97861 INTERIOR TEXTOS 001-318 ING_168X230 21/10/15 16:44 Página 300
From 1969 to 1974 Constant devotes most of his time to oil and watercolor painting, drawing and etching. Traces of New Babylon will remain apparent in his work for a long time. In interviews, Constant states that he still believes in New Babylon. But it will take time to achieve it. A long destructive period will inevitably precede this new world, and he depicts this in the art he produces from 1969 to 1974. New Babylon finally comes to an end with an exhibition at the Haags Gemeentemuseum in 1974. Over the next decade the Gemeentemuseum will acquire a substantial part of the New Babylon project for its collection. Officially, the New Babylon period lasts from 1956 to 1974, though it is not called “New Babylon” until 1960. Constant’s environment-oriented engagement places him in the modernist avant-garde tradition, particularly constructivism. However, for Constant form was not determined by ideology; it was discovered by experience and experiment.
Colorism From 1974 to 2005 Constant continues his colorist experiments on a twodimensional surface, following such great predecessors as Tiziano Vecellio, Eugène Delacroix, and Paul Cézanne. Until well into the 1980s Constant’s paintings combine architectural compositions with colorism. In 1978 he writes notes in response to a Cézanne exhibition in Paris.22 Constant takes Cézanne’s colorism further, creating space and depth without any line work at all, using only color.23
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