painter artist
Jacques Cordier was born in 1937, the year of the Exposition Internationale at the Petit Palais, during which, the prestigious presentation: Les Maîtres de l’art independant 1895-1937, put into the forefront, artists such as Bonnard, Matisse, Derain, Braque, Picasso, Dufy… All of whom would later become the main inspiration for Jacques Cordier who, even as a small child, was interested in painting. His solid artistic studies however, did not make him an accomplished artist. Some hard work awaited him.
The catalog raisonné is in progress.
The admiration that I have for him as a person and an artist, has become deeper during our long lasting friendship. I know that his love for music has helped him in his work and participated in bringing us closer.
There is some Mozart or Rimbaud within him… he was always in such a state of concentration, he put his heart and soul into his painting… He was the matter, he was the light, he transformed himself into the meeting point of the sky and the sea where, for an instant, the beings and objects shivered and trembled. Contrary to the calligrapher, he did not copy the Creation, but imitated with humility, the gesture of the Creator.
The water colours of Jacques Cordier are a thousand reflections of the fundamental contrast between the eternal, the permanent and the ephemeral. Contrast also between the man and his works. The man was enthusiastic, curious about all around him, perpetually in movement but tortured by the anxiety of creation. The work however, is serene, calm and well balanced, almost classical, and exudes feelings of peace and fulfilment, it is creation at its strongest and clearest, because generated by emotion and the vision of the essential.
I knew Jacques Cordier more than 25 years ago and I encouraged him to continue what he had so well begun.In his painting, there is a poetic bareness and brightness that is similar to the ultimate refinement of the concept of art in Japan.I am pleased that the Japanese can discover these works of which the sea is his inspiration, for them, as for the artist, it is essential.
Intangible, floating painting, made of light, swirling mist and a palette of rich and precious colours. The landscape is no longer the subject, it is a pretext of a pure research of the rhythms of light, shimme- ring reflections, transparency, enchantment and cloudy haze.
He knew how to express his most precious moments where all around him was bathed in light, suspended in space, a space with no horizon. Only water colours could translate these dreamy instants, these flowing contours of which he was the Master.
I didn’t know Jacques Cordier. Only his works speak to me of his existence, through the colours and the hazy light that bathe the shapes and transform the familiar landscapes of Saint-Tropez. Phantasmagorical brief moments of dreams where the artist uses multiple chromatic variations for the subtle, intangible atmosphere that is suggestive, like an intimate vision beyond any pictoriality.
“You are the poet, so try to find the truth in the morning clouds. But I warn you, that when you have found it, there will still be an enigma hiding in the depths of the light. Was G. K. Chesterton thinking of Turner, his compatriot, when he made one of his characters say these words? For me, they are inseparable from Jacques Cordier’s works. Because Jacques Cordier was also this poet who found the truth in the morning clouds and who had us dazzled. He seemed to make the light, even brighter than the light itself. In some of his works, can be seen, the vibrant purity of the first instants of the Creation.
I know nothing about paintings but I love those of Jacques Cordier. They are cheerful and poetic, I can see Saint-Tropez in the blue and the grey that I love. It is painting that is full of sensitivity, of taste and of dreams.
The painting of Jacques Cordier dwells on the horizon of images, near and far, like a secret or a memory.
You have perfectly well siezed the harmonies of the sky, the water and the nature, and I particularly like your Saint-Tropez in the snow.
He invented a lot, this child who died so that justice could take its revenge for not existing. He invented the sky, Venice, the sea and certain clouds. Things that nobody had ever thought of touching… He touched. Scornful of the conventional shapes and colours, ignoring the cliché, the commonplace, the worn out. His sky was never an empty blue or grey, but a permanent storm and a flight of invisible angels. The palace of Venice was transformed by his brushes, into iridescent splashes, like those in the eyes of young girls hiding their regard when they are in love. The clouds and the sea often blend together superbly so that we sometimes regret ever having framed them, even in gold or steel. Painting is, above all, the respect of poetry, telling it in colour is not easy… Since he’s been gone, the sky, Venice, the sea and the clouds are things that I hardly look at any more.