Motherism

The main feature of motherism is an abstract painting using various non-traditional materials added to the canvas, preserved as the main support of the work and processed in thickness and impasto using zinc oxide , calcium carbonate or polymerized oil , with impurities such as: sand , gravel , plaster , wax , tar , rags , wood , thread , pieces of glass , scrap metal , botanical elements and so on. In addition to adding these atypical materials, the artist could grind the surface of the graphic material with various tools or with his bare hands, leaving traces of scratches, cuts or even prints of patterned objects or use varnish, which caused deformation, cracking and cracking, and the surface could be deformed or partially destroyed with using cuts, punctures or burns. The colors of the canvases could vary, and the compositional canvas could consist of distinguishes between areas with or without added material ^[2] .

Before the movement began, there were precedents in the history of art when other artists casually handled the canvas or introduced elements into it that were foreign to painting.

The Cubists included in their collages atypical materials, sand, newspaper articles or packs of cigarettes, for example, Pablo Picasso in the painting “ The Head of a Man in a Hat” (1912–13) used coal, oil painting, ink, sand and paper sticks or Georges Braque in the work " Compote, bottle and glass" (1912), used canvas, oil and sand. The Dadaists already had a special way of processing the surface of the canvas (cuts, folds), as an example, Paul Klee in the painting " Anatomy of Aphrodite" , (1915), Jean Arp in the painting "Der Hirsch" (1914). In the works of the readymade of Marcel Duchamp “The Bicycle Wheel” (1913), Raul Hausman and Ray Man, one can see anticipation of the art of assemblage , some work was performed on surfaces other than the canvas (wooden boards, metal, etc.); while the Cubist sculptures of Picasso and Henry Loren influenced Russian avant-garde artists such as Vladimir Tatlin ("pictorial reliefs" and "counter-reliefs" of 1914) or Ivan Puni " Compositions " (1915).

Finally, the surrealists also began to apply various materials to the canvas, for example, Andre Masson in the painting “ Dead Horses,” (1927 goal), used oil and sand on canvas, Salvador Dali “ Rotten Donkey ”, (1928), used oil, sand, gravel on wood, Joan Miro , in "With ollage" , (1929), used resinous paper, pencil, sandpaper, wire, stitched fabrics glued to laid paper laid on plywood.

As for the processing of fine material, in addition to the “scratching” used by Antoine Pevsner in the painting “The Disguised Woman” (1913), then Max Ernst , Paul Klee or Esteban Frances, the artists began to use wax, the pioneers were Camille Briand in 1936 and Victor Browner in 1943. The latter will also be one of the first to attach objects directly to large canvases, preserving their supporting role, for example, celluloid dolls and artificial plants. Finally, Simon Huntai will even introduce animal skeletons.

Informational artists or those in America who succeed in abstract expressionism use the same methods, also restoring the idea of ​​combining everyday objects or waste from the canvas ( new realism , pop art , COBRA , etc.). However, taking into account the size and different nature of the materials (wood, metal, plastic). Most of these works are then more easily assimilated with assemblage obtained as a result of a Dadaist or surrealistic example, or even with three-dimensional works or real sculptures (Lee Bonteku, Martial Reis , Daniel Sperrri , etc.) ^[3] .

Jean Fotrier praises the materiality of his paintings and shows them to "objects." To the unreality of the absolute “informal”, which, in his opinion, cannot be deprived of the real part to evoke emotion, he adds a protest against the practice of “liberated configuration”, the formula of which also applies to other artists, such as Wols or Henri Michaud .

Jean Polan writes about Jean Fotrier ’s technique , that he made himself a material that stores watercolors and frescoes, tempera and gouache, where crushed pastels are mixed with oil, ink and gasoline. Everything is hastily applied to greasy paper and the coating sticks to the canvas. The ambiguity, in a sense, leaves the subject. ^[four]

In a context in which existentialism dominates, Jean Dubuffet presents his art as a creative process, from which the viewer should be able to survive the development thanks to the traces left by the artist. He explores several methods of processing his canvases ( Paysage Vineux , (1944); Dhôtel nuancé d'abricot , (1947); La Mer de peau , (1958), Hautes Pâtes series of paintings (1946), Pâtes battues (1953 year), Peintures laquées (1954), he uses different types of assembling.Hungarian artist Zoltan Kemeni will use the same techniques, adding pieces of metal, for example, the work of Orient Fair , (1948), he uses a relief collage on the panel, mortar, oil, plaster, metal, rags ^[5] .

Anthony Tapies , exhibiting his works for the first time in 1948 at the Salon on October 1 in Barcelona, ​​shows a special interest in cuts, cuts, knots and scratches in his compositions. He describes his work as “battlefields where wounds multiply endlessly”, devoid of all anecdotal features and “supporting, as he says, all imaginary, unconscious, anachronistic impulses ...”. He also conducts research on this subject. The graphic and plastic elements that he uses are on canvas, forming his own universe. He processes the surface , and also uses the techniques of impasto , scraping, as well as the collage technique. It is by mixing glue and dye, sometimes associated with sand, dust, earth, marble powder, velvet, straw, paper and objects such as rags, ropes or blankets, that Tapies finds a completely original medium, the material with which he expresses the depth, forms, shadow, light, working with tools, as well as with your own body. In this matter, hard, thick, sandy, in this texture, which is both magma, lava and silt, the artist writes in cuts and cuts. The cross takes various forms, spots, rectangular shapes (which are similar to enclosed spaces, walls, closed shutters), the letter T as a signature are repeating elements of its plastic vocabulary. Of his works, one can note ( Collage de riz et cordes , (1949), Le feu intérieur , (1953), Peinture avec croix rouge , (1954), Rideau de fer au violon , (1956). x years he collaborated with Manolo Millares, Antonio Saura and many other artists.

In 1948, Alberto Burri exhibited his first abstract works at the Galería La Margherita in Rome , and then in 1949 in Paris at the Salon des realités nouvelles. It was during this time that his series " Catrami " (tars) and " Muffe " ( rot ) were dated . In 1950, he founded the Origin art group with Ettore Colla. Then he develops the collage technique and introduces into his painting the use of dissimilar elements borrowed from everyday reality, using at the same time materials that decompose when used, such as burnt wood and rags. His research, which is of direct interest to critics, raises speculations about the “waste aesthetics” that are critical to art brut and new realism . In 1952, he began making his famous Sacchi series (bags), in which he included burlap bags, which he painted, scraped and dipped in glue before covering them with used cloth and other materials. Since 1969, he used in his work pieces of wood, rusty metal sheets deformed from great heat, burnt plastic. Since 1973, he began to create a series of " Cretti " (cracks), the works were very large compositions that used resins that resembled cracking of sun-dried mud. The use of cracks as a rhythmic process resembles ancient Chinese ceramics (Cesare Brandi). Finally, in the 1970s, Burri began introducing cellotex (mixed sawdust and glue) with a very small number of colors: black, white and gold.

Back in 1949, Lucho Fontana began to paint monochrome surfaces and “mistreat” them, making holes or cuts on the canvas. He calls the new type of work “The Cosmic Concept ”. In 1950, he founded spacialism , a movement in which other artists such as Roberto Crippa , Enrico Donati and Emilio Scanavino participated . Specialist artists no longer attach themselves to the color and painting of the canvas more than to create a three-dimensional graphic design on it, motivated by the capture of movement in space-time through awareness of the hidden natural forces of elementary particles and light that act uncontrollably on the surface of the canvas .

Due to an accident that damaged one of the artist’s paintings planned for an exhibition in Paris , Fontana then fixes this damage with a sovereign gesture of scratches, punches and a cut of the plane of the picture with a blade, razor, and cutter to reveal three-dimensional space.

Jacques Dawse of the COBRA group also changes the surface of some of his paintings, for example, Equilibrists (1948), and among the artist members of the Gutai group , founded in Japan by Jiro Yoshiharo and shown in Europe by Michel Tapi . So Kazuo Shiraga draws with bare feet, the canvases are created when the artist, holding the rope hanging from the ceiling, creates the work only with his feet, while Shozo Shimamoto tears the painting, damages the canvas and uses a cannon that projects enameled paint. The performances of the Gutai group will greatly influence the Fluxus movement.

• Pintura matérica en arteuniversal
• Lengerke, Ch. von, La pintura contemporánea. Tendencias en la pintura desde 1945 hasta nuestros días , in Los maestros de la pintura occidental , Taschen, 2005, P. ISBN 3-8228-4744-5