Undisputed leader of graphic art in the sixties, he patiently reconquers, through his absolute pictorial mastery, the ground lost for a century by an avant-garde become feckless in its emancipation from the academic taboos of yesteryear.

For Georges YATRIDES there is no question of a return to traditional figurative art. As the painter of the invisible reality, he reveals to us what classical realist representation concealed from us, and what the various post-figurative schools of the XXth century were incapable of expressing. This is why Alexander BOURMEYSTER 's  work bears the title "Georges Yatridès and His Century", a century of reconquest of a pictorial space that has been dismembered, split into constituent elements, turned into a desert, deprived of meaning, hence of speech, and therefore of all human dimension. Yatridès has made this space -an absolute which can be reduced to zero degrees, the material of a universe that is his own, but one that he fills with human questionings. There is nothing too human (NIETZSCHE) in the tension that transcends canvases shot through by a timeless light, in a meeting point that at one and the same time criss-crosses the past, the present and the future.

Determinatio est negativo (SPINOZA). In vain do qualifying terms pursue YATRIDES in his course. Tachisme? Fauvist? Expressionist? Figurative? Classical? Mystic? Scientist? Esoteric? Neo-futurist? Biblical? Reductive terms that are always one step behind, these appraisals are consequently negative.

There remains the resort to systematic opposition: "Yatridès, the anti-Picasso"? The reader will realize that it is not a question of putting PICASSO on trial here, but of using him as a vital lead to arrive at the Theorem which governs YATRIDES '  vision of the world, to have access to a door to which Picasso's work fails to provide the key.

 

As our century draws to a close, it will at least be able to boast of one thing, to have given birth to this monster, to which it is as yet unable to give a precise name, having failed to properly weigh it up : the "media"? audio-visual communications? Show-biz? It is in any case the global power of our era, of our civilisation. It feeds upon the remnants of institutions, the left-overs of past cultures : cultures which disappeared with the ending of festivals that celebrated the freedom of constraints and conventions; conventions that were the very conditions underlying the continuance of these cultures. In Georges YATRIDES '  painting, it is the very fate of painting itself that is at stake. Better equipped than most, YATRIDES is armed for this showdown with a monster who has already devoured many others.

Throughout his creative activity, the painter, and here naturally I think of YATRIDES, enters into a veritable conflict with the Other, "both demon", who suggests ill-supported solutions, and his conscience, which challenges him and forces him to go farther in his exploration. YATRIDES constantly comes up against this Other in this prime matter that he questions and that he masters, in order that it reveal its secrets and give him answer.

The pictorial mastery, the exploration of the space that it reveals, the metaphysic enquiry that accompanies it are one and the same thing in this creative process. When YATRIDES has completed a painting, he has answered those questions he posed, or what is more, resolved the technical difficulties that he had first imposed.

So, it is not surprising that he should have answered those questions that the viewer does not as yet know can be formulated.

Alexander  BOURMEYSTER Doctor-Professor Sémiologist '  analysis - Grenoble III  University

[ His work ] [ Main page ] [ His life ] [ Index of repertories ]

[ Yatridès and other people ]  [ Picasso - Yatridès ] [ Vélasquez-Picasso ] [ The Biblical Icons - Yatridès ]

[ Léonard da Vinci ] [ Raphaël ] [ Botticelli ] [ Menzel-Manet ] [ Matisse ] [ Gauguin - Yatridès ]

[ Yatridès-Clarke-Kubrick ]

Englsh translation by Penelope Hamilton

Extracts from following documents and works :
Official Authorities : "Administrative Biography"

Arthur Conte : "Yatridès master of time" SGL 04.03.1991
Sacha Bourmeyster : "Yatridès and his century" , "Yatridès the painter of invisible reality" , "Yatridès anti-Picasso"SGL24.03.1994, "Interstellars Icons" SGL 31.03.1994, "Yatridès and the Bible" SGL 30.10.96
Samuel E. Johnson : Biographic notes (International Galleries USA)
Monographic catalogues, Yatridès 1954-1993 : Exhibitions (USA permanently, Latin America, Switzerland, Greece, Paris, Provincial France) and Rétrospectives
Monographic catalogues, Yatridès in International Art Festivals :"Great Master Guest of honour" ("International Biennials Canada-France 1987-1989"), "Main Master Guest of honour" ("International Biennials Canada 1988"), "Great Master Guest of Honour" ("International Biennials Vichy, Riom Mozac (Duke's cities), Quebec 1991-1993"), Grand Maître invité d'Honneur
Monographic catalogues, Yatridès : "Main Master guest of Honour" (France, specially Montmorency residential City)
Schools of Painting Events, USA : "Masters of Modern Art 1910-1960" (Special mention in "Watercolors, Gouaches, Pastels and Drawings from the Cubist, Post-Impressionist, Expressionist and Surrealist Schools 1910-1960"), "Drawings and Watercolors 1900-1959" (Art Event following this held by the American Ambassy in Paris (Musée de l'Orangerie, winter 1958-1959 : "From Clouet to Matisse" - Drawings in American Private Collections"), "Specialists in XXth Century Masters" (Special mention in "Collector's Choice").
University theses "The painter outside the tumult" (Sciences et Télécommunications Masters', MSTC Universities Grenoble III 1981), "Public Relations and communications techniques in the service of Painting -Yatridès" (Lehodey-Dissertation mémoire 402 pages, 1983 - School of Press Attachés, Founder and Managing director : Denis Huismans)
Films et videos : "Yatridès, paintings rails of sky" (Sacré-Coeur Montmartre Paris, Provideo S.A. 1981), "Yatridès the painter outside the tumult" ("René Char" Provideo S.A. 1983), " Yatridès' Art" (Version Originale S.A. 1985), "Germany, Poland, Russia" 1984. See "His Work" and in "His Life" : "Bibliography".
YATRIDES ' WORK has fascinated film-makers, movie-directors, semiologists, among the best of our time.
See in this website "His life" : "Entourage" in which appear "Jean DELANNOY", "Marcel CARNE" famed movie Directors, film-Makers and in "His work" : "YATRIDES - KUBRICK".

Société des Gens de Lettres et ADAGP
Copyrights © 1945-1997, "Association "Yatridès and his century", Tous Droits Réservés.