Peter Baer

How can a painter fail to be intense whose imagination seeks luminous points in timeless space, who then faces the task of giving his discoveries- this scoop, this earnestness, this confidence- concrete form on a piece of canvas, that is, of communicating them to others? How can he avoid high-flown language when explaining that which takes place on the canvas is of cosmic  significance, that it is an image, a microcosm, a representation of how global catastrophes might be prevented: through selflessness, tolerance, by breaking the vicious circle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? We can scarcely be surprised, then that this painter comes across no less haughtily long after the creative process is complete; that he is prepared to stand up for his painting and is therefore a difficult partner for galleries: he is hard to please, always wanting a better placing, laying down conditions, and he does so out of an awareness that his message is an important one.

Peter Baer’s pictures, usually large canvases, open up across the field of vision; they are magnificently painted. But for him the eye is not enough: the outer skin of the painting seems to be a means to an end, an end of which he will say little, but way into the soul, as he calls it. Baer’s pictures are not, even for the artist himself, primarily a matter of composition(they are that, too), but a moral challenge to the spectator. The years of dogged, uncompromising commitment to his painting have, it seems, freed him from a multiplicity of constraints; he has attained happiness through paining, now he thinks the spectator should undergo the same experience. What a challenge!  What guts!- thus to lay bare one’s soul!

Accordingly, when a name springs to his mind as a suitable title, it is frequently drawn from the more optimistic vein of our traditional lore ( beside such everyday motifs as table, chair and bed): Christ, Solomon, Percival, St. George. The bull, a repetitive motif, is not slaughtered but captured . In a tumultuous rush, a team of horses bears down on the beholder, a dynamic force which threatens to mow down whatever stands in its path-the charioteer holding the reins is a sovereign figure, a vision enthroned, serene and unassailable. From such key images, we can discern the means Baer employs to avoid giving the spectator the impression of being present at a Bible lesson. The artists does not define his themes conclusively; he leaves them open, indeed the titles of certain pictures might be interchangeable. Baer stands before the canvas and seeks an appropriate formulation; though he would  never countenance vagueness of composition.

IN the picture of charioteer nothing rhymes in the customary way; the picture leaves a multitude of questions begging. One thing is clear: the dynamism of pure colour (yellow and red), is not employed merely to depict the subject, but as a force field, in free form; another unmistakable element is the headlong flight of the lineaments. Motifs suggestive of force and speed are superfluous in such painting.

It is characteristic that Baer, despite the large format, has dispensed with preliminary sketching. The confrontation with the virgin canvas when embarking on a work is terrifying. But once the creative act has begun, it is as though the painter were inside the picture. And the work, in so far as it is not( for example) a portrait,  takes on the character of unknown landscape to be explored: the artist is not merely projecting himself, he is shedding light on forms and colours which have slumbered in the picture ground, waiting to be unearthed. These paintings have an aura of intrinsic necessity, of ineluctable truth: the absence of arbitrariness, allows such a conjecture. The richness and variety of the constructions can never be the result of mere inspiration on the part of the artist.

Baer paints with vehemence, but he is no New Savage. His painting is a protracted process; how he prevents the pictures wearying of this methodical approach is his secret. Nor is Baer a Primitive Artist. He knows the great masters and incorporates the knowledge into his paintings. He does not speak of this- only in general terms when he says the material must be spiritualized. So the eye of the beholder is invited to set out on its own voyage of discovery. Many of the picture are a feast for the eyes. Baer uses the narrow scale of half-tones between white and black as a rich palette, changing back and forth between dull and translucent, cold and warm intonations. When he opens himself entirely to colour ( as in more recent work), he employs glazing and overpainting to conjure up chords of pure and perfect joy. When he paints with impasto colours, he uses contrast primarily to enhance the transparency and spatial depth of the picture. The work must always breathe- a vital element that is present in the rhythm which informs his brushstrokes throughout.
                                                     

Wolfgang Bessenich

Basel, January 1986