Nothing is more real than a line
A discursive composed by Natasha (Year 9, 2024) and artwork created student enrolled in the Writer’s Collective (An online elective available through the CSBB Cross Campus Centre)
At first glance, I imagine a skater. Gliding across the ice, in front of millions of people. Performing the most beautiful gaze catching moves, building excitement within the air. Searching the artwork with my eyes I reminisce on my first time stepping out on the ice. Nervous, I would make a fool of myself, falling over and over. Repeating that pattern for what felt like eternity, until my legs started to correspond with my brain. I started slowly moving across the ice, starting to get the hang of the movements. Now a few years later I'm able to confidently step out on the ice without falling on my face. Would she feel the same? Would she be confident or worrying about what everyone is going to think about her once her body hits the ice? Her face looks confident. But looks can lie and deceive people. Her body looks steady yet moving in precise gestures. Noticing the blurred shadows in the background, forming body-like shapes. Perceiving that she is not alone. I guess in life we are never really alone, there's always people hovering around in your space no matter how hard you try to get away. The woman, taking centre stage, being in the moment of her own story.
Concrete painting, not abstract, because nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a colour, a surface. It is the concretization of the creative spirit. - Felix Del Marle
He would become a protean artist, moving from Futurism to Surrealism, from Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes art school at the age of 16. Becoming an artist is a passion we both share. This particular artwork provokes a sense of movement, being in the moment, by layering the background and the gradation of limbs. This indicates the skater woman is on the move; performing a show? Practising? Last time on the ice? Her first? We will never know, we are only given the details of the charcoal, no words to tell us what the artist wants us to perceive, wanted us to feel. When staring at his 1913 artwork, there are only strokes and blending for us to interpret.
The story of his work will forever be half told.
Etude pour La Patineuse ou les Six jours, translated into Study for The Skater or the Six Days. Kept in a private collection for many years, hidden from this world, unable to see what this universe is capable of. Created by the artist Felix Del Marle, born in 1889 who was destined to take over his family’s brewery. Del Marle decided that life wasn’t for him, he needed to take his own path in order to choose his own future. I relate to this as I want to choose my own future, not let anyone tell me what I can and can't do. As a teenager he fought for what he wanted, nothing like fighting your siblings for the remote to pick the channel, this fight was going to determine the rest of his life. He was born to be a painter, an artist. As am I.
Despite his talent, his parents didn’t accept this as they thought of it as a “non-serious” activity . Probably because of how hard it was to become an artist in 1905. To become one you needed a good general education, basic knowledge of geometry, classical history and literature. This meant most artists in the 19th century were sons of the middle class professionals or tradesmen. And Felix Del Marle wasn't one of these fortunate people.
Nowadays 1 in 6 artists are successful, meaning it would have been a whole lot harder for Del marle.
His parents decided that if he didn't want to take over the brewery that he would be cut off from his family entirely. Del Marle had already made up his mind, so his parents put their threats into effect. He was now on his own and independent by the age 18. Being independent means different things to each person, to Del Marle this meant leaving his home and going off on his own. To me it means being able to make my own decisions, to live without someone hovering over me yet still having people who I can talk and run to when in trouble. His idea was to move to the other side of france.
In his time as an artist, Felix Del Marle completed and published a total of 32 paintings and artworks. Before this he was a house painter from age 20, a painstakingly long process of painting the walls, waiting for it to dry, then painting them again. My attention span would not be that long. In 1914, the war started. Felix Del Marle went to the front, taking advantage of the opportunity to sketch ruined towns and portraits of his fellow soldiers, making the best out of the worst situation. After returning home from the war he met the love of his life, Marthe Leroy, who he married and has three beautiful children with. Silly of me to believe my first love would be my “marthe”. In the end, he was one of the few French representatives of Italian futurism in history. His art inspiring more than just a country.
Felix Del Marle died in 1952, yet his life is preserved into his art. His name will live on forever.
