Fitht of Tritons. 22nd issue

 

« Shortening the span of time in the most comical way, Courmes gives reality to folk, and more precisely to suburban legends that still exist on the horizon of western culture (…). Against a past of myths is brought forward a comical present, shaped like a legend with a strict personal interpretation”.Anne Tronche, Hervé Gloaguen: Present art in France, Belland editor, Paris, 1973.

 

  

 

 

  “Fight of Tritons”, 1946, oil on wood (36 x 46 cm) private ownership.©adagp

 

 

 

“Tritons fighting”, 1943, ink on paper, private ownership. ©adagp

 

 

 

“Laugh has the same effect as fire; it purifies everything! Courmes is fond of laughting! His ideas to place a bowl hat on a triton’s head and to imagin for his “tritonne” a most detailed panty have inspired this Meeting on a canal, surrounded with antique monuments where it is not forbidden to dream”

 

 

 

 

“Meeting of tritons”, 1975, oil on canvas (73 x 92 cm) private ownership. ©adagp

 

 

Never an underwear designer in half nude mythological representations has been so ironically copied! Oh ! Thanks God. How was it possible to dress tritons with modern underpants of the “Trois Matelots” brand, and hide the nudity of naiads with panties of silk or cotton that one can only find drying in backyards of the poorest of suburbs. It must be added that Courmes designs with much practice and perversity the worn out elastics. The cheap g-string of Courmes are very similar to reality, they smell intimate odours and multiple washings”. Christian Derouet, 1986.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Some details of “Meeting of tritons”, 1975, oil on canvas (73 x 92 cm) private ownership. ©adagp, that you can enlarge by a simple click

 

 

 

 

“Fight of Tritons”, 1991, oil on canvas (73 x 92 cm) private ownership. ©adagp

 

 

 

 

 

“Fight of Tritons”, 1945, private ownership. ©adagp

 

(No information on this painting, outside this black and white copy)

 

 

 

 

Some zoology:

The tritons are tailed amphibians represented particularly by the Triturus kind. They are close to salamanders. Generally speaking, one names tritons the tailed amphibian which becoming adult, have lungs but spend most of the time in water. The tritons, as the salamanders, have the particularity to be able to regenerate a lost member like a lost leg. It seems that this regeneration is due to a protein system implying the Prod-1, the concentration of which varies according to the distance to the axle of the body, and the nAG, generated by the Schwann cellulas around the sectioned member.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Study forFight of Tritons”, 1944, pencil and ink on yellow paper ( 35 x 40 cm) private ownership. ©adagp

 

 

 

 

“Fight of tritons on the Saint Martin canal”, 1943, oil on canvas ( 73 x 93 cm) private ownership. ©adagp

(No further information about this painting outside this black and white copy)

 

 

 

Some mythology:

Triton : At the start the only god in the Greek mythology, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, parents to Nérée, may be of Phoenician origin, in any case a devil of the seas as a personification of gigantic and pernicious waves. The poets represent it in a double way, manlike by the bust and the face, and marine monster in its low part. The triton goes on sea on dolphins backs, or hippocampuses and other monsters of  the kind, blowing in long sea shells like in a trumpet to soothe or excite the marine water.

 

 

 

 

 

“The scandal of la Flor”, 1964, oil on wood ( 45 x37 cm) private ownershi. ©adagp

 

You already saw some tritons in the issue about the “Sirenas of Alfred”

 

 

To know more:

 

“Fight of Tritons”, 1946, has been the subject of following publications:

 

Vitalie Andriveau – Gilles Bernard, Alfred Courmes, foreword by Michel Onfray,

Cherche midi editor, 2003, page 104.

 

“Meeting of Tritons”, 1975, has been shown:

 

-         1975, 31^st Salon of May, from May 13^th to June 15^th (N° 43) Paris. Catalogue page 28)

-         1975 “Away from realism” , from June 18^th to July 6^th, The Ranelagh cinema, Paris

-                   (Exhibition Alfred Courmes, Mirabelle Dor, Maurice Rapin, Yack Rivais)

-         1979, Retrospective, PaintingMuseum, from May 16th to August 20th, Grenoble,

-                   (Catalogue page 21)

 

“Meeting of Tritons”, 1975, has been the subject of following publications

 

Vitalie Andriveau – Gilles Bernard, Alfred Courmes, foreword by Michel Onfray,

Cherche midi editor, 2003, page 155.

 

« Fight of Tritons », 1991, has been the subject of following publications:

 

Vitalie Andriveau – Gilles Bernard, Alfred Courmes, foreword by Michel Onfray

Cherche midi editor, 2003, page 155.

 

“Fight of tritons on the Saint Martin canal”, 1983, has been shown:

       

-         1979, Retrospective, painting museum, from May 16^th to August 20^th, Grenoble

-         1989, Retrospective, from October 21^st to December 17^th, Issoudun.

 

“Fight of tritons on the Saint Martin canal”, 1943, has been the subject of following publications:

 

Jean-Marc Campagne, Alfred Courmes, Prospecteur de mirages entre ciel et chair, photographs by Robert Doisneau, Jacqueline Hyde, Marc Vaux, Eric Losfeld editor, 1973, page 90.

 

“The scandal of la Flor », 1964, has been shown:

 

1979, Retrospective, painting museum, from May 16^th to August 20^th, Grenoble.