拍品專文
Cyclist nue was inspired by a bicycling trip that Jean Dubuffet and his wife took in July 1943 in the south of France. Prime examples of how Dubuffet's personal experiences provided fertile ground for his artistic navigation, the gouaches and drawings that he produced during his cycling holiday lent both iconographic and stylistic motifs to later oil paintings.
In the present work, seemingly oblivious of her nudity, the rider approaches the viewer with a direct and frank gaze. Barely contained within the confines of the picture, she fills the entire compositional space, creating an effect of compression. In addition, the destination of her ride is not indicated. Dubuffet rendered the figure and bicycle schematically in black paint and went over them with smudges of white, gray and red. Furthermore, he collapsed the division of figure and ground so that the two elements exist on the same plane. The mottled texture of the green, blue, red and brown paint in the background and foreground extends to the figure, especially in her upper body. The bicyclist is depicted in an unidealized manner, typical of Dubuffet's dismissal of western ideals of feminine beauty.
In the present work, seemingly oblivious of her nudity, the rider approaches the viewer with a direct and frank gaze. Barely contained within the confines of the picture, she fills the entire compositional space, creating an effect of compression. In addition, the destination of her ride is not indicated. Dubuffet rendered the figure and bicycle schematically in black paint and went over them with smudges of white, gray and red. Furthermore, he collapsed the division of figure and ground so that the two elements exist on the same plane. The mottled texture of the green, blue, red and brown paint in the background and foreground extends to the figure, especially in her upper body. The bicyclist is depicted in an unidealized manner, typical of Dubuffet's dismissal of western ideals of feminine beauty.