French artist’s world reflects a sea of blue

By Dorothy Shinn
Beacon Journal art and architecture critic

The French have always had a thing for blue.

Yves Klein developed an especially intense blue, which the art world calls IKB (International Klein Blue), a color almost impossible to reproduce in the narrow range available to computers and almost any other two-dimensional medium, except of course, in Klein’s famous all-blue canvases.

But Klein isn’t alone. From medieval times, the color blue was more often associated with royalty than the purple that had been a royal prerogative since ancient days.

In manuscripts from the 13th century on, the shade of blue that we now call ultramarine was reserved for the most costly illuminations because it required ground lapis lazuli, a deep purply-blue gemstone containing flecks of gold pyrite that in those days could only be found in the mountains of the country that today is Afghanistan.

Michel Pastoureau, in Bleu, histoire d’une couleur, shows that blue’s popularity was evident in its frequent use in stained glass, sculpture, paintings, and illuminated manuscripts, but also in secular contexts, on royal emblems, banners, and ordinary textiles and clothing.

During the revolt in the Vendee against the French Revolution, blue stood for the revolutionary forces, and white for the counter-revolutionaries. Later movements like the Breton blues used the color to
signify allegiance to the ideals of the revolution.

It helps to know how important this particular pigment is in the history of French art when viewing the newest exhibit at the University of Akron Myers School of Art Emily Davis Gallery.

The show, French Contemporary Art: The Work of Herve Heuze, consists of two galleries filled with large-scale paintings, all of which involve the gradation of a particular shade of blue.

On view through Oct. 23, the paintings are from a larger series that Herve Heuze (pronounced urvay uzzay) calls Abimes (Abyss), a selection that constitutes the first solo show this artist has ever had in America.

The Abimes series is meant to evoke an underwater world, and the size of the canvases are meant to make the viewer feel submerged, in much the same way as Claude Monet’s Waterlily paintings in l’Orangerie are meant to envelop the viewer in Monet’s Giverny pond.

Using an airbrush on portrait-grade canvas and atmospheric perspective, Heuze creates a world that is at once specific and abstract. The French call it Abstract Pictorialism, since there’s quite a bit of illusion involved.

In the Abimes series Heuze airbrushes graduated layers of a rich delphinium blue onto the finely woven canvas. On this background he paints strands and coils of material we interpret as seaweed, sea anemones and other underwater life forms, creating patterns that enclose and define abstract geometric spaces.

Helping to create these illusions of texture and space is Heuze’s astonishing facility with the airbrush. The tool has a dizzying selection of attachments and nozzle sizes that enable the user to create incredible effects.

Heuze seems to have mastered them all, from the tiny lines that give the illusion of string resting atop the canvas, to minutely delineated dragon- and/or damselflies and a beautifully rendered gowned figure.

Born in Rouen, France, Heuze now lives and works in Paris, with a studio in the Marais, the historical center of the city.

This is a show that’s been eight years in the organizing.

Rod Bengston, director of university galleries, first conceived the idea of bringing a contemporary French artist to the art school back in 2001, but the Sept. 11 attacks put a temporary end to those plans, and when he was able to pick up the threads of his earlier efforts, he found himself with a gallery assistant who spoke fluent French and was capable of traveling to France to negotiate the details of bringing the exhibit to Akron.

With a grant from Maison Francaise de Cleveland, Vanessa Bordo was able to fly to Paris, visit Heuze’s gallery and studio (where he revealed some — but not all — of his techniques and methods), and arrange transportation of the works to Akron.

”I picked this body of work to create an environment that was unmistakably about this particular mode of expression,” said Bengston.

”He has other modes of painting; some of them have a wider range of color in them, and some of them don’t have as much figuration. For instance, in 2004 he was on the international scene when he was exhibiting his large landscapes that are totally devoid of people.”

As part of the current exhibit, Bengston will have Bordo give tours in French as an incentive for schools to schedule visits for French classes. Bordo produced a French version of the gallery brochure, as well as a version teachers can use in a lesson plan.

The level of French can be adapted to various language levels, and all of the exhibit’s subject matter is appropriate for children and students.

In the brochures Bordo discusses other French artists who have worked in monochromatic blue and asks students to discuss what it means.

Heuze, for instance, ”has experimented in other colors, but decided that they weren’t nearly as moving and ethereal as blue, especially in airbrush,” Bordo explained.

”He works horizontally, first airbrushing in the graduated blue background, then he adds various materials to the surface of the canvas, dropping cords, string, material, and so on on the canvas and spraying through them to get a variety of textures.”

Heuze also apparently plays Debussy as he works to evoke the proper atmosphere.

”He wants everything to be encompassing, like Monet’s l’Orangerie,” Bordo said.

Bengston’s team of gallery assistants has put together a video presentation on Heuze’s work with Debussy playing in the background, and Bordo, who is working on her master’s degree in the school of music, will occasionally play the cello in the gallery.

In the student brochure she also makes note of a free Debussy concert, his Petite Suite, which will be held at 3 p.m. Oct. 10 at the First Congregational Church, 292 E. Market St., Akron.

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Dorothy Shinn writes about art and architecture for the Akron Beacon Journal. Send information to her at the Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640 or dtgshinn@neo.rr.com.