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Lot Essay
Since the 1950s, Affandi's devotion to the exploration into the symbolic depiction of cockfighting solidified it as one of the artists' key themes throughout his artistic career. In Cockfight, the artist captures yet again the elegance and intensity of the raw and natural through his mastery of colours and use of impasto. Strong emotion, speed, and vigour in the competitive arena was captured through the powerful strokes of Affandi's hands. The close composition immerses the viewer directly into the scene, enhancing the visual and emotive experience of the viewer.
The two cocks engage head on in the foreground of the canvas, in a single moment where they seemingly both fight and embrace. Amidst the dramatic clash of creatures and colour, an effervescent ripple of earth tones and bright flourishes capture the sheer beauty of the feathers on the two cocks and the dust and earth beneath them. The swirling palette used to depict the scene, where animal and environment seem to surge into and apart from each other in frenetic movement, grounds the painting firmly in the lived realm of experience and the immediacy of the moment.
At the edges of the painting, dark smears of paint capture the symbolic weight of the clash, demonstrating Affandi's distinctive technique of applying paint directly onto the canvas. The inimitable gestural technique was adopted by Affandi as a key approach for him to qualify his emotions using unaltered paint straight from the tube, while the mixing of colours took place directly on the surface of the canvas. These bold motions and gestures give a dramatic result to his paintings, and adds texture to the surface of the painting above the lines of impasto. Affandi always painted on site, furiously painting to capture the emotions and experience as he viewed them happening. In this case, the use of bold and large gestures accompanied by the detailed rendering of the two cocks set the scene for the dramatic fight, bringing both speed and grandeur to the work.
The two cocks engage head on in the foreground of the canvas, in a single moment where they seemingly both fight and embrace. Amidst the dramatic clash of creatures and colour, an effervescent ripple of earth tones and bright flourishes capture the sheer beauty of the feathers on the two cocks and the dust and earth beneath them. The swirling palette used to depict the scene, where animal and environment seem to surge into and apart from each other in frenetic movement, grounds the painting firmly in the lived realm of experience and the immediacy of the moment.
At the edges of the painting, dark smears of paint capture the symbolic weight of the clash, demonstrating Affandi's distinctive technique of applying paint directly onto the canvas. The inimitable gestural technique was adopted by Affandi as a key approach for him to qualify his emotions using unaltered paint straight from the tube, while the mixing of colours took place directly on the surface of the canvas. These bold motions and gestures give a dramatic result to his paintings, and adds texture to the surface of the painting above the lines of impasto. Affandi always painted on site, furiously painting to capture the emotions and experience as he viewed them happening. In this case, the use of bold and large gestures accompanied by the detailed rendering of the two cocks set the scene for the dramatic fight, bringing both speed and grandeur to the work.