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Lot Essay
The present work, one of the most intriguing portraits by the father of Modern Syrian art Fateh Moudarres, embodies all prominent features and styles of the artist's oeuvre. Deprived of perspective, the composition - with the juxtaposition of scenes and details - nonetheless presents a discernible narrative that is reminiscent of medieval paintings. In fact, objects and characters are sized hierarchically according to their spiritual or thematic importance, not their distance from the viewer and Moudarres thus moves away from the modern definition of perspective.
A painter, musician, writer, critic and poet envisioned his figures, forms and colours like a musical composition. Here, the horizontal green, yellow and earthy planes of his fertile landscape evoke his childhood memories of North-Eastern Syria. They equally recall the village of Maaloula where houses like compartments are constructed on top of each other and similarly, the square-shaped male figure and the rooster that accompany or perhaps protect the seated woman are depicted in a linear manner. Recalling the Assyrian statuary and the figures discovered on the Palmyrene frescos, the abstract figures hint at the artist's inspiration by Christian iconography and simultaneously, their features are reminiscent of Mamluk buildings that alternate layers of black basalt and ochre-coloured stone. It is therefore in his own history, sage memories and personal iconography that Fateh Moudarres finds the sources to his painting.
The seater, an unidentified yet elegant and proud mother, majestically dominates the centre of the composition. She holds her child close to her chest in a protective way as the child himself becomes her human shield. The intimacy between them epitomises Moudarres' glorification and worship of the Mother; the noble figure thus becomes an icon, a metaphor for the ideal Mother and the glorified Woman.
A rare and outstanding example from Moudarres' series of figurative portraits, the present work embraces every characteristic of the artist's aesthetics and is undeniably one of his finest and most intricate works to ever come to auction.
A painter, musician, writer, critic and poet envisioned his figures, forms and colours like a musical composition. Here, the horizontal green, yellow and earthy planes of his fertile landscape evoke his childhood memories of North-Eastern Syria. They equally recall the village of Maaloula where houses like compartments are constructed on top of each other and similarly, the square-shaped male figure and the rooster that accompany or perhaps protect the seated woman are depicted in a linear manner. Recalling the Assyrian statuary and the figures discovered on the Palmyrene frescos, the abstract figures hint at the artist's inspiration by Christian iconography and simultaneously, their features are reminiscent of Mamluk buildings that alternate layers of black basalt and ochre-coloured stone. It is therefore in his own history, sage memories and personal iconography that Fateh Moudarres finds the sources to his painting.
The seater, an unidentified yet elegant and proud mother, majestically dominates the centre of the composition. She holds her child close to her chest in a protective way as the child himself becomes her human shield. The intimacy between them epitomises Moudarres' glorification and worship of the Mother; the noble figure thus becomes an icon, a metaphor for the ideal Mother and the glorified Woman.
A rare and outstanding example from Moudarres' series of figurative portraits, the present work embraces every characteristic of the artist's aesthetics and is undeniably one of his finest and most intricate works to ever come to auction.