Painting January 7,1983

Born in Aveyron, France in 1919, Pierre Soulage is a painter leading post-war French contemporary paintings. Soulage became interested in art as he grew up surrounded by ancient Celtic ruins and Romanesque church during his childhood. His trip to Paris in 1938 triggered him to teach himself paintings. He studied at Montpellier’s School of Fine Art in 1941 and opened his studio in Paris in 1948. Around this time, he began producing abstract paintings employing dynamic, black, broad brush lines. During his trip to Japan in 1958, he visited Japanese gardens and temples and interacted with Japanese artists and calligraphers. In 1979, he began producing paintings, each titled with the date of completion, employing the reflection of light with matière swallowed up by black. While Soulages is meticulous about materiality of paintings, he also develops the world of constructive and dynamic abstract paintings through broad brush touches.

Though Painting January 7,1983 looks painted in total black, when viewers take a close look, they find groove-like stripes covering the entire canvas. The black in this painting, of course, is not an expression of shadow or darkness and is void of any meaningfulness. Sourlages’ paintings are drawn solely to capture the light filling the space between viewers and the paintings and to actualize its existence.