Tableaux sans paroles #3, 1973

Marlborough Godard, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto Sotheby’s Canada, auction, May 29, 2006, Toronto, Lot 39 Private Collection, Calgary

Roald Nasgaard, “Abstract Painting in Canada”, Vancouver/Toronto, 2007, pages 174-78 Roald Nasgaard and Ray Ellenwood, “The Automatiste Revolution”, Markham, 2009, pages 82-85 Fernande Saint-Martin, “McEwen”, 1953-73, Musee d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, 1973, not paginated

Jean McEwen’s distinctive approach to painting is rooted in texture and luminosity. Painting in Montreal, the artist was influenced by the Automatiste painters, especially Paul-Émile Borduas, and non-figurative all-over abstraction. Like Mark Rothko, McEwen’s large works on canvas overwhelm the viewer and seduce the gaze inwards. This strategic layered application of paint, and experimentation with the transparency and sensuality of material is a testament to the artist’s devotion to testing the limitations of the medium, focusing on the reduction of painting to convey the importance of the material. Building up the deep canvas with layers of paint, McEwen has used a palette of rich blacks and earthy browns, punctuated with bold inclusions of indigo and royal blue. The final layers of this work are the pure white thin layers of pigment built up into varying levels of transparency, exhibiting the ultimate contrast between light and dark. Fernande Saint-Martin writes that McEwen “repeatedly stresses that what is important to him is the establishment of chromatic juxtapositions so extreme and rich, that they impose themselves on the spectator. Colour is to McEwen a mutable and expressive element to which he can never refer in terms of single pigments: he tends to talk of ‘the yellows’ or ‘the purples’ in the plural, suggesting thereby the emotional impact and symphonic potential of colour in concert.” The resulting “Tableaux sans paroles #3” envelopes the viewer in a deep darkness; however, it is a comforting darkness. Rather than use a more aggressive or ominous red, McEwen’s use of blue references the darkness of nighttime, with the inclusion of white as the markers of dawn and light to come. Whereas many of the artist’s works bear titles referencing poetry, philosophy or the artist’s very personal emotion, “Tableaux sans paroles” translates to mean ‘paintings’ or ‘displays without words’. McEwen is referencing the tradition of leaving abstract works untitled, or with a generic title, to allow full subjective interpretation by the viewer. The viewer is then able to lose themselves in the depths of the artwork, in a meditative state. Roald Nasgaard writes: “His continuous coloured textures are built out of strata of superimposed paint layers, sometimes as many as a dozen. Their ever more variegated hues and tones lie in ambiguous depths, sometimes opaque and other times transparent and luminous. Light emanates from within them or it reflects from their surfaces, and often they seem dappled like sunlight in a Renoir nude.” The light both literally and figuratively bounces off this work. The shellac-like surface glistens in the light like the facets of raw obsidian, a nod towards the beauty and darkness found in nature, emulated in art.