Pictorial analysis by François de Caunes, Paris 2002 - Extracts -
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A life, a painting.
Rhythms are revealed in the shivering clarity of color. No sign of labor, just the singular union of brush and canvas. " Most of it happens in my hammock where meditate for a long time. Then I get up and do five paintings. "
Francis Eck is an old follower of oriental philosophies. He prepares himself for the creative act as an athlete for a match- Sumo wrestling or Japanese martial arts, bow and arrow. First, a long meditation to "clear the air." The artist must "lower his guard" in order to free himself from prejudice, beliefs, principles of education, history, iconic images, psychologisms and other "quagmires," remnants of the past and of culture that would pollute the creative act. As in Shintoism, he accedes to the pulse of celestial energies- the fundamental vibration of the universe. Then the slow ascent of creative tension, followed by " the instant where all is tuned to optimum frequency." It is thus the moment to strike or, as Nicolas de Staël said "to pounce" on the canvas- to paint and to stop abruptly, as otherwise the artist risks being influenced by the mediocrity of an esthetic influence.
Thus the action is rapid and short-lived. Some large paintings can be painted in ten minutes. This efficacy depends upon the quality of the meditative preparation. The more effectively I can clear my thoughts, the more rapid the stroke, and also the more the painting is in accordance with what I feel."
There is no amendment, no change of heart, no goals nor objectives. As a Japanese master once stated- "True art is without goal and without intent. The more one tries to reach a goal in art, the less it is possible to achieve it. It is the overzealous will to achieve an end that is the obstacle." The abstract American painter Helen Frankenthaler said, " what I seek cannot be obtained in tormenting the canvas, in revising it, or in attempting to recover it. I try to proceed as if neither the action of painting nor its result become traps of beauty."
The painting is not a commentary of what the artist provides us about this or that subject, it is the artist's life itself in its total truth, as a panoramic vision of himself, his tastes, his choices, his experiences, given for all to see by the expression of free movement As in the archery of Japanese martial art, the "fundamental principle: a life, a shot. Train all your life for shooting the arrow." The artist instantly and totally engages himself in his art.
This sudden outpouring produces nothing untidy or disorganized, but rather, a powerful, perfectly mastered moment, both at the mental and technical level. The painting is subject to simple rules: primary colors, thick layering of pigments, three-dimensional organization, symmetry and balance of mass.
Nonetheless Francis Eck does not withdraw from the reality and of the real world, as Rothko or the "post-painterly" American artists, who also claim Asian inspiration. His work in no way evokes emptiness or absence, nor the loss of desire. Eck does not abandon all the traits and conventions of occidental art, the most obvious of which are the frame of the canvas, the composition and balance of mass and color, the constraints and servitudes of a traditional exhibition before a public audience.
Nature in its "sublime" state.
Liberated from the constraints of object and landscape representationalism, Francis Eck's paintings evoke cosmic geneses in which Nature exposes its ontological qualifies- simplicity, depth, power, purity, harmony. As a result of the application of both volume and contrast of the primary colors, this work radiates ail the emotional power of such symbolic qualities.
This Nature is neither "Zen" as a reflection of eternal ebb and flow of objects, nor it is "terrifyingly" aggressive or menacing. Neither does it inspire the fearful respect of the romantics, nor the pain of Christian suffering. It reveals itself without mystery or transcendence for the sole purpose of the quiet contemplation of its natural movement. It is "the nurturmg nature" (leave Latin?) of Spinoza and Holbach, sufficient unto itself and freely deploying its styles and attributes. This was also the principle on which Klee developed his style of artistic creation. This vision corresponds well to Kant's "cosmologie" idea of an intelligible world that Nature expresses and even reveals, through the movements of the artist, in a kind of accord and reconciliation with man. Guided by the evocative power of color, the observer moves in rhythmic spaces where both order and the sublime coherence of the forces of nature and the most intimate emotions of the soul are affirmed.
The automatic methods, the depersonalized use of palette knife and primary colors lends a mechanistic amplitude dominated by brightness, simplicity and clarity. It is a direct and frank communication, unspoiled by an abusive subjectivism. Although triumphant in its inexorable movement and full of flaws and textures, Francis Eck's world of nature remains a milieu of harmony and calm, a "horizon of the senses," a world of possibilities, a world where modem man can actively and independently blossom.
We are close to "this profound contact with the universal," in the words of Bazaine, which is tied to an intimate communication with nature and which is at the heart of abstract artistic creation. Close to the "pure emotion" of which Barnet Newman spoke, which leans toward the "more" of nature which renders it more true than nature itself: the "sublime".
