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Lot Essay
'I do not think it possible to achieve a more dazzling effect with such economy of means, such asceticism. If there is to be found in Spain an original calligraphic painting without precedent, one Oriental in its agility while Spanish in its emotional expressivity, that painting is the elegant, hamonious, marvellously floating art of Fernando Zóbel.'
(Carlos Antonio Arean. "Microcritica" "Correo de las Artes" Madrid, 1961)
One of the most progressive abstractionists to emerge from Asia, Zóbel was born in Manila, educated at Harvard and later the Rhode Island School of Design where he first encountered the major Western abstract artists, most significantly Mark Rothko, whose pared down reductionist works were to influence Zóbel throughout his life. Zóbel initially alternated between Manila and Madrid, where he became a member of the Spanish post-war fraternity, alongside artists like Luis Feito and Gerardo Rueda. Eventually he established his studio in Cuenca, Spain, where he became an active participant in the artistic climate of the city and also a mentor to the rising generation of art students, founding the Museo de Arte Abstracto Espanol.
Painted in 1967 and 1978 respectively, The Lantern (Lot 367) and La Terraza III (Lot 368) belong to a series that immediately followed Zóbel's Serie Negra (The Black series) works, extending from 1963 to the 1970s, a period most commonly known as the colourist period. Transitioning from strong works of chiaroscuro and dynamic movement in the early 1960s, the artist began to incorporate colour into his work, though rarely in bright hues; preferring instead to focus on softer tones, as well as earth and gold-toned shades which could capture the effects of light, reflection, Nature and movement. Following his move to Spain in 1960, works from the period were often drawn from the Medieval landscape and Mediterranean climate of Cuenca, where colour and movement begin to take on qualities of tranquility and serenity.
In The Lantern, warm and cold browns and grey emerge from a disembodied field as an isolated form of rich earthy tones and calligraphic strokes is suspended in a dawn-like radiance, whose subtle emotion would break under the excess of chromatic vibrations. A soft patina confers on the large expanse the muted richness so reminiscent of a Rothko. Colour however, does not fade, but rather becomes the quintessence of light, a hazy lyrical luminousity unburdened by the sweetness and intensity of stronger tones. Movement, as is a dominant attribute of the works by Zóbel, is expressed here in a rhythm of blurred and wispy lines, flowing and meeting in intersections and dispersing swiftly into their environs in a restless fervour. This endows the work with a unique dynamism which the static nature of painting does not neutralise but instead enhances beautifully, providing a sense of permanence to the artistic and meditative splendour of the piece.
Similarly, for La Terraza III, sweeping strokes of colour punctuated with ethereal curves of calligraphic black indicate a lightness of being in the painting's treatment of movement. Carefree and unwavering, the viewer's wandering gaze follows the soft modulations of slowly constructed chromatics, drawn in by the exquisite appeal of varying tones of pink, bathed in a warm glow evocative of Cuenca's Castilian sunsets. A rare work of transcendal quality, La Terraza III bears a fresh and spontaneous air, though Zóbel's paintings were anything but—each piece is a highly cerebral concept, a quest for equilibrium executed after careful deliberation with technique and proficiency.
In creating areas of varying rhythm, tone and movement in the present works, as lines textures and background tones are in constant movement and dialogue with each other, the virtuosity of combining these elements certainly reveal Fernando Zóbel's talent as a master abstractionist and visual composer.
(Carlos Antonio Arean. "Microcritica" "Correo de las Artes" Madrid, 1961)
One of the most progressive abstractionists to emerge from Asia, Zóbel was born in Manila, educated at Harvard and later the Rhode Island School of Design where he first encountered the major Western abstract artists, most significantly Mark Rothko, whose pared down reductionist works were to influence Zóbel throughout his life. Zóbel initially alternated between Manila and Madrid, where he became a member of the Spanish post-war fraternity, alongside artists like Luis Feito and Gerardo Rueda. Eventually he established his studio in Cuenca, Spain, where he became an active participant in the artistic climate of the city and also a mentor to the rising generation of art students, founding the Museo de Arte Abstracto Espanol.
Painted in 1967 and 1978 respectively, The Lantern (Lot 367) and La Terraza III (Lot 368) belong to a series that immediately followed Zóbel's Serie Negra (The Black series) works, extending from 1963 to the 1970s, a period most commonly known as the colourist period. Transitioning from strong works of chiaroscuro and dynamic movement in the early 1960s, the artist began to incorporate colour into his work, though rarely in bright hues; preferring instead to focus on softer tones, as well as earth and gold-toned shades which could capture the effects of light, reflection, Nature and movement. Following his move to Spain in 1960, works from the period were often drawn from the Medieval landscape and Mediterranean climate of Cuenca, where colour and movement begin to take on qualities of tranquility and serenity.
In The Lantern, warm and cold browns and grey emerge from a disembodied field as an isolated form of rich earthy tones and calligraphic strokes is suspended in a dawn-like radiance, whose subtle emotion would break under the excess of chromatic vibrations. A soft patina confers on the large expanse the muted richness so reminiscent of a Rothko. Colour however, does not fade, but rather becomes the quintessence of light, a hazy lyrical luminousity unburdened by the sweetness and intensity of stronger tones. Movement, as is a dominant attribute of the works by Zóbel, is expressed here in a rhythm of blurred and wispy lines, flowing and meeting in intersections and dispersing swiftly into their environs in a restless fervour. This endows the work with a unique dynamism which the static nature of painting does not neutralise but instead enhances beautifully, providing a sense of permanence to the artistic and meditative splendour of the piece.
Similarly, for La Terraza III, sweeping strokes of colour punctuated with ethereal curves of calligraphic black indicate a lightness of being in the painting's treatment of movement. Carefree and unwavering, the viewer's wandering gaze follows the soft modulations of slowly constructed chromatics, drawn in by the exquisite appeal of varying tones of pink, bathed in a warm glow evocative of Cuenca's Castilian sunsets. A rare work of transcendal quality, La Terraza III bears a fresh and spontaneous air, though Zóbel's paintings were anything but—each piece is a highly cerebral concept, a quest for equilibrium executed after careful deliberation with technique and proficiency.
In creating areas of varying rhythm, tone and movement in the present works, as lines textures and background tones are in constant movement and dialogue with each other, the virtuosity of combining these elements certainly reveal Fernando Zóbel's talent as a master abstractionist and visual composer.