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Lot Essay
Depicting a beautiful array of colour, the self-educated Lebanese modern master evokes a landscape of colours mixed both with figuration and abstraction. Inspired by the Lebanese mountainside, his works evoke a meditative quality, with a voluptuous and sensuous body of colour.
The present work in its pastel palette embodies harmony in its intersecting of horizontal and vertical colour planes, with shorty gestural touches of colour fading in and out of the composition. With relatively muted brushstrokes, the viewer notices a menagerie of figurative forms, outlining figures and cityscapes. Indecipherable, the figures morph into a cacophonous ensemble blurring the physical reality of the painting with the implied reality of the image.
Studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, he then began to exhibit in Lebanon in the early 1950s, earning several honorable awards notably the First Prize for oil painting from the Sursock Museum in 1965 and the Prix Vendôme in 1969. Working alongside well-established and well-respected men in the art world, such as André Malraux and Georges Cyr, Kanaan was thus able to confirm his talent and expertise as one of the masters of art in Lebanon.
Much of his body of works were produced during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) reflecting a certain feeling of solitude and uneasiness brought out during this time. With its balanced and cheerful shades and colour palette, these works during this period position the nostalgia and reminiscent of the country’s better past.
The present work in its pastel palette embodies harmony in its intersecting of horizontal and vertical colour planes, with shorty gestural touches of colour fading in and out of the composition. With relatively muted brushstrokes, the viewer notices a menagerie of figurative forms, outlining figures and cityscapes. Indecipherable, the figures morph into a cacophonous ensemble blurring the physical reality of the painting with the implied reality of the image.
Studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, he then began to exhibit in Lebanon in the early 1950s, earning several honorable awards notably the First Prize for oil painting from the Sursock Museum in 1965 and the Prix Vendôme in 1969. Working alongside well-established and well-respected men in the art world, such as André Malraux and Georges Cyr, Kanaan was thus able to confirm his talent and expertise as one of the masters of art in Lebanon.
Much of his body of works were produced during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) reflecting a certain feeling of solitude and uneasiness brought out during this time. With its balanced and cheerful shades and colour palette, these works during this period position the nostalgia and reminiscent of the country’s better past.