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Untitled
1956-57
Oil on canvas
141 x 110. 1 cm
76.2553 PG 175 |
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From about 1948 Asger
Jorn filled his canvases with swarming faces
and figures, vaporous equivalents of the eccentric visages
in crowd scenes by the Belgian artist James Ensor. Their
scrawled, half-innocent, half-demonic features also
have antecedents in the creatures of Jean
Dubuffet and Paul
Klee. These presences hovering on the surface
of the canvas are integrated with their surroundings,
scarcely distinguishable as representational forms.
In the present canvas blobs of paint and linear contours
coalesce into a standing, grinning human figure at the
right and a bird in the center; a multitude of faces,
less acutely defined, emerge, vanish, and reappear in
the seething environment. The sense of fantasy here
is complemented by the candied color applied in thicknesses
ranging from thin veneer to heavy ridges. Line incises
its way through the fluffy space of this layered pigment
to determine boundaries and suggest form. The accidental
revelation of form and the importance of chance in Jorn’s
work suggest Surrealist concerns.
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