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拍品专文
'What we have and what is our strength, is our joy in life; our interest in life, in all its moral aspects. That is also the basis of our contemporary art. We do not even know the laws of aesthetics. That old idea of selection according to the beauty-principle Beautiful - Ugly, like to the ethical Noble - Sinful, is dead for us, for whom the beauty is also ugly and everything ugly is endowed with beauty.
(Asger Jorn as quoted in: 'Asger Jorn (Asker), source of the artist quotes on modern art his paintings, like "Stalingrad": 'Intime Banaliteter'', Helhesten 1, 1941, Denmark, pp. 75-79)
Just before the war broke out in 1940, Asger Jorn returned from Paris to Denmark, which was to be occupied by Germany for the following five years. Jorn remained in his country of birth during the war and, like many other Danish painters, he was active in the underground resistance. During this period he cofounded the multi-disciplinary magazine Helhesten, which later inspired publications like Reflex in the Netherlands and the international CoBrA magazine (where Jorn would become one of the driving forces), with a mix of art, literature, film, ethnography and archeology. Jorn was a leading contributor to the cultural debate created by Helhesten. The first issue included an obituary of the painter Paul Klee (1979-1940) whose entartete pictures had been destroyed in Germany.
On the recto of the work, Jeux nocturne, the influence of the pre-war Avant-Gardists like Klee and Joan Miró (1893-1983) is very palpable. The interplay of the soft lines and forms with the bright and dazzling colours amongst the brown tones creates a fascinating composition of creatures in motion, almost filling the entire surface of the canvas.
The verso of the work shows an even earlier example of Jorn's abilities. In 1937 Jorn has abandoned naturalist figuration entirely in favour of a more abstract and surrealist style. Three years later in 1940, his flat and cubist-like composition of Jeux nocturne shows he has by then mastered an even greater subtlety in his way of painting. The present lot is a wonderful example of Jorn's skills a decade before his explosive, well-known and admired CoBrA works and thus shows a pivotal moment of his artistic career.
Jean Dubuffet wrote about Jorn and his work: 'Turmoil was his element, he was a nimble fish in that water. Some of his enterprises which he happened to mention to me during our meetings struck me as nebulous, but they later made sense in the heat of action. He was skilled at producing sense out of original chaos. In all his activities the same principle applied as in his work: thought sprang out of action, not the other way round. So his paintings took shape out of a violent disorder and incoherence. He excelled at producing a meaning during the course of creation - being careful not to intervene too much, so as not to lose anything of the spontaneous flow. He liked to keep "meaning" speculative. He was in love with the irrational which, in all his works, he continually faced.'
(G. Atkins, Asger Jorn. Supplement: Paintings 1930-1973, London 1986, p.15)
(Asger Jorn as quoted in: 'Asger Jorn (Asker), source of the artist quotes on modern art his paintings, like "Stalingrad": 'Intime Banaliteter'', Helhesten 1, 1941, Denmark, pp. 75-79)
Just before the war broke out in 1940, Asger Jorn returned from Paris to Denmark, which was to be occupied by Germany for the following five years. Jorn remained in his country of birth during the war and, like many other Danish painters, he was active in the underground resistance. During this period he cofounded the multi-disciplinary magazine Helhesten, which later inspired publications like Reflex in the Netherlands and the international CoBrA magazine (where Jorn would become one of the driving forces), with a mix of art, literature, film, ethnography and archeology. Jorn was a leading contributor to the cultural debate created by Helhesten. The first issue included an obituary of the painter Paul Klee (1979-1940) whose entartete pictures had been destroyed in Germany.
On the recto of the work, Jeux nocturne, the influence of the pre-war Avant-Gardists like Klee and Joan Miró (1893-1983) is very palpable. The interplay of the soft lines and forms with the bright and dazzling colours amongst the brown tones creates a fascinating composition of creatures in motion, almost filling the entire surface of the canvas.
The verso of the work shows an even earlier example of Jorn's abilities. In 1937 Jorn has abandoned naturalist figuration entirely in favour of a more abstract and surrealist style. Three years later in 1940, his flat and cubist-like composition of Jeux nocturne shows he has by then mastered an even greater subtlety in his way of painting. The present lot is a wonderful example of Jorn's skills a decade before his explosive, well-known and admired CoBrA works and thus shows a pivotal moment of his artistic career.
Jean Dubuffet wrote about Jorn and his work: 'Turmoil was his element, he was a nimble fish in that water. Some of his enterprises which he happened to mention to me during our meetings struck me as nebulous, but they later made sense in the heat of action. He was skilled at producing sense out of original chaos. In all his activities the same principle applied as in his work: thought sprang out of action, not the other way round. So his paintings took shape out of a violent disorder and incoherence. He excelled at producing a meaning during the course of creation - being careful not to intervene too much, so as not to lose anything of the spontaneous flow. He liked to keep "meaning" speculative. He was in love with the irrational which, in all his works, he continually faced.'
(G. Atkins, Asger Jorn. Supplement: Paintings 1930-1973, London 1986, p.15)