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拍品专文
The Comité Picabia has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Executed circa 1929-1930, Amsel is a captivating example of Picabia’s celebrated Transparency paintings. The title of the present work refers to the blackbird, an animal of immense mystical symbolism charting back to the Middle Ages. With its enchanting song, the bird represents temptation and an association with satanic forces. In Amsel, Picabia’s brush has transformed an elegant outstretched Renaissance nude with the addition of the dark green menacing figure whose tentacle-like arm encircles her body. The combination of these two figures alludes to the idea of a greater seductive force at play beyond the forms themselves.
This series of works were aptly named for their simultaneous depiction of multiple transparent images, dramatically layered atop one another in an effect reminiscent of multiple-exposure photography. The artist had previously played with this superimposition in the illusory cinematographic techniques of his 1924 film, Entr’acte, as well as in his paintings from the Monstre and Espagnoles series. He traced the genesis of this fascination with the layering of transparent images to a revelatory moment in a café in Marseille, where on the glass of a window, the reflection of the interior appeared overlaid upon the outside view. The many layers of imagery simultaneously combine to create an illusional and seemingly impenetrable allegory with all the characteristics of a dream or a mystic vision. “This third dimension, not made of light and shadow, these transparencies with their corner of oubliettes, permit me to express for myself the resemblance of my inner desires,” Picabia explained. “I want a painting where all my instincts may have a free course” (quoted in W.A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, Princeton, 1979, p. 239).
Executed circa 1929-1930, Amsel is a captivating example of Picabia’s celebrated Transparency paintings. The title of the present work refers to the blackbird, an animal of immense mystical symbolism charting back to the Middle Ages. With its enchanting song, the bird represents temptation and an association with satanic forces. In Amsel, Picabia’s brush has transformed an elegant outstretched Renaissance nude with the addition of the dark green menacing figure whose tentacle-like arm encircles her body. The combination of these two figures alludes to the idea of a greater seductive force at play beyond the forms themselves.
This series of works were aptly named for their simultaneous depiction of multiple transparent images, dramatically layered atop one another in an effect reminiscent of multiple-exposure photography. The artist had previously played with this superimposition in the illusory cinematographic techniques of his 1924 film, Entr’acte, as well as in his paintings from the Monstre and Espagnoles series. He traced the genesis of this fascination with the layering of transparent images to a revelatory moment in a café in Marseille, where on the glass of a window, the reflection of the interior appeared overlaid upon the outside view. The many layers of imagery simultaneously combine to create an illusional and seemingly impenetrable allegory with all the characteristics of a dream or a mystic vision. “This third dimension, not made of light and shadow, these transparencies with their corner of oubliettes, permit me to express for myself the resemblance of my inner desires,” Picabia explained. “I want a painting where all my instincts may have a free course” (quoted in W.A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, Princeton, 1979, p. 239).