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Lot Essay
This work is recorded in the archives of the Galerie Maurice Garnier.
By the 1950s Bernard Buffet had begun to achieve national acclaim, and in 1955, when Le clown au violon was executed, he was voted one of the greatest post-war artists in France by the art review Connaissance des Arts. A predominantly figurative artist, Buffet developed a distinctive and unmistakable style, depicting highly stylized figures and objects with strong black lines and flattened bold colour, a mode of expression that Le clown au violon perfectly encapsulates.
The present work portrays a tragicomic clown: a musician in a clown costume stands on a theatre stage, holding a miniature violin, facing the viewers, and engaging them with a melancholic gaze that is at odds with the cheerful character of his attire. In its combination of music and theatre costumes, the present work evokes a tradition which had been central to much of the art of the avant-garde. In the first half of the Twentieth Century, clowns, acrobats, and musicians had become symbolic characters in the works of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Georges Rouault. In those years, the figure of the circus performer was often used as a representation of the marginalized story-teller figure of the artist himself, evoking the hardships of his vocation, but also the charm and magic of his art, as he conjures new imaginary worlds into existence, immersing the viewer in his narrative web. Le clown au violon presents the theme of the clown in the unmistakable style of Buffet: the figure is outlined with dramatic black lines, combined with flat areas of colour, adding to the picture's charged atmosphere.
Le clown au violon is also one of the earliest examples of Buffet’s representation of this subject, as Buffet first turned to depicting clowns and the circus in 1955. Though a seemingly light-hearted and entertaining subject matter, the flamboyantly attired clowns and acrobats were depicted with a muted colour palette and with the same solemn, melancholic expressions that can be seen in the present work.
By the 1950s Bernard Buffet had begun to achieve national acclaim, and in 1955, when Le clown au violon was executed, he was voted one of the greatest post-war artists in France by the art review Connaissance des Arts. A predominantly figurative artist, Buffet developed a distinctive and unmistakable style, depicting highly stylized figures and objects with strong black lines and flattened bold colour, a mode of expression that Le clown au violon perfectly encapsulates.
The present work portrays a tragicomic clown: a musician in a clown costume stands on a theatre stage, holding a miniature violin, facing the viewers, and engaging them with a melancholic gaze that is at odds with the cheerful character of his attire. In its combination of music and theatre costumes, the present work evokes a tradition which had been central to much of the art of the avant-garde. In the first half of the Twentieth Century, clowns, acrobats, and musicians had become symbolic characters in the works of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Georges Rouault. In those years, the figure of the circus performer was often used as a representation of the marginalized story-teller figure of the artist himself, evoking the hardships of his vocation, but also the charm and magic of his art, as he conjures new imaginary worlds into existence, immersing the viewer in his narrative web. Le clown au violon presents the theme of the clown in the unmistakable style of Buffet: the figure is outlined with dramatic black lines, combined with flat areas of colour, adding to the picture's charged atmosphere.
Le clown au violon is also one of the earliest examples of Buffet’s representation of this subject, as Buffet first turned to depicting clowns and the circus in 1955. Though a seemingly light-hearted and entertaining subject matter, the flamboyantly attired clowns and acrobats were depicted with a muted colour palette and with the same solemn, melancholic expressions that can be seen in the present work.