, such Guillaume Beaugé.

To the full extent, one could moreover distinguish from the degrees of absence of representation. With the one of its limits, more directly readable in their evocation, could place works of Edouard Pignon, Georges Dayez, André Beaudin or Roger Chastel, with the opposed limit, less allusive and more “abstract”, those of Maurice Estève, Leon Gischia, François Baron-Renouard, Ferdinand Springer (during its first time), even of Zao Wou-Ki.

Approaches historical

The not-figurative painters, for a great number of them, have a common history.

Some attend in the years 1930 the Académie Ranson where Bissière professes, of which they are or not (Bertholle) more or less (Manessier) lengthily the pupils (Moal, Springer, Vieira da Silva). They know each other almost all since 1935, start to expose together and work with decorations for the International exhibition of Paris in 1937. As of before war carrying out a synthesis of the release of the form (Cubism) and color (Fauvisme), sometimes in a Surrealist climate , several of them take part in the exposures of the group " Témoignage", in 1936 in Lyon (Bissière, Moal) then in Paris with the Breteau Gallery in 1938 and 1939 (Moal, Manessier).

The majority are gathered by Bazaine in 1941 in the “Twenty young painters of French tradition” (Bazaine, Beaudin, Berçot, Bertholle, Bores, Coutaud, Desnoyer, Gischia, Lapicque, Lasne, Lautrec, Legueult, Moal, Manessier, Marchand, Pignon, Suzanne Roger, Singier, Tal Coat and Walch). They found together, with Gaston Diehl, the Salon of May.

The not-figurative painters expose as a majority to the first Gallery of France of Paul Martin. In 1943 “Twelve painters of today” joins together there Bazaine, Borès, Estève, Fougeron, Gischia, Lapicque, Moal, Manessier, Pignon, Robin, Singier and Jacques Villon. In February 1944 are again gathered Bertholle, Roger Bissière, Marc-Antoine Bissière (Louttre B.), Moal, Manessier, Singier and the sculptor Etienne Martin. Then the ones are found with the Gallery Square (Bazaine, Estève and Lapicque), the others with the Drouin Gallery of 1944 with its disappearance in 1948 (Moal, Manessier, Singier), then the Billiet-Caputo Gallery in 1949-1950, and finally the news Galerie of France directed as from 1951 by Myriam Prévot and Gildo Caputo (Manessier, Singier, Moal with Pignon, Prassinos, Music, Zao Wou-Ki, but also Hartung, Soulages). Several of the not-figurative painters the galleries will expose Maeght (Bazaine, Chastel, Tal Coat, Ubac, Villeri), Roque (Bertholle, Elvire Jan, Moal) and Jeanne Bucher (Bissière, Vieira da Silva, Arpad Szenes).

A certain number of the not-figurative painters created decorations and costumes for the theater, Gischia, Pignon, Prassinos, Manessier with the NPT of Jean Vilar in the Fifties and Sixties, Moal mainly for Maurice Jacquemont as of the Forties then, just like Bazaine, for the Comédie of Saint-Etienne of Jean Dasté. In the field of the Stained glass, Manessier creates the first not-figurative stained glasses in Bréseux. Bazaine, Moal, Elvire Jan, Singier, Bertholle, Bissière, Ubac will create many stained glasses similarly. The not-figurative painters also carried out mosaic S (Bazaine, Moal, Elvire Jan) and decorations mural (Pinion). Tapestry S, often monumental, were also carried out starting from their works (Prassinos), in particular by the Workshops Plasse it Caisne (Manessier, Moal, Elvire Jan, Eudaldo). They also for the majority worked in the field of the Gravure and the Lithographie.

Critical and literature

As of before war and during the Occupation Gaston Diehl, Frank Elgar, Pierre Francastel, Bernard Dorival, Jacques Lassaigne support young painting, before even as does not appear the not-figurative step, and defend it against the attacks of the press of collaboration

After war Jean Cassou and Bernard Dorival, conservatives with the National museum of modern art of Paris insert of works of the not-figurative painters in the national collections and gather them for the exposures of French painting abroad.

In the press and with the radio Roger Van Gindertael, Georges Boudaille, Pierre Descargues supported their work. The writers Jean Lescure (on Estève, Gischia, Bertholle, Chastel, Pinion, Prassinos, Ubac, Singier, Lapicque), Camille Bourniquel (Moal, Baron-Renouard, Manessier, Pinion, Singier, Elvire Jan), Jean-Louis Ferrier (Bertholle, Pinion), Jean Guichard-Meili (Manessier, Moal, Elvire Jan), Georges Limbour (Ubac, Hayter, Tal Coat), Max-pol. Fouchet (Bertholle, Bissière) devoted books, forewords and articles to them.

Nonfigurative sculpture

A nonfigurative sculpture would correspond, in its step, with nonfigurative painting. Would belong in particular to this tendency Simone Boisecq, Marta Colvin, Karl-Jean Longuet, Etienne Martin, Juana Muller, Alicia Penalba, François Stahly, which often exposed near the nonfigurative painters.

Selective bibliography

• Jean Bazaine, time in painting (1938-1989) , Editions Sapwood, Paris, 1990 '' Notes on the painting of today '', Floury Editions, Paris, 1948, and Editions of the Threshold, Paris, 1953 and 1960; '' Exercice of painting '', Editions of the Threshold, Paris, 1973; ten articles published of 1938 to 1964 and one new foreword.

• Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, History of art, Paris 1940-1944, National order, Traditions and Modernities , foreword of Michel Winock, Publications of the Sorbonne, Paris, 1986.

• Lydia Harambourg, the School of Paris 1945-1965, Dictionary of the painters , Ides and Calendes, Neuchâtel, 1993.
• Gaston Diehl, Painting in France in the black years, 1935-1945 , Z' editions, Nice, 1999.

Internal bonds

• School of Paris
• Lyric abstraction
• Category: nonfigurative painter

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