Psycolor cubicles1964–1970
The cubicle
1965, 19½ x 82 x 31 ins
paint on aluminium
Private collection - Paris
GÉRALD GASSIOT-TALABOT« VERS UNE CHROMO PSYCHOLOGIE DE GROUPE » MUSÉE DE POCHE, PARIS 1970 (extract)
When instituting the cubicle system, Bellegarde had proposed to study thirty–six diverse human types. In doing so, he abandoned the precise study of a given individual and turned his attention to a type of character, to group pathology.
JEAN-CLARENCE LAMBERT« BELLEGARDE » GALERIE 1950, CATALOG PREFACE, PARIS 1984 (extract)
Bellegarde, who has assembled here some of his most daring realizations, dreamt of an art by therapy and not its opposite, even if it were possible to be cured of mal à vivre. The cubicles are a realization of the conquest of our identity through the mirror. However they are also an attempt to include man, isolated in his enigma, in the process of the universe via a typological definition of the human species in its correspondence with color–the messenger of light through matter.
PROFESSOR ALFRED TOMATIS « LETTER TO THE ARTIST » BELLEGARDE: THE QUEST FOR COLOR, SOMOGY, ÉDITIONS d’ART, PARIS, 2006 (extract)
For many years I have devoted myself to treating problems of audition and
language. And one anomaly in particular: a verbal blindness we call dyslexia…
So,
when I discovered Claude Bellegarde’s chromatic cubicles, I realized that
this artist had been doing similar research, but transferring colored symbolism
into three dimensions. These psycolors, like a deck of cards, produce
a representation of the individual’s psyche, a mirror which permits you
to see yourself in paint.
After comparing our analytical studies, we elaborated cubicles in several language centers, whose panels are of various significant colors, exciting or relaxing. By using the sound and visual effects of refraction, we create a beam of luminous colors which permit the patients to refocus, in order to gradually recover their disturbed identity.
JEAN-DANIEL POLLET – LE HORLA (1966) PRIX DU COURT-MÉTRAGE, FESTIVAL DE TOULON « UN VOCABULAIRE DE LA COULEUR POUR LE CINÉMA » OPUS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 1967(extract)
What is interesting in Claude Bellegarde’s work for the cinema is that his first concern is not to provide a ‘treat for the eyes’ but to signify–to make clear via the color–the psychology of the characters on the screen and through them, the author.
