Firefighters Painting

Night blue and flame orange: the pair that holds the Firefighters paintings

Where does this uniform blue come from that encircles each flame?

Look at these Firefighters paintings from afar, with half-closed eyes: only two masses remain, a heat that rises and a cold that encircles it. Orange occupies the center, blue holds the edges and shoulders. Because this blue is not a night placed behind the scene: it is the uniform itself, sleeves, collar, arched back, painted dark enough to drink the light. And as blue and orange face each other on the circle of colors, each intensifies its neighbor: the darker the fabric, the more the flame burns. The painter did not seek this contrast, he found it already built into the subject.

This law of simultaneous contrast also explains why these canvases appear lit from within, even though no lamp appears in them. The blue, by darkening towards black, hollows out the space; orange, for its part, advances towards the gaze and seems to overflow from the edge. On a wall, the effect is prolonged: placed in front of a very clear partition, these works gain in intensity; in front of a gray plaster or dark wood, they calm down and keep only their ember. The surface that welcomes them therefore decides the temperature of the entire room.

Why is the red of the firehouse almost nowhere to be seen?

The first reflex, in front of such a subject, would be to paint everything red: red of the truck, red of the firehouse, red of the beacon. Yet these Firefighters paintings almost entirely exclude it. What burns here has no outline: the orange turns yellow near the hearth, exhausts itself in dull brown as it enters the smoke, and settles in streaks rather than blocks. Red would have remained a signal, a color of emblem placed once and for all; orange, on the other hand, forces the canvas to show a fire that is still moving, and spares the wall the saturation of a large lacquered red.

The gold that surfaces on these Firefighter paintings: painted reflection or memory of copper?

A metallic warmth runs through several of these Firefighter paintings: gilded edges on the shoulders, a sheen on the helmet shell, brass strands following the folds of a sleeve. One initially believes it to be a simple reflection of the flames, except that the gold continues where the fire no longer reaches, on a turned back, on a darkened edge of an image. It doesn't reflect, it recalls: the shell of hammered copper and its crest, shining long before today's matte helmets. The painter has retained its color, as if it were an inherited hue rather than a chosen one.

This golden vein has a very concrete consequence for those who hang one of these works. Gold is not really a color, it's a reflection: it changes with the time of day and the light source in the room. In the morning, it turns honeyed; under a warm evening lamp, it approaches bronze and brings back the orange of the flames. A canvas from this collection is therefore never seen the same way twice in the same day, which makes it precious in an entrance hall or hallway where one only passes through.

What the smoke swallows and what it reveals in the Firefighter paintings

Under the helmet and visor, no faces: why?

Approach these Firefighter paintings and look for a gaze: you will not find it. The helmet descends, the visor reflects light in a clear bar, the mask takes the rest. What remains is a silhouette: shoulders, back, arm extended towards a bar. The painter stops exactly where the equipment stops, and he is right, because on an intervention the man disappears under his gear, to the point that his colleagues recognize him by his gait more than by his features. The canvas records this disappearance, it does not correct it.

The result is better than a portrait. A silhouette belongs to no one, therefore it belongs to everyone: the person who looks at it can place a brother, a father, a neighbor, or himself at twenty years old in it. This is also what makes these works tenable in everyday life, because a suffering face on a living room wall quickly weighs down, while a shape in motion, never does. The silhouette leaves room for the memory of the one who passes in front of it, and that is exactly what is asked of an image crossed ten times a day.

Is the smoke a background, or the subject of the Firefighter paintings?

The gray that occupies half of these Firefighter paintings is considered a backdrop; it actually does all the work. It erases backgrounds, removes walls, removes all sense of distance from the gaze, so that the scene could take place on a third floor as in the back of a warehouse. Painters have known for centuries this power of steam and mist: the further a shape is away, the more it pales and dissolves. The smoke applies this rule brutally, in a few centimeters instead of several miles.

This conquest of the void has a direct interest on a wall. An image saturated with details demands space around it and refuses any proximity; here, large gray areas remain breathable and accept the proximity of a library, a mirror or a smaller frame. The gray plays the role of an absorber between the orange of the fire and the color of your partition, which explains that one can hang such a work in a room already colored without anything clashing or demanding attention permanently.

This halo that rises from the ground: the fire illuminates the helmets from below

A peculiarity catches the eye when you align these Firefighter paintings: the light does not fall from the sky, it rises. The hearth is located close to the ground, it illuminates the chins, the underarms, the underside of the bars, and projects shadows upwards. All Western painting, or almost, has been built on the opposite: a light from a window, in the upper left corner. This reversed lighting is enough to create the unease and attention that these works provoke, even before one identifies precisely what they show.

This must be taken into account when choosing their place. A canvas whose light source comes from below is contradicted by a violent zenithal lighting: the two lights compete. It gives its best above a low piece of furniture, near a floor lamp or a stove, where the actual lighting of the room extends that of the canvas. One often discovers this agreement by chance, by moving a lamp one evening, and one never puts the work back in its initial position.

Ladders, Axes, and Sprayed Paint: The Grammar of Firefighter Paintings

What is the omnipresence of the ladder in these Firefighter paintings?

It's impossible to browse these Firefighter paintings without noticing a ladder: leaning diagonally, standing straight, cut off by the edge of the image. Look where it leads. It never leads to a ground, always towards the top of the canvas, towards an area that the smoke has not yet made readable. It tells the story of rescue through the facade, the one attempted when the staircase is blocked, and it's also the oldest tool of the trade, predating pumps and vehicles. The painter places it in the foreground, sharper than the person climbing it.

For the eye, this object provides what no other attribute gives: a grid. The bars cut the surface into regular intervals, like a musical score, and this regularity highlights the chaos of the flames around. It also imposes a reading direction, from bottom to top, counter to our habits. The vertical format finds its justification here, and with it the walls that one believes unusable: a narrow niche between two doors, the face of a staircase, the panel of a partition that dominates a console.

Splashes of Sprayed Paint: Sparks or Lance Jets?

On several of these Firefighter paintings, the color doesn't stay neatly within the forms: it gushes, falls in drops, leaves streaks and constellations of points on the gray. This vocabulary of projection was not chosen to appear current. It imitates two phenomena that this subject alone brings together: the spark that jumps from a hearth and the water sprayed that falls as rain on the responders. The painter's gesture, who throws his color at a distance, almost exactly doubles that of the man who holds the lance.

Helmet and Axe: Two Forms Identified from Three Meters

Place yourself at the entrance of a room where these Firefighter paintings are hung: before distinguishing anything, you will have recognized two forms, the rounded shell of the helmet and the oblique edge of the axe. These are the only two closed contours of the canvas; everything else, shoulders, flames, smoke, remains open and blurred. The painter treats them as attributes, in the manner of ancient saints recognized by their wheel or their key: they name the character in a fraction of a second, without a word of text and without the slightest face.

This immediate readability changes the way these works occupy a passageway. A painting that requires two minutes of examination fades in a hallway; this one gives itself entirely at the first glance, then reserves its streaks and splashes for those who approach closely. That's why the collection fits as well in a vestibule or a common room as in an office. The distant reading and the close reading form two distinct experiences, offered by a single and same image.

FAQ on Firefighter paintings

Do you need to be a firefighter or close to a firefighter to hang these canvases at home?

No, and it's even the opposite that strikes: you first see a back rising, an orange halo at ground level and wide gray areas, before seeing a profession. A former firefighter will read his past in it, a parent will see a child's vocation, an art lover will linger on the streaks and the blue of the shoulders without thinking for a second about a firehouse. The subject remains very specific, and yet readable by anyone.

Can the fire and the smoke worry a child who sleeps in the room?

Rarely, because these works do not show a disaster but someone advancing inside it. The child first recognizes the helmet, the ladder and the axe, three objects he knows from his toys, before even understanding the flames. The figure is standing, facing the danger, never a victim: it is an image of protection. The gray smoke, moreover, softens what the orange could have too vivid in a bedroom.

What distinguishes these Firefighter paintings from an image of a red truck or a firehouse?

Everything, starting with the color. The truck imposes its lacquered red, its chrome and its elongated framing: it is a portrait of a machine, bright and immobile. Here, the paint strives to attach itself to the human in the smoke, in orange, gray and midnight blue, with a composition that rises instead of spreading. One amuses a child's bedroom, the other supports an adult's wall and keeps its intensity for years.