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The Scamanga Galaxy
Stélio
Scamanga belongs to a category of painters whose mental world is
not confined to painting. A full fledged architect, he contributes
to the practice of his art a training of mind which demands lucidity
of view and method, clearness of conception, a sense of measure
and number, of space and volume, an understanding of the articulation
of interdependent parts in a self-sufficient functional structure,
a taste for the quality of materials and the perfection of the finished
product, and an imagination able to turn abstract ideas into concrete
forms…. A training supplemented by a respectable artistic and mathematic
culture, and energized by an adventurous, inquisitive and investigating
mind.
Scamanga is,
par excellence, a Mediterranean, partaking equally of western culture
and of oriental culture. The characteristics of his painting derive
from this twin origin, although his oriental sensibility has taken
the lead, orienting his investigations towards aesthetic solutions
at variance with the western approach.
At an early time of his artistic evolution, his manifesto: "Towards
a New Space: The Perspective of the Abstract" (1964) did clarify
conceptually the nature of his work.
However, this
theory of his did not prevent him, in his peculiar to ability to
overgrow himself, and a continuous artistic quest. The fact of being
a self-trained artist, did preserve his authenticity and the logical
development of his painting, organically linked with his life and
preoccupations: from the outset, his works have been the faithful
reflection of their vicissitudes.
Settling in
Beirut, Lebanon, in 1952, he did paint assiduously Lebanese landscapes
for more than nine years. These paintings reflect already the affirmed
sense of construction, and his interest for the never ending play
of light. The scenery is not an environment for human presence,
but a configuration of abstract-concrete relationships.
His project
of studying astronomy not materialized, he decides to study architecture,
looking for the method that would bring him the intellectual discipline.
His architecture probation stay in Paris (1959) made him discover
a new environment, and encouraged him to risk into the adventure
of art. His Parisian pictures represent sober and sharp brush-strokes
set on a background of modulated light: it expresses Scamanga's
mood. Two complementary approaches are already patent: the poetic
approach, imbued with sensitivity of the painter of atmosphere;
and the rational approach, imbued with intellectual distance. They
stand as the paradigm of Scamanga's subsequent works. They show
the tendency of the visionary who needs space to merge with the
universe; and the tendency of the constructor who needs to structure
that space.
Suddenly, in
1961, tragedy crushes into Scamanga's orderly life: his father dies
in an accident. Stunned by the absurdity of the drama, he does not
take up painting again for a whole year. But away from his desperate
conclusion, he winds up with a renewed urge to paint. He realizes
that "as life has often no meaning, the creative act, which
at first seems useless, is the only useful one, because it makes
one forget the tragedy of life".
His new paintings burst out like a series of distraught screams.
With these "angry blows at the face of the universe" Scamanga
destroys outside reality radically. The outcome are paintings produced
as fits of emotional and nervous discharges : they have the irrepressible
presence, the dark beauty and the ritual solemnity of a funeral
song. They are the expression of the universal process of condensation
of energy into matter and of dispersion of matter into energy. The
revolt against the absurdity of the world, is transformed into the
concretion of the universal tragedy of the cosmos.
This biographical
accident will prove decisive to Scamanga's notion of the work of
art. It will make him discover experimentally as it were the canvas
is the focus of actualisation of pure aesthetic virtualities, without
requiring the mediating agency of the representation of outside
reality.
Furthermore
Scamanga's insight makes him aware that the difference between pictorial
traditions, lies in their conception of space. Theoretically his
Manifesto "1964" : "Towards a New Space, the Perspective
of Abstract" sets forth , his orientation. He calls for the
conception of an non Cartesian space. This pictorial space has affinities
with the modern science of Elementary Particles, as well as in tune
with the age-old intuitions of oriental thought.
The pictorial
evolution presents picture elements, engaged in a perpetual transformation
process, with simultaneous desire of reaching the climactic nexus,
the central source of light, in which they would ultimately lose
themselves. This centre is as it were the unreachable ultimate truth.
It does also assert the subtle colour mastery imparting harmoniously
to the paintings an incredible richness of textures and modulations.
From 1965 to
1972, along in extremely logical evolution, the geometrical elements
tend to get virtualised, while the chromatic elements tend to actualise
themselves until exhausting the possibilities of his approach. The
painting becomes the drama of one colour. It captures the volatile
transcience of time. And this new aerial manner evokes music: a
melody melting away into the harmony of chords, an elegiac music
of time gliding by, washing out differences in the unbound stream
of life and death.
However atmospheric
his paintings may be, Scamanga has never given in to the temptation
of facile effects. Although he never plans anything in advance,
the idea growing by itself during the process of painting, retaining
thus the thoughtful spontaneity that depicts so well Scamanga's
working method, his paintings are constructed very strictly, even
when they seem, to elude any construction.
And this chromatic virtuosity is possible only because Scamanga's
mastery of colour eliminates impasto and spreads pigments evenly
on the canvas with the same mightiness, delicacy and sensitivity
of touch everywhere. It is a strikingly beautiful feature of these
paintings that they symbolise the aesthetic experience itself, the
experience of revelation.
The year of
1973, produces big sized paintings, where compact supersaturated
colours surge out of the dark backgrounds: while the background
falls vertically with the weight of a leaden wall its own lower
part, the meteors dash in every direction. These paintings have
in fact an unmistakable Japanese-like accuracy in their extreme
economy of means. This oriental taste for chromatic violence gives
the impression of an explosion of joy, to be set in contrast with
the tragic explosion which opens the first cycle. An explosion of
joy in a tragic world.
What characterizes
best Scamanga's approach, beyond his will, asserted from the start,
to get rid of any alien influence by elaborating sincerely and modestly
an art decidedly original, contemporary and rooted in the mental
universe of the Orient, in his ability to create coherent sets of
emergent configurations altogether highly concrete and highly abstract.
This dual movement gives Scamanga's works their aesthetic enclosure,
their human weight, their artistic scope and their universal import,
impact and appeal. Each one is a complete, accomplished work which
does not require anything besides the apprehension of its inner
laws to be adequately enjoyed. Only genuine artists achieve this
authority and autonomy of the singular work of art.
Joseph Tarrab,
April 1974.
Les
"Icônes" de Scamanga
Les "Icônes"
de Scamanga sont dépourvues de toute figuration.
C'est qu'au
delà de la représentation d'un monde sacralisé
l'icône est d'abord la représentation d'un espace absolu
à la fois numineux et lumineux et qui tient sa numinosité
de la luminosité, la lumière étant, de tous
les éléments du monde sensible, le symbole le plus
universel du monde divin. C'est cet espace qui absorbe le regard
au point de dissoudre toutes choses, y compris les figures saintes,
dans la contemplation. L'esprit est en quelque sorte happé
par la couleur et la lumière qui signifient plus que les
formes.
L'élément
géométrique qui avait presque disparu de ses toiles
précédentes, fait sa Réapparition. Mais de
telle sorte qu'il a l'air d'émerger du fond même de
l'espace, pour se structurer et se solidifier en bandes dont la
compacité évoque celle des paradoxaux "attracteurs
étranges" de la nouvelle mathématique du chaos.
C'est ce mouvement d'émergence d'un ordre structurant dans
le désordre uniformisant, cette transmutation qui métamorphose
la lumière du fond de l'icône en saintes figures, comme
si le saint émergeait lui aussi, étrange attracteur,
du fond indifférencié de la lumière divine.
Ici c'est l'expérience
artistique qui remplace l'expérience religieuse, mais comme
elles se rejoignent nécessairement à un certain niveau,
les "Icônes" de Scamanga sont une invitation à
la prière, à l'ex-tase esthétique.
Joseph Tarrab,
février 1989.
Les
"Toscanes"
Les "Icônes" de Scamanga avaient cette particularité
et la capacité d'outrepasser les limites de la toile. Elles
donnaient l'impression d'un découpage dans un continuum infini,
dans une sorte d'océan vibratoire dont la surface frémissante
refléterait les inégales profondeurs de fonds mystérieux.
Les paysages
de Toscane, non plus, n'échappent pas à cette règle
dans l'étendue sans limite, sans ciel et sans horizon de
leurs champs couvrant tout l'espace de la toile et dont les partitions
évoquent celles des "Icônes", mais horizontalisées,
ce qui rappelle que la perspective scamanguienne est la plus part
du temps verticale, le regard explorant la surface mais ne pénétrant
pas à l'intérieur illusoirement comme il peut le faire
avec les doux vallonnements toscans.
Ces paysages
toscans, bien qu'ils transgressent le rejet du monde sensible, rendent
celui-ci semblable au monde intérieur du peintre. Comme si
au bout de tant d'années, Scamanga pouvait en quelque sorte
s'autorisait à annexer le monde à sa peinture au lieu
d'annexer sa peinture au monde. Annexion qui se déroule sous
le signe de la sérénité. Ici l'âme est
comme chez elle, à la fois dans la contraction de la maison
et dans l'expansion des champs, dans chaque geste du peintre, chaque
coup de pinceau.
Scamanga fait
ici non seulement retour à la terre, après s'être
réconcilié avec le monde et avec lui-même, mais
aussi, à travers ses pèlerinages annuels aux hauts
lieux de la peinture toscane de la Renaissance, à un équilibre
intérieur capable d'intégrer sans heurts l'Orient
et l'Occident, la perspective albertienne, la perspective labyrinthique
et la perspective chromatique, l'univers des êtres st des
choses et celui des affects, des émotions et des sentiments,
la rationalité architecturale et l'irrationalité métamorphique,
la fugacité et la permanence, le fini et l'infini.
Joseph Tarrab,
Avril 2000.
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of the artist's artwork
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