It looks like a miracle. The performance definitely evokes admiration. At the age of 100, Françoise Sullivan has just opened an exhibition of her new works (and other older works) at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. This total artist, symbol of Refus Global in 1948, paints every day, or almost. And his images are still just as relevant as they were when they started 80 years ago.
At once fragile and alive, with an elegance and poise that commands respect, as we wrote last October, this pioneer of contemporary art simply feels a compelling need to create.
Françoise Sullivan isn't the only “aged” Quebec artist keeping the flame of creation alive – unless it's that burning fire that keeps her vigilant. Janette Bertrand can be seen in all the stands at the age of 98. A big show with Yvon Deschamps, 88, is planned for next fall. Fernand Dansereau, 95, is working on a film, a novel and an exhibition of his recent paintings. Louise Latraverse is preparing a Quebec tour of her show L'amour crisse at the age of 83. Claude Gauthier has released a 21st album in the last few months. He is 84 years old.
Denys Arcand, Gilles Vigneault, Armand Vaillancourt and many others are literally “on fire”, long after the usual retirement age – 95 years for the poet from Natashquan and 94 years for the painter and sculptor with the eternal silver head of hair.
A myth that is more than a century old
For centuries, ancient artists were considered icons, visionaries, treasures or giants, recalls Johanne Lamoureux, a professor at the Department of Art History and Cinematography at the University of Montreal.
“There is something powerful and touching about seeing an artist age and evolve their work,” she agrees. There is still a mythology of the ancient artist. Art history is a myth-making machine. »
The latest works by artists, whether young or old, give rise to diverse, sometimes far-fetched interpretations. Exegetes try to make sense of these paintings, these sculptures or these pieces of music. As if the master “had to know he was going to die,” emphasizes Johanne Lamoureux.
The Transfiguration, the last painting by Raphael, who died in 1520 at the age of 37, has been described as the work of a quasi-prophet. The reality is more banal: the unfinished painting was completed in his workshop in Rome, the professor emphasizes.
Up close, an aura of mystery surrounds Borduas' final painting, Composition 69, discovered on an easel in his Paris studio four days after his death in February 1960. Amazement and dismay: The painting in this work resembles a “corpse map.” “It was still wet.
“I have news for you, it will never dry out!” I saw paintings by Borduas 20 years after his death and they weren’t dry yet,” laughs Johanne Lamoureux.
Creative madness
Art historians, doctors and other scientists observe that it is not unusual for artists to be caught up in a creative frenzy in the twilight of their existence, especially in the field of psychology. “The boundaries of the body open up new fields of creativity. […] The weaker the body, the more creative processes are activated,” writes French psychoanalyst Simone Korff-Sausse in a 2008 article published in the magazine Champ psychosomatique.
Professor Johanne Lamoureux recalls a classic of this indestructible vitality. Disabled by arthritis, Renoir continued to paint with brushes attached to his hands at the end of his life. He is said to have asked for brushes on his deathbed before dying on the night of December 3, 1919 at the age of 78.
His weakened eyesight forced the artist to invent a new style. His characters had vague facial features and distorted colors. It was still Renoir, but in a new style.
The “age style” interests art historians. “In times of urgency and time pressure, the artist must go straight to the point. Faced with motor disorders, visual or hearing impairments, memory impairments, a decline in intellectual abilities and slowing down, we have to invent other forms of creation,” says Simone Korff-Sausse in her article “The Creativity of Aging Painters.” The late works of Picasso, Klee, De Kooning.
The Old Man's Way
The psychoanalyst cites a number of artists who created innovative works at the end of their lives: “Michelangelo, Titian, the excerpts of Matisse, Zao Wou-Ki, Rembrandt, Renoir, Matta, Poussin, the black works of Goya, the water of Monet.” Lilies. At the end of his life, Cézanne opened the way to cubism and Monet the way to abstraction. In other artistic areas there are the final scenes of Goethe's Faust, Bach's Art of the Fugue, Beethoven's last quartets. »
Even in his 80s, Picasso claimed to have turned his back on the past, adding that he was only interested in the future. At the age of 82, this mad genius became interested in engraving, which requires less time than canvases. As feverish as he was at his peak, he completed 347 engravings at the age of 87.
The German painter Paul Klee embodied this burst of energy that invigorates certain artists at the end of their lives. Due to scleroderma, an incurable disease that affects the skin and internal organs, he begins a final creative phase “that expresses the shock of the disease.”
“Confronted with the idea of death and the end of his artistic production, the painter rejects the enslavement of the body by disease, in a movement of division between the person and the artist, the painter renounces his self in favor of his creation that comes to him always seems as if it comes from another place that precedes and surpasses it. “There are no signs of the work slowing down until the end,” writes psychoanalyst Simone Korff-Sausse.
Activity keeps you alive
She considers the painter Willem de Kooning, who lived to be 92, as another artist who benefited from failing health. He suffered from Alzheimer's and had stopped creating. One day, at age 76, a wave of inspiration set him on a new path.
“He changes his technique by applying the colors directly from the tube, scraping the canvas with knives to remove the excess, using an increasingly fluid and fluid color that seems to be lost as it dissolves, as if he wanted to represent the process.” psychological resolution that affects him,” says Simone Korff-Sausse.
The painter's wife notices that his mental health deteriorates whenever he is forced to rest due to illness. He will feel better once he can start painting again. And this is undoubtedly no coincidence, believes Dr. David Lussier from the University Institute of Geriatrics in Montreal.
“The best thing that can happen to my patients is to stay physically and mentally active as much as possible,” he says.
For example, the geriatrician recommends that older people attend music, cooking or language courses. Learning something new strengthens memory and can make life more enjoyable. Or less painful.
Without forgetting that these old men in excellent condition can undoubtedly teach the world two or three lessons. Maybe we should listen to them as Serge Fiori sang, a young man now barely 71 years old.