Realism, Surrealism and Celebration
The Paintings of Alex Colville in the Collection of the National Gallery of Canada
Keywords:
Alex Colville, existence, art, human conditionAbstract
In this article published in 1966, Patrick A.E. Hutchings describes the plastic work of Alex Colville (1920), a Canadian painter, as an image of “concern for the present time and for life as it is”. The author links the concept of art to the notion of celebration, considering that this is precisely what Colville develops through his work: the celebration of the ordinary life of middle class people in a democratic society. Thus, Colville’s work must be understood not in terms of realism (like a snapshot taken with a Kodak camera), or surrealism (a delirious and incomprehensible subjectivity) but, rather, as a celebration of daily life. Some fifty years after its publication, the author’s perspective remains accurate. Colville’s work is an invitation to meditate on reality and the human condition.
(Abstract written by the translator, Hélène Trottier.)
