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Lot Essay
The present work belongs to a group of powerful, grotesque figurative pictures painted during the Second World War, including Hero and Sow [see lot 322]. Swanzy shows a figure with staring eyes and grimacing mouth, in the saffron cottons of a Hindu ascetic, who sits on a blue rock above a bare, red-coloured mountainous landscape, stretching into the distance - perhaps a reference to the Himalayas or perhaps to the underworld. Although the skin of the man is greyish, Swanzy, interestingly, uses primary colours, yellow, red and blue in the clothing and landscape.
Although shocking in its imagery, even grotesque, this and other such paintings convey a vivid and powerful comment on the world and human nature, during the years of the Second World War.
J.C.
Although shocking in its imagery, even grotesque, this and other such paintings convey a vivid and powerful comment on the world and human nature, during the years of the Second World War.
J.C.