Artist : LEDANNOIS Jean-Marie (1940-2014)
Title : Abstract Landscape (after 1975)
Medium : Mixed, oil and gouache on classic paper
Type of work : Original painting, stamped signature on the back with mention Atelier Ledannois
Dimensions : 105 x 75 cm
Condition : Good
Provenance : Artist's studio sale, the invoice engages the responsibility of the gallery as to the authenticity of the work.
Expert's comments : To understand the work of Jean-Marie Ledannois (1940-2014), you have to know its context of creation. He is a nature lover who takes great pleasure in working while listening to classical music in his studio in the countryside. No wonder then that his paintings speak of the four elements that make up this nature. Water, air, earth and fire therefore guide the choice of its color palette. The subjects of his paintings are not limited to the landscapes themselves, it is also the encounter between the reality he observes and his unconscious, the emotions that emerge from it. "The artist also draws from it the satisfaction of who knows what intimate desire, a vague feeling of reunion that brings relief and relaxation" (1). Its goal is then to provoke emotions in the viewer which allow him to seek his own sensitivity. The gouaches of Jean-Marie Ledannois advise the viewer to focus his attention on the present moment or even to meditate. It allows him to escape the spiritual aridity of our consumerist world. The artist projects his own dualities into his canvases and provokes in the viewer contrasting emotions such as joy and melancholy, appeasement or energy. It is true that Jean-Marie Ledannois's painting is both raw and nuanced, feminine and virile, sensitive and happy. From the point of view of creation, Jean-Marie Ledannois prepares the color with patience, he is quick in the execution but meticulous, attentive and careful concerning the technique. He is also ambidextrous: in the right arm, he has strength and in the left arm, precision. This technique, Régis Debray describes perfectly in his essay on the artist: "The art of painting begins with the choice of the brush, then with small quick strokes, the brush carefully brushes the paper which is covered with color. The painter works by superposition and changes brushes with each layer. In the meantime, he passes a dry brush to bring out the grain and soften the first color applied in transparent areas. Each gouache is a meeting, it takes 3 to 4 canapes in total before finding the perfect balance between the painter's unconscious and the metamorphoses of color. "(1).
(1) "Ledannois (essay on the painter Jean-Marie Ledannois)", Éditions Pierre Horay, Paris, 1977
Artist's biography : Jean-Marie Ledannois (born in Sannois in 1940 and died in Boissy-Mauvoisin in 2014) is a French painter, lithographer and ceramist. Jean-Marie Ledannois is the pseudonym of Jean-Marie Boudot hence his JMB Monogram on some of his works. He was a student at the Ecole Superieure des Arts Appliques et Métiers d'Art while at the same time being a ceramicist student in the studio in Paris of Annie Martin-Talboutier, wife of the sculptor Etienne Martin. From 1960 and for more than 50 years, he regularly exhibited his gouaches and oils on canvases in galleries around the world and participated in many international contemporary art fairs including the first FIAC in 1974 with the MELKI gallery (Rue de Seine in Paris). The countryside near Paris where he lives is a source of inspiration and he regularly receives his great artistic and literary friendships, including Régis Debray who will devote an essay to him entitled "Ledannois (essay on the painter Jean-Marie Ledannois)", Éditions Pierre Horay , Paris, 1977. He also directed the Abel-Lauvray art center in Mantes la jolie from (1998 to 2005) and was a professor within the movement of contemporary artists in Yvelines. His path follows that of the history of art with 3 distinct periods in the artist's work. He is Influenced by Joseph ALBERS (1888-1976), Jean BAZAINE (1904-2001), Jean FAUTRIER (1898-1964), Alfred MANESSIER (1911-1993), Mark ROTHKO (1903-1970) and Willem de KONING (1943- 1997). Its movements of belonging are in chronological order: Lyrical abstraction, geometric abstraction and abstract landscaping .. Common point of these periods, an art which finds its inspiration in nature and acts on our sensitivity through colors and their symbolic duality.
References : "Ledannois (essay on the painter Jean-Marie Ledannois)", Éditions Pierre Horay, Paris, 1977. See photos below.
Art reviews on the work of Jean-Marie LEDANNOIS : “In this tear in the horizon, you can see landscapes, they are there, but my point goes beyond description. I want to try to paint what is behind the landscape, to paint the indefinable of light, to paint the subtle or violent emotion of the meeting between the outside and myself. This is why I gradually eliminated figuration, anecdote, even forms that can lead to confusion. My goal is not to tell a story but to provoke the discourse of the spectator, it is he who, going to meet one or the other of these paintings, will seek his own sensitivity: the colors have a transformative power of sensitivity and mood. Have you never been hit and transformed in front of a sunset (I take this example because I am often asked)? It is neither the sun, nor the sky or the earth which suddenly invades you, they are there twenty-four hours a day, but it is a privileged moment when the harmony of colors touches you and transforms you. "- Jean Marie Ledannois​
“The works of Jean-Marie Ledannois, in particular his dark blue and ocher gouaches, underline a spirit of rigor, clarity, a desire to approach the imagination in its most meticulous form. The colors used are then of an almost diaphanous subtlety and softness. They reveal a mysterious atmosphere, made of relentlessness. Also the inspiration which animates his compositions is therefore of a precious refinement. "- Jean-Marie Tasset
"... There is indeed a nobility, a refinement, an obvious subtlety in the gouaches of Jean-Marie Ledannois, a tense sobriety which is expressed through large generally rectangular planes in which circulates a luminous transparency, a colored modulation. , a delicate but dense space from which emerges the mystery of man, his simplicity and his presence. At the age of thirty-three, Jean-Marie Ledannois achieves a rare physiological-intellectual balance, a sign of a talent which can only be affirmed. "- Henry Galy-Carles
"Ledannois measures the color, the material (sand, synthetic fiber), in his" not quite rectangular "which on the canvas overlap, isolate, multiply in a different texture, a tone that goes from the lightest to the darker. This painter likes the use of the repeated form which will allow him to create an illusion of depth: this series of overlapping planes develops a visual articulation, highlights an emotion of a purely plastic order which tends to perfection, expresses harmony in a clear and powerful way. "- Monique Dittière
“We will evoke MONDRIAN what is improper. We should rather look on the side of MALEVITCH for whom rigor is a way of crossing the threshold of realism. To transcend the pictorial language. Ledannois achieves this by internalizing it, by bringing it to these sober effects of matter. Rigor and sensuality are not incompatible. "- Jean-Jacques Lévêque
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