The technique, where images give the illusion of 3D objects on a flat surface, is increasingly being used to adorn otherwise mundane buildings in public spaces, giving passers-by pause for thought. And going beyond trompe l’oeil, a new breed of ‘muralists’ are painting walls with architectural features, decorative designs, signs or simply pictures,
Patrick Commecy, of Isère firm A-Fresco, says the paintings bring a sense of distinctiveness to a place.
“It is about representing the specificity of each location, taking into account local conditions, such as light, and constraints, such as the placement of windows or balconies.
“For tourists, these walls act as giant ID cards for the place they are visiting.”
Rather than the problem of incorporating objects, sometimes the biggest constraint is how to make a large blank wall in a dull grey square interesting.
It is not like painting on canvas or on paper, said Mr Commecy as the key difference lies in the audiences of the two art forms.
“When you paint a wall, you are creating something for the public sphere. Anyone at all could see it: young, old, rich, poor: people of all creeds, colours, nationalities and political views”.
By contrast, the painter at his easel can “paint whatever he likes”.
The person who sees a wall painting has no choice: it is “imposed”, but the person who goes to an art gallery, or pays for a cinema ticket has chosen to be there and so, “if he does not like it, it is his problem”.
The muralist’s consideration for his public is also the point at which the work’s superficial similarity to graffiti ends.
Graffiti artists impose their own self- expression on an audience which has no say, and indeed may not want the graffiti to be there at all.
The muralist paints only by consent, and with the intention to please others, not to express himself: “The muralist has a duty to paint to please the greatest possible number of people,” says Mr Commecy.
Techniques, paints and working conditions also differ from traditional painters.
A wall painting has to endure whatever the weather throws at it, so the painter will use hard-wearing wood and masonry paints more often seen on shutters or flat walls. And the painter, too, has to endure the weather with changing light conditions and temperatures altering the nature of the work as it goes along.
Muralists work on scaffolding, so cannot take a step back for a different perspective, but have instead to work at close quarters, without getting any real sense of the work in its entirety. Nor can they rely on viewers seeing the work from head-on only. Buildings can be viewed from every angle, and distance so the painter must ensure they work from all viewpoints, something particularly challenging with the tricks of perspective in trompe l’œil.
“Something that works well from one side may fail completely from the other”, says Mr Commecy, “and you have to take that into account from the start”.
Training is not easy to come by using traditional routes. Mr Commecy said: “I studied fine art, for all the good it did me. I wanted to work for the people, not to create works that would hang in galleries”.
He learnt in the street, spending six months in Mexico, looking at the many wall paintings there. “When I started out in 1978, wall painting had been out of fashion in France for a good 20 years, so I was starting from zero.”
Having an idea does not give the painter a right to start painting: “If a wall gives onto a public space, you need the authorisation of the mairie to paint on it,” says Mr Commecy. If the building is classified, an additional layer of permission is required from the architects of Bâtiments de France.
That is not generally a problem for Mr Commecy as many of his works are commissioned by town authorities themselves.
In the medieval town of Aurec-sur-Loire, the mairie wanted to create a walking route, which would draw visitors into the centre of the town using painted scenes that drew upon the town’s history.
A-Fresco produced a spectacular gateway, superimposed onto an ordinary blank wall, and the walking route now takes in a medieval celebration scene, a painter at the foot of a tower, and a prisoner in the town jail, among other features.
In Cannes, the authorities wanted to celebrate its cinematic history, resulting in a series of murals depicting the filming of a movie, a cinema entrance, Marilyn Monroe and a series of famous cinematic kisses. Some of the paintings trick the eye, but others are simply emblematic of the town’s rich celebrity history.
Usually commissions are made on the basis of a guiding theme or idea, “but this leaves plenty of scope for creativity on the part of the painters. It’s up to them how to achieve the desired effect.”
Most murals come from teamwork and while Mr Commecy is alone in charge of his company, the scale of the works require more than one painter to be involved.
He must pull together groups of independent painters depending on the project. “I’ve trained most of them at one point or another,” he said.
Good teamwork was shown in their Fresques des Français project, a 5km artwork in a Parisian underground carpark, which covered the walls and ramps with famous French figures from history.
Mr Commecy said: “We had to paint 250 frescos in just six months. That meant three per day, every day, from conception right through to realisation”.
It kept 30 painters fully employed.
Mr Commecy is not fearful of changing tastes of the public or municipal authorities hitting his business.
“If you think about it, painting on walls is the oldest art form known to humankind. It is here to stay,” he said.
