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Premium MILLON
18
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Jean Roger SOURGEN (Vieille Saint Giron 1883 - Hossegor 1978…
See original version (French)
18
-
Jean Roger SOURGEN (Vieille Saint Giron 1883 - Hossegor 1978…
See original version (French)
Estimate €6,000 - €8,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Jean Roger SOURGEN (Vieille Saint Giron 1883 - Hossegor 1978)
Pines by the lake
Original oil on canvas
75 x 180 cm
Signed and dated Sourgen 1930 lower left
"Richard Strauss was only twenty-five when he composed the symphonic poem Death and Transfiguration in 1889. Yet this early work, premiered the following year, is driven by a remarkable metaphysical ambition. It depicts the dreams, memories and sufferings of a young artist, his desperate battle with death, and then his final transfiguration in a redemptive afterlife. The historical context of the work deserves particular attention: it is no coincidence that Death and Transfiguration saw the light of day at the dawn of the last decade of the XIXᵉ century, a period that also marked the rise of the Symbolist movement. It emblematically crystallises a world torn between two eras, a tormented humanity in search of spirituality. One century is coming to an end, another is about to be born, and the metamorphoses that run through these times of crisis echo the passage from life to death, and then to another, unknown form of existence.
Between the end of the 1880s and the outbreak of the First World War, Western Europe underwent a phase of unprecedented artistic creation, but also of profound anxiety. The Industrial Revolution had overturned the foundations of society, and the generation born around 1860 was faced with a spiritual void that the materialistic promises of modernity could not fill. Scientific advances and the retreat of religion did little to comfort young people; on the contrary, they exacerbated their sense of solitude in the face of the great existential questions. In literature, painting and music, symbolism sought above all to express a different vision of the world, oriented towards mystery, the unknown and inner spiritual exploration. [...]
Whether the subject is ancient or Christian sanctity, Symbolist painting, both in its subjects and in the status it confers on art itself, is linked to the mythological heritage, while adapting it to a new sensibility. [...] "
Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond in Herausgegeben von, Peter Forster and Sabine Panchaud, Radikal schön, Jugendstil und Symbolismus, Die Sammlung Ferdinand Wolfgang Neess, Wiesbaden, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2019, pages 24-26 (Millon Auction Group translation).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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