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Lot Essay
Considered the leader of the Syrian impressionist movement, Nasser Chaura captured an intuitive sense of place of his country, depicting its lived realities and intimate views. This artist, among others at the time painted the country’s terrain, with intimate views that resonated with its people for capturing the energy of local subjects, including the cosmopolitan city centre, the village life and ancient sites. Landscape is an earlier classical work of Chaura, produced at a time when he investigated altering theoretical practices as he was readily identifying with en plein-air techniques and experimentations of colour and light. In the late 1940s, Chaura set out to explore nature, painting outdoors in order to capture the changes of light and color in the Syrian landscape. While going beyond the traditional realism that prevailed in other classical artists of the time, he merged classical and modern elements, simulating the Romantic landscapes in Baroque style and capturing the momentary through the French impressionists, reinventing this within a Syrian setting.
In the present work, Chaura dramatizes the surfaces and grasps this intangible purity of form, capturing a precise moment in time. Having a theatrical essence, we can clearly observe the artist’s keen eye for the manipulation and exploitation of perspective and depth. In using colour blocs and subtle interplay between light and shadow, the composition retains a three-dimensionality. While the mountain’s form is chiselled, depicted in an advanced mastery of light shading, the vegetation is so delicately drawn, the texture of each blade of the grassy plants is embellished and the water, reflecting the greatest intensity of light in the composition is so crisp, its pinkish illumination reverberates throughout the entire composition.
While adhering to the many theories of Impressionists, the balanced composition also maintains certain classical elements; the landscape is stripped bare of superfluous decorative details, as seen in the chiselled mountains and tree barks, making this work more of a study into light and shadow. Achieving a sobriety of colour and a defined depth with enameled surfaces allows us to witness a profound understand of the surface elements. Presenting a beautiful view of the landscape scene, one feels as if he or she is peeking between the row of trees, sitting amidst the vegetation, our eyes focused on the central focal point into the glistening riverbed.
Studying at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1943-1947, Chaura travelled to France and Italy between 1950-51. Returning to Syria, in the early 1950s, Chaura already was equipped with a complete understanding of European art movements, grasping a careful manipulation of colour and light and an intuitive sense of place. Upon his return, the artist taught at the College of Fine Arts in Damascus, joining the Faculty of Fine Arts as a founding member of the institution’s teaching staff. He then created the Society of Art Lovers with Impressionist Michel Kurche in 1951, and then founded Damascus art hub Atelier Veronese with Mahmoud Hammad.
In the present work, Chaura dramatizes the surfaces and grasps this intangible purity of form, capturing a precise moment in time. Having a theatrical essence, we can clearly observe the artist’s keen eye for the manipulation and exploitation of perspective and depth. In using colour blocs and subtle interplay between light and shadow, the composition retains a three-dimensionality. While the mountain’s form is chiselled, depicted in an advanced mastery of light shading, the vegetation is so delicately drawn, the texture of each blade of the grassy plants is embellished and the water, reflecting the greatest intensity of light in the composition is so crisp, its pinkish illumination reverberates throughout the entire composition.
While adhering to the many theories of Impressionists, the balanced composition also maintains certain classical elements; the landscape is stripped bare of superfluous decorative details, as seen in the chiselled mountains and tree barks, making this work more of a study into light and shadow. Achieving a sobriety of colour and a defined depth with enameled surfaces allows us to witness a profound understand of the surface elements. Presenting a beautiful view of the landscape scene, one feels as if he or she is peeking between the row of trees, sitting amidst the vegetation, our eyes focused on the central focal point into the glistening riverbed.
Studying at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1943-1947, Chaura travelled to France and Italy between 1950-51. Returning to Syria, in the early 1950s, Chaura already was equipped with a complete understanding of European art movements, grasping a careful manipulation of colour and light and an intuitive sense of place. Upon his return, the artist taught at the College of Fine Arts in Damascus, joining the Faculty of Fine Arts as a founding member of the institution’s teaching staff. He then created the Society of Art Lovers with Impressionist Michel Kurche in 1951, and then founded Damascus art hub Atelier Veronese with Mahmoud Hammad.