Jean Guyou

Côté Arts - first quarter 2005

Self-educated painter, Jean GUYOU devotes his retirement to painting and devotes himself with happiness to the watercolour and the pastel, like with oil. Impassioned by the light of the South, installed with Cogolin in the VAr, the artist takes part in various workshops. II is filled with enthusiasm for the topics animaliers where it excels with the pastel, as for the bright landscapes of light to oil. But it is in the marines that it finds its topic of favourite. To the watercolour, it manages miraculousement to give again life with the old sailing ships drawing up with majestic on the floods their proud outlines. Jean GUYOU succeeds in returning the impression of movement with a great accuracy: the wind digs the waves and makes spout out scum and one believes to see with far the veils inflating and the "three-masted ships" gîter. Elsewhere, it is the fascination produced by the elements in fury which carries the imagination of the painter. The storm surprises the boat and one is taken in the tulmute of the floods, almost seized by fear. Although registered in a completely different style, the construction of the table is connected with that of the famous print of Hokusaï combing the boats of the old sailing ships fixed on gigantic waves. To through a very personal work, been useful by a technique of the extremely well controlled watercolour, Jean GUYOU transports us in a world impresses at the same time realism and of an imaginary dimension, which is the dream and the achievement of any artist.
Philippe COULANGE