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The exhibition that Shart offers us is one of the best any-one could wish to see; and Shart is a real painter, a great one. There is no need to elaborate on this statement, which seems absolutely obvious to those who follow his career.

But do you know Shart?

Firstly, he is thirty-two. He has a long history of serious, thoughtful, realistic work, his patient research and experiments on pictorial matters have enabled him to acquire a faultless technique. He is also master of his drawings, which is simple, firm, ample and vigorous, with an austere but not aggressive expressionism. He has built up a graphic oeuvre of extreme importance; he doesn't show it but it can be sensed through his paintings, to great explaining its qualities. Certainly the line dominates, but the soberly expressed values are indisputable.

His paintings,  which I got to know for having seen it in the Salons and some rare on-man shows, has evolved deeply. The basic characteristics have not varied, but they have been liberated, affirmed, fulfilled. His drawing of shape is less angular, and the roundness of the volume is equally powerful. The raw material makes use of expressive variations and a rough sensuality. The colors, without weakening, make their shading more subtle, the contrasts are more resonant, more mellow, they gain accent with a certain chiaroscuro. The colors in themselves are more beautiful, with a flavor of transparency and coordination well maintained by the impasto, the subjects, and the brushwork. Measured bursts of sumptuosity enliven every picture. Shart is of Mediterranean origin, and his work is bursting with Mediterranean vigor, its passion boiling beneath the rigor of restraint. Figures that are slightly hieratic and at the same time form a strange life, landscape of grave splendor displaying a respect for nature through a force of evocation that transcends the image, still-lives with a presence far exceeding the subject, all this attests Shart's maturity and the breadth of his talent. After the initial seductive impression there is mounting evidence that compels recognition of his qualities. From now on, true connoisseurs will no longer have the right to ignore him.

Robert Vrinat, "Le Figaro", 1959

 

En quelques années, Shart a conquis dans la jeune peintre actuelle une place de tout premier plan. Au sortir de l'expérience abstraite, qu'il a su traverser sans s'y arrêter, cet homme robuste, qui a horreur de l'enlisement et de la destruction, affirme avec force les deux vertus majeures où réside le salut de la peinture, la puissance du métier et la profondeur de l'expérience humaine.

Toutes le ressources de l'art graphique et pictual ont été patiemment creusées par ce peintre parisien, né en 1927. Il a passé par la rude école de l'imprimerie et de la typographie, il conaît tous les secrets de la lithographie dont il possède une maîtrise magnifique, il dessine avec passion, jetant sur le papier d'innombrables idées, pour chaque toile. La technique de la peinture a été et reste pour lui l'objet de recherches inlassables. Il va jusqu'à composer lui-même plusieurs de ses couleurs, à préparer ses toiles, à se créer un fixatif spécial, à étudier l'évolution au soleil et à l'humidité de ses matériaux, soucieux d'obtenir la solidité inaltérable qui manque, depuis un siècle, à tant d'oevres, même des maîtres. 

Mais le métier est le moyen de l'art, non son essence, Shart se garde de cette confusion facile, et trop générale, chez les abstraits comee chez les académiques. De caractère calme et solitaire, orienté même vers les préoccupation mystiques, il insuffle à ses peintures, en apparence naturalistes, un sentient de mystère silencieux qui les fait vibrer intensément. Ses paysans robustes, courbés sous le poids du travail, les humbles objets avec lesquels il vit, magnifiés dans leur simplicité monumentale, les éternels paysages rustiques, où la maison, l'arbre, le bateau affirment leur lourde et irrésistible présence, tout ce monde matériel rayonne d'une âme sourde, qui prend une allure de fantôme et de symbole. La matière somptueuse, où les couleurs les plus riches se fondent dans une harmonie silencieuse, la construction hardie des formes qui retrouvent naturellement la géométrie fondamentale des masses, le frémissement de la lumière, intime et comme jaillessant de la matière elle-même, composent l'unité sensible de l'oevre de Shart dont le style est différent de tout autre. Ainsi chaque toile de ce peintre contient un monde visuel et moral, d'une cohérence organique, aussi robuste que les être de la nature, et qui vit comme eux.

"Les Arts" R. Charmet, Paris 1960

 

Here, the drawing reveals itself in the frankness of its outlines and purity of intention. In the unity of a laudable lack of ornamentation and the fullness of its creative resources. It is the proof that it can be self-sufficient, free from the medium of painting through which its own qualities would be eclipsed by the glamour of colors.

The drawing thus existing on its own is a test of truth. There is no other way out apart from originality, strictness, a complete and harmonious fulfillment. It must stand out only through and because of its own intrinsic qualities. And that's the case when the drawing is one of Shart's. Nothing seems trite for this shrewd observer who is capable of rendering everything new and striking to our eyes. Attentive to everyone and everything, he knows the best way to draw a few distinctive features from the profusion of feelings born of everyday life scenes, which, by his own vision, are turned into something appealing to the eye and becoming a source of meditation.

The appearances of the outside world are kept only for what is the most characteristic about them, and they become a pretext to reach and to single out all that can hide behind a face, a figure, a group or a landscape. Acutely perceived and caught in the whole singularity and essence, scenes and beings are offered to us clearly, firmly, efficiently, with a loftiness of spirit which confers a symbolical value on them. It is spiritualized realism which keeps us in confidence and make us share in the receptivity to its environment, imparting to us what he deeply feels, and this with a rare sense of decency in his feelings.

The line attests the sureness of his hand as well as his psychological acuteness. It is always relevant, whether continuous or broken, whether used to stress or to touch, and always arouses our curiosity and imagination. Thin strokes suggest volume, thick strokes density. Linearity or lavishness of details, the line points out a mere feature or the whole horizon on which we can't but focus our attention. The line in itself is as much, even more, meaningful than a painting.

Curved or straight lines, thin or thick, hatching or rough sketching, the line follows its won way, unexpectedly, compelling attention, movingly, and goes right to our heart.

Yet, the drawing does not only resort to the mere linearity of arabesques. When necessary, touches of black are added lightly or heavily, as articulation or foil, darkness or transparence. Thus a balance, most of the time pathetic, is crated between darkness and clearness. A clever scale of values is developed within a range of hues going from pure white to the deepest black, the hues in between displaying innumerable expressionist variations movingly harmonious. The way they are used shows Shart's technique, together with his talent, comes from a ceaseless questioning on his work, from the passionate care he takes to make signs and meanings coincide, from his will to improve his work again and again.

In his work light is as important as the lines; it is always present in meaningful and deft touches. Whether it is a band of silence (not the least expressionless) spread about or condensed, blurred or sublimate by the contrast with black - a black which deepens and softens in the process - it gives a hint of what is unexpressed. The surface becomes a space crossed by an imponderable pulse given by the forms drawn on it. Forms conducive to reverie, contemplation, doubt, resignation, effort, weariness, pain, mysticism and may be hope. A long theory of veins of felling tinged with a lyricism echoing gravity.

J.-L. Michaud, 1979

Translation by M. d'Ancourt

 

December 15, 2006