Charles LAPICQUE (1898-1988)
Manoeuvres de nuit,... Lot 21
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Charles LAPICQUE (1898-1988)
Manoeuvres de nuit, 1958
Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, countersigned, dated and titled on reverse
81 x 100 cm
32 x 39 /8 in.
A certificate of authenticity written
by Mr Marc Métayer dated
of March 5, 2020 will be given to the buyer.
PROVENANCE Vente Pescheteau-Badin-Godeau-Leroy & De Ricqlès, Paris, 29 mai 2000
Vente Perrin-Royere-Lajeunesse, Versailles 24 avril2005
Private collection, Paris
EXHIBITIONS: Perros-Guirec, Maison des Traouïero, Lapicque,2007, repr. p.100
Rochefort, Musée national de la Marine, Charles Lapicque, peintre de la mer, mai-décembre 2008
Lapicque challenges the viewer with an entirely blue canvas. The main subjects differ from one another only by a few shades, creating a blurred, hardly discernible atmosphere accurately recalling the sense of peering into darkness. He perfectly conveys the stifling impression that darkness can suggest, combined with the light beams’ glare. His scientific knowledge led him to consider "red, orange and yellow as colours always ready to become brighter and blue, on the contrary, as one inevitably bound to become darker."
Lapicque gives the impression of functioning on the basis of codes that the viewer can more or less unconsciously decipher. The lights are all based on the same symbol. The same relatively cloudy shapes express movement and noise, while smooth, geometric flat tints translate silence and immobility. The very use of colours is coded, blue being associated with solid and nearness, while yellows and oranges are symbols of distant lights.
Borrowing from Fauvism or Cubism, Lapicque created his own gestures, combining ribbons, flat surfaces, tracery or loops with a new construction of space. His works are astonishingly realistic in the sensations they elicit, giving them a unique figurative gestural and allusive style.
Charles Lapicque
Born in the Rhône département, Charles Lapicque (1898-
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