Cette thèse interroge et analyse comment la lumière, en tant que phénomène naturel et physique, est devenue un phénomène proprement pictural. Si la lumière, qu’elle soit naturelle ou artificielle, est la force mettant en acte la visibilité du monde pour la majorité des êtres vivants, elle est également à l’origine des couleurs qui sont les effets de son action spécifique sur l’œil. En interagissant directement avec la matière, la lumière produit la couleur et penser philosophiquement le concept de lumière dans l’art pictural revient donc tout d’abord à comprendre le cheminement des voies propres de la couleur qui fut progressivement reconnue comme la spécificité même de la peinture. Intrinsèquement liées au sein de toute expérience perceptive, lumière et couleur impliquent un processus physiologique dont les paradigmes évoluèrent au fil des siècles. La couleur révèle un monde visible dont l’origine lumineuse échappe pourtant à la perception et les peintres œuvrèrent à dégager l’origine invisible du visible : la lumière, essence de la visibilité. Le sujet percevant, découvert comme l’agent actif de l’expérience optique impliqua une transformation radicale et le monde du visible, qui constituait jusqu’alors une forme privilégiée de connaissance, fut reconsidéré en fonction des caractéristiques subjectives de l’œil. En devenant objet de connaissance, la vision pénétra ainsi dans le champ de la philosophie et des sciences expérimentales. C’est plus particulièrement à travers l’analyse de l’œuvre de Mark Rothko et de celle de Pierre Soulages que nous orienterons la seconde partie de notre recherche tant le concept de lumière y rencontre de riches problématiques esthétiques qui entrent en résonance avec les paradigmes artistiques propres à l’histoire de la peinture. / This doctoral thesis suggests questionning how light, a natural and physical phenomenon has also become a concept in the field of painting. Light, artifical or natural, is not only the mere driving force behind vision for the majority of beings in this world, it is also at the origin of colors, which result from the action of light on the eye. By interacting directly with the material, light produces color. Therefore, to think philosophically the concept of light in pictorial art would thus means first to understand the inner ways of color, which have been gradually recognized as the true specificity of painting. Intrinsically connected within any perceptive experience, light and color involve a physiological process paradigm which evolved in the course of the centuries. Color reveals a visible world whose bright origin still cannot be grasped by our perception, and painters have worked to release the invisible origin of the visible: light, the essence of the visibility. The role of the perceiving subject is then profoundly transformed as it becomes regarded as the active agent of the optical experience. The visible world, thus far a privileged shape of knowledge, is reconsidered according to the subjective characteristics of the eye. By becoming an object of knowledge, vision became associated to the fields of philosophy and experimental sciences. Most precisely, since the concept of light meets in their works such rich aesthetic problems which resonate with the artistic paradigms that belong to the history of painting, it is throughout an analysis of Mark Rothko’s and Pierre Soulages’s work that the research work has been focused in a second part.

Esse estudo trata de seis variações do preto na pintura. O trabalho apresenta telas de Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Henry Matisse, Iberê Camargo, Eduardo Sued e Pierre Soulages. A pesquisa das obras e procedimentos poéticos desses pintores visa a indicar para diversas maneiras como o preto, não mais usado para o sombreado, se transforma em áreas de cor e como esses campos cromáticos atuam nas pinturas. A análise mostra que a cor preta, na qual há variações de tonalidade e saturação, pode ser usada como um meio de tensão cromática na superfície pictórica, como um elemento expressivo, ou para criar uma nova espacialidade para além do plano do quadro. Vale a pena notar que esses usos não são mutuamente exclusivos e, por exemplo, o preto que cria a tensão cromática pode ser expressivo e criar uma nova espacialidade. / This essay deals with six variations of black in painting. Reaserch on the production and poetic procedures by Eduoard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Henry Matisse, Iberê Camargo, Eduardo Sued and Pierre Soulages, indicates several manners where black, contrary to its use as a shadowing component, transforms itself in areas of color. The manner in which the cromatic fields act upon the painting is analised and show that the color black, with its variations in tone and depth, may be used as an element of expession; as a means for chromatic tension over the pictures surface or for the production of a new spaciality beyond its surface. These uses are not mutually exclusive and, as where black creates chromatic tension, it may also be expressive and generate a new spaciality.

Esse estudo trata de seis variações do preto na pintura. O trabalho apresenta telas de Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Henry Matisse, Iberê Camargo, Eduardo Sued e Pierre Soulages. A pesquisa das obras e procedimentos poéticos desses pintores visa a indicar para diversas maneiras como o preto, não mais usado para o sombreado, se transforma em áreas de cor e como esses campos cromáticos atuam nas pinturas. A análise mostra que a cor preta, na qual há variações de tonalidade e saturação, pode ser usada como um meio de tensão cromática na superfície pictórica, como um elemento expressivo, ou para criar uma nova espacialidade para além do plano do quadro. Vale a pena notar que esses usos não são mutuamente exclusivos e, por exemplo, o preto que cria a tensão cromática pode ser expressivo e criar uma nova espacialidade. / This essay deals with six variations of black in painting. Reaserch on the production and poetic procedures by Eduoard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Henry Matisse, Iberê Camargo, Eduardo Sued and Pierre Soulages, indicates several manners where black, contrary to its use as a shadowing component, transforms itself in areas of color. The manner in which the cromatic fields act upon the painting is analised and show that the color black, with its variations in tone and depth, may be used as an element of expession; as a means for chromatic tension over the pictures surface or for the production of a new spaciality beyond its surface. These uses are not mutually exclusive and, as where black creates chromatic tension, it may also be expressive and generate a new spaciality.