Painter and poet Jean Raine
«Jean Raine (1927-1986) has come to painting from the literary and cinema worlds. Essentially a poet, Raine’s paintings are an extension of his poetry. Intellectually he shares the sensibilities of the surrealists, although his paintings do not seem to reflect that interest. Raine’s visual sense is, rather, tempered by the european group of action painters who had organised as COBRA, although Raine matured as a painter after COBRA had already disbanded.
Raine’s affinity for the COBRA group is apparent in a similar feeling for a synthesis of the arts, as well as in the execution of his work, which is in the exuberant style so familiar from the work of COBRA painters. These are strong differences, however, between Raine’s work and that of other COBRA painters; in contrast to Alechinsky, Raine’s work is more consistently tied to a readable imagery; in contrast to Jorn, Raine’s imagery is more direct in presenting figures rather than simply suggestions of figures. Because of the references in the titles, of course, there is a somewhat blurred distinction between what we only see and what we already know....»
