The Nature of Nature

Paintings by Paul Butti (1924 - 2004), Charles Popelier (*1955), Jaap Wagemaker (1906-1972)
Photography by Jan Commandeur (1954-2024)

In Paris, after 1945, a free art emerges-a lyrical abstraction that explicitly breaks with pre-war realism. In the 1950s, from this free and often colorful abstraction, a sub-movement known as 'informal art' arises, or by its technical classification, 'matter painting,' represented by artists such as Alberto Burri, Antoni Tapiès, Emil Schumacher, Bram Bogart, and Jean Dubuffet. More or less recognizable figurative forms and elements disappear from the painting, and the material becomes an important means of expression. Jaap Wagemaker is the foremost exponent of this movement in the Netherlands. Wagemaker undertook several trips to North Africa and the Near East, and the impressions from those travels are prominently and recognizably reflected in his matter paintings.

In 1948, Paul Butti also connects with the post-war developments in Paris. Butti, who studied in his birthplace Tunis, had already lived and worked in Spain for several years. There, impressed by the work of great Spanish painters such as Vélasquez, El Greco, and especially Goya, he developed an expressionist, almost abstract oeuvre. In France, he discovers the beautiful landscapes of the Vaucluse, Gard, and Dordogne, which would become an important source of inspiration for his work. Butti does not attempt to reproduce nature; for him, painting is an expression of the spiritual that exists in the canvas and the paint itself. In his expressive work, the artist seems to struggle with the material, which is sometimes thick and at other times extremely diluted. While Wagemaker aligns himself with an international movement of material artists, Butti initially looks to the German Expressionists, and later, as his painting evolves toward a non-figurative expression, to American Abstract Expressionists like De Kooning and Pollock. He paints large formats where the content and depth must be expressed in the simplest way, a simplicity that arises from great mastery of technique.

In the 1970s, Jan Commandeur was part of the generation of artists who rediscovered painting. Although his work is abstract, it contains traces of the recognizable, similar to the work of De Kooning whom he admired. Throughout the years, the landscape has remained an inexhaustible source of his lyrical painting, with oil paint and gouache as the mediums through which he expresses his expressionistic vision of that landscape. He refers to his paintings as 'memory images' of nature. A few years ago, Jan Commandeur discovered photography as a means to shape his artistic expression. It started with a vase of wilted tulips, whose fallen petals formed a random composition on the table. After capturing this still life photographically, the painter saw the possibilities and opportunities for further exploration through photography-not as a tool or study for a painting, but as an independent image-maker in the hands of the artist. This led to completely abstract compositions inspired by nature, just as Commandeur seeks and achieves abstraction in painting by immersing himself in the landscape. The photographs in this exhibition are among the last works he completed.

For Charles Popelier, the physical experience evoked by a landscape is the starting point; there is no direct relationship with an existing landscape. Instead, he deconstructs the landscapes he has seen in Portugal, Spain, and France, and from these components assembles a new surface of the earth, just as he sometimes composes his paintings by reusing previously created materials, combined with paper, pigment, and binders. Thus, works emerge that appear as impressionistic landscapes from a distance but reveal a rugged, colorful, and earthy character up close.

The oeuvre of Jaap Wagemaker, Paul Butti, Jan Commandeur, and Charles Popelier shows the fascinating outcome of the post-war shift from traditional realistic forms to an abstract, material expression. Each of these artists explores in their own way the relationship between nature and art, drawing inspiration from personal experiences and the power of the material. Their work invites the viewer to reconsider the complexity of the natural world and to reflect on the ways in which we perceive and experience our surroundings.