M HKA Ensembles

Painting, 182.5 x 122 cm.

Collection: Collection Museum Roger Raveel, Machelen-aan-de-Leie.

Before in 1962 Raveel, under the influence of Rauschenberg’s combine paintings again applies himself to creating figurative works, his experimentation with form leads him into a frontier zone, as it were. The forms and colours, and here also title (Dangerous Spring) and motif – incidence of light at seasons’ change – bear witness to his great attention for that unclear borderland between certainty and doubt. Raveel opts for neither figuration nor abstraction – a major dilemma at that time – and so supersedes that conflict. His aim is for more art, and less illusion of reality. Nature has become an echo, leading to constructions of a decorative bent. The inspired viewer quickly comes to understand that these forms and colours do not elucidate the relationship between art and reality but, indeed, do call that issue into question.