Untitled

This formidable painting by Jean Paul Riopelle deploys its structured, luminous composition in a single circular glance. There is an irresistible momentum in this composition, a joyful swirl that draws the gaze into a unanimous movement. The strokes of the spatula seem coordinated in a festive dance from which scintillating colours arise amid absolute contrasts. Every streak of pigment participates in the natural harmony of this visionary oil on canvas, dated 1958, a perfect illustration of the turn that Riopelle took in the second half of the 1950s. The regularity of the mosaics from 1953 to 1954 give way, in this painting, to a fierce gesturality, as bold and assertive as ever, in which he strives to maintain the feverish strokes of the palette knife in balance. He massages and sculpts the paint to make room “for ravines and ruptures, without really fracturing the painting,” writes Pierre Schneider. In Untitled, the palette knife— and even its handle—are used to draw hooks and fluid spans in the composition’s almost airborne impastos. The judicious wash of cobalt and ultramarine blues, of alizarin reds and clear purples, the touches of pure green and burnt umber, embrace each thrust of matter in a frantic rhythm. A superb painting whose vision endures well beyond the moments spent contemplating its every detail. A revelation. (Annie Lafleur. Translation: Ron Ross)