Georges Mathieu * (Boulogne-sur-Mer 1921-2012 Paris) Flammes d'eau, c. 1990, signed, oil on canvas, 72 x 92 cm, framed This work is accompanied by a photo certificate signed by the artist Provenance: Tornabuoni Arte, Milan European Private Collection Today, what is a painting? It is the most direct expression of a dissatisfaction and an ambition. Painting is an ambition, it is no longer an act. The canvas is whipped, jostled around, hacked open; the color spurts, bursts, pierces, flits around, rises, and crushes. The artisanal, the finite, the polished forms of the Greek ideals are all dead. Tension, density, the unknown, the mysterious reign and succeed on all counts. For the first time in history, painting has been able to become a spectacle, and you can witness its creation, just like you would a jam session Georges Mathieu, in his Épître à la jeunesse (Epistle to Youth),1964