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Lot Essay
This dazzling and radiant composition by the internationally acclaimed pioneer of Modern Lebanese art, Chafic Abboud, perfectly fuses both Abboud’s simplifications and outpourings found within his own abstract language, reflective of the artist’s sensibility to nature and the political climate of the time. Painted in 1975, the same year that Lebanon was rife with war raging, he depicted his surroundings and sentiments that materialised into a harmonious composition such as the present work, Les Bons Sentiments. Abboud provided a ‘bird’s eye view’ of a particular subject, both literally and visually through his intricate and vibrant amalgamations of interwoven shapes, brushstrokes and colours. The present work deriving from paint and paper adheres to his signature 1970s style, featuring layers of pigments and patchwork of shapes and textures, and at a time when he was introducing new medium in tapestries, sculptures, ceramics and prints.
Within the present work, all elements coalesce within a soft-grey-blue tone into one harmonious composition that seems to be permanently in movement with its rich colour contrasts glimmering throughout the surface of the canvas and turquoise planes. Throughout the masterpiece, Abboud seems to retrace naturalistic phenomena, transcribing each perception into line, resulting into one of his most remarkable compositions of the time. Exploring the pure materiality and the essence of his subject, this work contains unprecedented textures and pigments, revealing the experiments undertaken by the Lebanese master at the time in the mid to late 1970s.
Abboud depicted light and its essence, very similar to the experimentations of his predecessors such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Jean-Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). Using organic shapes and a careful interplay of colours prepared by himself from pigments, his monochrome planes and intricate flecks of pigment are reminiscent of Nicolas de Stael’s (1914-1955) works. Immersed in abstract tendencies of Neo-Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism and Fauvism, Abboud is noted as one of the first Lebanese abstract painters in the formal sense, transitioning from the Lebanese tradition of figuration into painting radiant and complex abstraction articulated within his own technique. Through the present works rich textures, multifarious pigments and beautiful lyrical abstractions that radiate from the surface that one is invited into the ‘Abboudian’ world of vision. Notions of poetic musicality and soft fragrances are articulated within his landscapes, interiors and still lives.
Within the present work, all elements coalesce within a soft-grey-blue tone into one harmonious composition that seems to be permanently in movement with its rich colour contrasts glimmering throughout the surface of the canvas and turquoise planes. Throughout the masterpiece, Abboud seems to retrace naturalistic phenomena, transcribing each perception into line, resulting into one of his most remarkable compositions of the time. Exploring the pure materiality and the essence of his subject, this work contains unprecedented textures and pigments, revealing the experiments undertaken by the Lebanese master at the time in the mid to late 1970s.
Abboud depicted light and its essence, very similar to the experimentations of his predecessors such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Jean-Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). Using organic shapes and a careful interplay of colours prepared by himself from pigments, his monochrome planes and intricate flecks of pigment are reminiscent of Nicolas de Stael’s (1914-1955) works. Immersed in abstract tendencies of Neo-Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism and Fauvism, Abboud is noted as one of the first Lebanese abstract painters in the formal sense, transitioning from the Lebanese tradition of figuration into painting radiant and complex abstraction articulated within his own technique. Through the present works rich textures, multifarious pigments and beautiful lyrical abstractions that radiate from the surface that one is invited into the ‘Abboudian’ world of vision. Notions of poetic musicality and soft fragrances are articulated within his landscapes, interiors and still lives.