Medveten rörelse och strukturerad spontanitet : En stilstudie av tre verk av Pierre Alechinsky

Sammanfattning: The Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky (1927– ) is the last living member of Cobra (Copenhagen Brussel Amsterdam), a European avant-garde art movement, which was active between 1948 and 1951. The aim of this study is to examine the style of Alechinsky as it evolved after 1951 while also providing an introduction to the art of Alechinsky to a Swedish audience. To do so, I focus primarily on three of Alechinsky’s artworks: Migration (1951), Central Park (1965) and Passerelle (II) (1986). The theoretical framework is derived from Michael Baxandall’s book Patterns of Intention (1985), which explains historical objects through the cultural context in which they were created. The analyses are based on terms borrowed from Jan-Gunnar Sjölin’s semiotic method from Att tolka bilder (1998), and focus on the artworks’s materiality, comprising the use of materials, plasticity and verbal meanings.   The results show that Alechinsky incorporates stylistic features, such as Japanese calligraphy, derived from his trips abroad and his interactions with fellow artists. A shift from abstraction to figuration occurred between the earlier Migration and later Central Park. Alechinsky’s style in Central Park and Passerelle (II) is characterised by his use of sidenotes and marouflage while blending figurative and abstract images. Alechinsky’s style in the later artworks includes the usage of Indian ink as well as clear acrylic colours. Both Central Park and Passerelle (II) include brushwork and organic shapes, which between the two artworks have similarities with each other. The brushwork for example, creates lines that creates movement which can be seen in the central pictures of Central Park and Passerelle (II). Alechinsky’s style is also characterised by square and rectangular shapes that contains pictures. It is a style in the grey zone of abstraction and figuration, where conscious movement and structured spontaneity meet.