The post-war years were a strange time in France. Cultures around the world were embracing modernism on an unforeseen scale, eager to leave behind them the horrors of World War II and to escape the looming threat of totalitarian regimes. But, at least in terms of reevaluating tradition and experimenting with more “progressive” social structures and lifestyles, France had already been on the cutting edge of modernism for decades before it went mainstream. From the French modernist movement and its ancillary schools, we gain one of the clearest glimpses into the prevailing psyche of the mid-century years: those which have, in turn, had perhaps the most significant impact upon our contemporary society’s thoughts and beliefs.
Still, as overwhelmingly popular as were the great art pieces of this period – not to mention their creators’ even more famous inspirations from earlier in the century, such as the works of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse – today, the French modernist tradition (if the word “tradition” can even be used in this context) comprises a surprisingly small section of the art world. Few carry on the lineage – and those that do often do so outside of the confines of established markets and platforms. As the free-wheeling, optimistic humanism of the past has given way to a more cynical, pessimistic atmosphere, French modern art has, somewhat paradoxically, become less a source of differentiation and individuation as a call for relationship and connection.
A few months back, we spoke about the art of Howard Lamar, a Californian artist whose unique style draws upon the techniques of the likes of Picassoand Matisse, infusing them with his implicit curiosity about metaphysics and human interactions. Though Lamar was born a little too late to engage directly with the post-war art world, its influence on his thought left an indelible mark on his artistic process, and he has played a key role in refreshing the French modernist outlook for the twenty-first century.
One of the most critical lines artists have had to walk over the last hundred or so years – which I believe approaches the core of the controversy of modern fine art and Lamar’s concern with its divorce from the common person – is that between visual and syntactic expression. Granted, some artists have veered so far away from meaning as to render their work indistinguishable from decoration; they have, in a sense, removed themselves from this conversation. But among artists who continue to affirm a form of significance to our signs and symbols, two camps have arisen. On the one hand, there are those who use art to gesture towards truths that transcend human language’s capacity to express; their work is a form of encounter akin to a relationship, which grows and deepens as it develops. On the other hand, some have come to use art as a kind of thesis, in which visual indicators map directly onto verbal ideas and speech, such that a viewer can “read” the art syntactically – or even, in extreme cases, reduce it to a simple statement.
Of course, cultural libraries of symbolism and tradition have always existed, and a certain level of “readability” is essential to art’s communicative value. That said, as the visual identity of the Western tradition, which has been formed, maintained, and adapted over thousands of years of history, began to crumble over the nineteenth century and ultimately faltered in the face of horrific technological advances during two unprecedented global wars, the shared cultural ties that had long connected art’s dual functions of encounter and communication were suddenly severed. It was up to a new generation of artists to bind them again.
In the works of prominent French modernist figures from Picasso to Matisse to Gauguin and beyond, one senses a constant attitude of experimentation, with existential implications far exceeding the impressionists’ abandonment of l’Academie. What concepts, they ponder, would comprise a new, modern symbology? What effect (if any) should ideologies have on style and technique? What ought to be the viewer’s role in the artistic experience? These artists drank up nascent experiences of globalism, engaging with different cultural expressions and artistic theories and adapting them piecemeal to their needs. In their optimism, one finds an excitement similar to that of adventurers embarking upon expeditions or architects planning a great city: the hope of discovery and creation and the promise of a foundation upon which future generations can expand.
Yet, as postmodernism and now metamodernism have inherited the fine art landscape, we have seen the seeds of destruction – or, rather, deconstruction – bear fruit ahead of the modernists’ lofty dreams. There are few artists now who claim authentically to carry on their lineage. Those who have, now find themselves on a very different side of history. Instead of revolutionaries pressing on towards the new, they are craftspeople honing their work, refining their expression and expanding their art’s capacity to facilitate relational encounters.
This shift is part of why I find myself revisiting Howard Lamar’s work. Picasso, Matisse, and Gauguin are among his most important influences, not only because of their quality of line and symbolic expression but also because he sensed in their work a capacity to communicate ideas that newer styles were unable – or at least unwilling – to reveal. His work embraces larger, existential questions without dissecting them. His style is allusive, leaning on a tradition partly of his own design and partly formed from shattered remnants of the worldview ravaged by the battlefields of two world wars. He leans into a complex iconography that at times borders on the syntactic, but his work always acknowledges that the truths he expresses are beyond his ability fully to explain; he can only gesture towards them and hope his viewer might encounter them.
I hope that, with time, the fine art world will see more artists with an outlook like Lamar’s. It is a bit of dramatic irony that one of the leading figures carrying the torch of French modernism would be as relational as him: focused not on sweeping political and social issues but on the individual connections, person to person. His instincts are good; today, that is where the battle for cultural unity is most effectively being fought. Now that deconstruction has permeated our world so thoroughly as to have torn us from each other – and, more and more frequently, from ourselves – artists like Lamar, who can harmoniously integrate communication and encounter (to say nothing of technical mastery) are as refreshing as they are, paradoxically, revolutionary.
Originally published in MutualArt Magazine on August 6, 2024.
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