The need to paint

It was in Champrosay, in the forest of Senart, in that beautiful house which one can still see today, that Delacroix opened the window one June morning and exclaimed, " Nothing to paint !" The endless tangle of branches and leaves, the weaving of plants, evidence of the competition of living things searching for light, is for the painter -faced with a loveliness which is both apparent and indefinable - one of the most beautiful challenges of visible nature. Where there is neither pattern nor contrast, the artist, the crafter of coloured surfaces, questions whether it is at all possible to express her feelings with the means at her disposal. This leads her further to reflect that resemblance can be analysed in more than one way.

Making visible objects recognisable in a work of art is one way of showing resemblance, showing their causes is another. A floating ship shows us one aspect of reality, but so does Archimedes´principle. Which is the better resemblance ? In the history of any object, which moment is the best to represent it pictorially ? What level of analysis should one choose ?

This is the question that both Leonardo Da Vinci and Delacroix asked themselves, and here Veronica von Degenfeld tackels it head on. Abstraction is not under the control of the artist ; whatever loosely drawn works they produce - there is always someone who will see what it represents - the meaning is also the product of the viewer. Between Paul Klee and Fra Angelico the amazement becomes purer as the `quotation of reality ´is renounced. This amazement is enriched through the complexity of origins, finds in the musical score of the surface a way to express itself.

If these things, called `imitation´( as in the Imitation of Jesus Christ ) were rational, they would no longer be inexpressible and wonderful.

This criss-crossed network of the world of gardens demonstrates a shared characteristic with the Hereafter. It resists all description. The way one finds to explain it must be similar to that of the mystics. Saint Theresa is Veronica´s painting teacher and for a good reason - Veronica seeks beauty as one seeks God, `feeling her way along´. She feels with the ultramarine and discovers that it is heaven etched out between the leaves.

From here, this painter invents an artificial order of things in which she both creates the rules and is keen to submit herself to them. She knows well that her created order is a reflection of her own beeing and that this is how she honours her Creator. She chooses as her model the laws of observation and concludes with the necessity of cause and effect. By inventing her own rules she submits herself to her Creator´s order.

The free the artist is, the more faithful she is - realism in painting is like quotations in a text - one must choose either to represent, or to invent a way that traces the order things. The talent In all this can be compared to the foreign body that provokes that marvelous nugget within a mollusk, a pearl. For the artist, talent is this fruitful suffering, never to be satisfied with what the eye perceives.

While we are making comparisons, Veronica´s painting reminds me of Messiaen´s music. Bird songs melt into the noble artistry of the instruments so that the music does not disturb the prayer of the listener. Perhaps one day, it may be necessary to have real flower petals in one of Veronica von Degenfeld´s paintings.

Philippe Lejeune
(translated from the original)