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Rene Lalonde - Just for the Fun of It
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Although the title of this piece seems nonchalant, Rene Lalonde’s Just, for the Fun of It represents a complicated bouquet of artistic elements both old and new. The vibrant colors and eccentric shapes exemplify his fancy-free style of painting but one must take a closer look to experience this piece in it’s entirety.
Lalonde’s Cubist influence shines through with every simplified and contrasting form. The usual specificity of his color palette is apparent, yet in this piece he adds some contrasting elements, like the textured leopard skin pattern on the bottom of the vase, and the translucency of the various shapes, which give the feeling that they are reaching out into the foreground, in a sort of three-dimensional or tromp l’oeil effect. Lalonde has taken the normal still life and shaken it up by creating movement, an element not often seen in his works. The cubist flowers are floating in space as if they had been tossed in the air like confetti. One is not sure if the vase is about to tip over or rise to join its contents in the air as if defying gravity, and the left-leaning vase is balanced by the jumble of flowers, geometrics and foliage reaching to the right.
Lalonde has once again left us with questions of space and dimension. The undefinable planes, numerous levels and overlapping shapes, are all direct references to his earlier pieces but he has added shading to the piano keys, an indication that the background is fixed and not too distant, it is the foreground that is expanding outward.
Lalonde discovered Cubism, particularly in Picasso’s later works, in his late twenties, and the color and light of that art form proved to have an indelible influence for him over time.
The yellow oval shapes may be a reference to the green olives we have seen before, or they may be stylized artists palettes, another favorite Lalonde theme. At any rate, they tend to give substance and balance to the picture.
The levitating piano keys are a delightful reference to Lalonde’s second passion, music.
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