“We must simplify to reveal the meaning of art….
reduce its lines to eloquent contrasts, its tones to the seven fundamental colors of the prism.”
Emile Bernard

Introduction:

It all began with a rainbow. Created by the sun, its rays shone down through the atmosphere, and hence the myth which tells us that at the end of the rainbow, there is a pot, brimming over with the purest of gold and shining in all colors. However, gold is not only yellow. And the color yellow is not only yellow, as is the case for all colors. They are all part of the rainbow. They all have innumerable nuances hidden within them, and all these colors are brought out by light.

For light is the great sorcerer, when we speak of colors. The ability to create light in a painting is perhaps the most important quality for an artist when a painting is to be brought to life.

Looking closely at the artist Pia Fonnesbech’s paintings, what you see is light and color. Although each color is not just a single color, for the color unfolds and becomes a complete world of its own. Together, the colors build an entire universe of tones.

One can associate feelings with color, and for instance decide that blue is cold and red is warm. However, this becomes a cliché, as each color has its own enormous range of tones with deep and unexpected qualities. We often speak of complimentary colors, but the alchemy of colors is far more complicated. Color is a tale with no end. Color is a complete universe, where there are no words and the intellect does not exist.

For a passionate colorist like Pia Fonnesbech, the subject of the painting is more or less without importance. Whether she paints a mouse or a mountain, the colors will reveal more of the artist than the subject. She might paint a cherry, a pitcher or a Swedish wooden horse, the kind tourists buy. The subject is practically a pretext for the color. Pia Fonnesbech’s sense of color dominates her paintings. One could also say that color is a prism through which one sees the true nature of everything.

Paul Cézanne, a founding father of modern painting once said that art is a harmony that runs parallel to nature. He continued: “Instead of recreating exactly what I see, I use color arbitrarily to express myself more intensely. Art is by definition never the same as what it describes.”

Another great lover of color, Vincent van Gogh, stated it in the following terms: “Color expresses something on its own, it is indispensable, it must be used . . the result being more beautiful than the exact replica of the motive itself”.

Van Gogh’s phrasing has become a beacon of light for many artists, for whom color is an important part of the essence of painting. It is not a matter of creating an exact replica of the motives one paints. No, a painting has its own rules and creates its own version of reality.

Without colors…no painting. See for yourself in the paintings of Pia Fonnesbech.

It began with color

In 1905 a group of French artists exhibited their latest paintings at the “Salon d’Automne” in Paris. The exhibiting artists painted with vibrant and intense colors, their paintings were raw and spontaneous. The exhibition shocked the spectators.

The art critics had no idea of what to make of this new trend. One of them referred to the group as “les fauves”, the wild animals, which later led to the name Fauvists and Fauvism. Fauvism became an art movement, albeit short lived. Not long after the onset of Fauvism, the artists in the original group all moved in separate artistic directions.

Color and feeling
However, something had been started that could not be stopped. In the period that followed, several members of the group came to play an important role in western European art. Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck became the most famous. Raoul Dufy and the Belgian artist Kees van Dongen were also eminent examples of this new trend.

Derain summarized the new art movement in this way: “Colors became charges of dynamite. They were to blow out the lights. Everything would be raised above reality.” The Fauvists agreed that art, with the use of color and form, should be able to evoke an emotional experience.

Perhaps the brightest star of the Fauvists was Henri Matisse (1869-1954). With his clear pallet and consistent approach to color, Matisse created pictures that extended far beyond the decorative. Matisse said of his own work: “ My primary intention is to capture expression. I am unable to differentiate between the sensation of life and the method with which to express it. The most important role of color should be to support expression as much as possible. My dream is to attain the balance of art, purity and clearness, devoid of worrisome or depressive themes . .”.

The art of color – colorist
Matisse visited London for the first time in 1898. There, he began studying the great English master Henry Turner and his sense of color and light. In the same year Matisse continued on to Corsica and the south of France, where he painted a series of richly colored landscapes. He created a series of paintings, in which the color was almost unnatural, but somehow became the principle expression. Matisse formed his own school. He is one of the most appreciated artists of the 20th century, and still today has considerable impact on modern painting.

Naturally Matisse is not the only colorist in the history of art. Color plays a decisive role in more or less all painting, from the earliest cave-painting to pop-art and up to the painting of the present day.

The beautiful.
Color is connected to beauty and the pursuit of beauty has always been essential to art. Perhaps we should try to understand beauty and its complexity and try to make ourselves conscious of the psychological and visual elements of beauty.
Art is often influenced by beauty, which perhaps is due to the fact that we want art to make us become aware of beauty.

Now and in the future

Interesting things often happen when an artist moves across a frontier.
Earlier, artists went on “pilgrimages” to Italy, and there they met the great masters. Later, France became their objective. Today it would be Germany or the USA. Artists are by definition internationalists.

This also applies to Pia Fonnesbech. She is from an artistic point of view, a child of both Sweden and Denmark. She is also strongly influenced by the younger British artists. In Denmark one can place her in the generation of artists, who have “revived” painting. She has a truly genuine will to rediscover the possibilities of painting. After the group of Danish painters known as “De vilde” (the wild ones) regressed the level of painting to zero in the 1980’s, it has now reestablished itself, and many of the artists of this generation have returned to painting.

Matisse in Sweden
Pia Fonnesbech’s Swedish heritage is easily evident. Henri Matisse played an important role in Sweden. In 1910 –1911 the great Swedish painter, Sigrid Hjertén (1885-1948) was the pupil of Matisse. Hjertén belonged to a large group of artists, who wished to rejuvenate painting. For this group, naturalism had become a straitjacket. Moreover, Hjertén married another important Swedish artist, Isaac Grünewald. Together they renewed the expressionistic painting tradition in Sweden.

Hjerténs paintings are rich in color, often decorative and ornamental. Her euphoric brush work exudes energy, light and rhythm.

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) also came to play a decisive role for the Swedish art world. Especially his decorative and stylized paintings