Theory

See things as they are (Realism); paint as you think, not as you see (Cubism); destruction is also creation (Dadaism); paint your dreams, your hallucinations, the inner world of your imagination (Surrealism). All art movements feeding, bleeding into, blending with the next. A nude, a landscape, an object straight; a portrait, a day or night scene, a still life in fragmented parts. Pre-war, the future coming through; post-war, the future here, but wait! there's more. Effort made and no effort made to adapt to the current trend: the line, the brush-stroke, the use of colour etc., by the various artistic personalities (the pleasing, the difficult), who either basked in the publicity or shied from it; who bartered their lives as they bartered their art.

Written March 2022.

Picture credit: Portrait of Maurice Utrillo, 1921, Suzanne Valadon (source: WikiArt).