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> No results found for "une toile exige un mur". In case anyone else is wondering: The French phrase can be translated literally as "a canvas requires a wall",
by dxdm 9mo ago
> No results found for "une toile exige un mur".
In case anyone else is wondering: The French phrase can be translated literally as "a canvas requires a wall", or less closely, "its boundaries are important for every picture".
(I am not a native French speaker and just piecing this together with a dictionary.)
- wiether 9mo agoFrench guy here: never heard of "une toile exige un mur". Not a single result in French also. I know there's a (more popular?) saying that is very similar but can't remember it atm.
- publicdebates 9mo agoAre you sure? I thought it was Renoir or Batut, or Bresson, or perhaps Watteau, who, when asked for his most useful advice to a new artist, famously uttered this short and mysterious phrase. Could have sworn LaBeouf quoted it in an interview after he collaborated with artist Cantor on their magnum opus.
- wiether 9mo agoIt could be a niche quote in an art history book, but it could hardly be qualified as a saying. I asked around since my first comment and not a single person knew about it.
- publicdebates 9mo agoIt's so memorable, probably why it stick in my memory: how can you have a canvas without a wall? The wall is the canvas. Yet the wall simultaneously constrains the canvas, thus allowing it to become the canvas, to become worthy of a canvas. This French idiom says so much without saying practically anything.
- dxdm 9mo agoComing back at this with a fresh mind, whoever said it could also have meant that every painting should be displayed: it requires a wall to hang on. As you say, it's not immediately clear what is meant.
- publicdebates 9mo agoEven more evidence of how versatile that French phrase is. There's just so many acceptable meanings to it, and every one of them points to the same conclusion: bounds enable art.