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Lot Essay
Painted in 1969, De Mars à la Lune is a large, vertical work filled with the signature grid-like brushstrokes so distinctive of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva's pictures. Almost half of the picture has been covered in a thicker mesh of rich blue brushstrokes; it is against this sky-like, yet still emphatically gestural, background that the accumulated architectonic annotations that build up the dark structure that rises up the surface of the picture appear. Looking at this picture, it appears to condense Vieira da Silva's hallmark interests into a lapis realm; the intense depth of the blue in the background may reflect the artist's involvement with stained glass at the time of the picture's execution. Vieira da Silva's own satisfaction with De Mars à la Lune is clear from the fact that it was selected, shortly after it was completed, for inclusion in the final leg of her momentous 1969-70 retrospective, an event that cemented her international reputation. Having already travelled from Paris to Rotterdam, Oslo and Basel, it was finally shown in an augmented format at the Fondação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Looking at the marks in De Mars à la Lune, the viewer is acutely aware of the movements of the artist in pain-stakingly creating this picture. There is an existential dimension to it, as we are forcibly aware of the passing of time and of the activity of the artist herself. In this way, De Mars à la Lune can be seen to parallel the developments of the Abstract Expressionists who had come to the fore of the American art scene in the post-war years during which Vieira da Silva herself came to prominence. However, unlike the Abstract Expressionists or indeed many of her European contemporaries, Vieira da Silva always insisted on creating a sense of space, an impression of three-dimensional perspective, within her pictures, as is clearly the case here. Upon the flat surface, she has managed to conjure a sense of three-dimensionality, inviting the viewer into the composition, asking us to allow our eyes to drift across the dense mesh of lines and marks that comprise the picture. 'I do not want people to remain passive,' the artist explained. 'I want them to come and take part in the game, go for a walk, climb up, go down' (Vieira da Silva, quoted in G. Rosenthal, Vieira da Silva 1908-1992: The Quest for Unknown Space, Cologne, 1998, p. 71).
As well as encouraging the viewer to become absorbed in the labyrinthine intricacies of the marks in De Mars à la Lune, Vieira da Silva has deliberately invoked that sense of three-dimensionality in order to give the viewer a sense of a space, albeit a fictive one. In this way, the viewer remains connected to an impression of spatial reality. Influences as divergent as the engineering of Gustave Eiffel, both in France and her native Portugal, as well as cityscapes and the azulejos, the tiles appearing on walls in Portugal, are cited regarding the pseudo-geometric forms that appear in her pictures. While the overall composition is abstract, that sense of spatiality deliberately anchors De Mars à la Lune in the real world. After all, as she herself said: 'I do not know what non-figurative painting is supposed to be. The starting point for my paintings is always reality. And you must not forget that a painter gets used to looking at things and really knowing what they are like, whereas those who do not paint see nothing but formulas' (Vieira da Silva, quoted in ibid., p. 71).
Looking at the marks in De Mars à la Lune, the viewer is acutely aware of the movements of the artist in pain-stakingly creating this picture. There is an existential dimension to it, as we are forcibly aware of the passing of time and of the activity of the artist herself. In this way, De Mars à la Lune can be seen to parallel the developments of the Abstract Expressionists who had come to the fore of the American art scene in the post-war years during which Vieira da Silva herself came to prominence. However, unlike the Abstract Expressionists or indeed many of her European contemporaries, Vieira da Silva always insisted on creating a sense of space, an impression of three-dimensional perspective, within her pictures, as is clearly the case here. Upon the flat surface, she has managed to conjure a sense of three-dimensionality, inviting the viewer into the composition, asking us to allow our eyes to drift across the dense mesh of lines and marks that comprise the picture. 'I do not want people to remain passive,' the artist explained. 'I want them to come and take part in the game, go for a walk, climb up, go down' (Vieira da Silva, quoted in G. Rosenthal, Vieira da Silva 1908-1992: The Quest for Unknown Space, Cologne, 1998, p. 71).
As well as encouraging the viewer to become absorbed in the labyrinthine intricacies of the marks in De Mars à la Lune, Vieira da Silva has deliberately invoked that sense of three-dimensionality in order to give the viewer a sense of a space, albeit a fictive one. In this way, the viewer remains connected to an impression of spatial reality. Influences as divergent as the engineering of Gustave Eiffel, both in France and her native Portugal, as well as cityscapes and the azulejos, the tiles appearing on walls in Portugal, are cited regarding the pseudo-geometric forms that appear in her pictures. While the overall composition is abstract, that sense of spatiality deliberately anchors De Mars à la Lune in the real world. After all, as she herself said: 'I do not know what non-figurative painting is supposed to be. The starting point for my paintings is always reality. And you must not forget that a painter gets used to looking at things and really knowing what they are like, whereas those who do not paint see nothing but formulas' (Vieira da Silva, quoted in ibid., p. 71).