Europe 1 with AFP 7 p.m., October 26, 2022
French painter and engraver Pierre Soulages died at the age of 102 on Wednesday.
A painter passionate about black, whom Europe 1 had met at the opening of a museum dedicated to his work, in Rodez, his hometown, on May 30, 2014. Then 94 years old, he explained his relationship to black in his paintings.
He was one of the greatest in the world of contemporary French art.
By his height, 1 meter 90, but also by his career.
Pierre Soulages died on Wednesday at the age of 102, his entourage announced.
Always dressed in black, Pierre Soulages never cut ties with his native Aveyron during his career, largely dominated by his paintings painted in black.
During the inauguration of the museum in his name in Rodez, on May 30, 2014, he explained to the microphone of Europe 1 his pronounced taste for black.
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Game of light
Because since childhood, Pierre Soulages has maintained an almost privileged relationship with black.
"Black has always been with me. The proof, when I was a child, I preferred to ink it with colors", told the painter at the microphone of Europe 1. As when he drew large black lines on white paper : "It's a snow landscape that I draw", he explains then to a friend, taken aback in front of her sheet.
"What I was doing was actually a landscape of snow. The white of the paper lit up like snow thanks to the black lines that I painted on it", specifies Pierre Soulages.
Bringing out the light with black was the mission entrusted to the French painter.
"Just put black on a dark color and suddenly, the dark color lights up," he assured the microphone of Europe 1 in Rodez.
"It is no longer black, it is the reflection of light on black" that we see, specifies Pierre Soulages, to tell his paintings.
"That's also why I created the word 'outrenoir', because that's what happens in us when faced with this phenomenon".
"It's a landscape"
A play of light, noticed and remarkable by all, with 1,001 variations of black, which fascinated at the time, the brand new director of the Soulages museum, Benoît Decron.
"This panel for example, if you look at it in front, you will have a particular light on the center of the canvas. In reality, it is a landscape, that is to say that if you walk in front of the painting, you will see the light slide and you will see all the light effects".
"It's a feast for the eyes, the works of Soulages", concluded the boss of the museum during the opening.
A party that continues without Pierre Soulages, but that will no longer have the same flavor.