CORB: PAINTER OF SHAPES

How could Le Corbusier have been content to be a painter of shapes? As we have seen in previous pages, Corb considered himself a painter first, and an architect second. And his paintings are simply arrangements of shapes on a canvas. He did not paint form. Yet I wonder, how could he not? Or, why did he not?

The answer is, he was content to arrange shapes on his canvas because he did not have a transparent mindset. Within Representational / Cubist spacetime, all he was “allowed” to do was to paint opaque shapes next to each other.

So this is the question: If Corb could do his amazing buildings with his shape arranging paintings as his creative founation, what other worldly forms might he have given us if he worked transparently? This, of course, is impossible to answer.

Nevertheless, my drawing at the top is an incremental step toward at least trying to answer this question. I didn’t start out to draw like Corb should have painted. I started with this photo of a wood carving that I took at the MET a few years ago. I first knowledged the basic form. As I continued to apply lines and tones, the drawing started to take on some Corb qualities: lines which trace around the composition, thick and thin lines, voids, etc.

Corb’s paintings have a mild reservation and conservative aspect to them. While they are always complete compositions, per all of the rules of art, they are limiting in their emotional expression. And, his buildings were some of the most daring and emotional of the 20th C.