The figures from the Aria series are our size. The figures, heavy with colors, reach towards the airiness of the landscape. The landscape backgrounds of the figures are now more active than before. While the Aria series is characterized by cephalic ( Kefalos – head), the backgrounds of the seated figures in the Terra series, on average darker, emphasize chthonicity, their close relationship with the earth. The vertical relationship “cephalic – chthonic” is felt hidden under the exuberant color brilliance.
The painting Vicenza (2023) balances the opposites: the intense relative softness of the colors of the skirt feels like rising from the ash-brown crater of the earth and transforming into the chromatic scale of the softness of velvet and rustling silver fabric.
The profile positions of the heads and the positions of the seated figures of the Terra series have become more versatile than before. Even spiral positions – figura serpentinata – occur. We can also see a glimpse of Veronese’s color thinking in these paintings.
The folds of the figures are reduced to brushstrokes. Thus, abundant drapery primarily serves the requirements of the brush. The abstract “material feel” of the color and the material feel of the described fabrics are combined. The contours of the figures have also become softer.
The layer painting used by Laine is prima painting: the next color layer is applied while the previous one is still wet. In this way, surprising intermediate tones are achieved, which even become a description of the materials of different fabrics. The colors fold with the folds. The same layering also applies to the different shades of the sky and gives them an airy tonal ripple effect.
The positions of Laine’s figures and the combinations of color shades in the pleats are descriptions of different forms of pathos and their subtle differences. Laine does not “express” in any average “expressive” way, but shows how his scale of expression lives on differences in subtle psychic charges.
The enigmatic nature of the female figures is not only due to the abstracted faces in profile, not only from a kind of soliloquy of the figures’ positions and also from the copious coloring of different color areas, but also from how tensely the figures are placed in the landscape as paintings .
Altti Kuusamo
The painter Lauri Laine (born 1946) is one of the foremost Finnish painters of his generation. He has worked for a long time not only in Finland, but also in Italy and Rome. Laine’s work has always included a strong art historical awareness. In 2020, he was awarded the Finnish Lion’s Pro Finlandia medal. Laine has held several solo exhibitions in Finland and abroad and participated in numerous domestic and international joint exhibitions, e.g. For the São Paulo Biennial (1989) and the Beijing Biennial (2017, 2019). In addition to key Finnish public collections, Laine’s works can be found in e.g. Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Malmö Art Museum.
