Surgie dans la Nuit (Burst into the Night)

Painted in 1969, Surgie dans la Nuit (Burst into the Night) is an important work of Shafic Abboud’s oeuvre exploring morphological possibilities of colour, shape, and medium. Its amorphous title is inadvertent to bewilder the viewer in an unknown realm but rather to provide a guiding thread connecting his quivering, abstract forms with subtle traces of physicality, deftly rendered on the canvas. An array of differently coloured shapes in this painting, while initially appearing irregular, possess their own sense of internal order. Forbearing the principles of modernist grid structure, these forms lean away from any centre, producing an effect of rapid motion. Abboud's signature palette of oranges, blues, greens, and lighter hues is evident in this piece, embodying a sense of harnessed energy. The work centers around the depiction of light and its nature of recasting forms. He creates organic forms and diachronic planes by deftly layering them atop one another. This technique results in canvases adorned with thick impasto swathes and delicate specks of pigment. Although Abboud's creations do not depict linear narratives or landscapes, they are not entirely devoid of storytelling elements. He skillfully captures the spirit of a specific moment in time in the meshing of light and colour, reminiscing in some works for example Lebanon's skyline, whose scenic views were a source of inspiration for him. In capturing the essence of a fleeting moment, Abboud aligned his vision with Pierre Bonnard, who opted for flat colour fields over three-dimensional modelling. Surgie dans la Nuit is a prime example of Abboud’s unique approach to Art Informel painting from the 1950s, melding European, Arab, and traditional Byzantine influences into a dynamic abstract expression. Moreover it carries a historically important exhibition history as it has been previously exhibited three times, first at the Galerie Protée in Toulouse in 1971, then at the Galerie Claude Lemand in 2012, and more recently at the show At the still point of the turning world, there is the dance held at the Sursock Museum in Beirut in 2019-2020.