In a cafe in Venice airport the other week I got chatting to Simon Grant, co-curator of the Peggy Guggenheim in London exhibition, which is coming to the Royal Academy this November. Grant is someone I’ve admired for many years, and his indefatigable work unearthing artists is astounding. I’ve often followed his Instagram closely as he shares work by the likes of Jacques le Moyne, Frank Sedlacek and Frieda Harris. He recently published a book on Paule Vézelay, and curated ‘Living Lines’ at Towner. This time, he was telling me about the artist Louise Janin. I’d never heard of her. But when he showed me her work on his tiny iPhone screen – and told me that he was curating an exhibition of her work in London this June – I had to know more.
Janin’s work melds East Asian influences with surrealism, spiritualism, and more. They’re like cascading waterfalls meets the swirls of a racetrack – and totally mesmerising. Ahead of the exhibition (3–7 June), I interviewed him and his co-curator, Vivienne Roberts, who I met a few years ago at the Madge Gill show at the William Morris Gallery. Over to Simon and Vivienne!
Please can you describe Janin’s paintings for us?
Encountering the paintings of Louise Janin is like entering a world where colour, rhythm and spiritual energy become tangible. You are drawn into their hypnotic qualities, with flowing forms that merge the organic and the geometric, creating images that feel both familiar and otherworldly.
Rather than depicting the visible world literally, Janin sought to reveal the invisible forces that animate it, including sound, energy and the rhythms of the cosmos. Her harmonious compositions unfold like visual music, inviting the viewer to experience them as much through the senses as through sight. You do not simply look at them; you almost hear and feel them.
Is there one work that sticks out to you: which is it, and why?
Simon: I love the painting called Ascension (below left). It depicts a sense of the organic elements of natural forms but also hints at her fascination for exploring invisible worlds.
Vivienne: For me, it is The Sensitive Line (below right) which looks like it was created using the technique of automatism. I imagine Janin letting go of all constraints, feeling the pencil and brush moving instinctively and finding their own rhythm. I see the work as a portal to freedom and adventure.
Janin was born in New Hampshire in 1893, and was raised in San Francisco. I know that she was enchanted by her father’s extensive collection of Chinese art. Tell us more about this.
These youthful times became the bedrock of her artistic development, rooted in her growing fascination with Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu ideas and beliefs that would remain with her throughout her long life. Possibly initially the ideas of myth, fantasy and beauty, but most likely also the visual aspect of the pictures, elements of which such as Xiangyun (traditional Chinese stylized clouds – below right), would find their way into her paintings (below left).
In the earlier work she depicted famous mythological stories in figurative works that were highly symbolic. Within these compositions she would often include forms such as spiralling fronds, fantastical arabesques and wispy, flowing curlicues, symbolising the spiritual realm and the energy of nature. But as her works progressed, these elements that had been peripheral became the focus – as her work moved towards abstraction.
I know that she was very inspired by shan shui pictures. Can you tell us about this, and how her work relates to them?
Shan shui painting style (literally “mountain-water”) originated in fifth century China. Shan shui pictures characteristically featured the natural scenery of mountains, rivers, and waterfalls (below, left). They embodied Taoist and Buddhist principles that emphasised a harmonious, balanced relationship between humans and nature, and aimed to capture the soul of nature rather than its realistic depiction.
A key part of such pictures was the empty spaces known as liubai (literally “leaving blank”) that symbolised infinity, vastness, and an intangible void (below).
As Janin wrote, such painting “is closely linked to philosophies that teach the nothingness of appearances, conflate the real and unreal, and describe how the soul of the sage can sail through vast spaces.”
I love the idea of “liubai” – the intangible void: why do you think we are drawn to that today?
Because it has always been there. The idea of reducing ideas and form to the bare minimum has an ancient history. The idea of reduction stemming from a philosophical concept was present in many cultures. Minimal means could generate potentials for infinite variations. Think of Stéphane Mallarmé’s treatment of the blank page as part of the poem itself, Constantin Brâncuși’s sculpture The Beginning of the World (aka Brâncuși’s egg), Béla Tarr’s cinematic silences or Agnes Martin’s grid paintings.
Was she inspired by spiritualism for her work?
She was moving in circles where ideas about spirituality and art were actively being discussed, including artists such as František Kupka, whom she met in 1926. Like many pioneers of abstraction, Janin was interested in the idea that art could reveal realities beyond ordinary sight.
What about the role of nature?
Nature was central to her way of thinking and existing in the world. In her writing, she often connected her ideas back to the natural world, visible and invisible. Sometimes she talked about worlds beyond. She put it beautifully: “The wonder-filled contemplation of natural harmonies, the vigorous architecture of animals, the gracefulness of plants; the movement of the human body in its games and dances; song and nascent instrumental music… This is the natural, universal genesis of abstract art.”
I love how she compares nature to abstraction, saying: “nature is geometric” – what do you think about that?
It makes total sense. For Janin the spiral was the perfect example of this. It appears in nature in many forms, as well as in imagery across world cultures. The two are inexorably intertwined.
What about music? I love the work “Musicaliste Composition” (1950) and both paintings titled, “Étude Musicaliste”.
Janin said that music was an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Her paintings function as exemplary visual compositions in which form and colour interact rhythmically, creating immersive experiences rather than static images. The viewer is invited to engage with the work as one might engage with music, through sensation and intuition rather than narrative interpretation. The works you mention are great examples of this.
How did she fuse, and borrow, elements from different cultures?
Janin was fascinated by how global cultures developed pictorial languages, and she would often incorporate elements of both straight and curved lines that appear in cultural artefacts – such as the carved spiral designs on the Neolithic stones of Gavrinis in Brittany (far left, below), the zoomorphic designs in Chinese Bronze Age vessels (middle, below):
Or the sinuous, wave-like forms found in New Guinea ritual objects (middle). Janin also liked the intricate glyphs seen in Mayan stone wall decorations (right, below).
Tell us about her “Cosmogrammes” – what are the ideas behind them?
It’s a play on the words ‘cosmos’ and ‘osmosis’. While the seed for the cosmogrammes was sown in 1925 after Janin encountered marbled papers used in book binding, it wasn’t until after the Second World War that she returned to the idea, and began to conduct her own experiments.
Pigments dispersed and accumulated into formations that evoke nebulae, microscopic organisms, or unknown systems. They conjure the mystical ideas of ‘as above, so below’, suggesting the interconnectedness between the microcosm and macrocosm.
The mantic stain techniques of Ithell Colquhoun, the celestograph experiments of August Strindberg, and earlier ‘taches’ by Victor Hugo demonstrate a similar interest in allowing material processes to generate form.
How does her work speak to the world we live in now?
Janin was still exhibiting her work at the age of 100, having lived through extraordinary social, political and cultural upheaval throughout her 80 year career. She embodies resilience and an unwavering belief in the value of artistic vision, even when it must have felt as though her voice was not always heard.
In this respect, she has much in common with other visionary artists such as Hilma af Klint and Georgiana Houghton, who are leading the way in the recent rediscovery of women who have been overlooked in dominant art historical narratives. Like them, Janin created work that invites a more contemplative way of seeing that encourages viewers to slow down, expand perception, and be more open to intuition, emotion, energy, spirituality and sensory experience. Maybe they are tools to deal with the uncertainty of the world we now live in.
Where can we learn more?
At the exhibition ‘Louise Janin: The Echo of the Spirit Through the Rhythms of Life’ at the GPS Gallery, 36 Great Pulteney St, London W1F 9NS, 3-7 June. We are also publishing a small book.
Thank you Simon and Vivienne!
What beautiful work. Thank you for sharing. Only wish I could get to the exhibition.
Thank you for this. Amazingly inspiring.