Quotations

Quotes from letters to a daughter :

May 1958

“[…] I always had an instinctive aversion toward those who deal with arts as with science: research, experimentation, cool-headed discoveries. There is science in art, often unconscious but always subject to impulse ... Purely intellectual experimentation - in art as in love – strips us of our humanity: know the system and use it. »

“[…] Do you know Ianchelevici’s work (*) ? With Leplae, one of the greatest sculptors of our time. As genuine as Leplae, he is more powerful and more monumental ... I categorically reject the notion that he is old-fashioned, that his work is not above times and fashions…I think that abstraction in the visual arts corresponds to hidden, unconscious, uncontrolled and uncompensated conflicts. It has the right to be. But it would be a serious mistake to consider this artistic movement as truly representative of our so multi-faceted era. Going back to Ianchelevici, I just read: “without condemning a priori any abstract work, Ianchelevici is often surprised that artists seek a pretext for a creation entirely outside of the real life which however provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration”. Everything I just said is my own way of thinking, not my justification. If you want to know what I think of my work (I do not even dare say my body of work), it would be another and painful chapter, as I missed something and I am not satisfied with myself. »

(*) IANCHELEVICI, une vie à l’œuvre, 1909-1994 : Un film de Bernard Balteau et Yvon Lammens, 2009 RTBF-ACTV, www.musee.ianchelevici.be.

June 1958

“[…] I think the failure of socialist realism is not due to its academic technique, but rather to the officially imposed doctrine. Art needs no doctrine
Ultimately, doctrine may follow but it should not precede the work. Art is a headspring, doctrine a way. Who ever heard: the way is laid, spring, you can now flow?
Personally, if I wanted to depart from nature, it would not be to abandon it, but rather to grasp it more fully in its invisible parts and its roots. »