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 Janvier (1981), by Arthur Secunda
Janvier, by Arthur Secunda
  • titled: lower left in margin, in pencil
  • signed: lower right in margin, in pencil; numbered lower left in margin, in pencil; publisher's chop lower left; artist's copyright lower right; no chop or copyright on 1 artist's proof and I epreuve d' artiste
  • medium: 17-color pochoir print; printed by Bruno Jacomet, Fontaine de Vaucluse, France
  • dimensions: image size: 26 x 20 1/2" (66.0 x 52.1 cm); sheet size: 31 x 23" (78.7 x 58.4 cm)
  • edition: 125 prints, 5 archive proofs, 15 artist's proofs, 3 epreuves d'artiste, 6 hous de commerce, 1 publisher's proof; all on handmade Richard de Bas 100% rag paper
  • date published: 1981

Personal Reflections, by Arthur Secunda

The pochoir print called Janvier was inspired by a profound experience that I had in Ambert, which is located in the very center of France. Ambert is often referred to as the navel of France. It is in the Auvergne, an isolated region that is very special, very lovely. and very remote. The way the Massif Central mountain range divides the area makes Ambert remote and less accessible by freeway and to tourism.

I was invited by M. Maurice A. Pereaudeau, the former French Minister of Paper, to work at and learn about the history of paper-making at the Moulin Richard de Bas, the oldest working mill in France. There, all the fabrication is still done by hand - by elbow grease so to speak. In true French tradition, each stage of the paper making is defined and refined. It's one of the most beautiful paper mills in the world, and I was honored to be invited to work there.

I went with two colleagues, an American and a Swedish friend, both of whom documented my stay as I executed a number of cast paper works and collages. I came to understand and have a profound appreciation of paper and its long history.

Following the three winter months' Richard de Bas experience, my art reflected a paper consciousness for many, many months and even years afterwards. The geography of the Auvergne and the winter landscape - bleak and cold - might be comparable to wintering in Wyoming or Idaho: snow, bleakness, sleet-covered mountains, frozen ponds. The effect on my memory of that landscape in January was the genesis of the collage and subsequent pochoir called Janvier.

Of course, in the springtime, the rolling hills are full of extravagantly multi-colored leaves and flowers, while in the winter, they are covered with whiteness. In the depiction of distant space in Janvier through the rays of hills layered in the distance, I've implied a rhythm across a landspace that corresponds to bars of music; they recede as they get thinner and move up and away. I wanted to let the paper itself become the landscape (in this case, the snow) so the hills are suggested and the distance remains enigmatically implied while the pictorial space is fiat.

The pochoir or stencil graphic method of repeating the colors allows for enough improvisation within its structural confines to virtually create one-of-a-kind multiples if one chooses to do so. I created a grid effect with these colorful, rainbow-like glowing protrusions - remnants of fall and springtime popping up through the snow. To me, they represented signs and symbols of life, some are decorative "things" without names, and still others of these Tanguy-esque objects were like people to me. Different colors have different personalities as, of course, do different shapes. Those represent the life forces here, bursting through a pictorial kind of snowy veil or curtain.

I wanted also to suggest the land that these "sticks" are pitched into, that the "sticks" cut into the vertical space which, in turn, implies endlessness, stability, and gravity.

The simplification of Janvier, using brilliant colors against white paper, creates a musical dynamic for me. The linear horizontal and vertical movements have a relationship to musical notation. There's even a fugual or contrapuntal effect in the spacing and division of the negative shapes. By grouping the verticals of Janvier in varied groups of three, I feel they speak in different ways - in tone colors in the musical sense, and voices that have a timbre or resonance that clicks into this otherwise bland landscape in a harmonious yet dynamic way.

Harry Sternberg once pointed out to me when I was a student at the Art Student's League (of New York) in the 40s, how perfectly spaced (like a "Mondrian") were the spears in Uccello's wonderful San Romano battle scene of armored soldiers and horses in a landscape.

The perfection of spatial synchronization that we now understand corresponds to Mondrian's touch, has influenced the everyday design and look of our daily lives. It is a quality I am always aware of. Sensitivity to the division of space being exactly right is at first personal and subjective. Nevertheless, I believe in a universal sort of ultimate memory of esthetics which, when achieved, becomes classic and absorbed into society's life- enhancing consciousness.

The pochoir method is normally done by cutting thin aluminum in such a way that the shapes depicted in the artwork are separate and defined. A special kind of razor is used in this initial stage. Then brushing the gouache (an opaque watercolor) onto the paper with a kind of shaving brush using swirling motions through the aluminum cut-outs creates the effect of an original watercolor. When, as in this case, it's printed on handmade paper, the result is of an original, one-of-a-kind work, unlike any other multiple printing method known.

Pochoir is often called the grandfather of silkscreen, though silkscreen prints are printed through a screen. However, the basic block-out method is the same. It is a medium that Lautrec, Vuillard, Steinlen, and other poster artists at the turn of the century in France utilized frequently and it was highly valued for its original look.

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