Georges Rouault

Estate of the artist
Galerie Stadler, Paris
Acquired directly from the above in 1963

Executed on paper laid down on canvas (this is the artist's original arrangement). There is a spot of retouching at the centre of the left edge, visible under ultra-violet light. There is a small horizontal line of stable craquelure just underneath the sun. The original thick impasto is well preserved and the work is overall in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

From the 1930s onwards, Rouault painted a number of landscapes known as Paysages bibliques and Paysages animés. Created from his imagination rather than direct observation, these compositions are usually characterised by the placing of huddled groups of figures in urban settings or landscapes. The artist's strong religious faith was the direct and overwhelming source of inspiration for these pictures. Rouault proclaimed: 'I was like a peasant in the field, attached to my pictorial soil, like the man hanged by his own hempen rope, like an ox under the yoke. Though terribly restless, I never took my nose out of my work save to ascertain the light, the shadow, the half-tint, the curious features of certain pilgrims' faces. I noted forms, colours, fleeting harmonies until I was sure they were so indelibly impressed in my memory that they would stay with me beyond the grave' (quoted in Soliloques, Neuchâtel, 1944, n.p.).

Like most of Rouault's oil from this period, the present work is distinguished for its emphasis on pure colour, layering various bright hues one on top of the other. The result is a thickly painted, almost three-dimensional surface that draws the viewer's attention to the mere physicality of the pigment, as much as to the composition. Pierre Courthion has commented on the artist's technique: 'when we examine a Rouault, what strikes us first? Above all, the way the paint has been applied: very thickly and with passion, with great sureness, and with spontaneity... the thickly applied pigment achieves a hitherto unknown degree of energy; every form seems to flow directly from the artist's hand into our own sensibility' (P. Courthion, Georges Rouault, New York, 1961, p. 234).