Retrospective: Art and Play

Of all the galleries we went in on our European venture it was the smallest, the Musee d'Art Naif Max Fourny in Montmartre, that afforded us the most sheer pleasure per square inch. We came upon it sort of by accident as we were going up the hill towards the church and decided to pop in for a bit of a break - a wise decision indeed. It seems the place specialises in brut (whatever that means) and naïve artworks by artists from around the world who are often self-taught. The work of a couple of such artists was on display in two delightful exhibitions, the creators in question being a chap called Chomo and a lady by the name of Marie Morel. Probably they're well-known in the art world, if not they certainly deserve to be, but I'd never heard of them before. So there was a huge element of exploration and discovery about the whole experience.

Chomo's work seemed to be based on recycling all sorts of rubbish. Some of it was quite nightmarish but in an oddly friendly manner. At times I'd look at a piece and think I could do that, and I could but not one tiny fraction as well. But the fact that I could think such a thing added to the enormous accessibility of it all. Mdm Morel's work was a bit more intimidating in its sheer excellence, but again was based on techniques that anyone could make a go of. She's got this thing of assembling big canvases, as it were, out of small, evenly sized units, squares or rectangles, each containing images - simple drawings, odd sentences, actual objects like twigs and feathers - relating to the theme in question. It was fascinating how your eye would begin with the big picture of the overall design, usually beautifully balanced in itself like gorgeous wallpaper, and then go down to the level of the individual, individualised panels.

There was a wonderful sense of playfulness in both exhibitions and that's always something to celebrate in art. (The girls loved it all, though I think Fafa found some of Chomo's work a bit scary.)