The universal artist

The following is a composition from around 2001-2002, when I was a student at Bishop’s University. The teacher (10-15 years younger than I was) gave as a homework: to fill a 36′ x 48′ masonite board with whatever we wanted… So, I’ve painted the universal artist, the way I was seeing it : with the face of the old Camille Pissarro (an artist I love and respect a lot, a paternal figure of the Impressionist movement; at the time, I was reading his biography by Irving Stone, “Depth of Glory”, a history of misery and struggle, of daily heroism and “glory” at the very end…) and a “belly” full of canned – cheap – goods and spiritual nourishment: books… The “Depth of Glory” is there, too, just as well as “The Anglo guide of survival in Quebec” (which is kind of exagerated since I speak French as bad as I speak English…)

Anyway, at the time, I had a perception of the artist (or if you want the universal artist) more like an “artiste maudit”, since most artists lives are dramatic or even tragic ones. Even those, like Monet or Picasso, whom have known, in their more or less, old age the “glory”, had known also the struggle, the misery, even the extreme misery which we call “la deche” in French (destitute would be an aproximative translation). And there are a lot of good, even genial artists, like Van Gogh, whom have never known any real “glory” during their life… For them, the “glory” is always post-mortem...