Soulages Retrospective

I first encountered Soulages in the Louvre. ‘Painting, 300x235cm, July 9, 2000’ was hanging in the Salon Carré. After some contemplation on the decision to hang an abstract black canvas amongst early renaissance devotional works, I must confess I didn’t linger long, but ‘Soulages’ is a name not easily forgotten in France, and when again in Paris a month later, I felt it was time for an education.

The retrospective in the Centre Pompidou opens with works from the 1940s, primarily on paper. In the context of the exhibition, these works are tentative first steps into the world of gestural abstraction that flows through his works of the fifties, sixties and seventies. New sensations emerge, as Soulages began to use black as a means of obscuring, layering across other colours or simply the canvas. Eventually it seems he is no longer adding, but rather taking away aspects he no longer wishes us to see. In 'Painting, 220x366cm, 14 May 1968', he covers almost the entire surface in five massive strokes, with only irregular glimpses of white canvas alluding to a ‘beneath’.

The fifth room plunges you into darkness. Resting in a black room, three canvases from the early nineties are presented as prime examples of what Soulages calls outrenoir (beyond black), while beyond lie numerous examples of this style. Technique takes precedence, as the ridges and textures of different tools and thick application of medium distinguishes the works. Forcibly recalling that lonely example in the Louvre, the polyptychs in the final room are displayed as if medieval altarpieces, hung for the viewer to wander amongst, to be gazed upon and adored.

Soulages’ dedication is fascinating. Exhausting all possibilities, he clearly revels in the action of painting. He consistently refers to the variety of light and colour emitted from the black, and of diversity in his outrenoir works. Yet as a spectator, one feels a little overwhelmed by repetition. One quote caught my eye – in 1976, pre-outrenoir, he stated: "The reality of the work is the three-way relationship it establishes between the thing that it is, the painter who made it, and the viewer who sees it." While this relationship is refreshing with the earlier works, once faced with the umpteenth black canvas, connotations of Dulux colour strips and textured wallpaper unfortunately spring to mind, and one cannot help thinking Soulages has spent a too long on his relationship to his work, and forgotten a little about the spectator beyond.