CHAPTER 14: There Are: Fabre's Visual Art

The text examines the work of the Flemish artist Jan Fabre and his predilection for and specific use of the colours green and blue: natural green from the jewel beetle shell and the artificial and industrial Bic-blue. The author takes great care to describe the historical context symbolism of colour, tracing and describing its significance for humanity and the continuous mutation in significance – mutations that Fabre calls metamorphosis, another mobile focus of his art. Reading this text, we understand how Fabre's art is a mobile and changing art, as are beetle green and Bic-blue, and that change is the natural and artificial alchemy that composes them. The relationship with the Flemish tradition of the invention of oil painting is also considered. From the origins to modern and contemporary times, the text guides the reader in a pleasant and refined stroll through Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, embracing alchemy and science. The artist’s use of colour is spotlighted, and his awareness of being part of profound tradition in which art is not for its own sake but for all. Thus, the mythical–symbolic use of colour that is seen between collective chromatic historical destiny and the individual – as in Fabre’s work – is always a portrait of the world.