Some excerpts:

André MALRAUX, 1972 :

« A young, very human face, an exuberant, even overflowing vitality; instinctive and reasonable, enthusiastic and thoughtful, earthy and celestial, feeling the need to radiate a generous goodness and affirm his personality in the direction of aesthetic, spiritual and moral efforts.

These are some of the characteristics of Pol Fraiture.

His work shows a striking resemblance to his personality. It is directed towards the infinite; each touch of colour is a step towards the glow of the superconscious and the caverns of the infraconscious, mixed nevertheless with a desire to link near and far with vigorous, frank graphics.

His vibrant, sometimes daring colours smoothed on the canvas with delicacy and subtlety offer the eye a very special iridescent brilliance, sometimes expressing serenity, sometimes fear, but always purity.

Pol Fraiture can offer so much: greatness, excitement, energy, reality and finally, beauty… »
André MALRAUX

« … Luminist, colorist, both abstract and figurative, Fraiture’s work is not part of any art movement. He created his own style, his own personal technique… »
Paul Caso, Le Soir

« … His oils on canvas show his love of nature. They are imbued with poetry, imagination and mystery… »
Stéphane Rey, Écho de la Bourse

« … There is, in his paintings, a certain witchcraft from which the artist draws curious and sensitive effects… »
Paul Caso, Le Soir

« … His works represent an exploratory journey. The spectator discovers them, gradually apprehending, on closer examination, the original vision of the artist, which captivates with the vibrant harmony of its colours… »
Rona Dobson, The Bulletin (Belgian weekly magazine)

« Why did Pol FRAITURE’s astonishing work immediately grab me? Because it offers this paradox of breaking the habits of the eye while strengthening its powers (but isn’t it by violating our senses that we sharpen them?).
The Impressionists revealed EXTERNAL light by restoring the role of color. Here, it’s the opposite: it’s about making INTERNAL light more present, the luminous potential enclosed in each color. This would only be a virtuoso process if Fraiture stopped at the surface of things. But by delving into reality with the help of this prospecting instrument, he shows us that beyond the apparent solidity of forms, light is the only reality. But it can only manifest itself by dialoguing with the Dark. We are here, in the heart of Tao… »
Jacques Collard, Pourquoi Pas?

« His canvases, covered with small touches and then engraved, are as if lit from within…
They evoke vegetal or celestial depths, where a graphic style runs, both firm and light, which we don’t immediately discover, but which is the elegant expression of a thought that delights in surprising. We sometimes think of Turner or the haunted reveries of certain German Romantics. This reveals a temperament of great freshness…
Such art goes off the beaten track. Pol FRAITURE is inspired, in the purest sense of the word…
Such art will disconcert some by its lack of references; Pol FRAITURE walks alone, without clinging to any support other than his conviction and his faith…
We are transported into the world of Grand Meaulnes…
It’s an affirmation that brings a new air… »
Stéphane Rey, L’Écho de la Bourse

Pol Fraiture: don’t forget him
« Pol Fraiture left us a few years ago… This painter and art gallery host saw himself as an explorer of color, rhythms, and the soul. He liked to speak of “a state of wakefulness in which the conscious allows itself to be solicited by the universe of external sensations.” And he said: “My painting takes me into the depths of this forest of unsuspected riches that are colors. They become the true source of the forms that emerge from my innermost self.” And indeed, looking at the numerous paintings that cover the walls at the “L’Angle Aigu” Gallery (96, avenue Louise, Brussels), we truly realize the importance that chromaticisms, often muted and heavy with psychological anxiety, had for Pol Fraiture. The subjects, the anecdote, were drowned, encompassed in color, and yet they were perfectly distinct since they appeared in a simple scratch of the material. Generally, these were landscapes. All the timelessness of the vision confronted with reality in the century of the subject is here a source of psychic telescoping. Pol Fraiture, born in Ixelles in 1946 and who died too early, much too early, in 1981, was in the tradition of the Luminist artists.
… An art that is difficult to access for those who do not engage in confidential dialogue about “landscapes,” but how enriching for those who have an instinct for the inner life… »
Alain Viray,  La Dernière Heure, 1985

« L’Angle Aigu is dedicated to the memory of Pol Fraiture, who died in 1981, when he was only 35 years old. He was a minor prodigy. He participated in drawing competitions from the age of thirteen. Later, having sought every possible path to perfect art, he would attempt an approach to light. Pol Fraiture, whose subjects are incised in color, is astonishing! Light, contrary to all his preconceptions, is not external, nor direct, nor grazing: it literally “emerges” from the canvas through a marvelous pictorial process. This beautiful approach, far from being dry, tends to prove that the quest for light is indeed the most important and that the struggle between night and day will never end. Malraux said that his work is oriented towards the unlimited… »
Anita Nardon – Arts Magazine, 1985

« Pol Fraiture, born in December 1946, painted from childhood. He was known as a gallery director, alternately enthusiastic and disappointed, but always hardworking and faithful to his very personal vision. He died in his prime a few years ago, and the exhibition that brings together his works today has the character of a tribute. Pol Fraiture’s luminist canvases are covered with small, nervous, applied touches. They seem lit from within. They evoke plant depths (sometimes with a house, a castle, as if from a dream), where a firm and light graphic style runs, which we do not discover immediately, but which is like the guiding thread of a thought that branches out, slips in, invades entire areas of the work. We could compare this trace dug in the color to that of a small creature that walks, lifting a fine, capricious furrow with its pointed nose. Pol Fraiture therefore “engraves” his canvases as he paints them. This creates branches, bushes, flowers, foliage in the fresh color…
He is, in his own way, a hollow “superimpressionist”. The choice of tones is serious, with something golden and vibrant. One sometimes thinks of Turner or the haunted reveries of certain German Romantics. Such art, which strays from the beaten track and where, curiously, man cannot find his place, is recommended by its contained passion, its desire for renewal, and the total change of scenery it offers us. Inspired, in the purest sense of the word, Pol Fraiture has never ceased to be strangely present in his work” (Galerie Angle Aigu, 96, avenue Louise. Until November 6.) »
Stéphane Rey – L’Écho de la Bourse, 1985

At Lorelei Galery – Pol Fraiture: Memento Lumen-Numen?
« He’s hypersensitive, a tormented soul. Quickly wounded by life’s meanness. When he was, for a time, a gallery director, who knew he painted? We celebrated his first exhibition on October 5, 1972. A seemingly wise approach, but in fact, unprecedented despite its still undecided vagueness, asserted itself as it was about to transcend. “Brings together the distant,” said René Huyghe in his album. Here comes the answer, in the direction of a pursuit—through the dilution of forms—of diffuse light in and through things. How can I explain this? There is, of course, the affirmation of a NECESSARY connection with nature, confirmed, moreover, by his rural habitat. But man, as we had already noted, remained absent from this approach. He still is. Why? Because, being the ONE WE ARE SPEAKING TO, it wasn’t necessarily necessary to represent him. We introduce him differently into the painting. An experiment we conducted at his home demonstrates what the recent landing brings. Slowly moving a flash across the canvas, we note, with the help of background music (the one that presided over the creation of the work), that each movement obscures areas of the canvas—the storm and night passing over things—while illuminating others, and that this contrast of light and shadow reveals a “different” reality. Of course, those concerned with so-called “current” art will wait until a more thunderous trumpet than yours truly has biennialized the Thing before taking it seriously, all other super-current farces, it seems, as much as super-coquentious ones (thanks, Rostand, old hand!) being demonetized. Let’s get serious again: this other reality, revealed by the complicity of the painter and “revealers,” is reminiscent of a sublime striptease: the true Reality of this bell tower, this tree, this road, or this river being DENOUNCED as nudity behind clothing or, more, as internal anatomy under an X-ray. Is it only the processes used (the knife stroke recalling a certain “short touch”) that brings to mind the LUMEN-NUMEN group, created in the not-so-distant past by Philippe d’Arschot and Serge Largot? By the way, what has become of it? Passed away, or gone underground, working in silence like all profound and TRULY meaningful things? A decade or two older. Perhaps Pol Fraiture would have joined it? »
Jacques Collard – Pourquoi Pas? – 1978

« A phantasmagorical side reminds us that we are confronted with a Belgian artist for whom reality is always an accomplice to the magic of things and beings…
If the Impressionists reveal the exterior light, Pol FRAITURE, for his part, renders the interior light…
Pol Fraiture holds the secret of a new alchemy, made of a perfect alliance between the acuity of gesture and spirit. A patient and skillful work with a knife of my material allows him to achieve in each of his paintings constantly changing effects, depending on the lighting or the position of the observer. So that all the hours of the day, but also all the moods unfold in turn on these landscapes chiseled in the bowels of light, of which one does not know whether one should admire more the luxury of execution, the concern for fidelity to nature, or the most secret fantastic transparencies. »
Roger Delneufcourt – Le Nouveau Journal, Paris, March-April 1980

« … From the outset, one is very struck by the luminosity of these canvases that seem lit from within and evoke dreams. Only later, after the initial impression caused by the beauty of the colors, do we discover that a hidden world is revealed, revealing a luminous and poetic drawing. This remarkable work on all levels is a hymn to serenity… »
Fernande Angel – La Presse française, April 1980

« … We think of the seduction of unexpressed things… Pol FRAITURE does not seem entirely of his time. He seems to be the repository of a reverie as old as the world, that of poets… A very beautiful search for atmosphere in perfectly chosen colors… »
Roger Patesson

« Pol FRAITURE’s paintings have the appearance of a dream…
he possesses a very personal technique…
This artist’s engravings are expressive, painful, and poetic… »
Monique Priscille

« Pol Fraiture or the originality of a technique…
What can be extracted from Pol’s painting FRAITURE, it’s his delicacy, his finesse, this contrast between the blur and the precision of the light: poetry and sensitivity…
Of light studied by the treatment of the background: poetry and sensitivity… »
Eliane Borloz – Le Courrier (Geneva), Dec. 1979

“Dream”
« Pol Fraiture’s landscapes seem to emerge from a universe that moves and slowly awakens. He uses patiently layered colors, most of the same tone, and upon examination they reveal a slightly sculptural transparency. He feels an attraction that we must share for these peaceful and stable countrysides, far from the dark cities »
Georges Giraudon – L’Economie, Paris – 1980

Pol Fraiture and Light
« Pol Fraiture is a courageous young man, passionate about art to the point of having sacrificed (perhaps) even his health for it. Having undergone the difficult experience of running an art gallery, today, he took refuge in pure creation. As a painter, he sought, through a luminous neo-impressionism, to decant landscapes by managing to illuminate the essential setting and even making it more or less open to the eye depending on the tone of the projected lighting. At the Lorelei Gallery (3, place du Grand Sablon), an exhibition intriguing in its purpose thus concluded. Pol Fraiture’s “engraving” painting brings out sensitive figurative poetic projections from a paste of a thousand heavy and sometimes dark glares. The “luminist” experience is interesting because, as Jacques Collard says, if the Impressionists reveal the exterior light, they restore the interior light. »
Alain Viray – La Dernière Heure,  February 1978

« Pol Fraiture is a young, anxious artist, always on edge. For several years now, we have been sympathetically following his aesthetic approach. We meet him again at the gallery d’Egmont (11, square du Petit-Sablon) with oils and, for the first time, a significant series of monotypes. Pol Fraiture, who “engraves” a precise yet muted drawing in the paste, displays an obvious sensitivity and authentic poetry in the oils. The gallery’s good lighting allows us to carefully discover the “impressionist” subtleties of this art, which is nevertheless truly modern. “Woman in Oudenaarde”, “Holy Places”, “The Footbridge”, are among the most engaging paintings. The monotypes, for their part, allow us to discover more expressionist and intriguing faces treated with a mysterious aura. The graphic rhythms are assertive and sometimes, when the artist uses lighter ranges, the masses settle, offering muscular points of strength that allow us to hope for the exploration of new avenues… »
Alain Viray – La Dernière Heure, February 1975