Comme une fleur inespérée

Combien fallut-il de toiles gagnées pour qu'une toile, enfin, lui fût donneé?

Parfois en cours de route, presque toujours au terme d'un long effort stérile, soudain le pouvoir de peindre surgit, fulgurant, de la fatigue, de l'abandon, comme une fleur inespérée.

Elle jalonnent ce long chemin obscur, comme une promesse de cette grande fleur qui lui sera peut-être offerte, au point extrême de ses forces.

Jean Bazaine, Exercice de la peinture, 1973

Complying finally to repeated requests by my scores of followers, I hereby publish the most recent acquisition to my personal collection: a landscape painting by Jozef Vinck (1900-1979). This is how I encountered it on the website of an auction house in Ostend:

The title, which I suspect is arbitrary, is 'Landschap met wandelaars'. "Hark," I hear you say, "how can this simple man afford such biblical wealth?" Well, the painting is signed, but not dated, which partially accounts for the low price, and therefore my ability to afford it. This is how it looks without the lot number. The colour balance of my photograph, however, is less satisfactory.

The fact that one can acquire a painting by Jozef Vinck for between 500 - 2000 euro, is a dreadful yet in equal measure fortunate fact. The true value of his work is inestimable, which would make it impossible for a man of humble means such as myself, to own one. Moreover, you would be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of his paintings in public collections. On show, that is. Currently, the (art) world is not susceptible to what is generically called the intimism of the so-called Animists. It is not loud enough, it does not showcase virtuosity, the 'subject matter' is perceived as being too pedestrian, it does not refer to, or defer to the monocular tyrant that is photography - it seems that most of us are blind to the painterly power, the eternal elements of light and space, that we are deaf to the 'chant' of a true painting. I feel slightly embarrassed that this situation allows me to buy his work at a knock down price, yet on the other hand, I imagine that Vinck would approve of me caring for his work.

Not being dated, one cannot but hazard a guess. My first landscape by Vinck supposedly dates from the early sixties, based on comparison with similar works. This is it - a winter landscape:

At a guess, the 'Landschap met wandelaars' could possibly date from slightly later, God willing from the early years of his retirement from his professorship at the Higher Institute in Antwerp, when his 'productivity' shot up, and his painting flourished, when Jozef Vinck was "au point extrême de ses forces."