Bernard Mandeville - Tous les chemins mènent à l’abstraction

Bernard Mandeville - All roads lead to abstraction

One should not fear homonymy.

The painter Bernard Mandeville, whose artistic career began in 1935 and ended in 2001, was preceded in name and surname by a famous author of the 17th century, the father of the famous "Fable of the Bees", a true manifesto of liberal ideas that inspired politics and economics. This other Bernard Mandeville taught that men should be like bees: contribute to the collective good while seeking the satisfaction of their individual ambitions and impulses. Individualism, in a well-organized society, leads to the collective improvement, explained this first of the Mandevilles.

This purely nominative heritage does not seem to have weighed on the shoulders of our Bernard Mandeville. Especially since his singular work has contributed to the common good of the plastic arts. Seduced by the soft grays and misty landscapes of Rouen, his native city, he painted views of the Seine at a very young age in a style close to that of Joseph Delattre. After taking refuge in Auvergne during the war, he enriched his palette while darkening it, following in the footsteps of Nicolas de Staël.

In 1968, he moved to Paris and developed his own language, radically abstract but inspired by organic forms, rocks and shells. Our work is a perfect and fluid example, of a lyrical and sober abstraction at the same time. The subtle colors are like pastels, soft colors but with a strong presence.

Bernard Mandeville 1971 - Abstract composition

Later on, Mandeville moved towards more geometrical research, rediscovering the charms of right angles and structured constructions.

From this artistic journey of more than sixty years, we can draw a simple conclusion: nothing is more difficult to achieve than an abstract painting.

Whereas a figurative artist, with a little know-how, can give the illusion that he has mastered his subject, the enlightened amateur sees at first glance the weaknesses of an abstract work. The slightest deviation of the brush gives a clumsy, awkward result without one being able to define why. One may point to such and such a detail of the painting and feel that at that place, something is not right, not in harmony with the rest, either in the color or in the form.

It is enough to observe the work of Mandeville presented here to see what an important abstract artist is: someone who innovates and surprises but who achieves a balance without following any of the formulae of the art that preceded them.

https://www.honoredesarts.com/oeuvres/bernard-mandeville-composition-abstraite-datee-1971-abstract-art
Detail : delicacy and balance of forms and colors

Bernard Mandeville has been the subject of numerous exhibitions during his lifetime, notably in 1982 at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, and has worked with many writers and poets in an interdisciplinary way. He is being rediscovered and placed at his true value: one of the most significant and fertile French artists of abstraction of the second half of the twentieth century.

As the poet Eugene Guillevic wrote about his collages: "More or less color / Of plowed fields / One does not know where they came from / But they have to do / With the earth, / With its grain and its space." But Guillevic also perceived Mandeville's warnings, which resonate strongly today: "In this planet / On the way to any reality to be found, / Security / Is not assured. / One would be there / Often in over lead / Above abysses / Promising / Very long falls, / Probably / On spikes".

Or in French : « Plus ou moins de couleur / de champs labourés. / On ne sait d’où ils sont venus / Mais qui ont rapport / Avec la terre, / Avec son grain et son espace. » Mais Guillevic percevait aussi les mises en garde de Mandeville, qui résonnent fortement aujourd’hui : « Dans cette planète / En voie de toute réalité de se trouver, / La sécurité / N'est pas assurée. / On y serait / souvent en sur plomb / Au-dessus d'abimes / Prometteurs / De très longues chutes, / Probablement / Sur des pointes ».

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