Mouvements sur reliefs, 1960

Lucien Beyer  

Transposed in plastic terms, the aspects of aquatic plant life, this action of the forces which create the reliefs, the main lines of the landscape, the incessant work which models, digs, are not necessarily linked according to what the appearances of reality tell us. propose. That is to say that the transposition of a certain natural reality will be very largely conditioned by rhythms which emanate from the writer (from the painter) and which bind him more intimately to the very actions of this permanent life. Links not only visual, therefore, but one might say, almost carnal: where the spasms of the sun, its innumerable legions, the lakes of night and the living water of fire are the mirrors of another darker and evil life. name that interests the painter through what his gaze records.

BEYER's painting is part of this new perception of the ambient world that we would tend, too often, to baptize abstract, because the work is not immediately identifiable. Lucien BEYER was part of this team of the "Témoignage" group whose leader was Marcel MICHAUX and from which only stars emerged, some of the most specific figures of an art that is both contemporary in its ambitions and French in its measure.

René BRETEAU, who was the first to bring these artists together, noted some fond memories of his first meeting with Bertholle, Beyer, Le Moal, Manessier, Etienne Martin, Stahly. I opened a shop on rue des Canettes, at number 9. There I presented works by craftsmen, works by classmates from school and my work. It was sad. The son of the potter mayor BEYER came every day to give me his time, we spoke little, he was never talkative, me either. He knew young people, wanted me to meet them; he knew I would love them...

One evening, we left the rue des Canettes for the rue du Pot-de-fer. At the end of a very moving old courtyard, in a very dilapidated old house, we passed an open door on a pile of stones, wood and canvases which hung on us from everywhere in the dark... That night can -be I started to hope and believe again. In the early morning, I said we were going to show what they had done. I came back to rue des Canettes to take care of it. I emptied my shop and gave them the picture rails for unforgettable successes... Rue des Canettes saw crowds in 1938, Rue Bonaparte in 1939. Then, there was war and dispersal. Later, in addition to his participation in the Salon de May, at the Surindépendants, BEYER was to exhibit at the Galerie Jeanne BUCHER, at the same time as Reichel, de Staël, Chapoval, Chauvin, Lanskoy, Singier, etc. But, if his activity as an artist is intense, his participation in events or exhibitions since then has been almost nil. Also, a retrospective of thirty years of painting is it not only justified, today, but really essential to finally measure the extent of a work well situated in the context of its time. Modern painting certainly, by its tempos, its freedoms, its in-depth perception of French life, we would say, for its balance, its skilful harmonies, its smoothness.

We can sometimes think of Hubert Robert, or even better of Claude Gellé in his sober and ample cutouts of architecture which shape zones of light, distribute plans of aquatic and plant activities, or even Poussin, Poussin des enchanted foliage, in front of these superb and generous deployments of greenery, sometimes deeply anchored in the folds of the night, sometimes prettily offered to the feasts of the sun in continuous and wide movements. It is a nervous painting, abundant and fast, with graphic networks wandering in space; it translates smells, moments, an intense and active perception of sight at its vital stage.

Francois Fabian.