Lot Essay
To be included in the forthcoming Antoni Tàpies Catalogue Raisonné vol. VI being prepared by Anna Agustí, Barcelona.
Tàpies frequently paints objects which are humble and aged by daily use - a chair, as in this picture, or a bed, a cupboard, a door. These common household items are monumentalised and enlarged to fill up the canvas. As Dore Ashton writes, "If Tàpies referred often to everyday objects, sometimes putting them bodily into his paintings, he brought to them a consistent belief in a potential transcedental quality, once even citing Santa Teresa, who used to say that you can find God even in pots and pans." (Ex. Cat. New York, Guggenheim Museum, Tàpies, January-April 1995, p. 38).
Tàpies uses objects as forces for poetic transformation. These consumer items do not possess the impersonality aimed at by Duchamp, nor are they intended to be a provocative challenge. They are simply used, as the artist states, "to remind man of what he really is; to provide him with a theme for meditation; to cause him a shock that will awaken from the frenzy of the unauthentic, so that he may discover himself and become conscious of his real possibilities; these are the goals my art endeavors to reach."
In depicting a chair, the artist captures the imprint of those who have sat in it. Just as Van Gogh was able to imply the human presence of the absent Gauguin in his chair "portraits", so does Chaise Blanche Craquelée contain in its form a phantom presence. With forceful impastoed brushstrokes, the object takes on human qualities. Deep incisions carved into the thick paint create a powerful tension. A spread of natural cracks sprouting all over the white areas give a dynamic quality to an object which in real life would be static.
Chaise Blanche Craquelée is also incised with symbols such as the cross and the number eight. Tàpies follows the Pre-Socratic belief that the basis for the universe is mathematical, and his love for numbers may well come from this theory. He believes the cross is a universal symbol and that the evocative power and psychic impact produced by the crucifix goes beyond Christianity itself and is therefore not a symbol exclusive to Christians.
Tàpies frequently paints objects which are humble and aged by daily use - a chair, as in this picture, or a bed, a cupboard, a door. These common household items are monumentalised and enlarged to fill up the canvas. As Dore Ashton writes, "If Tàpies referred often to everyday objects, sometimes putting them bodily into his paintings, he brought to them a consistent belief in a potential transcedental quality, once even citing Santa Teresa, who used to say that you can find God even in pots and pans." (Ex. Cat. New York, Guggenheim Museum, Tàpies, January-April 1995, p. 38).
Tàpies uses objects as forces for poetic transformation. These consumer items do not possess the impersonality aimed at by Duchamp, nor are they intended to be a provocative challenge. They are simply used, as the artist states, "to remind man of what he really is; to provide him with a theme for meditation; to cause him a shock that will awaken from the frenzy of the unauthentic, so that he may discover himself and become conscious of his real possibilities; these are the goals my art endeavors to reach."
In depicting a chair, the artist captures the imprint of those who have sat in it. Just as Van Gogh was able to imply the human presence of the absent Gauguin in his chair "portraits", so does Chaise Blanche Craquelée contain in its form a phantom presence. With forceful impastoed brushstrokes, the object takes on human qualities. Deep incisions carved into the thick paint create a powerful tension. A spread of natural cracks sprouting all over the white areas give a dynamic quality to an object which in real life would be static.
Chaise Blanche Craquelée is also incised with symbols such as the cross and the number eight. Tàpies follows the Pre-Socratic belief that the basis for the universe is mathematical, and his love for numbers may well come from this theory. He believes the cross is a universal symbol and that the evocative power and psychic impact produced by the crucifix goes beyond Christianity itself and is therefore not a symbol exclusive to Christians.