Lot Essay
Dubuffet executed L'Esclave in Paris in September 1951, shortly after finishing his highly acclaimed Les Corps de Dames series and as he was developing the more abstract Sol et Terrain series, where the heavily textured surface itself would become the subject of his paintings.
In L'Esclave, Dubuffet depicts a deliberately ambiguous subject, whose sinister overtones are echoed in the title. As Alan Bowness explains, "Dubuffet's work has a richness and diversity that is not easy to encompass, and a deeper meaning that may not be immediately apparent. It makes no concessions. It deliberately upsets accepted conventions, both aesthetic and moral. This is a part of Dubuffet's intention: "I feel a need that every work of art should in the highest degree lift one out of context, provoking a surprise and a shock. A painting does not work for me if it is not completely unexpected". (Alan Bowness, Ex. Cat., Jean Dubuffet Paintings, London 1966, p. 4).
The scratched incisions in the thickly applied pigment on the surface of L'Esclave bely Dubuffet's fascination with his medium. This recalls his Hautes Pâtes of the 1940s, including earlier paintings such as his Mur aux inscriptions of April 1945 (illustrated). "Antagonistic to the acceptance of traditional craftsmanship, having been impressed by the study of the walls and all the implications of walls and graffitti, he now develops a paste in which he can slash, scratch and dig; where he can physically, manually go beneath the surface." (Andreas Franzke, Dubuffet, New York 1981, p. 22).
The sensitivity to colour in the present work, from the delicate green in the upper right, to the pink in the upper left, directly contrasts with the threatening scene played out below, where a naked figure is being whipped. So specific an event is unusual in the artist's oeuvre and is watched over by a spectator in a child-like house, which at the same time could be interpreted as a prison.
Dubuffet himself declared, "The pictures done in 1950 and 1951 are closely linked, like all my works of these last years, to the specific behaviour of the material used, and, if you will, to its disposition... . The idea that there are beautiful objects and ugly objects, people endowed with beauty and others who cannot claim it, has surely no other foundation than convention - old poppycock - and I declare that convention unhealthy... . The beauty of an object depends on how we look at it and not at all on its proper proportions. It is my inclination in this direction that has made certain people believe the mood of my art to be bitter. These people have seen that I intend to sweep away everything we have been taught to consider - without question - as grace and beauty; but have overlooked my work to substitute another and vaster beauty, touching all objects and beings, not excluding the most despised - and, because of that, all the more exhilarating. The beauty for which I aim needs little to appear - unbelievably little. Any place - the most destitute - is good enough for it. I would like people to look at my work as an enterprise for the rehabilitation of scorned values, and, in any case, make no mistake, a work of ardent celebration." (Jean Dubuffet, 'Landscaped Tables, Landscapes of the Mind, Stones of Philosophy', see ed. Peter Selz, The Work of Jean Dubuffet, New York 1962, pp. 63-64).
In L'Esclave, Dubuffet depicts a deliberately ambiguous subject, whose sinister overtones are echoed in the title. As Alan Bowness explains, "Dubuffet's work has a richness and diversity that is not easy to encompass, and a deeper meaning that may not be immediately apparent. It makes no concessions. It deliberately upsets accepted conventions, both aesthetic and moral. This is a part of Dubuffet's intention: "I feel a need that every work of art should in the highest degree lift one out of context, provoking a surprise and a shock. A painting does not work for me if it is not completely unexpected". (Alan Bowness, Ex. Cat., Jean Dubuffet Paintings, London 1966, p. 4).
The scratched incisions in the thickly applied pigment on the surface of L'Esclave bely Dubuffet's fascination with his medium. This recalls his Hautes Pâtes of the 1940s, including earlier paintings such as his Mur aux inscriptions of April 1945 (illustrated). "Antagonistic to the acceptance of traditional craftsmanship, having been impressed by the study of the walls and all the implications of walls and graffitti, he now develops a paste in which he can slash, scratch and dig; where he can physically, manually go beneath the surface." (Andreas Franzke, Dubuffet, New York 1981, p. 22).
The sensitivity to colour in the present work, from the delicate green in the upper right, to the pink in the upper left, directly contrasts with the threatening scene played out below, where a naked figure is being whipped. So specific an event is unusual in the artist's oeuvre and is watched over by a spectator in a child-like house, which at the same time could be interpreted as a prison.
Dubuffet himself declared, "The pictures done in 1950 and 1951 are closely linked, like all my works of these last years, to the specific behaviour of the material used, and, if you will, to its disposition... . The idea that there are beautiful objects and ugly objects, people endowed with beauty and others who cannot claim it, has surely no other foundation than convention - old poppycock - and I declare that convention unhealthy... . The beauty of an object depends on how we look at it and not at all on its proper proportions. It is my inclination in this direction that has made certain people believe the mood of my art to be bitter. These people have seen that I intend to sweep away everything we have been taught to consider - without question - as grace and beauty; but have overlooked my work to substitute another and vaster beauty, touching all objects and beings, not excluding the most despised - and, because of that, all the more exhilarating. The beauty for which I aim needs little to appear - unbelievably little. Any place - the most destitute - is good enough for it. I would like people to look at my work as an enterprise for the rehabilitation of scorned values, and, in any case, make no mistake, a work of ardent celebration." (Jean Dubuffet, 'Landscaped Tables, Landscapes of the Mind, Stones of Philosophy', see ed. Peter Selz, The Work of Jean Dubuffet, New York 1962, pp. 63-64).