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I've just arrived in Ferrières-en-Gâtinais… The room is ready, the easels are set up, and tomorrow our workshop begins: The Masters“ Weave. For one week, we will explore the hidden principles of painting: composition, shapes, contrasts, depth, color… Everything that allows us to move beyond simply painting ”by feel" and instead construct a work with more awareness, more power, and more harmony. The students will be here soon… and a beautiful pictorial adventure is about to begin.
Today, at the studio, I showed one of my advanced students something quite fascinating. 😅 We were looking at a painting by Sabine Moritz, Gerhard Richter's wife. At first glance, this painting might seem almost anarchic, messy, free, as if it escaped all structure. And yet, when you take the time to look at it differently, you discover that behind this apparent freedom lie very powerful principles of composition. Specifically, you can find relationships, tensions, axes, and areas of balance that can be related to the golden ratio—those great principles that classical painters used to organize their canvases. What's exciting is that these principles don't disappear with contemporary painting. They change form. They sometimes become more discreet, more hidden, less obvious. But they are always there, in great works. This is why I strongly encourage painters to be interested in these laws of composition. Not to paint rigidly or academically, but on the contrary, to better understand what gives an image strength, coherence, and depth. Today, these principles are very rarely taught. 🫣 And yet, if you want to make serious progress in your painting, it becomes essential to learn to see them, understand them, and then use them freely. Because a great painting is never just an emotion or a spontaneous gesture. It is also a construction.
This summer, from July 7 to 11, I’m offering an intensive workshop focused on a key theme: The Masters’ Framework—from sketch to finished work. Over the course of five days, I will guide you, step by step, through a genuine creative process to help you build a painting that is stronger, more coherent, and more accomplished. We will focus in particular on the harmony of forms, composition, contrasts, the internal flow of the viewer’s gaze, depth, the organization of the color palette, and color harmonization. There will be theory, practical exercises, demonstrations, and analyses of paintings to understand how the great masters constructed their works. This workshop is open to all skill levels. It’s a rare opportunity to advance your painting by acquiring a clear and structured method. For more information, check out the link in my bio. #paintingculture #paintingworkshop #painting
People often think that painting is mainly about emotion, inspiration… or even talent. But painting is also a language. For example, here I’m using a fan-shaped structure: several lines radiate from a single point and subtly organize the entire composition. The eye is guided, the forms interact with one another, and the image becomes more powerful. These aren’t set formulas. They are tools. And the good news is that this can be learned. You’re not simply «talented» or «untalented» when it comes to painting. You can learn to see, to understand… and to create a work with much greater awareness. For those who are interested, we’ll discuss all of this during the upcoming workshop in July. For more details, link in bio. #painting #modernart #abstractart
When many people see this painting by Willem de Kooning, they say to themselves: «Honestly… it’s nonsense.» «It’s too easy.» «How can a painting like this be worth over 30 million?» And yet, this judgment often stems from something very simple: we don’t yet have all the tools to interpret what we’re looking at. In this painting, you shouldn’t look for a recognizable image. You have to look at the rhythm, the tensions, the directions, the balances, the breaks. This is what’s called a rhythmic structure. This language doesn’t come out of nowhere.We find it already in Cézanne, then in the Cubists, in Braque, throughout modern painting, and even in contemporary painting—in de Kooning, but also in Bridget Riley, for example. In other words: classical, modern, and contemporary painters are not separated by insurmountable walls. They often speak the same pictorial language, but in different forms. So no, the value of this painting isn’t just about speculation. If it sold for such a high price, it’s also because it possesses true aesthetic value, a structure, a power, and an intrinsic beauty. But you still have to learn to see them. If you want to discover this hidden language of painting, you can visit culturepeinture.com. And you can also visit the website of the Compagnons de Culture Peinture, created spontaneously by students who understood that this knowledge is part of a precious heritage. I would be very happy to see you join the Culture Peinture community. #culturepeinture #artabstrait #inspirationartistique
Picasso influenced generations of painters. Willem de Kooning's series «Woman» is an example of the influence of «Les Demoiselles d'Avignon» on his painting. It is also fascinating to note in this sketch by De Kooning that he also uses a key that summarizes the construction of the painting and creates logic, coherence, and Beauty, despite the supposed ugliness of the subject. #culturepainting #dekooning #contemporarypainting
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is often seen as a shock, a break, almost an explosion. But there is a detail at the very bottom of the painting that can help us understand its entire logic: The fruit bowl. It may seem secondary, but it actually holds the key to the work. The fruit bowl functions as a miniature summary of the entire composition. It announces the logic by which the bodies themselves will be organized: not as unified and stable volumes, but as fragmented, reorganized forms. This is often where painting becomes exciting: when an apparently trivial detail actually contains the entire thought of the painting. If you are interested in this type of art interpretation, subscribe to the channel. I also recommend you visit culturepeinture.com #culturepeinture #inspirationartistique #peinture
This painting by Ary Scheffer shows Dante and Virgil facing a couple plunged into hell. But what interests me here is not just the literary anecdote. It’s everything that’s happening in the painting itself. Look: there’s a great diagonal line that runs across the composition, creating a sense of imbalance, almost instability. And this imbalance is as if contained, compensated for, by the presence of the two characters. That’s what’s fascinating about painting: beyond the subject, there’s a whole aesthetic world that is organized. Lines, masses, tensions, balances. In other words, painting has its own alphabet. Its own grammar. And when you start to see it, you no longer look at a painting in the same way. Tell me if you like this kind of video. And if you want to go further, subscribe to the channel or check out culturepeinture.com. #culturepeinture #artisticinspiration #modernpainting
Here is the continuation of the previous reel on an exercise I'm proposing to my students to clarify the different parameters that govern color. It's an exercise I recommend everyone incorporate into their practice to start mastering color. Happy painting everyone. #culturepeinture #inspirationartistique #peinture
When we talk about color, many people first think of emotion or intuition. But in painting, color is also a construction. In this strip exercise, I ask my students to place a tonal key on strip 5, then a neutral on strip 9, in order to work on crescendos and diminuendos of intensity. The goal: to learn to control contrast with color. Not just by value... But also by temperature, intensity, and brightness. It's a seemingly simple exercise... But it allows you to deeply understand how to harmonize colors and give them more power. And if this subject interests you, I have dedicated 6.5 hours of theory, analysis, and classical and contemporary concepts on color in my dedicated training. The link is in the bio. #culturepeinture #inspirationartistique #peinture #expressionnismeabstrait #artmoderne
When working from a photograph, the idea is not to slavishly copy it, but rather to reinterpret it within a system that allows it to become an aesthetic object. A good painting has its own requirements that a photograph does not always fulfill. #culturepainting #artisticinspiration #composition
Composing from a photo is not about copying. It's learning how to transform an image into a painting. Many amateur painters work from photos... but a photo doesn't think like a painting. It records. Painting, on the other hand, constructs. In this reel, I show you how to reinterpret a photo using real compositional tools: golden ratio, ovals, obliques, rhythms, directions... In other words: how to move from a submissive image... to a constructed image. Because painting isn't just about reproducing what you see. It's about organizing, prioritizing, linking and transforming. And this is often where painting really begins. #culturepainting 1TP5Artistic inspiration #composition
Recently, in our private exchange group, I commented on the work of a student from the Culturepeinture community, who posted various stages in the execution process that one goes through when painting with a certain conscience. #culturepeinture #composition #peinturemoderne #inspiration artistique
We often think that all colors are the same... But in reality, there is a natural hierarchy of intensities. Primary colors are, by nature, more dynamic, more saturated, more powerful than secondary colors. And the secondaries themselves have more presence than the tertiaries. In other words: not all colors have the same weight, nor the same energy. To understand this is to begin to paint better. But there's another, more discreet problem... For several years now, the industry has been producing increasingly ambiguous colors, using inferior pigments or mixtures that should never have existed. For example, “ultramarine cobalt” blues... But ultramarine and cobalt are two very different tones. Why do such mixtures exist? Often for reasons of cost, not for pictorial reasons. And when manufacturers think first as industrialists rather than painters, it ends up blurring our perception of tones, intensities... and therefore of the paint itself. That's why it's essential to learn to recognize the true nature of colors. And if you're looking for a very good brand, with beautiful pigments, I can already tell you about this one: Golden. #culturepainting
When working with color, it's useful to know certain concepts: intensity, value, temperature and luminosity. Among other things, this enables you to control contrast intensities. I offer my students a number of exercises to help them clarify and master these concepts. This often takes them a step further. #culturepeinture #peinture #artabstrait #peinturecontemporaine
Many thanks to all the African artists who regularly share their paintings with me. It's always a joy to discover your worlds, your sensitivity, your energy and your commitment to painting. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude, support and strength in your artistic journey. Keep creating, keep searching, keep deepening your language... your work deserves to be seen. Thank you for your trust and for sharing.
Here's a slightly technical video, an extract from the last summer workshop. It talks about certain aspects that may seem incomprehensible, but which are real questions when you're consciously working on a painting. I hope it will be of interest to some of you. #culturepainting #artmodern #composition
Behind what seems spontaneous, instinctive, almost wild... often lies a very profound construction. In this ink by Zao Wou-Ki, I show my students how elements of structure, rhythm and even circles appear that are invisible at first glance. An extract filmed during my internship in Ferrières-en-Gâtinais in 2025. What if there was more to a professional artist's painting than meets the eye?
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