Nicolas de Staël, The Impossible Concert.
Spaces & Signs| N° d'inventaire | 26914 |
| Format | 13.5 x 18.5 |
| Détails | 96 p., some color illustrations, paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9791094176405 |
Alone in his studio in Antibes, facing the sea, Nicolas de Staël began work on a giant canvas measuring 3.5 m by 6 m on March 14, 1955: The Concert . On one side, we see a black grand piano and, on the other, an ochre double bass, separated by music scores placed on music stands. But what is striking is the background of the composition that consumes the entire painting: a scarlet vermillion, like a large incandescent stage curtain. Two days later, Nicolas burned some papers, wrote three letters, went up onto the terrace of his studio and fell into the void. In this gigantic painting, in these two musical instruments – the only ones visible in this orchestra –, in this fiery red, there is undoubtedly, buried, the explanation of his gesture.
Nicolas de Staël was forty-one years old when he painted The Concert . After ten years of suffering and deprivation, he had finally achieved real success in the last few months.
The author has reconstructed the painter's last days and analyzed how, little by little, an unbearable anguish of life, mixed with an ever-increasing dissatisfaction with his work and a painful heartbreak, gradually grew within him.
This book offers a new revised edition of the book Le Concert published in 2010 by Sens&Tonka, now out of print.
Alone in his studio in Antibes, facing the sea, Nicolas de Staël began work on a giant canvas measuring 3.5 m by 6 m on March 14, 1955: The Concert . On one side, we see a black grand piano and, on the other, an ochre double bass, separated by music scores placed on music stands. But what is striking is the background of the composition that consumes the entire painting: a scarlet vermillion, like a large incandescent stage curtain. Two days later, Nicolas burned some papers, wrote three letters, went up onto the terrace of his studio and fell into the void. In this gigantic painting, in these two musical instruments – the only ones visible in this orchestra –, in this fiery red, there is undoubtedly, buried, the explanation of his gesture.
Nicolas de Staël was forty-one years old when he painted The Concert . After ten years of suffering and deprivation, he had finally achieved real success in the last few months.
The author has reconstructed the painter's last days and analyzed how, little by little, an unbearable anguish of life, mixed with an ever-increasing dissatisfaction with his work and a painful heartbreak, gradually grew within him.
This book offers a new revised edition of the book Le Concert published in 2010 by Sens&Tonka, now out of print.