Galerie Dreyfus
96
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MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (PARIS, 1876 – RUEIL-LA-GADELIÈRE, 1952)…
See original version (French)
96
-
MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (PARIS, 1876 – RUEIL-LA-GADELIÈRE, 1952)…
See original version (French)
Estimate €70,000 - €88,000
Voluntary lot
Description
MAURICE DE VLAMINCK
(PARIS, 1876 – RUEIL-LA-GADELIÈRE, 1952)
The Country Road
Circa 1935
Oil on canvas
54 x 65 cm
Signed lower left
Wildenstein – Plattner certificate
Here, the road takes the place of the main ‘character’. Tarmacked, straight and perfectly
centred, it cuts through the composition, ignoring the few houses lining it, and draws us
into an accelerated perspective towards the far recesses of the painting, towards an invisible destination. This
main road speaks to us of modernity in interwar France, which was,
little by little, being adorned with a brand-new road network. On either side, electricity pylons
line its course, in turn supplying the current that powers the region. Paradoxically,
only a single car travels along it, and it is not the car that gives us this impression of speed,
but rather Vlaminck’s characteristic painterly touch, which races, flies and
escapes us in the dotted band at the centre and, even more so, in its wild rendering on the
right-hand verge. The sky, meanwhile, swept by turbulent clouds, evokes a raging sea.
Therein lies the full dynamism of the canvas, depicting the chaos of nature, which only man
manages to master, on land, through the grip of his infrastructure. This landscape is an ode to
modernity, embodied by the car. The only architectural feature explicitly named in the title
‘AUTO’, the garage has now taken the place of the church of yesteryear.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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