Lalou’s inspirations
Poetry and sensitivity in Lalou Kraffe’s art
More than a quarter of a century of pictorial research and exploration of my favourite techniques now allows me to offer you, through my work, a rich and precious range of moments from life and the feelings we experience every day.
Women take their place here quite naturally. The gazes in my paintings draw you in with captivating strength and expression.
You may feel unsettled if you let yourself be drawn into these luminous porcelain-like skins, through which I continually invite you to reflect on our human fragility, embodied in flesh.
Craftsmanship and art history
Each painting draws on references from the history of art, particularly the period from 1890 to 1930.
“My perfectionism is undoubtedly linked to my time at the École Boulle in Paris and my deep attachment to the school, where I graduated in the 1990s.”
“I refine my sketches and drawings in notebooks, sometimes over several years. To work calmly on the surfaces, I use masking, which creates these slight raised areas within the composition.”
“There is no collage: everything comes from the meticulous alchemy of my craftsmanship, pigments, water and wood.”
Painting with sensitivity
“I love using my gaze, my feelings and my emotions as a prism that gathers the precious essence of everything I observe and gives rise to beauty, as it develops and becomes more refined within me over the years.”
“I explore, gently and respectfully, the depths of the feelings, moods, shivers and goosebumps that move us and make us so alive and vulnerable, fragile and strong.”
“On wood, I express the sensitivities that live within us all.”
Modern art revisited
Lalou draws inspiration from modern art, from William Morris’s Arts and Crafts movement around 1860 to the Viennese workshops of the early twentieth century, taking in the Pont-Aven school, the Nabis and Klimt’s Vienna Secession.
Japonisme also forms part of this artistic landscape and influenced these various movements.
Lalou sometimes uses a process similar to Japanese katagami: traditional stencils made from mulberry paper, used in textile craftsmanship to print fabrics and kimonos.
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement
The Arts and Crafts movement, pioneered by William Morris in England around 1860, is an artistic and social movement that advocates a return to craftsmanship in the face of increasing industrialisation.
It values handwork, the quality of natural materials such as wood, stone and metal, and the beauty of everyday objects, often decorated with floral motifs inspired by nature.
Arts and Crafts rejects mass production and excessive ornamentation, favouring simplicity, function and the integration of art into everyday life.
William Morris and his companions champion the idea that art should be accessible to everyone, and that every object, even a practical one, can convey beauty and meaning.
The movement had a major influence on the decorative arts, architecture and modern design, inspiring other movements such as Art Nouveau.
The Pont-Aven school
The Pont-Aven school emerged in the late nineteenth century in the Breton village of Pont-Aven.
It brought together painters from across Europe, including Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Paul Sérusier and Charles Filiger, drawn by Brittany’s wild beauty and a desire to break with academic conventions.
Together, they developed Synthetism, an innovative style characterised by flat areas of vivid colour, simplified forms and strong outlines, drawing inspiration from medieval and Japanese art.
The Pont-Aven school is regarded as an important milestone on the path to modern art.
The Nabis
The Nabis, a group of young Post-Impressionist painters formed around Paul Sérusier in 1888, sought to renew painting through spirituality, symbolism and the decorative arts.
Influenced by Gauguin, they favoured pure colours, simplified forms and personal expression.
The Nabis sought to dissolve the boundary between fine art and decorative art, bringing beauty into everyday life through media such as tapestries, stained glass and wallpaper.
Their explorations anticipated Fauvism and modern art.
The Vienna Secession
The Vienna Secession is a major artistic movement founded in Vienna in 1897 by artists including Gustav Klimt, Josef Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffmann.
It shared the spirit of Art Nouveau while asserting an identity of its own. Its principal aim was to break with academic conservatism and create a “total work of art”, bringing together painting, architecture, decorative arts, sculpture, typography and ceramics without a hierarchy between disciplines.
The Secession sought to bring the country’s creative forces together, encourage international dialogue and renew the applied arts. Its artists championed creative freedom, foreign influences—including European Art Nouveau, English Arts and Crafts and Japanese prints—and art’s place in every aspect of daily life.
The Secession building became a symbol of the movement, with the motto “To every age its art, to every art its freedom”.
The journal Ver Sacrum spread these new ideas. The movement transformed the cultural landscape of Vienna and Central Europe, helping lay the foundations for the twentieth-century avant-garde and inspiring the Wiener Werkstätte.
The Viennese workshops
The Wiener Werkstätte, or “Viennese workshops”, was an artistic movement and collective of artists and craftspeople founded in Vienna in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and industrialist Fritz Waerndorfer.
Inspired by English Arts and Crafts, it sought to dissolve the boundary between fine and decorative arts by creating a “total work of art”. Everyday objects—furniture, glassware, textiles, jewellery and stationery—received the same care and aesthetic attention as major artworks.
Women artists played a particularly important role in the workshops, including Vally Wieselthier, Gudrun Baudisch and Mathilde Flögl, whose work in textiles, ceramics and graphic design contributed greatly to the collective’s reputation.
The collective brought modern design together with craftsmanship, valuing quality, function and restrained elegance. Its geometric forms, attention to materials and innovative style stood in contrast to historicism and industrial mass production.
Its aim was to introduce beauty and art into every aspect of daily life and make modern aesthetics accessible to a wider public. For almost thirty years, the Wiener Werkstätte left its mark on design and the decorative arts, influencing movements such as Art Deco and the Bauhaus.
Its ideal of a total work of art found expression in landmark projects such as the Stoclet Palace in Brussels.
Japonisme
Japonisme emerged in Europe in the 1860s, following Japan’s opening to international trade after more than two centuries of isolation.
The term describes the profound influence of Japanese art and culture, particularly ukiyo-e prints, on Western artists. First in France and then across Europe, artists were fascinated by their unfamiliar motifs, bold compositions, flat areas of colour and nature-inspired subjects.
Japonisme touched painting, the decorative arts, architecture, fashion and music. It marked a turning point in Western art history, offering an alternative to academic conventions and inspiring major movements including Impressionism and Art Nouveau.
The term was coined in 1872 by the art critic Philippe Burty to describe European artists’ enthusiasm for Japanese forms and techniques.
Japonisme reached its height in the late nineteenth century, before interest in African and Oceanian arts gradually came to the fore in the early twentieth century.
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