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Lot Essay
"Il trouve plaisir de crier sa verité" is what Jean-Louis Prat, the curator of the 1991 de Staël Retrospective wrote in his introduction to the exhibition catalogue. His statement sums up the artist's entire oeuvre, which continually oscillated between extreme abstract and figurative painting.
De Staël was a troubled man who became an orphan at the age of six and lost his first wife at a critical time in his personal and commercial career. As an artist, he struggled to establish himself during the most somber years of the last century and yet, his extensive travels and the multiplicity of often opposing influences, such as Surrealist, Cubist, French tachist and Abstract Expressionist art perhaps accounts for the successful blend of styles that culminate in his striking tableaux.
Marine, a seemingly monochrome representation of de Staël's view onto the sea from his late seaside domicile was painted shortly before his death in 1955. While the sea and the horizon in the background are painted in diluted hues of blue and grey, block-like slabs of thick impasto stand in for the engineered structures that disrupt the serenity at the heart of the canvas.
While historically the representation of the sea has often stood to symbolize unbounded liberty and freedom, Marine, evokes a strong sense of claustrophobia. The large black composition at the centre of the small canvas leaves little room for the onlooker to contemplate the boundless possibilities of maritime travel. The seamless transition from water to sky in the background also accounts for a rather flat composition that has more in common with the decorative patterned surfaces of Edouard Vuillard's interiors than the excitement of traditional seascapes. In this sense, Marine, is the unavoidable embodiment of de Staël's state of mind in those final hours of his remarkable career.
De Staël was a troubled man who became an orphan at the age of six and lost his first wife at a critical time in his personal and commercial career. As an artist, he struggled to establish himself during the most somber years of the last century and yet, his extensive travels and the multiplicity of often opposing influences, such as Surrealist, Cubist, French tachist and Abstract Expressionist art perhaps accounts for the successful blend of styles that culminate in his striking tableaux.
Marine, a seemingly monochrome representation of de Staël's view onto the sea from his late seaside domicile was painted shortly before his death in 1955. While the sea and the horizon in the background are painted in diluted hues of blue and grey, block-like slabs of thick impasto stand in for the engineered structures that disrupt the serenity at the heart of the canvas.
While historically the representation of the sea has often stood to symbolize unbounded liberty and freedom, Marine, evokes a strong sense of claustrophobia. The large black composition at the centre of the small canvas leaves little room for the onlooker to contemplate the boundless possibilities of maritime travel. The seamless transition from water to sky in the background also accounts for a rather flat composition that has more in common with the decorative patterned surfaces of Edouard Vuillard's interiors than the excitement of traditional seascapes. In this sense, Marine, is the unavoidable embodiment of de Staël's state of mind in those final hours of his remarkable career.