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拍品專文
‘One moves from a line, from a delicate stroke, to a point, to a patch ... just as one moves from a twig to a trunk of a tree. But everything must hold together, everything must be in place’ —N. DE STAËL
Masterfully harmonising form and colour, Nicolas de Staël’s Composition (1950) is an eloquent fusion of abstract and figurative concerns. Held in the same private collection since the 1960s, it presents an exquisite example of the artist’s perfectly calibrated compositions and his innate painterly sensibilities. Rendered in succulent impasto, de Staël’s finely balanced mosaic of calm grey-blues and heated reds showcases his subtle understanding of tonality, as well as his absolute control over his medium. Built up with a palette knife in thick layers that occasionally penetrate the surface, colour is arranged in rough rectangle forms that jostle closely together yet ultimately remain distinct. Darkening progressively from the pale grey on the left-hand side of the canvas to the deep sea-green on the right, the composition’s predominately cool tones are energised by interspersed flashes of reds and pinks that radiate intense warmth. Commanding a jewel-like intensity of presence, Composition’s taut, dense surface resonates with the concentration and fortitude that has won de Staël his reputation as one of the leading European painters of his generation. In a eulogy for the artist given in 1956, a year after his untimely death, the art historian Douglas Cooper described de Staël as ‘the most considerable, the truest and the most fascinating young painter to appear on the scene, in Europe or elsewhere, during the last twenty-five years’ (D. Cooper, Nicolas de Staël, New York 1962, p. 7).
De Staël often gave his works the title Composition (including one of his most well-regarded paintings, also of 1950, now held in the Tate Collection), making reference to the colours and shapes that comprise the material structure of the painting, rather than pertaining to any imaginative construct. Although the deceptive simplicity of his work demonstrates his deep understanding of essential form, De Staël’s works were rooted in his perception of reality, and – especially towards the end of his lifetime – the sensation of being within a landscape. ‘One never paints what one sees or thinks one sees’ he wrote in 1949, ‘rather one records, with a thousand vibrations, the shock one has received, or will receive’ (N. de Staël, quoted in Nicolas de Staël, exh. cat. Tate Gallery, London 1981, p. 172). The careful interaction of tones and the practised orchestration of forms in the present work reveal de Staël’s sensitivity towards this visual experience. Even his most painterly dynamics were informed by observations of the world around him. A composition had to make intuitive sense, he believed. ‘One moves from a line, from a delicate stroke, to a point, to a patch ... just as one moves from a twig to a trunk of a tree. But everything must hold together, everything must be in place’ (N. de Staël, quoted in R. van Gindertaël, Cimaise, no. 7, June 1955, pp. 3-8).
De Staël was born St Petersburg in 1914 to an aristocratic family. Forced to flee the country after the Bolshevik revolution, he led an itinerant existence from a young age. Early travels encompassed Holland, where he discovered Vermeer, Hals and Rembrandt; and France, where he became aware of Cézanne, Matisse, Soutine and Braque, who later became a friend. By the time he settled in Paris in 1938, he had received a thorough education in art history. Friendships with members of the Parisian avant-garde, including Sonia Delaunay, Le Corbusier and Jean Arp, encouraged de Staël’s tendencies towards abstraction. Gradually he began to develop a singular technique of creating heavily built-up surfaces, often by applying the paint with a palette knife. By the late 1940s he had consolidated his distinctive use of separate planes of colour, which allowed him to reconcile his respect for European old masters with the progressive ideals of his generation. ‘I do not set up abstract painting in opposition to figurative,’ he once explained; ‘a painting should be both abstract and figurative: abstract to the extent that it is a flat surface, figurative to the extent that it is a representation of space’ (N. de Staël quoted in Nicolas de Staël in America, exh. cat., Washington D.C., 1990, p. 22). Composition (1950) exemplifies de Staël’s intelligent bridging of the divide between abstraction and figuration, and the vivid painterly force that brings his work to life.
***
A Response to Lévi-Strauss “The Raw and the Cooked” and Abstract Painting
Written by André Maisonneuve, the first owner of Composition, 1950
Published in Mardi-Samedi (Le mouvement Présent de l’Art), June 1965
A gauche du tiers supérieur, un blanc se heurte à un rouge sombre (candeur, sang qui coagule), puis une bande s’allonge comme un nuage de grêle (une aveugle migraine) pour aboutir à une tache brune (soleil rouillé) qui équilibre le rouge. Sous ce linteau (manchette invariable au quotidien d’un dieu sans pitié), un grand rectangle vertical de clarté trouble (limbes) attend la réponse, à droite, d’un rectangle vert opaque. Dans l’entre-deux où tout va se jouer, et commence dès que le sang s’allume), un petit rectangle incandescent, dans l’angle opposé au rouge du registre supérieur et tenant par un de ses coins sur une espèce de stèle aussi lourde que le linteau, éclaire une partie des grisailles qui occupent tout le centre et descendent jusqu’en bas; au point qu’à droite, un peu de blancheur reparaît sur le pourtour d’une tache claire et douce qui donne la réplique au triangle de feu, mais dont la forme est incertaine et la touche - partout ailleurs horizontale ou verticale dans une pâte onctueuse - se met à chavirer (c’est le coeur du tableau, avec ses plages de tendresse et de maturité). Au-dessous de cette région de turbulence, un marron sans éclat, aux contours mal définis, a été arrêté en déséquilibre sur un rectangle noir (sortie tragique et seuil de l’inconnu) qui empiète, comme le marron déjà, sur le pan de vert sourd qui ferme la composition (apaisement végétal où tout peut s’achever).
Cette assez longue exploration demeure incomplète; il y a, par exemple, des bleus sous-jacents dont quelques éclats (comme le secret d’une nuit de splendeur) persistent au creux des sillons qui marquent les angles droits opposés des deux rouges; les associations risquées entre parenthèses sont de celles qui naissent et s’accroissent dans un plus long commerce. Ces convergences et combinaisons qui n’ont pas besoin d’être formulées, avec les émotions qu’elles déclenchent, constituent la saveur du tableau; autrement dit, son sens, si nous nous reportons à la définition donnée par Lévi-Strauss dans une réponse à Paul Ricoeur: “Qu’est-ce que le sens selon moi? Une saveur spécifique perçue par une combinaison d’éléments dont aucun en particulier n’offrirait une saveur comparable.”
Masterfully harmonising form and colour, Nicolas de Staël’s Composition (1950) is an eloquent fusion of abstract and figurative concerns. Held in the same private collection since the 1960s, it presents an exquisite example of the artist’s perfectly calibrated compositions and his innate painterly sensibilities. Rendered in succulent impasto, de Staël’s finely balanced mosaic of calm grey-blues and heated reds showcases his subtle understanding of tonality, as well as his absolute control over his medium. Built up with a palette knife in thick layers that occasionally penetrate the surface, colour is arranged in rough rectangle forms that jostle closely together yet ultimately remain distinct. Darkening progressively from the pale grey on the left-hand side of the canvas to the deep sea-green on the right, the composition’s predominately cool tones are energised by interspersed flashes of reds and pinks that radiate intense warmth. Commanding a jewel-like intensity of presence, Composition’s taut, dense surface resonates with the concentration and fortitude that has won de Staël his reputation as one of the leading European painters of his generation. In a eulogy for the artist given in 1956, a year after his untimely death, the art historian Douglas Cooper described de Staël as ‘the most considerable, the truest and the most fascinating young painter to appear on the scene, in Europe or elsewhere, during the last twenty-five years’ (D. Cooper, Nicolas de Staël, New York 1962, p. 7).
De Staël often gave his works the title Composition (including one of his most well-regarded paintings, also of 1950, now held in the Tate Collection), making reference to the colours and shapes that comprise the material structure of the painting, rather than pertaining to any imaginative construct. Although the deceptive simplicity of his work demonstrates his deep understanding of essential form, De Staël’s works were rooted in his perception of reality, and – especially towards the end of his lifetime – the sensation of being within a landscape. ‘One never paints what one sees or thinks one sees’ he wrote in 1949, ‘rather one records, with a thousand vibrations, the shock one has received, or will receive’ (N. de Staël, quoted in Nicolas de Staël, exh. cat. Tate Gallery, London 1981, p. 172). The careful interaction of tones and the practised orchestration of forms in the present work reveal de Staël’s sensitivity towards this visual experience. Even his most painterly dynamics were informed by observations of the world around him. A composition had to make intuitive sense, he believed. ‘One moves from a line, from a delicate stroke, to a point, to a patch ... just as one moves from a twig to a trunk of a tree. But everything must hold together, everything must be in place’ (N. de Staël, quoted in R. van Gindertaël, Cimaise, no. 7, June 1955, pp. 3-8).
De Staël was born St Petersburg in 1914 to an aristocratic family. Forced to flee the country after the Bolshevik revolution, he led an itinerant existence from a young age. Early travels encompassed Holland, where he discovered Vermeer, Hals and Rembrandt; and France, where he became aware of Cézanne, Matisse, Soutine and Braque, who later became a friend. By the time he settled in Paris in 1938, he had received a thorough education in art history. Friendships with members of the Parisian avant-garde, including Sonia Delaunay, Le Corbusier and Jean Arp, encouraged de Staël’s tendencies towards abstraction. Gradually he began to develop a singular technique of creating heavily built-up surfaces, often by applying the paint with a palette knife. By the late 1940s he had consolidated his distinctive use of separate planes of colour, which allowed him to reconcile his respect for European old masters with the progressive ideals of his generation. ‘I do not set up abstract painting in opposition to figurative,’ he once explained; ‘a painting should be both abstract and figurative: abstract to the extent that it is a flat surface, figurative to the extent that it is a representation of space’ (N. de Staël quoted in Nicolas de Staël in America, exh. cat., Washington D.C., 1990, p. 22). Composition (1950) exemplifies de Staël’s intelligent bridging of the divide between abstraction and figuration, and the vivid painterly force that brings his work to life.
***
A Response to Lévi-Strauss “The Raw and the Cooked” and Abstract Painting
Written by André Maisonneuve, the first owner of Composition, 1950
Published in Mardi-Samedi (Le mouvement Présent de l’Art), June 1965
A gauche du tiers supérieur, un blanc se heurte à un rouge sombre (candeur, sang qui coagule), puis une bande s’allonge comme un nuage de grêle (une aveugle migraine) pour aboutir à une tache brune (soleil rouillé) qui équilibre le rouge. Sous ce linteau (manchette invariable au quotidien d’un dieu sans pitié), un grand rectangle vertical de clarté trouble (limbes) attend la réponse, à droite, d’un rectangle vert opaque. Dans l’entre-deux où tout va se jouer, et commence dès que le sang s’allume), un petit rectangle incandescent, dans l’angle opposé au rouge du registre supérieur et tenant par un de ses coins sur une espèce de stèle aussi lourde que le linteau, éclaire une partie des grisailles qui occupent tout le centre et descendent jusqu’en bas; au point qu’à droite, un peu de blancheur reparaît sur le pourtour d’une tache claire et douce qui donne la réplique au triangle de feu, mais dont la forme est incertaine et la touche - partout ailleurs horizontale ou verticale dans une pâte onctueuse - se met à chavirer (c’est le coeur du tableau, avec ses plages de tendresse et de maturité). Au-dessous de cette région de turbulence, un marron sans éclat, aux contours mal définis, a été arrêté en déséquilibre sur un rectangle noir (sortie tragique et seuil de l’inconnu) qui empiète, comme le marron déjà, sur le pan de vert sourd qui ferme la composition (apaisement végétal où tout peut s’achever).
Cette assez longue exploration demeure incomplète; il y a, par exemple, des bleus sous-jacents dont quelques éclats (comme le secret d’une nuit de splendeur) persistent au creux des sillons qui marquent les angles droits opposés des deux rouges; les associations risquées entre parenthèses sont de celles qui naissent et s’accroissent dans un plus long commerce. Ces convergences et combinaisons qui n’ont pas besoin d’être formulées, avec les émotions qu’elles déclenchent, constituent la saveur du tableau; autrement dit, son sens, si nous nous reportons à la définition donnée par Lévi-Strauss dans une réponse à Paul Ricoeur: “Qu’est-ce que le sens selon moi? Une saveur spécifique perçue par une combinaison d’éléments dont aucun en particulier n’offrirait une saveur comparable.”