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Milwaukee painter Jean Roberts Guequierre has been inspired by the Flemish primitives for many years.
In her new body of work in Madison, she focuses exclusively on the ideas of one Bruegel painting, Children’
s Games, of 1560, which inventories fun activities like Ring Toss, Bang the Pot, Tug of War, etc., all enacted
by hundreds of children in the streets of a village scene. Guequierre pries apart Bruegel’s composition and
offers 12 small oil paintings each featuring one game. Some of her themes are direct quotes from Bruegel
and others are invented, but still based on painting conventions of the 16th century.
The Year of the Leapfrog, 2005, shows two pairs of kids engaged in jumping over each other and a third
child crouched over, ready to be leaped. The gestures are taken directly from the center of Bruegel’s
painting, with a little rearranging by Guequierre and a new setting of a hill and landscape instead of a
village. She brightens the palette, isolates the figures against a crisp blue sky and essentially lets us see
Bruegel better than if we were seeing Bruegel. The Flemish master’s compositions offer way too much
information for the eye to handle. We skim his paintings, landing here and there, but there really is no
focus. Bruegel uses color to guide us, punctuating the busyness and even flow of imagery with repetitive,
rhythmic patches of blue and red. His compositions are like a dance, without start or finish or emphasis,
perhaps compositionally mirroring the endless flow of human life and motion.
Guequierre’s paintings, on the other hand, let us focus on one activity and the abstracted gestures of the
physical forms. She also uses red and blue to punctuate the compositions and adheres to Bruegel’s lack
of shadows which keeps everything hovering on the surface, not quite grounded in real place or time. But
what Guequierre gives us is the chance to “leapfrog” from a distant place and time and a vague history of
an old master to our contemporary concerns, which in her mind, haven’t changed too much. The
symbolism of Bruegel slides easily into the contemporary realm.
These paintings are in no way just faux old-master works. The dislodging of details and the isolation of the
narrative, as well as the pastiche of quoting and influences, put her paintings fully within a postmodern
context, adrift from any solid notion of reality based on authentic experience.
In her exhibition statement, the artist points out that “games present a paradox.” “Played under strict rules,
they allow their players – taking on roles of severe aggression or acute vulnerability – to behave as they
might if there were no rules at all.”
A painter abides by rules and is tethered to history whether he/she likes it or not, or even acknowledges it.
Some artists know how this works and often let their audiences know that they know. Guequierre makes it
the primary substance of her paintings, bringing the rules of 16th century culture and art making to the
forefront for reevaluation. Can these rules make for an interesting image today? Can pictures that tell
stories be both disjointed (contemporary) and linear (historic)? Guequierre thinks so and what results are
beautiful little paintings that are somehow both meaningful and meaningless.
As a painter, Guequierre likes the little things to speak clearly. The underpinning of painting, of course, is
drawing, which in each of these compositions is fully visible and active in the tiny cross-hatching that
shapes her images. This adds a delicate layer of texture to these paintings, similar to an etching line.
What are the essential rules of the game of painting? Line, color, form. Each of these compositions
speaks of how those elements work to construct an image as well as how games are really simple
parables of the challenges of human life.
- Debra Brehmer
Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com
In her new body of work in Madison, she focuses exclusively on the ideas of one Bruegel painting, Children’
s Games, of 1560, which inventories fun activities like Ring Toss, Bang the Pot, Tug of War, etc., all enacted
by hundreds of children in the streets of a village scene. Guequierre pries apart Bruegel’s composition and
offers 12 small oil paintings each featuring one game. Some of her themes are direct quotes from Bruegel
and others are invented, but still based on painting conventions of the 16th century.
The Year of the Leapfrog, 2005, shows two pairs of kids engaged in jumping over each other and a third
child crouched over, ready to be leaped. The gestures are taken directly from the center of Bruegel’s
painting, with a little rearranging by Guequierre and a new setting of a hill and landscape instead of a
village. She brightens the palette, isolates the figures against a crisp blue sky and essentially lets us see
Bruegel better than if we were seeing Bruegel. The Flemish master’s compositions offer way too much
information for the eye to handle. We skim his paintings, landing here and there, but there really is no
focus. Bruegel uses color to guide us, punctuating the busyness and even flow of imagery with repetitive,
rhythmic patches of blue and red. His compositions are like a dance, without start or finish or emphasis,
perhaps compositionally mirroring the endless flow of human life and motion.
Guequierre’s paintings, on the other hand, let us focus on one activity and the abstracted gestures of the
physical forms. She also uses red and blue to punctuate the compositions and adheres to Bruegel’s lack
of shadows which keeps everything hovering on the surface, not quite grounded in real place or time. But
what Guequierre gives us is the chance to “leapfrog” from a distant place and time and a vague history of
an old master to our contemporary concerns, which in her mind, haven’t changed too much. The
symbolism of Bruegel slides easily into the contemporary realm.
These paintings are in no way just faux old-master works. The dislodging of details and the isolation of the
narrative, as well as the pastiche of quoting and influences, put her paintings fully within a postmodern
context, adrift from any solid notion of reality based on authentic experience.
In her exhibition statement, the artist points out that “games present a paradox.” “Played under strict rules,
they allow their players – taking on roles of severe aggression or acute vulnerability – to behave as they
might if there were no rules at all.”
A painter abides by rules and is tethered to history whether he/she likes it or not, or even acknowledges it.
Some artists know how this works and often let their audiences know that they know. Guequierre makes it
the primary substance of her paintings, bringing the rules of 16th century culture and art making to the
forefront for reevaluation. Can these rules make for an interesting image today? Can pictures that tell
stories be both disjointed (contemporary) and linear (historic)? Guequierre thinks so and what results are
beautiful little paintings that are somehow both meaningful and meaningless.
As a painter, Guequierre likes the little things to speak clearly. The underpinning of painting, of course, is
drawing, which in each of these compositions is fully visible and active in the tiny cross-hatching that
shapes her images. This adds a delicate layer of texture to these paintings, similar to an etching line.
What are the essential rules of the game of painting? Line, color, form. Each of these compositions
speaks of how those elements work to construct an image as well as how games are really simple
parables of the challenges of human life.
- Debra Brehmer
Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com
Children’s Games
Jean Roberts Guequierre
James Watrous Gallery
Wisconsin Academy of sciences, arts and letters
In the Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street, Madison
Through December 3, 2006
Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s paintings from the 1500s are
the “Where’s Waldo” images of the Flemish
Renaissance.
Often grouped with his predecessor, Hieronymus Bosch
(1450-1516), who painted fantastical nightmares,
Bruegel preferred detailed images of peasant life. Both
artists used allegory and parable to speak on multiple
levels about humanity and culture. For example, a
painting such as Bruegel’s Blue Cloak illustrates 90
different Netherlandish proverbs within one village scene.
Jean Roberts Guequierre
James Watrous Gallery
Wisconsin Academy of sciences, arts and letters
In the Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street, Madison
Through December 3, 2006
Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s paintings from the 1500s are
the “Where’s Waldo” images of the Flemish
Renaissance.
Often grouped with his predecessor, Hieronymus Bosch
(1450-1516), who painted fantastical nightmares,
Bruegel preferred detailed images of peasant life. Both
artists used allegory and parable to speak on multiple
levels about humanity and culture. For example, a
painting such as Bruegel’s Blue Cloak illustrates 90
different Netherlandish proverbs within one village scene.