| THE PERSONAL GESTURE OF
MARCEL CHETRIT
The turn back from abstraction to figurative art or balancing on the
border between abstraction and concreteness is a distinctive feature
of pictorial art of the late 20th century.
Basically, a sterile, largely geometric abstraction is replaced by an
aggressive hypertrophied figurative art which accentuates an alienation
from visible reality.
The recent painting of Marcel Chetrit reveals a similar process of recoding
of the artist’s stylistic devices but expresses a quite different,
in some ways, profoundely traditional approach to the expressive possibilities
of color and composition.
In his abstract works in the late 1960s and early 1970s Chetrit began
to suggest landscape and hint at the outlines of human figures. However,
the elements of figure and landscape did not conflict with the rhythms
of color and the compositional devices of his earlier purely abstract
style.
The paintings created the impression that their contours suggesting
a third dimension, with surface and depths ,originally were parts of
Chetrit’s abstract works that could be interpreted as signs of
“lyrical” or “landscape” abstractions.
It would be quite incorrect, however, to interpret changes in Chetrit’s
artistic development simply in terms of an evolution of artistic form.
His transition to figurative elements and to subjects took place simultaneously
with changes in the artist’s personal fate, particularly his decision
to leave France and to settle in the homeland of his ancestors in Israel
and in its capital Jerusalem.
Chetrit faced an existential choice which had to find an intellectual
and spiritual reflection in is art. Thus abstraction gradually gave
way to biblical motifs that were presented in a spirit of cabalistic
mysticism. In theses works human figures and landscapes motifs became
dominant but these forms were vague and persuasive without being aggressive.
Color was the main expressive means, with various color areas sometimes
thick sometimes diluted creating dynamic forms infused with light that
sublimated figurative paintings to the level of abstractions.
Indeed light began to play a special role both in Chetrit’s color
abstractions and in his more figurative works, for example as a point
of light in “Un point de lumiere dans l’obscurite”
(1989) or as a revelation or dramatization of light in “Dialogues
2“ (1992) and “Hommage a Shubert” (1993) . His light
infused canvases have symbolic overtones . Light is an inalienable component
of creation : from the creation of the world to the creation of painting.
Light also parallels music for Chetrit as when both symbolize human
fate in “La Tour de Babel” (1984).
The painting and graphic work of Chetrit in the 1980s and 1990s are
distinct from Europeans, especially French, contemporary radical avant-guard.
In contrast to members of the leading
“Support- Surface“ group in France in the 1970s, in Israel
Chetrit began to give more importance to brushwork. He also turned to
major Biblical subjects, presenting themes from the Torah in ways inspired
by mystically oriented traditional Jewish commentators.
Like is great predecessor Marc Chagall, Chetrit aspires to create a
“message biblique” .
However, in contrast to the artist from Vitebsk, Chetrit does not aim
at a sequential illustration of indicidents from the Torah in the form
of a cycle of works. He is not interested either in the key figures
of ancient Jewish history, the king and prophets.
Rather he prefers moments when human fate is at strake, as in his “
La Creation”, ” La Sortie Du Gan Eden “ the already
mentioned “la Tour de Babel”, “Le Sacrifice D’Isaac”
and “Exode”.
Such global themes inspired monumental color compositions in which large
and small naked human figures are borne away in currents of colorful
“lava”, participants of global catastrophes that era part
of the continued process of Divine creation. Nevertheless perhaps involuntary
dialogue with Chagall is suggested by a number of devices and motifs:
vagues images that emerge from the interweaving of lines and the chaos
of areas of colors; the recurring figures of a mother holding a child;
musical instruments suspended or flying in the air and depicted as naked
but seen “modestly” from behind; the predominance of light
and dark blue hues; and, finally, by the leitmotif of the river or flood,
as in “La Dechirure” (1993) .
The heterogeneous presentation of space in Chetrit’s painting
is a result of the symbolic interchangability of “above”
and “below" that recalls his earlier formalistic abstraction.
In his later works such formalism yields to overtly emotional gesture.
Broad, free swathes of color, as in is triptych “La Sortie du
Gan-Eden” only superficially recall the style of the “new
fauves” or the Paris experiments of the “Support Surface”
artists.
Chetrit’s gesture is subjective and is not detached from his painting
or drawing. Unlike the “destroyers of painting” Chetrit
continues to believe in the expressive power of the touch of the brush
on canvas or paper.
The artist received unexpected support from the Far East for his efforts
to regain an ontological status for painting this came from Japanese
art. The semantic codes of this foreign culture that are revealed by
the specifics of Japanese technique and craft to this day retain a sense
of the integrity and conceptual significance of pictorial space. Starting
in 1993 a cardinal change occurred in the Western- oriented personal
gesture of Chetrit.
The artist began to work with black and colored tushe on paper or specially
prepared boards in which he depicted calligraphic symbols. Radical changes
also took place in his way of composing his works. Instead of the vertical
axis that is fundamental to Western composition, the artist resorted
to the Eastern rotation of the viewer’s perspective whereby a
fragment of the picture, with considerable “empty” space
still creates the impression of a spatial whole.
Chetrit’s subjects remain as before, reflection of the fate and
suffering of humanity, but are now enriched by philosophical motifs
suggested by Zen Buddhism. For example, the series “Heavy the
stone, heavy the sand” by the very title already evokes associations
with the symbolism of a Zen garden and it is concerned with the time
and human existence. However, for Chetrit Eastern meditation yields
to portray of the experience of real history, human pain ,and human
fate. This focus is expressed via calligraphic notation in “Exode”.
Rather than suggesting philosophical layers of meaning, for Chetrit
empty space came to be associated with specific motifs such as all-devouring
abyss or a flood that sweeps humanity away. Hence, his series “La
dechirure” where the yawning gulf of an unpainted part of the
paper represents an abyss that divides people into separate groups.
The “torn” humanity in Chetrit’s work is on the brink
of catastrophe. His technique and formal devices borrowed from another
culture become transformed into recoded symbols of his own personal
worldview.
The contemporary personal gesture of this artist, with its allusions
to Far Eastern painting, does not aim at destroying the meaning of what
it depicts; it is not mere technique for technique’s sake. His
drawing and brushwork retain a human emotionality.
The art of Marcel Chetrit is not an art of protest; it evokes an emotional
response from the viewer.It engages the viewer by its ambition, its
sincerity, and its choice of theme. His art has attracted notice in
Russia: first in Vitebsk at the Chagall festival, where his works were
awarded a special prize and then in Moscow, there he had a solo exhibition.
The danger that threatens to divide peoples and that leads to pain and
tragedy is a topic which is now particularly relevant for Russia, which
has just experienced the latest stage of catastrophic breakdown and
the forced migration of large numbers of its population.
Doubts about the correctness of exclusively Western artistic conception,
which often were tainted with didacticism and formalism, are leading
to a change of aesthetic orientation and poses the problem of choosing
one’s way. The artistic development of Marcel Chetrit has been
marked by existential suffering and outbursts of reactions. Regardless
of the techniques employed or the media, his figure-rich works of the
last decades express and portray the experience of the individual.
Marina Bessonova
Art Curator, Art Director French Painting Dept.
Museum Pouchkine , January 1995
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