FRANCOIS FIEDLER
FOUNDATION
Octave Nadal: … After Silence, 1983
“The silence into which Fiedler retired for almost ten years was a silence filled with admirable paintings, canvasses and
etchings. They impress for the powerful and solitary invention of this painter in the midst of informal art’s most dazzling and
vanguard fluctuations of our time.
In 1950 it seemed obvious that a painter with as sharp and also as sensitive an imaginative intuition of the art of the poet and
musician – and this from infancy – could not be concerned in an informal art of “problematicals”, as even today one likes to
imagine, and even less so in subproducts of informal figuration of a fashion or a spectacle. Who did not notice in his
canvasses the closed-open surrounding without abstraction? Impalpable waves of color had as their source the light which
itself murmured them, so that a kind of undulating movement of the modulated light without figuration could be felt.
Actually, from the very beginning the soul of a great painter had manifested itself in Fiedler and, in particular, in the new
technique of a pictorial subject matter ever more elucidated. His technique of undulation or punctuation was discovered from
the texture to the limit of space, that totalling astral quality of the colors or even including a certain counterpoint of the rhythms
all his own.” -
etchings. They impress for the powerful and solitary invention of this painter in the midst of informal art’s most dazzling and
vanguard fluctuations of our time.
In 1950 it seemed obvious that a painter with as sharp and also as sensitive an imaginative intuition of the art of the poet and
musician – and this from infancy – could not be concerned in an informal art of “problematicals”, as even today one likes to
imagine, and even less so in subproducts of informal figuration of a fashion or a spectacle. Who did not notice in his
canvasses the closed-open surrounding without abstraction? Impalpable waves of color had as their source the light which
itself murmured them, so that a kind of undulating movement of the modulated light without figuration could be felt.
Actually, from the very beginning the soul of a great painter had manifested itself in Fiedler and, in particular, in the new
technique of a pictorial subject matter ever more elucidated. His technique of undulation or punctuation was discovered from
the texture to the limit of space, that totalling astral quality of the colors or even including a certain counterpoint of the rhythms
all his own.” -
“Since 1970 Fiedler has been discovering a technique of undulation or punctuation of the
pictorial texture to the limit of space, the same as the totalizing astral movement of the
colors, and also a certain counterpoint to the very personal rhythms. In all these paintings
the action of a subject matter proceeding from its intrinsic elements of color and freeing its
virtualities is already affirmed, supported indefinitely in the space of the canvas like so
many other points of departure, springboards or posts. The intensity and the accent of the
texture resound by the fulminating beginning of the attack. It seems as if nothing hinders
the progression to the margin of the result. This new and sumptuous language of color is
vertiginously maintained in effect.“
pictorial texture to the limit of space, the same as the totalizing astral movement of the
colors, and also a certain counterpoint to the very personal rhythms. In all these paintings
the action of a subject matter proceeding from its intrinsic elements of color and freeing its
virtualities is already affirmed, supported indefinitely in the space of the canvas like so
many other points of departure, springboards or posts. The intensity and the accent of the
texture resound by the fulminating beginning of the attack. It seems as if nothing hinders
the progression to the margin of the result. This new and sumptuous language of color is
vertiginously maintained in effect.“
Untitled 1983 25x34in
“The importance of the rhythm already appears as primordial; soon it will be converted into the essential polarization: in all its
advances which up to now could be considered as extraordinary in art; vacillations, tremolos, oscillations and even a certain
incoherence, unwanted but real, advance in all directions, in all the diversity of the discordant and polyvalents of the color, like
so many other rebounds, echos, repercussions and correlations, and all of this indefinitely. The arabesque line that does not
now adorn but that paints, that does not balance but except in a continuous tripping; its forms and schemes are drawn and are
floating.
The infinite of indetermination: that is, then, the creator defect, the equivalent of the counterpoint in cadences of music and of
its wound or internal breakages. That rhythmic way, in these times, is always that which is sought most eagerly; but there are
others, also deeply studied, particularly that of the light. On the other hand, was it possible to separate one from the other?
We shall realize that the impalpable waves of light of the most recent canvasses have the same origin as the accents of color
murmuring them. There, in the informal painting, there is the first method, that I know of, of the modulated color-light without
figuration.”
“In any case, it occurs, and in particular in informal art, that our gaze has been forced, educated if you prefer, to capture the
fact of painting in its nudity. This obligation, under which we have found ourselves without power now to consider more than
only the intrinsic value of the picture, has little by little resulted in a less mental, infinitely more sensitive, reading. “A painting is
visual poetry”, said Leonardo da Vinci.
In his canvasses, the appearance of geometry without geometrics of course, the open-closed surrounding of the canvas
without any abstraction whatsoever, an art ruling simplicity and nakedness, an interiority enclosed within itself, all this is what
most impresses at the first moment. Fiedler has elucidated, really he has clarified and summarized the richness, the
exuberance and I would even go so far as to say the chromatic delirium of his fist works. Now he seems to be seeking in the
more sombre.”
“After having given life with magnificence to a profuse matter, he tries to restore to the picture the complexity of his renewed
naked base. There is today in his more finished canvasses a harmony or remoteness with the pain, the anguish, the absurd
which I do not know how to explain. A light, a faith vanquishes them. I believe that in Fiedler, the matter, in the course of the
action that creates it pictorially, resisting at the same time the treatment which gives it life, engenders, like the buds of modes
and structures, the same as the energy from its substance, unexpected routes that are converted into other many possibilities
and occasions to create. We would like to call him the painter of the silence in spite of or because of this profound life of the
soul that hurts us in the most intimate.”
advances which up to now could be considered as extraordinary in art; vacillations, tremolos, oscillations and even a certain
incoherence, unwanted but real, advance in all directions, in all the diversity of the discordant and polyvalents of the color, like
so many other rebounds, echos, repercussions and correlations, and all of this indefinitely. The arabesque line that does not
now adorn but that paints, that does not balance but except in a continuous tripping; its forms and schemes are drawn and are
floating.
The infinite of indetermination: that is, then, the creator defect, the equivalent of the counterpoint in cadences of music and of
its wound or internal breakages. That rhythmic way, in these times, is always that which is sought most eagerly; but there are
others, also deeply studied, particularly that of the light. On the other hand, was it possible to separate one from the other?
We shall realize that the impalpable waves of light of the most recent canvasses have the same origin as the accents of color
murmuring them. There, in the informal painting, there is the first method, that I know of, of the modulated color-light without
figuration.”
“In any case, it occurs, and in particular in informal art, that our gaze has been forced, educated if you prefer, to capture the
fact of painting in its nudity. This obligation, under which we have found ourselves without power now to consider more than
only the intrinsic value of the picture, has little by little resulted in a less mental, infinitely more sensitive, reading. “A painting is
visual poetry”, said Leonardo da Vinci.
In his canvasses, the appearance of geometry without geometrics of course, the open-closed surrounding of the canvas
without any abstraction whatsoever, an art ruling simplicity and nakedness, an interiority enclosed within itself, all this is what
most impresses at the first moment. Fiedler has elucidated, really he has clarified and summarized the richness, the
exuberance and I would even go so far as to say the chromatic delirium of his fist works. Now he seems to be seeking in the
more sombre.”
“After having given life with magnificence to a profuse matter, he tries to restore to the picture the complexity of his renewed
naked base. There is today in his more finished canvasses a harmony or remoteness with the pain, the anguish, the absurd
which I do not know how to explain. A light, a faith vanquishes them. I believe that in Fiedler, the matter, in the course of the
action that creates it pictorially, resisting at the same time the treatment which gives it life, engenders, like the buds of modes
and structures, the same as the energy from its substance, unexpected routes that are converted into other many possibilities
and occasions to create. We would like to call him the painter of the silence in spite of or because of this profound life of the
soul that hurts us in the most intimate.”
“Thanks to Fiedler, for the first time one can speak about fundamental space in painting.
(beginning and end). I shall explain: a space that establishes, in the strictest sense of the
word. In him, the always indeterminate but consistent pictorial fabric is affirmed in the only
matter, the color and the light. Time in art, or least for him, never leads to the order of the
past and, even less, to that of the old times. What is new for him cannot be but an
afterwards ahead of him; the same as a conversion: a converted future…. In his canvasses,
all his classical themes: lines, colors, values, intensity, dimensions, positions, orientations,
etc… are in constant relation with the space. This consonance is always of a pictorial order.”
(beginning and end). I shall explain: a space that establishes, in the strictest sense of the
word. In him, the always indeterminate but consistent pictorial fabric is affirmed in the only
matter, the color and the light. Time in art, or least for him, never leads to the order of the
past and, even less, to that of the old times. What is new for him cannot be but an
afterwards ahead of him; the same as a conversion: a converted future…. In his canvasses,
all his classical themes: lines, colors, values, intensity, dimensions, positions, orientations,
etc… are in constant relation with the space. This consonance is always of a pictorial order.”
Untitled 1983 25x36in
“He began very early to lighten matter, to place the light in the painting. This now comes from the brush stroke, from his
everlasting contact with the space. It irradiates towards the thickness of the reliefs and hollows. The pictorial depths and
outlines that were circulating do not have too much impression; at least, their mutual penetration is total. Perhaps this makes
one think of Kandinsky, who acts here, as prophet: dimension of distance maintained between the colors, independence from
the pictorial text and from the graphics that announce the lyrical abstraction. Certainly. But this dislocated play of pictorial
terms does not manage, never does manage to hide in his work the underlying cohesion and consistency of a basic, organic
and regulating chromatic consonance in his work. In Fiedler there still remains the priority of the space of the textural
elements.”
everlasting contact with the space. It irradiates towards the thickness of the reliefs and hollows. The pictorial depths and
outlines that were circulating do not have too much impression; at least, their mutual penetration is total. Perhaps this makes
one think of Kandinsky, who acts here, as prophet: dimension of distance maintained between the colors, independence from
the pictorial text and from the graphics that announce the lyrical abstraction. Certainly. But this dislocated play of pictorial
terms does not manage, never does manage to hide in his work the underlying cohesion and consistency of a basic, organic
and regulating chromatic consonance in his work. In Fiedler there still remains the priority of the space of the textural
elements.”
