1968
Oil on Canvas
81 x 130 cm
Signed Bernard Buffet in English and dated 1968
Estimate TWD 10,000,000-18,000,000
USD 328,100-590,600
HKD 0-0
Hammer Price TWD 10,800,000
USD 354,913
HKD 2,857,143
With a certificate of authenticity from Galerie Maurice Garnier, France
Provenance：
Illustrated：
Exhibition：
Exposition：
Bernard Buffet, a French Neo Expressionism artist, was born in 1928 and developed a unique style that blended Socialist Realism, Neo Expressionism, and Figuration Libre, setting him apart from his peers. He was a key member of L'homme Témoin, a group of artists founded in 1948 in France that opposed abstract art. Buffet's art career was highly regarded from an early start, and he held a solo retrospective exhibition in 1958 that attracted almost 100,000 visitors. In 1973, he was conferred with the French National Order of the Legion of Honor, and he became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in France the following year. Buffet's work can be found in the collections of renowned museums around the world, including the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the City of Paris Fine Art Museum, and the Bernard Buffet Museum in Japan.
Benedetto Croce, in his Aesthetic Theories, succinctly answers the question of what art is by stating that it is vision or intuition. The artist creates an image or picture, and the viewer experiences it by turning their attention to the direction indicated by the artist. Through this process, the viewer peers through the "hole" that the artist has opened for them and reproduces the image within themselves. Croce's words convey the idea that art is a shared experience between the artist and the viewer, and that the artwork itself serves as a conduit for that experience.
La Goëlette is a painting created during a highly significant period of Bernard Buffet's career in 1968. Unlike his later works that exhibit dramatic qualities, this painting conveys a still and contemplative atmosphere. The technique used in this period is characterized by rugged and sturdy lines and a simplistic and sensitive approach to creation. Despite his wealth and three children, Buffet remained a wanderer, travelling between Paris and Bretagne, a coastal tourist town. It is believed that La Goëlette was inspired by the scenes he witnessed during his travels.
In terms of form and composition, the rising bow of the sailboat interacts with the houses on the bank in a push-and-pull manner until reaching a harmonious balance. The sailboat, at eye-level, is enlarged and brought to the foreground to create a visual connection with the lofty anemometer tower on the right, thereby echoing the dual-mast sailboat's vertical-horizontal tension. The result is a perfectly balanced composition, where the sailboat and the sea surface beneath it are portrayed with solid, stout lines and textures, making them the leading visual feature.
Buffet's paintings from the 1940s to the 1960s are characterized by stark black and white contrasts, rough lines, and subdued colors. He often chose organic subjects to serve as the primary focus of his works, whether it be still life objects on a table, cityscapes, or riverbank seascapes. However, when viewed through the lens of Buffet's art, these objects take on an intangible, phenomenological quality that imbues the painting with a sense of calm. Rather than presenting a straightforward depiction of objects, Buffet's paintings invite the viewer to engage in an act of internal perception, causing the painting to transcend its original objectivity and enter into a new realm of "Signifier Images". This approach to art is all-encompassing and revealing, requiring no reliance on language or culture to understand.
In the transitional period of the 1960s, Buffet, as a first-generation post-war painter in France, responded to the emergence of post-modern art in the 1970s and 1980s, exploring all new possibilities in painting. His path represents the Existential Aesthetics that emerged in the 20th century, and his work continues to inspire and captivate audiences around the world.
View More Works