.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
This work is recorded in the Galerie Jean Fournier Archive under no. CF.1.0.29.
Executed around 1950-1951, Espaces engourdis marks the beginning of Simon Hantaï’s career in Paris. In its technique and imagery, the picture is at the origin of Hantaï’s artistic development, containing the first seeds of his distinctive late style. Divided into nine sections, Espaces engourdis appears as a tour de force of the decalcomania technique, filled with churning biomorphic creations. Exploring a wonderful range of tonal gradations, the artist stretched the suggestive potential of oil painting to its very limit: painting over intricate patterns, Hantaï unveiled a series of monsters, shapes and threadlike structures. The title – ‘Numb Spaces’ – evokes the suspended, deep world of dreams.
In 1948, together with his wife Zsuzsa, Hantaï arrived in Paris. He first had planned the trip following the award of a scholarship on the part of the Hungarian ministry of culture. Yet in July, Hungary was forced under the control of Russia’s Communist Party and Hantaï’s scholarship was revoked. At the time of the political unrest, however, the artist had already reached Italy: from there he thus decided to continue his journey to Paris against the odds, by then as an exile. Arriving in Paris, Hantaï discovered a new art world: he met Elsa Triolet and Tristan Tzara and saw the works of artists such as Henri Matisse, André Masson, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet. In one of the first letters the artist wrote home, Hantaï admitted: ‘I know now that I have badly tackled painting in Hungary (…) I’m working hard and I am searching for myself (as an artist)’ (quoted in Simon Hantaï, exh. cat., Paris 2013, p. 268).
In 1950 – around the time he executed Espaces engourdis – Hantaï visited a retrospective of Max Ernst at the Galerie René Drouin. There he saw Ernst’s Vox Angelica (1943), a painting which for its division in squares may have influenced Hantaï’s Espaces engourdis. More significantly, however, Hantaï must have been fascinated by Ernst’s technique of frottage, grattage and decalcomania. The textures, the marvellous play of merging hues and the incised details present in Espaces engourdis is reminiscent of Ernst’s painting technique, placing Hantaï in the orbit of Surrealism in post-war Paris. The spiralling forms of the picture, however, are Hantaï’s own invention and they may have been triggered by a black and white photograph of a mummy which the artist had cut from a magazine that same year. The folds and creases of the mummy may have inspired Hantaï’s forms and elaborated spinning formations. Fifty years later, remembering that image, Hantaï would say: ‘everything is already there, although never seen nor thought’ (quoted Ibid., p. 269). In 1952, the forms present in Espaces engourdis would expand and develop further occupying the whole space of works such as Peinture (1952, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris). Evoking the history of Surrealism, Espaces engourdis marks Hantaï’s entrance in the post-war Paris art scene and the beginning of his mature work.
Executed around 1950-1951, Espaces engourdis marks the beginning of Simon Hantaï’s career in Paris. In its technique and imagery, the picture is at the origin of Hantaï’s artistic development, containing the first seeds of his distinctive late style. Divided into nine sections, Espaces engourdis appears as a tour de force of the decalcomania technique, filled with churning biomorphic creations. Exploring a wonderful range of tonal gradations, the artist stretched the suggestive potential of oil painting to its very limit: painting over intricate patterns, Hantaï unveiled a series of monsters, shapes and threadlike structures. The title – ‘Numb Spaces’ – evokes the suspended, deep world of dreams.
In 1948, together with his wife Zsuzsa, Hantaï arrived in Paris. He first had planned the trip following the award of a scholarship on the part of the Hungarian ministry of culture. Yet in July, Hungary was forced under the control of Russia’s Communist Party and Hantaï’s scholarship was revoked. At the time of the political unrest, however, the artist had already reached Italy: from there he thus decided to continue his journey to Paris against the odds, by then as an exile. Arriving in Paris, Hantaï discovered a new art world: he met Elsa Triolet and Tristan Tzara and saw the works of artists such as Henri Matisse, André Masson, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet. In one of the first letters the artist wrote home, Hantaï admitted: ‘I know now that I have badly tackled painting in Hungary (…) I’m working hard and I am searching for myself (as an artist)’ (quoted in Simon Hantaï, exh. cat., Paris 2013, p. 268).
In 1950 – around the time he executed Espaces engourdis – Hantaï visited a retrospective of Max Ernst at the Galerie René Drouin. There he saw Ernst’s Vox Angelica (1943), a painting which for its division in squares may have influenced Hantaï’s Espaces engourdis. More significantly, however, Hantaï must have been fascinated by Ernst’s technique of frottage, grattage and decalcomania. The textures, the marvellous play of merging hues and the incised details present in Espaces engourdis is reminiscent of Ernst’s painting technique, placing Hantaï in the orbit of Surrealism in post-war Paris. The spiralling forms of the picture, however, are Hantaï’s own invention and they may have been triggered by a black and white photograph of a mummy which the artist had cut from a magazine that same year. The folds and creases of the mummy may have inspired Hantaï’s forms and elaborated spinning formations. Fifty years later, remembering that image, Hantaï would say: ‘everything is already there, although never seen nor thought’ (quoted Ibid., p. 269). In 1952, the forms present in Espaces engourdis would expand and develop further occupying the whole space of works such as Peinture (1952, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris). Evoking the history of Surrealism, Espaces engourdis marks Hantaï’s entrance in the post-war Paris art scene and the beginning of his mature work.