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Lot Essay
“Sir I am an Impressionist. There are three things in life that I love. Beauty, sunlight and silence. Now could you tell me where to find these in a more perfect state than Bali?” - Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès
More than any other Indo-European artist of the modern period, Belgian-born Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès has been pivotal in creating the mythical splendour of Bali and the Balinese female. Although he was extensively schooled in art since boyhood and was already an accomplished travel painter during his early career, he is perhaps best known for the works which focus on his wife, the temple dancer Ni Pollok, and her coterie of beautiful Balinese maidens within lush tropical landscapes.
Like most young European middle-class males who yearned to see the world, Le Mayeur first left his native Belgium as a sailor bound for the United States. After a lengthy period of travelling through exotic places such as Africa, Tahiti and India, Le Mayeur finally discovered Bali at the ripe age of 52. Deeply entranced by the beauty and the bright and clear tropical light of the land he settled down to paint out his remaining days in this island paradise.
Le Mayeur's rich, luminously tinted canvases illustrate the idyllic island setting of Bali, recreating it as the Polynesia of the East. Preferring a warm colour palette and semi-impressionistic style which infused his works with tropical sensuality, Le Mayeur excelled at depicting the grace and languor of Balinese women moving prominently in the realms of work and family life, blessed by a climate of warmth and charm.
The artist’s highlights undoubtedly are the vibrant group scenes depicting young dancers rehearsing in a sun-dappled garden overhung with hibiscus flowers and palm trees, and carrying offerings to the gods in famous temple paintings. However, the women in his more ‘interior’ scenes take on a more domestic energy as Women Spinning and Weaving captures an intimate moment of three Balinese women gathered under the shade of a wooden verandah. Le Mayeur often borrowed the form of Ni Pollock and the female figures within the present painting carry the same elegance and finesse that have come to be associated with her, and it becomes easy to see Ni Pollock in all of them. Dressed in richly-coloured sarongs in shades of red and green, and crowned with brightly-hued headdresses and flowers in their hair, they are the image of poise, serenely engaged in various tasks of sewing and weaving.
Not far from where the women work, branches of pink, orange and red blossoms fall from the trees beyond, adorning the composition in sprays and patches of colour built with quick, short and pasty strokes of the brush. The tropical morning sun streams gently into the verandah in shifting tones of light and shade, subtly illuminating the skin of the women, their sarongs and headdresses in vivid shades of emerald and crimson and burgundy, and bathing the wood in warmer hues of beige and yellow. Glimpses of a pale sky and sea, painted in contrasting hues of grey, blue and pale pink, are visible in the background of the work, complemented by soft shades of green in the grass and foliage of the outdoors. Le Mayeur’s painterly ability is seen in his masterful command of light, shadow and vivid colours in Women Spinning and Weaving, skillfully indicating an early hour as well as a sense of depth within the painting’s morning atmosphere.
Though Women Spinning and Weaving depicts daily work and life in Bali, Le Mayeur was still “an exponent of late European impressionism, which favours a gentle, earthly palette of yellow, brown, beige and soft blue which is contrasted to red, pink, orange and purple accents.” However, the artist was likely also influenced by the French painter Paul Gauguin, who similarly journeyed to exotic and geographically far-flung locations full of light and colour. Feeling some level of spiritual affinity with Gauguin, Le Mayeur, like him, ventured to portray his artistic subjects (usually women) in a bold way. Yet, the styles of the two artists could not be more contrasted. Inspired towards a refined conception of light and shade, Le Mayeur would generously implement an extensive palette in short impressionist brushstrokes, painting in an individual, realist manner that differed from the thicker impastos, expressionistic brushwork and fantastical themes which was so characteristic of Gauguin’s canvases.
Le Mayeur’s elegant and beautiful depiction of female figures in Women Spinning and Weaving is likewise adeptly rendered through his execution of perspective, where the woman by the loom dominates the composition, with her two companions absorbed in friendly chatter receding into the middle and background. Pictorial depth is also suggested through the artist’s secondary technique of thinly layering pastel shades within the background, only providing the barest delineations of shape and shadow. This adoption of perspective and proportion, together with square-tiled flooring on the base of the verandah brings to mind the checkered floors and genre paintings of the Dutch Masters. While these works often portray everyday household activities, such as women reading letters or playing instruments, Le Mayeur contextualises and adapts the genre to the culturally and visually rich surroundings of Bali: the people, the luxuriant flora, the seaside, and the exuberant sunlight that touches the island.
The intense yet subtle use of colour combined with varying intensities of light and shade remains the main force of Le Mayeur’s pre-war Balinese works. Painting in an artistic and looser style than his postwar canvases, which were executed with greater elaborateness and attention to detail, Women Spinning and Weaving delivers a rare impression into the ethereal world of Bali, and celebrates the beauty found in simple moments of domesticity and serenity.
More than any other Indo-European artist of the modern period, Belgian-born Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès has been pivotal in creating the mythical splendour of Bali and the Balinese female. Although he was extensively schooled in art since boyhood and was already an accomplished travel painter during his early career, he is perhaps best known for the works which focus on his wife, the temple dancer Ni Pollok, and her coterie of beautiful Balinese maidens within lush tropical landscapes.
Like most young European middle-class males who yearned to see the world, Le Mayeur first left his native Belgium as a sailor bound for the United States. After a lengthy period of travelling through exotic places such as Africa, Tahiti and India, Le Mayeur finally discovered Bali at the ripe age of 52. Deeply entranced by the beauty and the bright and clear tropical light of the land he settled down to paint out his remaining days in this island paradise.
Le Mayeur's rich, luminously tinted canvases illustrate the idyllic island setting of Bali, recreating it as the Polynesia of the East. Preferring a warm colour palette and semi-impressionistic style which infused his works with tropical sensuality, Le Mayeur excelled at depicting the grace and languor of Balinese women moving prominently in the realms of work and family life, blessed by a climate of warmth and charm.
The artist’s highlights undoubtedly are the vibrant group scenes depicting young dancers rehearsing in a sun-dappled garden overhung with hibiscus flowers and palm trees, and carrying offerings to the gods in famous temple paintings. However, the women in his more ‘interior’ scenes take on a more domestic energy as Women Spinning and Weaving captures an intimate moment of three Balinese women gathered under the shade of a wooden verandah. Le Mayeur often borrowed the form of Ni Pollock and the female figures within the present painting carry the same elegance and finesse that have come to be associated with her, and it becomes easy to see Ni Pollock in all of them. Dressed in richly-coloured sarongs in shades of red and green, and crowned with brightly-hued headdresses and flowers in their hair, they are the image of poise, serenely engaged in various tasks of sewing and weaving.
Not far from where the women work, branches of pink, orange and red blossoms fall from the trees beyond, adorning the composition in sprays and patches of colour built with quick, short and pasty strokes of the brush. The tropical morning sun streams gently into the verandah in shifting tones of light and shade, subtly illuminating the skin of the women, their sarongs and headdresses in vivid shades of emerald and crimson and burgundy, and bathing the wood in warmer hues of beige and yellow. Glimpses of a pale sky and sea, painted in contrasting hues of grey, blue and pale pink, are visible in the background of the work, complemented by soft shades of green in the grass and foliage of the outdoors. Le Mayeur’s painterly ability is seen in his masterful command of light, shadow and vivid colours in Women Spinning and Weaving, skillfully indicating an early hour as well as a sense of depth within the painting’s morning atmosphere.
Though Women Spinning and Weaving depicts daily work and life in Bali, Le Mayeur was still “an exponent of late European impressionism, which favours a gentle, earthly palette of yellow, brown, beige and soft blue which is contrasted to red, pink, orange and purple accents.” However, the artist was likely also influenced by the French painter Paul Gauguin, who similarly journeyed to exotic and geographically far-flung locations full of light and colour. Feeling some level of spiritual affinity with Gauguin, Le Mayeur, like him, ventured to portray his artistic subjects (usually women) in a bold way. Yet, the styles of the two artists could not be more contrasted. Inspired towards a refined conception of light and shade, Le Mayeur would generously implement an extensive palette in short impressionist brushstrokes, painting in an individual, realist manner that differed from the thicker impastos, expressionistic brushwork and fantastical themes which was so characteristic of Gauguin’s canvases.
Le Mayeur’s elegant and beautiful depiction of female figures in Women Spinning and Weaving is likewise adeptly rendered through his execution of perspective, where the woman by the loom dominates the composition, with her two companions absorbed in friendly chatter receding into the middle and background. Pictorial depth is also suggested through the artist’s secondary technique of thinly layering pastel shades within the background, only providing the barest delineations of shape and shadow. This adoption of perspective and proportion, together with square-tiled flooring on the base of the verandah brings to mind the checkered floors and genre paintings of the Dutch Masters. While these works often portray everyday household activities, such as women reading letters or playing instruments, Le Mayeur contextualises and adapts the genre to the culturally and visually rich surroundings of Bali: the people, the luxuriant flora, the seaside, and the exuberant sunlight that touches the island.
The intense yet subtle use of colour combined with varying intensities of light and shade remains the main force of Le Mayeur’s pre-war Balinese works. Painting in an artistic and looser style than his postwar canvases, which were executed with greater elaborateness and attention to detail, Women Spinning and Weaving delivers a rare impression into the ethereal world of Bali, and celebrates the beauty found in simple moments of domesticity and serenity.