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Lot Essay
Jean Dubuffet's evocative portrait of two Arabesque figures set against the arid backdrop of the Sahara reverberates with an almost palpable
sense of the heat and dust that fills the air of the desert environment. Painted shortly after his first visit to the Sahara in February 1947, Le soleil les décolore is an early example of the artists iconic Arab paintings, some of the most important and sought after works of his career. Captured in his characteristic style, the two spectral figures and their camel fill the composition with their presence and conjure up an evocative image of heat, smell and the other exotic sensations of North Africa. This work is an early example in which Dubuffet formulates an entirely new vocabulary portraying the nomadic Bedouin people and their world with a sense of rawness and energy that perfectly depicts the sparseness of their lives in the harsh desert environment.
Upon this commanding canvas, Dubuffet portrays two figures, one sitting crossed-legged and the other proudly standing on his flowing Bedouin robes and with a traditional kufeya on his head. Completing the composition is a long-legged camel, standing as if tethered in the foothills of the sand dunes behind the figures. This scene is one which Dubuffet undoubtedly came across during his travels in the region earlier that year and upon his return, with these memories still fresh in his mind, he began to set about committing these experiences to canvas. The earthy tones and textures of the artist's signature reductive painting style were perfectly suited to his renditions of the desert landscape. Dubuffet's palette of rich browns, warm ochers combined with flashes of vibrant red and yellow are then matched by the pale figures looking as though they have been bleached by the heat of the Saharan sun. The highly worked surface of the canvas perfectly captures the sense of the constantly shifting nature of the desert environment and bears witness to the artist's frenzied painterly activity.
Between 1947 and 1949 Dubuffet made three trips to the deserts of
North Africa. These visits proved to be the turning point for the artist as he encountered societies whose traditions were very different to the drab environment of post-war Paris which he had left behind. The intense light and expansive landscape were also to have a dramatic effect on his artistic output, 'perhaps it was the time I spent in the deserts of White Africa that sharpened my taste... for the little, the almost nothing, and especially, in my art, for the landscapes where one finds only the formless' (J. Dubuffet quoted by M. Glimcher, 'Jean Dubuffet: Towards An Alternative Reality', Jean Dubuffet: Towards An Alternative Reality, New York 1987, p. 9).
These two individuals are amongst Dubuffet's most redolent depictions of the human figure. The primal gestures with which he carves out these figures from the heavily worked surface of the canvas recalls the early, pre-historic renditions of early man. In Dubuffet's case his characteristic figures are as much a reaction to his own contemporary history as they are to any reaction to an earlier generation of painters. Dubuffet emerged to critical acclaim into the Paris art world in 1942 and during the height of World War Two his unique artistic style appealed to a population starved of artistic stimulation by the ravages of the Nazi occupation. His work was promoted by several influential French intellectuals, and the powerful American critic Clement Greenberg described him as 'the most original painter to have come out of the School of Paris since Miró' (C. Greenberg quoted in P. Schjeldahl, '1942 and After: Jean Dubuffet in His Century', Jean Dubuffet 1943-1963, exh. cat., Washington D.C., 1993, p. 15). Dubuffet's unique way of painting was his direct response to what he saw as the modern obsession with beauty and his assertion that it could be found in every human being, regardless of the refinement of aesthetics. In this sense, Le soleil les décolore becomes an important part of Dubuffet's project to create a painting that 'can illuminate the world with magnificent discoveries. It can imbue man with new myths and new mystiques, to reveal the infinitely numerous undivided aspects of things and values of which we were formerly unaware. This, I think, is a much more engrossing task for artists than assemblages of shapes and colours to please the eyes' (J. Dubuffet, Anticultural Positions, 1951, quoted in M. Glimcher (ed.), Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality, New York 1987, pp. 127-132).
sense of the heat and dust that fills the air of the desert environment. Painted shortly after his first visit to the Sahara in February 1947, Le soleil les décolore is an early example of the artists iconic Arab paintings, some of the most important and sought after works of his career. Captured in his characteristic style, the two spectral figures and their camel fill the composition with their presence and conjure up an evocative image of heat, smell and the other exotic sensations of North Africa. This work is an early example in which Dubuffet formulates an entirely new vocabulary portraying the nomadic Bedouin people and their world with a sense of rawness and energy that perfectly depicts the sparseness of their lives in the harsh desert environment.
Upon this commanding canvas, Dubuffet portrays two figures, one sitting crossed-legged and the other proudly standing on his flowing Bedouin robes and with a traditional kufeya on his head. Completing the composition is a long-legged camel, standing as if tethered in the foothills of the sand dunes behind the figures. This scene is one which Dubuffet undoubtedly came across during his travels in the region earlier that year and upon his return, with these memories still fresh in his mind, he began to set about committing these experiences to canvas. The earthy tones and textures of the artist's signature reductive painting style were perfectly suited to his renditions of the desert landscape. Dubuffet's palette of rich browns, warm ochers combined with flashes of vibrant red and yellow are then matched by the pale figures looking as though they have been bleached by the heat of the Saharan sun. The highly worked surface of the canvas perfectly captures the sense of the constantly shifting nature of the desert environment and bears witness to the artist's frenzied painterly activity.
Between 1947 and 1949 Dubuffet made three trips to the deserts of
North Africa. These visits proved to be the turning point for the artist as he encountered societies whose traditions were very different to the drab environment of post-war Paris which he had left behind. The intense light and expansive landscape were also to have a dramatic effect on his artistic output, 'perhaps it was the time I spent in the deserts of White Africa that sharpened my taste... for the little, the almost nothing, and especially, in my art, for the landscapes where one finds only the formless' (J. Dubuffet quoted by M. Glimcher, 'Jean Dubuffet: Towards An Alternative Reality', Jean Dubuffet: Towards An Alternative Reality, New York 1987, p. 9).
These two individuals are amongst Dubuffet's most redolent depictions of the human figure. The primal gestures with which he carves out these figures from the heavily worked surface of the canvas recalls the early, pre-historic renditions of early man. In Dubuffet's case his characteristic figures are as much a reaction to his own contemporary history as they are to any reaction to an earlier generation of painters. Dubuffet emerged to critical acclaim into the Paris art world in 1942 and during the height of World War Two his unique artistic style appealed to a population starved of artistic stimulation by the ravages of the Nazi occupation. His work was promoted by several influential French intellectuals, and the powerful American critic Clement Greenberg described him as 'the most original painter to have come out of the School of Paris since Miró' (C. Greenberg quoted in P. Schjeldahl, '1942 and After: Jean Dubuffet in His Century', Jean Dubuffet 1943-1963, exh. cat., Washington D.C., 1993, p. 15). Dubuffet's unique way of painting was his direct response to what he saw as the modern obsession with beauty and his assertion that it could be found in every human being, regardless of the refinement of aesthetics. In this sense, Le soleil les décolore becomes an important part of Dubuffet's project to create a painting that 'can illuminate the world with magnificent discoveries. It can imbue man with new myths and new mystiques, to reveal the infinitely numerous undivided aspects of things and values of which we were formerly unaware. This, I think, is a much more engrossing task for artists than assemblages of shapes and colours to please the eyes' (J. Dubuffet, Anticultural Positions, 1951, quoted in M. Glimcher (ed.), Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality, New York 1987, pp. 127-132).