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Lot Essay
The present work Clair de Lune sur les Pyramides is part of the Surrealist works from the self-taught Lebanese artist Willy Aractingi, capturing the viewer’s imagination immediately by its minimalist yet powerful composition and mysterious essence. We are proud of the Mokbel Collection’s discovery of this long-time overlooked artist who has now created a unique landmark style for the Lebanese scene. Noted for his rich compositions depicting fables, fantasies, landscapes of his surroundings and folkloric illustrations, Aractingi’s gradations of colour and his minimalist depictions of creatures and surrealist landscapes bring to life the many colours articulated by the artist in variations of purples, greens and blues. His colours are carefully chosen, producing works that are reduced to a complete harmony of form, line and shadow.
In the present work, Clair de Lune sur les Pyramides, the artist depicts a nocturnal dreamscape, a bed of red lotuses is displayed in the foreground behind a row of monumental pyramids. In ancient Egypt, the lotus flower was believed to be the first flower of the universe, springing from the gods and symbolizing passionate love and sensuality. With patches of deeply saturated colours in subtle textures and light gradations producing velvety shadows diffusing a mysterious energy, the work depicts the wild and poetic imagination of the artist and his mastery in form, line and tone. The sinuous lines of the crescent moon is met with the bulbous floral forms. A parfumier by trade, the artist captures the essence of beauty, in the richness of smell and the voluptuousness of nature in billowing shape and royal colours. Easy to the eye, the viewer is exposed to a harmonious composition, stretching from the effervescent moon and its mysterious shadows lingering in the sky to the lotus towering tall behind the cascading row of pyramids behind it.
Artists have been noted to depict pyramids in their works, among the likes of Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein and even Sir Winston Churchill, capturing the essence of their infinite horizons associated with their powerful symbolism, including their mysterious aura, dynamic shape and historical importance.
Aractingi ultimately pursued painting as a career until the 1980s, when he began to target classical literature and popular cultural tales both in Eastern and Western cultures – including Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, Sleeping Beauty along with the Tales of Geha and the love story of Antar and Abla. Animals such as lions, foxes and monkeys are depicted with vivid colours and palettes derived from his wild imagination. Aractingi‘s art is highly symbolic and carries strong references to morality where both reality and imagination intertwine. With an international profile at a young age, the artist was born in New York and raised in Cairo, then settling in Lebanon in the late 1940s. Later In the 1970s the artist opened a modern art gallery, showcasing artists such as Alan Davie, Alekos Fassianos and Niki De St Phalle to Beirut elitists.
The artist is well known for his depiction of Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, a six-year endeavor culminating in 244 works in 1995. In 2017 the artist’s family donated to the Sursock Museum more than 200 works depicting Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables. In 2017 the Sursock museum held a retrospective Les Mondes de Willy Aractingi of the artist’s work, showcasing over 120 works that he completed between 1973 and 2003, of which Clair de Lune sur les Pyramides was exhibited. Aractingi has showed his work in numerous one man shows and group exhibitions, and his works are found in private collections in Lebanon, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In the present work, Clair de Lune sur les Pyramides, the artist depicts a nocturnal dreamscape, a bed of red lotuses is displayed in the foreground behind a row of monumental pyramids. In ancient Egypt, the lotus flower was believed to be the first flower of the universe, springing from the gods and symbolizing passionate love and sensuality. With patches of deeply saturated colours in subtle textures and light gradations producing velvety shadows diffusing a mysterious energy, the work depicts the wild and poetic imagination of the artist and his mastery in form, line and tone. The sinuous lines of the crescent moon is met with the bulbous floral forms. A parfumier by trade, the artist captures the essence of beauty, in the richness of smell and the voluptuousness of nature in billowing shape and royal colours. Easy to the eye, the viewer is exposed to a harmonious composition, stretching from the effervescent moon and its mysterious shadows lingering in the sky to the lotus towering tall behind the cascading row of pyramids behind it.
Artists have been noted to depict pyramids in their works, among the likes of Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein and even Sir Winston Churchill, capturing the essence of their infinite horizons associated with their powerful symbolism, including their mysterious aura, dynamic shape and historical importance.
Aractingi ultimately pursued painting as a career until the 1980s, when he began to target classical literature and popular cultural tales both in Eastern and Western cultures – including Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, Sleeping Beauty along with the Tales of Geha and the love story of Antar and Abla. Animals such as lions, foxes and monkeys are depicted with vivid colours and palettes derived from his wild imagination. Aractingi‘s art is highly symbolic and carries strong references to morality where both reality and imagination intertwine. With an international profile at a young age, the artist was born in New York and raised in Cairo, then settling in Lebanon in the late 1940s. Later In the 1970s the artist opened a modern art gallery, showcasing artists such as Alan Davie, Alekos Fassianos and Niki De St Phalle to Beirut elitists.
The artist is well known for his depiction of Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, a six-year endeavor culminating in 244 works in 1995. In 2017 the artist’s family donated to the Sursock Museum more than 200 works depicting Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables. In 2017 the Sursock museum held a retrospective Les Mondes de Willy Aractingi of the artist’s work, showcasing over 120 works that he completed between 1973 and 2003, of which Clair de Lune sur les Pyramides was exhibited. Aractingi has showed his work in numerous one man shows and group exhibitions, and his works are found in private collections in Lebanon, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.