Not to suggest that Andre Francois had more imperfections than the rest of his contemporaries, only that he seemed to enjoy them more. What are imperfections anyway, except departures from the norm? To really appreciate imperfection, one should perhaps examine its opposite: perfection- perfection in drawing for instance.
Andre Francois. click image for source…
One might say that perfection in drawing,if it ever came about, would be the complete removal of the personal element in the artist<s work- naturally the personal weakness. Thus, when a drawing finally reached what could be called perfection, it would be about as impersonal as drawing could be. On the other side of the scale one might say that the ultimate in imperfection would be the most completely personal statement an artist could make. Francois”s drawings are, in an academic sense, about the ultimate in imperfection, and they are by all odds the most completely, wholly personal drawings that one could see in his time.
—click image for source…
Imperfection does not mean weak or poor drawing; on the contrary, Francois stood among the best as a master of expressive drawing. He knew the spirit and the mood he wanted to impart and he went at it directly. You could say he was an innocent of pedantry and academism. That is, straight and great drawing. Whatever object Francois painted seems to take off on a life of its own, departing from anything even remotely ordinary. It is in the intensification of ordinariness that he achieved the extraordinary.
—In 1960, Searle’s Perpetua Press had published a collection of Francois’s work, “The Biting Eye”. Francois drawing style was scratchy, messy, blotchy. His deliberately rudimentary and scribbly figures were not the standard blocky cartoony figures. Despite being highly non-representative, Francois’s work captured something essential about humans and their behaviour.—click image for source…
Style, real style in painting or drawing is the natural modification of things seen through personal eyes, and those things drawn and painted by personal hands. It is the unified presentation of things, certainly, because when all of a person’s work is truly personal it must be modified in the same way. That is what holds it together rather than some deliberate attempts to achieve style by odd effects and mechanical devices; only explosions of ideas striking, organically and not sought after through pretentious affectation.
With Francois, his Line, if it does stray off in the wrong direction, always seems to come home again without having lost its innocence. If people were creatures of dignity there would be no room for an Andre Francois, but alas, we are not creatures of dignity. Francois’ women are the essence of amiability and romantic love, and her sweetness and lust for love never fail; however big her face, it always wears the most innocent and the most expectant of smiles.
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