Les Plasticiens
The Plasticien movement was a Canadian non-figurative painting movement, which appeared around 1955 in Quebec.[1] It was a more orderly style of painting in reaction to Les Automatistes[2]
In 1954, a young critic and painter newly returned from Paris,
Every painting must have its own particular form to make a totality, resistant to and not assimilated by an ambiance and where each part depends on the whole and vice-versa.
The movement was launched in 1955 by the Manifeste des plasticiens, written by de Repentigny (under the name Jauran) and signed by Louis Belzile, Jean-Paul Jérôme and Fernand Toupin.[2] In the manifesto they acknowledged a kind of debt to the Automatists, recognizing their place in the revolutions that had helped to free the arts from “servitude to a materialistic ritual”.
They also called on artists to follow the example of Piet Mondrian.[2] The Plasticiens sought to objectify paintings instead of paint objects. For example, Toupin shaped his own canvases into geometric shapes so that they would be objects of another kind.[3]
Guido Molinari created Plasticien works between 1959 and 1962.[4] Other artists associated with the movement are Claude Tousignant, Denis Juneau, George E. Russell and Fernand Leduc.
References
- ISBN 1-55028-296-4
- ^ a b c Gagnon, François-Marc. "Les Plasticiens". thecanadianencyclopedia.ca.
- ^ Gagnon, François-Marc. "Plasticiens, Les." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, (accessed February 3, 2012; (subscription required)).
- ^ "National Gallery of Canada". www.gallery.ca.